How the history of racism without visible differences between people challenges our understanding of the history of racial thinkingRacial divisions have returned to the forefront of politics in the United States and European societies, making it more important than ever to understand race and racism.
The unknown history of deportation and of the fear that shapes immigrants' livesConstant headlines about deportations, detention camps, and border walls drive urgent debates about immigration and what it means to be an American in the twenty-first century.
A riveting history of the city that led the West out of the ruins of the Roman EmpireAt the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West.
A groundbreaking look at how group expectations unify Black Americans in their support of the Democratic partyBlack Americans are by far the most unified racial group in American electoral politics, with 80 to 90 percent identifying as Democrats-a surprising figure given that nearly a third now also identify as ideologically conservative, up from less than 10 percent in the 1970s.
Notable writers-including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow-celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the pastWhat can a house tell us about the person who lives there?
A wide-ranging look at the history of Western thinking since the seventeenth century on the purpose of the Jewish people in the past, present, and futureWhat is the purpose of Jews in the world?
A literary and cultural history of the intimate space of the eighteenth-century closet-and how it fired the imaginations of Pepys, Sterne, Swift, and so many other writers Long before it was a hidden storage space or a metaphor for queer and trans shame, the closet was one of the most charged settings in English architecture.
'Effervescent' New Yorker Best Books Of 2022 So Far'Bursts with colour and incident' FT Best Books of SummerRead this prize-winning historian's "e;immersive"e; ( New York Times) account of the famous writers who, in the run-up to World War II, took on dictators and rewrote the rules of modern journalismThey were an astonishing group: glamorous, gutsy, and irreverent to the bone.
A major new history of how democracy became the dominant political force in Europe in the second half of the twentieth centuryWhat happened in the years following World War II to create a democratic revolution in the western half of Europe?
The first complete history of US industry's most influential and controversial lobbyistFounded in 1895, the National Association of Manufacturers-NAM-helped make manufacturing the basis of the US economy and a major source of jobs in the twentieth century.
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 Europe.
A history of the extraordinary society that has touched all aspects of British lifeFrom its beginnings in a coffee house in the mid-eighteenth century, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way imaginable.
A compelling history of the national conflicts that resulted from efforts to produce the first definitive American dictionary of English In The Dictionary Wars, Peter Martin recounts the patriotic fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive national dictionary that would rival Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language.
A revelatory account of a spiritual leader who dared to assert the value of rabbinic doubt in the face of messianic certaintyIn 1665, Sabbetai Zevi, a self-proclaimed Messiah with a mass following throughout the Ottoman Empire and Europe, announced that the redemption of the world was at hand.
An in-depth look at how democratic values have widened the American arts scene, even as it remains elite and cosmopolitanTwo centuries ago, wealthy entrepreneurs founded the American cathedrals of culture-museums, theater companies, and symphony orchestras-to mirror European art.
How creative freedom, race, class, and gender shaped the rebellion of two visionary artistsPostwar America experienced an unprecedented flourishing of avant-garde and independent art.
A vivid look at how India has developed the idea of entrepreneurial citizens as leaders mobilizing society and how people try to live that promiseCan entrepreneurs develop a nation, serve the poor, and pursue creative freedom, all while generating economic value?
How British authorities and Indian intellectuals developed ideas about deviant female sexuality to control and organize modern society in IndiaDuring the colonial period in India, European scholars, British officials, and elite Indian intellectualsphilologists, administrators, doctors, ethnologists, sociologists, and social criticsdeployed ideas about sexuality to understand modern Indian society.
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 of profound sociopolitical changes.
How modernist women writers used biographical writing to resist their exclusion from literary historyIt's impossible, now, to think of modernism without thinking about gender, sexuality, and the diverse movers and shakers of the early twentieth century.
An essential introduction to Josephus's momentous war narrativeThe Jewish War is Josephus's superbly evocative account of the Jewish revolt against Rome, which was crushed in 70 CE with the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple.
A firsthand look at efforts to improve diversity in software and hackerspace communitiesHacking, as a mode of technical and cultural production, is commonly celebrated for its extraordinary freedoms of creation and circulation.
A bold new interpretation of Nat Turner and the slave rebellion that stunned the American SouthIn 1831 Virginia, Nat Turner led a band of Southampton County slaves in a rebellion that killed fifty-five whites, mostly women and children.
A groundbreaking examination of a little-known but defining episode in early modern Jewish history A refugee crisis of huge proportions erupted as a result of the mid-seventeenth-century wars in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern worldThe fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history.
The first book to explore how African American writing and art engaged with visions of Ethiopia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesAs the only African nation, with the exception of Liberia, to remain independent during the colonization of the continent, Ethiopia has long held significance for and captivated the imaginations of African Americans.
A new account of the famous site and story of the last stand of a group of Jewish rebels who held out against the Roman EmpireTwo thousand years ago, 967 Jewish men, women, and childrenthe last holdouts of the revolt against Rome following the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Templereportedly took their own lives rather than surrender to the Roman army.
An enlightening account of the entwined histories of knowledge and nationhood in Latin America-and beyondThe rise of nation-states is a hallmark of the modern age, yet we are still untangling how the phenomenon unfolded across the globe.
How beef conquered America and gave rise to the modern industrial food complexBy the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal.
The fascinating untold story of digital cash and its creators-from experiments in the 1970s to the mania over Bitcoin and other cryptocurrenciesBitcoin may appear to be a revolutionary form of digital cash without precedent or prehistory.
A groundbreaking history of early America that shows how Boston built and sustained an independent city-state in New England before being folded into the United StatesIn the vaunted annals of America's founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary "e;city upon a hill"e; and the "e;cradle of liberty"e; for an independent United States.
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 and strange world.
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 political order.
A guide to the latest research on how young people can develop positive ethnic-racial identities and strong interracial relationsToday's young people are growing up in an increasingly ethnically and racially diverse society.
How an obscure Puritan sermon came to be seen as a founding document of American identity and exceptionalism"e;For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill,"e; John Winthrop warned his fellow Puritans at New England's founding in 1630.
In 1964, Mary Whitehouse launched a campaign to fight what she called the 'propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt' being poured into homes through the nation's radio and television sets.
The pioneering oral historian, George Ewart Evans, began to record the farming ways of East Anglia in the 1950s by listening to old men and women whose memories went back more than fifty or sixty years.
A wonderfully quixotic, charming and surprisingly uplifting travelogue which sees Jack Cooke, author of the much-loved The Treeclimbers Guide, drive around the British Isles in a clapped-out forty-year old hearse in search of famous - and not so famous - tombs, graves and burial sites.
