Bøger udgivet af W. W. Norton & Company

In the 1960s and 1970s, an insurgent attack on traditional liberalism took shape in America. It was built on new ideals of citizen advocacy and the public interest. Environmentalists, social critics, and consumer advocates like Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, and Ralph Nader crusaded against what they saw as a misguided and often corrupt government. Drawing energy from civil rights protests and opposition to the Vietnam War, the new citizens' movement drew legions of followers and scored major victories. Citizen advocates disrupted government plans for urban highways and new hydroelectric dams and got Congress to pass tough legislation to protect clean air and clean water. They helped lead a revolution in safety that forced companies and governments to better protect consumers and workers from dangerous products and hazardous work conditions.And yet, in the process, citizen advocates also helped to undermine big government liberalism-the powerful alliance between government, business, and labor that dominated the United States politically in the decades following the New Deal and World War II. Public interest advocates exposed that alliance's secret bargains and unintended consequences. They showed how government power often was used to advance private interests rather than restrain them. In the process of attacking government for its failings and its dangers, the public interest movement struggled to replace traditional liberalism with a new approach to governing. The citizen critique of government power instead helped clear the way for their antagonists: Reagan-era conservatives seeking to slash regulations and enrich corporations.Public Citizens traces the history of the public interest movement and explores its tangled legacy, showing the ways in which American liberalism has been at war with itself. The book forces us to reckon with the challenges of regaining our faith in government's ability to advance the common good.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was the Benjamin Franklin of Europe, a "universal genius" who ranged across many fields and made breakthroughs in most of them. Leibniz invented calculus (independently from Isaac Newton), conceptualized the modern computer, and developed the famous thesis that the existing world is the best that God could have created.In The Best of All Possible Worlds, historian and Leibniz expert Michael Kempe takes us on a journey into the mind and inventions of a man whose contributions are perhaps without parallel in human history. Structured around seven crucial days in Leibniz's life, Kempe's account allows us to observe him in the act of thinking and creating, and gives us a deeper understanding of his broad-reaching intellectual endeavors. On October 29, 1675, we find him in Paris, diligently working from his bed amid a sea of notes, and committing the integral symbol-the basis of his calculus-to paper. On April 17, 1703, Leibniz is in Berlin, writing a letter reporting that a Jesuit priest living in China has discovered how to use Leibniz's binary number system to decipher an ancient Chinese system of writing. One day in August 1714, Leibniz enjoys a Viennese coffee while drawing new connections among ontology and biology and mathematics.The Best of All Possible Worlds transports us to an age defined by rational optimism and a belief in progress, and will endure as one of the few authoritative accounts of Leibniz's life available in English.

By presenting the autism diagnosis through the lens of a disordered nervous system-that is, by applying Polyvagal Theory-this book opens new avenues for intervention and treatment, while challenging age-old assumptions of what autism means and how it presents itself.Here, Sean Inderbitzen-a therapist as well as someone living with autism-encourages clinicians to conceptualise their autistic clients' difficulties with social interactions and cognitive flexibility through a polyvagal lens. Inderbitzen argues that individuals with autism can be thought of as having deficits in accessing their ventral vagal nervous system-the system which promotes flexibility and connection to others. The book explores strategies to address these challenges through familiar tools such as motivational interviewing, clinical social work pedagogy, sensorimotor psychotherapy, mindfulness, biofeedback, and cultivating a sense of safety. Autism in Polyvagal Terms is an essential new text for anyone who works with individuals on the autism spectrum.

After her husband's death, Molly Peacock realized she was not living the received idea of a widow's mauve existence but instead was experiencing life in all colors. These gorgeous poems-joyful, furious, mournful, bewildered, sexy, devastated, whimsical and above all, moving-composed in sonnet sequences and in open forms, designed in four movements (After, Before, When, and Afterglow)-illuminate both the role of the caregiver and the crystalline emotions one can experience after the death of a cherished partner. With her characteristic virtuosity, her fearless willingness to confront even the most difficult emotions, and always with buoyancy and zest, Peacock charts widowhood in the twenty-first century.From "Touched:"After you died, I felt you next to me,and over months you entered graduallyinto that lake and disappeared. Not gone,but so internalized you're not next to me.

