How does a popular uprising transform itself from the disorder of revolution into a legal system that carries out the daily administration required to govern? Americans faced this question during the
Why free speech is the lifeblood of colleges and universitiesFree speech is under attack at colleges and universities today, with critics on and off campus challenging the value of open inquiry and fr
Who and what a government taxes, and how the government spends the money collected, are questions of primary concern to governments large and small, national and local. When public revenues pay for hi
Colonial documents and works of literature from early modern Spain are rife with references to public women, whores, and prostitutes. In Profit and Passion, Nicole von Germeten offers a new history of
Nearly a decade after his triumphant Charlie Chan biography,Yunte Huang returns with this long-awaitedportrait of Chang and Eng Bunker (1811–1874), twinsconjoined at the sternum by a band of cartilage
“Every day is an anxiety in my ways of getting to the water. . . . I’ve become so attuned to it, so scared of it, so in love with it that sometimes I can only think by the sea. It is the o
Argentina’s Missing Bones is the first comprehensive English-language work of historical scholarship on the 1976–83 military dictatorship and Argentina’s notorious experience with st
A radical rethinking of the Anglo-Saxon world that draws on the latest archaeological discoveriesThis beautifully illustrated book draws on the latest archaeological discoveries to present a radical r
With Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Legal Logic, Frederic R. Kellogg examines the early diaries, reading, and writings of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) to assess his contributio
Following her bestselling Life Along the Silk Road, Susan Whitfield widens her exploration of the great cultural highway with a new captivating portrait focusing on material things. Silk, Slaves, and
Every square inch of soil is rich with energy and life, and nowhere is this more evident than in the garden. At the tips of our trowels, a sun-driven world of microbes, insects, roots, and stems await
Giant factories, with their ingenious machinery and miraculous productivity, have long been celebrated as modern wonders of the world. Yet from their very beginnings, when William Blake called them “d
The United States incarcerates more people per capital than any other industrialized nation in the world—about 1 in 100 adults, or more than 2 million people—while national spending on pri
Before the time of Napoleon, the most ambitious effort to explore and map the Nile was undertaken by the Ottomans, as attested by two monumental documents: an elaborate map, with 450 rubrics, and a le
Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and formerly part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, is the original oil city, with oil and urbanism thoroughly intertwined—economically, politically, and ph
Everyone deserves to be able to retire with dignity, but this core feature of the social contract is in jeopardy. Companies have swerved away from pensions, and most of the workforce has woefully inad
What is the state of philosophy today, and what might it be tomorrow? With What Philosophy Is For, Michael Hampe answers these questions by exploring the relationships among philosophy, education, sci
How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens our schools, medical care, businesses, and governmentToday, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success i
The story of Christmas—familiar and heart-warming, a story of hope and peace encapsulated by the birth of the infant Jesus—is also a story that unites two faiths often at odds with one ano
A fresh look at how three important twentieth-century British thinkers viewed capitalism through a moral rather than material lensWhat's wrong with capitalism? Answers to that question today focus on
Get your snark on, with this hilarious compendium from the author of The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm. It’s the perfect book for today’s world. The battle for sanity and intelligence rag
Medieval Italian communes are known for their violence, feuds, and vendettas, yet beneath this tumult was a society preoccupied with peace. Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy is the first book t
A leading authority explains the origins and history of Chinese medicine from its beginnings in antiquity to today. Paul U. Unschuld describes medicine's close connection with culture and politics thr
Bursting with a cornucopia of gorgeous artwork and photos, this volume features a fascinating Rashomonlike collection of vivid remembrances by Wood’s friends, colleagues, assistants, and loved ones. E
Founded by a band of young iconoclasts, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood stunned Victorian England with its revaluation of culture and lifestyle. With Pre-Raphaelitism ascendant in the 1850s and canonic
Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict thr
Is all knowledge the product of thought? Or can the physical interactions of the body with the world produce reliable knowledge? In late-nineteenth-century Europe, scientists, artists, and other intel
Since the 1979 revolution, scholars and policy makers alike have tended to see Iranian political actors as religiously driven—dedicated to overturning the international order in line with a theologica
A brief, accessible history of the idea of purpose in Western thought, from ancient Greece to the presentCan we live without the idea of purpose? Should we even try to? Kant thought we were stuck with
An innovative look at how families in Ming dynasty China negotiated military and political obligations to the stateHow did ordinary people in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) deal with the demands of the
From profiles and interviews with the world's leading venture capitalists and high-profile coaches of business founders, A Dozen Lessons distills a set of bedrock methods for approaching business ques
Chopped in salads, scooped up in salsa, slathered on pizza and pasta, squeezed onto burgers and fries, and filling aisles with roma, cherry, beefsteak, on-the-vine, and heirloom: where would American
Early in the 1980s AIDS epidemic, six gay activists created one of the most iconic and lasting images that would come to symbolize a movement: a protest poster of a pink triangle with the words &ldquo
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
With America’s founding principles being debated today as never before, Russell Shorto looks back to the era in which those principles were forged. Drawing on new sources, he weaves the lives of six p
Poland in the 1980s was filled with shuttered restaurants and shops that bore such imaginative names as “bread,” “shoes,” and “milk products,” from which lines coul
For all of their focus on asset prices, financial economists rarely ask if assets are priced ethically—that is, if their prices are compatible with the public good. Yet in a world facing major, possib
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
Tibetan Buddhism teaches compassion toward all beings, a category that explicitly includes animals. Slaughtering animals is morally problematic at best, and, at worst, completely incompatible with a r
Virginia’s Great Valley, prosperous in peace with a rich soil and an enslaved workforce, invited destruction in war. Voracious Union and Confederate armies ground up the valley, consuming crops, lives
