History Books

Book SynopsisRobert Dallek''s masterful John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life was a number one national bestseller, and it remains the most widely read one-volume biography of the 35th President. Now, in this marvelous short biography of John F. Kennedy, Dallek achieves a miracle of compression, capturing in a small space the essence of his renowned full-length masterpiece. Here readers will find the fascinating insights and groundbreaking revelations found in An Unfinished Life. The heart of the book focuses on Kennedy''s political career, especially the presidency. The book sheds light on key foreign affairs issues such as the Bay of Pigs debacle, Khrushchev''s misguided bullying of Kennedy in Vienna, the Cuban Missile crisis, the nuclear test ban, the race for space, and the initial dealings with Southeast Asia, especially Laos. It also highlights the difficulties Kennedy faced getting a domestic agenda passed, from a tax cut to spur the economy, to federal aid to education, Medicare, and civil rights. Dallek reveals the thinking behind Robert Kennedy''s appointment as Attorney General and convincingly argues that Kennedy would never have expanded the war in Vietnam the way that Lyndon Johnson did. The book also addresses questions about Kennedy''s assassination and concludes with his presidential legacy and why he remains so popular despite serving only a thousand days in office.Trade Review"One of the most engrossing biographies I have ever read.... Nothing less than a masterpiece." David Herbert Donald, author of^iLincoln^r"It's hard to believe that someone could find anything new to say about John F. Kennedy, but Dallek succeeds in this riveting and well-documented biography."^iThe New Yorker^r"An intimate portrait indeed...unexpected and important.... This is nothing if not a profile in courage."^iNew York Times Book Review^rTable of Contentssingle chapter

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"As befits the title of the series, The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction succeeds in giving the general audience a view of world history through the lens of biology, technology, commerce, and culture. A must read for any aspiring enlightened global citizen." --Yo-Yo Ma, Grammy award-winning recording artist; artistic director, The Silk Road Project "...offers a deeply informed survey of this storied route, paying attention to the history and legends associated with it, and nicely combining attention to the standard topics, such as the flow of people and goods along it, with a good discussion of its role in the dissemination of artistic practices." -- Jeff Wasserstrom, iLA Review of Books blogTable of ContentsList of illustrations ; Acknowledgments ; Chapter 1: Environment, empires and ecumenes ; Chapter 2: Eras of silk road fluorescence ; Chapter 3: The biological silk road ; Chapter 4: The technological silk road ; Chapter 5: The arts on the silk road ; Chapter 6: Whither the silk road? ; References ; Further Reading ; Index

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Book SynopsisIn The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History, Second Edition, Don Munton and David A. Welch distill the best current scholarship on the Cuban missile crisis into a brief and accessible narrative history. The authors draw on newly available documents to provide a comprehensive treatment of its causes, events, consequences, and significance. Stressing the importance of context in relation to the genesis, conduct, and resolution of the crisis, Munton and Welch examine events from the U.S., Soviet, and Cuban angles, revealing the vital role that differences in national perspectives played at every stage. While the book provides a concise, up-to-date look at this pivotal event, it also notes gaps and mysteries in the historical record and highlights important persistent interpretive disputes. The authors provide a detailed guide to relevant literature and film for those who wish to explore further. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the crisis, this revised and updated edition of The CTable of ContentsContents ; New to the Second Edition Acknowledgments ; List of Acronyms ; Dramatis Personae (and Positions in October 1962) ; Introduction: The REAL Thirteen Days ; Chapter 1: Background to the Crisis ; U.S.-Cuban Relations in Historical Perspective ; The Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose ; The Soviet Decision to Deploy ; Chapter 2: Deployment and Discovery ; Details of the Deployment ; The Intelligence Game of Cat and Mouse ; Warnings Too Late ; On the Eve of Crisis ; Chapter 3: From Discovery to Blockade ; The Storm Before the Calm ; Narrowing the Options ; Decision ; Chapter 4: The Perfect Storm ; The Speech ; Carrots and Sticks ; Khrushchev and Kennedy Waver ; The Crisis Heats Up ; The Dobrynin Meeting ; Climax and Resolution ; Chapter 5: Aftermath ; Removing the Missiles from Cuba ; The Cuban Bomber Crisis ; The Domestic and International Public Reaction ; Steps Toward Detente: The Hot Line and Test Ban ; Conclusion: The Cuban Missile Crisis Fifty Years Later ; Bibliographic Essay ; Early Treatments of the Crisis ; The Second Wave: "Critical Oral History" ; Recent Accounts ; Background and History ; Aftermath and Lessons ; Document Collections and Websites ; Film ; Index

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Book SynopsisPart geographical location, part time period, and part state of mind, the American West is a concept often invoked but rarely defined. Though popular culture has carved out a short and specific time and place for the region, author and longtime Californian Stephen Aron tracks the West from the building of the Cahokia Mounds around 900 AD to the post-World War II migration to California. His Very Short Introduction stretches the chronology, enlarges the geography, and varies the casting, providing a history of the American West that is longer, larger, and more complicated than popular culture has previously suggested. It is a history of how portions of North America became Wests, how parts of these became American, and how ultimately American Wests became the American West.Aron begins by describing the expansion of Indian North America in the centuries before and during its early encounters with Europeans. He then explores the origins of American westward expansion from the Seven Years'' War to the 1830s, focusing on the western frontier at the time: the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. He traces the narrative - temporally and geographically - through the discovery of gold in California in the mid-nineteenth century and the subsequent rush to the Pacific Slope. He shows how the passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act in 1902 brought an unprecedented level of federal control to the region, linking the West more closely to the rest of the United States, and how World War II brought a new rush of population (particularly to California), further raising the federal government''s profile in the region and heightening the connections between the West and the wider world. Authoritative, lucid, and ranging widely over issues of environment, people, and identity, this is the American West stripped of its myths. The complex convergence of peoples, polities, and cultures that has decisively shaped the history of the American West serves as the key interpretive thread through this Very Short Introduction.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of ContentsList of illustrations ; Introduction ; Chapter One: The View from Cahokia ; Chapter Two: Empires and Enclaves ; Chapter Three: Making the First American West ; Chapter Four: Taking the Farther West ; Chapter Five: The Whitening of the West ; Chapter Six: The Watering of the West ; Chapter Seven: The Worldly West ; Chapter Eight: The View from Mt. Lee ; References ; Further reading ; Index

