For 16 years, Angela Merkel bore the governmental responsibility for Germany, leading the country through numerous crises and shaping German and international politics and society with her actions and attitude. But Angela Merkel was not born a Chancellor. In her memoirs, co-written with her long-standing political advisor Beate Baumann, she looks back on her life in two German states—35 years in the GDR (German Democratic Republic), 35 years in reunified Germany.

József Debreczeni, a prolific Hungarian-language journalist and poet, arrived in Auschwitz in 1944; had he been selected to go “left,” his life expectancy would have been approximately forty-five minutes. One of the “lucky” ones, he was sent to the “right,” which led to twelve horrifying months of incarceration and slave labor in a series of camps, ending in the “Cold Crematorium”—the so-called hospital of the forced labor camp Dörnhau, where prisoners too weak to work awaited execution.

At the end of the Nuremberg trials in 1946, some of the greatest war criminals in history were sentenced to death, but hundreds of thousands of Nazi murderers and collaborators remained at large. The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the legacy of the Holocaust was in danger of being forgotten. In The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather brings to life the heroic story of Fritz Bauer who survived the Nazis as a gay Jewish man to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide.

Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house. Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

In a sleepy German village, Allina Strauss’s life seems idyllic: she works at her uncle’s bookshop, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it's 1939, Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, and Allina’s family hides a terrifying secret—her birth mother was Jewish, making her a Mischling. One fateful night after losing everyone she loves, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at a state-run baby factory called Hochland Home. There, she becomes both witness and participant to the horrors of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program.

In Shock is a riveting first-hand account from a young critical care physician, who in the passage of a moment is transfigured into a dying patient. This transposition, coincidentally timed at the end of her medical training, instantly lays bare the vast chasm between the conventional practice of medicine and the stark reality of the prostrate patient.

In the late 1980s on the Jersey shore, Jane Wong watches her mother shake ants from an MSG bin behind the family’s Chinese restaurant. She is a hungry daughter frying crab rangoon for lunch, a child sneaking naps on bags of rice, a playful sister scheming to trap her brother in the freezer before he traps her first. She is part of a family staking their claim to the American dream, even as this dream crumbles. Beneath Atlantic City’s promise lies her father’s gambling addiction, an addiction that causes him to disappear for days and ultimately leads to the loss of the restaurant.

Wright Thompson’s family farm in Mississippi is 23 miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he had to leave the state for college before he learned the first thing about it. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are widely unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing.

On December 29, 1890, American troops opened fire with howitzers on hundreds of unarmed Lakota Sioux men, women, and children near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing nearly 300 Sioux. As acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson shows in Wounded Knee, the massacre grew out of a set of political forces all too familiar to us today: fierce partisanship, heated political rhetoric, and an irresponsible, profit-driven media.

Born from young King Henry’s first marriage, his elder daughter, Princess Mary, is raised to be queen once it becomes clear that her mother, Katherine of Aragon, will bear no more children. However, Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn has a devastating influence on the young princess’s future when, determined to sire a male heir, he marries Anne, has his marriage to Katherine declared unlawful, brands Mary illegitimate, and banishes them both from the royal court.

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.

Why have history's greatest minds - from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson along with today's top performers, from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities - embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers a daily devotional of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations.

The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.

While most of us are familiar with the Underground Railroad, there was much more to the movement than helping individuals escape their bondage. In the eight lectures of The Abolitionists, Professor Kellie Carter Jackson of Wellesley College will bring you along as she traces the history of the fight to end slavery in America, from its relatively quiet origins to the turning point at Harper’s Ferry to the Civil War.

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.

Muhammad Ali, never afraid to express himself loudly and boldly, stays true to form in Ali in Me, an eight-part audio series that explores his life and legacy, guided by his own words through never-before-heard audio recordings. Hosted by Muhammad’s widow, Lonnie Ali, and his close friend, award-winning broadcaster John Ramsey, Ali in Me goes beyond the boxing ring to delve deeply into the extraordinary life and lasting contributions The Champ made to individuals around the world.

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the 20th century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Now available for the first time in unabridged audio, the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime is brought to life by acclaimed narrator Scott Brick.

The 10 enlightening (and often humorous) lectures of Medieval Myths and Mysteries will show you how far from the “dark” times of legend these centuries were. Uncover the facts about the Knights Templar. Reveal the truth behind the tales of legendary creatures like the Questing Beast and the unicorn. Trace the events of the Black Death and the ways it altered the world in its wake, and much more. With Professor Armstrong, you will dig deep into the ways that later generations reshaped the narrative of the medieval years and perpetuated the myths.

Over the next five years, millions of more Americans are expected to take Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which are rapidly being recognized as the miracle drugs of this century. If you’re not on them, you’ll probably know someone who is. What are the implications of the widespread use of these drugs, both on our bodies and our society? In this show, you’ll meet people across America who are either taking the jab or thinking about it, and the shocking intentional and unintentional results they are seeing.

Based on seven years of ground-breaking research and hundreds of interviews, I Thought It Was Just Me shines a long-overdue light on an important truth: Our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity. Our vulnerabilities are not weaknesses; they are powerful reminders to keep our hearts and minds open to the reality that we're all in this together.

In 1999, Emmon Bodfish was murdered in his home in the wealthy enclave of Orinda, California, just east of San Francisco. For the young crime-scene analyst Paul Holes, it quickly became the most bizarre and surprising case of his storied career. It was immediately clear how Emmon had died: by being hit over the head with a heavy object. What wasn’t clear was who did it and why.

