THIS SEARCHING INTERPRETATION of past and present addresses fundamental questions about the fall of the Roman Empire. Why did ancient culture, once so strong and rich, come to an end? Was it destroyed by weaknesses inherent in its nature? Or were mistakes made that could have been avoided -- was there a point at which Greco-Roman society took a wrong turn? And in what ways is modern society different? Western history is split into two discontinuous eras, Aldo Schiavone tells us: the ancient world was fundamentally different from the modern one. He locates the essential difference in a series of economic factors: a slave-based economy, relative lack of mechanization and technology, the dominance of agriculture over urban industry. Also crucial are aspects of the ancient mentality: disdain for manual work, a preference for transcending (rather than transforming) nature, a basic belief in the permanence of limits. Schiavone's lively and provocative examination of the ancient world, "the eternal theater of history and power", offers a stimulating opportunity to view modern society in light of the experience of our forebears.

Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.

How Main Street was hit by—and might recover from—the financial crisis, by The New York Times's national economics correspondent When the financial crisis struck in 2008, Main Street felt the blow just as hard as Wall Street. The New York Times national economics correspondent Peter S. Goodman takes us behind the headlines and exposes how the flow of capital from Asia and Silicon Valley to the suburbs of the housing bubble perverted America's economy. He follows a real estate entrepreneur who sees endless opportunity in the underdeveloped lots of Florida—until the mortgages for them collapse. And he watches as an Oakland, California-based deliveryman, unable to land a job in the biotech industry, slides into unemployment and a homeless shelter. As Goodman shows, for two decades Americans binged on imports and easy credit, a spending spree abetted by ever-increasing home values—and then the bill came due. Yet even in a new environment of thrift and pullback, Goodman argues that economic adaptation is possible, through new industries and new safety nets. His tour of new businesses in Michigan, Iowa, South Carolina, and elsewhere and his clear-eyed analysis point the way to the economic promises and risks America now faces.

Following his acclaimed New York Times bestseller Did You Ever Have a Family, Bill Clegg returns with a “delicate, deeply observed, and deftly crafted” (Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs) second novel about the complicated bonds and breaking points of friendship, the corrosive forces of secrets, the heartbeat of longing, and the redemption found in forgiveness. A retired widow in rural Connecticut wakes to an unexpected visit from her childhood best friend whom she hasn’t seen in forty-nine years. A man arrives at a Pennsylvania hotel to introduce his estranged father to his newborn daughter and finds him collapsed on the floor of the lobby. A sixty-seven-year-old taxi driver in Kauai receives a phone call from the mainland that jars her back to a traumatic past. These seemingly disconnected lives come together as half-century-old secrets begin to surface. It is in this moment that Bill Clegg reminds us how choices—to connect, to betray, to protect—become our legacy. “Written in lyrical, beautiful prose that makes even waking up seem like a poetic event” (Good Morning America), this novel is a feat of storytelling, capturing sixty years within the framework of one fateful day.

Fourteen years running from your past. Today it catches up. A gripping psychological thriller for fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. Leah Mills lives a life of a fugitive - kept on the run by one terrible day from her past. It is a lonely life, without a social life or friends until - longing for a connection - she meets Julian. For the first time she dares to believe she can live a normal life. Then, on the fourteenth anniversary of that day, she receives a card. Someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won't stop until they've destroyed the life Leah has created. But is Leah all she seems? Or does she deserve everything she gets? Everyone has secrets. But some are deadly.

An urgent account of the explorers and scientists racing to understand the rapidly melting ice sheet in Greenland, a dramatic harbinger of climate change. As Greenland's ice melts and runs off into the sea, it not only threatens to affect hundreds of millions of people who live in coastal areas. It will also have drastic effects on ocean currents, weather systems, economies, and migration patterns