explore everything the light touches
If you believe the best stories are passports to new perspectives, flavors, and cultures, you’re a World Traveler Reader. At Bookfinity, we know your bookshelf is as global as your taste buds, filled with voices from every corner of the world and stories that expand your horizons with every page.
This fall, journey far and wide with a fresh lineup of immersive reads. From thought-provoking essays and moving memoirs to travel treasures and history tellings, these books offer rich storytelling and cultural depth perfect for the reader who’s always seeking their next destination—no boarding pass required.
November New Releases
A Short History of Ancient Rome
by Pascal Hughes
Experience the sights, sounds and smells of the Roman world, and meet its most intriguing and influential characters, as this immersive account brings 1000 years of history to life.
Combining impeccable research with riveting and action-packed storytelling, we follow the inception, expansion and ultimate fall of the Roman Empire, inviting readers to walk Rome's bustling streets, witness the fearsome exploits of its all-conquering army, and step into the opulent corridors of its palaces and pioneering building projects.
In a Bacchanalian feast of despotic rulers, colossal conquests, visionary women, gladiator games and the daily life of Roman citizens and subjects, A Short History of Ancient Rome charts the dramatic twists and turns of the kingdom, the republic, the empire and its decline, as you navigate this crucial period in history.
Fateful Hours: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic
by Volker Ullrich - Jefferson Chase
Democracies are fragile. Freedoms that seem secure can be lost. Few historical events illustrate this as vividly as the failure of the Weimar Republic. Germany's first democracy endured for fourteen tumultuous years and culminated with the horrific rise of the Third Reich. As one commentator wrote in July 1933: Hitler had "won the game with little effort. . . . All he had to do was huff and puff--and the edifice of German politics collapsed like a house of cards." But this tragedy was not inevitable.
In Fateful Hours, award-winning historian Volker Ullrich chronicles the captivating story of the Republic, capturing a nation and its people teetering on the abyss. Born from the ashes of the First World War, the fledgling democracy was saddled with debt and political instability from its beginning. In its early years, a relentless chain of crises--hyperinflation, foreign invasion, and upheaval from the right and left--shook the republic, only letting up during a brief period of stability in the 1920s. Social and cultural norms were upended. Political murder was the order of the day. Yet despite all the challenges, the Weimar Republic was not destined for its ignoble end.
Drawing on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other sources, Ullrich charts the many failed alternatives and missed opportunities that contributed to German democracy's collapse. In an immersive style that takes us to the heart of political power, Ullrich argues that, right up until January 1933, history was open. There was no shortage of opportunities to stop the slide into fascism. Just as in the present, it is up to us whether democracy lives or dies.
Radical Cartography: How Changing Our Maps Can Change Our World
by William Rankin
"This is it: the full download from a true genius of cartography. Radical Cartography will make you see maps, and, indeed, your place on the planet, with fresh eyes."--Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire.
A stunning, thought-provoking exploration of how maps shape our understanding of the world--featuring over 150 full-color maps in a gorgeous package
Maps are ubiquitous in contemporary life--not just for navigation, but for making sense of our society, our environment, and even ourselves. In an instant, huge datasets can be plotted on command and we can explore faraway places in exacting detail. Yet the new ease and speed of data mapping can often lead to the same results as ever: over-simplified maps used as tools for top-down control.
Cartographer and historian William Rankin argues that it's time to reimagine what a map can be and how it can be used. Maps are not neutral visualizations of facts. They are innately political, defining how the world is divided, what becomes visible and what stays hidden, and whose voices are heard. What matters isn't just the topics or the data, but how maps make arguments about how the world works. And the consequences are enormous. A map's visual argument can change how cities are designed and how rivers flow, how wars are fought and how land claims are settled, how children learn about race and how colonialism becomes a habit of mind. Maps don't just show us information--they help construct our world.
Brimming with vibrant maps, including many "radical" maps created by Rankin himself and by other cutting-edge mapmakers, Radical Cartography exposes the consequences of how maps represent boundaries, layers, people, projections, color, scale, and time. Challenging the map as a tool of the status quo, Rankin empowers readers to embrace three unexpected values for the future of cartography: uncertainty, multiplicity, and subjectivity. Changing the tools--changing the maps--can change the questions we ask, the answers we accept, and the world we build.