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Book SynopsisFor better or worse, be it militarily, diplomatically, politically, economically, or culturally, Americans have had a profound role in shaping the wider world beyond them. Unsurprisingly, most non-Americans have passionate views about the nature of U.S. foreign policy. America has been a savior to some, a curse to others-and both have good reason to feel that way. And yet, such views are often also based on a caricature of American actions and intentions. For their part, Americans themselves have strong opinions about their role in the world and how it has evolved over time. Yet these views are shrouded as much in myth as they are grounded in fact. American Foreign Relations, then, suffers from being a subject of immense worldwide importance but almost complete misunderstanding; it provokes strong emotions and much debate in newspapers daily, but is accompanied by little comprehension.This Very Short Introduction aims to offer analysis of key events, episodes, crises, and individuals in the making of American foreign relations. It will discuss events such as the Revolutionary War, the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, manifest destiny, the Mexican War, the Civil War, industrialization, the beginnings of globalization, the Spanish-American War, imperialism, the annexation of the Philippines, informal imperialism and the Open Door policy, World War I, isolationism, World War II, the Cold War from its origins to its end (including the Korean and Vietnam Wars), the Iraq Wars, 9/11, and Afghanistan. Such topics will be situated within an analytical narrative that follows chronology generally, but not strictly or comprehensively. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewThis Very Short Introduction is ... fluidly written, remarkably comprehensive, and accessible to those unfamiliar with United States history. * Sarah B. Synder, The American Historical Review *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction Chapter 1: First Principles Chapter 2: Expansionism Chapter 3: Global America Chapter 4: The American Century? Chapter 5: Superpower Chapter 6: Hyperpower and Its Discontents References Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisEuropeans, Africans, and American Indians practiced slavery long before the first purchase of a captive African by a white land-owner in the American colonies; that, however, is the image of slavery most prevalent in the minds of Americans today. This Very Short Introduction begins with the Portuguese capture of Africans in the 1400s and traces the development of American slavery until its abolition following the Civil War. Historian Heather Andrea Williams draws upon the rich recent scholarship of numerous highly-regarded academics as well as an analysis of primary documents to explore the history of slavery and its effects on the American colonies and later the United States of America. Williams examines legislation that differentiated American Indians and Africans from Europeans as the ideology of white supremacy flourished and became an ingrained feature of the society. These laws reflected the contradiction of America''s moral and philosophical ideology that valorized freedom on one hand and justified the enslavement of a population deemed inferior on another. She explores the tense and often violent relationships between the enslaved and the enslavers, and between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates as those who benefited from the institution fought to maintain and exert their power. Williams is attentive to the daily labors that enslaved people performed, reminding readers that slavery was a system of forced labor with economic benefits that produced wealth for a new nation, all the while leaving an indelible mark on its history.Trade ReviewWilliam's study provides a concise overview of many of the key issues and topics surrounding the nature of American slavery * Review in History *Table of ContentsCHAPTER 1-OLD WORLDS COLLIDE THROUGH THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE; CHAPTER 2-PUTTING SLAVERY INTO PLACE IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES; CHAPTER 3-EARLY CHALLENGES TO SLAVERY IN AMERICA; CHAPTER 4-AMERICA BUILT ON SLAVERY; CHAPTER 5-MAKING LIFE BEARABLE; CHAPTER 6-DOMINATION AND RESISTANCE; CHAPTER 7-TAKING SLAVERY APART; EPILOGUE

