Science Nonfiction History

2017 Audie Award Finalist for Non-Fiction The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how...

My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights, and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Radical and superbly listenable, the essays speak in a voice of unique spirit, marked by compassion, clarity, and courage. Roy offers a powerful defense of the collective, of the individual, and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military, and governmental elites.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER A modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York. One of the Modern Library’s hundred...

Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Sharyl Attkisson exposes the corruption that has ruled the pharmaceutical industry for decades. Through blatant lies, deep cover-ups, and high-level collusion with government and media, Big Pharma has...

What if the world was built from the body of a giant—and we’ve been chasing that legend ever since? From the dawn of civilization to the digital age, humankind has been haunted by stories of enormous beings. The Hidden History of Giants by Leif Harren is a sweeping exploration of these myths and mysteries—tracing how ancient faith, emerging science, and modern imagination have shaped our fascination with creatures larger than life. Across continents and centuries, giants appear as gods, heroes, villains, and metaphors. They build worlds, guard treasures, challenge the gods, and ...

For as long as humans have looked to the night sky, we have asked the same questions: Where do we come from? What are the stars? What is our place in the universe? 100 Astronomers Who Charted the Cosmos tells the story of those who dared to answer. From ancient sky-watchers who carved the first calendars in stone to modern scientists who measure black holes and search for distant worlds, this book traces the evolution of astronomy through one hundred remarkable lives. Each chapter captures the discoveries, struggles, and triumphs of astronomers across cultures and centuries—figures such ...

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A sweeping and captivatingly told history of clothing and the stuff it is made of—an unparalleled deep-dive into how everyday garments have transformed our lives, our societies, and our planet. “We learn that, if we were a bit more curious about our...

When painter Winslow Homer first sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, he was struck by its "special kind of providence." Indeed, the Gulf presented itself as America's sea - bound by geography, culture, and tradition to the national experience - and yet, there has never been a comprehensive history of the Gulf until now. And so, in this rich and original work that explores the Gulf through our human connection with the sea, environmental historian Jack E. Davis finally places this exceptional region into the American mythos in a sweeping history that extends from the Pleistocene age to the 21st century.

A revolutionary new history that reveals how climate change has dramatically shaped the development—and demise—of civilizations across time Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our...

100 scientists, 100 stories, one legacy of human genius. From the brilliant minds of the ancient world to the innovators shaping our future, The 100 Greatest Scientists is a journey through the lives and discoveries that changed everything. This book brings together the remarkable stories of the men and women who unlocked the secrets of nature, challenged conventional wisdom, and pushed the limits of human knowledge. Meet visionaries like Galileo, who turned his telescope to the heavens and redefined our place in the universe; Charles Darwin, who unveiled the mystery of evolution; Marie ...

May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it's entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad.

For nearly a century, historians have depicted Germany as a rabidly nationalist land, born in a sea of aggression. Not so, says Helmut Walser Smith, who, in this groundbreaking 500-year history, challenges traditional perceptions of Germany's conflicted past, revealing a nation far more thematically complicated than 20th-century historians have imagined.

The Glitch in the Matrix: Unbelievable Facts from Natural History, Pop Culture, and the Human Mind Dive into the Secrets the World Keeps—From Exploding Termites to Forbidden Laws Are you ready to discover the world you thought you knew? Forget the history books and toss out your old encyclopedia. This book is a fast-paced, jaw-dropping journey into the weirdest, wildest, and most verifiable truths hiding just beneath the surface of everyday life. This isn't trivia; it’s an exposé of the colossal, beautiful, and sometimes terrifying glitches in the matrix of reality. Within these pages,...

The Hawaiian kingdom was tiny, and the big world was huge. The 19th century was the high water mark of Western imperialism, worldwide, and the great powers were planting their flags across the Pacific. Hawai'i was in their sights. By late in the century, two strong American currents were running: one east from the islands, one west from the continent. Sugar plantations had become Hawai'i's biggest moneymaker. And many of the biggest names in the business were of American blood - the sons of missionaries, devout capitalists.

In 1939, 50 million Americans went to the movies every week, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid man in the country, and Hollywood produced 530 feature films a year. One decade and five thousand movies later, the studios were faltering....

Guerrilla Warfare by the revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, written in 1960, has become a how-to manual for thousands of guerrilla fighters in various countries around the world. Guevara intended it to be a guidebook on guerrilla warfare, as inspiration for the revolutionary movement. Fascinating to admirers and adversaries alike, he captured the minds of millions with his leadership and his belief in guerrilla warfare as the only effective agent to achieve political change.

Bloodthirsty: Inside the Secret History of Vampires, Death, and Desire They have walked beside us for centuries — in tombs, in myths, in laboratories, and now in the digital veins of our modern world. In this chilling, beautifully written work of investigative nonfiction, bestselling true-crime historian Miles Donovan uncovers the real story behind humanity’s most enduring predator: the vampire. The Myth That Refused to Die Long before Bram Stoker’s Dracula haunted Victorian London, tales of blood drinkers had already seeped through ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, and the fog-...

Welcome to the strangest corners of Planet Earth — where the facts are real, but your brain will still say, “Wait… what?” The Curiosity Files: Bizarre but True dives into the wonderfully weird side of the world, uncovering true stories that are stranger than fiction (and way more fun). From animals with mind-blowing superpowers to natural phenomena that break the rules of reality, from ancient traditions that may leave you blinking to real events so odd they feel like glitches in the universe — this book is your all-access pass to the spectacularly strange. Inside, you’ll ...

The Holocaust was perpetrated by the Germans, but it would not have been possible without the assistance of other countries. If we are to understand how and why the Holocaust happened, Götz Aly argues in this groundbreaking study, we must examine its prehistory throughout Europe. We must look at countries as far-flung as Romania and France, Russia and Greece, where, decades before the Nazis came to power, a deadly combination of envy, competition, nationalism, and social upheaval fueled a surge of anti-Semitism, creating the preconditions for the deportations and murder to come.

The radical, paradigm-shifting international bestseller that destroys our delusions about energy consumption and will change the way we talk about climate change. We have long been taught that humanity’s relationship with energy is one of progress, with wood superseded by coal, coal by oil...