The American Revolution: An Intimate History
by Geoffrey C Ward - Kenneth Burns
From the award-winning historian and filmmakers of The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The Roosevelts, and others: a richly illustrated, human-centered history of America's founding struggle--expanding on the landmark, six-part PBS series to be aired in November 2025
"From a small spark kindled in America, a flame has arisen not to be extinguished." --Thomas Paine
In defeating the British Empire and giving birth to a new nation, the American Revolution turned the world upside down. Thirteen colonies on the Atlantic coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired independence movements and democratic reforms around the globe.
The American Revolution was at once a war for independence, a civil war, and a world war, fought by neighbors on American farms and between global powers an ocean or more away. In this sumptuous volume, historian Geoffrey C. Ward ably steers us through the international forces at play, telling the story not from the top down but from the bottom up--and through the eyes of not only our "Founding Fathers" but also those of ordinary soldiers, as well as underrepresented populations such as women, African Americans, Native Americans, and American Loyalists, asking who exactly was entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Enriched by guest essays from lauded historians such as Vincent Brown, Maya Jasanoff, Jane Kamensky, and Alan Taylor, and by an astonishing array of prints, drawings, paintings, texts, and pamphlets from the time period, as well as newly commissioned art and maps--and woven together with the words of Thomas Paine-- The American Revolution reveals a nation still grappling with the questions that fueled its remarkable founding.
The Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of King James VI and I
by Clare Jackson
History has not been kind to King James. A cradle king who was crowned in Scotland in 1567 and England and Ireland in 1603, James VI and I has long been eclipsed in fame and reputation by his predecessor and cousin, Elizabeth I, and his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots.
Yet James, if often overlooked or, more often, cruelly stereotyped, presents an equally fascinating figure: a diplomat whose long reigns encompassed extraordinary dramas, "a passionate Protestant with a profound interest in witches and demons, a lover of young men, and the patron of both Shakespeare and the great version of the Bible that still bears his name" (Fintan O'Toole). James identified himself with the "Mirror of Great Britain," a spectacular jewel commissioned upon his accession to the English throne, which not only furnished him with one of his favorite metaphors--that of the mirror, with its limitless capacity to magnify, illuminate, and distort--but gave symbolic endorsement to his vision of British union.
Now, four hundred years after his death, Wolfson History Prize-winning historian Clare Jackson finally reappraises the life and legacy of the "first king of Great Britain." Beginning with the surprise assassination of his father, Lord Darnley, and the subsequent beheading of his mother, Jackson contextualizes James's troubled childhood as well as the many attempts on his life, from his teenage detention by the Ruthven Raiders to the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. She reflects on the renewed creativity of the Jacobean era, culminating in the King James Bible, Macbeth, and King Lear, and demonstrates how the king's keen interest in joining worlds old and new--establishing colonies overseas and, closer to home, uniting Scotland, England, and Ireland--set the geopolitical stage for centuries to come. In so doing, Jackson reveals King James as perhaps the most consequential monarch of the early modern era, whose impact, for better and for worse, still reverberates today.
Closely attentive to James's own words in numerous publications, manuscript musings, verse, and private correspondence, The Mirror of Great Britain tells the story of this highly unusual, significant monarch with flair, insight, and empathy for the man who bore the crown.
The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies
by Devon O'Neil
"On par with Into the Wild... Fast-paced, yet thoughtful and empathetic, all the way to its devastating conclusion, this psychological thriller will haunt me whenever I step off the pavement into the woods. I couldn't stop reading it, and I can't stop thinking about it." -- Bill Gifford, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Outlive
A harrowing, never-before-told story of life and death in the Colorado mountains--thirty hours that changed lives forever and forced a reckoning about the cost of adventure.
"You wanna ski a lap?"
Fifteen-year-old Cole Walters-Schaler couldn't resist. This was why they'd come to the backcountry, after all--three fathers and four teenage children together for a bonding alpine getaway outside Salida, Colorado, in January 2017.