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Book SynopsisCombining the talents and expert knowledge of an early modern historian of Russia and of a Soviet specialist, Russia''s Empires is the first major study of the entire sweep of Russian history from its earliest formations to the rule of Vladimir Putin. Looking through the lens of empire, which the authors conceptualize as a state based on institutionalized differentiation, inequitable hierarchy, and bonds of reciprocity between ruler and ruled, Kivelson and Suny displace the centrality of nation and nationalism in the Russian and Soviet story. Yet their work demonstrates how imperial polities were key to the creation of national identifications and processes that both hindered and fostered what would become nations and nation-states. Using the concept of empire, they look at the ways that ordinary people imagined their position within a non-democratic polity - whether the Muscovite tsardom or the Soviet Union - and what concessions the rulers had to make, or appear to make, in order to Trade ReviewIn this remarkable work, two of the leading historians of the "imperial turn" have drawn on the past quarter-century of historical work and produced the most readable and insightful single volume of Russian history to date. Valerie Kivelson and Ronald Suny reveal how Russia's empires functioned as polities by employing not just coercive power but discursive power. In doing so, they illuminate how Russia also became an "imperial nation," one where national and imperial policies developed simultaneously yet frequently produced tensions. Russia's Empires is historical synthesis at its finest." - Stephen Norris, Miami UniversityIn this remarkable work, two of the leading historians of the "imperial turn" have drawn on the past quarter-century of historical work and produced the most readable and insightful single volume of Russian history to date. Valerie Kivelson and Ronald Suny reveal how Russia's empires functioned as polities by employing not just coercive power but discursive power. In doing so, they illuminate how Russia also became an "imperial nation," one where national and imperial policies developed simultaneously yet frequently produced tensions. Russia's Empires is historical synthesis at its finest." - Shoshana Keller, Hamilton CollegeRussia's Empires provides an elegant, stimulating and comprehensive account of Russian history, placing the management of imperial diversity at the heart of the narrative. It is both readable and rigorous, and should help to introduce a new generation of students to the many fascinations of Russia's imperial past and present." - Alexander Stephen Morrison, Nazarbayev UniversityOriginal, engaging, authoritative, and beautifully illustrated - no other short survey engages Russia's remarkable history of diversity as fully and effectively as Russia's Empires. This should become the field's go-to text for college courses. An impressive achievement." - Willard Sunderland, University of CincinnatiTable of ContentsList of Maps Preface About the Authors Introduction Thinking About Empire Empires Russia's Imperial Formations Chapter One: Before Empire: Early Rus' Visions of Diversity of Lands and Peoples Before the State: The Peoples of Rus New Models for Understanding Kiev Rus': Stateless Head or Galactic Polity Appanage Rus' and Further Fragmentation Mongol Khans and the Aura of Empire Chapter Two: Imperial Beginnings: Muscovy Building a State; Claiming an Empire Ivan the Terrible: Imperial Principles in Practice Muscovite Autocracy: Power and Obligation Who Were the Muscovites? What was Rus'? The People Speak: The Time of Troubles Imperial Conquest and Control Chapter Three: Disrupting the Easy Road from Empire to Nation State: A Theoretical Interlude Nation, Nationalism, and the Discourse of the Nation Chapter Four: Responsive Rule and Its Limits: Force and Sentiment in the Eighteenth Century Succession, Consultation, and the Politics of Affirmation The Petrine Revolution and the Imperial State Peter's Successors: A Century of Women (and Children) on Top Chapter Five: Russians' Identities in the Eighteenth Century: A Multitude of Possibilities What does Russian mean? Thinking about Nations in the Eighteenth Century A Multiplicity of Nations: The Peoples and Divisions of Empire Imperial Expansion in the Eighteenth Century Chapter Six: Imperial Russia in the Moment of the Nation, 1801-1855 A Kind of Constitution Clash of Empires Imperial Conservatism The Decembrists Official Nationality The Intelligentsia Expansion, Conquest, and Rebellion Imagining the Russian "Nation": Between West and East Chapter Seven: War, Reforms, Revolt, and Reaction A Foolish War The Great Reforms: Nations, Subjects, and Citizens Participatory Politics and Categories of Difference Who Are We? More Questions of National Identity Russification, Diversity, and Empire "Pacifying" the Peripheries Conquering Central Asia Counter-Reforms and Political Polarization Empire and the Revolutionary Movement Chapter Eight: Imperial Anxieties: 1905-1914 The Fate of Empires in the Twentieth Century The Modernizing Empire and its Discontents Imperial Overreach: Tsarist Modernization and Expansion The First Revolution, 1905 When Nationalism Goes Public: Reimagining Empire Chapter Nine: Clash and Collapse of Empires: 1914-1921 The Great War Nationality and Class Across the Revolutionary Divide Soviet Power Soviet Nationality Policies Chapter Ten: Making Nations, Soviet Style: 1921-1953 The Stalin Years, 1928-1953 Beating Peasants into Submission Empire-State and State of Nations Building National Bolshevism From Hot War to Cold War: External Empire as Defensive Expansion Cold War at Home: The Internal Empire Soviet Discursive Power Chapter Eleven: Imperial Impasses: Reform, Reaction, Revolution Policy and Experience: Friendship of the Peoples A Strange Empire The Soviet Union in the World Stagnation Gorbachev and the Test of Perestroika Chapter Twelve: The End of Empire, 1991-2016 . . . Or Not? Vladimir Putin and the Rebuilding of the State Democratic Recession in the Post-Soviet States Post-Superpower Russia and NATO Expansion Red Lines in the Near Abroad: Georgia and Ukraine Conclusion

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Book SynopsisRefreshes the parts other history books can't reach...A bit ropy on the Renaissance?In the dark about the Enlightenment?Or, in fact, do you need a revision course on the entire history of the world and want to read a witty, irreverent, definitely not boring romp through everything that has ever happened on planet earth from 15 billion years BC to the present day? Good.A Less Boring History of the World tells you everything you need to know from the Big Bang to Barack Obama, taking in the Byzantines, the Black Death, Bin Laden and the fall of bankers along the way, all boiled down to bite size chunks so that you can finally piece together all the different bits of history - and see how on earth we ended up in the mess we are today. A Less Boring History refreshes your memory and broadens your mind. And, if that's not enough, it will also make you laugh. A lot.

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Book SynopsisFirst drawn into the sport while a student in Spain in the mid-1980s, Peter Cossins has been writing about cycling since 1993, contributing principally to Cycling Weekly, Cycle Sport and Procycling. The Monuments, his history of cycling's five greatest one-day Classic races, was published in 2014, followed in 2015 by Alpe d'Huez, an appraisal of cycling's greatest climb.For Yellow Jersey Press he has written the definitive account of the first ever Tour de France, Butcher, Blacksmith, Acrobat, Sweep the also the enlightening book on cycling tactics, Full Gas.He lives in the Ariège in the heart of the French Pyrenees.Trade ReviewEssential…The First Tour de France takes you back to the race itself. Cossins produces a deeply researched and detailed description of the race that toggles between background information on the race’s organization and the individual stages, with long stretches of real-time-style stage reporting one chapter at a time.The effect of this, especially the latter, is soaring * Podium Cafe *Enthralling… Full of outlandish characters and ripping yarns, it makes for a cracking good read * Bikes Etc *

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Book SynopsisA translation of Fernand Braudel's "Ecrits sur l'histoire", published in 1969. The main themes of the work include: the importance of a "rapprochement" between history and the social sciences; the inseparability of study of past and present; and the dubious value of the narrative techniques.

