The Sonderkommando of Auschwitz-Birkenau consisted primarily of Jewish prisoners forced by the Germans to facilitate the mass extermination. Though never involved in the killing itself, they were compelled to be "members of staff" of the Nazi death-f...

Eryn Green's "Eruv" is the latest winner of the oldest annual literary award in the United States, which originated in 1919 to showcase the works of exceptional American poets under the age of forty. Green joins an esteemed roster of past winners tha...

Considered by many to be among the greatest writers of the past hundred years, Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz explores the modern predicament of exile and displacement in a disintegrating world in his acclaimed classic Trans-Atlantyk. Gombrowicz's...

Glamorous, talented, audacious – Lillian Hellman knew everyone, did everything, had been everywhere. By the age of twenty-nine she had written "The Children's Hour", the first of four hit Broadway plays, and soon she was considered a member of Americ...

This remarkable book looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class. "The Industrial Revolution" brought not simply misery...

The world's first global stock market bubble suddenly burst in 1720, destroying the dreams and fortunes of speculators in London, Paris and Amsterdam virtually overnight. Their folly and misfortune inspired the publication of an extraordinary Dutch c...

Artistic and musical creativity thrived in the Venetian Republic between the early 16th century and the close of the 18th century. The city-state was known for its superb operas and splendid balls, and the acoustics of the architecture led to complex...

E. H. Gombrich's "Little History of the World", though written in 1935, has become one of the treasures of historical writing since its first publication in English in 2005. The Yale edition alone has now sold over half a million copies, and the book...

"Emma Goldman" is the story of a modern radical who took seriously the idea that inner liberation is the first business of social revolution. Her politics, from beginning to end, was based on resistance to that which thwarted the free development of...

On July 18, 1863, six months after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, one of the first American units composed of African Americans stormed Fort Wagner in South Carolina, led by Colonel Robert Shaw Gould. Although the regiment su...