History Ebooks

From a bold new voice in nonfiction, an exhilarating account of the lives and works of influential 17th and 18th century feminist philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft and her predecessors who have been written out of history, and a searing look at the author’s experience of patriarchy and sexism in academia As a young woman growing up in small-town Iowa, Regan Penaluna daydreamed about the big questions: Who are we and what is this strange world we find ourselves in? In college she fell in love with philosophy and chose to pursue it as an academician, the first step, she believed, to becoming a self-determined person living a life of the mind. What Penaluna didn’t realize was that the Western philosophical canon taught in American universities, as well as the culture surrounding it, would slowly grind her down through its misogyny, its harassment, its devaluation of women and their intellect. Where were the women philosophers? One day, in an obscure monograph, Penaluna came across Damaris Cudworth Masham’s name. The daughter of philosopher Ralph Cudworth and a contemporary of John Locke, Masham wrote about knowledge and God, and the condition of women. Masham’s work led Penaluna to other remarkable women philosophers of the era: Mary Astell, who moved to London at age twenty-one and made a living writing philosophy; Catharine Cockburn, a philosopher, novelist, and playwright; and the better-known Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote extensively in defense of women’s minds. Together, these women rekindled Penaluna’s love of philosophy and awakened her feminist consciousness. In How to Think Like a Woman, Regan Penaluna blends memoir, biography, and criticism to tell the stories of these four women, weaving throughout an alternative history of philosophy as well as her own search for love and truth. Funny, honest, and wickedly intelligent, this is a moving meditation on what philosophy could look like if women were treated equally.

A vibrant collection of personal and lyric essays in conversation with archival objects of Black history and memory. What are the politics of nature? Who owns it, where is it, what role does it play in our lives? Does it need to be tamed? Are we ourselves natural? In A Darker Wilderness, a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of these essays engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots to space and finding rich Blackness everywhere. Erin Sharkey considers Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac, as she follows the passing of seasons in an urban garden in Buffalo. Naima Penniman reflects on a statue of Haitian revolutionary François Makandal, within her own pursuit of environmental justice. Ama Codjoe meditates on rain, hair, protest, and freedom via a photo of a young woman during a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. And so on—with wide-ranging contributions from Carolyn Finney, Ronald Greer II, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sean Hill, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Glynn Pogue, Katie Robinson, and Lauret Savoy—unearthing evidence of the ways Black people’s relationship to the natural world has persevered through colonialism, slavery, state-sponsored violence, and structurally racist policies like Jim Crow and redlining. A scrapbook, a family chest, a quilt—and an astounding work of historical engagement and literary accomplishment—A Darker Wilderness is a collection brimming with abundance and insight.

What is Italy without pasta? Come to think of it, where would the rest of us be without this staple of global cuisine? An acclaimed Italian food writer tells the colorful and often-surprising history of everyone’s favorite dish. In this hugely charming and entertaining chronicle of everyone’s favorite dish, acclaimed Italian food writer and historian Luca Cesari draws on literature, history, and many classic recipes in order to enlighten pasta lovers everywhere, both the gourmet and the gluten free. What is Italy without pasta? Come to think of it, where would the rest of us be without this staple of global cuisine? The wheat-based dough first appeared in the Mediterranean in ancient times. Yet despite these remote beginnings, pasta wasn’t wedded to sauce until the nineteenth century. Once a special treat, it has been served everywhere from peasant homes to rustic taverns to royal tables, and its surprising past holds a mirror up to the changing fortunes of its makers. Full of mouthwatering recipes and outlandish anecdotes—from (literal) off-the-wall 1880s cooking techniques to spaghetti conveyer belts in 1940 and the international amatriciana scandal in 2021—Luca Cesari embarks on a tantalizing  and edifying journey through time to detangle the heritage of this culinary classic.

A vivid story of an astonishing period in ancient Egypt’s history—1550 BC to 1295 BC—that tears away the gold and glamour to reveal how these great pharaohs ruthlessly ruled Egypt for two hundred and fifty years.  For more than two centuries, Egypt was ruled by the most powerful, successful, and richest dynasty of kings in its long end epic history. They included the female king Hatshepsut, the warrior kings Thutmose III and Amenhotep II, the religious radical Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, and most famously of all—for the wealth found in his tomb—the short-lived boy king, Tutankhamun. The power and riches of the Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty came at enormous cost to Egypt's enemies—and to most of its people. This was an age of ruthless absolutism, exploitation, extravagance, brutality, and oppression in a culture where not only did Egypt plunder its neighbors, but Egyptian kings (and their people) robbed one another. 3,500 years ago, ancient Egypt began two centuries of growth where it became richer and more powerful than any other nation in the world, ruled by the kings of the 18th Dynasty. They presided over a system built on war, oppression, and ruthlessness, pouring Egypt's wealth into grandiose monuments, temples, and extravagant tombs. Tutankhamun was one of the last of the line—and one of the most obscure. Among his predecessors were some of the most notorious and enigmatic figures of all of Egypt's history.  Pharaohs of the Sun is the story of these famed rulers, showing how their glamour and gold became tainted by selfishness, ostentation, and the systematic exploitation of Egypt's people and enemies.

