NONFICTION
Released: Jan. 3, 2012
"A profound demonstration of what needs to be recognized, reconciled and forgiven if current crises are to be overcome."
A vigorous retelling of Haiti's history intended to revive the promise of the world's first black-led republic.
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NONFICTION
Released: Jan. 3, 2012
"Will the partnership prevail? Stay tuned, but hope for the best--for, they warn, "[i]f urgent steps are not taken to rein in nuclear weapons...a catastrophic attack is virtually inevitable.""
Timely portrait of an alliance, seemingly unlikely, of former Cold War mavens now committed to nuclear disarmament.
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NONFICTION
Released: Feb. 14, 2012
"A highly creative, illuminating, genre-resisting history."
The strange, sad, hilarious story of the Soviet Union's blind pursuit of a Communist paradise, told through a mix of history and fiction, using both to get to the truth.
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NONFICTION
Released: Feb. 28, 2012
"A frank, exhaustive, marvelously readable study."
A sharp, clear, deeply researched examination of the consistent application of the founding religious principles to American foreign policy, from the colonists' sense of a Protestant exceptionalism to President Barack Obama's "Good Niebuhr Policy."
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NONFICTION
Released: March 6, 2012
"Impressive research underlies a well-told story that's simultaneously depressing (what a nasty species we are) and inspiring (what a wonderful species we are)."
Partisan bickering, back-stabbing rivalries, xenophobia, character assassination, political moves that would make Machiavelli blush--no, not Washington circa 2011, but the Washington Capitol in the 1850s.
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NONFICTION
Released: March 6, 2012
"Rothkopf delivers a lively, accessible treatment of a multifaceted, complex subject."
Rothkopf (
Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making, 2009, etc.) uses a wide-angle lens to examine the relation between public and private power.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 1, 2012
"Leaks, reserves, PACs, hydrofracking, bloated corporate profits and more: all pertinent concerns nicely handled by Coll in this engaging, hard-hitting work."
NONFICTION
Released: May 1, 2012
"A wide-ranging, marvelously complete overview of a diverse, teeming civilization poised for ruin."
A bright, hard glimpse at the final thriving days of European Jewry and the first edges of its unraveling.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 8, 2012
"In a well-researched, disinterested analysis, the authors show that collisions of ego, personality and politics can often result in creation, not destruction."
Two
Time magazine editors chart the zigzag arc of relationships among the men who have occupied the White House since the mid-20th century.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 8, 2012
"Though he's a little too enamored with "angel-headed hipsters" and "fairy dust," Talbot takes the reader much deeper than cliché, exploring a San Francisco that tourists never discover."
An ambitious, labor-of-love illumination of a city's soul, celebrating the uniqueness of San Francisco without minimizing the price paid for the city's free-spiritedness.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 1, 2012
"As exciting, sprawling and multifarious as a shining city on a hill."
Smith (
Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon, 2007, etc.) composes a polyphonic paean to our urban past, present and future.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 7, 2012
"A superb examination of the never-ending effort to enhance life, as well as the commensurate refusal to ever let it go."
A sharp, illuminating history of ideas showing how America has wrestled with birth, childhood, work, marriage, old age and death.
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NONFICTION
Released: July 3, 2012
"Authoritative but never dry, stripping away soothing myths of national unity and victimhood, this is a painful but necessary historical task superbly done."
A breathtaking, numbing account of the physical and moral desolation that plagued Europe in the late 1940s.
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NONFICTION
Released: July 23, 2012
"Some casual readers may be turned off by the page count, but this is likely to be the authoritative history of the origins and progress of the Iranian policy morass for years to come."
An encyclopedic account
of the ongoing military and diplomatic conflict between the United States and Iran.
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NONFICTION
Released: Aug. 7, 2012
"Brown is as smart as he is puckish, and there are plenty of laughs on this terrific trip through modern fame."
A hilarious collection of strange-but-true tales of encounters between the rich and famous.
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NONFICTION
Released: Aug. 7, 2012
"Less self-absorbed than Luis Alberto Urrea, less cynical than Charles Bowden, less otherly obsessed than William Vollmann--and right in the pocket, a necessary chronicle of a weird corner of America."
A savage journey into terror, cacti, drugs, desperation and all-around anomie in the superheated atmosphere of the desert Southwest.
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NONFICTION
Released: Aug. 21, 2012
"A potent reminder of the explosiveness of 1960s politics and how far elements of the government were (and perhaps still are) willing to go to undermine civil liberties."
A kaleidoscopic look at the FBI's willingness to undermine American citizens during the 1960s.
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NONFICTION
Released: Aug. 27, 2012
"An innovative, marvelous book about comedy, stereotypes and the struggle to steer through the sometimes-fierce internal debates over African-American identity in a society still struggling with its racial past."
A provocative, compelling exploration of one of the most controversial elements of the black entertainment world.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Truly remarkable, composed with all the precision and insight you expect from a law professor, marked by all the elegance and sparkling readability you don't."
Artfully mixing law, history and sharp analysis, a Yale law professor examines the persistent struggle to reconcile justice and humanitarianism in America's conduct of war.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 10, 2012
"A rich, highly readable examination of the seeds of poppies, trade, greed, grandeur and an international partnership that remains uneasy and perilous."
The author of
Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America (2010) returns with the story of America's first voyages to the Middle Kingdom, where Americans and Chinese looked at each other with wonder, alarm and calculation.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 24, 2012
"Such a large historical project could have easily descended into tedious and dry academia, but instead, all three volumes are briskly paced, well-researched and insightful. Aficionados of urban histories, in particular, will find much to enjoy."
This ambitious three-volume history, overseen by Moore (Judaic Studies and History/Univ. of Michigan;
American Jewish Identity Politics, 2008, etc.), provides a lively, much-needed overview of the role that Jews have played in the history and success of the Big Apple, helping to transform it into "a city of promises, some fulfilled, some pending, some beckoning new generations."
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 9, 2012
"Rarely has a book with so much information been such an entertaining read."
From British food writer Wilson (
Sandwich: A Global History, 2010, etc.), a savory survey of kitchen implements and their impact.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 22, 2012
"Provocative, illuminating and entertaining--an exemplary work of philosophy and history whose author's deep learning is lightly worn."
An ambitious survey not of politics itself, but of the way Westerners have thought about politics for 2,500 years.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 30, 2012
"A thoroughly engaging examination of the irreversible changes emerging from a year when the nation's very survival remained in doubt."
A historian zeroes in on the year Lincoln found his footing as president and set the country on a bold new course.
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NONFICTION
Released: Nov. 27, 2012
"A dark but hopeful chronicle that shows how even humanity's worst can fracture and fall."
A Pulitzer Prize–winning author returns with the story of those dark decades in Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union slammed the prison doors on people, cultures and countries.
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NONFICTION
Released: Dec. 4, 2012
"A masterful work of critical journalism."
NONFICTION
Released: Dec. 4, 2012
"A captivating tale of an oft-overlooked, morally ambiguous moment in American history."
An exploration of the violent downfall of Little Crow's Dakota nation at the hands of American soldiers.
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POWER, INC.: THE EPIC RIVALRY BETWEEN BIG BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT--AND THE RECKONING THAT LIES AHEAD