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Book SynopsisOf one-and-a-half million photographs related to Nazi concentration camps, only four depict the actual process of mass killing perpetrated at the gas chambers. This book reveals that these photos of Auschwitz, taken clandestinely by one of the Jewish prisoners forced to help carry out the atrocities there, were made as a potent act of resistance.Trade Review"Images in Spite of All provides the carefully extended anguished engagement, both epitaph and caption, that the subject demands." (William T. Vollman, Bookforum)"

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Book SynopsisPoor migrants made up a growing class of workers in late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. This book is an ambitious attempt to reconstruct the everyday lives of these dispossessed people. It offers a portrait of unsettledness in early modern England that includes the homeless and housed alike.Trade Review"A highly original work of scholarship. This is one of the very few books that attempt to find their way into the mentality of the underclass in the early modern world, and one of even fewer books that succeed in so doing." - Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University"

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Book SynopsisFrom the stages of Broadway and London to university campuses, Paris, and the bourgeoning theaters of Africa, Greek tragedy remains constantly in production. This title explains how Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles conceived their works in performance. It summarizes what we know about how their tragedies were actually staged.Trade Review"Simon Goldhill's new book is enthralling. A 'can't put down' and a 'forever reread.' His detailed analyses of so many past productions are rare and exciting. His unfolding of the Greek texts and the many different translations is both instructive and exhilarating. He reveals the contradictions within the specific structures of the characters, and also of the chorus, in a way that every actor will be grateful for. I never saw any of the productions he describes, explains, and analyzes, but I have an unforgettable secondhand memory of them, thanks to his own knowledge and keen joy in his subject." - Vanessa Redgrave"

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Book SynopsisOffers translations of Euripides' Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles' The Trackers. In this title, introductions for each play offer information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond.

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Book SynopsisOffers translations of Euripides' Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles' The Trackers. In this title, introductions for each play offer information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond.

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Book SynopsisOffers translations of Euripides' Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles' The Trackers. In this title, introductions for each play offer information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond.

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Book SynopsisSince before recorded history, people have congregated near water. But as growing populations around the globe continue to flow toward the coasts on an unprecedented scale and climate change raises water levels, our relationship to the sea has begun to take on new and potentially catastrophic dimensions. The latest generation of coastal dwellers lives largely in ignorance of the history of those who came before them, the natural environment, and the need to live sustainably on the world's shores. Humanity has forgotten how to live with the oceans. In The Human Shore, a magisterial account of 100,000 years of seaside civilization, John R. Gillis recovers the coastal experience from its origins among the people who dwelled along the African shore to the bustle and glitz of today's megacities and beach resorts. He takes readers from discussion of the possible coastal location of the Garden of Eden to the ancient communities that have existed along beaches, bays, and bayous since the begin

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Book SynopsisIn this magisterial study, complemented by detailed charts and maps, Hodgson traces and interprets the historical development of Islamic civilization from before the birth of Muhammad to the middle of the twelfth century. This is a nonpareil work, not only because of its command of its subject but also because it demonstrates how, ideally, history should be written.--The New Yorker

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Book SynopsisWineburg has become the go-to guy for helping people, both teachers and administrators, think about how to teach kids history. This book is an accessible account of how we've tried to do it, why and how we've failed, and how we could do better.Trade Review"A sobering and urgent report from the leading expert on how American history is taught in the nation's schools. Wineburg offers a set of timely and elegant essays on everything from the nuttiness of standardized testing regimes to the problems kids have, in the age of the internet, in knowing what's true, and what's not--problems that teachers have, too, along with everyone else. A bracing, edifying, and vital book."--Jill Lepore

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Shoddy is that rare book that takes you from the direct experiences you share with the author (what to do with your used clothes? the feeling of 'doing good' when you donate them to clothe someone 'less fortunate') to the larger social, economic, historical, and yes, moral universe in which those experiences live. Shell brings gives us this kind of journey by searching for shoddy. Through her we learn about the human costs of the industrial revolution, learn about British Chartism, the economic realities of the American Civil War, learn about the ideas that animated dissent--Carlyle, Disraeli, and Marx, just for a start, and so much more, all through the eyes of shoddy. It is an exemplary book in its use of the visual record to weave a narrative that implicates current practice, not just in how we do scholarship across a range of fields in media and science and technology studies, but how we think about ourselves. Shoddy is a book that will change your mind." --Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital AgeTable of ContentsPrologue: Finding Shoddy Old Clothes Odyssey The Heap Act I: Devil’s Dust Emergence of an Industry Narratives of Transmutation, Myths of Invention Devil’s Dust Politics Material Philosophy and the Shredded Self Shoddy as Paradox and Marx’s “Excrements of Consumption” Act II: Textile Skin The Wear of War Textile Skin and “the Sinews of War” Shoddy and the Body Politic Photography and the “Harvest of Death” On Shrouds and Shoddy Act III: Lively Things Miasma and Contagion Consolidation of Clothes and Corpses Disinfection and Its Discontents The Intimate Materiality of the Unknowable Liveliness and Formlessness Epilogue: Shoddy Renaissance Acknowledgments Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisIn the popular imagination, Islam is often associated with words like oppression, totalitarianism, intolerance, cruelty, misogyny, and homophobia, while its presumed antonyms are Christianity, the West, liberalism, individualism, freedom, citizenship, and democracy. In the most alarmist views, the West's most cherished valuesfreedom, equality, and toleranceare said to be endangered by Islam worldwide. Joseph Massad'sIslam in Liberalismexplores what Islam has become in today's world, with full attention to the multiplication of its meanings and interpretations. He seeks to understand how anxieties about tyranny, intolerance, misogyny, and homophobia, seen in the politics of the Middle East, are projected onto Islam itself. Massad shows that through this projection Europe emerges as democratic and tolerant, feminist, and pro-LGBT rightsor, in short, Islam-free. Massad documents the Christian and liberal idea that we should missionize democracy, women's rights, sexual rights, tolerance,

