The Bank of the United States sparked several rounds of intense debate over the meaning of the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause, which authorizes the federal government to make laws th
The tech boom of our time is changing San Francisco at warp speed. Famously home to artists and activists, and known as the birthplace of the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the LGBTQ movement, the Bay
Every age and social strata has its bad eggs, rule-breakers, and nose-thumbers. As acclaimed popular historian and author of How to Be a Victorian Ruth Goodman shows in her madcap chronicle, Elizabeth
How could Northern California, the wealthiest and most politically progressive region in the United States, become one of the earliest epicenters of the foreclosure crisis? How could this region conti
When Kenneth Burke conceived his celebrated “Motivorum” project in the 1940s and 1950s, he envisioned it in three parts. While the third part, A Symbolic of Motives, was never finished, A
Imagination allows us to step out of the ordinary, but also to transform it, in our sense of wonder and play, artistic inspiration and innovation, or the eureka moment of a scientific breakthrough. In
On the battlefields of World War II, with their fellow soldiers as the only shield between life and death, a generation of American men found themselves connecting with each other in new and profound
We’re all familiar with the image of a fierce and scowling Beethoven, struggling doggedly to overcome his rapidly progressing deafness. That Beethoven continued to play and compose for more than
By early 1945, the war against Japan was at its height and General Douglas MacArthur began to fulfill his vow of liberating the Philippines. He was already planning his own victory parade down Dewey B
Traditional narratives of capitalist change often rely on the myth of the willful entrepreneur from the global North who transforms the economy and delivers modernity—for good or ill—to th
A major new look at the work of one of America’s foremost self-taught artistsBill Traylor (ca. 1853–1949) came to art-making on his own and found his creative voice without guidance; today he is remem
Alain Badiou is arguably the most significant philosopher in Europe today. Badiou’s seminars, given annually on major conceptual and historical topics, constitute an enormously important part of his w
Throughout most of history, in China the insane were kept within the home and treated by healers who claimed no specialized knowledge of their condition. In the first decade of the twentieth century,
Spinoza’s Ethics, and its project of proving ethical truths through the geometric method, have attracted and challenged readers for more than three hundred years. In Spinoza and the Cunning of I
Let’s start with two truths about our era that are so inescapable as to have become clichés: We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percentag
Worlds of enchantment await in this beautiful treasury, which contains the most popular fairy and folk tales from the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, and other classic sourc
This annual volume offers the most complete and current listings of the requirements for certification of a wide range of educational professionals at the elementary and secondary levels. Requirements
Wildly kaleidoscopic and furiously cinematic, Home After Dark is a literary tour-de-force that renders the brutality of adolescence in the so-called nostalgic 1950s, evoking such classics as The Lord
The achievements of the democratic constitutional order have long been associated with the sovereign nation-state. Civic nationalist assumptions hold that social solidarity and social plurality are co
A companion to his acclaimed work in Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy, Joseph E. Stiglitz, along with Carter Dougherty and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, lays out the econ
The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, “on a dedication to inquiry
Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age”—spanning the late 1600s through the early 170
Forced to contend with unprecedented levels of psychological trauma during World War II, the United States military began sponsoring a series of nontheatrical films designed to educate and even rehabi
A widespread conviction in the need to rescue China’s children took hold in the early twentieth century. Amid political upheaval and natural disasters, neglected or abandoned children became a humanit
In the early years of the twenty-first century, China and India have emerged as world powers. In many respects, this is a return to the historical norm for both countries. For much of the early modern
Built in 1969, Metsamor, Armenia (then the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic), was intended as a settlement for employees of a nearby nuclear power plant to be completed between 1976 and 1980. But th
Over the last quarter of a century, no other city like Miami has rapidly transformed into a global city. The Global Edge charts the social tensions and unexpected consequences of this remarkable
For decades now, the story of art in America has been dominated by New York. It gets the majority of attention, the stories of its schools and movements and masterpieces the stuff of pop culture legen
Brazilian cartoonist Daniel Semanas’s candy-colored debut graphic novel, influenced by American pop art and manga, is set in South Korea in the near future. A young fighter has a fiercely competitive
An examination of the intertwined lives and writings of a group of prominent twentieth-century Jewish thinkers who experienced exile and migrationExile, Statelessness, and Migration explores the inter
How investor expectations move markets and the economyThe collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 caught markets and regulators by surprise. Although the government rushed to rescue other financ
Philosophy’s relation to the act of writing is John T. Lysaker’s main concern in Philosophy, Writing, and the Character of Thought. Whether in Plato, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, or
Penguins relies on visual expression and the physical movement of his penguin characters, as well as the formal properties of sequential drawings (with figures routinely moving within and without each
The hallucinogenic and medicinal effects of peyote have a storied history that begins well before Europeans arrived in the Americas. While some have attempted to explain the cultural and religious sig
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault project is an arctic archive designed to preserve the world’s agricultural biodiversity. What do it and other novel forms of storage tell us about our relationship to th
Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to “How Do We Look” and “The Eye of Faith,” the famed Civilisations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on
Recent political thought has grappled with a crisis in philosophical foundations: How do we justify the explicit and implicit normative claims and assumptions that guide political decisions and social
Following his “obsessive, intricate, intimate, and brilliant” (Washington Post) work in Posthumous Keats and The Immortal Evening, renowned poet Stanley Plumly further explores immortality in art thro
Expertise and Architecture in the Modern Islamic World explores how architectural traditions and practices were shared and exchanged across national borders throughout the world, departing from a narr
Jonathan Sergison is an architect and cofounder of the London and Zurich-based Sergison Bates Architects. Since 2008, in addition to design work, Sergison has taught as professor of design and constru
