History Essays

Based on exclusive interviews, an eye-opening biography of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), head of the House of Saud, the calculating ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and a central Middle East power broker. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and former Wall Street Journal publisher...

Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa. Two ancient lakes joined by underground rivers. Two lakes that seem to hold both the turbulent memories of the region's past and the secret of its enduring allure. Two lakes that have played a central role in Kapka Kassabova's maternal family. As she journeys to her grandmother's place of origin, Kassabova encounters a historic crossroads.

ONE OF LIT HUB'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2026 A radically vulnerable and virtuosic inquiry into the pursuit of freedom and the interminable nature of struggle, from the award-winning author of What We Lose Weaving personal reflections with piercing insight and expansive vision across nine...

An Epic Memoir of an Intrepid Solo Adventurer, a Woman Who Lived by the Philosophy "Go Simple, Go Solo, Go Now" In a memoir remarkable for its quiet confidence and acute natural observation, the author of Paddling Hawaii and Paddling My Own Canoe begins with her decision, at age 60, to undertake...

The definitive oral history of the 1967 novel for teens, turned blockbuster film turned Tony-winning musical, and commemorated with a newly opened museum. This groundbreaking story has managed to stay gold for nearly sixty years. *Includes interviews with Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas...

Immediately after two hijacked jets struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Dennis Smith volunteered in the rescue effort. Having spent his career as both a respected writer and a member of one of the city's busiest firehouses, Smith became determined to use his unique background to tell the story of the disaster and its aftermath with the empathy and understanding that only an insider could bring to it. In this audio memoir, he has collected astonishing first-person testimony.

Sontag's most important critical writings from 1972 to 1980 are collected in Under the Sign of Saturn. One of America's leading essayists, Sontag's writings are commentaries on the relation between moral and aesthetic ideas, discussing the works of Antonin Artaud, Leni Riefenstahl, Elias Canetti, Walter Benjamin, and others. The collection includes a variety of her well-known essays. Sontag's writings are famously full of intellectual range and depth, and are at turns exhilarating, ominous, disturbing, and beautiful.

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME , NPR, INSTYLE, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING “A sensational new book [that] tries to figure out whether it’s possible to live an ethical life in a capitalist society. . . . The results are enthralling.” —Associated...

In sixteen dazzling, expansive essays, the acclaimed essayist and poet Elisa Gabbert explores a life lived alongside books of all kinds: dog-eared and destroyed, cherished and discarded, classic and clichėd, familiar and profoundly new. She turns her witty, searching mind to the writers she admires, from Plath to Proust, and the themes that bind them―chance, freedom, envy, ambition, nostalgia, and happiness. She takes us to the strange edges of art and culture, from hair metal to surf movies to party fiction.

Stan Fischler, the dean of American hockey journalists and best-selling author of more than 60 books on hockey, profiles the heroes of Hockeytown in Detroit Red Wings: Greatest Moments and Players. One of the National Hockey League's "Original Six", few teams in professional hockey have enjoyed more success than the franchise in Detroit. Among the players Fischler glorifies are the immortal Gordie Howe, Terry Sawchuk, Ted Lindsay, Alex Delvecchio, and Sid Abel, all players whose numbers reside on banners in the rafters of Joe Louis Arena.

A collection of reported stories that explore the relationship between mothers and daughters, by the award-winning author of Strangers to Ourselves. You Won't Get Free of It tells the stories of mothers and daughters searching for each other (and for themselves). With uncanny depth of perception...

The Great Republic is Sir Winston Churchill's personal vision of American history, from the arrival of the first European settlers to the dawn of the Cold War, edited by his grandson, the historian and journalist Winston S. Churchill. The book is a magnificent retelling of the American story...

In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s.

Winner NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS in Contemporary Jewish Life & Practice Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award A crucial new lens on repentance, atonement, forgiveness, and repair from harm—from personal transgressions to our culture's most painful and unresolved issues. American culture focuses on...

A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that...

“One of the year’s must-reads.” –ELLE “[A] provocative, heart-breaking, and frequently hilarious collection.” –GLAMOUR “Essential, vital, and urgent.” –HARPER’S BAZAAR In the vein of Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist and Issa Rae’s The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, but...

The year 1971 exists everywhere in Bangladesh-on its roads, in sculptures, in its museums and oral history projects, in its curriculum, in people's homes and their stories, and in political discourse. It marks the birth of the nation, it's liberation. More than 1000 miles away, in Pakistan too...

Named a Best Book of 2023 by Financial Times, The Guardian, and BBC's The Food Programme “Anya von Bremzen, already a legend of food writing and a storytelling inspiration to me, has done her best work yet. National Dish is a must-read for all those who believe in building longer tables where...

From Susan Orlean—acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book—Rin Tin Tin is “an unforgettable book about the mutual devotion between one man and one dog” (The Wall Street Journal). He believed the dog was immortal. So begins Susan Orlean’s...

In this sequel to her New York Times bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, the celebrated "bard of Tuscany" (New York Times) lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with Tuscany's people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle. Frances Mayes offers her readers a...