History Essays

G. K. Chesterton was a journalist, playwright, poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, literary commentator, editor, orator, artist, and theologian. Orthodoxy is his great apologia for the Christian faith, which was prompted by a serious attack in 1903 against Christianity by well-known newspaper editor Robert Blatchford.

From the author of the “thrilling” (The Christian Science Monitor) novel The Other Typist comes an evocative, multilayered story of ambition, success, and secrecy in 1950s New York. In 1958, Greenwich Village buzzes with beatniks, jazz clubs, and new ideas—the ideal spot for three...

This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The...

In this pyrotechnic memoir-in-essays, Mak ranges widely over our landscape of paranoia, crisis, and frenetic, clickable consumption. He grants listeners an inside pass to the spaces where culture was made and unmade over the past decade, from the antiseptic glare of white-walled galleries to the darkest corners of Berlin techno clubs. As the gay son of an evangelical minister, Mak fled to those spaces, hoping to join a global, influential elite. But when calamity struck, it forced Mak to confront the costs of mistaking status for belonging.

In this critical time between worlds, technology is shaping the future of our lives, both as individual human beings and collectively as a species. Technology has brought great blessings in multiple vectors, and those benefits are regularly sung in the public sphere. However, the notion that technology is value-neutral is simply not true. All technology is encoded with value, pseudo-value—or tragically, with anti-value. So technology also threatens us with risks to our very existence on this planet.

Serving as the sequel to Gene Roddenberry's original television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation pushed the boundaries of the "final frontier." At the same time, the show continued the franchise's celebrated exploration of the human experience, reflecting current social and political events. ST: TNG became immensely successful, spawning four feature films and several television spin-offs. This collection of new essays explores both the series' characters and its themes.

The first decade after India's independence, 1947-1957, was probably the most crucial in the nation's history. Opening a window to this period, this book weaves a story out of the complex ideas and events that have largely remained beneath the surface of public discourse. The transfer of power...

From the author Bright Lights, Big City, a brilliantly crafted story that unveils the fault lines within a marriage and the profound consequences of ambition. "A wicked pleasure to read"—Boston Globe As he maps the fault lines spreading through the once-impenetrable marriage of Russell and...

From the co-author of Three Cups of Tea comes the inspiring story of two very different doctors—one from the United States, the other from Nepal—united in a common mission: to rid the world of preventable blindness. In this transporting book, David Oliver Relin shines a light on the work...

The final installment in Lyndsay Faye’s Timothy Wilde series, which Lee Child called “solid-gold” and Gillian Flynn declared “spectacular.” No one in 1840s New York likes fires, copper star Timothy Wilde least of all. After a blaze killed his parents and another left him with a...

In the autumn of 2020 Ned Boulting (ITV head cycling commentator and Tour de France obsessive) bought a length of Pathé news film from a London auction house. All he knew was it was film from the Tour de France, a long time ago. Once restored it became clear it was a short sequence of shots from stage 4 of the 1923 Tour de France. No longer than 2.5 minutes long, it featured half a dozen sequences, including a lone rider crossing a bridge. Ned set about learning everything he could about the sequence – studying each frame, face and building – until he had squeezed the meaning from it.

Solitude offers us that other space of thinking, another modality where we can meet different ingredients of perfection. The author is letting his pen engrave what the fuel of the holy history of solitude may inspire.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is an idea that was seeded into the minds of nationalist Jana Sangh leaders when they began to envision India after Independence. Much like the very core the freedom struggle was built on, they saw India as a demographically, culturally and historically cohesive and...

Comedy writer and middle daughter of Al Gore, Kristin Gore has written a funny and moving debut novel about life on Capitol Hill as seen through the eyes of Samantha Joyce, a twenty-six year old health care analyst to Ohio Junior Senator Robert Gary. Hard working, idealistic, extremely competent...

In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way...

“This is not a book to promote tranquility, and readers in quest of peace of mind should look elsewhere,” writes Paul Fussell in the foreword to this original, sharp, tart, and thoroughly engaging work. The celebrated author focuses his lethal wit on habitual euphemizers, artistically pretentious third-rate novelists, sexual puritans, and the “Disneyfiers of life”. He moves from the inflammatory title piece on the morality of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima to a disquisition on the “naturist movement”, and more.

In this Christian Encounter Series biography, author Robert West explores the life of Saint Francis, a man who lived entirely devoted to God. Francis of Assisi has inspired the church for centuries. Francis took the gospel literally, following all that Jesus said and did without limit, and his...

The author, journalist, television commentator, and longtime Washington insider reflects on the spiritual quest that has brought deeper meaning to her life—and kept her grounded within the high-powered political world of Washington, D.C.’s elite—her renowned writing career, her celebrity...

From the acclaimed biographer of Jane Jacobs and Srinivasa Ramanujan comes the first full life and work of arguably the most influential classical scholar of the twentieth century, who overturned long-entrenched notions of ancient epic poetry and enlarged the very idea of literature. In this...

Morgan Siler is one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful K Street law firms, its roster of clients stocked with multibillion-dollar corporations. The obsessive efforts of its senior partner, Peter Morgan, have transformed it from an old-fashioned business into a veritable Goliath. As Peter...