During her keynote speech at the 1976 Democratic Party convention, Barbara Jordan of Texas stood before a rapt audience and reflected on where Americans stood in that bicentennial year. “Are we to be one people bound together by a common spirit, sharing in a common endeavor, or will we become a divided nation? For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.” The civil rights movement had changed American politics by opening up elected office to a new generation of Black leaders, including Jordan, the first Black woman from the South to serve in Congress. Though her life in elected politics lasted only twelve years, in that short time, Jordan changed the nation by showing that Black women could lead their party and legislate on behalf of what she called “the common good.” In She Changed the Nation, biographer Mary Ellen Curtin offers a new portrait of Jordan and her journey from segregated Houston, Texas, to Washington, DC, where she made her mark during the Watergate crisis by eloquently calling for the impeachment of President Nixon. Recognized as one of the greatest orators of modern America, Jordan inspired millions, and Black women became her most ardent supporters. Many assumed Jordan would rise higher and become a US senator, Speaker of the House, or a Supreme Court justice. But illness and disability, along with the obstacles she faced as a Black woman, led to Jordan’s untimely retirement from elected office—though not from public life. Until her death at the age of fifty-nine, Jordan remained engaged with the cause of justice and creating common ground, proving that Black women could lead the country through challenging times. No change in the law alone could guarantee the election of Black leaders. It took courage and ambition for Barbara Jordan to break into politics. This important new biography explores the personal and the political dimensions of Jordan’s life, showing how she navigated the extraordinary pressures of office while seeking to use persuasion, governance, and popular politics as instruments of social change and betterment.

The diet and weight-loss industry is worth $66 billion – billion!! The estimated annual health care costs of obesity-related illness are 190 billion or nearly 21% of annual medical spending in the United States. But how did we get here? Is this a battle we can’t win? What changes need to be made in order to scale back the incidence of obesity in the US, and, indeed, around the world? Here, Jonathan Engel reviews the sources of the problem and offers the science behind our modern propensity toward obesity. He offers a plan for helping address the problem, but admits that it is, indeed, an uphill battle. Nevertheless, given the magnitude of the costs in years of life and vigor lost, it is a battle worth fighting. Fat Nation is a social history of obesity in the United States since the second World War. In confronting this familiar topic from a historical perspective, Jonathan Engel attempts to show that obesity is a symptom of complex changes that have transpired over the past half century to our food, our living habits, our life patterns, our built environments, and our social interactions. He offers readers solid grounding in the known science underlying obesity (genetic set points, complex endocrine feedback loops, neurochemical messengering) but then makes the novel argument that obesity is a result of the interaction of our genes with our environment. That is, our bodies have always been programmed to become obese, but until recently never had the opportunity to do so. Now, with cheap calories ubiquitous (particularly in the form of sucrose), unwalkable physical spaces, deteriorating rituals and norms surrounding eating, and the withering of cooking skills, nearly every American daily confronts the challenge of not putting on weight. Given the outcomes, though, for those who are obese, Engel encourages us to address the problems and offers suggestions to help remedy the problem.

It is difficult to think of two twentieth century books by one author that have had as much influence on American culture when they were published as Alex Haley's monumental bestsellers, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), and Roots (1976). They changed the way white and black America viewed each other and the country's history. This first biography of Haley follows him from his childhood in relative privilege in deeply segregated small town Tennessee to fame and fortune in high powered New York City. It was in the Navy, that Haley discovered himself as a writer, which eventually led his rise as a star journalist in the heyday of magazine personality profiles. At Playboy Magazine, Haley profiled everyone from Martin Luther King and Miles Davis to Johnny Carson and Malcolm X, leading to their collaboration on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Roots was for Haley a deeper, more personal reach. The subsequent book and miniseries ignited an ongoing craze for family history, and made Haley one of the most famous writers in the country. Roots sold half a million copies in the first two months of publication, and the original television miniseries was viewed by 130 million people. Haley died in 1992. This deeply researched and compelling book by Robert J. Norrell offers the perfect opportunity to revisit his authorship, his career as one of the first African American star journalists, as well as an especially dramatic time of change in American history.

'I am a woman's rights. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I am as strong as any man that is now' A former slave and one of the most powerful orators of her time, Sojourner Truth fought for the equal rights of Black women throughout her life. This selection of her impassioned speeches is accompanied by the words of other inspiring African-American female campaigners from the nineteenth century. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

