A bold new history showing that the fear of Communism was a major factor in the outbreak of World War IIThe Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew-the roots of the Second World War-and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation.
A compelling history of the German ethnologists who were inspired by Prussian polymath and explorer Alexander von HumboldtThe Berlin Ethnological Museum is one of the world's largest and most important anthropological museums, housing more than a half million objects collected from around the globe.
Why violence in the Congo has continued despite decades of international intervention Well into its third decade, the military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been dubbed a "e;forever war"e;-a perpetual cycle of war, civil unrest, and local feuds over power and identity.
A comprehensive intellectual biography of the Enlightenment philosopherIn George Berkeley: A Philosophical Life, Tom Jones provides a comprehensive account of the life and work of the preeminent Irish philosopher of the Enlightenment.
The forgotten story of the nineteenth-century freethinkers and twentieth-century humanists who tried to build their own secular religionIn The Church of Saint Thomas Paine, Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in nineteenth-century America promoted a secular religion of humanity centered on the deistic revolutionary Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and how their descendants eventually became embroiled in the culture wars of the late twentieth century.
A revealing exploration of political disruption and violence in a rural Chinese county during the Cultural RevolutionA Decade of Upheaval chronicles the surprising and dramatic political conflicts of a rural Chinese county over the course of the Cultural Revolution.
An in-depth look at how mortuary cultures and issues of death and the dead in Africa have developed over four centuriesIn My Time of Dying is the first detailed history of death and the dead in Africa south of the Sahara.
Charles Sydnor relates the political and military experience of the SS Totenkopfdivision to the institutional development of the SS and the ideological objectives of Nazi Germany.
A vivid account of Dutch seventeenth-century art and material culture against the backdrop of the geopolitics of the early modern worldThe seventeenth century witnessed a great flourishing of Dutch trade and culture.
Leon (Judah Aryeh) Modena was a major intellectual figure of the early modern Italian Jewish community--a complex and intriguing personality who was famous among contemporary European Christians as well as Jews.
The surprising story of how George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson came to despair for the future of the nation they had createdAmericans seldom deify their Founding Fathers any longer, but they do still tend to venerate the Constitution and the republican government that the founders created.
The fascinating untold story of how Nazi architects and planners envisioned and began to build a model "e;Aryan"e; society in Norway during World War IIBetween 1940 and 1945, German occupiers transformed Norway into a vast construction zone.
A magisterial study of celebrated photographer Walker EvansWalker Evans (1903-75) was a great American artist photographing people and places in the United States in unforgettable ways.
A fascinating history of marginalized identities in the medieval worldWhile the term "e;intersectionality"e; was coined in 1989, the existence of marginalized identities extends back over millennia.
An intimate and moving portrait of daily life in New York's oldest institution of traditional rabbinic learningNew York City's Lower East Side has witnessed a severe decline in its Jewish population in recent decades, yet every morning in the big room of the city's oldest yeshiva, students still gather to study the Talmud beneath the great arched windows facing out onto East Broadway.
A richly illustrated celebration of the paintings of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama From the moment of their unveiling at the National Portrait Gallery in early 2018, the portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama have become two of the most beloved artworks of our time.
A revealing look at Jewish men and women who secretly explore the outside world, in person and online, while remaining in their ultra-Orthodox religious communities What would you do if you questioned your religious faith, but revealing that would cause you to lose your family and the only way of life you had ever known?
A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceWhy the conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring is wrongThe Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East.
The classic book that restored the voices of ordinary people to our understanding of the French RevolutionThe Coming of the French Revolution remains essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of this great turning point in the formation of the modern world.
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 regime and its complex social system in the decades before the French Revolution.
An essential work of the cinematic history of the Weimar Republic by a leading figure of film criticismFirst published in 1947, From Caligari to Hitler remains an undisputed landmark study of the rich cinematic history of the Weimar Republic.