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Book SynopsisDrawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, this title shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needs.Trade Review"Kingsbury's account should be required reading for students preparing for a future as a plant breeder, geneticist, or molecular biologist. Fortunately, that requirement should prove unnecessary - the book is engaging at many levels, and I expect many scientists and lay readers to pick it up on their own accord." (Science) "This engaging history of the genetic milestones and individuals that have shaped the field helps to fill a long-standing gap." (Choice) "Apart from the amazing factual content, [Hybrid] is also a tale of human endeavour that will fascinate all those who love a good story, and one that I know I shall want to return to time and again." (English Gardener) "The scope of this well-researched book is stunning; it is apparent that the work was a labor of love. Kingsbury is thorough, and each chapter is a rewarding feast of narrative and information.... Hybrid is a masterful work by an admirably ambitious author." (American Gardener) "Shoppers who shun genetically modified foods in favor of 'natural' fruits and veggies may be in for a surprise. Horticulturalist Kingsbury's lively history documents the history of human meddling with plant genes since the dawn of agriculture." (Discover)"

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Book SynopsisThe first biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds.Trade Review"The rise of Trump, Q-anon, and a Republican Party seemingly allergic to the ordinary canons of decency and expertise, has led historians to a reexamination of brands of American conservatism previously considered too extreme to be relevant to understanding the present. This work demands a rare combination of talents: an ability to empathize with ways of thinking from which reason recoils, and a moral sense that refuses to normalize it. Miller possesses both in abundance, which is what makes this groundbreaking biography of Robert Welch of the John Birch Society so very valuable."-- "Rick Perlstein, author of Reaganland: America's Right Turn, 1976-1980" "Miller has undertaken the definitive biography of John Birch Society founder Robert Welch, and he has succeeded. A Conspiratorial Life is incredibly thorough, carefully researched and written, and enlivened by energetic prose."-- "Heather Hendershot, author of Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on the Firing Line"Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 Chowan County, North Carolina 1700–1899 2 Stockton, 1899–1910 3 Elizabeth City, Raleigh, Annapolis, 1910–1919 4 The Candyman, 1919–1927 5 Professional Breakdown and the Great Depression, 1928–1940 6 America First, 1940–1945 7 Postwar Dreams and Delusions, 1946–1950 8 The Candidate, 1950 9 May God Forgive Us, 1951–1952 10 There’s Just Something about Ike, 1952 11 A Republican Looks at His President, 1953–1954 12 The Saga of John Birch, 1954 13 Adventures in the Far East, 1954–1955 14 Arrivals and Departures, 1955–1958 15 The Indy Eleven, 1957–1959 16 Revelations, 1959–1960 17 Goldwater in ’60, 1960 18 Staccato Jabs, 1961–1962 19 Succession? 1961–1962 20 “Where Were You in ’62?,” 1962 21 Revolution in the Streets and the Paranoid Style in Belmont, 1963 22 Two Novembers, 1963–1964 23 Nadir, 1965–1966 24 Avenging the Insiders, 1966–1968 25 The Fifty-Foot Cabin Cruiser, 1969–1975 26 Bunker, 1970–1978 27 Making Morning in America . . . , 1970–1985 Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisExplores the Enlightenment as a geographical phenomenon and the place of geography in the Enlightenment. From disciplinary perspectives, the text considers the ways in which the world of the 18th century was brought to view and shaped through map and text, and exploration and argument.

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Book SynopsisWe think of bees as being among the busiest workers in the garden, admiring them for their productivity. But amid their buzzing, they are also great communicators and unusual dancers. As Karl von Frisch (1886-1982) discovered during World War II, bees communicate the location of food sources to each other through complex circle and waggle dances. For centuries, beekeepers had observed these curious movements in hives, and others had speculated about the possibility of a bee language used to manage the work of the hive. But it took von Frisch to determine that the bees' dances communicated precise information about the distance and direction of food sources. As Tania Munz shows in this exploration of von Frisch's life and research, this important discovery came amid the tense circumstances of the Third Reich.The Dancing Bees draws on previously unexplored archival sources in order to reveal von Frisch's full story, including how the Nazi government in 1940 determined that he was one-quarter Jewish, revoked his teaching privileges, and sought to prevent him from working altogether until circumstances intervened. In the 1940s, bee populations throughout Europe were facing the devastating effects of a plague (just as they are today), and because the bees were essential to the pollination of crops, von Frisch's research was deemed critical to maintaining the food supply of a nation at war. The bees, as von Frisch put it years later, saved his life. Munz not only explores von Frisch's complicated career in the Third Reich, she looks closely at the legacy of his work and the later debates about the significance of the bee language and the science of animal communication. This first in-depth biography of von Frisch paints a complex and nuanced portrait of a scientist at work under Nazi rule. The Dancing Bees will be welcomed by anyone seeking to better understand not only this chapter of the history of science but also the peculiar waggles of our garden visitors.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This sophisticated, captivating ethnography demonstrates how anthropological understanding can be applied to a diasporic mode of living and how the mobile subject contributes to expanding analyses of culture, belonging, and place. . . . Highly recommended." * Choice *“With his typical creative brilliance, Hage probes the diverse and divergent angles through which Lebanon appears in migratory memories and movement, and, in the process, upends our understanding of the politics of ancestry and inheritance in diasporic worlds.” * Elizabeth A. Povinelli, author of The Inheritance *“With this book, Hage carefully journeys us through the complex experiences of the Lebanese diasporic condition. Living in an internationalized space of viability, the Lebanese are shown to occupy a multiplicity of entangled and flickering realities—always engaged and always aware that, in the end, they are stuck with each other. The journey is exquisite, painful, exhilarating, saddening, inspiring, and deeply human. The Diasporic Condition is a must-read for both the Lebanese and the non-Lebanese.” * Suad Joseph, University of California, Davis *"The Diasporic Condition is a beautifully crafted book. Thoroughly enjoyable and evocative—not to mention incredibly resonant for Lebanese diasporic subjects and students of Lebanon—this thought-provoking book is sure to whet the intellectual appetite of a wide readership." * Mashriq & Mahjar *