Within minutes, Cole and Brett Beasley, a longtime Forest Service ranger and expert outdoorsman in his mid-forties, had pushed off from their cabin, expecting to be gone for a half hour or so. But an unforgiving blizzard transformed their quick jaunt into a thirty-hour ordeal that would end in tragedy, as the community raced to find them.
The Way Out is the story of those ensuing hours and their aftermath--an almost unbelievable event that shook a tight-knit mountain community and raised difficult questions about life and death, guilt and redemption, and the pursuit of adventure. Why, when we know that the wilderness can kill, can't we stay away? When the unthinkable happens, how does a community forgive the survivors? And how do the survivors forgive themselves?
Drawing on firsthand interviews with those closest to the tragedy, including the key eyewitness, and written with the gripping intensity of classics such as Into Thin Air and Touching the Void, O'Neil recreates that fateful day. The Way Out is a thoughtful investigation of the allure of the mountains and the aftermath of trauma, and an unforgettable look at life at its very edge.
The Way Out includes 12 black-and-white personal photos throughout.
Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China
by Jonathan C Slaght
A Chicago Tribune Most-Anticipated Book of the Season
The thrilling saga of the great Amur tiger and the scientists who came together, across the world, to save it.
The forests of northeast Asia are home to a marvelous range of animals--fish owls and brown bears, musk deer and moose, wolves and raccoon dogs, leopards and tigers. But by the final years of the Cold War, only a few hundred tigers stepped quietly through the snow of the Amur River basin. Soon, the Soviet Union fell, bringing catastrophe; without the careful oversight of a central authority, poaching and logging took a fast, astonishing toll on an already vulnerable species.
Just as these changes arrived, scientists came together to found the Siberian Tiger Project. Led by Dale Miquelle, a moose researcher, and Zhenya Smirnov, a mouse biologist, the team captured and released more than 114 tigers over three decades. They witnessed mating rituals and fights, hunting and feeding, the ceding and taking of territory, the creation of families.
Within these pages, characters--both feline and human--come fully alive as we travel with them through the quiet and changing forests of Amur. We travel across time, too, as the fate of the species has been shaped by the history and politics of empires--such as the Qing dynasty's Willow Palisade, which once slowed human settlement, or the later introduction of roads through Russian reserves. The Siberian Tiger Project became the longest-running tiger research initiative; its work continues to guide conservationists today. Jonathan C. Slaght's Tigers Between Empires is the thrilling saga of the great Amur tiger and the scientists who came together, across the world, to save it.
October New Releases
A Short History of the Gaza Strip
by Anne Irfan - Muhammad Shehada
Since October 2023, Israel has carried out one of the most brutal military onslaughts in modern history on the Gaza Strip, in response to the Hamas-led attacks of October 7. But Gaza had long been in crisis even prior to the current violence, now widely recognized as genocidal. For seventy-seven years, the Palestinian people have endured displacement, occupation, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing--with those in Gaza often bearing the brunt of it.
With remarkable clarity and compassion, historian Anne Irfan tells the story of the Gaza Strip through six pivotal moments in its modern history, beginning with Israel's expulsion of the Palestinian people upon its establishment in 1948, when Gaza absorbed more Palestinian refugees per head than anywhere else--a demographic shift that became central to its identity. As Irfan takes us through Israel's occupations of Gaza, the Palestinian national struggle and formation of the PLO, the first intifada, the creation of the Palestinian Authority, and the rise of Hamas, she tackles widespread historical ignorance and untangles contradicting narratives. Drawing on a decade of research, Irfan weaves in the voices of everyday Palestinians, from farmers who became refugees in Gaza to poets and activists who grew up in the Strip. Featuring a foreword from Gazan writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada, A Short History of the Gaza Strip is an indispensable read for anyone seeking to understand Palestine and its impact on the world.
Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy
by Julia Ioffe
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Acclaimed journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy.
In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly twenty years later, Ioffe returned to Moscow--only to discover just how much Russian society had changed while she had been living in America. The Soviet women she had known growing up--doctors, engineers, scientists--seemed to have been replaced by women desperate to marry rich and become stay-at-home moms. How had Russia gone from portraying itself as the vanguard of world feminism to becoming a bastion of conservative Christian values?
