From Cullen Murphy, editor at large of Vanity Fair, God's Jury is a chilling and powerful account of how the techniques used by the Spanish Inquisition created our modern world.For centuries states have used their power to censor, watch, manipulate and punish. God's Jury argues that the Inquisition - the Catholic body that existed for over 700 years - is not a medieval oddity, but is intrinsically bound up with modernity. From Vatican archives to Guantána...

What went wrong in imperial Rome, and how we can avoid it: “If you want to understand where America stands in the world today, read this."—Thomas E. RicksThe rise and fall of ancient Rome has been on American minds since the beginning of our republic. Depending on who’s doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action—or a dire warning of imminent collapse.In this “provocative and lively” book, Cullen Murphy points out that...

It is from the discards of former civilizations that archaeologists have reconstructed most of what we know about the past, and it is through their examination of today’s garbage that William Rathje and Cullen Murphy inform us of our present. Rubbish! is their witty and erudite investigation into all aspects of the phenomenon of garbage. Rathje and Murphy show what the study of garbage tells us about a population’s demographics and buying habits. Along the way, they dispel the com...

Some of America’s best reporters and thinkers offer an urgent look at a country in chaos in this collection of timely, often prophetic articles from The Atlantic.The past four years in the United States have been among the most turbulent in our history—and would have been so even without a global pandemic and waves of protest nationwide against police violence. Drawn from the recent work of The Atlantic staff writers and contributors, The Amer...

Venture into the deathly dark fairy tale that’s been hailed as one of the year’s best new comics series from masters of horror Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, The Sixth Gun) and Christopher Mitten (Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Saturn Returns)! Fantasy novelist Andrew Kier takes his family on an idyllic vacation to the edge of a lush Swedish forest, where he hopes to finish writing his latest book in The Wraithbound Queen series. After his young daughters, Sommer and Winter, venture into the woods...