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Book SynopsisLost feminist classic from one of Renaissance Italy's most accomplished female writers

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Book SynopsisIn this magnificent synthesis of military, technological, and social history, William H. McNeill explores a whole millennium of human upheaval and traces the path by which we have arrived at the frightening dilemmas that now confront us. McNeill moves with equal mastery from the crossbowbanned by the Church in 1139 as too lethal for Christians to use against one anotherto the nuclear missile, from the sociological consequences of drill in the seventeenth century to the emergence of the military-industrial complex in the twentieth. His central argument is that a commercial transformation of world society in the eleventh century caused military activity to respond increasingly to market forces as well as to the commands of rulers. Only in our own time, suggests McNeill, are command economies replacing the market control of large-scale human effort. The Pursuit of Power does not solve the problems of the present, but its discoveries, hypotheses, and sheer breadth of learning do offer a pe

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Book SynopsisConsiders the crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. This book is a timely examination of the lessons of previous counterinsurgency campaigns that will be hailed by both military leaders and interested civilians.Trade Review"Nagl's study is especially relevant today, and one that military leaders and interested citizens at all levels should read. It suggests how to encourage the spirit of innovation - a spirit that helped the British Army succeed in Malaya and that is currently transforming America's Army in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and around the globe." - From the Foreword by General Peter J. Schoomaker "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife has become must reading for high-level officers in Iraq because its lessons seem so directly applicable to the situation there." - National Review Online"

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Book SynopsisAcross early modern Europe, men and women from all ranks gathered medical, culinary, and food preservation recipes from family and friends, experts and practitioners, and a wide array of printed materials. Recipes were tested, assessed, and modified by teams of householders, including masters and servants, husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, and fathers and sons. This much-sought know-how was written into notebooks of various shapes and sizes forming treasuries for health, each personalized to suit the whims and needs of individual communities. In Recipes and Everyday Knowledge, Elaine Leong situates recipe knowledge and practices among larger questions of gender and cultural history, the history of the printed word, and the history of science, medicine, and technology. The production of recipes and recipe books, she argues, were at the heart of quotidian investigations of the natural world or household science. She shows how English homes acted as vibrant spaces for knowled

