<p>The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, and a white...

The British studio potter Michael Cardew (1901-1983) was a man of paradox, a modernist who disliked modernity, a colonial servant who despised Empire, a husband and father who was also homosexual, and an intellectual who worked with his hands. Gradua...

It was his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, another inveterate journal keeper, who urged Thoreau to keep a record of his thoughts and observations. Begun in 1837, "Thoreau's Journal" spans a period of twenty-five years and runs to more than two million wo...

A major figure in American blues and folk music, Big Bill Broonzy (1903-1958) left his Arkansas Delta home after World War I, headed north, and became the leading Chicago bluesman of the 1930s. His success came as he fused traditional rural blues wit...

From jazz fantasy camp to running a movie studio; from a fight between an old guy and a fat guy to a fear of clowns – Carlo Rotella's "Playing in Time" delivers good stories full of vivid characters, all told with the unique voice and humor that have...

The powerful and innovative King Athelstan reigned only briefly (924-939), yet his achievements during those eventful twelve years changed the course of English history. He won spectacular military victories (most notably at Brunanburh), forged unpre...

Reinhard Heydrich is widely recognized as one of the great iconic villains of the twentieth century, an appalling figure even within the context of the Nazi leadership. Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, and the Gestapo, ruth...

How do we reclaim our innate enchantment with the world? And how can we turn our natural curiosity into a deep, abiding love for knowledge? Frank Oppenheimer, the younger brother of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, was captivated by these questio...

"Thirty-seven years ago, I vowed to write a truthful book about raising a deaf child". Rebecca Willman Gernon followed through on her promise with her deaf daughter Amy Willman in this extraordinary new narrative. Many stories have been told about a...

Bob Dylan is an iconic figure in American music and cultural history, lauded by "Time Magazine" as one of the hundred most important people of the twentieth century. For nearly fifty years the singer-songwriter has crafted his unique brand of music,...