When ecologist Carl Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they'd rescued, she'd be a temporary presence. But Alfie's feathers were not growing correctly, requiring prolonged care. As Alfie grew and gained strength, she became a part of the family, joining a menagerie of dogs and chickens and making a home for herself in the backyard. Carl and Patricia began to realise that the healing was mutual; Alfie had been braided into their world and was now pulling them into hers.Alfie & Me is the story of the remarkable impact this little owl would have on their lives. The continuing bond of trust following her freedom-and her raising of her own wild brood-coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a year in which Carl and Patricia were forced to spend time at home without the normal obligations of work and travel. Witnessing all the fine details of their feathered friend's life offered Carl and Patricia a view of existence from Alfie's perspective.One can travel the world and go nowhere; one can be stuck keeping the faith at home and discover a new world. Safina's relationship with an owl made him want to better understand how people have viewed humanity's relationship with nature across cultures and throughout history. Interwoven with Safina's keen observations, insight and reflections, Alfie & Me is a work of profound beauties and magical timing harboured within one upended year.

Apples, a common New England crop, have been called the United States' "most endangered food". Texas Longhorn cattle are categorised at "critical" risk for extinction. Unique date palms, found nowhere else on the planet, grow in California's Coachella Valley-but the family farms that caretake them are shutting down. Apples, cattle, dates-these are foods that carry significant cultural weight. But they're disappearing. In Endangered Eating, culinary historian Sarah Lohman draws inspiration from the Ark of Taste, a list compiled by Slow Food International that catalogues important regional foods. Lohman travels the country learning about the distinct ingredients at risk of being lost. Readers follow Lohman to Hawaii, as she walks alongside farmers to learn the stories behind heirloom sugarcane. In the Navajo Nation, she assists in the traditional butchering of a Navajo Churro ram. Lohman heads to the Upper Midwest, to harvest wild rice; to the Pacific Northwest, to spend a day wild salmon reefnet fishing; to the Gulf Coast, to devour gumbo made thick and green with filé powder; and to the Lowcountry of South Carolina, to taste America's oldest peanut-long thought to be extinct. Lohman learns from those who love these rare ingredients: shepherds, fishers, and farmers; scientists, historians and activists. And she tries her hand at raising these crops and preparing these dishes. Each chapter includes two recipes, so readers can be a part of saving these ingredients by purchasing and preparing them.Animated by stories, yet grounded in historical research, Endangered Eating gives readers the tools to support community food organisations and producers that work to preserve local culinary traditions and rare, cherished foods-before it's too late.

The secret to acclaimed baker Jim Lahey's bread is slow-rise fermentation. As he revealed in 2009 with the publication of his now-classic cookbook My Bread, the amount of labour you put in totals five minutes: mix water, flour, yeast and salt, and then let time work its magic, no kneading necessary. Whether preparing Lahey's basic loaf or a variation-a peanut butter and jelly bread, a pecorino cheese loaf, pancetta rolls, a classic Italian baguette-the process couldn't be more simple, or the results more inspiring.In the fifteen years since My Bread's publication, the no-knead bread technique has remained as life-changing as ever. Now, Lahey revisits his beloved cookbook and adds five never-before-published recipes, including a pistachio-goji bread and a foolproof way of making Panko breadcrumbs at home. Repackaged for a new generation, the 15th-anniversary edition of My Bread is as timely as ever, and will bring good bread making back into our lives-with minimal work.

