Tom Watson Jr. was CEO of IBM during the period when that company created the modern computer industry and launched the digital age. More than Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Ford or even Gates, Jobs, and Bezos, he had a transformational and enduring impact on today’s society, work, and each of our lives. …
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The Last Yakuza: Life and Death In The Japanese Underworld is the first book that I was ever asked to write. The yakuza are Japan’s mafia. They’re not a monolithic group — it’s a blanket term for over 20 different criminal organizations that share some similarities, particularly a quasi-family structure …
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After having witnessed the warmest summer on record, many are understandably wondering just how hot it could get? Perhaps there are some clues in Earth’s past. If we’re looking for a paleo-analog for the deadly heat we might face if we continue to warm our planet through fossil fuel burning …
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Luxury fashion has become synonymous with hip-hop, though not too long ago, many of its institutions would have turned their noses up at the rap stars who dominate pop culture today (and racism is still resonant in the industry despite modern strides). In her book, Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized …
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One writer compared Madonna’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in September of 1984 to iconic music moments like Elvis Presley causing jaws to drop in living rooms across America with his “pelvic thrusts” on The Milton Berle Show in 1956, and the Beatles’ few minutes on The Ed …
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In the summer of 2018, I traveled to Russia in search of a lost American named Billy Reilly. He had disappeared three years prior in connection to the war in Ukraine. While scores of Americans encounter trouble abroad each year, Reilly’s case was unique: He worked for the Federal Bureau …
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The Rolling Stones have existed for six decades, yet the women who influenced the members and their music have been largely overlooked and under-appreciated. But with her new book Parachute Women: Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones, Elizabeth Winder is attempting …
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Blending years of deep reporting with distinctive, powerful prose, Scott C. Johnson’s unique true crime narrative recounts the tale of the brilliantly cunning imposter who carved a path of financial and emotional destruction across the world. Gifted with a diabolical flair for impersonation, manipulation, and deception, the Con Queen used …
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In 2010, I was at a friend’s party when a song came up on the house speakers — one that sounded both entirely new to me and as familiar as my own skin. A woman was singing in a plaintive tone about “a place they call Lonesome.” I couldn’t place …
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Madison Beer came of age on the internet. After being discovered by Justin Bieber on YouTube when she was just a preteen, she shot to fame as an influencer and pop musician, becoming an unwitting underage sex symbol in the process. Her resulting struggles with mental health are the subject …
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