The new version — in which diplomacy trumps destruction — arrives when we need it most — Admired by Tony Soprano and Gordon Gekko alike, The Art of War is one of the only 2,500-year-old texts that’s still widely read today — by cadets at West Point, consultants at McKinsey, and political leaders the world over. …

Steven Hassan knows a thing or two about cults—he’s a former Moonie. His new book explores how Trump’s ideology mirrors indoctrination. — Steven Hassan has had remarkably interesting experiences with cults. In the early-1970s, as a 19-year-old student at Queens College in New York, he was indoctrinated into the Unification Church, whose members were known as Moonies. They convinced him to leave his family and to fundamentally alter his worldview so that…

Meet the new crop of so-called “laughter therapists” — In 1964, at age 49, Norman Cousins — then best-known as the editor of the Saturday Review, a now defunct weekly magazine — collapsed in the middle of his living room floor. He was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with sudden-onset degenerative collagen disease, a connective tissue condition that…

Think of it as a pathway to happiness, rather than an obstacle — We live in boom times for stress-relief products. With the consumer crazes for adult coloring books, weighted blankets, and fidget spinners, there’s little question that some of the most popular products and buyable experiences of the last few years have been ones marketed at zapping our stress. …

Mark Manson on his new book about hope, Jordan Peterson, and the promise of an A.I. takeover — A decade ago, at age 25, Mark Manson launched a blog hoping to drive traffic to the dating-advice business he had at the time. Today, as the author of the massively bestselling The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life (2016) —…

This woman has the world’s most comprehensive database on what makes serial killers tick — Last year, in late-July, Sasha Reid went to her desk in her apartment just outside Toronto. Her cat, Giz, hopped onto her lap. It was late, and the sun had already gone down. She booted up her champagne-colored MacBook Air and began searching through recent police reports from Canada, looking…