Digital renaissance

How digital technology is upending the traditional creative industries—and why that’s a good thingThe digital revolution poses a mortal threat to the major creative industries—music, publishing, television, and the movies. Cheap, easy self-producing is eroding the position of the gatekeepers and ...

Live long and evolve

An engaging journey into the biological principles underpinning a beloved science-fiction franchiseIn Star Trek, crew members travel to unusual planets, meet diverse beings, and encounter unique civilizations. In these remarkable space adventures, does Star Trek reflect biology and evolution as w...

Against political equality

How a hybrid Confucian-engendered form of governance might solve today’s political problemsWhat might a viable political alternative to liberal democracy look like? In Against Political Equality, Tongdong Bai offers a possibility inspired by Confucian ideas.Bai argues that domestic governance inf...

Freedom, resentment, and the metaphysics of morals

An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson’s influential “Freedom and Resentment”P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper “Freedom and Resentment” is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting respo...

The global bourgeoisie

The first global history of the middle class While the nineteenth century has been described as the golden age of the European bourgeoisie, the emergence of the middle class and bourgeois culture was by no means exclusive to Europe. The Global Bourgeoisie explores the rise of the middle classes a...

Preventing palestine

A groundbreaking history that shows how peace between Egypt and Israel ensured lasting Palestinian statelessnessThe 1978 Camp David Accords and the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty are widely viewed as a triumph of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. Yet the Palestinians—the would-be benef...

The life of walatta-petros

This concise edition of the biography of Walatta-Petros (1672) tells the story of an Ethiopian saint who lived from 1592 to 1642 and led a successful nonviolent movement to preserve African Christian beliefs in the face of European protocolonialism. This is the oldest-known book-length biography ...

Two cheers for higher education

A leading expert challenges the prevailing gloomy outlook on higher education with solid evidence of its successesCrushing student debt, rapidly eroding state funding, faculty embroiled in speech controversies, a higher-education market disrupted by online competition—today’s headlines suggest th...

The winding road to the welfare state

How did Britain transform itself from a nation of workhouses to one that became a model for the modern welfare state? The Winding Road to the Welfare State investigates the evolution of living standards and welfare policies in Britain from the 1830s to 1950 and provides insights into how British ...

Third parties in america

In recent years a growing number of citizens have defected from the major parties to third party presidential candidates. Over the past three decades, independent campaigns led by George Wallace, John Anderson, and Ross Perot have attracted more electoral support than at any time since the 1920s....

Two buddhas seated side by side

An essential companion to a timeless spiritual classicThe Lotus Sūtra is among the most venerated scriptures of Buddhism. Composed in India some two millennia ago, it asserts the potential for all beings to attain supreme enlightenment. Donald Lopez and Jacqueline Stone provide an essential readi...

Political entrepreneurs

How challenger parties, acting as political entrepreneurs, are changing European democraciesChallenger parties are on the rise in Europe, exemplified by the likes of Podemos in Spain, the National Rally in France, the Alternative for Germany, or the Brexit Party in Great Britain. Like disruptive ...

When all else fails

Why you have the right to resist unjust governmentFor centuries, almost everyone has believed that we must allow the government and its representatives to act without interference, no matter how they behave. We may complain, protest, sue, or vote officials out, but we can’t fight back. But in Whe...

France before 1789

A masterful new account of old regime France by one of the world's most prominent political philosophersFrance before 1789 traces the historical origins of France's National Constituent Assembly of 1789, providing a vivid portrait of the ancien régime and its complex social system in the decades ...

Alexander the great

An elegant, concise, and generously illustrated exploration of Alexander the Great’s representations in art and literature through the agesIn this book, John Boardman, one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient Greece, looks beyond the life of Alexander the Great in order to examine the as...

99 variations on a proof

An exploration of mathematical style through 99 different proofs of the same theoremThis book offers a multifaceted perspective on mathematics by demonstrating 99 different proofs of the same theorem. Each chapter solves an otherwise unremarkable equation in distinct historical, formal, and imagi...

