Search results for ""yale university press""

Winner of Christianity Today's 2016 Book Award for History/Biography: an engaging, balanced, and penetrating narrative biography of the charismatic eighteenth-century American evangelist George Whitefield"The most authoritative yet readable book on the eighteenth century’s greatest preacher."—Marvin Olasky, World Magazine"Kidd’s theologically sympathetic approach gives the book a depth that a more detached treatment might not: He misses none of the biblical allusions that peppered Whitefield’s utterances, and he is an excellent guide through the tangled doctrinal controversies that dogged Whitefield’s career."—Barton Swaim, Wall Street Journal In the years prior to the American Revolution, George Whitefield was the most famous man in the colonies. Thomas Kidd’s fascinating biography explores the extraordinary career of the most influential figure in the first generation of Anglo-American evangelical Christianity, examining his sometimes troubling stands on the pressing issues of the day, both secular and spiritual, and his relationships with such famous contemporaries as Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley. Based on the author’s comprehensive studies of Whitefield’s original sermons, journals, and letters, this excellent history chronicles the phenomenal rise of the trailblazer of the Great Awakening. Whitefield’s leadership role among the new evangelicals of the eighteenth century and his many religious disputes are meticulously covered, as are his major legacies and the permanent marks he left on evangelical Christian faith. It is arguably the most balanced biography to date of a controversial religious leader who, though relatively unknown three hundred years after his birth, was a true giant in his day and remains an important figure in America’s history.

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Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano’s spellbinding tale of adolescent schoolmates and the vicissitudes of fate As a boarding school student in the early 1960s, Patrick Modiano lived among the troubled teenage sons of wealthy but self-involved parents. In this mesmerizing novel, Modiano weaves together a series of exquisitely crafted stories about such jettisoned boys at the exclusive Valvert School on the outskirts of Paris: abandoned children of privilege, left to create new family ties among themselves. Misfits and heroes, sports champions and good-hearted chums, the boys of Valvert misbehave, run away, get expelled, and engage in various forms of delinquency and disappearance. They emerge into adulthood tragically damaged, still tethered to their adolescent selves, powerless to escape the central loneliness of their lives in an ever-darkening spiral of self-delusion and grim consequence. A meditation on nostalgia, the pitfalls of privilege, and the vicissitudes of fate, this book fully demonstrates the powerful mix of sadness, mystery, wonder, and ominous danger that characterizes Modiano’s most rewarding fiction. Special feature: J. M. G. Le Clézio’s foreword, here in English for the first time, provides a rare and insightful appreciation of one Nobel laureate by another.

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A masterful, highly engaging analysis of how Shakespeare’s plays intersected with the politics and culture of Elizabethan England With an ageing, childless monarch, lingering divisions due to the Reformation, and the threat of foreign enemies, Shakespeare’s England was fraught with unparalleled anxiety and complicated problems. In this monumental work, Peter Lake reveals, more than any previous critic, the extent to which Shakespeare’s plays speak to the depth and sophistication of Elizabethan political culture and the Elizabethan imagination. Lake reveals the complex ways in which Shakespeare’s major plays engaged with the events of his day, particularly regarding the uncertain royal succession, theological and doctrinal debates, and virtue and virtù in politics. Through his plays, Lake demonstrates, Shakespeare was boldly in conversation with his audience about a range of contemporary issues. This remarkable literary and historical analysis pulls the curtain back on what Shakespeare was really telling his audience and what his plays tell us today about the times in which they were written.

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An authoritative and entertaining exploration of Australia’s distinctive birds and their unheralded role in global evolution Renowned for its gallery of unusual mammals, Australia is also a land of extraordinary birds. But unlike the mammals, the birds of Australia flew beyond the continent’s boundaries and around the globe many millions of years ago. This eye-opening book tells the dynamic but little-known story of how Australia provided the world with songbirds and parrots, among other bird groups, why Australian birds wield surprising ecological power, how Australia became a major evolutionary center, and why scientific biases have hindered recognition of these discoveries. From violent, swooping magpies to tool-making cockatoos, Australia’s birds are strikingly different from birds of other lands—often more intelligent and aggressive, often larger and longer-lived. Tim Low, a renowned biologist with a rare storytelling gift, here presents the amazing evolutionary history of Australia’s birds. The story of the birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of the continent itself and also the people who inhabit it.

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For fans of Bradley Cooper’s film Maestro, an appreciation that gives Bernstein his due as composer as well as conductor Leonard Bernstein stood at the epicenter of twentieth-century American musical life. His creative gifts knew no boundaries as he moved easily from the podium to the piano to television with his nationally celebrated Young People’s Concerts, which introduced an entire generation to the joy of classical music. In this fascinating biography, the breadth of Bernstein’s musical composition is explored, through the spectacular range of music he composed—from West Side Story to Kaddish to A Quiet Place and beyond—and through his intensely public role as an internationally celebrated conductor. For the first time, the composer’s life and work receive a fully integrated analysis, offering a comprehensive appreciation of a multi-faceted musician who continued to grow as an artist well into his final days.