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The Ruins Lesson makes one point above all: there was no single dominant way of observing ancient ruins and portraying what remained. Jessica Maier’s The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps provides a rich complementary account. . . . For centuries, as she shows, mapmakers and miniaturists, antiquarians and cartographers set out to do exactly what he thought impossible: to represent at least in part not only the city of Rome, but some of the ways in which it had changed over time." * London Review of Books *“No other city has maintained the story of its past in its present quite like Rome, creating an intentional palimpsest through incessant acts of preservation, reconstruction, and cartographic visualization. Maier’s lively, imaginatively organized, and accessible book displays how centuries of maps not only tell stories about the city’s physical development but also show how Rome’s narratives of itself—conflating eras, resituating buildings, compressing waterways—unfurled in self-mapping from antiquity to the Metro.” * Evelyn Lincoln, Brown University *"Jessica Maier’s The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps is a luxurious volume, elegantly and enthusiastically written, and richly illustrated with 140 well-curated color images of artwork, including maps of Rome across the ages. Maier’s primary aim is to explore the history of Rome through its cartography, and she contextualizes the maps within their historical, socio-cultural, religious, and political backdrops. . . . her volume invites the reader on an imaginary journey through the complex topographical, monumental, and historical layers of the Eternal City." * The Portolan *"Beautifully produced." * The Classical Review *“The history of Rome comes to life in this erudite, beautifully written book. Organized chronologically from Rome’s early beginnings to the present, this richly detailed history of Rome is focused through the lens of maps and cartographic images. Maier has written a fascinating account for both armchair and actual travelers. The Eternal City also has much to offer to seasoned scholars who will appreciate its coherent and fluid synthesis.” * Pamela O. Long, author of Engineering the Eternal City *“The Eternal City offers the reader a vivid panorama of Rome’s changing form and image over the course of more than two millennia. A rich selection of city plans and views reveals crucial shifts in representational strategies, function, and symbolic intent. The dynamic tension between Rome’s complex, three-dimensional urban reality and the city’s image as projected by successive generations of artists and cartographers is certain to engage a wide audience.” * John Pinto, emeritus, Princeton University *"The Eternal City is a brilliant history of Rome, focusing on how we have responded to and represented this ever-changing city. Digging down into both Rome's history and our own desires for this city, Maier has written a fascinating book that has changed the way I consider maps and history." * A Universe in Words blog *"Each chapter combines history, urban development, and the history of mapping to assess in each period how the city changed and how contemporaries represented it—demonstrating how Rome has been constantly reimagined, reconstructed, and represented over the course of the past three millennia, both on the ground and on paper (or other media)... Highly Recommended." * Choice *"Done very well, both in the selection and discussion of visual images and in [Maier's] considerate and humane prose style. A delight of a book." * New York Military Affairs Symposium Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Rome as Idea and Reality Further Reading Chapter One: Rome Takes Shape Rome before Rome A Walled City Urban Districting Further Reading Chapter Two: Rome of the Caesars Destination Rome An Incomplete Puzzle Making Sense of the Shattered Past Filling in the Gaps A Model City Further Reading Chapter Three: Rome of the Popes Sacred Buildings and Secular Symbols The Medieval Cityscape Pathos and Wonder Further Reading Chapter Four: Rome Reborn A City Ready for Its Close-Up The City Seen through a Wide-Angle Lens The City Measured A Panoramic View of Urban Revitalization Further Reading Chapter Five: Rome of the Scholars Archaeology in Its Infancy An Ancient Roman Theme Park A Ghostly Fantasy Further Reading Chapter Six: Rome of the Saints and Pilgrims The Way of the Faithful Scenes from a Pilgrimage A Pilgrimage Map for the Modern Era Further Reading Chapter Seven: Rome of the Grand Tourists Rome as Theater The Origins of the Tourist Plan Rome Surveyed A Panoramic Vision Further Reading Chapter Eight: Rome of the Mass Tourists The Guidebook Impresario’s Rome Rome for a Rather Important Woman Traveler Rome in Your Pocket Rome for Italian Tourists Further Reading Chapter Nine: Rome Enters the Modern Age 2,500 Years in, a Master Plan for Rome When Trams Ruled Rome An Olympic City, and a New Beginning Further Reading Chapter Ten: Rome Past, Present, and Future Rapid Transit for a Rapidly Changing City A Master Plan for the Third Millennium: (Un)sustainable Rome Further Reading Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisOne of the most commonand woundingmisconceptions about literary scholars today is that they simply don't love books. While those actually working in literary studies can easily refute this claim, such a response risks obscuring a more fundamental question: why should they? That question led Deidre Shauna Lynch into the historical and cultural investigation ofLoving Literature. How did it come to be that professional literary scholars are expected not just to study, but toloveliterature, and to inculcate that love in generations of students? What Lynch discovers is that books, and the attachments we form to them, have played a vital role in the formation of private lifethat the love of literature, in other words, is deeply embedded in the history of literature. Yet at the same time, our love is neither self-evident nor ahistorical: our views of books as objects of affection have clear roots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century publishing, reading habits, and domestic history. While

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Book SynopsisRather than treating maps as a single, unified group, Edney argues, scholars need to take a processual approach that examines specific types of maps—sea charts versus thematic maps, for example—in the context of the unique circumstances of their production, circulation, and consumption.

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Book SynopsisThe remarkable story of the world's remote Southern, or Antarctic, Ocean

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"It is a classic which remains relevant largely because it poses questions still unresolved."--praise for previous edition "Choice " "One is still impressed by the relevance of certain chapters, particularly the way in which urban problems are descriptively yet perceptively presented, a relevance that applies to the problems as much as their academic study."--praise for previous edition "Urban Studies " "[The City] is decidedly more than a description of the objective features of city life. It is a scientific analysis of the forces and elements that go to produce our urban civilization. . . . Park and Burgess have rendered an exceedingly valuable service."--praise for previous edition "Social Forces "

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Book Synopsis'The Darkened Room' looks at the central role played by women as healers, mediums, and believers in the golden age of spiritualism in the late Victorian period. In so doing she provides new insights into the gender dynamics of Victorian society.

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Book SynopsisParticipation is everywhere today. It has been formalized, measured, standardized, scaled up, network-enabled, and sent around the world. Platforms, algorithms, and software offer to make participation easier, but new technologies have had the opposite effect. We find ourselves suspicious of how participation extracts our data or monetizes our emotions, and the more procedural participation becomes, the more it seems to recede from our grasp. In this book, Christopher M. Kelty traces four stories of participation across the twentieth century, showing how they are part of a much longer-term problem in relation to the individual and collective experience of representative democracy. Kelty argues that in the last century or so, the power of participation has dwindled; over time, it has been formatted in ways that cramp and dwarf it, even as drive to participate has spread to nearly every kind of human endeavor, all around the world. The Participant is a historical ethnography of the c

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Book SynopsisCybernetics is often thought of as a grim military or industrial science of control. This title follows the history of cybernetics' impact on the world, from contemporary robotics and complexity theory to the Chilean economy under Salvador Allende.Trade Review"By focusing on the developments in Britain, Andrew Pickering's The Cybernetic Brain opens wide new vistas for exploring cybernetic practice and its legacy.... As a protean science with connections to psychiatry, theater, music, politics, and counterculture, it was a lot more glamorous and fun than previous accounts of the field would have us believe." (Science)"

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Book SynopsisOffers an insider's view of the Chechen War conflict. This work focuses her attention on those caught in the crossfire. It recounts the everyday horrors of living in the midst of war, examines how the Chechen war has damaged Russian society, and takes a look at the ways people on both sides profited from it.Trade Review"[A Small Corner of Hell] skips harrowingly from year to year and place to place. The arch-villains are the Russian death squads, venal and brutal, and the complacent, lying politicians and generals who profit from the illegal trade in booty, oil, and captives. Her heroes are not the Chechen resistance - a gangsterish and ill-fed lot - but the long-suffering civilian population, whose natural grit and solidarity has gradually dissolved under the relentless brutality of daily life." - Economist "A personal, unblinking stare at the casualties of war." - Jonathan Kaplan, Los Angeles Times "The silencing of a voice so commonsensical and so courageous should make the new.... Her work mattered worldwide because it was true democracy in action: because, unlike so many politicians in her own country and elsewhere, she genuinely put her life at risk to speak for the little people whose interests are all too often ignored." - Evening Standard (UK) "Anna Politkovskaya... dedicated her career to covering what other parts of the Russian media either ignored or misreported. She told the stories of people, in Chechnya and the Caucasus, who had experienced the horrors and privations of two brutal wars, and a 'peace' that was just as cruel." - Times (UK)"

