What was it about Barack Obama’s campaign of hope that resonated so much not just with Americans, but people the world over? Have we really become so despairing—in the face of collapsed economies and
The seventeenth volume of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Innovation Policy and the Economy provides an accessible forum for bringing the work of leading academic researchers to an audience
From the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great Depression, Wall Street embarked on a stunning, unprecedented, and often bloody period of international expansion in the Caribbean.
Behind every great man stands a great woman. And behind that great woman stands a slave. Or so it was in the households of the Founding Fathers from Virginia where slaves worked and suffered throughou
Language shapes and reflects how we think about the world. It engages and intrigues us. Our everyday use of language is quite effortless—we are all experts on our native tongues. Despite this, issues
Two spectacular dead bodies—Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947, and Marilyn Monroe, found dead in her home in August 1962—bookend this n
While the twentieth century’s conflicting visions and exploitation of the Middle East are well documented, the origins of the concept of the Middle East itself have been largely ignored. With Dislocat
The influence of Taiwan on contemporary design is strong and growing. Focusing on the vibrant and cutting-edge designs being created in Taiwan today, curator Annie Ivanova offers here the first compre
Globalization and cheaper travel have led to a rapid increase in cross-cultural encounters worldwide—which makes understanding problems of conflict, prejudice, interaction, and adaptation ever more im
Set deep in the forests of Bengal, India, Mahuldiha Days is the moving story of a young woman coming of age in her personal and professional life. Anita Agnihotri paints a vivid picture in this novel
This book is the first anthology of writings to be devoted to Icelandic theologian and religious writer Magnús Eiríksson (1806–81). A contemporary of Kierkegaard, Eiríksson made a name (and enemies) f
In Albino, photojournalist Ana Palacios takes us inside a shelter for people with albinism and reveals what daily life is like for those living with the genetic condition in Tanzania. As Palacios docu
Combining hard facts with the personal stories of 235 low- and middle-income families as they navigate through a year, the authors examine the economic stresses of today's families and offer fresh ide
A true visionary, with a fluid line and an uncanny sense of color and composition, Pazienza’s innovative graphic style served up stories that were iconoclastic, outrageous, humorous, and deeply person
This graphic novel unfolds in front of the reader as a puzzle of short stories and moment-capturing images.Samuel is a pale, ghost-like character, drawn in clear line, against the controlled psychedel
Finding a job used to be simple. You’d show up at an office and ask for an application. A friend would mention a job in their department. Or you’d see an ad in a newspaper and send in your cover let
In the last decade, public discussions of transgender issues have increased exponentially. However, with this increased visibility has comes not just power, but regulation, both in favor of and agains
In the wake of the murder of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the exoneration of his killer, three black women activists launched a hashtag and social media platform, Black Lives Matter, wh
Read the news about America’s colleges and universities—rising student debt, affirmative action debates, and conflicts between faculty and administrators—and it’s clear that higher education in this c
The book of Genesis records the fiery fate of Sodom and Gomorrah—a storm of fire and brimstone is sent from heaven and, for the wickedness of the people, God destroyed the cities “and all the plains,
“Latin America” is a concept firmly entrenched in its philosophical, moral, and historical meanings. And yet, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo argues in this landmark book, it is an obsolescent racial-cultural
Forgotten Peace examines Colombian society’s attempt to move beyond the Western Hemisphere’s worst mid-century conflict and how that effort molded notions of belonging and understandings of the past.
Nationality is the most important legal mechanism for sorting and classifying the world's population today. An individual's state of birth or naturalization determines where he or she can and cannot b
In 1865 Union Army General Oliver Otis Howard took charge of the Freedmen’s Bureau, tasked with helping millions of former slaves become free and equal citizens. He was so committed to civil rights th
With majestic prose, Christopher de Bellaigue presents an absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Stru
Published in 1973, L'Etourdit was one of the French philosopher Jacques Lacan's darkest and most important works. The book posed questions that traversed the entire body of Lacan's psychoanalytical ex
Posthumous Life launches critical life studies: a mode of inquiry that neither endorses nor dismisses a wave of recent "turns" toward life, matter, vitality, inhumanity, animality, and the real. Follo
In the mid-twentieth century, scientists’ anxieties about survival and salvation led them to stockpile and freeze materials from communities that seemed to embody potentially valuable biological resou
Pictorial maps are artistic renderings rather than scientific representations of places that combine cartographic elements with texts and images and feature bold and arresting graphic design, bright a
George Steiner is one of the preeminent intellectuals of our time. The Washington Post has declared that no one else “writing on literature can match him as polymath and polyglot, and few can equal th
Cicero remains little known even among political theorists and political philosophers. This book will change that, and do so forcefully: Gary Remer has recovered a vibrant tradition of political mor
Supersizing Urban America reveals how the US government has been, and remains, a major contributor to America’s obesity epidemic. Government policies, targeted food industry advertising, and other fac
The first rule of warfare is to know one’s enemy. The second is to know thyself. More than fifteen years and three quarters of a trillion dollars after the US invasion of Afghanistan, it’s clear that
The tragedies of World War II are well known. But at least one has been forgotten: in September 1939, four hundred thousand cats and dogs were massacred in Britain. The government, vets, and animal ch
In the late 1600s, Louis XIV assigns Nicolas de la Reynie to bring order to the city of Paris after the brutal deaths of two magistrates. Reynie, pragmatic yet fearless, tackles the dirty and terrifyi
Ice Ghosts weaves together the epic story of the Lost Franklin Expeditionof 1845—whose two ships and crew of 129 were lost to the Arctic ice—withthe modern tale of the scientists, divers, and local In
