Nonfiction

In this inspiring guide to successful leadership, New York Times bestselling author John C. Maxwell shares his tried and true principles for maximum personal growth.

Are there actually tried and true principles that are always certain to help a person grow? John Maxwell says the answer is yes. He has been passionate about personal development for over 50 years, and in the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, he teaches everything he has gleaned about what it takes to reach our potential. In his trademark style, Maxwell covers:

The Law of the Mirror: You Must See Value in Yourself to Add Value to Yourself

The Law of Awareness: You Must Know Yourself to Grow Yourself

The Law of Modeling: It's Hard to Improve When You Have No One But Yourself to Follow

The Law of the Rubber Band: Growth Stops When You Lose the Tension Between Where You are and Where You Could Be

The Law of Contribution: Developing Yourself Enables You to Develop Others

This 10th anniversary edition comes with an updated foreword from John Maxwell. The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth will help you become a lifelong learner whose potential keeps increasing so you can lead others with passion and get results.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today's most pressing issues.

"Fascinating . . . a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the twenty-first century."--Bill Gates, The New York Times Book Review

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES AND PAMELA PAUL, KQED

How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children?

Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today's most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.

In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis?

Harari's unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty. When we are deluged with irrelevant information, clarity is power. Presenting complex contemporary challenges clearly and accessibly, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is essential reading.

"If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari . . . tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: 'What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?'"--BookPage (top pick)

So often, Africa has been depicted simplistically as a uniform land of famines and safaris, poverty and strife, stripped of all nuance. In this bold and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, weaving a vibrant tapestry of stories that bring to life Africa's rich diversity, communities, and histories.

Starting with an immersive description of the lively and complex urban life of Lagos, Faloyin unearths surprising truths about many African countries' colonial heritage and tells the story of the continent's struggles with democracy through seven dictatorships. With biting wit, he takes on the phenomenon of the white savior complex and brings to light the damage caused by charity campaigns of the past decades, revisiting such cultural touchstones as the KONY 2012 film. Entering into the rivalries that energize the continent, Faloyin engages in the heated debate over which West African country makes the best jollof rice and describes the strange, incongruent beauty of the African Cup of Nations. With an eye toward the future promise of the continent, he explores the youth-led cultural and political movements that are defining and reimagining Africa on their own terms.

The stories Faloyin shares are by turns joyful and enraging; proud and optimistic for the future even while they unequivocally confront the obstacles systematically set in place by former colonial powers. Brimming with humor and wit, filled with political insights, and, above all, infused with a deep love for the region, Africa Is Not a Country celebrates the energy and particularity of the continent's different cultures and communities, treating Africa with the respect it deserves.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Will Bunch, the epic untold story of college--the great political and cultural fault line of American life

Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction "This book is simply terrific." --Heather Cox Richardson "Ambitious and engrossing." --New York Times Book Review "A must-read." --Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains

Today there are two Americas, separate and unequal, one educated and one not. And these two tribes--the resentful "non-college" crowd and their diploma-bearing yet increasingly disillusioned adversaries--seem on the brink of a civil war. The strongest determinant of whether a voter was likely to support Donald Trump in 2016 was whether or not they attended college, and the degree of loathing they reported feeling toward the so-called "knowledge economy" of clustered, educated elites. Somewhere in the winding last half-century of the United States, the quest for a college diploma devolved from being proof of America's commitment to learning, science, and social mobility into a kind of Hunger Games contest to the death. That quest has infuriated both the millions who got shut out and millions who got into deep debt to stay afloat.

In After the Ivory Tower Falls, award-winning journalist Will Bunch embarks on a deeply reported journey to the heart of the American Dream. That journey begins in Gambier, Ohio, home to affluent, liberal Kenyon College, a tiny speck of Democratic blue amidst the vast red swath of white, post-industrial, rural midwestern America. To understand "the college question," there is no better entry point than Gambier, where a world-class institution caters to elite students amidst a sea of economic despair.

From there, Bunch traces the history of college in the U.S., from the landmark GI Bill through the culture wars of the 60's and 70's, which found their start on college campuses. We see how resentment of college-educated elites morphed into a rejection of knowledge itself--and how the explosion in student loan debt fueled major social movements like Occupy Wall Street. Bunch then takes a question we need to ask all over again--what, and who, is college even for?--and pushes it into the 21st century by proposing a new model that works for all Americans.

The sum total is a stunning work of journalism, one that lays bare the root of our political, cultural, and economic division--and charts a path forward for America.

A panoramic view of global history from the end of World War Two to the dawn of the new millennium, and a portrait of an age of unprecedented transformation.