What makes reading a poem unlike reading anything else? While there are as many ways to read a poem as there are types of poetry, every poem demands a conscious attention to language. Reading poems forensically helps us bring that attention to our own writing.In Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens, acclaimed poet and teacher Paisley Rekdal demonstrates how to observe the building blocks of a poem-including its diction, form, imagery and rhythm-and construct an interpretation of its meaning. Through close analyses of contemporary and classic poems as well as creative exercises and specific, skill-based questions, this book shows how a poem takes shape and accrues meaning through the intersection of all its lyric elements. Lucid and generous, Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens reveals how to read and write critically and how to appreciate-and achieve-the exhilarating craft of poetry.

Chef Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman continue their vital work of elevating the art of charcuterie in Meat Pies, a collection of recipes, advice and step-by-step visuals for home cooks and professionals eager to expand their knowledge of meat-and-vegetable concoctions topped, enclosed or wrapped in dough. The book is divided into sections defined by crust-the contemporary pot pie, the hand-raised pie (individual pies), rolled-raised pies, double-crusted pies, turnovers, vol-au-vents-and once readers master each dough, they can re-create their work and invent their own. Within each category of pie are rediscovered favourites, such as a chicken pot pie with a biscuit crust, as well as new spins on classics, including seafood pies, a sheet-pan pie, portable handheld pies and a show-stopping vegetable pie with a braided crust.Informed by Polcyn's decades of award-winning cooking and teaching, and brought to life by Ruhlman's engaging prose, Meat Pies presents a comprehensive and exciting guide to a burgeoning American craft.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the preeminent scientists of his time. Driven by curiosity, he conducted cutting-edge research on electricity, heat, ocean currents, weather patterns, chemical bonds, and plants. But today, Franklin is remembered more for his political prowess and diplomatic achievements than his scientific creativity.In Ingenious, Richard Munson recovers this vital part of Franklin's story, reveals his modern relevance and offers a compelling portrait of a shrewd experimenter, clever innovator and visionary physicist whose fame opened doors to negotiate French support and funding for American independence. Munson's riveting narrative explores how science underpins Franklin's entire story-from tradesman to inventor to nation-founder.

The rebirth of Italy after the Second World War is one of the most impressive political transformations in modern European history. In 1945, post-fascist Italy was devastated by war, and its reputation in the international arena was nil. Yet by December 1955, when Italy was admitted to the United Nations, the nation had contested three acrimonious but free general elections, had a flourishing press, and was a leader in the rebuilding of Europe.This is the dramatic story told by Italy Reborn. It charts the descent of Italy into Fascism, the scale of the wartime disaster, the Italian resistance to Nazi occupation, the horrors of civil war, and the establishment of the Republic in 1946. The Cold War divided, in 1947, the coalition of parties that had led the resistance to Fascism and Nazism.The book's final chapters deal with the consolidation of Italian democracy and with the statesmanship of Alcide De Gasperi, the premier from December 1945 to August 1953. The book persuasively argues that De Gasperi deserves more credit than he has typically been accorded for Italy's postwar democratization and shows how Italian democracy was constructed on a sound foundation-which is why it has been able to survive its many postwar crises.Largely based on contemporary Italian sources, Italy Reborn is both an original account of this crucial period in Italian history and a remarkable example of how democracies are made.

We embraced the mediated life-from Facetune and Venmo to meme culture and the Metaverse-because these technologies offer novelty and convenience. But they also transform our sense of self and warp the boundaries between virtual and real. What are the costs? Who are we in a disembodied world?In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control. To recover our humanity and come back to the real world, we must reclaim serendipity, community, patience, and risk.

Zoning codes have become the most significant regulatory power of local government, determining how citizens experience their cities. Yet zoning remains invisible. In Key to the City, legal scholar and architect Sara C. Bronin reveals the impact of zoning-for good and ill-in cities across the US, from Hartford to Baltimore and Las Vegas to Chicago. Outdated zoning codes have maintained racial segregation, prioritised cars over people and enabled great ecological harm. As Bronin argues, once we recognise the power of zoning, we can harness it to instead create walkable and vibrant communities, resist the monotonous effects of suburban sprawl, integrate design elements that inspire delight and ensure that everyone has access to affordable housing, public transportation and healthy food. Key to the City demystifies the invisible force shaping our communities and puts forward a practical and energising vision for how we can reimagine them.

