Books in the Harvard University Press Reference Library series

From the earliest magical charms and mythical sagas to the brilliance and desolation of 20th-century fiction, poetry, and film, this illuminating reference book invites readers to experience the full range of German literary culture and to investigate for themselves its disparate and unifying themes.

In 11 comprehensive essays and over 500 encyclopedic entries, an international cast of experts provides the latest scholarship and fresh perspectives on the history and culture of late antiquity, an era marked by the rise of two world religions, unprecedented political upheavals, and the creation of art of enduring glory.

America is a nation making itself up as it goes along-a story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination. In more than 200 original essays, this history brings together the nation's many voices.

Did you know that you are more closely related to a mushroom than to a daisy? That dinosaurs are still among us? That the terms "fish" and "invertebrates" do not indicate scientific groupings? All this is the result of major changes in classification. This book diagrams the tree of life according to the most recent methods of this system.