In this ambitious, groundbreaking, and sweeping work, Jonathan Sperber guides readers through six decades of global history, from the end of World War Two to the onset of the new millennium. As Sperber's immersive and propulsive book reveals, the defining quality of these decades involved the rising and unstoppable flow of people, goods, capital, and ideas across boundaries, continents, and oceans, creating prosperity in some parts of the world, destitution in others, increasing a sense of collective responsibility while also reinforcing nationalism and xenophobia. It was an age of transformation in every realm of human existence: from relations with nature to relations between and among nations, superpowers to emerging states; from the forms of production to the foundations of religious faith. These changes took place on an unprecedentedly global scale. The world both developed and contracted. Most of all, it became interconnected.

To make sense of it, Sperber illuminates the central trends and crucial developments across a wide variety of topics, adopting a chronology that divides the era into three distinct periods: the postwar, from 1945 through 1966, which retained many elements of period of world wars; the upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, when the pillars of the postwar world were undermined; and the two decades at the end of the millennium, when new structures were developed, structures that form the basis of today's world, even as the iconic World Trade Center was reduced by terrorism to rubble. The Age of Interconnection is a clear-eyed portrait of an age of blinding change.

An uplifting look at how organizers in the past have successfully leveraged crises into emancipatory politics, and a plea for continued progressive movement building in our tumultuous social climate

From the climate apocalypse and COVID-19 to double-digit unemployment to Donald Trump and the rise of far-right white nationalists--disasters are everywhere we look.

While these disasters often leave us feeling hopeless and withdrawn, scholar Alex Zamalin argues that pessimism cannot be the only response. Silence and inaction only perpetuate mass suffering and inequality. Instead, All Is Not Lost suggests that following every crisis emerges new political opportunity for changing our politics and everyday lives.

Blending intellectual history, biography, and political critique, Zamalin offers 20 specific lessons for our present moment, turning to moments in history to demonstrate how various figures in the past have successfully leveraged struggles into sources of political action and freedom. The lessons--on how to resist, organize, treat others, think politically, memorialize, dream, write, occupy, build, and act--all build toward one truth: though disaster is something we cannot prevent from arriving, we can control how we confront it and what we build in its place. Using examples from the 17th century to the present, All Is Not Lost reminds readers to not back down in the face of crisis and offers radical lessons of continued resistance and movement building to create a successful progressive coalition.

Based on the popular Wall Street Journal column, Anatomy of a Song captures the stories behind 45 influential rock, R&B, and pop hits through oral-history interviews with the artists who wrote and recorded them--including Keith Richards on Street Fighting Man, Rod Stewart on Maggie May, and more

Writer and music historian Marc Myers brings to life five decades of music in Anatomy of a Song, based on the popular ongoing Wall Street Journal column, through oral histories of forty-five transformative songs woven from interviews with the artists who created them.

Taking readers inside the making of a hit, Anatomy of a Song includes Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz," Rod Stewart's "Maggie May," and Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time." Joni Mitchell remembers living in a cave on Crete with the "mean old daddy" who inspired her 1971 hit "Carey," while Elvis Costello talks about writing "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" on a train to Liverpool. Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Smokey Robinson, Grace Slick, Mavis Staples, Steven Tyler, the Clash, Merle Haggard, Bonnie Raitt, Debbie Harry, and many other leading artists reveal the inspirations, struggles, and techniques behind their influential works. Covering the history of rock, R&B, country, disco, soul, reggae and pop, Anatomy of a Song is a love letter to the songs that have defined several generations of listeners.

Twenty years ago, when John McPhee began his journeys back and forth across the United States, he planned to describe a cross-section of North America at about the fortieth parallel and, in the process, come to an understanding not only of the science but of the style of the geologists he traveled with. Like the terrain it covers, "Annals of the Former World" tells a many-layered tale, and the reader may choose one of many paths through it, guided by twenty-five new maps and the "Narrative Table of Contents" (an essay outlining the history and structure of the project). Read sequentially, the book is an organic succession of set pieces, flashbacks, biographical sketches, and histories of the human and lithic kind; approached systematically, it can be a North American geology primer, an exploration of plate tectonics, or a study of geologic time and the development of the time scale.

"Read this book to connect with your highest self."
--Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and Quiet

"We need more awe in our lives, and Dacher Keltner has written the definitive book on where to find it."
--Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

"Awe is awesome in both senses: a superb analysis of an emotion that is strongly felt but poorly understood, with a showcase of examples that remind us of what is worthy of our awe."
--Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and Rationality

From a foremost expert on the science of emotions and consultant to Pixar's Inside Out, a groundbreaking and essential exploration into the history, science, and greater understanding of awe

Awe is mysterious. How do we begin to quantify the goose bumps we feel when we see the Grand Canyon, or the utter amazement when we watch a child walk for the first time? How do you put into words the collective effervescence of standing in a crowd and singing in unison, or the wonder you feel while gazing at centuries-old works of art? Up until fifteen years ago, there was no science of awe, the feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that transcend our understanding of the world. Scientists were studying emotions like fear and disgust, emotions that seemed essential to human survival. Revolutionary thinking, though, has brought into focus how, through the span of evolution, we've met our most basic needs socially. We've survived thanks to our capacities to cooperate, form communities, and create culture that strengthens our sense of shared identity--actions that are sparked and spurred by awe.

