Finalist, 2014 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature from the Jewish Book CouncilTraces American Jews' complicated relationship to alcohol through the years leading up to and after prohibitionFrom kosher wine to their ties to the liquor trade in Europe, Jews have a longstanding historical relationship with alcohol. But once prohibition hit America, American Jews were forced to choose between abandoning their historical connection to alcohol a...

American roots music, also known as Americana music, can be challenging to categorize, spanning the genres of jazz, bluegrass, country, blues, rock and roll, and an assortment of variations in between. In The Downhome Sound, Mandi Bates Bailey explores the messages, artists, community, and appeal of this seemingly disparate musical collective. To understand the art form's intended meanings and typical audiences, she analyzes lyrics and interviews Americana artists, journalists, an...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Lies Among Us comes a magical tale about mothers and daughters, choices and consequences, and the real meaning of home when every place feels like a cage.Ten months. That’s the longest Elisa has stayed anyplace, constantly propelled by her fear that if she puts down roots, a family curse will turn her into a tree.But she’s grown tired of flitting from town to town and in and out of relation...

A mother and daughter try desperately to reconcile just as a decades-old secret threatens to shatter their relationship forever in this powerful story from the bestselling author of The Echo of Old Books.For social worker Mallory Ward, working with at-risk youth is a calling. But when one of her clients is tragically killed, she finds herself at a crossroads. Despite long-held resentments toward her distant mother, Mallory retreats to her childhood home on...

America, land of the Free…and home of the warlocks.The Founding Fathers were never ones to pass up a good weapon. America's first line of defense has been shrouded in secrecy, magical families who have sworn to use their power to protect our republic.But there are those who reject America's dream and have chosen the Left Hand Path. In this triumphant conclusion to Tom Doyle's imaginative alternate historical America, we start with a bloody wedding-night brawl with assassins...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham presents “a nimble examination of how American leaders . . . have wrestled with God personally and publicly” (USA Today)—now featuring a new Afterword by the author“A revealing and useful primer on an important, timely, and often volatile topic.”—Chicago TribuneAt a time when our country seems divided by extremism, American Gospel draws...

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightenin...

Winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in NonfictionAnti-Intellectualism in American Life is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society."As Mr. Hofstadter unfolds the fascinating story, it is no crude battle of eggheads and fatheads. It is a rich, c...

Finalist, 2012 National Jewish Book AwardsA riveting account of General Ulysses S. Grant’s decision, in the middle of the Civil War, to order the expulsion of all Jews from the territory under his command, and the reverberations of that decision on Grant’s political career, on the nascent American Jewish community, and on the American political process.On December 17, 1862, just weeks before Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, General G...

From “Birthers” who claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States to counter-jihadists who believe that the Constitution is in imminent danger of being replaced with Sharia law, conspiratorial beliefs have become an increasingly common feature of our public discourse. In this deeply researched, fascinating exploration of the ideas and rhetoric that have animated extreme, mostly right-wing movements throughout American history, Arthur Goldwag reveals the disturbing pattern of fe...

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice SelectionAn urgent examination into the revived Klan of the 1920s becomes “required reading” for our time (New York Times Book Review).Extraordinary national acclaim accompanied the publication of award-winning historian Linda Gordon’s disturbing and markedly timely history of the reassembled Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Dramatically challenging our preconceptions of the hooded Kl...

Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What the Qur'an Meant, coming fall 2017.Gary Wills has won significant acclaim for his bestselling works of religion and history. Here, for the first time, he combines both disciplines in a sweeping examination of Christianity in America throughout the last 400 years. Wills argues that the struggle now, as throughout our nation's history, is between the head and the heart, reason and emotion, enlightenment and Evan...