Considered one of the most prolific serial killers in Michigan's history, John Eric Armstrong is believed to have attacked at least 10 people in Detroit between summer 1999 and spring 2000, killing five and forever changing the lives of five others. But his numbers beyond Detroit may be even more deadly: With his April 2000 arrest on Michigan Avenue, one of Detroit's thriving areas of prostitution, Armstrong confessed to numerous other killings around the country and world from serving in the Navy aboard the USS Nimitz in the 1990s.

From the first call to a Portland detective about a missing woman to the police’s growing certainty that she had been murdered, from the heroic efforts to locate the body to the flight from Maine of their chief suspect, and from the painstaking work of collecting evidence and building a case to the struggles over jurisdictional questions to the twists and turns of the eventual trial, Finding Amy is a dramatic story of brutal murder and exemplary police work with the human beings and emotion behind the shield.

In 1994, an aspiring young cold-case investigator in California’s East Bay, Paul Holes, puts aside trying to solve the Golden State Killer case as he waits for science to catch up. Paul returns to an old file cabinet at the back of the forensic lab to look for another cold case he can work—something with DNA. He finds one. The 1978 murder of a married mother who went for a morning jog in a nearby park. The original investigators believed that a serial killer named Phillip Hughes was responsible; they just couldn’t prove it.

In broad daylight, Herbert Mullin calmly placed a rifle on the roof of his car, took aim at Fred Perez, and pulled the trigger without flinching. The fatal shot rang out, causing panic as a witness frantically called the police. Compelled by the voices in his head, Mullins believed that human sacrifice would prevent a massive earthquake from striking California. No one was safe. Over a span of four months, Mullins brutally killed men, women, children, and a priest, without any hint of remorse.

On May 16, 1922, a young man's body was found on a desolate road in Westchester County. The victim was penniless ex-sailor Clarence Peters. Walter Ward, the handsome scion of the family that owned the largest chain of bread factories in the country, confessed to the crime as an act of self-defense against a violent gang of "shadow men," blackmailers who extorted their victims' moral weaknesses. From the start, one question defined the investigation: What scandalous secret could lead Ward to murder?

Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world.

After an audacious assassination attempt on boss Daniel Kinahan's life, the Kinahan Cartel recruited an unprecedented number of killers to retaliate against their attackers, the Hutch gang. Kinahan Assassins is the compelling behind-the-scenes account of one man's thirst for vengeance and how it proved fatal for his organization. Kinahan Assassins has the stories of the men who killed for the cartel - including vulnerable drug addicts, a former British soldier, an MMA fighter and an invisible 'Mr Nobody' who acted as a cartel quartermaster - as well as those who gave them orders.

The chilling true crime account of a family’s gilded American dream that became a nightmare when a meticulously plotted kidnapping went horribly wrong. In the 1950s and 60s, the Coors beer dynasty reigned over the West, seemingly invincible. When rumblings about labor unions threatened to destabilize the family’s brewery, Adolph Coors, Jr., the septuagenarian president of the company, drew a hard line, refusing to budge. They had worked hard for what they had, and no one had a right to take it from them.

Serial killer Gary Heidnik's name will live on in infamy, and his home, 3520 North Marshall Street in Philadelphia, is a house tainted with the memory of unbelievable horrors. What police found there was an incredible nightmare made real. Four young women had been held captive - some for four months - half-naked and chained. They had been tortured, starved, and repeatedly raped. But more grotesque discoveries lay in the kitchen: human limbs frozen, a torso burned to cinders, an empty pot suspiciously scorched....

Absinthe, an elixir made of alcohol and herbs, is a booming business. Yet it is still an underground culture, associated with mystery, romance, and bohemian lifestyles, in keeping with its popularity among the writers, artists, and other ne'er-do-wells. First produced in eighteenth century, the spirit, known as "the Green Fairy," was banned worldwide by 1914 before the bans were gradually overturned beginning in 2005, the year Switzerland relegalized absinthe.

In Creekstone, Texas, a small, quiet suburb of Houston, football was king and David Temple was a prince. A former high school and college gridiron-star-turned-coach, he had a fairy-tale marriage to bright, vivacious Belinda Lucas, a teacher at the local high school who was so warm and popular her colleagues called her "The Sunshine Girl". The fairy tale ended savagely on January 11, 1999, when Belinda's lifeless body was discovered in a closet. Her skull had been shattered by a shotgun blast at close range. She was eight months pregnant.

In 1951, a mysterious old woman confronts Pilar Aguirre in the small border town of La Cienega, Texas. The old woman is sure Pilar stole her husband and, in a heated outburst, lays a curse on Pilar and her family. More than forty years later, Lulu Muñoz is dodging chaos at every turn: her troubled father’s moods, his rules, her secret life as singer in a punk band, but most of all her upcoming quinceañera. When her beloved grandmother passes away, Lulu finds herself drawn to the glamorous stranger who crashed the funeral and who lives alone and shunned on the edge of town.

“The Devil’s Playground” was anything south of the second canal to the men of Charlie Company’s 2nd Platoon—Two Charlie—during their 2009–2010 deployment to the Arghandab River Valley in Afghanistan. The valley had been a notorious hot spot throughout history, with the Russians unable to maintain a foothold in the 80s and Coalition forces now facing the same problem during Operation Enduring Freedom.

To a unique degree, Christopher Steele has been an eyewitness observer of modern Russian history. He was a British diplomat and intelligence professional in Moscow when the Soviet Union was collapsing. Steele was there when the putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev took place and when Boris Yeltsin took over the newly independent Russia. After Vladimir Putin came to power, Steele rose to become one of British government’s leading Russia experts and played a central role in the investigation into the Kremlin-ordered murder of Alexander Litvinenko.