Winner of the National Jewish Book Award · New York Times Bestseller "A brilliant and heart-wrenching book, with universal and timely lessons about the power of information--and misinformation. Is it possible to stop mass murder by telling the truth?" -- Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow A complex hero. A forgotten story. The first witness to reveal the full truth of the Holocaust . . . Award-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Jonathan Freedland tells the astonishing true story of Rudolf Vrba, the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world of a truth too few were willing to hear. In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz and make his way to freedom--among only a tiny handful who ever pulled off that near-impossible feat. He did it to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world--and to warn the last Jews of Europe what fate awaited them. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly missed German bullets until they had smuggled out the first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen--a forensically detailed report that eventually reached Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the Pope. And yet too few heeded the warning that Vrba had risked everything to deliver. Though Vrba helped save two hundred thousand Jewish lives, he never stopped believing it could have been so many more. This is the story of a brilliant yet troubled man--a gifted "escape artist" who, even as a teenager, understood that the difference between truth and lies can be the difference between life and death. Rudolf Vrba deserves to take his place alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler, and Primo Levi as one of the handful of individuals whose stories define our understanding of the Holocaust.

Europe is ready to explode. Where will the explosion take place and what will the damage be? This major new book from the bestselling author and geopolitical forecaster George Friedman presents a bold and provocative thesis about the likeliest locations for the coming eruptions. George Friedman forecasted coming global trends in The Next 100 Years and The Next Decade . Now, in Flashpoints , he zooms in on Europe and examines the dry tinder of the region: culture. Walking the faultlines that have existed here for centuries, Friedman inspects all the dormant social and political fissures still smouldering just beneath the continent's surface, and identifies those likely to erupt first. The book begins with a fascinating history of the events leading up to the horrific wars that nearly tore apart Western civilisation, and shows how modern efforts to overcome Europe's geopolitical tensions – including the formation of the European Union – have largely failed. Homing in on half a dozen pivotal locations, George Friedman gauges what the future holds, both in terms of conflict and also opportunity. Flashpoints details how events in Europe will affect the rest of the world – from USA to Russia, from China to Latin America – and reveals a new yet familiar political landscape in what is at once a gripping history lesson and a terrifying forecast of the potential devastation ahead.

From the best-selling author of King Leopold's Ghost and Spain in Our Hearts comes the astonishing but forgotten story of an immigrant sweatshop worker who married an heir to a great American fortune and became one of the most charismatic radical leaders of her time. Rose Pastor arrived in New York City in 1903, a Jewish refugee from Russia who had worked in cigar factories since the age of eleven. Two years later, she captured headlines across the globe when she married James Graham Phelps Stokes, scion of one of the legendary 400 families of New York high society. Together, this unusual couple joined the burgeoning Socialist Party and, over the next dozen years, moved among the liveliest group of activists and dreamers this country has ever seen. Their friends and houseguests included Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, John Reed, Margaret Sanger, Jack London, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Rose stirred audiences to tears and led strikes of restaurant waiters and garment workers. She campaigned alongside the country's earliest feminists to publicly defy laws against distributing information about birth control, earning her notoriety as "one of the dangerous influences of the country" from President Woodrow Wilson. But in a way no one foresaw, her too-short life would end in the same abject poverty with which it began. By a master of narrative nonfiction, Rebel Cinderella unearths the rich, overlooked life of a social justice campaigner who was truly ahead of her time.

A vibrant cultural history investigating pandemics and vaccines, by bestselling author and historian Simon Schama Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before. Characteristically, Schama's message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope - in hospitals and prisons, palaces, and slums - are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong, and Mumbai. At the heart of it all is an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine, a gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as "the saviour of mankind" for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world's first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice. Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, "there are no foreigners, only familiars."

