“Relevant...fascinating...vividly reconstructed.” — The New York Times Book Review “Riveting reading...a mesmerizing look at Cold War espionage.” — USA TODAY This astonishing real-life spy thriller, filled with danger, misplaced loyalties, betrayal, treachery, and pure evil, with a plot twist worthy of John le Carré, is relevant today as a tale of fanaticism and the lengths it takes us to. True Believer reveals the life of Noel Field, an American who betrayed his country and crushed his family. Field, once a well-meaning and privileged American, spied for Stalin during the 1930s and '40s. Then, a pawn in Stalin’s sinister master strategy, Field was kidnapped and tortured by the KGB and forced to testify against his own Communist comrades. How does an Ivy League-educated, US State Department employee, deeply rooted in American culture and history, become a hardcore Stalinist? The 1930s, when Noel Field joined the secret underground of the International Communist Movement, were a time of national collapse: ten million Americans unemployed, rampant racism, retreat from the world just as fascism was gaining ground, and Washington—pre FDR—parched of fresh ideas. Communism promised the righting of social and political wrongs and many in Field’s generation were seduced by its siren song. Few, however, went as far as Noel Field in betraying their own country. With a reporter’s eye for detail, and a historian’s grasp of the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century, Kati Marton captures Field’s riveting quest for a life of meaning that went horribly wrong. True Believer is supported by unprecedented access to Field family correspondence, Soviet Secret Police records, and reporting on key players from Alger Hiss, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and World War II spy master, “Wild Bill” Donovan—to the most sinister of all: Josef Stalin. A story of another time, this is a tale relevant for all times.

Celebrate America's 250th anniversary with this stirring picture book biography about a forgotten hero of the American Revolution who rose to the occasion and served his country, not with muskets or canons, but with gingerbread! Christopher Ludwick was a German-born American patriot with a big heart and a talent for baking. When cries of "Revolution!" began, Christopher was determined to help General George Washington and his hungry troops. Not with muskets or cannons, but with gingerbread! Cheerfully told by Mara Rockliff and brought to life by Vincent Kirsch's inventive cut-paper illustrations, Gingerbread for Liberty is the story of an unsung hero of the Revolutionary War who changed the course of history one loaf at a time.

"A bestselling music historian follows Jelly Roll Morton on a journey through the hidden worlds and forbidden songs of early blues and jazz. In Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories, Elijah Wald takes readers on a journey into the hidden and censored world of early blues and jazz, guided by the legendary New Orleans pianist Jelly Roll Morton. Morton became nationally famous as a composer and bandleader in the 1920s, but got his start twenty years earlier, entertaining customers in the city's famous bordellos and singing rough blues in Gulf Coast honky-tonks. He recorded an oral history of that time in 1938, but the most distinctive songs were hidden away for over fifty years, because the language and themes were as wild and raunchy as anything in gangsta rap. Those songs inspired Wald to explore how much other history had been locked away and censored, and this book is the result of that quest. Full of previously unpublished lyrics and stories, it paints a new and surprising picture of the dawn of American popular music, when jazz and blues were still the private, after-hours music of the Black 'sporting world.' It gives new insight into familiar figures like Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong, and introduces forgotten characters like Ready Money, the New Orleans sex worker and pickpocket who ended up owning one of the largest Black hotels on the West Coast. Revelatory and fascinating, these songs and stories provide an alternate view of Black culture at the turn of the twentieth century, when a new generation was shaping lives their parents could not have imagined and art that transformed popular culture around the world--the birth of a joyous, angry, desperate, loving, and ferociously funny tradition that resurfaced in hip-hop and continues to inspire young artists in a new millennium"--

An inspiring and powerful memoir of surviving the Jonestown massacre and becoming a fearless voice against injustice and inequality by California congresswoman Jackie Speier. Jackie Speier was twenty-eight when she joined Congressman Leo Ryan's delegation to rescue defectors from cult leader Jim Jones's Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Ryan was killed on the airstrip tarmac. Jackie was shot five times at point-blank range. While recovering from what would become one of the most harrowing tragedies in recent history, Jackie had to choose: Would she become a victim or a fighter? The choice to survive against unfathomable odds empowered her with a resolve to become a vocal proponent for human rights. From the formative nightmare that radically molded her perspective and instincts to the devastating personal and professional challenges that would follow, Undaunted reveals the perseverance of a determined force in American politics. Deeply rooted in Jackie's experiences as a widow, a mother, a congresswoman, and a fighter, hers is a story of true resilience, one that will inspire other women to draw strength from adversity in order to do what is right--no matter the challenges ahead.

