James Lurie

"Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slave owner, while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist...

Travel back through history, over 27,000 years into the past, when Arctic glaciers reached as far south as London and people faced a daily struggle not just to survive as individuals, families or groups, but to avoid the ultimate extinction of the species. A key moment in the course of history saw the two branches of humankind, the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons, face off against the backdrop of perilous cold, harsh conditions, and massive predators....

Examines how the educations of America's first four presidents, and in particular their scholarly devotion to ancient Greek and Roman classics, informed the beliefs and ideals that shaped the nation's constitution and government.

The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single, powerful concept: confidence. Both centers of power, tapping brazen innovations over the past three decades, learned how to manufacture it. Wall Street found that straying from long-standing principles opened a path to stunning profits. Obama's determination to reverse that trend was essential to his ascendance, especially when Wall Street collapsed and the two candidates

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