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An accessible survey on a genius artist, published to accompany the 500th anniversary of Bosch's death Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516) lived and worked in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, where he created enigmatic paintings and drawings full of bizarre creatures, phantasmagoric monsters, and terrifying nightmares. He also depicted detailed landscapes and found inspiration in fundamental moral concepts: seduction, sin, and judgment. This beautiful book accompanies a major exhibition on Bosch's work in his native city, and will feature important new research on his 25 known paintings and 20 drawings. The book, divided into six sections, covers the entirety of the artist's career. It discusses in detail Bosch's Pilgrimage of Life, Bosch and the Life of Christ, his role as a draughtsman, his depictions of saints, and his visualization of Judgment Day and the hereafter, among other topics, and is handsomely illustrated by new photography undertaken by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project Team.Distributed for MercatorfondsExhibition Schedule:Het Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands (02/13/16–05/08/16)

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A powerful treatise that demonstrates the existence of altruism in nature, with surprising implications for human society Does altruism exist? Or is human nature entirely selfish? In this eloquent and accessible book, famed biologist David Sloan Wilson provides new answers to this age-old question based on the latest developments in evolutionary science. From an evolutionary viewpoint, Wilson argues, altruism is inextricably linked to the functional organization of groups. “Groups that work” undeniably exist in nature and human society, although special conditions are required for their evolution. Humans are one of the most groupish species on earth, in some ways comparable to social insect colonies and multi-cellular organisms. The case that altruism evolves in all social species is surprisingly simple to make. Yet the implications for human society are far from obvious. Some of the most venerable criteria for defining altruism aren’t worth caring much about, any more than we care much whether we are paid by cash or check. Altruism defined in terms of thoughts and feelings is notably absent from religion, even though altruism defined in terms of action is notably present. The economic case for selfishness can be decisively rejected. The quality of everyday life depends critically on people who overtly care about the welfare of others. Yet, like any other adaptation, altruism can have pathological manifestations. Wilson concludes by showing how a social theory that goes beyond altruism by focusing on group function can help to improve the human condition.Co-published with Templeton Press

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A firsthand observer weighs the achievements—and failures—of two fabled American presidents As a young White House correspondent during the Kennedy and Johnson years in Washington, D.C., Godfrey Hodgson had a ringside seat covering the last two great presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, two men who could not have been more different. Kennedy’s wit and dashing style, his renown as a national war hero, and his Ivy League Boston Brahmin background stood in sharp contrast to Lyndon Johnson’s rural, humble origins in Texas, his blunt, forceful (but effective) political style, his lackluster career in the navy, and his grassroots populist instincts. Hodgson, a sharp-eyed witness throughout the tenure of these two great men, now offers us a new perspective enriched by his reflections since that time a half-century ago. He offers us a fresh, dispassionate contrast of these two great men by stripping away the myths to assess their achievements, ultimately asking whether Johnson has been misjudged. He suggests that LBJ be given his due by history, arguing that he was as great a president as, perhaps even greater than, JFK. The seed that grew into this book was the author’s early perception that JFK’s performance in office was largely overrated while LBJ’s was consistently underrated. Hodgson asks key questions: If Kennedy had lived, would he have matched Johnson’s ambitious Great Society achievements? Would he have avoided Johnson’s disastrous commitment in Vietnam? Would Nixon have been elected his successor, and if not, how would American politics and parties look today? Hodgson combines lively anecdotes with sober analyses to arrive at new conclusions about the U.S. presidency and two of the most charismatic figures ever to govern from the Oval Office.

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Beautifully written and incisive, this is the first English biography of a major Scandinavian author who is ripe for rediscovery While largely unknown today, Danish writer and Darwin translator Jens Peter Jacobsen was the leading prose writer in Scandinavia in the late nineteenth century and part of a generation that included Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, and August Strindberg. His novels Marie Grubbe and Niels Lyhne as well as his stories and poems were widely admired by writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, and James Joyce. Despite his untimely death from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-eight, Jacobsen became a cult figure to an entire generation and continues to occupy an important place in Scandinavian cultural history. In this book, Morten Høi Jensen gives a moving account of Jacobsen’s life, work, and death: his passionate interest in the natural sciences, his complicated and nuanced attitude to his own atheism, and his painful descent toward an early death. Carefully researched and sympathetically imagined, this is an evocative portrait of one of the most influential and gifted writers of the nineteenth century.

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The first comprehensive overview of an influential American photographer and filmmaker whose work is known for its intimacy and social engagement Coming of age in the 1960s, the photographer Danny Lyon (b. 1942) distinguished himself with work that emphasized intimate social engagement. In 1962 Lyon traveled to the segregated South to photograph the civil rights movement. Subsequent projects on biker culture, the demolition and redevelopment of lower Manhattan, and the Texas prison system, and more recently on the Occupy movement and the vanishing culture in China’s booming Shanxi Province, share Lyon’s signature immersive approach and his commitment to social and political issues that concern those on the margins of society. Lyon’s photography is paralleled by his work as a filmmaker and a writer. Danny Lyon: Message to the Future is the first in-depth examination of this leading figure in American photography and film, and the first publication to present his influential bodies of work in all media in their full context. Lead essayists Julian Cox and Elisabeth Sussman provide an account of Lyon’s five-decade career. Alexander Nemerov writes about Lyon’s work in Knoxville, Tennessee; Ed Halter assesses the artist’s films; Danica Willard Sachs evaluates his photomontages; and Julian Cox interviews Alan Rinzler about his role in publishing Lyon’s earliest works. With extensive back matter and illustrations, this publication will be the most comprehensive account of this influential artist’s work.Published in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San FranciscoExhibition Schedule:Whitney Museum of American Art (06/17/16–09/25/16)de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (11/05/16–03/12/17)Fotomuseum Winterthur (05/20/17–08/27/17)C/O Berlin Foundation (09/15/17–12/10/17)

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A beautiful overview of fascinating paintings of the classical world and the Holy Land by a beloved American artist Frederic Church (1826–1900), one of the leading painters of 19th-century America and the Hudson River School, also journeyed around the globe to find fresh inspiration for his highly detailed compositions. Among Church’s lesser-known masterpieces are his paintings of the Middle East, Italy, and Greece, produced in the late 1860s through late 1870s, which explore themes of human history and achievement. Taking a closer look at this geographical and thematic shift in Church’s practice, this handsome book brings together the artist’s major paintings of Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, and the surrounding region. The essays concentrate on a set of six major paintings of architectural and archaeological marvels; one essay also spotlights Olana, Church’s home in New York State, which reflects the influence of Middle Eastern design. This impressive volume stands apart in its new approach to the artist’s work and its quest to determine why and how this quintessentially American figure was drawn to scenery and themes from the other side of the globe.Distributed for the Detroit Institute of ArtsExhibition Schedule:Detroit Institute of Arts (10/22/17–01/15/18)Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (02/08/18–05/13/18)Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT (06/03/18–08/26/18)