What will the post-Trump return to democracy in America look like, and what are its historical antecedents? National political correspondent and award-winning author D. D. Guttenplan’s The Next Republic is an extraordinarily intense and wide-ranging exploration of how democracy rises and falls in America. The Next Republic introduces us to some of the organizers and politicians who are helping to bring about change in America, like new labor activist JANE McALEVEY; racial justice campaigner (and mayor of Jackson, Mississippi) CHOKWE ANTAR LUMUMBA; environmental activist (and chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party) JANE KLEEB; Chicago’s first openly gay Latino public official, CARLOS RAMIREZ-ROSA; Justice Democrats communications director WALEED SHAHID; communications director for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2020 campaign CORBIN TRENT; and anti-corruption crusader ZEPHYR TEACHOUT. Guttenplan juxtaposes this new social movement with chapters on key transitions in our nation’s history: the Whiskey Rebellion, the Lincoln Republic, and the Roosevelt Republic. Altogether, Guttenplan deeply fathoms the great American problem that is our democracy, and the prospects for its resurgence. Both unyielding and resoundingly hopeful, The New Republic foresees the post-Trump era as one that may not only restore American values, but also see a radical new transformation of them to match the new challenges we face as a nation.

" A stirring picture book biography about a forgotten hero of the American Revolution who rose to the occasion and served his country, not with muskets or canons, but with gingerbread!"--

To commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the breaking of baseball's color barrier, an exploration of Jackie Robinson's impact and legacy by the people whose lives were transformed by his courage. When Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, he forever changed the game of baseball--and America itself. Sportswriter Fussman traces Robinson's enormous legacy in sports, politics, and the civil rights movement through the men (and women) who came after him. With moving and intimate interviews of more than one hundred former major league players of African-American descent, as well as such luminaries as Jimmy Carter, Muhammad Ali, and Walter Cronkite, among others, this book recalls the day one man altered history for so many, and the history that followed.--From publisher description.

Millions of Studs Terkel fans have come to know the prizewinning oral historian through his landmark books—“The Good War”, Hard Times, Working, Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, and many others. Few people realize, however, that much of Studs’s best work was not collected into these thematic volumes and has, in fact, never been published. P.S. brings together these significant and deeply enjoyable writings for the first time. The pieces in P.S. reflect Studs’s wide-ranging interests and travels, as well as his abiding connection to his hometown, Chicago. Here we have a fascinating conversation with James Baldwin, possibly Studs’s finest interview with an author; pieces on the colorful history and culture of Chicago; vivid portraits of Studs’s heroes and cohorts (including an insightful and still timely interview with songwriter Yip Harburg, known for his “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime”); and the transcript of Studs’s famous broadcast on the Depression, the very moving essence of what was to become Hard Times. A fitting postscript to a lifetime of listening, P.S. is a truly Terkelesque display of Studs’s extraordinary range of talent and the amazing people he found to talk to.

"In 2009, at the peak of the financial crisis, AIG - the American insurance behemoth - was sinking fast. It was the peg upon which the nation hung its ire and resentment during the financial crisis: the pinnacle of Wall Street arrogance and greed. When Bob Benmosche climbed aboard as CEO, it was widely assumed that he would go down with his ship. In mere months, he turned things around, pulling AIG from the brink of financial collapse and restoring its profitability. Before three years were up, AIG had fully repaid its staggering debt to the U.S. government - with interest.Good for the Money is an unyielding leader's memoir of a career spent fixing companies through thoughtful, unconventional strategy. With his brash, no-holds-barred approach to the job, Benmosche restored AIG's employee morale and good name. His is a story of perseverance, told with refreshing irreverence in unpretentious terms.Called "an American hero" by Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of Too Big to Fail, Benmosche was a self-made man who never forgot what life is like for the nation's 99-percent; again and again, he pushed back against obstinate colleagues to salvage American jobs and industry. Good for the Money affords you a front-row seat for Benmosche's heated battles with major players from Geithner to Obama to Cuomo, and offers incomparable lessons in leadership from the legendary CEO who changed the way Wall Street does business"--

"As an orphaned survivor and witness to the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) compelled the world to confront the Holocaust with his searing memoir Night. How did this soft-spoken man from a small Carpathian town become such an influential figure on the world stage. Drawing on Wiesel's prodigious literary output and interviews with his family, friends, scholars, and critics, Joseph Berger seeks to answer this question."--

Dorothea Lange's photographs define how the American Depression is remembered; this evocative biography defines her creative struggles and enduring legacy.

"From the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists-Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans-who came together to create the most famous and bestselling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue The myth of the 60s depends on the 1950s being the before times of conformity, segregation, straightness-The Lonely Crowd and The Organization Man. This all carries some truth, but it does nothing to explain how, in 1959, the great indigenous art form, jazz, reached the height of its power and popularity, led there by a number of Black geniuses so iconic they go by one name-Monk, Mingus, Rollins, Coltrane, and above all, Miles. 1959 saw Miles, Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the other members of Miles's sextet come together to record what is widely considered the greatest jazz album of all time, and certainly the best-selling: Kind of Blue. 3 Shades of Blue is James Kaplan's magnificent account of the paths of the three giants Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and their path on from there. It's a book about music, and business, and race, and heroin, and the towns that gave jazz its home, from New York and LA to Philadelphia, Chicago and Kansas City. It's an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange hothouses that can produce its full flowering. It's a book about the great forebears of this golden age, particularly Charlie Parker, and the people, like Ornette Coleman, who would take the music down strange new paths. And it's about why this period has never been replicated, why the world of jazz most people visit is a museum to it. But above all this is a book about three very different men-their struggles, their choices, their tragedies, their greatness. Bill Evans had a gruesome downward spiral, John Coltrane took the mystic's path into a space far away from mainstream concerns. Miles had three or four sea changes in him before the end. The tapestry of their lives is, in Kaplan's hands, an American Odyssey, with no direction home. It is also a masterpiece, a book about jazz that is as big as America"--

"Elissa and Rita have forever struggled to find their place in each other's worlds. Rita, an overreaching, makeup-addicted, narcissistic Manhattan singer couldn't be more different from Elissa, her gay, taciturn New England writer daughter. Stuck in an outrageous maelstrom of codependency, mother and daughter cannot seem to extricate themselves from the center of each other's lives. Motherland is their universal story: a kaleidoscopic journey built on the ferocity of mother-daughter love, moral obligation, and the possibility and promise of healing. Having survived a harrowing childhood at the hands of her mother, Elissa is finally settled in Connecticut with her wife of almost twenty years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, orbiting around her mother, but keeping far enough away from her to preserve the independent, quiet life she has built for herself. All of this is suddenly at risk when Rita, whose days are spent traversing the streets of Manhattan from Bergdorf's to Bloomingdale's and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall that leaves her fully dependent on her only child. Forced to confront her mother's desperate need for beauty, her view of the world through a medley of men, her lost days in the spotlight, addiction, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of maintaining her youth, Elissa must navigate the waters of their shared history, obligation, the problems of caregiving and age, and the frenetic, co-dependent love that has defined their obsessive relationship. Motherland asks the universal mother-daughter question: How much love is too much love?"--

"Elissa and Rita have forever struggled to find their place in each other's worlds. Rita, an overreaching, makeup-addicted, narcissistic Manhattan singer couldn't be more different from Elissa, her gay, taciturn New England writer daughter. Stuck in an outrageous maelstrom of codependency, mother and daughter cannot seem to extricate themselves from the center of each other's lives. Motherland is their universal story: a kaleidoscopic journey built on the ferocity of mother-daughter love, moral obligation, and the possibility and promise of healing. Having survived a harrowing childhood at the hands of her mother, Elissa is finally settled in Connecticut with her wife of almost twenty years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, orbiting around her mother, but keeping far enough away from her to preserve the independent, quiet life she has built for herself. All of this is suddenly at risk when Rita, whose days are spent traversing the streets of Manhattan from Bergdorf's to Bloomingdale's and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall that leaves her fully dependent on her only child. Forced to confront her mother's desperate need for beauty, her view of the world through a medley of men, her lost days in the spotlight, addiction, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of maintaining her youth, Elissa must navigate the waters of their shared history, obligation, the problems of caregiving and age, and the frenetic, co-dependent love that has defined their obsessive relationship. Motherland asks the universal mother-daughter question: How much love is too much love?"--

