History Essays

Ken Rappoport’s Tales from the North Carolina Tar Heels Locker Room is a compilation of the best notes, quotes, and anecdotes from North Carolina lore. Meet a coach nicknamed 'Bloody Neck', a player called 'The Blind Bomber', and a team known as the 'White Phantoms'. And, of course, there is Michael Jordan. Tales from the North Carolina Tar Heels Locker Room captures the anecdotes and memories that have defined this team from the early 20th century up through their success in the 2000s.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE A ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness “Brilliant . . . To read this...

The Sixers won 65 games and an NBA championship in 1982-83, still one of the finest seasons in NBA history. It was Moses Malone who, in the days before the playoffs, gave the team its battle cry. Asked by coach Billy Cunningham how he thought things would go in the playoffs, Moses said, "Fo’, fo’, fo’,” - meaning, in Moses' shorthand, that he expected the Sixers to sweep each of the three series they would need to play in order to win a championship.

In the 1970s, Joe DeLamielleure led a Buffalo Bills offensive line affectionately called the Electric Company, because they turned the power up. A starter from the first game of his rookie season in 1973, DeLamielleure led the way to the first 2,000-yard season in NFL history.

A poignant, funny, and lively memoir of sexual awakening, music, and discovering one's true self. Pete Crighton came of age in the early/mid 1980s in the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Growing up in Toronto, he was terrified that his friends and schoolmates would find out that he was “different” at a...

An exploration into the curation of the self in Western civilization from Da Vinci to Kim Kardashian. In a technologically-saturated era where nearly everything can be effortlessly and digitally reproduced, we're all hungry to carve out our own unique personalities, our own bespoke personae, to...

Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists...

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung contains the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs—the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s—edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rock critics, Greil Marcus.

The True Story of One Woman's Triumph of Faith Newlywed American missionary Darlene Deibler Rose survived four years in a notorious Japanese prison camp set deep in the jungles of New Guinea. Thinking she was never to see her husband again, Darlene Rose was forced to sign a false confession and...

Teams of dedicated, highly specialized soldiers trained to a higher standard than regular forces; an armamentarium of advanced weapons and tactics; a variety of exotic, critical assignments for the good of the nation; in short, the U.S. Special Forces seem tailor-made for Tom Clancy, progenitor...

The story of NASCAR's legendary racer - newly revised Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s name virtually assured that his life would not be ordinary. Over the past decade, he has fulfilled that destiny. His father, one of the most successful drivers in the history of international motorsports, gave his son more than his name. Dale Earnhardt Sr. placed Dale Jr. in position to follow the footsteps and tire tracks he had left from Darlington to Daytona, from coast to coast, from one championship to the next.

From award-winning cultural historian, an enlightening and unique meditation on the presence of dogs in art, from the Paleolithic era to the present, and what our intertwined human-canine relationship reveals about human nature Long before the phrase man’s best friend became common parlance...

One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, The Boston Globe, and Entertainment Weekly A sharp-eyed, uniquely humane tour of America's cultural landscape―from high to low to lower than low―by the award-winning young star of...

If your funny older sister were the former deputy chief of staff to President Barack Obama, her behind-the-scenes political memoir would look something like this . . . Alyssa Mastromonaco worked for Barack Obama for almost a decade, and long before his run for president. From the then-senator's...

Famous games and players have been the hallmark of the New York Rangers from their NHL debut in 1926 to the present day. From Frank Boucher and the original Blueshirts to Jaromir Jagr, the Rangers have thrilled their fans with some of the most memorable performances in hockey history. In Game of My Life: New York Rangers, John Halligan and John Kreiser share the recollections of 24 of the most famous names in Rangers history as they discuss the most memorable games in their careers.

What was the real significance of William James's breakdown? Of the anti-Semitism in T.S. Eliot's writing? At each step in his latest journey through American cultural history, Menand has an original point to make.

In light of Russia's aggressive 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a crucial, elucidative read, a sweeping epic chronicling a thousand years of strife, war, and bloodshed, from pre-Christianity to the fall of Communism—illuminating the remarkable cultural significance and...

Slide "Further Under the Duvet", get yourself comfortable, and let Marian take you places you've never been before. Places like the Irish air-guitar championships, a shopping trip to Bloomingdales with a difference, and Cannes with a chronic case of Villa-itis. Along the way you'll encounter knicker-politics, fake tans, sticky-out ears and passionate love affairs both with make-up and Toblerones.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER · THE SPIRITUAL CLASSIC THAT HAS INFLUENCED MORE THAN 500,000 READERS ""A deep, uncompromising story about human and divine love.” — Los Angeles Times The profoundly moving and heart-rendering classic for anyone who has experienced the depths of love and loss...

Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best - covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN - 24 hours of mainline news.