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Updated to reflect the most recent species classifications, a second edition of the beautifully illustrated and beloved guide to 600 members of the suborder Serpentes. For millennia, humans have regarded snakes with an exceptional combination of fascination and revulsion. Some people recoil in fear at the very suggestion of these creatures, while others happily keep them as pets. Snakes can convey both beauty and menace in a single tongue flick and so these creatures have held a special place in our cultures. Yet, for as many meanings that we attribute to snakes--from fertility and birth to sin and death--the real-life species represent an even wider array of wonders. Now in a new edition, reflecting the most recent species classifications, The Book of Snakes presents 600 species of snakes from around the world, covering nearly one in six of all snake species. It will bring greater understanding of a group of reptiles that have existed for more than 160 million years, and that now in

A wide-ranging exploration of the sounds that shape our world in invisible yet significant ways. The crackling of a campfire. The scratch, hiss, and pop of a vinyl record. The first glug of wine as it is poured from a bottle. These are just a few of writer Caspar Henderson's favorite sounds. In A Book of Noises, Henderson invites readers to use their ears a little better--to tune in to the world in all its surprising noisiness. Gathering sounds from around the natural and human world, the forty-eight essays comprising A Book of Noises are a celebration of all things "auraculous." Henderson calls on his characteristic curiosity to explore sounds related to humans (anthropophony), other life (biophony), the planet (geophony), and space (cosmophony). Henderson finds the beauty in everyday sounds, like the ringing of a bell, the buzz of a bee, or the "earworm" songs that get stuck in our heads. A Book of Noises also explores the marvelous, miraculous sounds we may never get the chance to

A comparative investigation of Afro-Cuban ritual and Western science that aims to challenge the rationality of Western expert practices. Inspired by the exercises of Father Lafitau, an eighteenth-century Jesuit priest and proto-ethnographer who compared the lives of the Iroquois to those of the ancient Greeks, Stephan Palmi?embarks on a series of unusual comparative investigations of Afro-Cuban ritual and Western science. What do organ transplants have to do with ngangas, a complex assemblage of mineral, animal, and vegetal materials, including human remains, that serve as the embodiment of the spirits of the dead? How do genomics and "ancestry projects" converge with divination and oracular systems? What does it mean that Black Cubans in the United States took advantage of Edisonian technology to project the disembodied voice of a mystical entity named ecu?/i> onto the streets of Philadelphia? Can we consider Afro-Cuban spirit possession as a form of historical knowledge production?

A thought-provoking examination of how insights from neuroscience challenge deeply held assumptions about morality and law. As emerging neuroscientific insights change our understanding of what it means to be human, the law must grapple with monumental questions, both metaphysical and practical. Recent advances pose significant philosophical challenges: how do neuroscientific revelations redefine our conception of morality, and how should the law adjust accordingly? Trialectic takes account of those advances, arguing that they will challenge normative theory most profoundly. If all sentient beings are the coincidence of mechanical forces, as science suggests, then it follows that the time has come to reevaluate laws grounded in theories dependent on the immaterial that distinguish the mental and emotional from the physical. Legal expert Peter A. Alces contends that such theories are misguided--so misguided that they undermine law and, ultimately, human thriving. Building on the founda

A provocative examination of how religious practices of forgetting drive white Christian nationalism. The dual traumas of colonialism and slavery are still felt by Native Americans and African Americans as victims of ongoing violence toward people of color today. In The Feeling of Forgetting, John Corrigan calls attention to the trauma experienced by white Americans as perpetrators of this violence. By tracing memory's role in American Christianity, Corrigan shows how contemporary white Christian nationalism is motivated by a widespread effort to forget the role race plays in American society. White trauma, Corrigan argues, courses through American culture like an underground river that sometimes bursts forth into brutality, terrorism, and insurrection. Tracing the river to its source is a necessary first step toward healing.

