The Road To Now Podcast: Featured Books From RTN Guests

The acclaimed, award-winning historian—“America’s new past master” (Chicago Tribune)—examines the environmental legacy of FDR and the New Deal.

Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior celebrated Theodore Roosevelt’s spirit of outdoor exploration and bold vision to protect 234 million acres of wild America. Now, in Rightful Heritage, Brinkley... Read More »

Published in commemoration of the centennial of President John F. Kennedy’s birth, here is the definitive compendium of JFK’s most important and brilliant speeches, accompanied by commentary and reflections by leading American and international figures—including Senator Elizabeth Warren, David McCullough, Kofi Annan, and the Dalai Lama—and... Read More »

As the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing approaches, the award winning historian and perennial New York Times bestselling author takes a fresh look at the space program, President John F. Kennedy’s inspiring challenge, and America’s race to the moon.

“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because... Read More »

Named a "Triumph" of 2018 by New York Times Book Critics
Shortlisted for the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award

The untold history of the surprising origins of the "gig economy" --how deliberate decisions made by consultants and CEOs in the 50s and 60s upended the stability of the workplace and the lives of millions of working men and women in... Read More »

The frightening truth about the modern food system. The bestselling author of The End of Oil turns his attention to food and finds that the system we've entrusted with meeting one of our most basic needs is dramatically failing us. With his trademark comprehensive global approach, Paul Roberts investigates the startling truth about the modern... Read More »

A freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of a tech-besotted culture. With a razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley’s unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade’s worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is... Read More »

"Is Google making us stupid?" When Nicholas Carr posed that question in an Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: as we enjoy the Internet's bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now,... Read More »

Conventional wisdom holds that John F. Kennedy was the first celebrity president, in no small part because of his innate television savvy. But as Kathryn Brownell shows, Kennedy capitalized on a tradition and style rooted in California politics and the Hollywood studio system. Since the 1920s, politicians and professional showmen have developed... Read More »

The maverick (and very funny) governor of Colorado tells his story, from early loss to college on the ten-year plan, to remarkable business and later political success.In just over a decade, John Hickenlooper has gone from a craft-brew entrepreneur to mayor of Denver to governor of Colorado, hailed by many political analysts, the New York Times... Read More »

“A vivid portrait…A thoughtful consideration of Washington’s wisdom that couldn’t be timelier.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

George Washington’s Farewell Address was a prophetic letter from a “parting friend” to his fellow citizens about the forces he feared could destroy our democracy: hyper-partisanship, excessive debt, and foreign... Read More »

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“A page-turner masterpiece.” —Jim Lehrer

In a 2017 survey, presidential historians ranked Dwight D. Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, behind the perennial top four: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Teddy Roosevelt. Historian William Hitchcock shows that this high ranking is justified.... Read More »

An astonishing untold story from America’s past—a sweeping, powerful, and necessary work of history that reads like Gone with the Wind for the Cherokee.

Blood Moon is the story of the century-long blood feud between two rival Cherokee chiefs from the early years of the United States through the infamous Trail of Tears and into the Civil War. The... Read More »

“An elegantly and wittily written, deeply nuanced, and finely argued biography. . . An essential contribution to presidential history.”—Booklist, starred review

By the author of acclaimed biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams, a penetrating biography of one of the most high-minded, consequential, and controversial US presidents,... Read More »

The Battle of the Meuse-Argonne stands as the deadliest clash in American history: More than a million untested American soldiers went up against a better-trained and more experienced German army, costing more than twenty-six thousand deaths and leaving nearly a hundred thousand wounded. Yet in forty-seven days of intense combat, those... Read More »

A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race

“A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review

Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs.  Randall Fuller takes us back... Read More »

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader and visionary of the civil rights movement, was first and foremost a preacher. This unique collection features a selection of Dr. King's best sermons - some not heard since he first delivered them - recorded at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and in other churches where he carried his... Read More »

Douglas Brinkley takes us on the incredible journey of the United States—a nation formed from a vast countryside on whose fringes thirteen small British colonies fought for their freedom, then established a democratic nation that spanned the continent, and went on to become a world power. This book will be treasured by anyone interested in the... Read More »

A wide-ranging cultural and political history that will forever redefine a misunderstood decade, Stayin' Alive is prize-winning historian Jefferson Cowie's remarkable account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the 1970s. In this edgy and incisive book—part political intrigue, part labor history,... Read More »

Uncommon Grounds tells the story of coffee from its discovery on a hill in ancient Abyssinia to the advent of Starbucks. In this updated edition of the classic work, Mark Pendergrast reviews the dramatic changes in coffee culture over the past decade, from the disastrous "Coffee Crisis" that caused global prices to plummet to the rise of the... Read More »

Four experts on the American presidency examine the three times impeachment has been invoked—against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton—and explain what it means today.

Impeachment is a double-edged sword. Though it was designed to check tyrants, Thomas Jefferson also called impeachment “the most formidable weapon for the purpose of... Read More »