How Far the Promised Land? explores the relationship between overseas developments and the most important reform movement in modern American history, the struggle for racial justice. Interweaving civil rights history, U.S. foreign relations history, and twentieth-century international history, the book contributes to the emerging effort to reconceptualize the study of America's past by locating it in a global context. In examining the link between international developments and the quest for racial justice, Jonathan Rosenberg argues that civil rights leaders were profoundly interested in the world beyond America and incorporated their understanding of overseas matters into their reform program in order to fortify and legitimize the message they presented to their followers, the nation, and the international community. The book considers how a cosmopolitan group of black and white, male and female race reform leaders purposively deployed World War I and the peace settlement, the decolonization struggles in Africa and Asia, the emergence of communism and fascism, World War II, and the Cold War to help realize their domestic aspirations. Rosenberg sets this complex story against the backdrop of America's growing activism on the world stage, a development that would have significant positive implications for the domestic struggle. Central to the work is the notion that race reform leaders were animated by the idea of "color-conscious internationalism," a distinctive outlook that would affect the trajectory and momentum of the civil rights movement.

From the New York Times contributing opinion writer and award-winning author of Reading While Black, a riveting intergenerational account of his family’s search for home and hope “Powerful . . . McCaulley uses examples of his own family’s stories of survival over time to remind readers that some paths to the promised land have detours along the way.”—The Root A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR For much of his life, Esau McCaulley was taught to see himself as an exception: someone who, through hard work, faith, and determination, overcame childhood poverty, anti-Black racism, and an absent father to earn a job as a university professor and a life in the middle class. But that narrative was called into question one night, when McCaulley answered the phone and learned that his father—whose absence defined his upbringing—died in a car crash. McCaulley was being asked to deliver his father’s eulogy, to make sense of his complicated legacy in a country that only accepts Black men on the condition that they are exceptional, hardworking, perfect. The resulting effort sent McCaulley back through his family history, seeking to understand the community that shaped him. In these pages, we meet his great-grandmother Sophia, a tenant farmer born with the gift of prophecy who scraped together a life in Jim Crow Alabama; his mother, Laurie, who raised four kids alone in an era when single Black mothers were demonized as “welfare queens”; and a cast of family, friends, and neighbors who won small victories in a world built to swallow Black lives. With profound honesty and compassion, he raises questions that implicate us all: What does each person’s struggle to build a life teach us about what we owe each other? About what it means to be human? How Far to the Promised Land is a thrilling and tender epic about being Black in America. It’s a book that questions our too-simple narratives about poverty and upward mobility; a book in which the people normally written out of the American Dream are given voice.

For nearly twenty years, Aaron David Miller has played a central role in U.S. efforts to broker Arab-Israeli peace as an advisor to presidents, secretaries of state, and national security advisors. Without partisanship or finger-pointing, Miller records what went right, what went wrong, and how we got where we are today. Here is a look at the peace process from a place at the negotiation table, filled with behind-the-scenes strategy, colorful anecdotes and equally colorful characters, and new interviews with presidents, secretaries of state, and key Arab and Israeli leaders. Honest, critical, and often controversial, Miller’s insider’s account offers a brilliant new analysis of the problem of Arab-Israeli peace and how it still might be solved.

“A funny yet surprisingly nuanced look at the legends and ideas of the self-help industry” (People, 3.5 stars), Promise Land explores the American devotion to self-improvement—even as the author attempts some deeply personal improvements of her own. Raised by a child psychologist who was himself the author of numerous self-help books, as an adult Jessica Lamb-Shapiro found herself both repelled and fascinated by the industry: did all of these books, tapes, weekend seminars, groups, posters, t-shirts, and trinkets really help anybody? Why do some people swear by the power of positive thinking, while others dismiss it as so many empty promises? Promise Land is an irreverent tour through the vast and strange reaches of the world of self-help. In the name of research, Jessica attempted to cure herself of phobias, followed The Rules to meet and date men, walked on hot coals, and even attended a self-help seminar for writers of self-help books. But the more she delved into the history and practice of self-help, the more she realized her interest was much more than academic. Forced into a confrontation with the silent grief that had haunted both her and her father since her mother’s death when she was a baby, she realized that sometimes thinking you know everything about a subject is a way of hiding from yourself the fact that you know nothing at all. “A jaunty, cannily written memoir” (Chicago Tribune), Promise Land is cultural history from “a witty and enjoyably self-aware writer…Jessica Lamb-Shapiro’s talent as a storyteller is undeniable” (The New York Times Book Review).

