Elaine Pagels, winner of the National Book Award for her groundbreaking work The Gnostic Gospels, now reflects on spiritual and religious exploration in the twenty-first century. "With the winning combination of sound scholarship, deep insight and crystal-clear prose style that distinguishes all her work, Pagels portrays the great variety of beliefs, teachings and practices that were found among the earliest Christians."-Los Angeles Times

Marilyn Yalom, inspired by a handful of surviving medieval chess queens, traces their origin and spread from Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and England to Scandinavia and Russia. Illustrated with beautiful art throughout, this book takes a fresh look at queenship, and the reflections of royal power in the figure of the chess queen.

This is the true story of a whiskey-swilling, skirt-chasing scandal-prone congressman from Texas, and how he conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest and most successful covert operation in U.S. history. "Who can possibly resist a story about a maverick Texas congressman who managed to bring the Soviet Union to its knees? Charlie Wilson's War is a cross between Tom Clancy and Carl Hiaasen, with the distinguishing feature that it's all apparently true." -The Christian Science Monitor

Beginning with a rereading of Emerson's "Self-Reliance," Cavell traces the idea of perfectionism through works by Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, and Rawls, and by such artists as Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, and Shakespeare. Cities of Words shows that this ever-evolving idea, brought to dramatic life in movies such as It Happened One Night, The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story, and The Lady Eve, has the power to reorient the perception of Western philosophy.

Despite his stated intention "to extend the benefits of freedom...to every corner of the world," George W. Bush maintains that "America has never been an empire." Nonsense, says Niall Ferguson. In Colossus, a brilliant full-body anatomy of the present-day American empire, Ferguson urges America to acknowledge its role as an empire and confront the long-term costs of its commitments, or admit disaster.

Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the most ambitious publishing project in the history of the American comic strip: the complete reprinting of Charles M. Schulz's classic, Peanuts. This first volume, covering the first two and a quarter years of the strip (October 1950 through December 1952), offers a unique chance to see a master of the artform refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month.

A clear-eyed examination of the patterns of dark ages throughout history and an early warning of an oncoming dark age in North America, by the legendary author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. "Jacobs argues that what she calls the 'five pillars of our culture' are in jeopardy. These comprise families and communities, higher education, science and technology, taxes and governmental power, and, finally, the self-policing of learned professions. . . . Jacobs can write, and so by the end her arguments and admonitions all appear persuasive and disquieting. Crisp, entertaining, scholarly, scary." -Kirkus Review

The spontaneous sketch is a trademark of the architect's creativity. On the occasion of the opening of the museum of architecture in the Gallery of Modern Art in Munich, the museum director asked architects of international standing to sketch their personal greetings and congratulations on a paper napkin. These napkins are now part of a colorful, imaginative, and often droll collection, reproduced here interspersed with pithy quotes from an array of famous architects.

With Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris returns to his deliciously twisted domain: hilarious childhood dramas infused with melancholy; the gulf of misunderstanding that exists between people of different nations or members of the same family; and the poignant divide between one's best hopes and most common deeds.

Why should books drive the academic hierarchy? As one of the most important editors in the humanities and social sciences, Waters has long witnessed the self-destruction occurring in the academic world because of the pressure to publish. It is time for scholars to rise up, he argues, and reclaim the governance of their institutions.

Calvin Trillin has never been a champion of the "continental cuisine" palaces he used to refer to as La Maison de la Casa House. What he treasures is the superb local specialty. And he will go anywhere to find one. Feeding a Yen is a delightful reminder of why New York magazine called Calvin Trillin "our funniest food writer."

Dividing his work into essays with sections on "New Englanders," "Southerners," and "Revolutionaries," Morgan examines the history of the American colonies from the arrival of the first settlers in 1607 to the radical changes brought forth by the American Revolution. Filled with illuminating discussions of American leaders, including Winthrop, Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, the book is extraordinary in its range-from the (quite lusty) sex lives of the Puritans to the witch trials in Salem and the corrosive effects of slavery on the soul of Virginia.