As she approached her fiftieth birthday, Debra Whitman, a globally recognized expert on aging, wanted to delve deeper into why so many Americans struggled to live well as they aged. And she began to wonder what was in store for her own second fifty. Suddenly, the questions she'd been studying for years became personal: How long will I live? Will I be healthy? Will I lose my memory? How long will I work? Will I have enough money? Where will I live? How will I die?Americans are now living decades longer than previous generations. These added years offer exciting possibilities but also raise crucial questions. In her groundbreaking book, Whitman provides a roadmap for navigating, and celebrating, the second half of life. Drawing on compelling stories from her own family and people across the country, interviews with experts, and cutting-edge research, she shares insights on brain health, the contributions and concerns of an older workforce, caregiving, financing retirement, and more. Her findings are often surprising: Americans over fifty are a boon to-not a drain on-the economy. Dementia rates have actually been declining as more people achieve higher levels of education and adopt healthier lifestyles. And while we've long known that staying connected to others is critical to mental health, it turns out it is also linked to a stronger immune system, lower blood pressure, and a longer life.Whitman presents practical steps we can take to help create a better second fifty for ourselves. But we can't do it alone. Whitman also calls for urgently needed changes that would make it easier for every American to enjoy a vital and meaningful second half of life.Whether you are approaching fifty, into your later years, or caring for someone who is, you'll find a wealth of wisdom in these pages. Informed by Whitman's unmatched expertise and her deep passion, The Second Fifty is an indispensable guide for living well in the twenty-first century.

The impulse to seek out new worlds is universal to humanity. In a truly inclusive account of exploration, historian Matthew Lockwood interweaves stories of famous figures-including Sacagawea, Pocahontas and Dr Livingstone-with tales of individuals who are usually denied the title "explorer." Lockwood's new cast of adventurers includes Rabban Bar Sawma, a Uighur monk who traversed the Middle East and Europe; Yatsuke, an East African traveller to Japan during the sixteenth century; and David Dorr, a man born in slavery whose travelogues reshaped Americans' understanding of Africa. In lives filled with imagination and wonder, curiosity, connection and exchange, these figures unfurl a human tapestry of discovery. Spanning forty centuries and six continents, this thrilling and concise history redefines what it means to discover, who counts as an explorer and what counts as exploration.

With so many of our histories falling into dour critique or blatant celebration, here is a welcome departure: a book that offers hope as well as honesty about the American past. The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the expansion of slavery, Native dispossession and wars with Canada and Mexico. Mass immigration and powerful religious movements sent tremors through American society. But even as the powerful defended the status quo, others defied it: voices from the margins moved the centre; eccentric visions altered the accepted wisdom and acts of empathy questioned self-interest. Edward L. Ayers's rich history examines the visions that moved Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, the Native American activist William Apess and others to challenge entrenched practices and beliefs. So, Lydia Maria Child condemned the racism of her fellow northerners at great personal cost. Melville and Thoreau, Joseph Smith and Samuel Morse all charted new paths for America in the realms of art, nature, belief and technology. It was Henry David Thoreau who, speaking of John Brown, challenged a hostile crowd "Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong?"Through decades of award-winning scholarship on the American Civil War, Edward L. Ayers has himself ventured beyond the interpretative status quo to recover the range of possibilities embedded in the past as it was lived. Here he turns that distinctive historical sensibility to a period when bold visionaries and critics built vigorous traditions of dissent and innovation into the foundation of the nation. Those traditions remain alive for us today.

