Books behind the news.
One book a day on the homepage, chosen to match the lead story or a date in history. Here is the full list.
Today: The Lazarus Heist by Geoff White
AbundanceEzra Klein and Derek Thompson, 2025Why America struggles to build, and what it would take to change that.
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The Affluent SocietyJohn Kenneth Galbraith, 1958Private wealth and public neglect in postwar America.
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The Age of Surveillance CapitalismShoshana Zuboff, 2019How tech companies turned personal data into a business.
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The Alignment ProblemBrian Christian, 2020Why it is hard to make AI systems do what we intend.
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All the President's MenCarl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, 1974The reporting that uncovered Watergate.
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All the Shah's MenStephen Kinzer, 2003The 1953 coup in Iran and its long consequences.
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Amusing Ourselves to DeathNeil Postman, 1985What television did to public discourse.
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Animal FarmGeorge Orwell, 1945A fable about how revolutions betray their ideals.
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The Anxious GenerationJonathan Haidt, 2024How smartphones changed childhood.
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AtatürkAndrew Mango, 1999A biography of the founder of the Turkish Republic.
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Battle Cry of FreedomJames M. McPherson, 1988The standard one-volume history of the American Civil War.
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The Best and the BrightestDavid Halberstam, 1972How talented officials led the U.S. deeper into Vietnam.
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The Big ShortMichael Lewis, 2010The few investors who saw the 2008 financial crisis coming.
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BloodlandsTimothy Snyder, 2010The lands between Hitler and Stalin, and what happened there.
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The BrethrenBob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, 1979Inside the Supreme Court in the 1970s.
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A Bright Shining LieNeil Sheehan, 1988The Vietnam War through one American adviser's career.
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Why wealth tends to concentrate, and what that means.
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Chip WarChris Miller, 2022How computer chips became the world's most important strategic resource.
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The CollapseMary Elise Sarotte, 2014How a botched announcement opened the Berlin Wall.
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Coming ApartCharles Murray, 2012How America's upper and working classes drifted apart.
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The Coming WaveMustafa Suleyman, 2023An AI pioneer on the power and risks of the next wave of technology.
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Command and ControlEric Schlosser, 2013How close America's nuclear arsenal came to accidents.
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The Corrosion of CharacterRichard Sennett, 1998What flexible modern work does to people's sense of self.
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Deep WorkCal Newport, 2016Why focused work is rare, and how to do more of it.
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Democracy in AmericaAlexis de Tocqueville, 1835A French visitor's lasting portrait of how American democracy works.
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The Diary of a Young GirlAnne Frank, 1947The diary of a Jewish girl in hiding in Amsterdam.
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The Emperor of All MaladiesSiddhartha Mukherjee, 2010A history of cancer and the search for treatments.
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The Federalist PapersAlexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, 1788The case for the Constitution, by three of its authors.
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The Fifth RiskMichael Lewis, 2018What the federal government's agencies actually do.
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Free to ChooseMilton Friedman and Rose Friedman, 1980The case for free markets and limited government.
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Freedom from FearDavid M. Kennedy, 1999America from the Depression through the Second World War.
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The Gates of EuropeSerhii Plokhy, 2015A history of Ukraine from ancient times to today.
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Germany: Memories of a NationNeil MacGregor, 2014Six centuries of German history told through objects and places.
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Ghost WarsSteve Coll, 2004The CIA in Afghanistan, from the Soviet invasion to 2001.
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Gideon's TrumpetAnthony Lewis, 1964How one prisoner's letter won the right to a lawyer.
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The Great Crash 1929John Kenneth Galbraith, 1955A short, sharp account of the 1929 stock market crash.
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The Great InfluenzaJohn M. Barry, 2004The 1918 flu pandemic and the science that met it.
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The Gulag ArchipelagoAleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1973The Soviet prison camp system, from those who survived it.
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The Guns of AugustBarbara W. Tuchman, 1962How the first month of the First World War unfolded, and how leaders stumbled into it.
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Guns, Germs, and SteelJared Diamond, 1997Why some societies came to dominate others.
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HiroshimaJohn Hersey, 1946Six survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
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The Hot ZoneRichard Preston, 1994The story of Ebola and the scientists who fought it.
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How Democracies DieSteven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, 2018How elected leaders can weaken democracy from within.
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The InnovatorsWalter Isaacson, 2014The people who created the computer and the internet.
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Iran: A Modern HistoryAbbas Amanat, 2017Iran from the 1500s to the Islamic Republic.
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Iron CurtainAnne Applebaum, 2012How the Soviet Union took over Eastern Europe after 1945.
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Istanbul: Memories and the CityOrhan Pamuk, 2003A Nobel laureate's portrait of his city and its melancholy.
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The JungleUpton Sinclair, 1906The novel that led to America's food safety laws.