William Johnson was among the most powerful and romantic figures in early American history. Beginning as an impoverished eighteenth century Irish immigrant, he became the wealthiest and most influential Indian leader on the North American continent. Married to Molly Brant, sister of the celebrated Mohawk Joseph Brant, Johnson served as a mediator in the evolving clash of the European and Native American cultures. This new edition brings back into print a classic work that will be welcomed reading for all those interested in early American history and American-Indian relations.

For most first ladies, their years in the White House are their sole claim to fame. For one—Hillary Rodham Clinton—that tenure was just another step in a remarkable political career. Neither a “hit job” nor a facile tribute, Gil Troy’s lively and refreshingly nonsensational new book provides a revealing look at arguably the most polarizing First Lady in history and undoubtedly the most prominent American woman of our time. Troy, named by History News Network one of America’s Top 15 Young Historians, measures Clinton’s historical footprint, tracing her activities during the turbulent decade that brought her to national prominence and examining her influence as a key player in her husband’s administration. Covering her attempts to overhaul health care and redefine the first lady as co-president while she tried to cope with her husband’s scandals and impeachment, he recounts how Hillary’s rocky road had a mixed impact on the office, even as her ambitions illuminated the role’s potential. As the first feminist first lady, Hillary Clinton faced dilemmas typical of modern American women as she tried to be both a family-oriented, devoted wife and a career-focused, independent woman. Troy shows how she did her best to navigate this divide and breaks new ground in taking her seriously as a thinker. Delving into Hillary’s speeches and writings, he uncovers a surprisingly more moderate, even conservative worldview. In fact, he finds some of her positions—such as her outspoken views on abortion—to be authentic expressions of a genuine Puritan/Methodist centrism rather than a mere political ploy. Offering a mix of praise and censure that elevates to a more sophisticated level debates about her controversial career and presidential aspirations, Troy’s book will enlighten and intrigue Hillary’s passionate critics and staunch defenders alike. It will renew discussions of where she stands in the continuum of modern first ladies—and of where history will ultimately take her. Many of the book’s key themes are effectively underscored by an entertainingly narrated photo essay, with provocative images drawn from the Clinton Presidential Library.

Shortly after World War II, when the Allies interrogated Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the senior commander who opposed the Allied invasion of France, they asked him to rate the skills of his opponents. He is reputed to have said, "Patton, he was your best." Praise for his performance was precisely what George Smith Patton, Jr., had sought all his life. As a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute and West Point, he was already searching for what he called "the undefinable difference" that distinguished a great general from the good ones. He led a mechanized attack in Mexico and a tank battalion during World War I. In World War II he turned American fortunes around in North Africa, chased the Germans out of Sicily, and sparked the breakout and liberation of France. When the Germans attacked the American First Army in the Battle of the Bulge, Patton turned his army north and smashed the German salient. He then drove into the heart of Germany and reached Czechoslovakia by war's end. Brilliant yet flawed, Patton's leadership style drove himself and his men to acts of bravery and victory. Half uncouth, provincial cowboy and half cultured sophisticate, the man behind the warrior mask was a complex and paradoxical person. He became an icon of the American military leader and the uncompromising individual.

With Freedom's Lawmakers, Eric Foner has assembled the first comprehensive directory of the over 1,500 African Americans who held political office in the South during the Reconstruction era. He has compiled an impressive amount of information about the antebellum status, occupations, property ownership, and military service of these officials -- who range from U.S. congressmen to local justices of the peace and constables. This revised paperback edition also contains new material on forty-five officials who were not included in the first edition.In his Introduction, Foner ably analyzes and interprets the roles of the black American officeholders. Concise biographies, in alphabetical order, trace the life histories of individuals -- many previously unknown -- who played important parts in the politics of the period. This useful and informative volume also includes an index by state, by occupation, by office during Reconstruction, by birth status, and by topic.