Science and Human Values is a thought-provoking book by Jacob Bronowski that explores the relationship between science and human values. The author argues that science is not just a collection of facts and theories, but a way of thinking that shapes our understanding of the world and our place in it. He contends that science and human values are intimately connected, and that science has the power to transform our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.The book is divided into five chapters, each of which explores a different aspect of the relationship between science and human values. The first chapter discusses the nature of scientific inquiry and the role of imagination in scientific discovery. The second chapter examines the relationship between science and art, arguing that both are essential to our understanding of the world. The third chapter explores the ethical implications of scientific research, particularly in the areas of genetics and nuclear physics.The fourth chapter examines the role of science in shaping our understanding of human nature, while the final chapter discusses the implications of scientific progress for our future as a species. Throughout the book, Bronowski emphasizes the importance of human values in shaping scientific research and the need for scientists to be mindful of the ethical implications of their work.Overall, Science and Human Values is a thought-provoking and insightful book that challenges readers to think deeply about the relationship between science and human values. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the role of science in our lives and the ethical implications of scientific research.The Impact Of Science On Ethics And Human Values.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

A candid portrait of the famed photographer, co-written by his longtime business partner and confidante, traces Avedon's life from his humble New York childhood to his death during a shoot in 2004.

A finalist for the 2017 George Freedley Memorial Award "A compelling, absolutely unputdownable story . . . And, in case you're wondering, yes, the book is funny. In places, very funny. A remarkable story, magnificently told." -- Booklist In this richly reported, scene-driven narrative, Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv from its unlikely beginnings in McCarthy-era Chicago. We witness the chance meeting between Mike Nichols and Elaine May, hang out at the after-hours bar where Dan Aykroyd hosted friends like John Belushi, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner, and go behind the scenes of cultural landmarks from The Graduate to The Colbert Report . Along the way, we befriend pioneers such as Harold Ramis, Chevy Chase, Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Alan Arkin, Tina Fey, Judd Apatow, and many others. Wasson shows why improv deserves to be considered the great American art form of the last half century. " One of the most important stories in American popular culture . . . Wasson may be the first author to explain [improv's] entire history . . . For that reason alone, it's a valuable book . " -- New York Times Book Review "A compelling history . . . It holds the element of surprise--true to the spirit of its subject." -- Entertainment Weekly

The tenure of Earl Warren as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1953-69) was marked by a series of decisions unique in the history of the Court for the progressive agenda they bespoke. What made the Warren Court special? How can students of history and political science understand the Warren Court as part of constitutional history and politics? To answer such questions, nine well-known legal scholars and historians explore how each justice contributed to the distinctiveness of the Warren Court in Supreme Court history.

Theodor Herzl, Architect of a Nation , is the compelling account of a complex individual who sacrificed his health and family in pursuit of an ideal: the establishment of a homeland where Jews throughout the world could go to escape anti-Semitism. "If you will it, it is no dream," he said. This book sheds valuable light on a man whose short, eventful life helped create and shape the modern State of Israel. Norman H. Finkelstein focuses on the ideas that Herzl gave to the Zionist movement and on the grand diplomacy and political maneuvering to which he devoted his life.

This is a biography of a young man who is not really sure what to do with his life, who gets thrown into the whirlwind of World War II and only then learns about life, about courage, and about honor. A boy, who grows up in poisonous, anti-Sematic surroundings in Poland, he travels to Palestine and unexpectedly finds a purpose in life. then everything changes for Abram with the outbreak of World War II. He joins the British Army as a private and a sequence of incredible events follow- he serves in the suicide comando and is court-martialed for hitting a British Sargeant Major. After the war ends, Abram, now a major in the British Army, organizes the transport of tens of thousands of concentration camp survivors to Palestine. he does this right under the noses of British intelligence, and is later detained for months while being investigated. Finally, the story moves on to the War of Independence in Palestine, where Abram plays a critical part in establishing a secret road to supply the surrounded Jerusalem Jews- saving them from the Arabs. Abram tells of his fight with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and its consequences. The incredible saga of Abram plays out against the stark reality of World War II and its aftermath. It will no doubt leave an indelible impression on the reader.