Monasteries, temples, mosques and synagogues have long been centers of culinary innovation. No mere relics of the past, they reflect our modern world and are as dynamic and fundamental to our society as they ever were.Granted rare access to closely guarded religious sanctuaries, Jody Eddy demonstrates how the monastic culinary philosophy can be adopted by any home cook or professional chef interested in integrating sustainable, time-honoured cooking practices into their daily lives. Her 100 recipes include dumplings (momos) inspired by the cooking of monks at Thikse, a Buddhist temple in Ladakh, India, nestled in the Himalayas. From Kylemore Abbey, in Connemara, Ireland, she brings instructions for cooking Lamb Burgers with Creamy Red Cabbage Slaw and Rosemary Aioli as the nuns do, with enough leftover sauce to drizzle over smoked salmon bagels the next day. From a Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, come time-tested kosher recipes, including Potato Kugel and Matzo Ball Soup. Ginger and Ginkgo Nut Stuffed Cabbage Rolls illustrate Zen Buddhist cooking from Eihei-ji in Japan. In Morocco, she finds a Sufi chicken and olive tajine recipe that makes for a perfect dinner. And for dessert, Panellets (tiny sugar-and-almond cookies), courtesy of an 1100-year-old Spanish monastery.A global story of cooking across communities, Elysian Kitchens contributes to the most important conversations taking place in the food world today by examining a gastronomic heritage that has until now been virtually unexplored. This is a cookbook for anyone eager to discover the traditions of magnificently beautiful, endlessly compelling places that embody the wisdom of the ages and offer the promise of a more optimistic and sustainable future.

On February 24, 2022, the first day of Russia's all-out attack on Ukraine, armored vehicles approached the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. Russian occupation of the plant, which would last thirty-five days, had begun.Only the dedication and resolve of Ukrainian personnel, who were held hostage and worked shifts for weeks instead of days, spared the world a new Chernobyl accident. They had to make life-or-death decisions on cooperation or resistance, balancing loyalty to their families, their homeland, and innocent civilians in Ukraine and beyond who would suffer the consequences of a nuclear accident should it occur. The choices they made helped to save the world from another Chernobyl disaster.Meanwhile, a much more dangerous situation developed at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the largest such facility in Europe. Following an attack there in March 2022, the Russian military remains in control, and Ukrainian intelligence warns of the potential for nuclear terrorism. We must face up to a new reality: there has already been warfare at two nuclear sites, and others are vulnerable.In a book that reads like a thriller, Serhii Plokhy, a leading historian of the Cold War and Ukrainian history, joins the stories of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to sound the alarm about the dangers of nuclear sites in a time of heightened conflict. There are 440 such sites around the globe today, and Russia's aggression against Ukraine will not be the last war in human history. The story of the men and women of Chornobyl is more than recent history: it is also a glimpse into the not-so-distant future.

Marguerite Higgins was both the scourge and envy of the journalistic world. A longtime reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, she first catapulted to fame with her dramatic account of the liberation of Dachau at the end of World War II. Brash, beautiful, ruthlessly competitive, and sexually adventurous, she forced her way to the front despite being told the combat zone was no place for a woman. Her headline-making exploits earned her a reputation for bravery bordering on recklessness and accusations of "advancing on her back," trading sexual favors for scoops.While the Herald Tribune exploited her feminine appeal-regularly featuring the photogenic "girl reporter" on its front pages-it was Maggie's dogged determination, talent for breaking news, and unwavering ambition that brought her success from one war zone to another. Her notoriety soared during the Cold War, and her daring dispatches from Korea garnered a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence-the first granted to a woman for frontline reporting-with the citation noting the unusual dangers and difficulties she faced because of her sex. A star reporter, she became part of the Kennedy brothers' Washington circle, though her personal alliances and politics provoked bitter feuds with male rivals, who vilified her until her untimely death.Drawing on new and extensive research, including never-before-published correspondence and interviews with Maggie's colleagues, lovers, and soldiers and generals who knew her in the field, journalist and historian Jennet Conant restores Maggie's rightful place in history as a woman who paved the way for the next generation of journalists, and one of the greatest war correspondents of her time.