One of Time’s 100 most influential people “shines a new light on the need for a holistic approach to caregiving in America . . . Timely and hopeful” (Maria Shriver). In The Age of Dignity, thought leader and activist Ai-jen Poo offers a wake-up call about the statistical reality that will affect us all: Fourteen percent of our population is now over sixty-five; by 2030 that ratio will be one in five. In fact, our fastest-growing demographic is the eighty-five-plus age group—over five million people now, a number that is expected to more than double in the next twenty years. This change presents us with a new challenge: how we care for and support quality of life for the unprecedented numbers of older Americans who will need it. Despite these daunting numbers, Poo has written a profoundly hopeful book, giving us a glimpse into the stories and often hidden experiences of the people—family caregivers, older people, and home care workers—whose lives will be directly shaped and reshaped in this moment of demographic change. The Age of Dignity outlines a road map for how we can become a more caring nation, providing solutions for fixing our fraying safety net while also increasing opportunities for women, immigrants, and the unemployed in our workforce. As Poo has said, “Care is the strategy and the solution toward a better future for all of us.” “Every American should read this slender book. With luck, it will be the future for all of us.” —Gloria Steinem “Positive and inclusive.” —The New York Times “A big-hearted book [that] seeks to transform our dismal view of aging and caregiving.” —Ms. magazine

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The remarkable memoir of an ambitious young photojournalist who went off to war as a twenty-two-year-old girl—and came back, four years and many adventures later, a woman “Eloquent and well observed, not only about the memoirist, but about the world: war, death, photojournalism and, of course, the worldwide battle between the sexes.” —The Washington Post Book World In 1988, fresh out of Harvard, Deborah Copaken Kogan moved to Paris with a small backpack, a couple of cameras, the hubris of a superhero, and a strong thirst for danger. She wanted to see what a war would look like when seen from up close. Naïvely, she figured it would be easy to filter death through the prism of her wide-angle lens. She was dead wrong. Within weeks of arriving in Paris, after begging to be sent where the action was, Kogan found herself on the back of a truck in Afghanistan, her tiny frame veiled from head to toe, the only woman—and the only journalist—in a convoy of rebel freedom fighters. Kogan had not actually planned on shooting the Afghan war alone. However, the beguiling French photographer she’d entrusted with both her itinerary and her heart turned out to be as dangerously unpredictable as, well, a war. Kogan found herself running from one corner of the globe to another, each linked to the man she was involved with at the time. From Zimbabwe to Romania, from Russia to Haiti, Kogan takes her readers on a heartbreaking yet surprisingly hilarious journey through a mine-strewn decade, her personal battles against sexism, battery, and even rape blending seamlessly with the historical struggles of war, revolution, and unfathomable abuse it was her job to record. In the end, what was once adventurous to the girl began to weigh heavily on the woman. Though she had finally been accepted into photojournalism’s macho fraternity, her photographs splashed across the front pages of international newspapers and magazines, Kogan began to feel there was something more she was after. Ultimately, what she discovered in herself was a person—a woman—for whom life, not death, is the one true adventure to be cherished above all.

"Don't get high on your own supply." Brian de Palma's brash, bloody version of Scarface was trashed by critics when it came out twenty-five years ago and didn't do well at the box office, but has become a spectacular fan favorite and enduring pop culture classic since. "Never underestimate the greed of the other guy." What makes millions of people obsess over this movie? Why has Al Pacino's Tony Montana become the drug kingpin whose pugnacity and philosophy are revered in boardrooms and bedrooms across America? Who were the people that made the movie, influencing hip-hop style and swagger to this day? "The world is yours." Scarface Nation is Ken Tucker's homage to all things Scarface—from the stars that acted in it to the influence it's had on all of us, from facts, figures and stories about the making of the movie to a witty and comprehensive look at Scarface's traces in today's pop and political culture. "Say hello to my li'l fren!" You know you love the line. You know you've seen the movie more than once. Now dive into the ultimate book of Scarface—mounded as high as the pile of cocaine on Tony's desk with delicious details and stimulating observations. "You know what capitalism is? F--- you!"

This novel was the major inspiration for the Women's Movement and continues to be a powerful and illuminating analysis of the position of women in Western society___

Newsweek calls him “exhilarating and deeply engaging.” Time Out New York calls him “smart, provocative, and a great writer.” Critic Peter Schjeldahl, meanwhile, simply calls him “My hero.” There’s no one in the art world quite like Dave Hickey—and a new book of his writing is an event. 25 Women will not disappoint. The book collects Hickey’s best and most important writing about female artists from the past twenty years. But this is far more than a compilation: Hickey has revised each essay, bringing them up to date and drawing out common themes. Written in Hickey’s trademark style—accessible, witty, and powerfully illuminating—25 Women analyzes the work of Joan Mitchell, Bridget Riley, Fiona Rae, Lynda Benglis, Karen Carson, and many others. Hickey discusses their work as work, bringing politics and gender into the discussion only where it seems warranted by the art itself. The resulting book is not only a deep engagement with some of the most influential and innovative contemporary artists, but also a reflection on the life and role of the critic: the decisions, judgments, politics, and ethics that critics negotiate throughout their careers in the art world. Always engaging, often controversial, and never dull, Dave Hickey is a writer who gets people excited—and talking—about art. 25 Women will thrill his many fans, and make him plenty of new ones.