Basic Books History 2020

BASIC BOOKS 1290 Avenue of the Americas PRSRT STD U.S. Postage New York, NY 10104 PAID Denver, CO basicbooks.com Permit No. 2883 PRINTED IN CANADA 6.125 ×10.875 6.125 SPINE: 0 NEW TITLESINHISTORY FLAPS: 0 history 2019–2020 new hardcovers 3 new paperbacks 15 backlist highlights 16 also of interest 20 contact information 21 COVER IMAGE © CAFE RACER / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Don’t miss out! Sign up for Basic newsletters at basicbooks.com . NEW HARDCOVERS Dreams of El Dorado A History of the American West H. W. BRANDS “Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope, this is a bravura performance from one of our master historians.” —Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Blood and Thunder 978-1-5416-7252-9 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 544 pp. • October 2019 Children of Ash and Elm A History of the Vikings NEIL PRICE A definitive new history of the Vikings. 978-0-465-09698-5 • $35.00 / $44.00 (Can.) • 608 pp. • May 2020 Dominion How the Christian Revolution Remade the World TOM HOLLAND “Dominion is an immensely powerful and thought- provoking book. It is hard to think of another that so effectively and readably summarizes the major strands of Christian ethical and political thought across two millennia.” —Wall Street Journal 978-0-465-09350-2 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 624 pp. • October 2019 Basic Books • 3 NEW HARDCOVERS War Fever Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War RANDY ROBERTS and JOHNNY SMITH A vivid portrait of Boston in the throes of World War I, told through the stories of three men: Karl Muck, the German conductor; Charles Whittlesey, a Harvard law graduate; and Babe Ruth, the most famous baseball player of all time. 978-1-5416-7266-6 • $30.00 / $38.00 (Can.) • 368 pp. • March 2020 No Man’s Land The Trailblazing Women Who Ran Britain’s Most Extraordinary Military Hospital During World War I WENDY MOORE The inspiring story of two pioneering suffragette doctors who ran the only military hospital staffed entirely by women during World War I—and who transformed medicine in the process. 978-1-5416-7272-7 • $30.00 / $38.00 (Can.) • 368 pp. • April 2020 The Fortress The Siege of Przemy´sl and the Making of Europe’s Bloodlands ALEXANDER WATSON “Vividly written and well-researched, The Fortress is a masterpiece. It deserves to become a classic of military history.” —The Times (UK) 978-1-5416-9730-0 • $32.00 • 400 pp. • February 2020 Basic Books • 4 NEW HARDCOVERS Double Crossed The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War MATTHEW AVERY SUTTON “Arresting and informative.... Double Crossed is a great read and a fresh, archive-intensive contribution to our understanding of American intelligence during World War II.” —Washington Post 978-0-465-05266-0 • $30.00 / $38.00 (Can.) • 416 pp. • September 2019 Hitler’s First Hundred Days When Germans Embraced the Third Reich PETER FRITZSCHE The breathtaking rise of Hitler in 1933—and the making of the Nazis. 978-1-5416-9743-0 • $35.00 / $44.00 (Can.) • 432 pp. • March 2020 Poland 1939 The Outbreak of World War II ROGER MOORHOUSE “A fascinating book.... There are moments of heroism and defiance here that will put a catch in your throat, and a shiver down your spine.” —Sunday Telegraph (UK) 978-0-465-09538-4 • $30.00 / $38.00 (Can.) • 368 pp. • May 2020 Basic Books • 5 NEW HARDCOVERS Hitler A Global Biography BRENDAN SIMMS “This vivid and painstakingly researched volume revises fundamentally how historians ought to view the geopolitical motivations of the Nazi leader.... Engaging and essential reading for anyone interested in Hitler’s policymaking.” —Foreign Affairs 978-0-465-02237-3 • $40.00 • 704 pp. • October 2019 Heirs of an Honored Name The Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America DOUGLAS R. EGERTON “An eloquent group biography of the descendants of Abigail and John Quincy Adams … chronicled by Egerton with sensitivity and nuance.” —James M. McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Battle Cry of Freedom 978-0-465-09388-5 • $35.00 / $44.00 (Can.) • 480 pp. • October 2019 Passionate Spirit The Life of Alma Mahler CATE HASTE “In this meticulously researched and absorbing biography … Mahler is depicted as a woman who not only facilitated the creative pursuits of her husbands and lovers, but was an intellectual and creative force in her own right.” —Guardian (UK) 978-0-465-09671-8 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 368 pp. • September 2019 Basic Books • 6 NEW HARDCOVERS The Sword and the Shield The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. PENIEL E. JOSEPH “A landmark.... Peniel Joseph deploys his supreme talents as a biographer and movement historian to interweave the world-shattering lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.” —Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist 978-1-5416-1786-5 • $30.00 / $38.00 (Can.) • 384 pp. • April 2020 The Broken Heart of America St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States WALTER JOHNSON A groundbreaking portrait of pervasive exploitation and radical resistance in America, told through the turbulent history of St. Louis. 