How society’s undervaluing of life puts all of us at risk—and the groundbreaking economic measure that can fix itLike it or not, sometimes we need to put a monetary value on people's lives. In the pas
It’s right there in the Book of Job: “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that
The 2016 presidential election campaign and its aftermath have underscored worrisome trends in the present state of our democracy: the extreme polarization of the electorate, the dismissal of people w
Georges-Louis Leclerc, le comte de Buffon's The Epochs of Nature, originally published as Les Époques de la Nature in 1778, is one of the first great popular science books, a work
Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey that traces the gradual evolution of the seventeenth-century’s Brede Wegh, a muddy cow path in a backwater Dutch settlement, to the twentieth century’s Grea
On July 12, 1969, Ruth Davis, a young American volunteer at Dr. Jane Goodall's famous chimpanzee research camp in the Gombe Stream National Park of Tanzania, East Africa, walked out of camp to fol
The new Vienna headquarters of ÖAMTC, Austria’s motorists association, is a remarkable example of collaboration in action, a testament to a process that was interdisciplinary from the choic
“On the day of the Great Fall he left nothing, nothing at all behind.”The latest work by Peter Handke, one of our greatest living writers, chronicles a day in life of an aging actor as he makes his wa
On Descartes’ Passive Thought is the culmination of a life-long reflection on the philosophy of Descartes by one of the most important living French philosophers. In it, Jean-Luc Marion examines
Previous studies have covered in great detail how the modern state slowly emerged from the early Renaissance through the seventeenth century, but we know relatively little about the next great act: th
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
It is a curious and relatively little-known fact that for two decades—from the end of World War II until the late 1960s—existentialism’s most fertile ground outside of Europe was in
A compelling memoir by the first woman president of a major American universityHanna Holborn Gray has lived her entire life in the world of higher education. The daughter of academics, she fled Hitler
In Mock Classicism Nilo Couret presents an alternate history of Latin American cinema that traces the popularity and cultural significance of film comedies as responses to modernization and the foreru
“The American people sees itself advance across the wilderness, draining swamps, straightening rivers, peopling the solitude, and subduing nature,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835. Tha
In 1968 a team of scientists and engineers from RCA announced the creation of a new form of electronic display that relied upon an obscure set of materials known as liquid crystals. At a time when tel
We live in a self-proclaimed Urban Age, where we celebrate the city as the source of economic prosperity, a nurturer of social and cultural diversity, and a place primed for democracy. We proclaim the
The Iranian Expanse explores how kings in the ancient Iranian world utilized the built and natural environment—everything from royal cities and paradise gardens, to hunting enclosures and f
The history of Mexico City is monumental, like Our Lady of Guadalupe that watches over the city. That's because time, people, and cultures have never stopped intermixing there. In the 1920s
In a publishing career that spanned less than a decade, Jane Austen revolutionized the literary romance, using it as a stage from which to address issues of gender politics and class-consciousness rar
The 637 documents in this volume span 1 February to 31 August 1819. As a founding member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, Jefferson helps to obtain builders for the infant institution,
An original and engaging account of the Obama years from a group of leading political historiansBarack Obama's election as the first African American president seemed to usher in a new era, and he too
A sweeping history of Latin American republicanism in the nineteenth centuryBy the 1820s, after three centuries under imperial rule, the former Spanish territories of Latin America had shaken off thei
A new look at the ways van Gogh represented the seasons and the natural world throughout his careerThe changing seasons captivated Vincent van Gogh (1853–90), who saw in their unending cycle the majes
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
In a groundbreaking history as game-changing as Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, We the Corporations reveals how American business won equal rights
In a book that is part memoir and part history, David Roberts looks back at his personal relationship to extreme risk, and tries to make sense of why so many have committed their lives to the desperat
How kibbutzim thrived for much of the twentieth century despite their inherent economic contradictionsThe kibbutz is a social experiment in collective living that challenges traditional economic theor
The Communist regimes of Europe collapsed more than a quarter century ago, and the Third Reich fell in World War II. But today’s rising global tide of far-right extremism makes totalitarian regi
Market globalization, technology, climate change, and postcolonial political forces are together forging a new, more modern world. However, caught up in the mix are some powerful religious narratives
The Killing Season explores one of the largest and swiftest, yet least examined, instances of mass killing and incarceration in the twentieth century--the shocking antileftist purge that gripped Indon
In this fresh and powerful work of environmental history, Martin Doyle exploreshow rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of theAmerican experiment—over federalism, taxation, regu
A beautifully illustrated visual and cultural history of the color blue throughout the agesBlue has had a long and topsy-turvy history in the Western world. The ancient Greeks scorned it as ugly and b
The Ben cao gang mu, compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (1518–1593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowle
The vast, and vastly influential, American military machine has been aided and abetted by cinema since the earliest days of the medium. The US military realized very quickly that film could be used in
The Music of Tragedy offers a new approach to the study of classical Greek theater by examining the use of musical language, imagery, and performance in the late work of Euripides. Naomi Weiss demonst
Since its publication in 1962, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring has often been celebrated as the catalyst that sparked an American environmental movement. Yet environmental consciousness and e
In the decades after World War II, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilian contractors across Asia and the Pacific found work through the U.S. military. Recently liberated from colonial rule, these
In addition to "Master Race,” this volume includes “The Flying Machine” (based on a story by Ray Bradbury). Other stories include: “Slave Ship,” an unpublished science fiction tale that was only disco
An international bestseller, To Fight Against This Age consists of two beautifully written, cogent, and urgent essays about the rise of fascism and the ways in which we can combat it.In “The Eternal R
