Moving far beyond the realm of traditional "church history," Patrick Allitt here offers a vigorous and erudite survey of the broad canvas of American religion since World War II. Identifying the major trends and telling moments within major denominations and also in less formal religious movements, he asks how these religious groups have shaped, and been shaped by, some of the most important and divisive issues and events of the last half century: the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, t...

What is it really like to be a college professor in an American classroom today? An award-winning teacher with over twenty years of experience answers this question by offering an enlightening and entertaining behind-the-scenes view of a typical semester in his American history course. The unique result—part diary, part sustained reflection—recreates both the unstudied realities and intensely satisfying challenges that teachers encounter in university lecture halls.From the initial...

A provocative history of the environmental movement in America, showing how this rise to political and social prominence produced a culture of alarmism that has often distorted the factsFew issues today excite more passion or alarm than the specter of climate change. In A Climate of Crisis, historian Patrick Allitt shows that our present climate of crisis is far from exceptional. Indeed, the environmental debates of the last half century are defined by exa...

What is it really like to be a college professor in an American classroom today? An award-winning teacher with over twenty years of experience answers this question by offering an enlightening and entertaining behind-the-scenes view of a typical semester in his American history course. The unique result—part diary, part sustained reflection—recreates both the unstudied realities and intensely satisfying challenges that teachers encounter in university lecture halls.From the initial...

On November 26, 2010, intellectual juggernaut and staunch atheist Christopher Hitchens went head-to-head with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the Western worlds most openly devout political leaders, on the highly charged topic of religion. Few world leaders have had a greater hand in shaping current events than Blair; few writers have been more outspoken and polarizing than Hitchens.Hitchens and Blair squared off on the contentious questions that continue to dog th...

The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a sen...

In the fall of 2009, with the publication of her #1 national bestselling memoir, Sarah Palin had the privilege of meeting thousands of everyday Americans on her extraordinary 35-city book tour. Inspired by these encounters, her new book, America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, celebrates the enduring strengths and virtues that have made this country great.Framed by her strong belief in the importance of family, faith, and patriotism, the book ranges widel...

A powerful, thought-provoking and always lively examination of how American Christianity has badly lost its way—with most of what goes by the name of Christianity today being one or another type of heresy—by the youngest writer ever appointed as editorial columnist for The New York Times.In a world populated by “pray and grow rich” gospels and Christian cults of self-esteem, Ross Douthat argues that America’s problem isn’t too much religion; nor is it into...

Religion is increasingly seen as a dangerous source of violence in the world, breeding a fear of faith in a very vocal group of critics. Most Christians are blissfully unaware of the litany of allegations being brought against religion, including that it is the cause of intolerance, imperialism, irrationality, bigotry, and war, to name a few. But ignorance is not the answer.In Why People Don't Believe, Paul Chamberlain strives to represent the concerns and challenges raise...

It's one thing we all have in common. We've all been to school. But as Zander Sherman shows in this fascinating, often shocking account of institutionalized education, sending your kids off to school was not always normal. In fact, school is a very recent invention. Taking the reader back to 19th-century Prussia, where generals, worried about soldiers' troubling individuality, sought a way to standardize every young man of military age, through to the most controversial debates that swirl ...

* Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award* National Book Award Finalist* Time magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of the Year* New York Times Notable Book“We have long needed a fair-minded overview of this vitally important religious sensibility, and FitzGerald has now provided it” (The New York Times Book Review).Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Frances FitzGeral...

David Mamet has been a controversial, defining force in nearly every creative endeavor-now he turns his attention to politics.In recent years, David Mamet realized that the so-called mainstream media outlets he relied on were irredeemably biased, peddling a hypocritical and deeply flawed worldview.In 2008 Mamet wrote a hugely controversial op-ed for the Village Voice, "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'", in which he methodically attacked li...