In Awe, Dacher Keltner presents a radical investigation and deeply personal inquiry into this elusive emotion. Revealing new research into how awe transforms our brains and bodies, alongside an examination of awe across history, culture, and within his own life during a period of grief, Keltner shows us how cultivating awe in our everyday life leads us to appreciate what is most humane in our human nature. And during a moment in which our world feels more divided than ever before, and more imperiled by crises of different kinds, we are greatly in need of awe. If we open our minds, it is awe that sharpens our reasoning and orients us toward big ideas and new insights, that cools our immune system's inflammation response and strengthens our bodies. It is awe that activates our inclination to share and create strong networks, to take actions that are good for the natural and social world around us. It is awe that transforms who we are, that inspires the creation of art, music, and religion. At turns radical and profound, brimming with enlightening and practical insights, Awe is our field guide, from not only one of the leading voices on the subject but a fellow seeker of awe in his own right, for how to place awe as a vital force within our lives.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year

"An instant sports classic." --New York Post * "Stellar." --The Wall Street Journal * "A true masterwork...880 pages of sheer baseball bliss." --BookPage (starred review) * "This is a remarkable achievement." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will.

Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious, ? The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski. In the book's introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator George F. Will marvels, "Posnanski must already have lived more than two hundred years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?"

Baseball's legends come alive in these pages, which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game's all-time greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers, unfairly forgotten All-Stars, talents of today, and more. He doesn't rely just on records and statistics--he lovingly retraces players' origins, illuminates their characters, and places their accomplishments in the context of baseball's past and present. Just how good a pitcher is Clayton Kershaw in the 21st-century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe Ruth's? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history?

No compendium of baseball's legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro Leagues, men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor and draws upon the deep troves of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O'Neil to illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe Williams; outfielders Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, and Cool Papa Bell; first baseman Buck Leonard; shortstop Pop Lloyd; catcher Josh Gibson; and many, many more.

The Baseball 100 treats readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, it is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.

We live in enormously polarized times. From politics to race, religion, gender, and class, division runs rampant. In 2020, 40 percent of each political party said that supporters of the opposing party were "downright evil." In 2019, hate crimes reached a ten-year high in the United States. One in five Americans suffers from chronic loneliness, with teenagers and young adults at increasing risk. Social ties at work, at school, and in our communities have frayed. How did we become so alienated? Why is our sense of belonging so undermined? What if there were a set of science-backed techniques for navigating modern social life that could help us overcome our differences, create empathy, and forge lasting connections even across divides? What if there were a useful set of takeaways for managers and educators of all stripes to create connection even during challenging times?

In Belonging, Stanford University professor Geoffrey L. Cohen applies his and others' groundbreaking research to the myriad problems of communal existence and offers concrete solutions for improving daily life at work, in school, in our homes, and in our communities. We all feel a deep need to belong, but most of us don't fully appreciate that need in others. Often inadvertently, we behave in ways that threaten others' sense of belonging. Yet small acts that establish connection, brief activities such as reflecting on our core values, and a suite of practices that Cohen defines as "situation-crafting" have been shown to lessen political polarization, improve motivation and performance in school and work, combat racism in our communities, enhance health and well-being, and unleash the potential in ourselves and in our relationships. Belonging is essential for managers, educators, parents, administrators, caregivers, and everyone who wants those around them to thrive.

A New York Times Bestseller

Less a mystery unsolved than a secret well kept...

Using new technology, recently discovered documents and sophisticated investigative techniques, an international team--led by an obsessed retired FBI agent--has finally solved the mystery that has haunted generations since World War II: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family? And why?

Over thirty million people have read The Diary of a Young Girl, the journal teen-aged Anne Frank kept while living in an attic with her family and four other people in Amsterdam during World War II, until the Nazis arrested them and sent them to a concentration camp. But despite the many works--journalism, books, plays and novels--devoted to Anne's story, none has ever conclusively explained how these eight people managed to live in hiding undetected for over two years--and who or what finally brought the Nazis to their door.

With painstaking care, retired FBI agent Vincent Pankoke and a team of indefatigable investigators pored over tens of thousands of pages of documents--some never before seen--and interviewed scores of descendants of people familiar with the Franks. Utilizing methods developed by the FBI, the Cold Case Team painstakingly pieced together the months leading to the infamous arrest--and came to a shocking conclusion.

The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation is the riveting story of their mission. Rosemary Sullivan introduces us to the investigators, explains the behavior of both the captives and their captors and profiles a group of suspects. All the while, she vividly brings to life wartime Amsterdam: a place where no matter how wealthy, educated, or careful you were, you never knew whom you could trust.