A vivid and gripping story of an epic Maine snowstorm that tested the very limits of human endurance. For many, the past few years have been defined by climate disaster. Stories about once-in-a-lifetime hurricanes, floods, fires, droughts and even snowstorms are now commonplace. But dramatic weather events are not new and Northeaster, Cathie Pelletier’s breathtaking account of the 1952 snowstorm that blanketed New England, offers a valuable reminder about nature’s capacity for destruction as well as insight into the human instinct for preservation.  Northeaster weaves together a rich cast of characters whose lives were uprooted and endangeredby the storm. Housewives and lobstermen, loggers and soldiers were all trapped as snow piled in drifts twenty feet high. The storm smothered hundreds of travelers in their cars, covered entire towns, and broke ships in half. In the midst of the blizzard’s chaos, there were remarkable acts of heroism and courageous generosities. Doctors braved the storm to help deliver babies. Ordinary people kept their wits while buried in their cars, and others made their way out of forests to find kind-hearted strangers willing to take them in.  It’s likely that none of us know how we would handle a confrontation with a blizzard or other natural disaster. But Northeaster shows that we have it inside to fight for survival in some of the harshest conditions that nature has to offer.  

The rich and fascinating history of the scientific revolution of the Victorian Era, leading to transformative advances in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Victorians invented the idea of the future. They saw it as an undiscovered country, one ripe for exploration and colonization. And to get us there, they created a new way of ordering and transforming nature, built on grand designs and the mass-mobilization of the resources of the British Empire. With their expert culture of accuracy and precision, they created telegraphs and telephones, electric trams and railways, built machines that could think, and devised engines that could reach for the skies. When Cyrus Field’s audacious plan to lay a telegraph cable across the Atlantic finally succeeded in 1866, it showed how science, properly disciplined, could make new worlds. As crowds flocked to the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the exhibitions its success inaugurated, they came to see the future made fact—to see the future being built before their eyes. In this rich and absorbing book, a distinguished historian of science tells the story of how this future was made. From Charles Babbage’s dream of mechanizing mathematics to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s tunnel beneath the Thames to George’s Cayley’s fantasies of powered flight and Nikola Tesla’s visions of an electrical world, it is a story of towering personalities, clashing ambitions, furious rivalries and conflicting cultures—a rich tapestry of remarkable lives that transformed the world beyond recognition and ultimately took mankind to the Moon

“Winning, cheeky, and illuminating….What appears initially as a folly with a look-at-this cover and title becomes, thanks to Radke’s intelligence and curiosity, something much meatier, entertaining, and wise.” —The Washington Post “Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfiction.” —Esquire, Best Books of 2022 A “carefully researched and reported work of cultural history” (The New York Times) that explores how one body part has influenced the female—and human—experience for centuries, and what that obsession reveals about our lives today. Whether we love them or hate them, think they’re sexy, think they’re strange, consider them too big, too small, or anywhere in between, humans have a complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans, critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex, desire, comedy, shame. A woman’s butt, in particular, is forever being assessed, criticized, and objectified, from anxious self-examinations trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out. Spanning nearly two centuries, this “whip-smart” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, the music video set of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and the mountains of Arizona, where every year humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way, she meets evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness gurus who created fads like “Buns of Steel.” She also examines the central importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann, once known as the “Venus Hottentot,” Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women of color whose butts have been idolized, envied, and despised. Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashion—and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.

The “riveting…truly shocking” (The New York Times Book Review) story of a Jewish orphan who fled Nazi Germany for London, only to be arrested and sent to a British internment camp for suspected foreign agents on the Isle of Man, alongside a renowned group of refugee musicians, intellectuals, artists, and—possibly—genuine spies. Following the events of Kristallnacht in 1938, Peter Fleischmann evaded the Gestapo’s roundups in Berlin by way of a perilous journey to England on a Kindertransport rescue, an effort sanctioned by the UK government to evacuate minors from Nazi-controlled areas.train. But he could not escape the British police, who came for him in the early hours and shipped him off to Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man, under suspicion of being a spy for the very regime he had fled. During Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s, tens of thousands of German and Austrian Jews like Peter escaped and found refuge in Britain. After war broke out and paranoia gripped the nation, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered that these innocent asylum seekers—so-called “enemy aliens”—be interned. When Peter arrived at Hutchinson Camp, he found one of history’s most astounding prison populations: renowned professors, composers, journalists, and artists. Together, they created a thriving cultural community, complete with art exhibitions, lectures, musical performances, and poetry readings. The artists welcomed Peter as their pupil and forever changed the course of his life. Meanwhile, suspicions grew that a real spy was hiding among them—one connected to a vivacious heiress from Peter’s past. Drawing from unpublished first-person accounts and newly declassified government documents, award-winning journalist Simon Parkin reveals an “extraordinary yet previously untold true story” (Daily Express) that serves as a “testimony to human fortitude despite callous, hypocritical injustice” (The New Yorker) and “an example of how individuals can find joy and meaning in the absurd and mundane” (The Spectator).