Albert Camus's lively journals from his eventful visits to the United States and South America in the 1940s, available again in a new translation. In March 1946, the young Albert Camus crossed from Le Havre to New York. Though he was virtually unknown to American audiences at the time, all that was about to change--The Stranger, his first book translated into English, would soon make him a literary star. By 1949, when he set out on a tour of South America, Camus was an international celebrity. Camus's journals offer an intimate glimpse into his daily life during these eventful years and showcase his thinking at its most personal--a form of observational writing that the French call choses vues (things seen). Camus's journals from these travels record his impressions, frustrations, joys, and longings. Here are his unguarded first impressions of his surroundings and his encounters with publishers, critics, and members of the New York intelligentsia. Long unavailable in English, the jou

Rigorous, careful, and nonpartisan research with a high policy impact on environmental and energy economics. Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy focuses on the effective and efficient management of environmental and energy challenges. Research papers offer new evidence on the intended and unintended consequences, the market and nonmarket effects, and the incentive and distributional impacts of policy initiatives and market developments. This volume presents six new papers on environmental and energy economics and policy. Gilbert Metcalf examines the distributional impacts of substituting a vehicle miles-traveled tax for the existing federal excise tax in the United States. David Weisbach, Samuel Kortum, Michael Wang, and Yujia Yao consider solutions to the leakage problem of climate policy with differential tax policies on the supply and demand for fossil fuels and on domestic production and consumption. Danae Hernandez-Cortes, Kyle Meng, and Paige Weber quantify and decom

The story of how the Indian reformer Bhimrao Ambedkar reimagined John Dewey's pragmatism. In The Evolution of Pragmatism in India, Scott R. Stroud delivers a comprehensive exploration of the influence of John Dewey's pragmatism on Bhimrao Ambedkar, architect of the Republic of India's constitution. Stroud traces Ambedkar's development in Dewey's Columbia University classes in 1913-1916 through his final years in 1950s India when he rewrote the story of Buddhism. Stroud examines pragmatism's influence not only on the philosophical ideas underpinning Ambedkar's fight against caste oppression but also how his persuasive techniques drew on pragmatism's commitment to reconstruction and meliorism. At the same time, Stroud is careful to point out the ways that Ambedkar pushed back against Dewey's paradigm and developed his own approach to challenges in India. The result is a nuanced study of one of the most important figures in Indian history.

Two hundred years of modern science and culture told through one family history. This momentous biography tells the story of the Huxleys: the Victorian natural historian T. H. Huxley ("Darwin's Bulldog") and his grandson, the scientist, conservationist, and zoologist Julian Huxley. Between them, they communicated to the world the great modern story of the theory of evolution by natural selection. In The Huxleys, celebrated historian Alison Bashford writes seamlessly about these omnivorous intellects together, almost as if they were a single man whose long, vital life bookended the colossal shifts in world history from the age of sail to the Space Age, and from colonial wars to world wars to the cold war. The Huxleys' specialty was evolution in all its forms--at the grandest level of species, deep time, the Earth, and at the most personal and intimate. They illuminated the problems and wonders of the modern world and they fundamentally shaped how we see ourselves, as individuals and

Richard Kramer follows the work of Beethoven and Schubert from 1815 through to the final months of their lives, when each were increasingly absorbed in iconic projects that would soon enough inspire notions of "late style." Here is Vienna, hosting a Congress in 1815 that would redraw national boundaries and reconfigure the European community for a full century. A snapshot captures two of its citizens, each seemingly oblivious of this momentous political environment: Schubert, not yet twenty years old and in the midst of his most prolific year-some 140 songs, four operas, and much else; Beethoven, struggling through a mid-life crisis that would yield the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte as well as two strikingly original cello sonatas and two formidable sonatas for the "Hammerklavier." In Richard Kramer's compelling reading, each seemed to be composing "against"--Beethoven, against the Enlightenment; Schubert, against the looming presence of the older composer even as his own musical

A vividly illustrated collaboration between two of Chicago's most celebrated architecture critics casts a wise and unsparing eye on inequities in the built environment and attempts to rectify them. From his high-profile battles with Donald Trump to his insightful celebrations of Frank Lloyd Wright and front-page takedowns of Chicago mega-projects like Lincoln Yards, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin has long informed and delighted readers with his illuminating commentary. Kamin's newest collection, Who Is the City For?, does more than gather fifty-five of his most notable Chicago Tribune columns from the past decade: it pairs his words with striking new images by photographer and architecture critic Lee Bey, Kamin's former rival at the Chicago Sun-Times. Together, they paint a revealing portrait of Chicago that reaches beyond its glamorous downtown and dramatic buildings by renowned architects like Jeanne Gang to its culturally diverse neighborhoods, including m

