Showing results by publisher "PublicAffairs" in All Categories

"Simultaneously hilarious, poignant, and deeply unsettling." ―The New Republic A tiny American town's plans for radical self-government overlooked one hairy detail: no one told the bears. Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take...

An urgent, transformative guide to dealing with disasters from one of today’s foremost thinkers in crisis management. “In a world marred by preventable miscalculation, Juliette Kayyem’s The Devil Never Sleeps provides a playbook for making it out alive.” —The New Yorker The future may...

The thrilling account of how Josephine Baker, the world’s richest and most glamorous entertainer, became an Allied spy in Occupied France “Four hundred pages of bravery and heroism that read like a spy novel you can’t put down.” —Vanity Fair A Vanity Fair and The New Yorker Best Book...

From one of our leading experts on disinformation, this inventive biography of the rogue WWII propagandist Thomas Sefton Delmer confronts hard questions about the nature of information war: what if you can't fight lies with truth? Can a propaganda war ever be won? In the summer of 1941, Hitler...

With keen insight, Vox journalist Zack Beauchamp traces how a reactionary antidemocratic ethos born and bred in America has come to infect democracies around the world. There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of American politics that has endured since our nation’s birth. In The...

A thrilling and emotional story about the bonds forged in war and good intentions gone wrong. In the early days of the Afghanistan war, Jeff Stern was scouring the streets of Kabul for a big story. He was accompanied by a driver, Aimal, who had ambitions of his own: to get rich off the sudden...

A war between China and the US would be catastrophic, deadly, and destructive. Unfortunately, it is no longer unthinkable. The relationship between the US and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. It rests on a seismic fault—of cultural misunderstanding, historical...

In this "must-read" guide (Lonnie Ali), four leading doctors and advocates offer a bold action plan to prevent, care for, and treat Parkinson's disease—one of the great health challenges of our time Brain diseases are now the world's leading source of disability. The fastest growing of these...

"A thoughtful, funny, and at times lyrical" (Wall Street Journal) exploration of why people all over the world love to engage in pain on purpose--from dominatrices, religious ascetics, and ultramarathoners to ballerinas, icy ocean bathers, and sideshow performers Masochism is sexy, human...

From boot camp to deployment to PTSD, the essential guide for military families. When you enlist in the United States military, you don't just sign up for duty; you also commit your loved ones to lives of service all their own. No one knows this better than Elaine Brye, an "Army brat" turned...

From the Prime Minister of Canada, a bold and urgent argument for the foundational change that is required if we are to build an economy and society based not on market values but on human values Our world is full of fault lines—growing inequality in income and opportunity, systemic racism...

The inside story of the largest law-enforcement sting operation ever, in which the FBI made its own tech start-up to wiretap the world, shows how cunning both the authorities and drug traffickers have become, with privacy implications for everyone. In 2018, a powerful app for secure...

A comprehensive exploration of how police forces have become militarized—both in equipment and mindset—and what that means for American democracy. “Fascinating and at times wrenching.” ―The New Yorker The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the...

A provocative exploration of the forces that keep us from getting things done, and how we can restore confidence in government. “Dunkelman summarizes the history perfectly.” —David Brooks, The New York Times Named a Best Book of the Year by Financial Times The Economist America was...

A renowned neuroscientist provides an “unorthodox but enlightening” (Wall Street Journal) narrative of how addiction happens in the brain, and what we can do to overcome it Through the vivid, true stories of five people who journeyed into and out of addiction, a renowned neuroscientist—and...

"Laurence Rees brilliantly combines powerful eye-witness testimony, vivid narrative and compelling analysis in this superb account of how two terrible dictators led their countries in the most destructive and inhumane war in history."―Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler: Hubris and...

The complete rankings of our best -- and worst -- presidents, based on C-SPAN's much-cited Historians Surveys of Presidential Leadership. Over a period of decades, C-SPAN has surveyed leading historians on the best and worst of America's presidents across a variety of categories -- their ability...

The “stirring” (Washington Post) story of how Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus invented microcredit, founded the Grameen Bank, and transformed the fortunes of millions of poor people around the world In 1983, Muhammad Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of...

The astonishing life of the modest New Jersey businessman who anonymously gave away 10 billion dollars and inspired the "giving while living" movement In this bestselling book, Conor O'Clery reveals the inspiring life story of Chuck Feeney, known as the "James Bond of philanthropy." Feeney was...

From the award-winning author of The Entrepreneurial State and Mission Economy, an inspiring call to solve our deepest challenges—from inequality to climate change—by embracing a radical new approach to economics and the economy Whether it’s the water crisis, widespread poverty, or the...