The influential yet controversial psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan was pioneering in his treatment of schizophrenia however the way he lived privately did not always correspond to the theoretical ideas he espoused publicly.

The work of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), one of Judaism’s great philosophers and defenders, has nonetheless defied easy categorization or definitive depiction. While advocating for the granting of full rights to the Jews of Germany,

Kief Hillsbery‘s Empire Made: My Search for an Outlaw Uncle Who Vanished in British India (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017) follows the career of Nigel Halleck, an English tax assessor in employ of the British East India Company and his travels on the ...

To remember Patrick Henry for his defiant declaration “Give me liberty or give me death!” is to overlook a long career spent as an advocate for the rights of Americans, first as colonists and then as citizens.

The conquest of the Philippines in 1942 brought thousands of Americans under the control of the empire of Japan. While most of them were interned or imprisoned for the duration of the war, a remarkable few evaded capture and fought on against the Japan...

Leigh Fought is an assistant professor of history at Le Moyne College. Her book Women in the World of Frederick Douglass (Oxford University Press, 2017) offers a detailed and rich portrait of Frederick Douglass’ private and public life and his many rel...

In 218 BCE, the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca launched an invasion of Italy designed to bring the Roman Republic to its knees. Yet for all of his success in defeating Rome’s legions on the battlefield,

In Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simḥah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Musar (SUNY Press, 2015), Geoffrey D. Claussen provides a thorough study of the life and work of one of the most influential figures in the history of Musar,

In Balzac, Literary Sociologist (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), Allan H. Pasco explores the talents of the writer whose reputation has been primarily based on his extraordinary gift to compose captivating stories. In his meticulously conducted research,

As president John F. Kennedy enjoyed a remarkable degree of popularity, and in the decades since his assassination his standing has only grown in the public imagination. In The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Biography (Cambridge University Pre...

Mitchell Stephens‘s new book, The Voice of America: Lowell Thomas and the Invention of 20th Century Journalism (St. Martins Press, 2017), could be described, in part, as an entertaining book of stories about a legendary American storyteller. Stephens,

Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D and D (Nation Books, 2017) by David Kushner and illustrated by Koren Shadmi is a gorgeous depiction of the late E. Gary Gygax’s life and times. Gygax’s story and the tale of D and D’s genesis...

Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons (Bloomsbury, 2015) by Michael Witwer is an exceptional biography of the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, E. Gary Gygax. Witwer presents an honest,

Ever since their composition in the 13th century the poems of the Persian writer Rumi have enthralled millions of readers around the world. In Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love (Harper, 2017),

Whether you’re on the right or the left of the political spectrum, I’ll bet that lately the Office of the President isn’t far from your mind. Every day, it seems, I encounter one, two, three, four stories about President Trump,

Public scholarship takes many forms, from op-eds to activism to blog posts. In their new book, Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family (Columbia University Press, 2017), Associate Professor Bruce Haynes and freelance writer,

Over the course of a long and adventurous life, Henry Alsberg was guided by the constancy of his passion for radical causes. This focus, as Susan Rubenstein DeMasi makes clear in Henry Alsberg: The Driving Force Behind the New Deal Federal Writers’ Pro...

From humble beginnings James Bronterre O’Brien became one of the leading figures in British radical politics in the first half of the 19th century, thanks in no small measure to his skills as a journalist and writer.

Journalists intentionally leave themselves out of the stories they cover. In Clyde H. Farnsworth‘s book Tangled Bylines: A Father and Son Cover the Twentieth Century (University of Missouri Press, 2017) he gets the chance to tell not only his own stori...

The legendary band leader Sun Ra said he came from Saturn. Known on Earth for his inventive music and extravagant stage shows, he pioneered free-form improvisation in an ensemble setting with the devoted band he called the “Arkestra,

From the moment he entered politics as the manager of John F. Kennedy’s 1952 Senate campaign, Robert Kennedy’s political career was subsumed into that of his older brother. With President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963 his grief-stricken youn...

During the Civil War Father James Sheeran served as a Catholic chaplain for the 14th Louisiana Infantry. Between his various responsibilities Sheeran kept a journal in which he recounted his experiences with, and observations of,

In the capital of the African nation of Angola today stands a statue to Njinga, the 17th century queen of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms. Its presence is a testament to her skills as a diplomat, warrior, and leader of her people,

In Gershom Scholem: An Intellectual Biography (University of Chicago Press, 2017) , Amir Engel, a lecturer in the German Department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, positions Gershom Scholem’s work and life within early twentieth-century Germany,...

Fueling his bohemian lifestyle and anti-authoritarian attitude with a steady diet of ice cream and whiskey, along with a healthy dose of insomnia, Warren Sturgis McCulloch is best known for his foundational contributions to cybernetics but led a career...