Dan Crissman
Dan Crissman is a former editor at W. W. Norton, The Overlook Press, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Currently, Dan is the associate publisher of Belt Publishing, an independent press based in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of Brewing Everything: How to Make Your Own Beer, Cider, Mead, Sake, and Other Fermented Beverages (Countryman, 2018) and the editor of Cleveland in 50 Maps (Belt, 2019).
Dan has been working with NY Book Editors nearly since its founding, helping dozens of independent authors refine their projects and find their voice. Though his primary interests are business, history, and popular science, Dan has edited everything from thrillers (Peter Quinn's Dry Bones) to photography collections (Little Darling's Pinups for Pitbulls) to graphic novels (Sid Jacobson & Ernie Colon's Che: A Graphic Biography).
At Norton, he edited three successful travel guide series (Explorer's Guides, Backroads & Byways, and 50 Hikes). At Overlook, he edited the late Jon Huntsman's memoir Barefoot to Billionaire and a retrospective from Warren Commission member Howard Willens. At FSG, he worked with numerous respected academic historians, as well as famed comic book curmudgeon (and fellow Clevelander) Harvey Pekar.
Dan's select booklist can be found below, and a more comprehensive view of his booklist can be found here.
“One of the finest beings, industrial leaders and philanthropists on the planet.” - Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Billionaire entrepreneur, bestselling author, and father of a former governor and presidential candidate, Jon M. Huntsman, Sr. has been very fortunate in life. In Barefoot to Billionaire Huntsman revisits the key moments in his life that shaped his view of faith, family, service, and the responsibility that comes with wealth.
“A very entertaining book about a very serious problem. We deceive ourselves all the time with statistics, and it is time we wised up.” - Robert J. Shiller, winner of The Nobel Prize in Economics and author of Irrational Exuberance
As Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase once cynically observed, “If you torture data long enough, it will confess.” Lying with statistics is a time-honored con. In Standard Deviations, economics professor Gary Smith walks us through the various tricks and traps that people use to back up their own crackpot theories. Sometimes, the unscrupulous deliberately try to mislead us. Other times, the well-intentioned are blissfully unaware of the mischief they are committing.
“In Climate Capitalism, L. Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen present in crisp, clear terms how smart economics hold the key to addressing the multiple crises - from financial to food, climate to resource scarcity - facing the world.” - Achim Steiner, executive director, United Nations Environment Programme
In Climate Capitalism, L. Hunter Lovins, co-author of the bestselling Natural Capitalism, and the sustainability expert Boyd Cohen prove that the future of capitalism in a recession-riddled, carbon-constrained world will be built on innovations that cutting-edge leaders are bringing to the market today. These companies are creating jobs and driving innovation.
A Wall Street Journal Best Non-Fiction Book of 2014!
“A work of truly impressive and documented scholarship, War of Attrition is a strongly recommended contribution to the growing library of World War I literature.” - The Military Shelf
The Great War of 1914–1918 was the first mass conflict to fully mobilize the resources of industrial powers against one another, resulting in a brutal, bloody, protracted war of attrition between the world’s great economies. Now, one hundred years after the first guns of August rang out on the Western Front, historian William Philpott reexamines the causes and lingering effects of the first truly modern war.
In America’s Longest Siege, Joseph Kelly examines the nation’s long struggle with its “peculiar institution.” From the earliest slave rebellions to the Nullification crisis to the final, tragic act of secession that doomed both the city and the South as a whole, Kelly captures the toxic mix of nationalism, paternalism, and unprecedented wealth that made Charleston the focus of the nationwide debate over slavery.
“J.H. Brennan is an expert storyteller who paints an often terrifying picture of how human destiny has regularly been changed forever by individuals convinced they were in communication with intelligences from beyond. In Whisperers, Brennan has created a unique and timely history of spirit voices that is both brilliant and utterly chilling.” - Andrew Donkin, coauthor of The Terminal Man
In Whispers, bestselling novelist and expert on the occult J. H. Brennan explores how the “spirit world” has influenced our own since the dawn of civilization. With a novelist’s flair and a scholar’s keen eye, Brennan details the supernatural affinities of world leaders from King Nebuchadnezzar to Adolf Hitler, showing how the decisions and policies of each have been shaped by their supernatural beliefs and encounters.
"What do Rome’s aqueducts, Napoleon’s death, and the pilgrimage site of Lourdes have in common? All involve water: the leading ingredient of our bodies, essential for our daily lives, and the subject of innumerable struggles. Why does bottled water, the cheapest and most abundant liquid, sell for more than the same volume of gasoline? Even if you prefer to drink wine - it’s mostly water anyway - you’ll enjoy this book." - Jared Diamond, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel
James Salzman shows how drinking water highlights the most pressing issues of our time - from globalization and social justice to terrorism and climate change - and how humans have been wrestling with these problems for centuries. Provocative, insightful, and above all fun to read, Drinking Water shows just how complex a simple glass of water can be.
“In this absorbing analysis of the military history of the Boxer conflict, David J. Silbey shows how swiftly the Boxers learned from their foreign enemies, and how close the foreign forces came to catastrophe. The Boxer Rebellion is a valuable addition to our histories of warfare and revolution in China.” - Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University, and author of The Search for Modern China
Many scholars brush off the Boxer Rebellion as an ill-conceived and easily defeated revolt, but in The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China, the military historian David J. Silbey shows just how close the Boxers came to beating back the combined might of the imperial powers. Drawing on the diaries and letters of allied soldiers and diplomats, he paints a vivid portrait of the war.
