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The definitive account of the life and thought of the medieval Arab genius who wrote the MuqaddimaIbn Khaldun (1332-1406) is generally regarded as the greatest intellectual ever to have appeared in th

Increasingly, scientists are gaining control over matter at the nanometer scale. Spearheaded by physical scientists operating at the interfaces of physics and biology, advances in nanoscience and tech

How the Ottomans refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authorityThe medieval theory of the caliphate, epitomized by the Abbasids (750-1258), was the construct of jurists

Why political inequality is to blame for economic and social injusticePolitical equality is the most basic tenet of democracy. Yet in America and other democratic nations, those with political power h

Timeless advice on how to be a successful leader in any fieldThe ancient biographer and essayist Plutarch thought deeply about the leadership qualities of the eminent Greeks and Romans he profiled in his famous-and massive-Lives, including politicians and generals such as Pericles, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony. Luckily for us, Plutarch distilled what he learned about wise leadership in a handful of essays, which are filled with essential lessons for experienced and aspiring leaders in any field today. In How to Be a Leader, Jeffrey Beneker presents the most important of these essays in lively new translations accompanied by an enlightening introduction, informative notes, and the original Greek on facing pages.In "To an Uneducated Leader," "How to Be a Good Leader," and "Should an Old Man Engage in Politics?" Plutarch explains the characteristics of successful leaders, from being guided by reason and exercising self-control to being free from envy and the love of

The lost archive of the Fatimid caliphate (909–1171) survived in an unexpected place: the storage room, or geniza, of a synagogue in Cairo, recycled as scrap paper and deposited there by medieval Jews

A vivid and accessible new translation of Cicero's influential writings on the Stoic idea of the divineMost ancient Romans were deeply religious and their world was overflowing with gods-from Jupiter,

An authoritative look at William Blake's life and enduring relevance as a prophetic artist, poet, and printmakerWilliam Blake (1757-1827) created some of the most iconic images in the history of art.

A comprehensive new survey of the work of this most influential Florentine artist and teacherAndrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435-1488) was one of the most versatile and inventive artists of the Italian Ren

How the science of urban planning can make our cities healthier, safer, and more livableThe design of every aspect of the urban landscape—from streets and sidewalks to green spaces, mass transit, and

The untold story of Michelangelo's final decades-and his transformation into one of the greatest architects of the Italian RenaissanceAs he entered his seventies, the great Italian Renaissance artist

For over a century, the Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) has been at the center of a number of important discussions, concerning not only philosophy and theology but also, more recently, fie

An integrative approach to Jewish and Muslim philosophy in al-AndalusAl-Andalus, the Iberian territory ruled by Islam from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, was home to a flourishing philosophica

How modernist women writers used biographical writing to resist their exclusion from literary historyIt's impossible, now, to think of modernism without thinking about gender, sexuality, and the diver

Revolutionary ideas on how to use markets to achieve fairness and prosperity for allMany blame today's economic inequality, stagnation, and political instability on the free market. The solution is to

A colorful, comprehensive, and authoritative account of Machiavelli's life and thoughtThis is a colorful, comprehensive, and authoritative introduction to the life and work of the Florentine statesman

A fascinating account of the breakthrough ideas that transformed probability and statisticsIn the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gamblers and mathematicians transformed the idea of chance from a

Two pioneering anthropologists reveal how complexity science can help us better understand how societies change over timeOver the past two decades, anthropologist J. Stephen Lansing and geneticist Mur

A classic work on radical aesthetics by one of the great philosophers of the early twentieth century No work of philosopher and essayist Jose Ortega y Gasset has been more frequently cited, admired, o

Two pioneering anthropologists reveal how complexity science can help us better understand how societies change over timeOver the past two decades, anthropologist J. Stephen Lansing and geneticist Mur

A comprehensive look at four of the most famous problems in mathematicsTales of Impossibility recounts the intriguing story of the renowned problems of antiquity, four of the most famous and studied q

An authoritative, richly illustrated history of six centuries of global protest art Throughout history, artists and citizens have turned to protest art as a means of demonstrating social and political

A detailed historical look at how copyright was negotiated and protected by authors, publishers, and the state in late imperial and modern ChinaIn Pirates and Publishers, Fei-Hsien Wang reveals the un

From the New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, a fascinating look at the world of Christian women celebritiesSince the 1970s, an important ne

From Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times best-selling author Robert Shiller, a new way to think about how popular stories help drive economic eventsIn a world in which internet troll farm

The gripping stories of ordinary Germans who lived through World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition-but also recovery, reunification, and rehabilitationBroken Lives is a gripping account of

The definitive account of one of the twentieth century's most brutal, yet least examined, episodes of genocide and detentionThe Killing Season explores one of the largest and swiftest, yet least exami

Hailed by the Washington Post as “a sure-footed and witty guide to slippery ethical terrain,” a philosophical exploration of AI and the future of the mind that Astronomer Royal Martin Rees calls “prof

A sweeping history of Judaism over more than three millenniaJudaism has preserved its distinctive identity despite the extraordinarily diverse forms and beliefs it has embodied through the centuries.

How Enlightenment Europe rediscovered its identity by measuring itself against the great civilizations of AsiaDuring the long eighteenth century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked

How the creation of the Nobel Prize in Economics changed the economics profession, Sweden, and the worldOur confidence in markets comes from economics, and our confidence in economics is underpinned b

"A great read."-Whoopi Goldberg, The ViewHow the clash between the civil rights firebrand and the father of modern conservatism continues to illuminate America's racial divideOn February 18, 1965, an

The Habsburg Empire's grand strategy for outmaneuvering and outlasting stronger rivals in a complicated geopolitical worldThe Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European grea

The first comprehensive look at menopause from prehistory to todayAre the ways we look at menopause all wrong? Historian Susan Mattern says yes, and The Slow Moon Climbs reveals just how wrong we have

A wide-ranging exploration of the creative power of literary tradition, from Chaucer to the presentIn literary and cultural studies, "tradition" is a word everyone uses but few address critically. In

The first book surveying the history and ideas behind reverse mathematicsReverse mathematics is a new field that seeks to find the axioms needed to prove given theorems. In Reverse Mathematics, John S

A history of how political philosophy was recast by the rise of postwar liberalism and irrevocably changed by John Rawls's A Theory of JusticeIn the Shadow of Justice tells the story of how liberal po

The ethical and emotional tolls paid by disadvantaged college students seeking upward mobility and what educators can do to help these students flourishUpward mobility through the path of higher educa

For decades, scholars and public intellectuals have been predicting the demise of religion in the face of secularization. Yet religion is undergoing an unprecedented resurgence in modern life-and secu

Reflections on a lost poem and its rediscovery by contemporary poetsGilgamesh is the most ancient long poem known to exist. It is also the newest classic in the canon of world literature. Lost for cen