“Hammer was 92 when he died in 1990. A lengthy front page obituary in The New York Times lauded him as a successful businessman ‘who long sought peace between the United States and the Soviet Union and financed research for a cancer cure.’… But the official version of Hammer’s life, which incorporated many of the major figures and key events of the 20th century, was in fact a myth, carefully nurtured and embellished for nearly 70 years.“ Aided by newly available sources, Epstein has put together a gripping portrait of a ruthless, audaciously manipulative opportunist whose self-inventions have until now been widely accepted… Hammer’s remarkable ascent was set in motion in 1922, when Lenin wrote a secret letter to Stalin designating Hammer as their official ‘path’ to the resources of American capitalism. In this role as Homo sovieticus, which was predicated on the idea that any means, no matter how ruthless or deceptive, was justified if it achieved the desired ends, Hammer created a place for himself on the international stage. How this was accomplished and maintained for the better part of a century is an amazing story.”

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 420 pages

“Comprises over 100 of Vidal’s inimitable pieces in a book that has been hailed as one of the definitive guides to postwar America.”

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 1 pages

Analyzes the forces that have shaped U.S. international policy in Latin America, Asia and Africa, as well as the role of the media in misreporting these policies and their motives.

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 441 pages

Madness, sexuality, power, knowledge—are these facts of life or simply parts of speech? Foucault begins at the level of “things said” and moves quickly to illuminate the connections between knowledge, language and action.

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 245 pages

“It concerns one of those periods that mark an ineradicable chronological threshold: the period in which illness, counternature, death, in short, the whole dark underside of disease, came to light, at the same time illuminating and eliminating itself like night, in the deep, visible, solid, enclosed but accessible space of the human body.”

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 240 pages

Essays, excerpts and interviews which evenly span Foucault’s prolific and diverse career, compiled here in an attempt to allow a broad and inclusive introduction to the often-changing, sometimes contradictory body of his work.

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 389 pages

Foucault, the genealogist, deals with two interlocked themes in the last major works before his death: an analysis of sexuality as historical construct rather than underlying biological referent, and the evolution of the modern individual as subject.

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 168 pages

Analyzes the way sexuality was perceived in ancient Greece and discusses why sexual experience became a moral issue in the West.

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 168 pages

Foucault examines the first two centuries of the Golden Age of Rome, to reveal a subtle but decisive break from the classical Greek vision of sexual pleasure. Explores the moral reflection among philosophers (Plutarch, Epicletus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca) and physicians of the era, and uncovers an increasing mistrust of pleasure and growing anxiety over sexual activity and its consequences.

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 168 pages

Shows that Foucault has always been describing the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power “reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives.”

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 270 pages