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “A deeply reported, deeply personal history of Zionism and Israel that does something few books even attempt: It balances the strength and weakness, the idealism and the brutality, the hope and the horror, that has always been at Zionism’s heart.”—Ezra Klein, The New York Times Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Ari Shavit’s riveting work, now updated with new material, draws on historical documents, interviews, and private diaries and letters, as well as his own family’s story, to create a narrative larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and of profound historical dimension. As he examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, Shavit asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can it survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. Shavit’s analysis of Israeli history provides a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.

This book explores the link between Paul's belief that Jesus is Israel's Messiah, and his interpretation of the Abrahamic Land Promise in Galatians. Countering claims that Paul replaces the Promised Land with the gift of the Spirit or salvation, Esau McCaulley argues that Paul expands this inheritance to include the whole earth; believing that, as the seed of Abraham and David, Jesus is entitled to the entire world as his inheritance and kingdom. McCaulley argues that scholars have neglected Paul's expanded interpretation of the inheritance of the earth, rarely appreciate the role that messianism plays in Galatians, and fail to acknowledge that Second Temple authors often portrayed royal and messianic figures as God's means of fulfilling the promises made to Abraham and Israel, via the establishment of kingdoms. Through a comparison of texts from the Pseudepigrapha, apocrypha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls with Galatians 3:1–4:7, 5:21, McCaulley argues Paul's interpretation of Jesus's death is a manifestation of Second Temple messianism because it ends the covenant curses outlined in Deuteronomy and begins the restoration of the inheritance to Abraham's offspring through the establishment of Jesus's worldwide kingdom; he concludes that Paul's interpretation of the Abrahamic inheritance is inseparable from his belief that Jesus is Israel's Messiah.

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND PEOPLE NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • NPR • The Guardian • Slate • Vox • The Economist • Marie Claire In the stirring first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office. Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden. A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible. This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.

From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Thank You, Mr. Nixon comes a “hilariously funny and seriously important” novel (Amy Tan) about American multiculturalism and a Chinese American teenager doing her best to fit in–even if it means converting to Judaism. In these pages, acclaimed author Gish Jen introduces us to teenaged Mona Chang, who in 1968 moves with her newly prosperous family to Scarshill, New York. Here, the Chinese are seen as "the new Jews." What could be more natural than for Mona to take this literally—even to the point of converting? As Mona attends temple "rap" sessions and falls in love (with a nice Jewish boy who lives in a tepee), Jen introduces us to one of the most charming and sweet-spirited heroines in recent fiction, a girl who can wisecrack with perfect aplomb even when she's organizing the help in her father's pancake house. On every page, Gish Jen sets our received notions spinning with a wit as dry as a latter-day Jane Austen's.

"This book is likely to become the future point of reference for scholarship on environmental issues in Israel. Tal combines his extensive inside knowledge with broad and thorough research to take the reader clearly through a complex fabric of personalities, organizations, and issues."—Stuart Schoenfeld, York University "This is truly an excellent book. It is the first treatment of the whole array of environmental issues in Israel, and in its historical context – an absolute necessity. Extremely well-written and in fact hard to put down, this book is useful on many levels, for United Nations Agencies and development officials, Israeli and Palestinian government officials, and environmentalists and teachers around the world."—Brock Evans, Executive Director, The Endangered Species Coalition and author of many articles and books on the politics of the environment "Pollution in a Promised Land is an innovative book, and an important one, by perhaps the most prominent environmental activist in Israel. Tal's approach is to take an "eagle's eye view" of his vast subject, now gliding far above, providing overview, now swooping down very close and, through interviews or anecdotes, describing his subject with great immediacy and in memorable detail."—Noah J. Efron, Bar Ilan University "Anyone who cares about the land of Israel should read Pollution in a Promised Land. It is critical to understanding the social, political, and scientific dimensions of the country's environmental challenges as well as the country's remarkable ecological achievements. Alon Tal is uniquely qualified to present this fascinating and dramatic environmental history."—Tzachi Hanegbi, Minister of the Environment, Israel