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Acclaimed translator Edith Grossman brings to English-language readers Rojas’s imaginative vision of Francisco de Goya and the reverberations of his art in Fascist Spain This historical novel by one of Spain’s most celebrated authors weaves a tale of disparate time periods: the early years of the nineteenth century, when Francisco de Goya was at the height of his artistic career, and the final years of Generalissimo Franco’s Fascist rule in the 1970s. Rojas re-creates the nineteenth-century corridors of power and portrays the relationship between Goya and King Fernando VII, a despot bent on establishing a cruel regime after Spain’s War of Independence. Goya obliges the king’s request for a portrait, but his depiction not only fails to flatter but reflects a terrible darkness and grotesqueness. More than a century later, transcending conventional time, Goya observes Franco’s body lying in state and experiences again a dark and monstrous despair. Rojas's work is a dazzling tour de force, a unique combination of narrative invention and art historical expertise that only he could have brought to the page.

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An expansive guide to the medieval world, with new attention to women, ordinary parishioners, attitudes toward Jews and Muslims, and more For many, the medieval world seems dark and foreign—an often brutal and seemingly irrational time of superstition, miracles, and strange relics. The aggressive pursuit of heretics and attempts to control the “Holy Land” might come to mind. Yet the medieval world produced much that is part of our world today, including universities, the passion for Roman architecture and the development of the gothic style, pilgrimage, the emergence of capitalism, and female saints. This new narrative history of medieval Christianity, spanning the period 500 to 1500 CE, attempts to integrate what is familiar to readers with new themes and narratives. Elements of novelty in the book include a steady focus on the role of women in Christianity; the relationships among Christians, Jews, and Muslims; the experience of ordinary parishioners; the adventure of asceticism, devotion, and worship; and instruction through drama, architecture, and art. Madigan expertly integrates these areas of focus with more traditional themes, such as the evolution and decline of papal power; the nature and repression of heresy; sanctity and pilgrimage; the conciliar movement; and the break between the old Western church and its reformers. Illustrated with more than forty photographs of physical remains, this book promises to become an essential guide to a historical era of profound influence.

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A new telling of the brutal siege of Bastogne, where vastly outnumbered American forces held off a savage German onslaught and sealed the fate of the Third Reich Hitler’s last gamble, the Battle of the Bulge, was intended to push the Allied invaders of Normandy all the way back to the beaches. The plan nearly succeeded, and almost certainly would have, were it not for one small Belgian town and its tenacious American defenders who held back a tenfold larger German force while awaiting the arrival of General George Patton’s mighty Third Army. In this dramatic account of the 1944–45 winter of war in Bastogne, historian Peter Schrijvers offers the first full story of the German assault on the strategically located town. From the December stampede of American and Panzer divisions racing to reach Bastogne first, through the bloody eight-day siege from land and air, and through three more weeks of unrelenting fighting even after the siege was broken, events at Bastogne hastened the long-awaited end of WWII. Schrijvers draws on diaries, memoirs, and other fresh sources to illuminate the experiences not only of Bastogne’s 3,000 citizens and their American defenders, but also of German soldiers and commanders desperate for victory. The costs of war are here made real, uncovered in the stories of those who perished and those who emerged from battle to find the world forever changed.

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In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them.Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details—from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet—this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.

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A comprehensive look at works made by Baldessari between the years 1987 and 1993 This handsome volume, the third of the John Baldessari (b. 1931) catalogue raisonné project, compiles 400-plus unique works of art made by the influential conceptual artist from 1987 through 1993. Here we see the artist’s large-scale photo-based works, many of which employed his signature colored discs painted over the faces of people in the photos, accompanied by entries that trace the shifts and developments in Baldessari’s work as his collaged photo narratives achieved maturity and mastery. A critical essay by Briony Fer provides a close reading of selected works, giving historical context for Baldessari’s art from this period. In addition to a detailed chronology, complete exhibition history, and bibliography, this volume notably features a previously unpublished conversation between Baldessari and the artist Ed Ruscha, which was undertaken specifically for this publication. In the conversation, the artists discuss their early careers in Southern California and the shared thematic concerns in their work. The artworks in this volume demonstrate Baldessari’s ability to express—and, in many cases, combine—the narrative potential of images and the associative power of language within the boundaries of a single piece. Published in association with Marian Goodman Gallery

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The little-known story of the systems that bring us our drinking water, how they were developed, the problems they are facing, and how they will be reinvented Turn on the faucet, and water pours out. Pull out the drain plug, and the dirty water disappears. Most of us give little thought to the hidden systems that bring us water and take it away when we’re done with it. But these underappreciated marvels of engineering face an array of challenges that cannot be solved without a fundamental change to our relationship with water, David Sedlak explains in this enlightening book. To make informed decisions about the future, we need to understand the three revolutions in urban water systems that have occurred over the past 2,500 years and the technologies that will remake the system. The author starts by describing Water 1.0, the early Roman aqueducts, fountains, and sewers that made dense urban living feasible. He then details the development of drinking water and sewage treatment systems—the second and third revolutions in urban water. He offers an insider’s look at current systems that rely on reservoirs, underground pipe networks, treatment plants, and storm sewers to provide water that is safe to drink, before addressing how these water systems will have to be reinvented. For everyone who cares about reliable, clean, abundant water, this book is essential reading.