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The Lazarus HeistGeoff White, 2022How North Korea's hackers steal money from banks and crypto exchanges.
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The Looming TowerLawrence Wright, 2006The road to the September 11 attacks.
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Lords of FinanceLiaquat Ahamed, 2009The central bankers whose choices helped bring on the Great Depression.
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The Making of the Atomic BombRichard Rhodes, 1986The science and people behind the first nuclear weapons.
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The Making of the President 1960Theodore H. White, 1961The 1960 presidential campaign, and the start of modern campaign journalism.
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A Man on the MoonAndrew Chaikin, 1994The Apollo astronauts and their missions.
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Miracle at PhiladelphiaCatherine Drinker Bowen, 1966The making of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
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MoneyballMichael Lewis, 2003How data changed the way a baseball team was built.
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The New MapDaniel Yergin, 2020How energy shapes the rivalry between the U.S., Russia and China.
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A Night to RememberWalter Lord, 1955The sinking of the Titanic, minute by minute.
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Nineteen Eighty-FourGeorge Orwell, 1949The novel that gave us Big Brother and doublethink.
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Nothing to EnvyBarbara Demick, 2009Ordinary lives in North Korea, told by people who escaped.
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Number Go UpZeke Faux, 2023A reporter's tour through the crypto boom and its frauds.
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On ChinaHenry Kissinger, 2011How China's leaders think about the world, by a diplomat who dealt with them.
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The Origins of TotalitarianismHannah Arendt, 1951How modern tyrannies arose, and what made them possible.
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Out of PlaceEdward W. Said, 1999A memoir of growing up between countries and languages.
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Parting the WatersTaylor Branch, 1988Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights years, 1954 to 1963.
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A Peace to End All PeaceDavid Fromkin, 1989How the modern Middle East was drawn after the Ottoman collapse.
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Power and ProgressDaron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, 2023Who has gained from a thousand years of new technology, and who has not.
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The Price of PeaceZachary D. Carter, 2020John Maynard Keynes and the fight over how to run an economy.
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The PrizeDaniel Yergin, 1991The history of oil, and of the wars, fortunes and governments built on it.
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Public OpinionWalter Lippmann, 1922How the news shapes the pictures in our heads.
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The Revolt of the PublicMartin Gurri, 2014How the flood of online information undermines institutions.
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The Right StuffTom Wolfe, 1979America's first astronauts and the test pilots before them.
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The Righteous MindJonathan Haidt, 2012Why people divide over politics and religion.
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The Rise and Fall of the Third ReichWilliam L. Shirer, 1960A correspondent's history of Nazi Germany, from rise to collapse.
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The Road to SerfdomF. A. Hayek, 1944A warning against central economic planning.
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The Second World WarAntony Beevor, 2012A single-volume history of the Second World War.
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Shop Class as SoulcraftMatthew B. Crawford, 2009The value of skilled manual work.
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Silent SpringRachel Carson, 1962The book that launched the modern environmental movement.
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The Sixth ExtinctionElizabeth Kolbert, 2014How humans are causing a mass extinction.
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The SleepwalkersChristopher Clark, 2012How Europe's leaders drifted into war in 1914, step by step.
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StasilandAnna Funder, 2003Life under East Germany's secret police, told by those who lived it.
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Team of RivalsDoris Kearns Goodwin, 2005How Lincoln brought his political rivals into his cabinet.
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Ten Days That Shook the WorldJohn Reed, 1919An eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution.
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Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahneman, 2011Why our quick judgments go wrong, and when to slow down.
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Thirteen DaysRobert F. Kennedy, 1969The Cuban missile crisis from inside the White House.
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Turkey: A Modern HistoryErik J. Zürcher, 1993Turkey from the late Ottoman Empire to the present.
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The Twilight WarDavid Crist, 2012Three decades of hidden conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
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The Undoing ProjectMichael Lewis, 2016The friendship behind behavioral economics.
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The Uninhabitable EarthDavid Wallace-Wells, 2019What a warming planet could mean for daily life.
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Unsafe at Any SpeedRalph Nader, 1965The book that changed car safety in America.
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The Warmth of Other SunsIsabel Wilkerson, 2010The Great Migration of Black Americans out of the South.
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The Wealth of NationsAdam Smith, 1776The founding book of modern economics.
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What It TakesRichard Ben Cramer, 1992What running for president does to the people who try.
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Why Nations FailDaron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, 2012Why some countries grow rich and others stay poor.
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Why We're PolarizedEzra Klein, 2020How American politics sorted into two opposing camps.
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The Worldly PhilosophersRobert L. Heilbroner, 1953The great economists and their ideas, told as stories.
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The Wright BrothersDavid McCullough, 2015How two brothers from Ohio taught the world to fly.
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Covers from Open Library. Links go to Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores.