An introduction to the life of Thomas Paine reveals how he left behind his home in England, defying conventions in search of a more fulfilling life using his writing talents.

"With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata, whose Convenience Store Woman has now sold more than a million copies worldwide, returns with a brilliant and wonderfully unsettling collection, her most recent fiction to be published in Japan. In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror and turns the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. In "A First-Rate Material," Nana and Naoki...

"Iconoclastic historian and bestselling author Kevin Phillips punctures the myth that 1776 was the watershed year of the American Revolution. He suggests that the great events and confrontations of 1775--Congress's belligerent economic ultimatums to Britain, New England's 'rage militaire,' the exodus of British troops and expulsion of royal governors up and down the seaboard, and the new provincial congresses and hundreds of local committees that...