Chicago is a world-class city, but it is also a city in crisis. Crime is up, schools have repeatedly shut down due to conflict between City Hall and the powerful teachers' union, and COVID-19 only deepened the entrenched poverty, institutional racism, and endless tug of war between the city's haves and have nots. For four years, the person at the center of this storm was Lori Lightfoot.

In this “monumental and impressive” biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president’s aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot provides “the best biography of Ronald Reagan to date” (Robert Mann).

In The Price of Power, award-winning journalist Michael Tackett pulls back the curtain on one of the most influential figures to ever set foot in the American Senate, offering you an intimate, personal view of his life and career. Drawing on thousands of pages of archival materials, letters, and more than 100 interviews with associates, colleagues, and McConnell himself, Tackett pieces together the story of McConnell’s early life, his formative battle with polio as a young child, and details his forty-plus-year career as one of the Senate’s most impactful leaders.

In First Son, Keith Koeneman chronicles the sometimes Shakespearean, sometimes Machiavellian life of an American political legend. Making deft use of unprecedented access to key players in the Daley administration, as well as Chicago's business and cultural leaders, Koeneman draws on more than one hundred interviews to tell an up-close, insider story of political triumph and personal evolution.

From the best-selling author of The Prince of Providence comes a revelatory biography of Rocky Marciano, the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.The son of poor Italian immigrants, with short arms and stubby legs, Rocky Marciano accomplished a feat that eluded legendary heavyweight champions like Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali, and Mike Tyson: He never lost a professional fight. His record was a perfect 49-0.

In 2002, Bill Zehme landed one of the most coveted assignments for a magazine writer: an interview with Johnny Carson—the only one he’d granted since retiring from hosting The Tonight Show a decade earlier. Zehme was tapped for the Esquire feature story thanks to his years of legendary celebrity profiles, and the resulting piece portrayed Carson as more human being than showbiz legend. Shortly after Carson’s death in 2005 and urged on by many of those closest to Carson, Zehme signed a contract to do an expansive biography.

This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart. It follows him from the Hill Country to New Deal Washington, from his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, at age 31, of the national power for which he hungered.

Though today it can seem as if all American culture comes out of New York and Los Angeles, much of what defined the nation as it grew into a superpower was produced in Chicago. Before air travel overtook trains, nearly every coast-to-coast journey included a stop there, and this flow of people and commodities made it America’s central clearinghouse, laboratory, and factory.

In the second half of the tenth century, Byzantium embarked on a series of spectacular conquests. By the early eleventh century, the empire was the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. Yet this imperial project came to a crashing collapse fifty years later, when political disunity, fiscal mismanagement, and defeat at the hands of the Seljuks and the Normans brought an end to Byzantine hegemony. By 1081, Byzantium's very existence was threatened.

Calvin Trillin has reported serious pieces across America for The New Yorker, covered the civil rights movement in the South for Time, and written comic verse for The Nation. But one of his favorite subjects over the years—a superb fit for his unique combination of reportage and humor—has been his own professional environment: the American press.

In The Chile Project, Sebastian Edwards tells the story of how the neoliberal economic model came to an end in 2021, when Gabriel Boric was elected president, vowing that "If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave." More than a story about one Latin American country, The Chile Project is a behind-the-scenes history of the spread and consequences of the free-market thinking that dominated economic policymaking around the world in the second half of the twentieth century—but is now on the retreat.

On June 6, 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower addressed the thousands of American troops preparing to invade Normandy, exhorting them to embrace the “Great Crusade” they faced. Then, in a fleeting moment alone, he drafted a resignation letter in case the invasion failed. In The Light of Battle, Michel Paradis, acclaimed author of Last Mission to Tokyo, paints a vivid portrait of Dwight Eisenhower as he learns to navigate the crosscurrents of diplomacy, politics, strategy, family, and fame with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance.

Behind every great revolution is a vision, and behind perhaps the greatest revolution of our time, personal computing, is the vision of J.C.R. Licklider. In a simultaneously compelling personal narrative and comprehensive historical exposition, Waldrop tells the story of the man who not only instigated the work that led to the internet, but also shifted our understanding of what computers were and could be.

Established in 1918–19, in the wake of Germany’s catastrophic defeat in the First World War and the revolution that followed swiftly on its heels, the Weimar Republic ushered in widespread social reform, a radical cultural flowering and the most democratic conditions the German people had ever known. The Weimar Years is a vivid narrative of a dramatic period in German history. Year by year, from 1918 to 1933, Frank McDonough covers the major events in both domestic and foreign policy and the personalities who shaped them, together with developments in music, art, theatre and literature.

Algren’s classic 1947 short story collection is the pure vein Algren would mine for all his subsequent novels and stories. The stories in this collection are literary triumphs that “don’t fade away.” Among the stories included here are “A Bottle of Milk for Mother”, about a Chicago youth being cornered for a murder, and “The Face on the Barrome Floor”, in which a legless man pummels another man nearly to death - the seeds that would grow into the novel Never Come Morning.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

Christmas is the single biggest annual event on the planet, a time for merry-making, over-indulgence, peace, goodwill, and the occasional family row. It’s as comfortable and familiar as a pair of old shoes and yet still glittery and exciting. But what do you really know about it? It’s stuffed full of traditions and rituals that most of us have been observing all our lives without having the slightest idea of where they come from.

The Roman gladiator has long been a figure of fascination. Portrayed frequently in fine art and popular culture alike, the gladiator is both a real part of history and a legend of a romanticized past. We know that these men entertained Roman audiences by fighting in dangerous and often deadly games. But who were the gladiators? What were their lives like? And why do they continue to have such a strong hold on our imagination, centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire?

Toys and games have long been a part of childhood, but the 20th century saw the rise of an entire industry devoted to the business of play, one that would constantly evolve over the years. In the six lectures of The History of Toys, 1900 to the Present, consultant and toy industry expert Chris Byrne—also known as The Toy Guy®—will take you on a journey through the world of toys from the Edwardian era to our current moment. Beginning with the birth of the mass-market toy industry, you’ll trace the many transformations of toys and our shifting theories of play and childhood development.

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.

Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.

Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....

Across six revealing lectures, Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson will introduce you to one of the 20th century’s most fascinating and divisive writers in Flannery O’Connor and the Scandal of Faith. Beginning with an overview of her brief but remarkable life, Professor Wilson will then take you through an exploration of themes in O’Connor’s work and the hallmarks of her literary style. You’ll get a clearer picture of O’Connor’s historical and geographical context while digging into how her stories can transcend time and place.

In The Pagan World: Ancient Religions Before Christianity, you will meet the fascinating, ancient polytheistic peoples of the Mediterranean and beyond, their many gods and goddesses, and their public and private worship practices, as you come to appreciate the foundational role religion played in their lives. Professor Hans-Friedrich Mueller, of Union College in Schenectady, New York, makes this ancient world come alive in 24 lectures with captivating stories of intrigue, artifacts, illustrations, and detailed descriptions from primary sources of intriguing personalities.

The Roman Empire: From Augustus to the Fall of Rome traces the breathtaking history from the empire’s foundation by Augustus to its Golden Age in the 2nd century CE through a series of ever-worsening crises until its ultimate disintegration. Taught by acclaimed Professor Gregory S. Aldrete of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, these 24 captivating lectures offer you the chance to experience this story like never before, incorporating the latest historical insights that challenge our previous notions of Rome’s decline.