A new perspective on policy responsiveness in American government. Scholars of American politics have long been skeptical of ordinary citizens' capacity to influence, let alone control, their governments. Drawing on over eight decades of state-level evidence on public opinion, elections, and policymaking, Devin Caughey and Christopher Warshaw pose a powerful challenge to this pessimistic view. Their research reveals that although American democracy cannot be taken for granted, state policymaking is far more responsive to citizens' demands than skeptics claim. Although governments respond sluggishly in the short term, over the long term, electoral incentives induce state parties and politicians--and ultimately policymaking--to adapt to voters' preferences The authors take an empirical and theoretical approach that allows them to assess democracy as a dynamic process. Their evidence across states and over time gives them new leverage to assess relevant outcomes and trends, including t

Lavishly illustrated volume revealing the intricacies of a 1742 map of the cosmos. The expansive and intricate Atlas Coelestis, created by Johann Doppelmayr in 1742, set out to record everything known about astronomy at the time, covering constellations, planets, moons, comets, and more, all rendered in exquisite detail. Through stunning illustrations, historical notes, and scientific explanations, Phenomena contextualizes Doppelmayr's atlas and creates a spectacular handbook to the heavens. Phenomena begins by introducing Doppelmayr's life and work, placing his extraordinary cosmic atlas in the context of discoveries made in the Renaissance and Enlightenment and highlighting the significance of its publication. This oversized book presents thirty beautifully illustrated and richly annotated plates, covering all the fundamentals of astronomy--from the dimensions of the solar system to the phases of the moon and the courses of comets. Each plate is accompanied by expert analysis from a

A journey into the mystery behind why the forbidden fruit became an apple. How did the apple, unmentioned by the Bible, become the dominant symbol of temptation, sin, and the Fall? Temptation Transformed pursues this mystery across art and religious history, uncovering where, when, and why the forbidden fruit became an apple Azzan Yadin-Israel reveals that Eden's fruit, once thought to be a fig or a grape, first appears as an apple in twelfth-century French art. He then traces this image back to its source in medieval storytelling. Though scholars often blame theologians for the apple, accounts of the Fall written in commonly spoken languages--French, German, and English--influenced a broader audience than cloistered Latin commentators. Azzan Yadin-Israel shows that, over time, the words for "fruit" in these languages narrowed until an apple in the Garden became self-evident. A wide-ranging study of early Christian thought, Renaissance art, and medieval languages, Temptation Transfor

A revolutionary approach to rhetoric that asks why audiences need persuading. What is persuasion? For some, it is the ideal alternative to violence. For others, persuasion is simply a neutral instrumentality--a valued source of soft power. Both positions rest on a fundamental belief: persuasion is a power that resides in a speaker acting on an audience. Loving the World Appropriately asks a different, more fundamental, question: why does an audience need persuasion? In shifting our focus, James Kastely delivers a provocative new history of rhetoric and philosophy, one that describes rhetoric as more than a matter of effective communication and recasts persuasion as a philosophical concern central to notions of human subjectivity. Ultimately, Kastely insists, persuasion enables us to love the world appropriately.

An unforgettable exploration of the natural world and the concept of biodiversity--what it is, why it matters, and how we as individuals can work to preserve it. We are now living in an environmental emergency. As climate change, habitat loss, and other threats have placed almost one-fifth of all species on Earth at risk of extinction in the coming decades, a deeper understanding of biodiversity has never been more important. Biodiversity encompasses the rich variety of all life on Earth--the building blocks of life that provide invaluable sources of food, medicine, clothing, building materials, and more. Marking the arrival of a bold new voice in popular science, The Hidden Universe shows readers what's at stake in the fight to protect and restore biodiversity, but also what can and should be done now to protect our planet and ourselves for the future. As director of science at one of the world's largest research organizations in plant and fungal sciences, Brazilian-born scientist A