“Lucidly written, shrewd in its insights, compelling in its interpretations, Jay Sexton's book shows the Monroe Doctrine being reinterpreted and variously applied by American statesmen across the decades from its inception to the time of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.” - Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848
This engaging book explores the varying conceptions of the doctrine as its meaning evolved in relation to the needs of an expanding American empire. In Jay Sexton’s adroit hands, the Monroe Doctrine provides a new lens from which to view the paradox at the center of American diplomatic history: the nation’s interdependent traditions of anticolonialism and imperialism.
“[Pekar's] message here is important - that a good Jew asks tough questions, that a history of oppression requires us to be more conscious of the oppressed.” - David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times
In Not The Israel My Parents Promised Me, the final graphic memoir from the man who defined the genre, Pekar explores what it means to be Jewish and what Israel means to the Jews. Pekar interweaves his increasing disillusionment with the modern state of Israel with a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present, and the result is a personal and historical odyssey of uncommon power.
“A brilliant, sweeping portrait of Afro-American history that transports the reader from the first arrival of slaves in Virginia in 1619 to the election of President Barack Obama. Like Alex Haley's Roots, this historic publication vividly reminds us of the long, painful experience of violence that African Americans have endured and survived. Thomas C. Holt's Children of Fire is a monumental work that should be required reading for every American.” - William Ferris, Professor of History, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
In Children of Fire, renowned historian Thomas C. Holt challenges this form to tell the story of generations of African Americans through the lived experience of the subjects themselves, with all of the nuances, ironies, contradictions, and complexities one might expect.
“Willens’s account deserves close and careful scrutiny by anyone interested in the Kennedy assassinations.” - Library Journal
Drawn from Willens’ own journals and extensive notes on the investigation - which have never before been published - History Will Prove Us Right tells the true and complete story, perhaps for the first time, of every aspect of the investigation into one of the century’s most harrowing events from a uniquely first-person perspective.
In Hacking the Future, Stryker presents a strong defense of anonymity and explores some of the tools and organizations relating to this issue, especially as it has evolved with the ubiquity of the Internet. Cogent and compelling, his examination of online identities, both false and real, is an essential read for the social-networking age.
Drawn from fascinating histories of the vice-ridden districts of 1900s Chicago, tens of thousands of pages of primary source material, and Elledge’s own work in queer history, Henry Darger, Throwaway Boy also features a full-color reproduction of a never-before-seen canvas from a private gallery in New York, as well as a previously undiscovered photograph of Darger with his lifelong companion William Schloeder, or “Whillie” as Henry affectionately referred to him.
Crais examines the science of memory and forgetting, from the ways in which experience shapes the developing brain to the mechanisms that cause the chronic childhood amnesia - the most common and least understood form of amnesia - from which he suffers. Part memoir, part narrative science, and part historical detective story, History Lessons is a provocative, exquisitely crafted investigation into what it means to be human.
Sports fandom is either an aspect of a person’s fundamental identity or completely incomprehensible to those who aren’t fans at all. What is happening in our brains and bodies when we feel strong emotion while watching a game? How do sports fans resemble political junkies, and why do we form such a strong attachment to a sports team? In The Secret Lives of Sports Fans journalist Eric Simons presents in-depth research in an accessible, brilliant way, sure to interest readers of Jonah Lehrer and Malcolm Gladwell.
Deirdre “Little Darling” Franklin founded the non-profit organization, Pinups for Pitbulls because she was tired of so-called rescues and shelters euthanizing healthy, friendly, and adoptable animals due to their alleged “breed.” Drawing on her background in modeling, she created a calendar like no other - eye-catching pinup girls and their pitbull pups, in era-appropriate style - that has become something of a phenomenon in the world of animal advocacy.
“Thoroughly informative, approachable. . . A model for how to enliven geography, anthropology and biography and weave them into a microcosmic account of America.” - The New York Times
The History of the Hudson River Valley, Vernon Benjamin’s magisterial new history, shows that the region has been a place of contradictions since its first settlement by Europeans. Discovered by an Englishman who claimed it for the Dutch, the valley soon became home to the most vibrant trading outpost for the New World colonies - the Island of Manhattan - even as the rest of it retained the native beauty that would inspire artists from James Fenimore Cooper to Thomas Cole.
"America is about to enter the whole new world of the second nuclear age, a world defined by a quantum leap in the number of threatening nuclear powers. Benjamin Schwartz’s masterful book provides us with the light that can guide us through the darkness. RIGHT OF BOOM should be read and internalized by anyone with responsibility for America’s national security.” - Professor James Kurth, Swarthmore College
In Right of Boom, national security specialist Benjamin Schwartz looks at what could happen after a nuclear explosion takes place in the United States, the event that Presidents Obama and Bush, as well as would-be Presidents Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton, have acknowledged as the greatest single national security threat we face. A provocative, exquisitely crafted investigation into what it means to be human.
Previously fallen from grace, vermouth is once again the next big thing in spirits. Over the years, vermouth has fallen from grace, but the truth is, without vermouth, your martini is merely an iced vodka or gin. Now, once again, vermouth is being touted as the hottest trend in spirits. It is showing up in copious amounts on the best cocktail menus in the best cocktail lounges around the country. Vermouth has a rich history, deeply intertwined with that of America, and Vermouth offers the first-ever detailed look into the background of this aromatized, fortified wine, as well as vermouth’s rise, fall, and comeback in America.