Effective eating disorder treatment modalities for adults continue to elude practitioners and the rates of eating disorder relapse remain staggeringly high. Meanwhile, a vital resource for people with eating disorders remains unexplored: their romantic relationships.Tapping into this largely ignored vein of support, Gottman-RED (Relationships with Eating Disorders) is a new therapy for couples in which one or both partners have an eating disorder. Built upon a foundation of traditional Gottman Method Couples Therapy interventions, Gottman-RED adds fourteen new interventions designed specifically to help couples address difficult issues related to food, weight, body image and exercise. These interventions encourage conversations characterised by empathetic engagement in which both partners are heard.This highly versatile therapy is the culmination of Dr. Kim Lampson's thirty years of working as a counselling psychologist with both couples and individuals with eating disorders. It offers a crucial missing piece in the puzzling world of eating disorder treatment modalities.

For more than four decades, Molecular Biology of the Cell has distilled the vast amount of scientific knowledge to illuminate basic principles, enduring concepts, and cutting-edge research. The Seventh Edition has been extensively revised and updated with the latest research, and has been thoroughly vetted by experts and instructors. The classic companion text, The Problems Book, has been reimagined as the Digital Problems Book in Smartwork, an interactive digital assessment course with a wide selection of questions and automatic-grading functionality. The digital format with embedded animations and dynamic question types makes the Digital Problems Book in Smartwork easier to assign than ever before-for both in-person and online classes.

Joseph Auner's Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries explores the sense of possibility unleashed by the era's destabilizing military conflicts, social upheavals, and technological advances. Auner shows how the multiplicity of musical styles has called into question traditional assumptions about compositional practice, the boundaries of music and noise, and the relationship among composer, performer, and listener. He also shows how composers and their works have played important roles in defining ideas of nation, race, and gender, and thus in shaping the modern world for better and worse.Western Music in Context: A Norton History comprises six volumes of moderate length, each written in an engaging style by a recognized expert. Authoritative and current, the series examines music in the broadest sense-as sounds notated, performed, and heard-focusing not only on composers and works, but also on broader social and intellectual currents.

Music in the Nineteenth Century examines the period from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the advent of Modernism in the 1890s. Frisch traces a complex web of relationships involving composers, performers, publishers, notated scores, oral traditions, audiences, institutions, cities, and nations. The book's central themes include middle-class involvement in music, the rich but elusive concept of Romanticism, the cult of virtuosity, and the ever-changing balance between musical and commercial interests. The final chapter considers the sound world of nineteenth-century music as captured by contemporary witnesses and early recordings.Western Music in Context: A Norton History comprises six volumes of moderate length, each written in an engaging style by a recognized expert. Authoritative and current, the series examines music in the broadest sense-as sounds notated, performed, and heard-focusing not only on composers and works, but also on broader social and intellectual currents.

The Fourth Edition has been carefully revised and updated to reflect current data.

White and Epston base their therapy on the assumption that people experience problems when the stories of their lives, as they or others have invented them, do not sufficiently represent their lived experience. Therapy then becomes a process of storying or restorying the lives and experiences of these people. In this way narrative comes to play a central role in therapy. Both authors share delightful examples of a storied therapy that privileges a person's lived experience, inviting a reflexive posture and encouraging a sense of authorship and reauthorship of one's experiences and relationships in the telling and retelling of one's story.