In Motherland, Ioffe turns modern Russian history on its head, telling it exclusively through the stories of its women. From her own physician great-grandmothers to Lenin's lover, a feminist revolutionary; from the hundreds of thousands of Soviet girls who fought in World War II to the millions of single mothers who rebuilt and repopulated a devastated country; from the members of Pussy Riot to Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, Ioffe chronicles one of the most audacious social experiments in history and documents how it failed the very women it was meant to liberate--and how that failure paved the way for the revanche of Vladimir Putin.
Part memoir, part journalistic exploration, part history, Motherland paints a portrait of modern Russia through the women who shaped it. With deep emotion, Ioffe reveals what it means to live through the cataclysms of revolution, war, idealism, and heartbreak--and how the story of Russia today is inextricably tied to the sacrifices of its women.
Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution
by Amanda Vaill
America's Founding Era reconsidered through the lives of two women as formidable as, and in some respects stronger than, the men they loved, married, and mothered.
Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, born to wealth and privilege in New York's Hudson Valley during the latter half of the eighteenth century, were raised to make good marriages and supervise substantial households. Instead they became embroiled in the turmoil of America's insurrection against Great Britain--and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them.
Glamorous Angelica, who sought fulfillment through attachments to powerful men, eloped at twenty with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, first in Paris, then in London, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales. Eliza, one year her junior, too candid for flirtation and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless illegitimate outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career. But after his appointment as America's first Treasury Secretary, she was challenged by the controversies in which he became involved, not the least of which was the attraction that grew between him and her adored sister.
When tragedy followed, everything changed for both women: one deprived of her animating spirit, the other improbably gaining a new, self-determined life. "You would not have suffered if you had married into a family less near the sun," wrote Angelica to Eliza, "but then [you would have missed] the pride, the pleasure, the nameless satisfactions."
Drawing on deep archival research, including never-published records and letters, Amanda Vaill interweaves this family drama with its historical context, creating a narrative with the sweep and intimacy of a nineteenth-century novel. Full of battles and dinner parties, murky politics and transparent frocks, fierce loyalty and betrayals both public and personal, Pride and Pleasure brings two extraordinary American heroines to life.
The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany--And the Spy Who Betrayed Them
by Jonathan Freedland
"An astonishing true story of courage, love, and betrayal, told with the verve of a thriller. Freedland is a master at weaving spellbinding entertainments drawn from forgotten corners of history."--Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow Horses
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Escape Artist, an extraordinary true story of resistance, heroism and betrayal.
When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth.
Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer's afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo.
They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador's widow and a pioneering head mistress. What unites every one of them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance: meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule. Or so they believe.
How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap?
Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich's cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?
There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness
by Ram Dass - Parvati Markus - Parvati Markus
An essential balm for these tumultuous times, this thoughtful and inspiring guide features newly gathered teachings to abandon the idea there is an "other," bridging differences and cherishing our lives in the world, from beloved spiritual leader Ram Dass.
With the world seeming to teeter between democracy and authoritarianism, between humanitarianism and individualism, Ram Dass's teachings on wholeness and unity are more needed than ever.
There Is No Other is a groundbreaking work showcasing the late spiritual leader's thoughts and insights on broaching the divide and bringing disparate souls together. In these profound, newly gathered writings, Ram Dass shows us how a house divided against itself--whether that "house" is our individual self or the society in which we live--can come together in wholeness. There is no "other," he explains. It is all one.
Structured in three sections, There Is No Other teaches us to open ourselves, come together in community, and love one another--and ourselves--across all our seeming contradictions and divisions. Anne Lamott contributes a beautiful foreword and each section is followed by a short essay reflecting on the endurance of Ram Dass's ideas penned by Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Mirabai Bush, as well as guided meditations to deepen each lesson.
As he leads us toward wholeness within our unique selves and as a human community, Ram Dass gives us the most precious gift: hope. Only in seeing ourselves in our complexity can we come together and honor our incarnations on the sacred planet we inhabit.
