“Hons and Rebels” might easily be mistaken for a freewheeling memoir of aristocratic life. It’s also a study of intense ideological conflict in a family.

Where some celebrated the triumph of liberal capitalism in the 1990s, Hobsbawm saw a failed dream.

The diaries changed Che Guevara’s image from toughened fighter to sensitive, less certain young man.

Lucy Grealy’s 1994 bestseller has become part of a larger story of literary friendship and the boundaries between artists and their work.

“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” is an enduring work—just not of history.

When Thomas Kuhn coined the term, he wasn’t referring simply to “out of the box” thinking.

Classic works, reconsidered

Joseph Weizenbaum’s underrated book “Computer Power and Human Reason” cautioned against confusing people with machines.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s “On Death and Dying” sparked a revolution in end-of-life care. But soon she began to deny mortality altogether.

What Benedict Anderson’s classic account of nationalism’s origins misses about today’s world.