Books published by Basic Books

This vibrant and action-driven narrative examines the motivations for warfare in the Middle Ages, asserting that waging war was a condition defining the ruling groups of all societies

"A beautifully written, thoroughly researched and relentlessly terrifying work, and a must-read for anybody with an interest in the environment or the future of our planet."--Salon.com

The battle is on between the forces of social democracy and America's great tradition of free enterprise--and the stakes couldn't be higher

"In the first comprehensive history of American manhood, E. Anthony Rotundo sweeps away the groundless assumptions and myths that inform the current fascination with men's lives. Opposing the views of"

Blind Man's Bluff meets The Hunt for Red October in the shocking untold story of an American submarine torpedoed at the height of the Cold War--and the decades long cover-up that followed

An incisive account of the tumultuous relationship between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, and of the origins of our wealthy yet highly unequal nation

A new history of school desegregation in America, revealing how girls and women led the fight for interracial education

The tools of corporate efficiency-expert systems, databases, and operations management-have improved our lives significantly, but with a cost: they're turning us into mindless drones.

A leading conservative thinker argues that a nationalist order is the only realistic safeguard of liberty in the world today

The dictionary that teaches you how to think like a libertarian

The definitive history of America's tranquilizer culture--from the Miltown sensation in the 1950s to Valium in the 1960s and 1970s to Xanax in the twenty-first century.

An award-winning science journalist pulls the alarm on the dysfunction plaguing scientific research-with lethal consequences for us all.

A distinguished dance critic offers an enchanting introduction to the art of ballet

An award-winning historian tells the story of hunting in America, showing how this sport has shaped our national identity.

According to a leading cognitive scientist, we've been teaching reading wrong. The latest science reveals how we can do it right.

A history of the Kerner Commission, whose revelatory findings on race and urban unrest reshaped American politics and our debates about race and inequality

Just in time for the 2018 World Cup, a lively and lyrical guide to appreciating the drama of soccer

A vivid portrait of how Americans grappled with Martin Luther King Jr.'s death and legacy in the days, weeks, and months after his assassination

A pioneering neuroscientist argues that we are more than our brains

A leading foreign correspondent looks at how social media has transformed the modern battlefield, and how wars are fought

An eminent scholar unearths the captivating history of the two-lobed heart symbol, shedding light on how we have expressed love since antiquity

A history of the 1119 Battle of the Field of Blood, which decisively halted the momentum gained during the First Crusade and decided the fate of the Crusader states.

A dazzling group biography of the early twentieth-century thinkers who transformed the way the world thought about math and science

From an esteemed scholar of American religion and sexuality, a sweeping account of the century of religious conflict that produced our culture wars

From a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a biography of the American anarchist Lucy Parsons

From a renowned historian, the story of a prosperous early American family and the great middle class land grab that propelled the nation's staggering economic and territorial growth

An expert guide to how conversation works, from how we know when to speak to why huh is a universal word.

A revealing portrait of the end of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's life and presidency, shedding new light on how he made his momentous final policy decisions

The director and founding member of the Houston Galveston Institute documents the emergence of postmodern narrative therapy and shows how linguistics and social discourse influence the changing culture of psychotherapy. Anderson shows how the therapist can empower the patient through the use of narrative and discourse, thereby creating a collaborative environment.

A rising historian's narrative chronicle of race in America, and the successes, failures, and stalemates of black leaders in the past fifty years