The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. His delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths that take place in seven days and nights of apocalyptic terror. The body of one monk is found in a cask of pigs' blood, another is floating in a bathhouse, still another is crushed at the foot of a cliff.

"In this examination of landscape and memory, four sites of American history are revealed as places where historical truth was written over by oppressive fiction-with profound repercussions for politics past and present. Popular narratives of American history conceal as much as they reveal. They present a national identity based on harvesting the treasures that lay in wait for European colonization. In Whose Ruins tells another story: winding through...

"A deeply researched and eye-opening history that shows how Monsanto came to have outsized influence over our food system. This is the definitive history of Monsanto, a St. Louis chemical firm that became the world's largest genetically engineered seed enterprise. Monsanto merged with German pharma-biotech giant Bayer in 2018, but its Roundup Ready seeds, introduced twenty-five years ago, are still reshaping the farms that feed us. Incorporating global...

The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the Indonesian archipelago--remote, tranquil, and, these days, largely ignored. Yet 370 years ago, Run's harvest of nutmeg (yielding a 3,200% profit by the time it arrived in England) made it the most lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a battle between the Dutch East India Company and the British Crown. The outcome was that Britain ceded Run to Holland but in return was given Manhattan--leading...