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A portrait of modern Africa. It offers an exploration of how, and whether, the past can be laid to rest.

Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for CriticismA New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the YearTime magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

A collection of stories in which the collision of the old and new south, of antique and modern, resonate with the depth and power of ancient myths.

Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen traces U.S. policy in the region from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire to the present. A century ago, there emerged two dominant views regarding the uses of America's power: Woodrow Wilson urged America to promote national freedom and self-determination-in stark contrast to his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, who had advocated a vigorous foreign policy based on national self-interest. In concise, pointed chapters, Cohen offers a lucid primer on the complexities of the region and an eye-opening commentary on how different Middle East Countries have struggled to define themselves in the face of America's stated idealism and its actual realpolitik.

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICEFollowing the trail of espionage and technological innovation, and making use of newly opened archives, Michael D. Gordin provides a new understanding of the origins of the nuclear arms race and fresh insight into the problem of proliferation.On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet test bomb, dubbed "First Lightning," exploded in the deserts of Kazakhstan. This surprising international event marked the beginning of an arms race that would ultimately lead to nuclear proliferation beyond the two superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States.With the use of newly opened archives, Michael D. Gordin folows a trail of espionage, secrecy, deception, political brinksmanship, and technical innovation to provide a fresh understanding of the nuclear arms race.

A Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the YearIf environmental destruction continues at its current rate, a third of all plants and animals could disappear by 2050-along with earth's life-support ecosystems, which provide food, water, medicine, and natural defenses against climate change.Now Caroline Fraser offers the first definitive account of a visionary crusade to confront this crisis: rewilding. Breathtaking in scope and ambition, rewilding aims to save species by restoring habitats, reviving migration corridors, and brokering peace between people and predators. A "methodical, lyrical" (Sacramento News & Review) story of scientific discovery and grassroots action, Rewilding the World offers hope for a richer, wilder future.

The conventional story of the end of the Cold War is simple: Ronald Reagan waged an aggressive campaign against communism, outspent his opponent, and forced Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."In There Is No Freedom Without Bread!, Russian-born historian Constantine Pleshakov proposes a different interpretation. The revolutions that took place in 1989 were the result of politicking, tensions between Moscow and local governments, compromise between revolutionary leaders and communist old-timers, and the will and anger of the people. In a dramatic narrative culminating in that whirlwind year, Pleshakov challenges the received wisdom and argues that 1989 was as much about national civil wars and internal struggles for power as it was about the Eastern Europeans throwing off the yoke of Moscow.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITINGFalling in love at first sight with a mirror in a Rhode Island auction, Maryalice Huggins sets out to discover its history and learns that it was likely passed down through generations of the illustrious Brown family. Certain of the mirror's prestige, she goes up against the leading lights of the fascinating high-end antiques world and discovers that the value of a beautiful object and its market value are not the same thing at all. As Huggins concludes her "delightful" (Jacki Lyden, NPR) quest of sleuthing, research, and obsession, she learns the true meaning of art.

In 2007, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which brings relief to countries in the wake of war, wanted to understand what really happened to women, in post-conflict zones. On behalf of the IRC, the author travelled through Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East, lending cameras to women. This title features the photographs they had taken.

"They'd never kill a reporter...." On the morning of April 29, 1948, a West Side pier hiring boss was shot on his way to work. The murder reminded the New York Sun's city editor of a similar docks killing from the year before, and so he called over his best general assignment man, Malcolm "Mike" Johnson, telling him, "Lots of unrest down there. Maybe you can get a story out of it." Johnson certainly did, discovering the greatest story of his long career, and a "waterfront jungle" with "rich pickings for criminal gangs." His crime series ran on the Sun's front page for twenty-four days in the fall of 1948, raising a national scandal and bringing death threats on him and his family. Johnson alleged the existence of an international crime "syndicate," at a time when J. Edgar Hoover would not admit that such a syndicate, let alone a Mafia, existed. Herein, Nathan Ward tells the original Mob story, "revealing a spiderweb of union corruption and outright gangsterism....His story has everything" (New York Sun), making Dark Harbor a modern true crime classic.

In a corrupt America reeling from an economic collapse, a shadow civil war is gathering. On one side is James Sands, a billionaire and government crony harassed by civil opposition and armed militants. Standing against him is Lando, a twenty-something urban guerrilla, who leads the Army of the Republic on a campaign of bombing.

Chief Inspector Espinosa can't shake thoughts of this latest hapless victim. Who would target a penniless man who posed no physical threat? Focusing his inquiry on a group of wealthy guests who dined at a nearby mansion on the night of the murder, Espinosa carefully interrogates his way into the lives of his suspects.

In December 1875 the steamship Deutschland left Bremen, bound for America. On board were five nuns, exiled by a ban on religious orders, bound to begin their lives anew in Missouri - their journey would end when the Deutschland ran aground at the mouth of the Thames and sank. This title tells their harrowing story.

A lethal strain of virus vanishes from a lab in Washington, DC, unleashing an epidemic - and the world thinks Lucy Clark's dead father is to blame. The plague may be the least of Lucy's problems. There's her mother, Isifrid, a peddler of high-end hat wear who's also a crackhead and pagan theologist.

A New York Times Notable Book of the YearWhat do hurricane Katrina victims, millionaire rappers buying vintage champagne, and Ivy League professors waiting for taxis have in common? All have claimed to be victims of racism. But these days almost no one openly defends bigoted motives, so either a lot of people are lying about their true beliefs, or a lot of people are jumping to unwarranted conclusions--or just playing the race card. Daring, entertaining, and incisive, The Race Card brings sophisticated legal analysis, eye-popping anecdotes, and plain old common sense to this heated topic.