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New observations on the persistence of God in modern times and why “authentic” atheism is so very hard to come by How to live in a supposedly faithless world threatened by religious fundamentalism? Terry Eagleton, formidable thinker and renowned cultural critic, investigates in this thought-provoking book the contradictions, difficulties, and significance of the modern search for a replacement for God. Engaging with a phenomenally wide range of ideas, issues, and thinkers from the Enlightenment to today, Eagleton discusses the state of religion before and after 9/11, the ironies surrounding Western capitalism’s part in spawning not only secularism but also fundamentalism, and the unsatisfactory surrogates for the Almighty invented in the post-Enlightenment era. The author reflects on the unique capacities of religion, the possibilities of culture and art as modern paths to salvation, the so-called war on terror’s impact on atheism, and a host of other topics of concern to those who envision a future in which just and compassionate communities thrive. Lucid, stylish, and entertaining in his usual manner, Eagleton presents a brilliant survey of modern thought that also serves as a timely, urgently needed intervention into our perilous political present.

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Winner of the 2014 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize Originated in 1919 to showcase the works of exceptional American poets under the age of forty, the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize is the oldest annual literary award presented in the United States. Ansel Elkins’s poetry collection, Blue Yodel, is the 109th volume to be so honored. Esteemed poet and competition judge Carl Phillips praises Elkins for her “arresting use of persona,” calling her poems “razor-edged in their intelligence, Southern Gothic in their sensibility.” In her imaginative and haunting debut collection, Elkins introduces readers to a multitude of characters whose “otherness” has condemned them to live on the margins of society. She weaves blues, ballads, folklore, and storytelling into an intricate tapestry that depicts the violence, poverty, and loneliness of the Deep South, as well as the compassion, generosity, and hope that brings light to people in their darkest times. The blue yodel heard throughout this diverse compilation is a raw, primal, deeply felt expression of the human experience, calling on us to reach out to the isolated and disenfranchised and to find the humanity in every person.

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Why did England's one experiment in republican rule fail?

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In this classic text, the distinguished poet and critic John Hollander surveys the schemes, patterns, and forms of English verse, illustrating each variation with an original and witty self-descriptive example. In new essays for this revised edition, J. D. McClatchy and Richard Wilbur each offer a personal take on why Rhymes’s Reason has played an integral role in the education of young poets and student scholars. “[Hollander] put everything he knew about the structures of poetry—those fabled magic tricks—into a sort of guidebook for those starting out on the trail up Mount Parnassus. . . . There are astonishments on every page.”—from the Foreword by J. D. McClatchy “This book’s wit and inventive spirit, its self-describing embodiments of form, now offer the beginning poet a happy chance to discover the technician in himself.”—from the Afterword by Richard Wilbur “How lucky the young poet who discovers this wisest and most lighthearted of manuals.”—James Merrill “What the E. B. White–William Strunk The Elements of Style is to the writing of prose, Rhyme’s Reason could very easily become to the writing of verse. . . . Marvelously comprehensive, clarifying and useful, [and] a delight to read.”—John Reardon, Los Angeles Times Review of Books “A virtuoso performance and a mandatory text for poetry readers and practitioners alike.”—ALA Booklist

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A bold new account of the Age of Revolution, one of the most complex and vast transformations in human history “A fresh and illuminating framework for understanding our past and imagining our future. Powerfully argued and engagingly written, Patrick Griffin’s timely account of revolutionary regime change and reaction shows how a world of empires became our world of nation-states.”—Peter S. Onuf, coauthor of Most Blessed of the Patriarchs “When we speak of an age of revolution, what do we mean? In this synoptic, compelling book, Patrick Griffin asks the difficult questions and invites readers to reconsider the answers.”—Eliga Gould, author of Among the Powers of the Earth The Age of Atlantic Revolution was a defining moment in western history. Our understanding of rights, of what makes the individual an individual, of how to define a citizen versus a subject, of what states should or should not do, of how labor, politics, and trade would be organized, of the relationship between the church and the state, and of our attachment to the nation all derive from this period (c. 1750–1850). Historian Patrick Griffin shows that the Age of Atlantic Revolution was rooted in how people in an interconnected world struggled through violence, liberation, and war to reimagine themselves and sovereignty. Tying together the revolutions, crises, and conflicts that undid British North America, transformed France, created Haiti, overturned Latin America, challenged Britain and Europe, vexed Ireland, and marginalized West Africa, Griffin tells a transnational tale of how empires became nations and how our world came into being.

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An internationally renowned architect, urban planner, and scholar describes the major technological forces driving the future of cities Since cities emerged ten thousand years ago, they have become one of the most impressive artifacts of humanity. But their evolution has been anything but linear—cities have gone through moments of radical change, turning points that redefine their very essence. In this book, a renowned architect and urban planner who studies the intersection of cities and technology argues that we are in such a moment. The authors explain some of the forces behind urban change and offer new visions of the many possibilities for tomorrow’s city. Pervasive digital systems that layer our cities are transforming urban life. The authors provide a front-row seat to this change. Their work at the MIT Senseable City Laboratory allows experimentation and implementation of a variety of urban initiatives and concepts, from assistive condition-monitoring bicycles to trash with embedded tracking sensors, from mobility to energy, from participation to production. They call for a new approach to envisioning cities: futurecraft, a symbiotic development of urban ideas by designers and the public. With such participation, we can collectively imagine, examine, choose, and shape the most desirable future of our cities.

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“An enjoyable account of a lifelong involvement with literature.”—John Vukmirovich, Times Literary Supplement This “little history” takes on a very big subject: the glorious span of literature from Greek myth to graphic novels, from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Harry Potter. Beloved author, John Sutherland, who has researched, taught, and written on virtually every area of literature, guides both young readers and the adults in their lives on an entertaining journey “through the wardrobe” to show how literature from across the world can transport us and help us to make sense of what it means to be human. Along the way he introduces us to a wide range of works, enlivening his offerings with humor as well as learning—from Beowulf and Shakespeare to T. S. Eliot and George Orwell, and from the rude jests of Anglo-Saxon runes to The Da Vinci Code. For younger readers, Sutherland offers a proper introduction to literature, promising to interest as much as instruct. For more experienced readers, he promises just the same.

