Politics and Prose Presents

A devastating critique of our failure to prepare students for citizenship—and a roadmap to a better way. America’s Founders placed great confidence in schools, which they believed would teach young people to understand our political system and to engage in reasoned political debate as adults. Yet today, when virtually all Americans graduate from high school, we remain stunningly ignorant of histor...

In New York Times bestselling author Lindy West’s ambitious memoir, she brings readers along on an uproarious cross-country road trip as she unpacks her last few tumultuous years, rediscovers herself, and reinvents her marriage in the process.    Through Shrill—the book and then the Hulu series—Lindy West became an inspiration. To this day she is stopped on the street and hailed as a beacon of emp...

Germany once felt the world's wrath for crimes committed during the Nazi regime. More recently, it received extravagant praise for facing up to the atrocities. The country now boasts of new Jewish museums, Holocaust memorials, restored synagogues, and classroom lessons designed to honor its Jewish heritage and teach tolerance. This effort was led not by politicians or historians, but by local...

An accessible and entertaining biography of our nation’s greatest public servant and original political maverick John Quincy Adams, from the bassist of the Grammy-nominated band the Avett Brothers. During the tumultuous period between the era of the Founding Fathers and the disunion of the Civil War, John Quincy Adams was the man standing in the breach. After an unsuccessful presidential reelectio...

All over the world, people are questioning the separation of powers. They want a strong man, able to do what must be done. But James Madison was right to say this: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” In...

A sweeping chronicle placing race at the center of Native American U.S. history, from the award-winning author of  This Land Is Their Land. When the colonial era began, Europeans did not consider themselves as “Whites,” and Native Americans did not think of themselves as “Indians.” Yet as a genocidal struggle for America unfolded over the course of generations, all that changed. Euro-Americans dev...

Traces the rise of Black empowerment politics in the United States and Africa  On a cold January day in 1964, civil rights minister turned entrepreneur Rev. Leon Howard Sullivan declared to a group of supporters gathered to witness the launch of Sullivan's latest venture, Opportunities Industrialization Centers, Inc., "The day has come when we must do more than protest--we must now also P...

We must speak the word  ancestor . We must call their names. We must see them at work. The hand of ancestors in our affairs is undeniable. They exist all around us, motivating individuals and cultures. And yet, the United States is a nation that does not often use the word  ancestor . But ancestors are as active here as they are in cultures that center ancestral presence--maybe more so. By failing...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Part memoir, part cultural criticism,  Stock Photo  mines the significance of the stock photo in our everyday lives, from the ads and websites we browse, to the menus and memes that we consume. Through interviews with stock photography experts, photographers, models, consumers, and other stak...

The first major biography of Jeannette Rankin, a groundbreaking suffragist, activist, and the first American woman to hold federal office. “Few members of Congress have ever stood more alone while being true to a higher honor and loyalty.” —President John F. Kennedy on Jeannette Rankin Born on a Montana ranch in 1880, Jeannette Rankin knew how to ride a horse, make a fire, and read the sky for wea...

A beloved schoolteacher chronicles the meteoric rise of his most dazzling student in this ambitious, big-hearted work of literary fiction, perfect for fans of Nathan Hill, Susan Choi, and Tess Gunty.   Mr. Keating is an extraordinary teacher: brilliant, dedicated, and possibly a few pages ahead in a book no one else is reading.  He’s a magician able to enchant fourteen-year-olds into a love of wri...

An urgent rethinking of the Western approach to mental health, which treats the symptoms rather than the exploitative systems causing our distress—by a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Medical School physician-anthropologist—offering lessons from the rest of the world. What if the mainstay of mental health care involved cancelling onerous debt, giving poor people free housing, and paying reparations to...

A moving and inspiring memoir from a former Obama White House staffer, about his rural Maryland family’s untold history, the merger of three churches—one Black, two white—and how a radical embrace of community became their salvation, and his. Jason G. Green  was raised on fellowship—literally. Fellowship Lane, the once unpaved road he grew up on, served as a spiritual metaphor throughout his comin...

