Pete Beatty - Editor

El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency

Ioan Grillo

The world has watched, stunned, the bloodshed in Mexico. Forty thousand murdered since 2006; police chiefs shot within hours of taking office; mass graves comparable to those of civil wars; car bombs shattering storefronts; headless corpses heaped in town squares. And it is all because a few Americans are getting high. Or is it part of a worldwide shadow economy that threatens Mexico's democra... read more

Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America’s Children

Sarah Carr

Geraldlynn is a lively, astute 14-year-old. Her family, displaced by Hurricane Katrina, returns home to find a radically altered public education system. Geraldlynn's parents hope their daughter's new school will prepare her for college--but the teenager has ideals and ambitions of her own. Aidan is a fresh-faced Harvard grad drawn to New Orleans by the possibility of bringing change to a floo... read more

Peace Through Entrepreneurship: Investing in a Startup Culture for Security and Development

Steven R. Koltai

Joblessness is the root cause of the global unrest threatening American security. Fostering entrepreneurship is the remedy.The combined weight of American diplomacy and military power cannot end unrest and extremism in the Middle East and other troubled regions of the world, Steven Koltai argues. Koltai says an alternative approach would work: investing in entrepreneurship and reaping the bene... read more

The World's Emergency Room: The Growing Threat to Doctors, Nurses, and Humanitarian Workers

Michael VanRooyen

Twenty years ago, the most common cause of death for medical humanitarians and other aid workers was traffic accidents; today, it is violent attacks. And the death of each doctor, nurse, paramedic, midwife, and vaccinator is multiplied untold times in the vulnerable populations deprived of their care. In a 2005 report, the ICRC found that for every soldier killed in the war in the Democratic R... read more

Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure

Craig Robinson

How many miles does a baseball team travel in one season? How tall would A-Rod's annual salary be in pennies? What does Nolan Ryan have to do with the Supremes and Mariah Carey?You might never have asked yourself any of these questions, but Craig Robinson's Flip Flop Fly Ball will make you glad to know the answers. Baseball, almost from the first moment Robinson saw it, was more than a sport. ... read more

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway

"Merchants of Doubt should finally put to rest the question of whether the science of climate change is settled. It is, and we ignore this message at our peril."-Elizabeth Kolbert "Brilliantly reported andwritten with brutal clarity."-Huffington Post Now a powerful documentary from the acclaimed director of Food Inc., Merchants of Doubt was one of the most talked-about climate change books of ... read more

Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade

Adam Minter

When you drop your Diet Coke can or yesterday's newspaper in the recycling bin, where does it go? Probably halfway around the world, to people and places that clean up what you don't want and turn it into something you can't wait to buy. In Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter--veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner--travels deep into a vast, often hidden, five-hundred-billion-dollar... read more

Talk About a Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen often prefers to let his music do the talking. His onstage stories and shaggy dog tales have long entertained his fans, but his songs and his guitar provide the most direct line to their hearts. Considering his prominence on the rock 'n' roll landscape, Springsteen has spent remarkably little of his 40-year recording career speaking to the press. But when he does decide to si... read more

Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities

Craig Steven Wilder

A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed that institution's complex and contested involvement in slavery-setting off a controversy that leapt from the ivory tower to make headlines across the country. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder, a leading historian of race in America, lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, a... read more

Beyond the Blue Horizon: How the Earliest Mariners Unlocked the Secrets of the Oceans

Brian Fagan

In Beyond the Blue Horizon, archaeologist and historian Brian Fagan tackles his richest topic yet: the enduring quest to master the oceans, the planet's most mysterious terrain. We know the tales of Columbus and Captain Cook, yet much earlier mariners made equally bold and world-changing voyages. From the moment when ancient Polynesians first dared to sail beyond the horizon, Fagan vividly exp... read more

Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage That Redrew the Map of the New World

Douglas Hunter

The year 2009 marks the four-hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson's discovery of the majestic river that bears his name. Just in time for this milestone, Douglas Hunter, sailor, scholar, and storyteller, has written the first book-length history of the 1609 adventure that put New York on the map. Hudson was commissioned by the mighty Dutch East India Company to find a northeastern passage ove... read more

Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities Are Changing the World

Jeb Brugmann

A powerful reappraisal of the role of cities and their inhabitants in solving global problems, from a leading expert in urban development. In the second half of the twentieth century, revolutions reshaped our world―the civil rights movement in America, the fall of the shah in Iran, the collapse of the Soviet bloc, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. All of these revolutions were fundamen... read more

Nothin' But Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times, and Hopes of America's Industrial Heartland

Edward McClelland

The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region became the "arsenal of democracy"-the greatest manufacturing center in the world-in the years during and after World War II, thanks to natural advantages and a welcoming culture. Decades of unprecedented prosperity followed, memorably punctuated by riots, strikes, burning rivers, and oil embargoes. A vibrant, quintessentially American character bloomed ... read more

The Double V: How Wars, Protest, and Harry Truman Desegregated America’s Military

Rawn James Jr.