Hanging without a rope

When Mary Steedly went to North Sumatra, Indonesia, she intended to study the curing practices of Karo Batak spirit mediums, the gurus who keep a community in touch with its ancestors. She became fascinated by the stories these women and men told of their encounters with spirits in the ritual are...

How plants work

A large-format, heavily illustrated look at the wide adaptability and rich diversity of the plant kingdomAll the plants around us today are descended from simple algae that emerged more than 500 million years ago. While new plant species are still being discovered, it is thought that there are ar...

Dark data

A practical guide to making good decisions in a world of missing dataIn the era of big data, it is easy to imagine that we have all the information we need to make good decisions. But in fact the data we have are never complete, and may be only the tip of the iceberg. Just as much of the universe...

Nathalie sarraute

The definitive biography of a leading twentieth-century French writerA leading exponent of the nouveau roman, Nathalie Sarraute (1900–1999) was also one of France's most cosmopolitan literary figures, and her life was bound up with the intellectual and political ferment of twentieth-century Europ...

The greek experience of india

An exploration of how the Greeks reacted to and interacted with India from the third to first centuries BCEWhen the Greeks and Macedonians in Alexander’s army reached India in 326 BCE, they entered a new world. The plants were unrecognizable, the customs of the people various and puzzling. Alexan...

Reading old books

A wide-ranging exploration of the creative power of literary tradition, from Chaucer to the presentIn literary and cultural studies, "tradition" is a word everyone uses but few address critically. In Reading Old Books, Peter Mack offers a wide-ranging exploration of the creative power of literary...

Comparing the literatures

From a leading figure in comparative literature, a major new survey of the field that points the way forward for a discipline undergoing rapid changesLiterary studies are being transformed today by the expansive and disruptive forces of globalization. More works than ever circulate worldwide in E...

The myth of the eternal return

First published in English in 1954, this founding work of the history of religions secured the North American reputation of the Romanian émigré-scholar Mircea Eliade. Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no fewer than half a dozen European ...

Not born yesterday

Why people are not as gullible as we thinkNot Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe—and argues that we're pretty good at making these decisions. In this lively and provocative book, Hugo Mercier demonstrates how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion...

Cult of the irrelevant

How professionalization and scholarly “rigor” made social scientists increasingly irrelevant to US national security policyTo mobilize America’s intellectual resources to meet the security challenges of the post–9/11 world, US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates observed that “we must again embr...

The secret formula

The legendary Renaissance math duel that ushered in the modern age of algebraThe Secret Formula tells the story of two Renaissance mathematicians whose jealousies, intrigues, and contentious debates led to the discovery of a formula for the solution of the cubic equation. Niccolò Tartaglia was a ...

In the shadow of justice

A bold new history of postwar political philosophy and of how John Rawls transformed modern liberalismIn the Shadow of Justice tells the story of how liberal political philosophy was transformed in the second half of the twentieth century under the influence of John Rawls. In this first-ever hist...

Pirates and publishers

A detailed historical look at how copyright was negotiated and protected by authors, publishers, and the state in late imperial and modern ChinaIn Pirates and Publishers, Fei-Hsien Wang reveals the unknown social and cultural history of copyright in China from the 1890s through the 1950s, a time ...

The european guilds

A comprehensive analysis of European craft guilds through eight centuries of economic historyGuilds ruled many crafts and trades from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, and have always attracted debate and controversy. They were sometimes viewed as efficient institutions that guarantee...

The shape of the river

The landmark New York Times bestseller that demonstrates the benefits of race-conscious admissions in higher education First published in 1998, William Bowen and Derek Bok’s The Shape of the River became an immediate landmark in the debate over affirmative action in America. It grounded a content...