Presents the major ideas that have formed the modern Latin American political mind and profiles influential revolutionaries, thinkers, poets, and novelists, from Che Guevara to Octavio Paz and Gabriel García Márquez

An inside look at America’s largest newspaper— The Wall Street Journal ”Phillips offers fascinating insights about American business, politics, and journalism. He traveled in the circles of CEOs, U.S. presidents, prime ministers, and royalty; always at his core he was a reporter. That is the beauty of Newspaperman .” —Vernon E. Jordan Jr., civil rights leader; senior managing director, Lazard Freres & Company; adviser to President Bill Clinton “[Phillips] captures the fabulous stories of a scrawny, precocious boy from reporter to publisher and then CEO, participating in and then presiding over the Journal ’s years of greatest growth.” —Joan Konner, Dean Emerita, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism “Phillips fell in love with newspapers when he was a boy. He’s still infatuated but he doesn’t skip over his tough times or mistakes. That’s what makes Newspaperman such a telling guide to the newsroom and to the top office in the executive suite.” —Lou Boccardi, former president and chief executive, Associated Press; former chairman, Pulitzer Prize Board “This lovely book recounts the life of a wise, thoughtful, and admired newspaper editor and publisher. The tiny Wall Street Journal Warren Phillips joined grew up to be a giant. Newspaperman tells that story.” —Donald E. Graham, chairman and chief executive, The Washington Post Company “[Phillips provides] perceptive commentaries on Germany, Greece, Turkey, England, Spain, China, Russia, and the Middle East. All is told with modest good humor, but repeatedly emphasizes the need for integrity and high standards.” —George B. Munroe, retired chairman and chief executive, Phelps Dodge Corporation “The story of a boy born in Brooklyn, a reporter, an editor, a publisher, a corporate executive, and now the author of a fascinating book.” —James Q. Riordan, former vice chairman, Mobil Corporation “In spite of a few hiccups, honestly related here, Dow Jones was rated by Fortune magazine as the second most-admired company in the United States, and so proved that an outstanding newspaperman can also achieve enormous success as a business builder and leader.” —Hamish Maxwell, former chairman and CEO, Philip Morris Companies Inc. “A memoir from a man who helped transform The Wall Street Journal from a local newspaper to a global operation.. . . Throughout the book, Phillips looks at his part in shaping the Journal ’s news and editorial coverage, and these sections provide insight into his highly successful methods. The author includes many anecdotes culled from his diaries, some very funny, which illustrate the variegated aspects of his life and the people who shared in it.. . . A well-rounded autobiography about the journalism industry and the people who shaped the news over the past 50 years.” —Kirkus Reviews “The sections about the rise of the Wall Street Journal 's quality and influence are fascinating - for journalists and non-journalists alike.” — Philadelphia Inquirer ”Phillips provides an arresting retrospective on modern world history that general readers will find informative and delightful.” — Star-Telegram About the Book When Warren Phillips was eleven years old, his father took him on a guided tour of the New York Daily News , where he got his first look at the frenzied yet surprisingly ordered and controlled world of newspaper publishing. He saw everything from the industrial printing presses churning out newspapers at astonishing speeds to reporters hunched over their typewriters, writing the very stories those presses would be producing within hours—or even minutes. Phillips was hooked. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Newspaperman tells the story of how an immigrant’s shy son from Queens, New York, rose to the top of his industry powered by little more than passion, brains, and hard work. Phillips began his career working as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune for sixteen dollars a week—and ended it as publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of its parent corporation, Dow Jones & Company. The life story of Warren Phillips is the story of the American newspaper business. Here, the details of his vast experience come together to create a broad picture of the newspaper business— revealing how news is discovered, reported, edited, published, and disseminated. Sharing vivid tales of working as a reporter around the world and describing the many colorful characters he meets along the way, Phillips provides a level of insight that only a leading figure in the industry could offer. Newspaperman gives you an up-close look at one of the most influential people in the history of The Wall Street Journal —and an unprecedented view of the business, from its rapid modernization during the post–WWII , cold war era to the early years of digital publishing and the rise of the Internet, which may mark the decline of the printed page forever. Phillips’s entertaining, penetrating, and impressively detailed account is a must-read for both devotees of America’s most iconic business publication and anyone with an interest in how news is reported.