"The newly released book Class Matters is just such a journalist-led research effort, the culmination of an extraordinary decision by The New York Times to carry out a year-long research project on social class, based on a commissioned survey as well as much ethnographic legwork . . . Class Matters is a resounding success, and the New York Times is to be commended for making it happen."—David B. Grucky, Contexts

“To the best of my knowledge no one has left behind so moving a record.” —Alfred Kazin

"In the weeks after September 11 . . . Tamim Ansary delivered us from text into context, from crisis into history, from isolation into geography, from a world shattered to one that, having lived through millennia of shatterings, stays mournfully round, and around . . . Mr. Ansary, a California writer and editor, has put this and much else into West of Kabul, East of New York, a book that steadies our skittering compass."—Richard Eder, The New York Times

"Ethical Ambition is an immensely stirring work that speaks directly to the daunting challenge faced by thousands of people who are torn between the dictates of their conscience and the practical realities of a remorselessly and often brutally competitive society. Seldom has the self-sustaining passion of a life lived boldly, but with self-examining humility, been so courageously and honestly conveyed. A generation thirsting for a life of meaning in an age of market-driven anomie will be profoundly grateful to the author for the lessons he has drawn out of a long career of activist integrity within the ever-uncompleted work of justice."—Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities

"Bok takes the Sudanese government and world leaders to task for their indifference to his people's suffering. Although he at first was an unwilling ambassador, he has become a leading voice for the antislavery movement in the United States."—Detroit News and Free Press

"A touching modern-day slave narrative that is more than just an account of [Bok's] journey from childhood to manhood under the worst of circumstances . . . Pages of historical details are eye-opening and provide a glimpse into what can happen when religion is the impetus in the governing of a nation . . . An informative, inspiring read."—The Boston Globe

Winner of the National Book Award

"Masterful . . . An important, scholarly work . . . The writing is graceful [and] it endows the story with the majesty and consequence of an epic . . . This is the kind of book that causes students to major in history."—Paul Butler, The Boston Globe

"The birth of hip-hop out of the ruin of the South Bronx is a story that has been told many times, but never with the cinematic scope and the analytic force that Chang brings to it. Robert Moses unleashes the destructive juggernaut of the Cross-Bronx Expressway; landlords set fire to worthless tenements; police stand by and do nothing; and, against a backdrop of gang warfare, peacemaking d.j.s lay down the heavy beats and spidery loops around which a rapping, dancing, graffiti-painting culture grows. This is one of the most urgent and passionate histories of popular music ever written. Chang is blind to no one's greed or viciousness, but he retains an idealistic view of a music that speaks the truth about the alternately stultifying and horrifying urban landscapes that the parents who hate hip-hop have made."—The New Yorker

"This is reporting at its best. This is how sociology should be, a comprehensive view in depth on a major social problem in America. This will be a benchmark for all future inquiries."—Daniel Bell, professor emeritus, Harvard University

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“Among the finest plays of the decade . . . An original and urgent work of art.”—David Lyons, The Wall Street Journal

Winner of the Christopher Award

"An ingeniously woven literary tapestry that tells the stories of four great American Catholic writers of the 20th century—[Walker] Percy, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day . . . In Elie's deeply moving study, imperfection is both the starting point of spiritual journeys and the stuff of which wisdom literature is made. [Elie] uses the four authors' lives and work—their pilgrimages, as he says—to explore 'a larger story of the convergence of literature and religion in the 20th century' and to learn from their complicated struggles toward God in a country that is at the same time abnormally religious and unusually devoted to Mammon . . . Inspiring and deeply intelligent."—Lance Morrow, Time

"This is a captivating, riveting book—a must-read not only for medical professionals, anthropologists, and journalists, but for anyone interested in how to negotiate cultural difference in a shrinking world. Fadiman's ability to empathize with the resolutely independent Hmong as well as with the remarkable doctors, caseworkers, and officials of Merced County makes her narrative both richly textured and deeply illuminating. Sometimes the stakes here are multicultural harmony and understanding; sometimes they're literally life and death—whether in wartime Laos or in American emergency rooms. But whatever the stakes and wherever the setting, Fadiman's reporting is meticulous, and her prose is a delight. From start to finish, a truly impressive achievement."—Michael Bérubé, author of Life As We Know It