A forceful critique of the social science that has ruled--and damaged--the modern world. The practice of economics, as economists will tell you, is a powerful force for good. Economists are the guardians of the world's economies and financial systems. The applications of economic theory can alleviate poverty, reduce disease, and promote sustainability. While this narrative has been successfully propagated by economists, it belies a more challenging truth: economic interventions, including those economists deem successful, also cause harm. Sometimes the harm is manageable and short-lived. But just as often the harm is deep, enduring, and even irreparable. And too often the harm falls on those least able to survive it. In The Tragic Science, George F. DeMartino says what economists have too long repressed: that economists do great harm even as they aspire to do good. Economist-induced harm, DeMartino shows, results in part from economists' "irreparable ignorance"--from the fact that

Scientifically-informed and funny, a first-hand account of Australia's wonderfully unique mammals--and how our perceptions impact their future. Think of a platypus: They lay eggs (that hatch into so-called platypups), produce milk without nipples and venom without fangs, and can detect electricity. Or a wombat: Their teeth never stop growing, they poop cubes, and they defend themselves with reinforced rears. And what about antechinuses? The tiny marsupial carnivores whose males don't see their first birthday, as their frenzied sex lives take so much energy that their immune systems fail. Platypuses, possums, wombats, echidnas, devils, kangaroos, quolls, dibblers, dunnarts, kowaris: Australia has some truly astonishing mammals, with incredible, unfamiliar features. But how does the world regard these creatures? And what does that mean for their conservation? In Platypus Matters, naturalist Jack Ashby shares his love for these often-misunderstood animals. Informed by his own experience

The story of artist R. H. Quaytman's discovery of an engraving hidden behind a famous artwork by Paul Klee. This book begins with artist R. H. Quaytman uncovering something startling about a picture by Paul Klee. Pasted beneath Klee's 1920 Angelus Novus--famous for its role in the writings of its first owner, Walter Benjamin--Quaytman found that Klee had interleaved a nineteenth-century engraving of Martin Luther, leaving just enough visible to provoke questions. Behind the Angel of History reveals why this hidden face matters, delving into the intertwined artistic, political, and theological issues consuming Germany in the wake of the Great War. With the Angelus Novus, Klee responded to a growing call for a new religious art. For Benjamin, Klee's Angelus became bound up with the prospect of meaningful dialogue among religions in Germany. Reflecting on Klee's, Benjamin's, and Quaytman's strategies of superimposing conflicting images, Annie Bourneuf reveals new dimensions of complexit

A deft selection of unpublished and little-known works by F. A. Hayek that will serve to enlighten and enliven debates around the ever-changing face of Western liberalism Across seventeen volumes to date, the University of Chicago Press's Collected Works of F. A. Hayek series has anthologized the diverse and prolific writings of the Austrian economist synonymous with classical liberalism. Essays on Liberalism and the Economy traces the author's long and evolving writings on the cluster of beliefs he championed most: liberalism, its core tenets, and how its tradition represents the best hope for Western civilization. This volume contains material from almost the entire span of Hayek's career, the earliest from 1931 and the last from 1984. The works were written for a variety of purposes and audiences, and they include--along with conventional academic papers--encyclopedia entries, after-dinner addresses, a lecture for graduate students, a book review, newspaper articles, and letters t

The Lost Promise is a magisterial examination of the turmoil that rocked American universities in the 1960s, with a unique focus on the complex roles played by professors as well as students. The Fr

"For decades, scholars have been calling into question the universality of disciplinary objects and categories. The decay of master narratives showcases a distrust of universals, while deepening particularity seems to promise nothing but further dissolution. For Jason Josephson-Storm, these are dead ends. He wants to offer a path forward, which he terms metamodernism. This is the first full-length work to line up the various critiques of disciplinary master-categories (religion, science, art, etc.) and trace their affinities and shared conceptual roots. It suggests that if these critiques are granted, they tell us something fundamental about the mechanisms through which concepts and social categories are produced and maintained. They suggest that the social world should be seen in terms of a "process social ontology" with temporary zones of stability called "social kinds." This amounts to a new theory of society and a new methodology for research in the human sciences. The work also br