Executive Order 9981, issued by President Harry Truman on July 26, 1948, desegregated all branches of the United States military by decree. Truman's historic order is often portrayed as a heroic and unexpected move--but in reality, it was the culmination of more than 150 years of legal, political, and moral struggle.Beginning with the Revolutionary War, African Americans had used military serv... read more

The Society for Useful Knowledge: How Benjamin Franklin and Friends Brought the Enlightenment to America

Jonathan Lyons

Benjamin Franklin and his contemporaries brought the Enlightenment to America-an intellectual revolution that laid the foundation for the political one that followed. With the “first Drudgery” of settling the American colonies now past, Franklin announced in 1743, it was time the colonists set about improving the lot of humankind through collaborative inquiry. From Franklin's idea emerged the ... read more

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us

James W. Pennebaker

In The Secret Life of Pronouns, social psychologist and language expert James W. Pennebaker uses his groundbreaking research in computational linguistics-in essence, counting the frequency of words we use-to show that our language carries secrets about our feelings, our self-concept, and our social intelligence. Our most forgettable words, such as pronouns and prepositions, can be the most rev... read more

Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans

Brian Fagan

They survived by their wits in a snowbound world, hunting, and sometimes being hunted by, animals many times their size. By flickering firelight, they drew bison, deer, and mammoths on cavern walls- vibrant images that seize our imaginations after thirty thousand years. They are known to archaeologists as the Cro-Magnons-but who were they? Simply put, these people were among the first anatomic... read more

Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror

Matthew M. Aid

The United States intelligence establishment is a colossus. With stations in 170 countries, armed with cutting-edge surveillance gear, high-tech weapons, and fleets of armed and unarmed drone aircraft, it commands the most extensive and advanced intel force in history. But America's spy establishment still struggles to keep pace with a host of determined enemies around the world.In Intel Wars,... read more

A History of the World Since 9/11: Disaster, Deception, and Destruction in the War on Terror

Dominic Streatfeild

To understand why, you'll need to know how ...- an Australian metals trader named Garry-with help from the CIA-inadvertently triggered the invasion of Iraq - coalition troops were killed by bombs made with explosives that, according to the White House, never existed - the United States Air Force bombed a wedding in Afghanistan by mistake - the U.S. gave material support to the president of Uzb... read more

Fever Season: The Story of a Terrifying Epidemic and the People Who Saved a City

Jeanette Keith

While the American South had grown to expect a yellow fever breakout almost annually, the 1878 epidemic was without question the worst ever. Moving up the Mississippi River in the late summer, in the span of just a few months the fever killed more than eighteen thousand people. The city of Memphis, Tennessee, was particularly hard hit: Of the approximately twenty thousand who didn't flee the c... read more

Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President

Edward McClelland

Barack Obama's inspirational politics and personal mythology have overshadowed his fascinating history. Young Mr. Obama gives us the missing chapter: the portrait of the politician as a young leader, often too ambitious for his own good, but still equipped with a rare ability to inspire change. The route to the White House began on the streets of Chicago's South Side.Edward McClelland, a veter... read more

The Moro War: How America Battled a Muslim Insurgency in the Philippine Jungle, 1902-1913

James R. Arnold

As the global war on terror enters its second decade, the United States military is engaged with militant Islamic insurgents on multiple fronts. But the post-9/11 war against terrorists is not the first time the United States has battled such ferocious foes. The forgotten Moro War, lasting from 1902 to 1913 in the islands of the southern Philippines, was the first confrontation between America... read more

The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More, and Live Better

Chris Farrell

From the personal finance correspondent for public radio’s Marketplace Money, a new plan for a new economic reality—the philosophy and practice of living frugally. As a once-in-a-lifetime downturn deepens, our go-go economy has become an uh-oh economy. But as trusted finance reporter Chris Farrell explains, there’s a silver lining to this cloud: It is accelerating a trend already under way in ... read more

Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind

Brian Fagan

In Elixir, New York Times bestselling author Brian Fagan tells the story of our most vital resource and how it has shaped our history, from ancient Mesopotamia to the parched present of the Sunbelt. Fagan relates how every human society has been shaped by its relationship to our most essential resource. This sweeping narrative moves across the world, from ancient Greece and Rome, whose mighty ... read more

The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost - From Ancient Greece to Iraq

Victor Davis Hanson

Prominent military historian Victor Davis Hanson explores the nature of leadership with his usual depth and vivid prose in The Savior Generals, a set of brilliantly executed pocket biographies of five generals (Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway, and David Petraeus) who single-handedly saved their nations from defeat in war. War is rarely a predictable enterpri... read more

Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision

Louis P. Masur

A rich history of Springsteen's greatest album, celebrating its themes of youth, escape, and possibility, just in time for the Boss's sixtieth birthday. To millions of listeners, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run is much more than a rock-and-roll album―it's a poetic explosion of freedom and frustration. It confirmed Springsteen's status as a quintessential American performer: the rocker who, mor... read more

Reasons to Kill: Why Americans Choose War

Richard E. Rubenstein

From the American Revolution to the end of World War II, the United States spent nineteen years at war against other nations. But since1950, the total is twenty-two years and counting. On four occasions, U.S. presidents elected as "peace candidates" have gone on to lead the nation into ferocious armed conflicts. Repeatedly, wars deemed necessary when they began have been seen in retrospect as ... read more

Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq

James R. Arnold

A gripping history of a new kind of warfare, with sobering lessons for America's future. The end of the cold war promised a new era of international peace. But instead, violence has proliferated across the globe, not in the form of a superpower arms race or a clash of armies, but in bitter local conflicts marked by terrorism, insurgency, and guerrilla warfare. Former Central Intelligence Agenc... read more

America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation

David Goldfield

In this spellbinding history, David Goldfield offers the first major new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Where other scholars have seen the conflict as a triumph of freedom, Goldfield paints it as America's greatest failure: a breakdown of society caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the world of politics. The price of that f... read more

Money Mania: Booms, Panics, and Busts from Ancient Rome to the Great Meltdown

Bob Swarup

Money Mania is a sweeping account of financial speculation and its consequences, from ancient Rome to the Meltdown of 2008. Acclaimed journalist and investor Bob Swarup tracks the history of speculative fevers caused by the appearance of new profitable investment opportunities; the new assets created and the increasing self-congratulatory euphoria that drives them to unsustainable highs, all f... read more

Mr. and Mrs. Madison's War: America's First Couple and the War of 1812

Hugh Howard

August 28, 1814. Dressed in black, James Madison mourns the nation's loss. Smoke rises from the ruin of the Capitol before him; a mile away stands the blackened shell of the White House. The British have laid waste to Washington City, and as Mr. Madison gazes at the terrible vista, he ponders the future-his country's defeat or victory-in a war he began over the unanimous objections of his poli... read more

It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels

Robert Penn

Robert Penn has saddled up nearly every day of his adult life. He rides to get to work, to bathe in air and sunshine, to travel, to go shopping, and to stay sane. He's no Sunday pedal pusher. So when the time came for a new bike, he decided to pull out all the stops and build his dream machine. It's All About the Bike follows Penn's journey, but this book is more than the story of his hunt for... read more

The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels

Brian Fagan

The past fifteen thousand years-the entire span of human civilization-have witnessed dramatic sea level changes, which began with rapid global warming at the end of the Ice Age, when coastlines were more than seven hundred feet below modern levels. Over the next ten millennia, the oceans climbed in fits and starts. These rapid changes had little effect on those humans who experienced them, par... read more

Beast: Blood, Struggle, and Dreams at the Heart of Mixed Martial Arts

Doug Merlino

The first book to bring readers deep inside a top mixed martial arts gym, Beast shows exactly what it takes to reach the top of this exacting sport. Doug Merlino spent two years at Florida's American Top Team, living, eating, and training alongside some of the world's best fighters, and traveled with them to fights around the world. The result is the most unvarnished look at the sport yet, wit... read more

The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White

Doug Merlino

The experiment was dreamed up by two fathers, one white, one black. What would happen, they wondered, if they mixed white players from an elite Seattle private school and black kids from the inner city on a basketball team? The team's season unfolded like a perfectly scripted sports movie: The ragtag group of boys gelled together to win the league championship. The experiment was deemed a succ... read more

How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin: The Untold Story of a Noisy Revolution

Leslie Woodhead

Imagine a world where Beatlemania was against the law-recordings scratched onto medical X-rays, merchant sailors bringing home contraband LPs, spotty broadcasts taped from western AM radio late in the night. This was no fantasy world populated by Blue Meanies but the USSR, where a vast nation of music fans risked repression to hear the defining band of the British Invasion.The music of John, P... read more

The Snow Leopard Project

Alex Dehgan

The remarkable story of the heroic effort to save and preserve Afghanistan's wildlife-and a culture that derives immense pride and a sense of national identity from its natural landscape.Postwar Afghanistan is fragile, volatile, and perilous. It is also a place of extraordinary beauty. Evolutionary biologist Alex Dehgan arrived in the country in 2006 to build the Wildlife Conservation Society'... read more

Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland

Jonathan M. Metzl

A physician reveals how right-wing backlash policies have mortal consequences -- even for the white voters they promise to helpNamed one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Esquire and the Boston GlobeIn the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies th... read more