Books published by Cornell University Press

In a companion volume to their highly acclaimed book Overcoming the Odds, Emmy E. Werner and Ruth S. Smith continue their longitudinal study of approximately five hundred men and women who were born in 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. A third of...

States seldom resort to war to overthrow their adversaries. They are more likely to attempt to covertly change the opposing regime, by assassinating a foreign leader, sponsoring a coup d'etat, meddling in a democratic election, or secretly aiding foreign dissident groups.In Covert Regime Change, Lindsey A. O'Rourke shows us how states really...

Conventional Deterrence is a book about the origins of war. Why do nations faced with the prospect of large-scale conventional war opt for or against an offensive strategy? John J. Mearsheimer examines a number of crises that led to major conventional wars to explain why deterrence failed. He focuses first on Allied and German decision making in the years 1939-1940, analyzing why the Allies did not strike first against Germany after declaring war and, conversely, why the Germans did attack the West. Turning to the Middle East, he examines the differences in Israeli and Egyptian strategic doctrines prior to the start of the major conventional conflicts in that region. Mearsheimer then critically assays the relative strengths and weaknesses of NATO and the Warsaw Pact to determine the prospects for conventional deterrence in any future crisis. He is also concerned with examining such relatively technical issues as the impact of precision-guided munitions (PGM) on conventional deterrence and the debate over maneuver versus attrition warfare.Mearsheimer pays considerable attention to questions of military strategy and tactics. Challenging the claim that conventional detrrence is largely a function of the numerical balance of forces, he also takes issue with the school of thought that ascribes deterrence failures to the dominance of "e;offensive"e; weaponry. In addition to examining the military consideration underlying deterrence, he also analyzes the interaction between those military factors and the broader political considerations that move a nation to war.

What does it mean to label someone a fascist? Today, it is equated with denouncing him or her as a Nazi. But as intellectual historian Paul E. Gottfried writes in this provocative yet even-handed study, the term's meaning has evolved over the years. Gottfried examines the semantic twists and turns the term has endured since the 1930s and traces...

The Transmission of Affect deals with the belief that the emotions and energies of one person or group can be absorbed by or can enter directly into another.

Ancient Egyptians held a rich and complex vision of the afterlife and codified their beliefs in books that were to be discovered more than two millennia later in royal tombs. Erik Hornung, the world's leading authority on these religious texts...

A conservative take on the antifascist movementAntifascism argues that current self-described antifascists are not struggling against a reappearance of interwar fascism, and that the Left that claims to be opposing fascism has little in common with any earlier Left, except for some overlap with critical theorists of the Frankfurt School. Paul Gottfried looks at antifascism from its roots in early twentieth-century Europe to its American manifestation in the present. The pivotal development for defining the present political spectrum, he suggests, has been the replacement of a recognizably Marxist Left by an intersectional one. Political and ideological struggles have been configured around this new Left, which has become a dominant force throughout the Western world. Gottfried discusses the major changes undergone by antifascist ideology since the 1960s, fascist and antifascist models of the state and assumptions about human nature, nationalism versus globalism, the antifascism of the American conservative establishment, and Antifa in the United States. Also included is an excursus on the theory of knowledge presented by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan. In Antifascism Gottfried concludes that promoting a fear of fascism today serves the interests of the powerful-in particular, those in positions of political, journalistic, and educational power who want to bully and isolate political opponents. He points out the generous support given to the intersectional Left by multinational capitalists and examines the movement of the white working class in Europe-including former members of Communist parties-toward the populist Right, suggesting this shows a political dynamic that is different from the older dialectic between Marxists and anti-Marxists.

Ranging from miniature epiphytic orchids to towering trees, and from mangrove forests lining coastal waterways to high-elevation cloud forests, Costa Rica's rich and varied flora dazzles visitors and botanists alike. Tropical Plants of Costa Rica, the...