In this age of the sound bite, what sort of author could be more relevant than a master of the epigram? Martial, the most influential epigrammatist of classical antiquity, was just such a virtuoso of

With the rise of Black Lives Matter and immigrant rights protests, critics have questioned whether mainstream black and Latino civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and UnidosUS are in touch wi

Jack Hart, master writing coach and former managing editor of the Oregonian, has guided several Pulitzer Prize-winning narratives to publication. Since its publication in 2011, his book Storycraft has become the definitive guide to crafting narrative nonfiction. This is the book to read to learn the art of storytelling as embodied in the work of writers such as David Grann, Mary Roach, Tracy Kidder, and John McPhee.In this new edition, Hart has expanded the book's range to delve into podcasting and has incorporated new insights from recent research into storytelling and the brain. He has also added dozens of new examples that illustrate effective narrative nonfiction.This edition of Storycraft is also paired with Wordcraft, a new incarnation of Hart's earlier book A Writer's Coach, now also available from Chicago.

In the third century BCE, the ancient kingdom of Macedon held dominion over mainland Greece, but it was rapidly descending into chaos. After Alexander the Great's death, several of his successors cont

Perching on tropical trees, partnering with fungi to reproduce, or deceiving birds and amorous insects to promote pollination, orchids fascinate. In the exquisitely illustrated Extraordinary Orchids, award-winning botanist and writer Sandra Knapp tells the stories behind some of the bizarre lifestyles and interactions that scientists have uncovered among many species of the orchid family. Orchids deserve such a visual celebration: parts of the orchid flower have shapes unlike any other flowering plant, and the sheer number of species means they have a seemingly endless ability to create ever more fantastical forms. In fact, many orchid common names refer to the shape-shifting forms of their flowers--the "man-orchids" or "monkey-orchids" are so called because of their resemblance to the primate form. Orchids lend themselves to depiction, and botanical artworks of them abound. Who could resist painting or drawing such odd shapes? Illustrated with stunning artwork, much from the archives

In this ambitious book, philosopher Otfried Höffe provides a sophisticated account of the principle of freedom and its role in the project of modernity. Höffe addresses a set of complex questions conc

The tiny, lungless Thorius salamander from southern Mexico, thinner than a match and smaller than a quarter. The lushly white-coated Saki, an arboreal monkey from the Brazilian rainforests. The olingu

In 2020, it will have been twenty-five years since one of the greatest wildlife conservation and restoration achievements of the twentieth century took place: the reintroduction of wolves to the world

Humanity is by many measures the biggest success story in the animal kingdom; but what are the costs of this triumph? Over its three million years of existence, the human species has continuously modi

One of TIME magazine's All-TIME 100 Best Nonfiction Books One of Times Literary Supplement's Hundred Most Influential Books Since the War One of National Review's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Ce

The Roman army was the greatest fighting machine in the ancient world. More than that, it was the single largest organization in Western antiquity, taking in members from all classes, from senators to

The contemporary opioid crisis is widely seen as new and unprecedented. Not so. It is merely the latest in a long series of drug crises stretching back over a century. In White Market Drugs, David Her

Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award in NonfictionFor the black community, Jerald Walker asserts in How to Make a Slave, “anger is often a prelude to a joke, as there is broad understanding that

The economist and historian Deirdre Nansen McCloskey has been best known recently for her Bourgeois Era trilogy, a vigorous defense, unrivaled in scope, of commercially tested betterment. Its massive

Few ideas in the past century have had wider financial, political, and governmental impact than that of economic growth. The common belief that endless economic growth, as measured by Gross Domestic P

One of the most visited places in the world, Rome attracts millions of tourists each year to walk its storied streets and see famous sites like the Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Trevi Fount

For all the love and attention we give dogs, much of what they do remains mysterious. Just think about different behaviors you see at a dog park: We have a good understanding of what it means when dog

The variety of gay life in Chicago is too abundant and too diverse, to be contained in a single place. But since 1981, the Gerbert/Hart Library & Archives on the city's North Side has strived to d