“An irreverent romp through history’s best bits,” The Mental Floss History of the World is an amazingly entertaining joyride through 60,000 years of human civilization. Learn More
Renowned Harvard scholar and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has composed a strikingly original, ingeniously conceived, and beautifully crafted history of American ideas about life and death from before the cradle to beyond the grave. Learn More
When the historian Howard Zinn died in early 2010, millions mourned the loss of one of our foremost intellectual and political guides: a historian, activist, and truth-teller who, in the words of the New york Times’s Bob Herbert, “peel[ed] back the rosy veneer of much of American history.” Learn More
Telling perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but also the frequent praise of “whiteness” for economic, scientific, and political ends. Learn More
Howard Zinn's life and work are the stuff of legend. His People's History of the United States has sold over two million copies and has altered how we see and teach history. A hero in word and deed, Zinn's views on freedom, fairness, history, democracy, and our own human potential are educational and transformative. Learn More
In time for the upcoming election season, Penguin presents a series of six portable, accessible, and—above all—essential reads from American political history, selected by leading scholars. Learn More