Showing results by publisher "Basic Books" in Politics & Social Sciences

The New York Times bestselling author of The Case for Trump explains the decline and fall of the once cherished idea of American citizenship. Human history is full of the stories of peasants, subjects, and tribes. Yet the concept of the “citizen” is historically rare—and was among...

A leading astronomer and gifted teacher takes readers on a wondrous tour of how science confronts the big questions—about the universe’s origins, destiny, and fundamental nature—and how it contends with the limits of our knowledge Humans have learned a lot about the world around us and the...

In the updated edition of this “tour de force” (National Review), the leader of the National Conservatism movement argues that nationalism is the only realistic safeguard of liberty in the world today Nationalism is the issue of our age. From Donald Trump’s “America First” politics to...

A radical new approach to education for learners of any age How much information is forgotten almost immediately after it is taught? How many students graduate from high school unprepared for careers where lifelong learning is essential to succeed? These problems stem from an educational system...

This dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King transforms our understanding of the twentieth century’s most iconic African American leaders. "A fascinating story, full of subtle twists and turns." —Washington Post To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent...

Storytelling, a tradition that built human civilization, may soon destroy it Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an expert on the science of stories, argues that there is a dark side to...

A cultural history of the goddess of love, from a New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian. Aphrodite was said to have been born from the sea, rising out of a froth of white foam. But long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of this voluptuous blonde, she existed as an early spirit...

From a preeminent legal scholar, a “fascinating” and “masterful” (Wall Street Journal) history of the American Constitution's formative decades When the US Constitution won popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of thirty years of passionate argument over the nature of...

A kaleidoscopic narrative history of 1963, the pivotal moment in America’s long civil rights movement—the year of the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and the assassinations of Medgar Evers and John F. Kennedy In Freedom Season, acclaimed...

A new biography of the intellectual father of Southern secession -- the man who set the scene for the Civil War, and whose political legacy still shapes America today. John C. Calhoun is among the most notorious and enigmatic figures in American political history. First elected to Congress in...

From America’s foremost constitutional scholar, the definitive history of how the ideal of birth equality reshaped the American Constitution, from antebellum debates over slavery and secession, to the Civil War and emancipation, to women’s suffrage In 1840, millions of Black Americans...

From a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, a biography of the famed poet, courtier, and colonizer, showing how he laid the foundations of the English Empire Sir Walter Ralegh was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. She showered him with estates and political appointments. He envisioned her becoming...

In this "bracingly iconoclastic” book (New York Times Book Review), a renowned economics scholar breaks down the fight to end global poverty and the rights that poor individuals have had taken away for generations. In The Tyranny of Experts, renowned economist William Easterly examines our...

The provocative bestseller explaining the decline of power in the twenty-first century -- in government, business, and beyond. br> Power is shifting -- from large, stable armies to loose bands of insurgents, from corporate leviathans to nimble start-ups, and from presidential palaces to public...

Winner of the 2021 Hayek Book Prize A leading conservative intellectual defends charter schools against the teachers' unions, politicians, and liberal educators who threaten to dismantle their success. The black-white educational achievement gap -- so much discussed for so many years -- has...

A preeminent physicist unveils a field-defining theory of the origins and purpose of life. Why are we alive? Most things in the universe aren't. And everything that is alive traces back to things that, puzzlingly, weren't. For centuries, the scientific question of life's origins has confounded...

An acclaimed portrait of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the origins of modern conservatism and liberalism In The Great Debate, Yuval Levin explores the roots of the left/right political divide in America by examining the views of the men who best represented each side at its origin: Edmund...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY An "important, deeply affecting—and regrettably relevant" (New York Times) chronicle of a sinister idea of freedom: white Americans’ freedom to oppress others and their fight against the government that got in their way. American freedom is typically...

From top experts in the field, the definitive guide to grant-writing Written by two expert authors who have won secured millions of dollars in government and foundation grants, The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need is the classic book on grant seeking, providing a comprehensive...

From the author of Turning to Stone, a mediation on the stories that rock can tell us about the deep history of our planet To many of us, the Earth’s crust is a relic of ancient, unknowable history. But to a geologist, the Earth’s crust, and every stone within it, is a richly illustrated...