In a narrative that combines the intensely personal with social, economic, and historical analysis, Susan Jacoby turns an unsparing eye on the marketers of longevity—pharmaceutical companies, lifestyle gurus, and scientific businessmen who suggest that there will soon be a "cure" for the "disease" of aging. She separates wishful hype from realistic hope in a wide-ranging appraisal of subjects that include the explosion of Alzheimer's cases, the impact of possible cuts in Social Security on the economic future of aging boomers, and the fact that women make up most of the "oldest old." Finally, Jacoby raises the fundamental question of whether living longer is a desirable thing unless it means living better, and she considers the profound moral and ethical concerns raised by increasing longevity. Never Say Die is a lucid, provocative, and powerful argument that Americans, no matter their age, are doing themselves no favor by buying into the myth that they can stay "forever young."

Product Description: From the author of the bestselling The Age of American Unreason comes this impassioned, closely reasoned critique of the myth that a radically new old age---unmarred by physical and mental infirmity, financial problems, or loneliness---awaits the baby-boom generation.

Chronicles two centuries of secularism in the United States, exploring this rich thread in American life and history and speculating on its continual role in society.

Books on Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss abound, as countless scholars have labored to uncover the facts behind Chambers’s shocking accusation before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the summer of 1948—that Alger Hiss, a former rising star in the State Department, had been a Communist and engaged in espionage.In this highly original work, Susan Jacoby turns her attention to the Hiss case, including his trial and imprisonment for perjury, as a mirror of shifting American political views and passions. Unfettered by political ax-grinding, the author examines conflicting responses, from scholars and the media on both the left and the right, and the ways in which they have changed from 1948 to our present post–Cold War era. With a brisk, engaging style, Jacoby positions the case in the politics of the post–World War II era and then explores the ways in which generations of liberals and conservatives have put Chambers and Hiss to their own ideological uses. An iconic event of the McCarthy era, the case of Alger Hiss fascinates political intellectuals not only because of its historical significance but because of its timeless relevance to equally fierce debates today about the difficult balance between national security and respect for civil liberties.

An indictment of modern American culture examines the current disdain for logic and evidence fostered by the mass media, religious fundamentalism, poor public education, a lack of fair-minded intellectuals, and a lazy, credulous public.

Product Description: Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon-one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, Jacoby surveys an antirationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought...read more

A journalist journeys back into her family's own hidden past to uncover the history of her New York German-Jewish family, which attempted to hide its religious and cultural background by converting to Roman Catholicism. (view table of contents)

Uses a question and answer format to present amazing facts and trivia about the human body

Explores facts about space, including the universe, solar system, planets, asteroids, comets, meteoroids, stars, astronomy, space travel and exploration, space firsts, astronauts, and movie trivia about space

Explores facts about continents, countries, cities, landmarks, mountains, land formations, climate and weather, language, animals, food, holidays and festivals, inventors and inventions, and music

The granddaughter of two American communists--one black, one white--who settled in the Soviet Union in 1931--retraces her family's history, from a former slave in Mississippi to the rise of a democratic Russia. 15,000 first printing.

A collection of articles which explore extraordinary changes in the lives of ordinary women.

Traces the history of Western attitudes towards revenge and justice, looks at sexual revenge, capital punishment, and the U.S. criminal justice system, and considers the portrayal of revenge in popular novels and movies