"This book considers the Palestinian struggle for liberation as it examines the two seemingly contradictory, yet coexistent anticolonial and postcolonial modes of politics adopted by Hamas following its unexpected victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election"--

This book explores the social institutions, the prevailing social values, and the ideology of the ancient city-state as revealed in Roman Comedy. "e;The very essence of comedy is social,"e; writes David Konstan, "e;and in the complex movement of its plots we may be able to discern the lineaments and contradictions of the reigning ideas of an age."e;David Konstan looks closely at eight plays: Plautus's Aulularia, Asinaria, Captivi, Rudens, Cistellaria, and Truculentus, and Terence's Phormio and Hecyra. Offering new interpretations of each, he develops a "e;typology of plot forms"e; by analyzing structural features and patterns of conventional behavior in the plays, and he relates the results of his literary analysis to contemporary social conditions. He argues that the plays address tensions that were potentially disruptive to the ancient city-state, and that they tended to resolve these tensions in ways that affirmed traditional values.Roman Comedy is an innovative and challenging book that will be welcomed by students of classical literature, ancient social history, the history of the theater, and comedy as a genre.

In writing the life of tobacco in Bulgaria from the late Ottoman period through the years of Communist rule, Neuburger gives us much more than the cultural history of a commodity; she provides a fresh perspective on the genesis of modern Bulgaria itself.

A treatise of vital importance for an understanding of Vico's epistemology, psychology, and philosophy of mathematics.

A title that examines the ferocious public debates of the 1870s on higher dimensional mathematics and the workings of seance phenomena, discusses the world of cheap instruction manuals and popular occult journals, and looks at haunted houses, which brought together the rural settings and the urban masses that obsessed over them.

"Still, we have the same solitude, the same journeys and searching, and the same favorite turns in the labyrinth of literature and history."-Boris Pasternak to Marina Tsvetaeva One of the most compelling episodes of twentieth-century Russian...

In this historical reassessment of southern Vietnam and its distinct culture, Li Tana illuminates the resourceful qualities of the Dong Trong pioneers, develops a meticulous analysis of the Nguyen trade and taxation systems, and, in the process...

In The Mirror of Antiquity, Caroline Winterer uncovers the lost world of American women's classicism during its glory days from the eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries.

Ajami resurrects the Shia's neglected history, both distant and recent, and interweaves the life and work of Musa al Sadr with the larger strands of the Shia past.

Vico's earliest extant scholarly works, the six orations on humanistic education, offer the first statement of ideas that Vico would continue to refine throughout his life.

Susan Fainstein's concept of the "just city" encourages planners and policymakers to embrace a different approach to urban development, combining progressive city planners' earlier focus on equity and material well-being with considerations of diversity.

During the war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002), members of various rebel movements kidnapped thousands of girls and women, some of whom came to take an active part in the armed conflict alongside the rebels. In a stunning look at the life of women in...

James Clerk Maxwell published the Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873. At his death, six years later, his theory of the electromagnetic field was neither well understood nor widely accepted. By the mid-1890s, however, it was regarded as one...

This absorbing and award-winning biography tells the story of the tragedies and triumphs of Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896)-at once artist, composer, editor, teacher, wife, and mother of eight children.

"My hope is that by attending to sound I have been able to open up parts of these worlds, not to get a glimpse of them but to listen in. These were worlds much more alive with sound than our own, worlds not yet disenchanted, worlds perhaps even...

With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged "racial contract" has shaped a system of global European domination.

From Cinderella to The Boy Who Cried Wolf to The Dragon Slayer to the Judgment of Solomon, certain legends, myths, and folktales are part of the oral tradition in countries around the world. In addition to their pervasiveness, these stories show an...

An important contribution to the development of the scientism-versus-humanism debate over the comparative merits of classical and modern culture, this book lays out Vico's powerful arguments against the compartmentalization of knowledge.

Vital reading for anyone concerned with how refugee flows affect the dynamics of conflicts around the world.

In eleven acute and widely ranging essays, Irigaray reconsiders the question of female sexuality in a variety of contexts that are relevant to current discussion of feminist theory and practice.