Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, Julia Kristeva, Phillipe Sollers, and Jean-Luc Godard. During the 1960s, a who's who of French thinkers, writers, and artists, spurred by China's Cultural Revolution
Modern presidents regularly appeal over the heads of Congress to the people at large to generate support for public policies. The Rhetorical Presidency makes the case that this development, born at th
Our universe seems strangely ''biophilic,'' or hospitable to life. Is this happenstance, providence, or coincidence? According to cosmologist Martin Rees, the answer depends on the answer to another q
In this authoritative and accessible book, one of the world's most renowned historians provides a concise and comprehensive history of capitalism within a global perspective from its medieval origins
Leviathan and the Air-Pump examines the conflicts over the value and propriety of experimental methods between two major seventeenth-century thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, author of the political treatise L
Nabokov's dream diary, published for the first time--and placed in biographical and literary contextOn October 14th, 1964, Vladimir Nabokov, a lifelong insomniac, began a curious experiment. Over the
How secularism has been used to justify the subordination of womenJoan Wallach Scott's acclaimed and controversial writings have been foundational for the field of gender history. With Sex and Secular
The Plural of Us is the first book to focus on the poet's use of the first-person plural voice--poetry's "we." Closely exploring the work of W. H. Auden, Bonnie Costello uncovers the trove of thought
Once upon a time, it was the lone scientist who achieved brilliant breakthroughs. No longer. Today, science is done in teams of as many as hundreds of researchers who may be scattered across continent
A treasure trove of illuminating and entertaining quotations from the legendary naturalistHere is Charles Darwin in his own words--the naturalist, traveler, scientific thinker, and controversial autho
Why the paradigm of the world-class university is an implausible dream for most institutions of higher educationUniversities have become major actors on the global stage. Yet, as they strive to be "wo
Greek Art and Aesthetics in the Fourth Century B.C. analyzes the broad character of art produced during this period, providing in-depth analysis of and commentary on many of its most notable examples
A provocative and challenging new conceptual framework for the study of imagesThis book builds on the groundbreaking theoretical framework established in Whitney Davis's acclaimed previous book, A Gen
An honest discussion of free trade and how nations can sensibly chart a path forward in today's global economyNot so long ago the nation-state seemed to be on its deathbed, condemned to irrelevance by
A major new study of the portraiture of one of the most important artists of the nineteenth centuryPaul Cézanne (1839-1906) may be best known for his landscapes, but he also painted some 160 portraits
How do archaeologists and artists reimagine what life was like during the Greek Bronze Age? How do contemporary conditions influence the way we understand the ancient past? This innovative book consid
Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness is a radical new interpretation of the most famous play in the English language. By exploring Shakespeare's engagements with the humanist traditions of early modern E
Today the United States has one of the highest poverty rates among the world's rich industrial democracies. The Failed Welfare Revolution shows us that things might have turned out differently. During
They live in the suburbs of Tennessee and Indiana. They fought in Vietnam and Desert Storm. They speak about an older, better America, an America that once was, and is no more. And for the past decade
From the field's leading authority, the most authoritative and comprehensive advanced-level textbook on asset pricingFinancial Decisions and Markets is a graduate-level textbook that provides a broad
The first comprehensive history of the pietistic movement that shaped modern JudaismThis is the first comprehensive history of the pietistic movement that shaped modern Judaism. The book's unique blen
A sweeping new history of how climate change and disease helped bring down the Roman EmpireHere is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the
How our ability to learn from each other has been the essential ingredient to our remarkable success as a speciesHuman beings are a very different kind of animal. We have evolved to become the most do
First published in 1973, Gravitation is a landmark graduate-level textbook that presents Einstein's general theory of relativity and offers a rigorous, full-year course on the physics of gravitation.
The End of American Childhood takes a sweeping look at the history of American childhood and parenting, from the nation's founding to the present day. Renowned historian Paula Fass shows how, since th
Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In
Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding pred
American higher education faces some serious problems--but they are not the ones most people think. In this brief and accessible book, two leading experts show that many so-called crises--from the ide
What would the global history of philosophy look like if it were told not as a story of ideas but as a series of job descriptions--ones that might have been used to fill the position of philosopher at
Pericles has the rare distinction of giving his name to an entire period of history, embodying what has often been taken as the golden age of the ancient Greek world. "Periclean" Athens witnessed tumu
"Intro to Poetry Writing is always like this: a long labor, a breech birth, or, obversely, mining in the dark. You take healthy young Americans used to sunshine (aided sometimes by Xanax and Adderall)
To Infinity and Beyond explores the idea of infinity in mathematics and art. Eli Maor examines the role of infinity, as well as its cultural impact on the arts and sciences. He evokes the profound int
The Classical Economists Revisited conveys the extent, diversity, and richness of the literature of economics produced in the period extending from David Hume's Essays of 1752 to the final contributio
In today's social climate of acknowledged and growing inequality, why are there not greater efforts to tax the rich? In this wide-ranging and provocative book, Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage ask w
The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthus is a sweeping global and intellectual history that radically recasts our understanding of Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, the most famous book o
This book offers an intimate guide to the Milky Way, taking readers on a grand tour of our home Galaxy's structure, genesis, and evolution, based on the latest astronomical findings. In engaging langu
Among the many constants that appear in mathematics, ?, e, and i are the most familiar. Following closely behind is y,, or gamma, a constant that arises in many mathematical areas yet maintains a prof
When it first appeared in 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature hit the philosophical world like a bombshell. In it, Richard Rorty argued that, beginning in the seventeenth century, philosophers d
A stunningly illustrated look at how Blake's radical vision influenced artists of the Beat generation and 1960s countercultureIn his own lifetime, William Blake (1757-1827) was a relatively unknown no
An in-depth look at the dynamic cultural world of tea in Japan during its formative periodAround Chigusa investigates the cultural and artistic milieu in which a humble jar of Chinese origin dating to
