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If Americans know anything about the deportation of native people in the 1830s, it is usually the story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, often recounted in maudlin prose in a narrative that is heartbreaking but ultimately of little broader import. The poetic phrase “Trail of Tears” is so familiar that many people conflate Cherokee forced emigration with deportation more generally, even though Cherokees represented a fraction—about 15,000—of the 80,000 thousand children, women, and men who were shipped west by the Federal government.

In May of 1830, Congress authorized the expulsion of indigenous peoples in the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Over the next decade, Native Americans saw their homelands and possessions stolen through fraud, intimidation, and murder. Thousands lost their lives. In this powerful, gripping book, award-winning historian Claudio Saunt upends the common view that “Indian Removal” was an inevitable chapter in U.S. expansion across the continent.

Instead, Saunt argues that it was a contested political act—resisted by both indigenous peoples and U.S. citizens – that passed by a razor-thin margin in Congress. In telling the full story of this systematic, state-sponsored theft, he reveals how expulsion became national policy, abetted by Southern power brokers and slave owners and financed by northern Wall Street bankers. Moving beyond the Trail of Tears, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Country is a fast-paced, yet deeply researched, account of unbridled greed, government indifference, and administrative incompetence. The consequences of this vast transfer of land and wealth still resonate today.

Jammed with sage advice, genuine encouragement, and surprising examples of how to write and how not to write, this book gives beginning writers and confident students alike an easy-to-follow roadmap for improving one of the most important skills for success.

En route to Sin Boldly!-induced, A+ paper bliss, readers encounter such topics as: Choosing a Topic and Telling Your Story (“K.I.S.S.-Keep It Simple, Stupid”), Literary Games (featuring “Francobabble for Freshman”), Choosing a Voice (“Dissing the Prof”), Grammatical Horrors (“A does not equal they”), and Common Mistakes (“Hopefully and Other Controversies”).

Fully revised and updated with new examples, quizzes, and tips, Sin Boldly! is not only a comprehensive guide, but also a fantastic, fun read for anyone who wants to write clearly and effectively.

The essential tool that will enable humanity to find the best way through a forest of looming problems is defined in Framers by internationally renowned authors Kenneth Cukier, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, and Francis de Véricourt. From pandemics to populism, AI to ISIS, wealth inequity to climate change, humanity faces unprecedented challenges that threaten our very existence.

To frame is to make a mental model that enables us to see patterns, predict how things will unfold, and make sense of new situations. Frames guide the decisions we make and the results we attain. People have long focused on traits like memory and reasoning leaving framing all but ignored. But with computers becoming better at some of those cognitive tasks, framing stands out as a critical function—and only humans can do it. This book is the first guide to mastering this innate human ability.

Framing is not just a way to improve how we make decisions in the era of algorithms—rather, it will be a matter of survival for humanity in a time of societal upheaval and machine prosperity.

What would it be like to see clearly after a childhood of near blindness? Or to hear for the first time? Since understanding what we see and hear comes so naturally to most of us, we assume that our senses developed spontaneously in infancy—that gaining sight or hearing later in life would be like turning on a light switch or a sound system. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The real story is far more interesting and inspiring, with much to teach us all about the way that we perceive the world.

With her latest book Coming To Our Senses: A Boy Who Learned to See, a Girl Who Learned to Hear, and How We All Discover the World , neurobiologist Susan R. Barry draws on the stories of two remarkable young adults to show how our brains process raw stimuli into meaning, why ‘gaining a new sense’ requires a fundamental reorganization of the brain, and how our past experiences and personal predilections influence our future observations and growth. Her conclusions suggest that while adapting to a new sense after childhood is immensely difficult, it’s not impossible—in the same way that adult athletes continue to train after their brains and bodies are mature, it is possible to become an “athlete of perception.”

Liam McCoy was 15 when a surgical procedure addressed several conditions that had left him nearly blind since early childhood. But instead of seeing his family, friends, and everyday objects within a three-dimensional landscape, he saw a hodgepodge of lines and colors on one flat plane. Zohra Damji was 12 when a cochlear implant enabled her to hear for the first time. But all sounds—voices, a car motor, the rain—merged into one unintelligible cacophony.

Susan Barry, having come to know each of them and their families and having experienced her own sensory awakening, as chronicled in her first book, Fixing My Gaze, is uniquely positioned to tell their amazing stories from both a scientific and personal perspective. As moving as it is illuminating, Coming To Our Senses invites readers to “see” ourselves in a whole new way.