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Winner of the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography: The life of satirist Jonathan Swift, written by a master biographer and leading scholar of eighteenth-century literature“Superb. . . . Damrosch’s outstanding book has raised Swift’s provocative genius to life.”—Jeffrey Collins, Wall Street Journal Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions? In this deeply researched biography, Leo Damrosch draws on discoveries made over the past thirty years to tell the story of Swift’s life anew. Probing holes in the existing evidence, he takes seriously some daring speculations about Swift’s parentage, love life, and various personal relationships and shows how Swift’s public version of his life—the one accepted until recently—was deliberately misleading. Swift concealed aspects of himself and his relationships, and other people in his life helped to keep his secrets. Assembling suggestive clues, Damrosch re-narrates the events of Swift’s life while making vivid the sights, sounds, and smells of his English and Irish surroundings.Through his own words and those of a wide circle of friends, a complex Swift emerges: a restless, combative, empathetic figure, a man of biting wit and powerful mind, and a major figure in the history of world letters.

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A leading writer and researcher on Tibet, Sam van Schaik offers an accessible and authoritative introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by examining its key texts, from its origins in the eighth century to teachings practiced across the world today. In addition to demonstrating its richness and historical importance, van Schaik’s fresh translations of and introductions to each text provide a comprehensive overview of Tibetan Buddhism’s most popular teachings and concepts—including rebirth, compassion, mindfulness, tantric deities, and the graduated path—and discusses how each is put into practice. The book unfolds chronologically, conveying a sense of this thousand-year-old tradition’s progress and evolution. Under the spiritual leadership of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism has an estimated ten to twenty million adherents worldwide. Written for those new to the topic, but also useful to seasoned Buddhist practitioners and students, this much-needed anthological introduction provides the deepest understanding of the key writings currently available.

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A spirited volume on the great adventures of science throughout history, for curious readers of all ages Science is fantastic. It tells us about the infinite reaches of space, the tiniest living organism, the human body, the history of Earth. People have always been doing science because they have always wanted to make sense of the world and harness its power. From ancient Greek philosophers through Einstein and Watson and Crick to the computer-assisted scientists of today, men and women have wondered, examined, experimented, calculated, and sometimes made discoveries so earthshaking that people understood the world—or themselves—in an entirely new way.This inviting book tells a great adventure story: the history of science. It takes readers to the stars through the telescope, as the sun replaces the earth at the center of our universe. It delves beneath the surface of the planet, charts the evolution of chemistry's periodic table, introduces the physics that explain electricity, gravity, and the structure of atoms. It recounts the scientific quest that revealed the DNA molecule and opened unimagined new vistas for exploration.Emphasizing surprising and personal stories of scientists both famous and unsung, A Little History of Science traces the march of science through the centuries. The book opens a window on the exciting and unpredictable nature of scientific activity and describes the uproar that may ensue when scientific findings challenge established ideas. With delightful illustrations and a warm, accessible style, this is a volume for young and old to treasure together.

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A comprehensive survey of The Phillips Collection’s spectacular holdings in American art American art has been essential to The Phillips Collection since its founding by Duncan Phillips in 1921. Phillips’s collecting interests were decidedly against the grain: he acquired the work of living American artists, especially those outside the mainstream, when it was unpopular to do so and promoted diversity, as seen in works by self-taught artists, artists of color, and naturalized Americans, resulting in a rich assembly of independent-minded artists, including Milton Avery, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe. The Phillips Collection’s superb collection of American art, acquired over half a century, is presented here for the first time in a comprehensive overview, featuring 160 works from heroes of the late 19th century—such as William Merritt Chase, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer, who set the course for modern art in America—to abstract expressionists Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Adolph Gottlieb, and Mark Rothko, whose efforts to create a new visual language following World War II brought a new global significance to American art. A perennial guide to this important collection, the book includes scholarly essays on Phillips and on the Rothko Room, introductions to key groups of works in the collection, more than one hundred biographies of the most influential artists represented, and a chronology of Phillip's acquisitions and interactions with American artists.Published in association with The Phillips CollectionExhibition Schedule:The Phillips Collection (03/01/14–08/31/14)

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A survey of spectacular breadth, covering the history of decorative arts and design worldwide over the past six hundred years Spanning six centuries of global design, this far-reaching survey is the first to offer an account of the vast history of decorative arts and design produced in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and the Islamic world, from 1400 to the present. Meticulously documented and lavishly illustrated, the volume covers interiors, furniture, textiles and dress, glass, graphics, metalwork, ceramics, exhibitions, product design, landscape and garden design, and theater and film design. Divided into four chronological sections, each of which is subdivided geographically, the authors elucidate the evolution of style, form, materials, and techniques, and address vital issues such as gender, race, patronage, cultural appropriation, continuity versus innovation, and high versus low culture. Leading authorities in design history and decorative arts studies present hundreds of objects in their contemporary contexts, demonstrating the overwhelming extent to which the applied arts have enriched customs, ceremony, and daily life worldwide over the past six hundred years. This ambitious, landmark publication is essential reading, contributing a definitive classic to the existing scholarship on design, decorative arts, and material culture, while also introducing these subjects to new readers in a comprehensive, erudite book with widespread appeal.Distributed for the Bard Graduate Center

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In 1798 Robert Morris—“financier of the American Revolution,” confidant of George Washington, former U.S. senator—plunged from the peaks of wealth and prestige into debtors' prison and public contempt. How could one of the richest men in the United States, one of only two founders who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, suffer such a downfall? This book examines for the first time the extravagant Philadelphia town house Robert Morris built and its role in bringing about his ruin. Part biography, part architectural history, the book recounts Morris’s wild successes as a merchant, his recklessness as a land speculator, and his unrestrained passion in building his palatial, doomed mansion, once hailed as the most expensive private building in the United States but later known as “Morris’s Folly.” Setting Morris’s tale in the context of the nation’s founding, this volume refocuses attention on an essential yet nearly forgotten American figure while also illuminating the origins of America’s ongoing, ambivalent attitudes toward the superwealthy and their sensational excesses.

