Harry Houdini. Say his name and a number of things come to mind. Escapes. Illusions. Magic. Chains. Safes. Live burials. Close to a century after his death, nearly every person in America knows his name from a young age, capturing their imaginations with his death-defying stunts and daring acts. He inspired countless people, from all walks of life, to find something magical within themselves. This is a book about a man and his extraordinary life,...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction • Winner of the National Book Award • New York Times Bestseller

Renowned scholar Stephen Greenblatt brings the past to vivid life in what is at once a supreme work of scholarship, a literary page-turner, and a thrilling testament to the power of the written word.

In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old...

"The bestselling author of The Secretary tells the gripping story of the real roots of the Sunni-Shia conflict in Middle East in the 1979 Iran Revolution that changed the region forever"--

"From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, a revelatory look at the power and potential of social context. As psychologists have long understood, social environments profoundly shape our behavior, sometimes for the better, but often for the worse. Less widely noted is that social influence is a two-way street: Our environments are in large part themselves a product of the choices we make. Society embraces regulations...

A modern tale of striving ambition, envy, desire and murder, and a mesmerizing take on Theodore Dreiser's classic novel "An American Tragedy." Claire Griffith has it all, a thriving career, a gorgeous boyfriend, glamorous friends. She always knew she was destined for more than the life her conservative parents preached to her. Arriving in Los Angeles flat broke, she has risen to become a popular fitness coach and social media influencer. Having rebranded...

Five people looking for a reason to keep living are about to find it in the last place they expected. After the loss of his wife, Roman Paulson's life revolves around his son Billy. As a football hero at the University of Nebraska, Billy has a promising life ahead of him. As Billy's coach begins encroaching on Roman's relationship with his son-especially when he brings God into Billy's life-Roman starts to fear he'll lose Billy forever. Nothing could...

"Despite its emergence from backward isolation into a dynamic world economic power, a quarter-century after the People's Army crushed unarmed protestors--labeled anti-revolutionaries--in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, the defining event of China's modern history remains buried. Memory is dangerous in a country built to function on national amnesia. A single act of public remembrance might expose the frailty of the state's carefully constructed...

"Describes the causes of the War of 1812 and its effects on US history"--Provided by publisher.

The first exploration of the profound and often catastrophic impact the American Revolution had on the rest of the world. While the American Revolution led to domestic peace and liberty, it ultimately had a catastrophic global impact-it strengthened the British Empire and led to widespread persecution and duress. From the opium wars in China to anti-imperial rebellions in Peru to the colonization of Australia-the inspirational impact the American...

"We tend to think of the Cold War as a bounded conflict: a clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, born out of the ashes of World War II and coming to a dramatic end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Bancroft Prize-winning scholar Odd Arne Westad argues that the Cold War must be understood as a global ideological confrontation, with early roots in the Industrial Revolution and ongoing repercussions...