Power History

"[Narrator Erin] Bennett’s reading is never overdone; her directness neither shies away from [author Christine] Kuehn’s unpleasant revelations nor sensationalizes them...her light expression lets the dramatic details speak for themselves." — Booklist "[Narrator Erin] Bennett's enunciation...

Award-winning historian Frank Dikötter explores how the People’s Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. Unfolding with great narrative sweep, this riveting, richly detailed chronicle recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers celebrate as an economic miracle.

One of New York Magazine's Most Anticipated Books of the Fall How far can a single leader alter the course of history? From one of the leading historians of twentieth-century Europe and the author of the definitive biography of Hitler, Personality and Power is a masterful reckoning with how...

Casper ter Kuile, a Harvard Divinity School fellow and cohost of the popular Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, explores how we can nourish our souls by transforming common, everyday practices—yoga, reading, walking the dog—into sacred rituals that can heal our crisis of social...

“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this “illuminating” (USA Today) biography, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush. “Destiny and Power reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer: judicious, balanced, deliberative, with a...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and hailed as “the best history of oil ever written” by Business Week, Daniel Yergin’s “spellbinding…irresistible” (The New York Times) account of the global pursuit of oil, money, and power addresses the ongoing energy crisis. Now with an epilogue that...

This prize-winning and critically acclaimed history uses foreign relations as the lens through which to tell the story of America's dramatic rise from 13 disparate colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast to the world's greatest superpower.

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb. Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely have the secrets been as vital as they...

The “fascinating” (Wall Street Journal) story of how military technology has transformed the world The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry...

From the internationally acclaimed author of Hitler’s Private Library, a dramatic recounting of the six critical months before Adolf Hitler seized power, when the Nazi leader teetered between triumph and ruin In the summer of 1932, the Weimar Republic was on the verge of collapse. One in three...

From a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster. In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army...

In The Reactionary Mind, Robin traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution. He argues that the right was inspired, and is still united, by its hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market; others oppose it. Some criticize the state; others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality - while simultaneously making populist appeals to the masses.

Presented by the hit podcast American History Tellers, The Hidden History of the White House reveals the behind-the-scenes stories of some of the most dramatic events in American history—set right inside the house where it happened For more than two centuries, the White House in Washington, DC...

"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...

An “enthralling and authoritative” (The Wall Street Journal) political history of World War II that opens a window onto the difficulties of holding together the coalition that ultimately defeated Hitler—by the acclaimed author of Appeasement “A fine reassessment of Allied politics and...

The epic story of the past, present, and future of world order, revealing how the decline of the West may be a good thing for the world. Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, the West has been in crisis. Social unrest, political polarization, and the rise of other great powers—especially...

Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep. Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all. But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes.

The #1 New York Times bestseller that charts America’s dangerous drift into a state of perpetual war. "One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither Jefferson nor the other Found­ers could ever have envisioned the modern national...

A NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER ONE OF AUDIBLE’S BEST AUDIOBOOKS OF 2019 A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 AN NPR BEST BOOK OF 2019 ONE OF TIME’S MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2019 AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019...