Check out our picks for Nonfiction November for Kids here: Nonfiction November for Kids
In one of the most thorough accounts of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, Nathan S. Chapman and Michael W. McConnell provide an insightful overview of the legal history and meaning of the clause, as well as its value for promoting equal religious freedom and diversity in contemporary America.
Why do we love to swear so much? Why do we get so offended when others do it? With wit and insight, philosopher Rebecca Roache seeks answers to these and other puzzling questions about bad language.
The United States' ignominious exit from Afghanistan in 2021 topped two decades of failure and devastation wrought by the war on terror. A long-running "fight against migration" has stoked chaos and rights abuses while pushing migrants onto more dangerous routes. For its part, the war on drugs has failed to dampen narcotics demand while fueling atrocities from Mexico to the Philippines.
An indispensable guide for telling fact from fiction on the internet—often in less than 30 seconds.
The internet brings information to our fingertips almost instantly. The result is that we often jump to thinking too fast, without taking a few moments to verify the source before engaging with a claim or viral piece of media.
An essential guide to the ways data can improve decision making.
Statistics are everywhere: in news reports, at the doctor’s office, and in every sort of forecast, from the stock market to the weather. Blogger, teacher, and computer scientist Allen B. Downey knows well that people have an innate ability both to understand statistics and to be fooled by them.
A "piercing, unsentimental" (New Yorker) history that boldly challenges the idea of a rural American crisis.
It seems everyone has an opinion about rural America. Is it gripped in a tragic decline? Or is it on the cusp of a glorious revival? Is it the key to understanding America today?
What is moral courage? Why is it important and what drives it? An argument for why we should care about moral courage and how it shapes the world around us.
War, totalitarianism, pandemics, and political repression are among the many challenges and crises that force us to consider what humane people can do when the world falls apart.
A startling discovery—that job market success after college is largely random—forces a reappraisal of education, opportunity, and the American dream.
As a gateway to economic opportunity, a college degree is viewed by many as America’s great equalizer.
A thought-provoking history of communications that challenges ideas about freedom of speech and democracy.
At the heart of democracy lies a contradiction that cannot be resolved, one that has affected free societies since their advent: Though freedom of speech and media has always been a necessary condition of democracy, that very freedom is also its greatest threat.
Our idea of the Founders' America and its values is not true. We are not the heirs of the Founders, but we can be the heirs of Reconstruction and its vision for equality.
There’s a common story we tell about America: that our fundamental values as a country were stated in the Declaration of Independence, fought for in the Revolution, and made law in the Constitution.
Now in paperback, Sandra Laugier's reconsideration of analytic philosophy and ordinary language.
Sandra Laugier has long been a key liaison between American and European philosophical thought, responsible for bringing American philosophers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Stanley Cavell to French readers—but until now her books have never been publ
In the heyday of American labor, the influence of local unions extended far beyond the workplace. Unions were embedded in tight-knit communities, touching nearly every aspect of the lives of members--mostly men--and their families and neighbors. They conveyed fundamental worldviews, making blue-collar unionists into loyal Democrats who saw the party as on the side of the working man.
For many Jews, for more than a century, the United States has seemed to be a safe haven. There has been antisemitic prejudice, but nothing on the scale of the discrimination, persecution, pogroms, and genocide witnessed in Europe. White American ethnic violence has assailed many targets, but Jews have rarely been among them.
An accessible yet erudite deep dive into how platforms are remaking experiences of death
“A compelling collection of case studies about how technology breaks down when faced with the messiness of mortality.”—Gabriel Nicholas, Washington Post
Since the internet’s earliest days, people have died and mourned online.
An informed and practical road map for controlling disinformation, embracing free speech, saving American elections, and protecting democracy
“Hasen puts forth a number of solid recommendations on how to combat disinformation.”—Richard Stengel, New York Times
“Hasen has written an extraordinary, thorough and fair e
Why debunked political rumors persist and how to combat them
How cable television upended American political life in the pursuit of profits and influence
A riveting story of faith, politics, and ideas, Liberty or Justice for All? brings to life four of America's greatest thinkers, whose dialogue across the ages has never been more relevant. The book traces a striking pattern--the vexed relationship of individual liberty to inclusive social justice--in an elaborate fabric, woven over more than three centuries of American history.
The freedom to think what you want and to say what you think has always generated a pushback of regulation and censorship. This raises the thorny question: to what extent does free speech actually endanger speech protection?
Where do Asian Americans fit into the U.S. racial order? Are they subordinated comparably to Black people or permitted adjacency to whiteness? The racial reckoning prompted by the police murder of George Floyd and the surge in anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic raise these questions with new urgency.
Why did no other ancient society produce something like the Bible? That a tiny, out of the way community could have created a literary corpus so determinative for peoples across the globe seems improbable. For Jacob Wright, the Bible is not only a testimony of survival, but also an unparalleled achievement in human history.
Thanks to the First Amendment, Americans enjoy a rare privilege: the constitutional right to lie. And although controversial, they should continue to enjoy this right.
For at least two centuries, the South's economy, politics, religion, race relations, fiction, music, foodways and more have figured prominently in nearly all facets of American life. In A New History of the American South, W. Fitzhugh Brundage joins a stellar group of accomplished historians in gracefully weaving a new narrative of southern history from its ancient past to the present.
The first book to critically examine the legacy of pop superstar Mariah Carey.
When it comes to Mariah Carey, star power is never in doubt. She has sold hundreds of millions of albums and cut more chart-topping hits than any other solo artist—ever. And she has that extraordinary five-octave vocal range. But there is more to her legacy than eye-popping numbers.
The first book to critically examine the legacy of pop superstar Mariah Carey.
When it comes to Mariah Carey, star power is never in doubt. She has sold hundreds of millions of albums and cut more chart-topping hits than any other solo artist—ever. And she has that extraordinary five-octave vocal range. But there is more to her legacy than eye-popping numbers.
Demonstrates definitively that the secularization thesis is correct, and religion is losing its grip on societies worldwide
Offers thought-provoking theories and life-transforming ways to deal with pain
Recovers the religious origins of the War on Drugs
Many people view the War on Drugs as a contemporary phenomenon invented by the Nixon administration. But as this new book shows, the conflict actually began more than a century before, when American Protestants began the temperance movement and linked drug use with immorality.
Recovering the bold voices and audacious lives of women who confronted capitalist society’s failures and injustices in the 1930s—a decade unnervingly similar to our own
In the Company of Radical Women Writers rediscovers the political commitments and passionate advocacy of seven writers—Black, Jewish, and white—who as young women turned t
This groundbreaking anthology addresses the history and challenges of using “antisemitism” and related terms as tools for historical analysis and public discourse.
Is white privilege real? Does American history begin in 1619 or 1776? Why has left-wing antisemitism grown? How racist is the working class? Who benefits most, when anti-racists speak in racial terms?