The older Owen siblings - Ellen and Morris - long ago left behind their gracious family home in Alabama in favour of the northeast. But when they learn that their wayward baby sister Bonnie has moved back into the old place with her new husband, a local evangelical preacher, they head home to perform a rescue.

The West Bank Barrier is expected to be completed in 2010. This title presents an examination of the barrier - its purpose, its efficacy, its consequences - and an affecting story about two cultures who have arrived at a devastating endgame, one which may occlude the possibility of peace for generations to come.

From a world-renowned cultural historian, an original look at the hidden commonalities among Fascism, Nazism, and the New DealToday Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is regarded as the democratic ideal, the positive American response to an economic crisis that propelled Germany and Italy toward Fascism. Yet in the 1930s, shocking as it may seem, these regimes were hardly considered antithetical. Now, Wolfgang Schivelbusch investigates the shared elements of these three "new deals" to offer a striking explanation for the popularity of Europe's totalitarian systems. Returning to the Depression, Schivelbusch traces the emergence of a new type of state: bolstered by mass propaganda, led by a charismatic figure, and projecting stability and power. He uncovers stunning similarities among the three regimes: the symbolic importance of gigantic public works programs like the TVA dams and the German autobahn, which not only put people back to work but embodied the state's authority; the seductive persuasiveness of Roosevelt's fireside chats and Mussolini's radio talks; the vogue for monumental architecture stamped on Washington, as on Berlin; and the omnipresent banners enlisting citizens as loyal followers of the state.Far from equating Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini or minimizing their acute differences, Schivelbusch proposes that the populist and paternalist qualities common to their states hold the key to the puzzling allegiance once granted to Europe's most tyrannical regimes.

A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the YearBy almost all measures, Kansas City's Central High School is just another failing inner-city school--with abysmal test scores, only one in three graduate. Cross-X is the riveting story of Central's championship debate team. As the students and their coach face formidable opponents from elite prep schools, they must also battle bureaucrats who seem maddeningly determined to hold them back, friends and family who are mired in poverty and drug addiction, and--perhaps most daunting--their own self-destructive choices. It is a gripping story about the essential nature of debate in any democratic society, and how through argument, retort, and wit, ideals survive even under the most difficult conditions.

James Tiptree, Jr., burst onto the science fiction scene in the late 1960s with a series of hard-edged, provocative stories. He redefined the genre with such classics as Houston, Houston, Do You Read? and The Women Men Don't See. For nearly ten years he wrote and carried on intimate correspondences with other writers--Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, and Ursula K. Le Guin, though none of them knew his true identity. Then the cover was blown on his alter ego: "he" was actually a sixty-one-year-old woman named Alice Bradley Sheldon. A feminist, she took a male name as a joke--and found the voice to write her stories.Based on extensive research, exclusive interviews, and full access to Alice Sheldon's papers, Julie Phillips has penned a biography of a profoundly original writer and a woman far ahead of her time.

After returning from the Civil War, Cass Wakefield means to live out the rest of his days in his hometown in Mississippi. But when a childhood friend asks him to accompany her to Franklin, Tennessee, to recover the bodies of her father and brother from the battlefield where they died, Cass cannot refuse.

After giving up the thankless life of a do-gooder, Moises Froissard now travels the world, saves lives, and makes more money in a week than he would in a year helping the poor. His search for the most coveted prize will bring him up against the most savage forces of the underground economy, threatening his safety as well as his fragile conscience.

On a cold, rainy night, an aging bachelor named George Ticknor prepares to visit his childhood friend Prescott, a successful man who is now one of the leading intellectual lights of their generation. He sets out for the Prescotts' dinner party - a party at which he'd just as soon never arrive.

"I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, and Mr. Cary Grant." So said Miss Peggy Lee. Albert Einstein adored her; Duke Ellington dubbed her "the Queen." With her platinum cool and inimitable whisper, Peggy Lee sold twenty million records, made more money than Mickey Mantle, and presided over music's greatest generation alongside pals Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.Drawing on exclusive interviews and never-before-seen information, Peter Richmond delivers a complex, compelling portrait of an artist that begins with a girl plagued by loss, her father's alcoholism, and her stepmother's abuse. One day she boards a train, following her muse and hoping her music will lead her someplace better. And it does: to the pantheon of great American singers.

Soon after the bombs stopped falling on Kabul, award-winning journalist and women's rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city. This is her report from the city where she spent the next four winters working in humanitarian aid.

A memoir of startling emotion and grace, Burning Fence is the story of the men in Craig Lesley's family: absent father, Rudell, tough stepfather, Vern, adopted son, Wade, and Craig Lesley himself. Their story is one of hardship, violence, and cautious, heartbreaking attempts toward compassion. Lesley's fearless journey through his family history provides a remarkable portrait of hard living in the Western states, and confirms his place as one of the region's very best storytellers.

For Shira Klein, Yonatan Luria and his daughter, Dana, it is winter. Yonatan is a marginal writer, a fifty-year-old widower left to raise his child alone. When he meets Shira, a bestselling author paralyzed by stage fright, the thaw begins as man, woman, and girl enter a halting romance, alternately tender and belligerent, generous and withdrawn.

It is Columbia University, 1968. Ann Drayton and Georgette George meet as roommates on the first night. The two are drawn together intensely by their differences; two years later, after a violent fight, they part ways. When, in 1976, Ann is convicted of killing a cop, Georgette comes back to their shared history in search of an explanation.