This volume of Opuscula presents ten articles on a single theme: manuscript and print in late premodern Iceland, specifically the period between the advent of print in the early sixteenth century and
The first consumer credit bureaus appeared in the 1870s and quickly amassed huge archives of deeply personal information about millions of Americans. Today, the three leading credit bureaus are among
In Playing War, Sabine Frühstück makes a bold proposition: that for over a century throughout Japan and beyond, children and concepts of childhood have been appropriated as tools for decided
Safeguarding Democratic Capitalism gathers together decades of writing by Melvyn Leffler, one of the most respected historians of American foreign policy, to address important questions about U.S. nat
In The Happiness Philosophers, Bart Schultz tells the colorful story of the lives and legacies of the founders of utilitarianism--one of the most influential yet misunderstood and maligned philosophie
Scientists’ views on what makes an experiment successful have developed dramatically throughout history. Different criteria for proper experimentation were privileged at different times, entirely new
In the eighteenth century, the Cul de Sac plain in Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, was a vast open-air workhouse of sugar plantations. This microhistory of one plantation owned by the Ferron de la Ferronna
How the automobile fundamentally changed African American life—the basis of a major PBS documentary by Ric Burns.It’s hardly a secret that mobility has always been limited, if not impossible, for Afri
An accessible, compelling introduction to today’s major policy issues from the New York Times columnist, best-selling author, and Nobel prize–winning economist Paul Krugman.There is no better guide th
From the shutdown of Planned Parenthood clinics and rising rates of HIV to opposition to marriage equality and bathroom bills, the New South is the epicenter of the new sex wars. Antagonism toward rep
The institution of slavery has always depended on myriad ways of enforcing the boundaries between slaveholders and the enslaved. As historical geographer Miles Ogborn reveals in The Freedom of Speech,
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation’s foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.The Declara
What is the correct way to see color in a modern, scientific society? And who decides? In The Republic of Color, Michael Rossi delves deep into the history of color science in the United States to tra
Banks and bankers are hardly the most beloved people and institutions in this country. With its corruptive influence on politics and stranglehold on the American economy, Wall Street is not held in hi
More than ever, architecture is in need of provocation, a new path beyond the traditional notion that buildings must serve as vessels, or symbols of something outside themselves. Non-Referential Arc
Everybody’s Doin’ It follows the birth of popular music, including ragtime and jazz, to the convivial meeting places for sex, drink, music, and dance. Whether a single piano player or small band, live
In 17th century Rome, where women are expected to be chaste and yet are viewed as prey by powerful men, the extraordinary painter Artemisia Gentileschi fends off constant sexual advances as she works
The use of hunger strikes and fasts in political protest is a global phenomenon. Last Weapons book explains how that came to be. It examines the proliferation of hunger as a form of pro
The City of Light. For many, these four words instantly conjure late nineteenth-century Paris and the garish colors of Toulouse-Lautrec’s iconic posters. More recently, the Eiffel Tower’s
In this rich study of noise in American film-going culture, Meredith C. Ward shows how aurality can reveal important fissures in American motion picture history, enabling certain types of listening cu
In the 1940s and ’50s, Havana was a locus for American movie stars, with glamorous visitors including Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Marlon Brando. In fact, Hollywood was seemingly
Public space is political space. When a work of public art is put up or taken down, it is an inherently political statement, and the work’s aesthetics are inextricably entwined with its political vale
Early twentieth-century Calcutta was not just a point of passage within the British Empire, but a key center of colonial power; a crucial laboratory of imperial repressive practices cultivated and app
This fall marks the centennial of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, the agreement that put a stop to the hostilities of World War I. But was the end of this historic conflict really as clearly defin
A bold new religious history of the late antique and medieval Middle East that places ordinary Christians at the center of the storyIn the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle
In Quest of Justice provides the first full account of the establishment and workings of a new kind of state in Egypt in the modern period. Drawing on groundbreaking research in the Egyptian archives,
In North Korea in the decade following the Korean War, labor became the defining means of state control and national unity. In pursuit of rapid industrial growth, the North Korean state stressed order
A book that finally demystifies Newton’s experiments in alchemyWhen Isaac Newton’s alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby’s auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts wa
“Failing schools. Underprivileged schools. Just plain bad schools.” That’s how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard: describing Chicago Public Schools from the outside.
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,
This is a necessary and urgent read for anyone concerned about the United States' endless wars. Investigating multiple genres of popular culture alongside contemporary U.S. foreign policy and poli
No family in the history of American sports has ascended to the storybook level of greatness and royal succession quite like the Mannings. Although the façade has occasionally cracked—murmurs of locke
Work hard in school, graduate from a top college, establish a high-paying professional career, enjoy the long-lasting reward of happiness. This is the American Dream—and yet basic questions at t
