Hailed as "thoroughly fascinating" and "an excellent account" by The New York Times, this chronicle recaptures the vibrantly eccentric lifestyles of generations of free-spirited Americans. Its evocative profiles range from Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and Ambrose Bierce to lesser-known nonconformists and iconoclasts. Hoboes, starving poets, suffragettes, and artists' models populate these pages, forming a bustling panoply of banquets, suicides, and ferocious literary rivalries.

"A very impressive and comprehensive story on terrorism . . . enormously valuable."—Brian Crozier, former director of the Institute for the Study of Conflict, LondonA compulsively readable analysis of modern terrorism, this brilliant, vital work by a noted expert on terrorism and guerrilla warfare describes the nature of terrorist organizations and events and analyzes the changing nature and evolution of unconventional political warfare.From the genesis of the Great Terror in...

David Gilbert arrived at Columbia University just in time for the explosive Sixties. From the early anti-Vietnam war protests to the founding of SDS, Gilbert was on the scene: as organiser, theoretician and, above all, activist. Writing from a maximum security prison following the disaster of the 1982 Brinks robbery, he recounts the Weather Underground movement in this extraordinary memoir. Written with candour and humour, this is an uncompromising and reflective account of the Sixties and...

Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature. He is a fervent atheist, raised as a Christian, by a mother whose Jewish her...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” (The New York Times)“Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has writ...

**A bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner offers a compelling case for the necessity of resistance in our turbulent times, and shows how rebellions—however quixotic or irrational they seem—are key to realizing a more ideal worldA San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller**In the face of modern conditions, revolution is inevitable. The social inequality, political stagnation, devastation of our environment by corporations, stripping away of our civil liberties, and ...

“Year Zero is a remarkable book, not because it breaks new ground, but in its combination of magnificence and modesty.” —Wall Street JournalA marvelous global history of the pivotal year 1945 as a new world emerged from the ruins of World War IIYear Zero is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime chan...

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's worldDuring the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world.John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brothe...

As fitting for the twenty-first century as von Clausewitz’s On War was in its own time, Invisible Armies is a complete global history of guerrilla uprisings through the ages.Beginning with the first insurgencies in the ancient world—when Alexander the Great discovered that fleet nomads were harder to defeat than massive conventional armies—Max Boot, best-selling author and military advisor in Iraq and Afghanistan, masterfully guides us from the Jewish rebellion ag...

Based on astonishing KGB documents, this essential exposé uncovers the shadowy operations of the Soviet Union’s top intelligence organization.**“**The Sword and the Shield **will stand as an indispensable reference work on Soviet espionage for years to come.” -**Washington PostDerived from an unprecedented, top-secret archive described by the FBI as “the most complete and extensive intelligence ever achiev...

In this gripping narrative, John Koehler details the widespread activities of East Germany's Ministry for State Security, or "Stasi." The Stasi, which infiltrated every walk of East German life, suppressed political opposition, and caused the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of citizens, proved to be one of the most powerful secret police and espionage services in the world. Koehler methodically reviews the Stasi's activities within East Germany and overseas, including its programs fo...

The U.S. government, complicit with the well-connected corporations, since the so-called Civil War, continues to wage war and destruction. Lincolns revolutionary war, supported by Marx and Engels, caused at least 618,222 and perhaps as many as 700,000 deaths, including about 50,000 Confederate civilians. Soldiers who were fighting, dying and killing during that war were in training for future wars. If Americans could kill fellow citizens, then they would use force against foreign citizens,...