James Madison

by Garry Wills

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian unravels the eternal conundrum of James Madison: Why this key framer of the U.S. Constitution and the most astute political analyst of his time was such an ineffectual president.

James Madison and the Making of America

by Kevin R.C. Gutzman

This first new Madison biography in more than a decade is a complex and realistic portrait of the “Father of the Constitution,” who became our fourth president and an enduring icon to supporters of limited government.

Jesus Wars

by Philip Jenkins

Historian Philip Jenkins reveals in vivid, often bloody detail the fifth-century intrafaith battles over Christianity’s biggest paradox: the dual nature of Jesus Christ, as both fully human and fully divine.

John Quincy Adams

by Harlow Giles Unger

Drawing on John Quincy Adams’s unpublished diary, award-winning historian Harlow Giles Unger’s biography of the remarkable man who served as ambassador, secretary of state, congressman, and America’s sixth president.

John Randolph of Roanoke

by David Johnson

The hard-charging life and political influence of the Virginia Congressman notorious for his barbed attacks against colleagues, public brawls, and clashes with every president from John Adams to Andrew Jackson.

July 1914

by Sean McMeekin

Explores how, in the three months after the 1914 murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a small group of statesmen plotted to use the assassination as the trigger to ignite a long-awaited showdown in Europe.

Just Send Me Word

by Orlando Figes

As a prisoner in the gulag, Lev Mishchenko carried on a clandestine eight-year correspondence with his sweetheart, Sveta. Here is their story—and an unprecedented look inside one of Stalin's most notorious labor camps.