In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal. Over the past decade, Camonghne Felix has been at the center of American politics, working in strategy, communications, and as a speechwriter. Throughout it all, she has maintained her unwavering belief in language’s foundational revolutionary potential, outside...

"A powerful story of faith, perseverance, and resilience."  —  Anthony Fauci, M.D., #1 New York Times bestselling author and former Director of the NIAID Faith Over Fear  isn’t just Michael Leach’s story; it’s yours too. Each decision leads to victory or regret. What will you choose? Michael Leach—the first-ever Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer of the White House, former League Of...

From the eighteenth century to the twenty–first, the surprising history and inspiring contemporary panorama of urban gardening: nurturing health, hope, and community. This manifesto for the next food revolution by acclaimed environmental historian Kate Brown speaks to nature lovers, food activists, social–justice warriors, urban planners, WOOFers, and the climate–concerned. Ever since wage labor i...

An extraordinary chronicle of youth that evokes the paradoxes of modern Africa—complex, contradictory, and full of conflict, tragedy, and joy.  Patrice Nganang, the acclaimed author of  Dog Days ,  Mount Pleasant , and, most recently,  A Trail of Crab Tracks , which was a 2022  New Yorker  Book of the Year, writes about his vibrant, animated youth in Cameroon, a period of upheaval and change in th...

A page-turning suspense debut about a woman infamous for escaping a cult as a teenager, whose future is threatened when dangerous secrets come back to haunt her—perfect for fans of Jessica Knoll and The Girls. Lucy Golden is a true-crime icon, infamous for the murder she committed while escaping a California cult twenty years ago. But as everyone in Los Angeles knows, fame is fleeting, and Lucy an...

The early days and inexorable rise of the young Bernie Sanders, the one-of-a-kind visionary who changed American politics forever, told by a son of the People’s Republic of Burlington, Vermont. In this symphonic origin story of an era-defining politician,  Dan Chiasson , a Burlington native who had a ringside seat to Bernie Sanders’s development, reconstructs the rise of an American icon. With in-...

An intimate and captivating exploration of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s artistic journey, revealing how the creator of the Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights found his unique voice through bold collaborations, redefining the world of musical theater. How did Lin-Manuel Miranda, the sweet, sensitive son of Puerto Rican parents from an immigrant neighborhood in Manhattan, rise to become the preem...

An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly humorous debut novel,  Best Offer Wins , the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?  Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Mi...

“You’re in for a great ride of twists and turns. A novel for our time. Irresistible.” – Odile Hellier, author of Village Voices Sherry McManus, a New York photographer of musicians in concert, has been around the block in love. As she begins a relationship with Thomas G. Paine, she asks herself: Is the pursuit of happiness worth the risk? Tom, a formerly best-selling author who hasn’t published a...

From  New York Times  reporter Jazmine Ulloa, a sweeping human history of El Paso, revealing violence, power, and privilege at play in America's most famous border town. El Paso has been called the “Ellis Island” of America’s southern border, a mountain pass cum border town cum bifurcated metropolis where past meets future, and disadvantage meets opportunity, or so the promise goes El Paso  is...

Known for such brilliant historical novels as  Those Who Save Us  and  The Lost Family , A Mighty Blaze co-founder and  New York Times  bestselling author Jenna Blum now offers a contemporary, suspenseful novel about love, loss, and revenge in the world of books. Simone “Sam” Vetiver is a mid-career novelist finishing a lukewarm publicity tour while facing a deadline for a new book on which she’s...

A gripping psychological thriller,  Best Boy  teeters on the knife-edge of memory and identity when the arrival of a shocking letter threatens the carefully constructed life of a woman desperate to outrun her past. Viveca Stevenson has it all: a handsome and successful husband, an adorable ten-year-old son, and a coastal dream house in Greenwich, Connecticut. She has a solid group of girlfriends a...