Things That Disappear
by Jenny Erpenbeck - Kurt Beals
The bestselling and award-winning German author Jenny Erpenbeck has gained international praise for her novels including Visitation, Kairos, and Go, Went, Gone. Things that Disappear is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance on scales both large and small. The things that disappear in these pages range from everyday objects such as socks and cheese to close friends and the social norms of common courtesy, to sites and objects resonant with East German history, such as the Palace of the Republic or the lines of sight now blocked by new construction in Berlin. Erpenbeck asks: "Is there some kind of perpetrator who makes things that I know cherish and disappear?" These things disappear, and yet do they really? Do they remain in our memories more fully than if they continued to exist? Translated beautifully by Kurt Beals, Things that Disappear follows on the heels of Erpenbeck's Man Booker-Prize winning novel Kairos and offers a window into a renowned writer's sense of the past, and of her own self as a writer.
September new releases
Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival
by Stephen Greenblatt
In repressive Elizabethan England, artists are frightened into dull conventionality; foreigners are suspect; popular entertainment largely consists of coarse spectacles, animal fights, and hangings. Into this crude world of government censorship and religious authoritarianism comes an ambitious cobbler's son from Canterbury with a daring desire to be known--and an uncanny ear for Latin poetry. A torment for most schoolboys, yet for a few, like Christopher Marlowe, a secret portal to beauty, visionary imagination, transgressive desire, and dangerous skepticism.
What Marlowe seizes in his rare opportunity for a classical education, and what he does with it, brings about a spectacular explosion of English literature, language, and culture. His astonishing literary success will, in turn, nourish the talent of a collaborator and rival, William Shakespeare.
Dark Renaissance illuminates both Marlowe's times and the origins and significance of his work--from his erotic translations of Ovid to his portrayal of unfettered ambition in a triumphant Tamburlaine to Doctor Faustus, his unforgettable masterpiece about making a pact with the devil in exchange for knowledge. Introducing us to Marlowe's transgressive genius in the form of a thrilling page-turner, Stephen Greenblatt brings a penetrating understanding of the literary work to reveal the inner world of the author, bringing to life a homosexual atheist who was tormented by his own compromises, who refused to toe the party line, and who was murdered just when he had found love. Meanwhile, he explores how the people Marlowe knew, and the transformations they wrought, gave birth to the economic, scientific, and cultural power of the modern world including Faustian bargains with which we reckon still.
Here We Go: Lessons for Living Fearlessly from Two Traveling Nanas
by Eleanor Hamby - Sandra Hazelip - Elisa Petrini
It's Never Too Late for the Next Act
When Ellie and Sandy met after becoming empty-nesters and then widows, their late-in-life friendship blew open a new, exciting chapter of life: living fearlessly and adventurously. But they never could've imagined it would also propel them--in their 80s--to accidental fame, going viral on social media as the 'travelling grannies, ' inspiring people young and old across cultures when they went around the world in 80 days. While still working full-time, they've adventured the world for decades--always on the unbeaten path and a budget ($29.00/per night.) Their adventures transformed their outlooks, galvanized and deepened their friendship and their faith, and instilled a positivity that has proven wildly contagious. They've found purpose in the fact that people around the globe are inspired by their friendship and wrote this book to share their adventures with readers and to invite them to make their own.
From the icy shores of Antarctica, the deep bush in Zambia on Medical Missions (without electricity or plumbing, just the restorative power of meaningful service and human connection), to the breathtaking night sky above the Syrian desert, life on the road has gifted Ellie and Sandy essential wisdom. Here We Go expands on the joyous message of hope that launched them into the spotlight, delivering tales of their exploits, advice and inspiration for anyone who aims to live with grace and gusto, connect authentically with others despite differences, and embrace our potential for joy and love.
To quote Ellie and Sandy, "Make some plans and live!"
History Matters
by David McCullough - Dorie McCullough Lawson - Michael Hill
In this posthumous collection of thought-provoking essays--many never published before--Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and bestselling author David McCullough affirms the value of history, how we can be guided by its lessons, and the enduring legacy of American ideals.