The Gulag-a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners-was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag. "Applebaum's book, written with such quiet elegance and moral seriousness, is a major contribution to curing the amnesia that curiously seems to have affected broader public perceptions of one of the two or three major enormities of the twentieth century." -Times Literary Supplement

This volume traverses the gamut of Harvardiana from Aab and Admisssions to X Cage and Z Closet. In between are some two hundred entries written by three Harvard veterans who bring to the task over 125 years of experience within the university. The entries range from essential facts to no less interesting ephemera, from Arts and Athletics to Towers and Tuition: from the very real environs (Cambridge, Charles River, and Quincy Street) to the Harvard of Hollywood and fiction.

The Invisible People is a revealing and at times shocking look inside the United States's response to one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known-the global AIDS crisis. A true story of politics, bureaucracy, disease, internecine warfare, and negligence, it illustrates that while the pandemic constitutes a profound threat to U.S. economic and security interests, at every turn the United States has failed to act in the face of this pernicious menace.

An iconoclastic analysis of the ideological and political stakes of the attack on Iraq. It spares nothing and nobody, neither pathetically impotent pacifism nor hypocritical sympathy with the suffering of the Iraqi people. "Zizek leaves no social or natural phenomenon untheorized, and is the master of the counterintuitive observation." -The New Yorker

James Wood's first book of essays, The Broken Estate, established him as the leading critic of his generation. Ranging over such crucial comic writers as Cervantes, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Waugh, Bellow, and Naipaul, these new essays offer a broad history of comedy while examining each chosen writer with his customary care and intense focus. This collection (which includes Wood's much-discussed attack on "hysterical realism") is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about modern fiction or criticism today.

Killed resurrects remarkable articles that prestigious publications assigned to accomplished writers for sizeable fees, then discarded for reasons having nothing to do with their quality and everything to do with their potential for unwanted controversy, political incorrectness, or undue pressure from an advertiser. Contributors include Betty Friedan, Terry Southern, George Orwell, and Christopher Hitchens.

Why do some students in the United States make the most of college, while others struggle and look back on years of missed opportunities? Two Harvard University Presidents invited Richard Light and his colleagues to explore this question, resulting in ten years of interviews with 1,600 Harvard students. Making the Most of College offers concrete advice on choosing classes, talking productively with advisors, improving writing and study skills, maximizing the value of research assignments, and connecting learning inside the classroom with the rest of life.

In France, the German occupation is called simply the "dark years." There were only the "good French" who resisted and the "bad French" who collaborated. Marianne in Chains, a broad and provocative history, uncovers a rather different story, one in which the truth is more complex and humane. "Stunning...In his nuanced and intricate work of historical reconstruction Gildea has grappled heroically with the ambiguity at the heart of history and in the heart of man." -The Atlantic Monthly

Bill Moyers's television programs-covering topics ranging from American history, politics, and religion to the role of media and the world of ideas-have made him one of America's most recognized and honored journalists. In these pages, Moyers presents, for the first time, a powerful statement of his own personal beliefs. Combining illuminating forays into American history with candid comments on today's politics, Moyers delivers perceptive and trenchant insights into the American experience.

An unparalleled global survey of the most outstanding works of architecture built since 1998. The only resource of its kind, featuring over 7,000 illustrations of 1,500 buildings from more than 75 countries as culturally and geographically diverse as Argentina, Botswana, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Guinea, Hungary, and many others.

Peter J. Gomes is widely acclaimed as one of America's greatest preachers. This is a new collection of his most important sermons, which draw on the wisdom of the Bible to enrich our daily lives. Never one to shy away from controversy, Gomes preaches sermons such as "In Praise of Harlots,"Plenty Good Room,"and "Patriotism Is Not Enough."

The torching of European synagogues, suicide terror in Israel, the relentless comparison of the Israelis to Nazis, the paranoid post-September 11 Internet-bred conspiracy theories, the Holocaust-denial literature spreading throughout the Arab world, the calumny and violence erupting on American college campuses: a new anti-Semitism has become widespread. In this chilling book, Ron Rosenbaum brings together a collection of essays about the origin and nature of the new anti-Semitism.

In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"-how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union-Frank seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? "A brilliant analysis-and funny to boot-What's the Matter with Kansas? [tells] a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People." -Los Angeles Times

Many scientists insist that our behavior is governed by our genes-above all when it comes to sex. Not so, argues evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge. Sex certainly seems to us more complicated than a matter of our DNA struggling to survive, and that's because it is. Authoritative and delightfully combative, Why We Do It challenges us to rethink the assumptions of today's science.