Books published by Cornell University Press

Soviet official culture underwent a dramatic shift in the mid-1930s, when Stalin and his fellow leaders began to promote conventional norms, patriarchal families, tsarist heroes, and Russian literary classics. For Leon Trotsky-and many later...

A reappraisal on the emphasis on duty in Immanuel Kant's ethics is long overdue. Marcia W. Baron evaluates and for the most part defends Kantian ethics against two frequent criticisms: that duty plays too large a role, leaving no room for the supererogatory; and that Kant places too much value on acting from duty.

In a brilliant analysis of this complex and sensitive national question, Ivo Banac provides a comprehensive introduction to Yugoslav political history.

When confronted by horrendous evil, even the most pious believer may question not only life's worth but also God's power and goodness. A distinguished philosopher and a practicing minister, Marilyn McCord Adams has written a highly original work on a...

In Activists beyond Borders, Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink examine a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. Their targets may be...

Stretching from the tributaries of the Danube to the Urals and from the Russian forests to the Black and Caspian seas, the vast European steppe has for centuries played very different roles in the Russian imagination. To the Grand Princes of Kiev and...

Provides an innovative perspective on the behavior of international organizations and their effects on global politics.

"Nicole Loraux brilliantly elucidates how Athenian politics were 'gendered' in the Classical period. She investigates the Athenian state's interdiction of ritualized mourning by women, in a city where public mourning constituted a vital act of civic...

Almost from the moment of its publication in 1863, Nikolai Chernyshevsky's novel, What Is to Be Done?, had a profound impact on the course of Russian literature and politics. The idealized image it offered of dedicated and self-sacrificing intellectuals transforming society by means of scientific knowledge served as a model of inspiration for...

"Stephen Van Evera's Guide to Methods makes an important contribution toward improving the use of case studies for theory development and testing in the social sciences. His trenchant and concise views on issues ranging from epistemology to specific...

Overextension is the common pitfall of empires. Jack Snyder identifies recurrent myths of empire, describes the varieties of overextension to which they lead, and criticizes the traditional explanations offered by historians and political scientists.

Insanity-in clinical practice as in the popular imagination-is seen as a state of believing things that are not true and perceiving things that do not exist. Most schizophrenics, however, do not act as if they mistake their delusions for reality. In a...

This is a story of how work gets done. It is also a study of how field service technicians talk about their work and how that talk is instrumental in their success. In his innovative ethnography, Julian E. Orr studies the people who repair...

Although the basis of modern biology is Cartesian, Descartes's theories of biology have been more often ridiculed than studied. Yet, Dennis Des Chene demonstrates, the themes, arguments, and vocabulary of his mechanistic biology pervade the writings...

The Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia is one of the few remaining places on earth where a nomadic people retain a traditional culture. Here in the tundra, the Nenets-one of the few indigenous minorities of the Russian North-follow a lifestyle...

Values at Work is an analysis of organizational dynamics with wide-ranging implications in an age of market globalization. It looks at the challenges businesses face to maintain people-oriented work systems while remaining successful in the larger...

A radically subversive critique brings to the fore the masculine ideology implicit in psychoanalytic theory and in Western discourse in general: woman is defined as a disadvantaged man, a male construct with no status of her own.

"Wyman's book is the only one that comprehensively, and sensitively, depicts the plight of the postwar refugees in Western Europe."-M. Mark Stolarik, University of Ottawa "This is a fascinating and very moving book."-International Migration Review...

Perspective has been a divided subject, orphaned among various disciplines from philosophy to gardening. In the first book to bring together recent thinking on perspective from such fields as art history, literary theory, aesthetics, psychology, and the history of mathematics, James Elkins leads us to a new understanding of how we talk about...

This classic text, first published in 1935, is once again available. Still the standard reference in the English language, Principles of Insect Morphology is considered the author's masterpiece. A talented artist as well as one of the leading entomologists of his day, Robert E. Snodgrass produced a wealth of publications that display an...

Takako Lento and W. S. Merwin's collaborative translation of Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson (2013) won the 2013-14 Japan-US Friendship Prize in Translation. Her recent publications include The Art of Being Alone, poems of Tanikawa Shuntaro 1952-2009, and Tamura Ryuichi.

This generous selection of published essays by the distinguished classicist Charles Segal represents over twenty years of critical inquiry into the questions of what Greek tragedy is...

Calling into question the common assumption that the Middle Ages produced no secondary epics, Ann W. Astell here revises a key chapter in literary history. She examines the connections between the Book of Job and Boethius' s Consolation of Philosophy...

The large number of Jews living in Polish lands had lived as a separate estate from the Poles until the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on many long-term factors and one major event - the Revolution of 1905 - this book traces Poland's failed attempts to integrate its Jewish communities into the country's social fabric.

The proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons is now the single most serious security concern for governments around the world. Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz compare how military threats, strategic cultures, and...