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Learn to Read Latin helps students acquire an ability to read and appreciate the great works of Latin literature as quickly as possible. It not only presents basic Latin morphology and syntax with clear explanations and examples but also offers direct access to unabridged passages drawn from a wide variety of Latin texts. As beginning students learn basic forms and grammar, they also gain familiarity with patterns of Latin word order and other features of style. Learn to Read Latin is designed to be comprehensive and requires no supplementary materials explains English grammar points and provides drills especially for today’s students offers sections on Latin metrics includes numerous unaltered examples of ancient Latin prose and poetry incorporates selections by authors such as Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Catullus, Vergil, and Ovid, presented chronologically with introductions to each author and work offers a comprehensive workbook that provides drills and homework assignments. This enlarged second edition improves upon an already strong foundation by streamlining grammatical explanations, increasing the number of syntax and morphology drills, and offering additional short and longer readings in Latin prose and poetry.

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A political scientist goes undercover in a modern industrial slaughterhouse for this twenty-first-century update of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle This is an account of industrialized killing from a participant’s point of view. The author, political scientist Timothy Pachirat, was employed undercover for five months in a Great Plains slaughterhouse where 2,500 cattle were killed per day—one every twelve seconds. Working in the cooler as a liver hanger, in the chutes as a cattle driver, and on the kill floor as a food-safety quality-control worker, Pachirat experienced firsthand the realities of the work of killing in modern society. He uses those experiences to explore not only the slaughter industry but also how, as a society, we facilitate violent labor and hide away that which is too repugnant to contemplate.Through his vivid narrative and ethnographic approach, Pachirat brings to life massive, routine killing from the perspective of those who take part in it. He shows how surveillance and sequestration operate within the slaughterhouse and in its interactions with the community at large. He also considers how society is organized to distance and hide uncomfortable realities from view. With much to say about issues ranging from the sociology of violence and modern food production to animal rights and welfare, Every Twelve Seconds is an important and disturbing work.

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A landmark biography of the charismatic king beloved of fourteenth-century England Edward III (1312–1377) was the most successful European ruler of his age. Reigning for over fifty years, he achieved spectacular military triumphs and overcame grave threats to his authority, from parliamentary revolt to the Black Death. Revered by his subjects as a chivalric dynamo, he initiated the Hundred Years' War and gloriously led his men into battle against the Scots and the French.In this illuminating biography, W. Mark Ormrod takes a deeper look at Edward to reveal the man beneath the military muscle. What emerges is Edward's clear sense of his duty to rebuild the prestige of the Crown, and through military gains and shifting diplomacy, to secure a legacy for posterity. New details of the splendor of Edward's court, lavish national celebrations, and innovative use of imagery establish the king's instinctive understanding of the bond between ruler and people. With fresh emphasis on how Edward's rule was affected by his family relationships—including his roles as traumatized son, loving husband, and dutiful father—Ormrod gives a valuable new dimension to our understanding of this remarkable warrior king.

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A lively analysis of the Arab Gulf states’ stunning rise to global power over the last half-century and of the daunting challenges they confront today Once just sleepy desert sheikdoms, the Arab Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait now exert unprecedented influence on international affairs—the result of their almost unimaginable riches in oil and gas. In this book, Rory Miller, an expert in Gulf politics and international affairs, provides an accessible account of the achievements of these countries since the 1973 global oil crisis. He also investigates how the shrewd Arab Gulf rulers who have overcome crisis after crisis meet the external and internal challenges of the onrushing future. The Arab Gulf region has become an East–West hub for travel, tourism, sport, culture, trade, and finance. But can the autocratic regimes maintain stability at home and influence abroad as they deal with the demands of social and democratic reform? Miller considers an array of factors—Islamism, terrorism, the Arab Spring, volatile oil prices, global power dynamics, and others—to assess the future possibilities.

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The classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history and the origins of the environmental and conservation movements“The Book of Genesis for conservationists”—Dave Foreman Since its initial publication in 1967, Roderick Nash's Wilderness and the American Mind has received wide acclaim. The Los Angeles Times listed it among the one hundred most influential books published in the last quarter century, Outside Magazine included it in a survey of “books that changed our world,” and it has been called the “Book of Genesis for environmentalists.” For the fifth edition, Nash has written a new preface and epilogue that brings Wilderness and the American Mind into dialogue with contemporary debates about wilderness. Char Miller’s foreword provides a twenty-first-century perspective on how the environmental movement has changed, including the ways in which contemporary scholars are reimagining the dynamic relationship between the natural world and the built environment.

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For readers of E. H. Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, an equally irresistible volume that brings history’s greatest philosophers to life “A primer in human existence: philosophy has rarely seemed so lucid, so important, so worth doing and so easy to enter into. . . . A wonderful introduction for anyone who’s ever felt curious about almost anything.”—Sarah Bakewell, author of How To Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer Philosophy begins with questions about the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them how little they genuinely understood. This engaging book introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the world and how best to live in it. In forty brief chapters, Nigel Warburton guides us on a chronological tour of the major ideas in the history of philosophy. He provides interesting and often quirky stories of the lives and deaths of thought-provoking philosophers from Socrates, who chose to die by hemlock poisoning rather than live on without the freedom to think for himself, to Peter Singer, who asks the disquieting philosophical and ethical questions that haunt our own times. Warburton not only makes philosophy accessible, he offers inspiration to think, argue, reason, and ask in the tradition of Socrates. A Little History of Philosophy presents the grand sweep of humanity’s search for philosophical understanding and invites all to join in the discussion.

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Thomas Kidd, a widely respected scholar of colonial history, deftly offers both depth and breadth in this accessible, introductory text on the American Colonial era. Interweaving primary documents and new scholarship with a vivid narrative reconstructing the lives of European colonists, Africans, and Native Americans and their encounters in colonial North America, Kidd offers fresh perspectives on these events and the period as a whole. This compelling volume is organized around themes of religion and conflict, and distinguished by its incorporation of an expanded geographic frame.

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The foremost Proust scholar of our time offers a brilliantly revised and annotated edition of the first volume of the twentieth century’s most acclaimed novel“Carter’s revised edition . . . renews one’s appreciation of Proust. . . . [His] slight but decisive emendations bring the reader closer than ever to the tenor of Proust’s style and diction. . . . A magnificent and enduring achievement.”—Choice One hundred years have passed since Marcel Proust published the first volume of what was to become a seven-volume masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. In the intervening century his famously compelling novel has never been out of print and has been translated into dozens of languages. English-language readers were fortunate to have an early and extraordinarily fine translation of the novel from Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff. With the passage of time, however, the need for corrections, revisions, and annotations to the Scott Montcrieff translation has become apparent.Esteemed Proust scholar William C. Carter celebrates the publication centennial of Swann’s Way with a new, more accurate and illuminating edition of the first volume of In Search of Lost Time. Carter corrects previous translating missteps to bring readers closer to Proust’s intentions while also providing enlightening notes to clarify biographical, historical, and social contexts. Presented in a reader-friendly format alongside the text, these annotations will enrich and deepen the experience of Proust’s novel, immersing readers in the world of an unsurpassed literary genius.

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In this engaging introduction to the New Testament, Professor Dale B. Martin presents a historical study of the origins of Christianity by analyzing the literature of the earliest Christian movements. Focusing mainly on the New Testament, he also considers nonbiblical Christian writings of the era. Martin begins by making a powerful case for the study of the New Testament. He next sets the Greco-Roman world in historical context and explains the place of Judaism within it. In the discussion of each New Testament book that follows, the author addresses theological themes, then emphasizes the significance of the writings as ancient literature and as sources for historical study. Throughout the volume, Martin introduces various early Christian groups and highlights the surprising variations among their versions of Christianity.

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For researchers in all disciplines, this book offers a practical, hands-on course in communicating scientific findings and concepts through visual graphics Any scientist or engineer who communicates research results will immediately recognize this practical handbook as an indispensable tool. The guide sets out clear strategies and offers abundant examples to assist researchers—even those with no previous design training—with creating effective visual graphics for use in multiple contexts, including journal submissions, grant proposals, conference posters, or presentations.Visual communicator Felice Frankel and systems biologist Angela DePace, along with experts in various fields, demonstrate how small changes can vastly improve the success of a graphic image. They dissect individual graphics, show why some work while others don't, and suggest specific improvements. The book includes analyses of graphics that have appeared in such journals as Science, Nature, Annual Reviews, Cell, PNAS, and the New England Journal of Medicine, as well as an insightful personal conversation with designer Stefan Sagmeister and narratives by prominent researchers and animators.

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This handsome volume is the first authoritative survey of one of the most intriguing periods of British art—the radically innovative decade of the 1860s. The book explores new developments in English painting of this period, focusing on the early work of Edward Burne-Jones, Frederic Leighton, Albert Moore, Edward Poynter, Simeon Solomon, and James McNeill Whistler, as well as on paintings by Frederick Sandys and the older G. F. Watts, and by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his Pre-Raphaelite colleagues Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Allen Staley argues that engagement in the decorative arts, particularly by Burne-Jones, Moore, and Poynter at the outset of their careers, led to a transcending of traditional expectations of painting, making abstract formal qualities, or beauty for beauty's sake, the main goal. Rather than being about what it depicts, the painting itself becomes its own subject. The New Painting of the 1860s examines the interplay among the artists and the shared ambitions underlying their works, giving impetus to what would soon come to be known as the Aesthetic Movement.Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

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A brilliant, semiautobiographical satirical novel from one of the foremost figures in twentieth-century Polish literature, now in a new English translation Considered by many to be among the greatest writers of the past hundred years, Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz explores the modern predicament of exile and displacement in a disintegrating world in his acclaimed classic Trans-Atlantyk. Gombrowicz’s most personal novel—and arguably his most iconoclastic—Trans-Atlantyk is written in the style of a gaweda, a tale told by the fireside in a language that originated in the seventeenth century. It recounts the often farcical adventures of a penniless young writer stranded in Argentina when the Nazis invade his homeland, and his subsequent “adoption” by the Polish embassy staff and émigré community. Based loosely on Gombrowicz’s own experiences as an expatriate, Trans-Atlantyk is steeped in humor and sharply pointed satire, interlaced with dark visions of war and its horrors, that entreats the individual and society in general to rise above the suffocating constraints of nationalistic, sexual, and patriotic mores. The novel's themes are universal and its execution ingenious—a masterwork of twentieth-century literary art from an author whom John Updike called “one of the profoundest of the late moderns.”