History Matters brings together selected essays by beloved historian David McCullough, some published here for the first time, written at different points over the course of his long career but all focused on the subject of his lifelong passion: the importance of history in understanding our present and future. Edited by McCullough's daughter, Dorie McCullough Lawson, and his longtime researcher, Michael Hill, History Matters is a tribute to a master historian and offers fresh insights into McCullough's enduring interests and writing life. The book also features a foreword by Jon Meacham.
McCullough highlights the importance of character in political leaders, with Harry Truman and George Washington serving as exemplars of American values like optimism and determination. He shares his early influences, from the books he cherished in his youth to the people who mentored him. He also pays homage to those who inspired him, such as writer Paul Horgan and painter Thomas Eakins, illustrating the diverse influences on his writing as well as the influence of art.
Rich with McCullough's signature grace, curiosity, and narrative gifts, these essays offer vital lessons in viewing history through the eyes of its participants, a perspective that McCullough believed was crucial to understanding the present as well as the past. History Matters is testament to McCullough's legacy as one of the great storytellers of this nation's history and of the lasting promise of American ideals.
Perpetua: The Woman, the Martyr
by Sarah Ruden
An intimate and human portrait of Perpetua, a third-century woman author who was idealized as a Christian martyr
On March 7, 203, in the monumental amphitheater at Carthage, Vibia Perpetua was one of five Christians who met their deaths after refusing to venerate the Roman emperor Septimius Severus and his son. Perpetua stood out from the other four, and in fact from all the other martyrs of her era and before: she was an aristocratic married woman with an infant son, and she is the first female prose author whose work survives.
Offering a probing new translation of Perpetua's extraordinary prison diary and situating the life behind that diary within the turbulent late Roman Empire, Sarah Ruden tells the story of Perpetua's remarkable feat of self-invention as a martyr. As she builds on Perpetua's own words and integrates them into their religious and historical contexts, Ruden shines a light on Perpetua's disarming candidness, her brashness, and her naïvété. In contrast to traditional portrayals of the saint as a brave but submissive young woman, Ruden's narrative reveals a complex individual who flaunts a vivid public persona as a martyr while at the same time navigating the emotions of a mother, daughter, sister, and friend approaching death.
Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away
by David Gelles
New York Times reporter and bestselling author David Gelles reveals how Patagonia became a global leader in doing well by doing good and how other companies are adopting its principles.
This is the inside story of one of the most extraordinary brands in the corporate world, the rare company that is driven by environmental activism instead of cutthroat capitalism. Founded in 1973, Patagonia has grown into a wildly popular producer of jackets, hats, and fleece vests, with a cultlike following among hardcore alpinists and Wall Street traders alike, posting sales of more than $1 billion a year.
But it's not just the clothes that make Patagonia unique. For decades, the company has distinguished itself as a singular beacon for socially responsible business, the rare company that can legitimately claim to be doing its damnedest to make the world a better place, while also making a profit. From its early efforts to take exemplary care of its employees, to its extensive work trying to clean up its supply chain, to its controversial activism, Patagonia has set itself apart from its peers with one unorthodox decision after another, proving that there is another way to do capitalism.
At the heart of the story is Patagonia's founder, the legendary rock climber Yvon Chouinard. A perennial outsider who forged one of the most impressive resumes in the outdoor world, Chouinard also established himself as a pivotal figure in the history of American business. Guided by his anti-authoritarian streak and his unwavering commitment to preserving the natural world, Patagonia came to exert a powerful influence on other companies, paving the way for a new era of social and environmental responsibility. He started out as a dirtbag--a term affectionately bestowed on poor, itinerant outdoorsmen so uninterested in material possessions they are happy to sleep in the dirt--and he became a billionaire.
Chouinard also proved that there was another way to be a philanthropist. In the twilight of his career, he gave away Patagonia, renouncing his wealth and committing all its future profits to fighting the climate crisis.
Drawing on exclusive access to Chouinard and the Patagonia team, Dirtbag Billionaire offers new insights into the key moments that informed their priorities, shaped the company, and sent ripples across the corporate world.