978-0-465-06426-7 • $35.00 / $44.00 (Can.) • 544 pp. • April 2020 American Queenmaker How Missy Meloney Brought Women Into Politics JULIE DES JARDINS “In this compelling study, Des Jardins brings Missy Meloney out of the shadows and allows her at last the public acclaim she deserves.” —Carol Berkin, author of A Sovereign People 978-1-5416-4549-3 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 384 pp. • January 2020 Basic Books • 7 NEW HARDCOVERS America for Americans A History of Xenophobia in the United States ERIKA LEE “The most comprehensive and chilling history of anti-immigrant sentiment in America ever written.... An indispensable and sobering guide to the politics of our own time.” —Gary Gerstle, author of American Crucible 978-1-5416-7260-4 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 432 pp. • November 2019 Barrio America How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City A. K. SANDOVAL-STRAUSZ “A path-breaking book.... Challenging previous histories of the urban crisis, Barrio America excites the imagination and forces all of us to rethink the rampant xenophobia of our day.” —Ramón A. Gutiérrez, University of Chicago 978-1-5416-9724-9 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 416 pp. • November 2019 The Sum of the People How the Census Has Shaped Nations, From the Ancient World to the Modern Age ANDREW WHITBY The fascinating three-thousand-year history of the census, revealing why the true boundaries of today’s nations aren’t lines on a map, but columns in a census tabulation. 978-1-5416-1934-0 • $30.00 / $38.00 (Can.) • 368 pp. • March 2020 Basic Books • 8 NEW HARDCOVERS Fighting Words The Bold American Journalists Who Brought the World Home Between the Wars NANCY F. COTT A riveting group portrait of international journalists in the interwar period. 978-1-5416-9933-5 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 416 pp. • March 2020 Political Junkies From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy CLAIRE BOND POTTER A wide-ranging history of seventy years of change in political media, and how it transformed—and fractured—American politics. 978-1-5416-4499-1 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 368 pp. • July 2020 They Didn’t See Us Coming The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties LISA LEVENSTEIN A vibrant portrait of a riotous age in the history of the feminist movement. 978-0-465-09528-5 • $30.00 / $38.00 (Can.) • 304 pp. • June 2020 Basic Books • 9 NEW HARDCOVERS Give Me Liberty A History of America’s Exceptional Idea RICHARD BROOKHISER “Subtle, economic, and gripping.... An original reflection on the nature of our American experiment, the work of a man who has for many years immersed himself in the minds of those who forged our freedom.” —National Review 978-1-5416-9913-7 • $28.00 / $35.00 (Can.) • 304 pp. • November 2019 Bound by War How the United States and the Philippines Built America’s First Pacific Century CHRISTOPHER CAPOZZOLA A sweeping history of America’s long and fateful military relationship with the Philippines, amid a century of Pacific warfare. 978-1-5416-1827-5 • $35.00 / $44.00 (Can.) • 496 pp. • May 2020 The Abandonment of the West The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy MICHAEL KIMMAGE How the West became the dominant idea in US foreign policy in the first half of the twentieth century — and how that consensus has unraveled. 978-0-465-05590-6 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 384 pp. • April 2020 Basic Books • 10 NEW HARDCOVERS Island Stories An Unconventional History of Britain DAVID REYNOLDS “A concise, elegant, and lucid revisiting of key themes in British history in the light of Brexit.” —Fintan O’Toole, Guardian (UK) 978-1-5416-4692-6 • $30.00 / $38.00 (Can.) • 304 pp. • March 2020 Walter Ralegh Architect of Empire ALAN GALLAY “It is hard to know which is better: Sir Walter Ralegh as fascinating subject of global biography or Alan Gallay as gifted biographer. Together, they make for a big, important, and gloriously good book about the nature of power in the early modern world.” —Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship 978-1-5416-4579-0 • $40.00 / $50.00 (Can.) • 576 pp. • November 2019 Uncrowned Queen The Life of Margaret Beaufort, Mother of the Tudors NICOLA TALLIS “Stunning—informed, assured, and compulsively readable. Nicola Tallis gives us not only the story of how the Tudor dynasty began, but a sympathetic and convincing portrait of the flesh-and-blood woman who was its founding mother.” —Sarah Gristwood, author of Game of Queens 978-1-5416-1787-2 • $32.00 / $40.00 (Can.) • 368 pp.

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