In the long span of American history, Donald Trump is the first former president to face criminal indictment. He is the subject of a series of explosive charges across four cases: the January 6 case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith; the election interference case in Georgia; the classified documents case also brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith; and the "hush money" case in New York. The Trump Indictments includes:. An introduction offering historical background and international comparisons for criminal charges against a former political leader.. The four indictments with annotations throughout, including insider notes from an eminent scholar (Murray) and a former federal prosecutor (Weissmann).. A cast of characters, from Trump and his alleged co-conspirators to notable Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who face prison sentences as a result of related January 6 cases.. A timeline that brings together in one place the critical events that led to the four indictments.A necessary handbook for anyone following the trials in 2024, The Trump Indictments will endure as an indispensable record of a democracy at the crossroads.

The Port of Los Angeles is all around us. Objects we use on a daily basis pass through it: furniture, apparel, electronics, automobiles, and much more. The busiest container port in the Western hemisphere, it claims one-sixth of all US ocean shipping. Yet despite its centrality to our world, the port and the story of its making have been neglected in histories of the United States. In A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth, historian James Tejani corrects that significant omission, charting the port's rise out of the mud and salt marsh of San Pedro estuary-and showing how the story of the port is the story of modern, globalized America itself.By the mid-nineteenth century, Americans had identified the West Coast as the republic's destiny, a gateway to the riches of the Pacific. In a narrative spanning decades and stretching to Washington, DC, the Pacific Northwest, Civil War Richmond, Southwest deserts, and even overseas to Europe, Hawaii, and Asia, Tejani demonstrates how San Pedro came to be seen as all-important to the nation's future. It was not virgin land, but dominated by powerful Mexican estates that would not be dislodged easily. Yet American scientists, including the great surveyor George Davidson, imperialist politicians such as Jefferson Davis and William Gwin, and hopeful land speculators, among them the future Union Army general Edward Ord, would wrest control of the estuary, and set the scene for the violence, inequality, and engineering marvels to come.San Pedro was no place for a harbor, Tejani reveals. The port was carved in defiance of nature, using new engineering techniques and massive mechanical dredgers. Business titans such as Collis Huntington and Edward H. Harriman brought their money and corporate influence to the task. But they were outmatched by government reformers, laying the foundations for the port, for the modern city of Los Angeles, and for our globalized world. Interweaving the natural history of San Pedro into this all-too-human history, Tejani vividly describes how a wild coast was made into the engine of American power. A story of imperial dreams and personal ambition, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth is necessary reading for anyone who seeks to understand what the United States was, what it is now, and what it will be.

Many Americans believe that something fundamental has gone wrong in their country. Why does full-time work no longer guarantee financial stability? Why does college cost a lifetime of debt? And why have decades of free-market promises yielded not more freedom and liberty but more debt and constraints? In The Quiet Coup, Mehrsa Baradaran, a premier public intellectual, argues that America's problems stem from the market-centred doctrine of neoliberalism. Far more than a mere economic theory, neoliberalism and its adherents transformed American law-yielding not fewer laws but more-complex laws and regulations that benefit the wealthy. From neoliberalism's role as a tool of ideological warfare against racial justice movements in the 1960s to its complete institutional takeover in the 1980s to the crypto meltdowns of the 2020s, Baradaran's essential chronicle shows that the neoliberal era-and legalised mass looting-is far from over and in fact is only accelerating.

Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war-and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united, while Russia grows increasingly isolated.Serhii Plokhy, a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, offers a definitive account of this conflict, its origins, course, and the already apparent and possible future consequences. Though the current war began eight years before the all-out assault-on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament-the roots of this conflict can be traced back even earlier, to post-Soviet tensions and imperial collapse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing a broad historical context and an examination of Ukraine and Russia's ideas and cultures, as well as domestic and international politics, Plokhy reveals that while this new Cold War was not inevitable, it was predictable.Ukraine, Plokhy argues, has remained central to Russia's idea of itself even as Ukrainians have followed a radically different path. In a new international environment defined by the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the disintegration of the post-Cold War international order, and a resurgence of populist nationalism, Ukraine is now more than ever the most volatile fault line between authoritarianism and democratic Europe.