How poor urban youth in Chicago use social media to profit from portrayals of gang violence, and the questions this raises about poverty, opportunities, and public voyeurismAmid increasing hardship and limited employment options, poor urban youth are developing creative online strategies to make ends meet.
Exploring the unintentional production of seemingly feminist outcomes In India, elite law firms offer a surprising oasis for women within a hostile, predominantly male industry.
The first comprehensive history of how Jews became citizens in the modern worldFor all their unquestionable importance, the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel now loom so large in modern Jewish history that we have mostly lost sight of the fact that they are only part of-and indeed reactions to-the central event of that history: emancipation.
A cultural history of the concept of pharmacy, both the material nature of drugs and the trade in medicine, in early modern China Know Your Remedies presents a panoramic inquiry into China's early modern cultural transformation through the lens of pharmacy.
A global history of environmental warfare and the case for why it should be a crimeThe environmental infrastructure that sustains human societies has been a target and instrument of war for centuries, resulting in famine and disease, displaced populations, and the devastation of people's livelihoods and ways of life.
An in-depth look at the intersection of judgment and statistics in baseballScouting and scoring are considered fundamentally different ways of ascertaining value in baseball.
A gripping revisionist history that shows how ordinary Italians played a central role in the genocide of Italian Jews during the Second World WarIn this gripping revisionist history of Italy's role in the Holocaust, Simon Levis Sullam presents an unforgettable account of how ordinary Italians actively participated in the deportation of Italy's Jews between 1943 and 1945, when Mussolini's collaborationist republic was under German occupation.
The moral and political role of German journalists before, during, and after the Nazi dictatorshipJournalists between Hitler and Adenauer takes an in-depth look at German journalism from the late Weimar period through the postwar decades.
For more than a millennium, beginning in the early Middle Ages, most Western Christians lived in societies that sought to be comprehensively Christian--ecclesiastically, economically, legally, and politically.
A magisterial study of celebrated photographer Walker EvansWalker Evans (1903-75) was a great American artist photographing people and places in the United States in unforgettable ways.
A comprehensive and richly illustrated history of one of the most important athletic, religious, and political sites in the ancient Greek and Roman worldThe memory of ancient Olympia lives on in the form of the modern Olympic Games.
How encounters with the Roman Empire compelled the Jews of antiquity to rethink their conceptions of Israel and the TorahThroughout their history, Jews have lived under a succession of imperial powers, from Assyria and Babylonia to Persia and the Hellenistic kingdoms.
A gripping revisionist history that shows how ordinary Italians played a central role in the genocide of Italian Jews during the Second World WarIn this gripping revisionist history of Italy's role in the Holocaust, Simon Levis Sullam presents an unforgettable account of how ordinary Italians actively participated in the deportation of Italy's Jews between 1943 and 1945, when Mussolini's collaborationist republic was under German occupation.
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.
Swallowed up by the Soviet prison system, the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, saviour of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Nazi holocaust, remains a mystery.
From the bestselling author of The English comes Empire, Jeremy Paxman's history of the British Empire accompanied by a flagship 5-part BBC TV series, for readers of Simon Schama and Andrew Marr.
The life and politics of an American Jewish activist who preached radical and violent means to Jewish survivalMeir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism.
From disastrous foreign forays to syphilitic poets, from political intriguing to ambitious young playwrights keen to curry favour with the king, John Stubbs brings alive the vibrant cast of characters that were at the centre of the English Civil War.
In Georgian London: Into the Streets, Lucy Inglis takes readers on a tour of London's most formative age - the age of love, sex, intellect, art, great ambition and fantastic ruin.
The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year, Anatomies by Hugh Aldersey-Williams, author of bestseller Periodic Tales, is a splendidly entertaining journey through the art, science, literature and history of the human body.
Der Philosoph Robert Hugo Ziegler fragt sich nach der Bedeutung der ausländerfeindlichen Sylter Hassgesänge: Wie genau kommen hier Rassismus, Spaß, Transgression und Bürgertum zusammen?