Search results for

In his new book, journalist Tony Horwitz chronicles the exploration of America that occurred before Jamestown. Among his discoveries: the fact that early European explorers reached about half of the states in the present-day continental U.S., including, in the 1540s, the plains of what is now Kansas.

Richard Evans Schultes visited uncharted lands in search of science and came back with art. His photographs, now on display at the Smithsonian, offer hypnotic insights into the birth of ethnobotany.

Seventy-five years ago, Nazi police chief Heinrich Himmler announced the opening of Dachau concentration camp, 10 miles outside of Munich. Dachau, which became a model for other Nazi camps, was the site of more than 28,000 deaths before liberators arrived in April 1945.

In The Invention of Hugo Cabret, author and illustrator Brian Selznick uses a striking combination of text and drawings to tell the story of Hugo, an orphan in Paris, and a reclusive genius from the early days of silent film.

When three Duke lacrosse players were wrongfully indicted for raping a black stripper in 2006, there was a stampede by the media, members of Duke faculty and one overzealous prosecutor to prove them guilty, say authors Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson. They investigate the case in their new book, Until Proven Innocent.

In The Whisperers, Orlando Figes documents stories from victims of Stalin's Russia. During Stalin's dictatorship, many Russians reported on friends, neighbors and even family. Scarred by guilt and shame, many are now telling their stories.

Dieter Schlesak's "documentary novel," translated from German, puts Auschwitz's pharmacist on trial. The book employs interviews with concentration camp survivors, letters and camp records, and testimony and evidence from the druggist's actual trial, which took place in the 1960s.

All Things Considered book reviewer Alan Cheuse's new novel tells the story of a family of slaveholding Southern Jews before the Civil War — and what happens when a northern relative comes to visit.

The same treaty that led to the Trail of Tears also said the Cherokee Nation could be represented by a congressional delegate. The tribal government wants the position to be filled for the first time.

The TV news host, who memorably was tested for colon cancer on the Today show, wrote on her website that she's had surgery and radiation treatment. "Please get your annual mammogram," she said.