"A Crossroad book." Includes bibliographical references and index.

What do Joyce Brothers and Sigmund Freud, Rabbi Harold Kushner and philosopher Martin Buber have in common? They belong to a group of pivotal and highly influential Jewish thinkers who altered the face of modern America in ways few people recognize. So argues Andrew Heinze, who reveals in rich and unprecedented detail the extent to which Jewish values, often in tense interaction with an established Christian consensus, shaped the country's psychological and spiritual vocabulary. Jews and the American Soul is the first book to recognize the central role Jews and Jewish values have played in shaping American ideas of the inner life. It overturns the widely shared assumption that modern ideas of human nature derived simply from the nation's Protestant heritage. Heinze marshals a rich array of evidence to show how individuals ranging from Erich Fromm to Ann Landers changed the way Americans think about mind and soul. The book shows us the many ways that Jewish thinkers influenced everything from the human potential movement and pop psychology to secular spirituality. It also provides fascinating new interpretations of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Western views of the psyche; the clash among Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish moral sensibilities in America; the origins and evolution of America's psychological and therapeutic culture; the role of Jewish women as American public moralists, and more. A must-read for anyone interested in the contribution of Jews and Jewish culture to modern America.

In the summer of 2014, renowned American Indian studies professor Steven Salaita had his appointment to a tenured professorship revoked by the board of trustees of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Salaita’s employment was terminated in response to his public tweets criticizing the Israeli government’s summer assault on Gaza. Salaita’s firing generated a huge public outcry, with thousands petitioning for his reinstatement, and more than five thousand scholars pledging to boycott UIUC. His case raises important questions about academic freedom, free speech on campus, and the movement for justice in Palestine. In this book, Salaita combines personal reflection and political critique to shed new light on his controversial termination. He situates his case at the intersection of important issues that affect both higher education and social justice activism.

An award-winning journalist’s extraordinary account of being kidnapped and tortured in Syria by al Qaeda for two years—a revelatory memoir about war, human nature, and endurance that’s “the best of the genre, profound, poetic, and sorrowful” (The Atlantic). In 2012, American journalist Theo Padnos, fluent in Arabic, Russian, German, and French, traveled to a Turkish border town to write and report on the Syrian civil war. One afternoon in October, while walking through an olive grove, he met three young Syrians—who turned out to be al Qaeda operatives—and they captured him and kept him prisoner for nearly two years. On his first day, in the first of many prisons, Padnos was given a blindfold—a grime-stained scrap of fabric—that was his only possession throughout his horrific ordeal. Now, Padnos recounts his time in captivity in Syria, where he was frequently tortured at the hands of the al Qaeda affiliate, Jebhat al Nusra. We learn not only about Padnos’s harrowing experience, but we also get a firsthand account of life in a Syrian village, the nature of Islamic prisons, how captors interrogate someone suspected of being CIA, the ways that Islamic fighters shift identities and drift back and forth through the veil of Western civilization, and much more. No other journalist has lived among terrorists for as long as Theo has—and survived. As a resident of thirteen separate prisons in every part of rebel-occupied Syria, Theo witnessed a society adrift amid a steady stream of bombings, executions, torture, prayer, fasting, and exhibitions, all staged by the terrorists. Living within this tide of violence changed not only his personal identity but also profoundly altered his understanding of how to live. Offering fascinating, unprecedented insight into the state of Syria today, Blindfold is “a triumph of the human spirit” (The New York Times Book Review)—combining the emotional power of a captive’s memoir with a journalist’s account of a culture and a nation in conflict that is as urgent and important as ever.

GOP 2.0 is both a book and a movement that unites people around a common view of civility and freedom. GOP 2.0 puts policy over politics. It aspires to make Americans great. It’s about Geoff Duncan’s “P.E.T. Project,” reviving the party with conservative Policies, genuine Empathy, and a respectful Tone. “I’m not the only conservative in America who wakes up wishing the past months were just a bad dream. I’m not the lone Republican who feels in my gut that our party is following the wrong path. And I’m not alone in believing there’s a better way forward.” As Lt. Governor of the State of Georgia, Geoff Duncan never expected to find himself in the national spotlight – or in the crosshairs of the President of the United States. Then the 2020 Election and its aftermath brought the nation’s attention to Georgia. Amidst a hurricane of conspiracy and misinformation, Duncan spoke up for truth, conservative values, and the Republican Party he knows. Duncan had a front row seat as Georgia endured a long nightmare of fraud allegations, Presidential coercion, a dual runoff that flipped the U.S. Senate, and election reform that sparked national protests. He called for reason and principle even as Donald Trump viciously attacked him. He fought for “the silenced majority,” current or former Republicans who yearn for a party that can reclaim lost ground and leave behind the politics of dishonesty, disorder, and division. GOP 2.0 is Geoff Duncan’s vision, forged by his unexpected struggle for the party’s future. In his words, “GOP 2.0 is not a new party – it’s a better direction for our Republican Party.” In this refreshing and reinvigorating new book, a leader who has been through the fire lays out a better way forward, one that lifts up reasoned ideas, expands the party, and positions the GOP to win back the White House in 2024.