Iran rising

An authoritative account of how and why the Islamic Republic has survived to become a critical player in the Middle East and the worldWhen Iranians overthrew their pro-Western monarchy in favor of an Islamic regime in 1979, many observers predicted that revolutionary turmoil would paralyze the co...

Gods and robots

The fascinating untold story of how the ancients imagined robots and other forms of artificial life—and even invented real automated machines The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek ...

The left behind

How a fraying social fabric is fueling the outrage of rural AmericansWhat is fueling rural America’s outrage toward the federal government? Why did rural Americans vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump? And is there a more nuanced explanation for the growing rural-urban divide? Drawing on more tha...

The apple of his eye

The thirteenth century brought new urgency to Catholic efforts to convert non-Christians, and no Catholic ruler was more dedicated to this undertaking than King Louis IX of France. His military expeditions against Islam are well documented, but there was also a peaceful side to his encounter with...

The calculus gallery

More than three centuries after its creation, calculus remains a dazzling intellectual achievement and the gateway to higher mathematics. This book charts its growth and development by sampling from the work of some of its foremost practitioners, beginning with Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm ...

Curves for the mathematically curious

Ten amazing curves personally selected by one of today's most important math writersCurves for the Mathematically Curious is a thoughtfully curated collection of ten mathematical curves, selected by Julian Havil for their significance, mathematical interest, and beauty. Each chapter gives an acco...

Worlds enough

A short, provocative book that challenges basic assumptions about Victorian fictionNow praised for its realism and formal coherence, the Victorian novel was not always great, or even good, in the eyes of its critics. As Elaine Freedgood reveals in Worlds Enough, it was only in the late 1970s that...

The best writing on mathematics 2019

The year's finest mathematical writing from around the worldThis annual anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2019 makes available to ...

The slow moon climbs

A surprising look at the role of menopause in human history—and why we should change the ways we think about itAre the ways we look at menopause all wrong? Susan Mattern says yes and, in The Slow Moon Climbs, reveals just how wrong we have been. From the rainforests of Paraguay to the streets of ...

The promise and peril of credit

How an antisemitic legend gave voice to widespread fears surrounding the expansion of private credit in Western capitalismThe Promise and Peril of Credit takes an incisive look at pivotal episodes in the West’s centuries-long struggle to define the place of private finance in the social and polit...

Making motherhood work

A moving account of working mothers’ daily lives—and the revolution in public policy and culture needed to improve themThe work-family conflict that mothers experience today is a national crisis. Women struggle to balance breadwinning with the bulk of parenting, and social policies aren’t helping...

The discrete charm of the machine

The genesis of the digital idea and why it transformed civilizationA few short decades ago, we were informed by the smooth signals of analog television and radio; we communicated using our analog telephones; and we even computed with analog computers. Today our world is digital, built with zeros ...

The new mind readers

A revealing insider's account of the power—and limitations—of functional MRIThe ability to read minds has long been a fascination of science fiction, but revolutionary new brain-imaging methods are bringing it closer to scientific reality. The New Mind Readers looks at the origins, development, a...

Standing soldiers, kneeling slaves

A history of U.S. Civil War monuments that shows how they distort history and perpetuate white supremacyThe United States began as a slave society, holding millions of Africans and their descendants in bondage, and remained so until a civil war took the lives of a half million soldiers, some once...

Napoleon iii and the rebuilding of paris

A classic history of the creation of modern Paris by Napoleon III and HaussmannBetween 1850 and 1870, Napoleon III and his Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, created the modern city of Paris out of the congested and ill-equipped capital of the eighteenth century. They gave Paris many of its p...

The black death in the middle east

The splendor of longing in the tale of the genji

Carnivores of the world

An acclaimed illustrated guide to the world’s carnivores—now in an expanded and thoroughly updated new editionThis is an expanded and fully revised new edition of a highly acclaimed guide to the world’s carnivores—some of the most spectacular and feared creatures in nature. Covering all 250 speci...