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The modern Cypriot town of Polis Chrysochous—"City of Gold"—lies above the city of Arsinoe and the earlier city-kingdom of Marion. In 1885 excavators began exploring the extensive cemeteries of these cities. Since 1983 the Princeton Cyprus Expedition has focused on the remains of sanctuaries, public buildings, workshops, and private residences spanning the Geometric through Classical periods of Marion and the Hellenistic through Roman, early Christian, and medieval periods of Arsinoe.Combining archaeological investigation and historical analysis, City of Gold relates the discoveries establishing that these cities had close ties with Greece and with regions from Egypt to Anatolia, findings best represented by the painted vases and terracotta sculptures of Marion and the architecture of Arsinoe. Nearly half of the 110 artifacts included in the catalogue are previously unpublished, and another third are published in detail for the first time.Distributed for the Princeton University Art MuseumExhibition Schedule:Princeton University Art Museum(10/20/12–01/20/13)

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Based on new archival information, this book upends two hundred years of scholarship on England’s Glorious Revolution to claim that it—not the French Revolution—was the first truly modern revolution For two hundred years historians have viewed England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 as an un-revolutionary revolution—bloodless, consensual, aristocratic, and above all, sensible. In this brilliant new interpretation Steve Pincus refutes this traditional view.By expanding the interpretive lens to include a broader geographical and chronological frame, Pincus demonstrates that England’s revolution was a European event, that it took place over a number of years, not months, and that it had repercussions in India, North America, the West Indies, and throughout continental Europe. His rich historical narrative, based on masses of new archival research, traces the transformation of English foreign policy, religious culture, and political economy that, he argues, was the intended consequence of the revolutionaries of 1688–1689.James II developed a modernization program that emphasized centralized control, repression of dissidents, and territorial empire. The revolutionaries, by contrast, took advantage of the new economic possibilities to create a bureaucratic but participatory state. The postrevolutionary English state emphasized its ideological break with the past and envisioned itself as continuing to evolve. All of this, argues Pincus, makes the Glorious Revolution—not the French Revolution—the first truly modern revolution. This wide-ranging book reenvisions the nature of the Glorious Revolution and of revolutions in general, the causes and consequences of commercialization, the nature of liberalism, and ultimately the origins and contours of modernity itself.

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A magnificent new biography of the man who gave us David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Ebenezer Scrooge This long-awaited biography, twenty years after the last major account, uncovers Dickens the man through the profession in which he excelled. Drawing on a lifetime’s study of this prodigiously brilliant figure, Michael Slater explores the personal and emotional life, the high-profile public activities, the relentless travel, the charitable works, the amateur theatricals and the astonishing productivity. But the core focus is Dickens’ career as a writer and professional author, covering not only his big novels but also his phenomenal output of other writing--letters, journalism, shorter fiction, plays, verses, essays, writings for children, travel books, speeches, and scripts for his public readings, and the relationships among them.Slater’s account, rooted in deep research but written with affection, clarity, and economy, illuminates the context of each of the great novels while locating the life of the author within the imagination that created them. It highlights Dickens’ boundless energy, his passion for order and fascination with disorder, his organizational genius, his deep concern for the poor and outrage at indifference towards them, his susceptibility towards young women, his love of Christmas and fairy tales, and his hatred of tyranny.Richly and precisely illustrated with many rare images, this masterly work on the complete Dickens, man and writer, becomes the indispensable guide and companion to one of the greatest novelists in the language.

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As the focal point of numerous high-profile exhibitions, the sculpture of Richard Serra (b. 1939) has drawn international acclaim. Yet even those who have marveled at Serra's intellectually rigorous and large works of sculpture may not be familiar with his equally intriguing drawings. This handsome book brings together for the first time Serra's drawn work, considering the artist's investigation of medium as an activity both independent from and linked to his pioneering sculptural practice. First working in ink, charcoal, and lithographic crayon on paper, Serra originally used drawing as a means to explore form and perceptual relations between his sculpture and the viewer. Over time, his drawings underwent significant shifts in concept, materials, and scale and became fully realized and autonomous works of art. The grand, bold forms he created with black paintstick in his monumental Installation Drawings were designed to disrupt and complement existent spaces and eventually began to occupy entire rooms. In the late 1980s, Serra explored the tension of weight and gravity through layering, and his most recent work experiments with surface effects, using mesh screens as intermediaries between the gesture and the transfer of pigment to paper.Distributed for The Menil CollectionExhibition Schedule:The Metropolitan Museum of Art(04/11/11-08/28/11)San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (10/15/11-01/16/12)The Menil Collection (03/02/12–06/10/12)

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An introduction to the ideas and writings of Zoroastrianism, expertly translated, introduced, and edited by one of the world's foremost authorities on this religion Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest religions, though it is not among the best understood. Originating with Iranian tribes living in Central Asia in the second millennium BCE, Zoroastrianism was the official religion of the Iranian empires until Islam superseded it in the seventh century AD. Centered on the worship of Ahura Mazda, the All-knowing Ruler, Zoroastrianism follows the practices and rituals set out by the prophet Zarathustra, according to the indigenous tradition.As one of the world's great religions, Zoroastrianism has a heritage rich in texts and cultic practices. The texts are often markedly difficult to translate, but in this volume, Prods Oktor Skjærvø, professor of ancient Iranian languages and culture at Harvard, provides modern and accurate translations of Zoroastrian texts that have been selected to provide an overview of Zoroastrian beliefs and practices. In a comprehensive introduction to these sacred texts, Skjærvø outlines the history and essence of Zoroastrianism and discusses the major themes of this the first fully representative selection of Zoroastrian texts to be made available in English for over a century.

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Journalist Tim Judah’s classic account, now brought fully up to date to include the overthrow of Miloševic, the assassination of Zoran Djindic, the breakaway of Kosovo, and the arrest of Radovan Karadžic. Praise for the first edition: "A lively and balanced history of the Serbs."—Aleksa Djilas, New York Times Book Review "Judah writes splendidly. . . .The story he tells does much to explain both the Serb obsession with the treachery of outsiders and their quasi-religious faith in the eventual founding, or rather reestablishment, of the Serbian state."—Mark Danner, New York Review of Books "Judah's book is probably the best attempt to date to explain the calamitous situation of the Serbs today through a meticulous consideration of the Serb past."—David Rieff, Toronto Globe and Mail Tim Judah was Balkans correspondent for the London Times and the Economist, and has been a frequent contributor The New York Review of Books.

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