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Book SynopsisIn 1691, a Livonian peasant known as Old Thiess boldly announced before a district court that he was a werewolf. Yet far from being a diabolical monster, he insisted, he was one of the hounds of God, fierce guardians who battled sorcerers, witches, and even Satan to protect the fields, flocks, and humanitya baffling claim that attracted the notice of the judges then and still commands attention from historians today. In this book, eminent scholars Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln offer a uniquely comparative look at the trial and startling testimony of Old Thiess. They present the first English translation of the trial transcript, in which the man's own voice can be heard, before turning to subsequent analyses of the event, which range from efforts to connect Old Thiess to shamanistic practices to the argument that he was reacting against cruel stereotypes of the Livonian werewolf a Germanic elite used to justify their rule over the Baltic peasantry. As Ginzburg and Lincoln debate t

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In this spirited book, Porter identifies not one but three Homeric questions. First, when, how and by whom were the Iliad and the Odyssey actually composed (that is, the Homeric Question as we traditionally know it)? Second, how should we interpret the poems? And third, how does Homer work as a figure of the imagination? . . . One example of Porter’s brilliance is his discussion of Homer’s blindness. Neither historical fact nor unquestioned assumption, 'blindness' was a way for ancient readers to discuss the extraordinary vividness of Homeric epic – a quality that made an impression also on later readers." -- Barbara Graziosi * Times Literary Supplement *"Porter presents intriguing instances of writers who, in thrall to the beauty of Homer’s poetry, either celebrate or deflect from the actual war carnage described therein. Porter’s book provides not only a valuable introduction to the enigma of Homer and the roads taken down the centuries to solve—or at least better understand—that enigma, but also a number of challenging and eye-opening readings of the texts themselves. . . . I found that reading Homer through Porter’s eyes was sometimes most enjoyable precisely when our viewpoints diverged. This, in itself, is a sign of a rich and engaging book." * New Criterion *"Here is a learned tome worth careful examination. Porter presents an original, focused, intelligent analysis of Homer's oeuvre. The style is breathtaking and the range truly impressive. . . . Summing Up: Recommended." * CHOICE *"Brisk and energetic. Students (and teachers) will find much here to provoke thought and argument about the literary, cultural and moral issues, which find expression and exploration via the pages of this most enigmatic of poets." * Journal of Classics Teaching *"Porter’s is a fascinating and erudite book with a penchant for striking prose." * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *"Another book about Homer? No, says [Porter], this one is quite different: he will tease out the sources of Homer’s mystique down the ages, examining the fascination he has cast over posterity since the first recorded references in ancient Greece. There will be nothing about Homer the poet or his supposed historical existence, about the poems’ literary worth or the circumstances of their composition, certainly nothing about heroic society, simply the pursuit of a concept, an idea, a cultural invention of successive ages called ‘Homer’." * Classics for All *"Porter’s book takes us across nearly three millennia of grappling and wrestling with the idea of Homer—who he was, whether he existed, his deification by his admirers, his de-mythologizing by his critics, and his eternal recurrence again and again and again across space and time." * Merion West *"James I. Porter explores the history of Homer’s reception, focusing on the various attempts to construct the illusive identity of the Greek poet. At the same time, following a revisionist tradition popular not only in classical studies but also pervasive in academia through the past nearly seventy years, he argues that the real reading of Homer has been obscured by millennia of Western chauvinism and ideology." * University Bookman *"[Porter] cuts right to the bone of the subject. . . Though our attempts to create a biography around Homer are fruitless, the idea of Homer is eternal." * Law and Liberty *"Porter is an exceptional scholar. Clear, intelligent, and filled with fascinating examples, this book is contemporary while reaching beyond the fashionable, and it will arouse a good deal of discussion." -- Simon Goldhill, author of Preposterous Poetics“Homer: The Very Idea is an extraordinary quest in search not of the elusive Homer but of Homer’s elusivity. Porter takes up Homer as a phenomenon repeatedly produced over millennia, in different times and places, as the gauzy point of origin for cultural value that refuses to vanish. By critically engaging the idea of Homer, he delves deep into the very logic of the tradition’s value. An inimitable tour de force of transhistorical spectrology.” -- Brooke Holmes, author of Gender: Antiquity and Its Legacy“This book is a reckoning with who or what we understand Homer to be and how we have reinvented him for our own ends. Porter makes clear the impossibility of Homer both as a concept and as a person, revealing him as the illusion of a perfectly formed whole that has been kept alive for millennia, a ghost in the machine, a phantom both alive and dead. As a leading scholar in dismantling assumptions about the classical past, Porter has written an original, compelling, and eye-opening book that will generate excitement and admiration.” -- Alex C. Purves, author of Homer and the Poetics of Gesture"This book is the culmination of Porter's work of two decades on Homer as the history of an idea... it demonstrates the immense potential of the poems and their author to create new ideas according to the perspectives of their readers." * The Classical Review *Table of ContentsNote on Translations and Abbreviations List of Illustrations Timeline 1. Why Homer? 2. Who Was Homer? 3. Apotheosis or Apostasy? 4. What Did Homer See? 5. Why War? Acknowledgments Notes Further Reading Works Cited Index

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