Books published by Princeton University Press

How ideas and experiences of beauty informed human relationships with the divine in ancient GreeceBeginning with the earliest Greek literature, the epics of Homer and Hesiod, beauty was seen as having a special connection with the divine. The gods of ancient Greece were defined by their exceptional beauty; even today, 'to look like a Greek god' is proverbial for human beauty. In Beauty and the Gods, Hugo Shakeshaft explores the relationship between the beautiful and divine in ancient Greece, principally in the Archaic period (ca. 750-480 BCE). Analysing evidence that ranges from poetry, art, and philosophical texts to architecture and the natural landscape, Shakeshaft shows how ideas and experiences of beauty shaped Greek relations with the divine. With a powerful call for the place of beauty and aesthetics in the writing of history, Shakeshaft uncovers the cultural dialogue between beauty and the gods in a variety of contexts in the Archaic Greek world: in forms of divine worship; in poetry, music, and dance; in attitudes to the natural environment; and in architecture and art. This early chapter of Greek history, he argues, holds an unrecognised key to understanding some long-running threads in the histories of religion, art, and aesthetics, from Plato's aesthetic theories to beauty's status in contemporary discourse. Beauty's deep past and divine connection in ancient Greece can help us see beauty now in sharper focus.

How Chile became home to the world's most radical free-market experiment-and what its downfall suggests about the fate of neoliberalism around the globeIn The Chile Project, Sebastian Edwards tells the remarkable story of how the neoliberal economic model-installed in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship and deepened during three decades of left-of-center governments-came to an end in 2021, when Gabriel Boric, a young former student activist, was elected president, vowing that "If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave." More than a story about one Latin American country, The Chile Project is a behind-the-scenes history of the spread and consequences of the free-market thinking that dominated economic policymaking around the world in the second half of the twentieth century-but is now on the retreat. In 1955, the U.S. State Department launched the "Chile Project" to train Chilean economists at the University of Chicago, home of the libertarian Milton Friedman. After General Augusto Pinochet overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973, Chile's "Chicago Boys" implemented the purest neoliberal model in the world for the next seventeen years, undertaking a sweeping package of privatization and deregulation, creating a modern capitalist economy, and sparking talk of a "Chilean miracle." But under the veneer of success, a profound dissatisfaction with the vast inequalities caused by neoliberalism was growing. In 2019, protests erupted throughout the country, and in 2022 Boric began his presidency with a clear mandate: to end neoliberalismo. In telling the fascinating story of the Chicago Boys and Chile's free-market revolution, The Chile Project provides an important new perspective on the history of neoliberalism and its global decline today.

In the spirit of E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful, a dazzling and revelatory exploration of what ancient ideas and ways of living can teach us about creating a more sustainable worldHow should we think and live in a world facing environmental catastrophe? In this urgent, original, and wide-ranging book, classicist and farmer M. D. Usher brings together ancient, indigenous, and modern ideas about how to live in this world and describes how we might begin to reconnect with Nature and heal our damaged planet and lives. The ancients were close to Nature, the source of their survival, in ways that most of us can scarcely conceive of today, and ancient philosophy often argues that humans should follow Nature's lead. Usher makes the case that Nature's resilience can serve as a model for our own responses to climate trauma and all the other harms caused by modern lifestyles. Drawing on philosophy, science, economics, art, literature, history, and religion, Following Nature's Lead is both an indictment of human overreach and a celebration of human ingenuity and the adaptability of Nature. Here, Plato meets German biologist Jakob von Uexküll, Lucretius illuminates King Lear, and Diogenes the Cynic crosses swords with Henry Thoreau. Filled with vital and inspiring insights, Following Nature's Lead shows how the ancients can help teach us to live in accordance with Nature-and why it's essential for human survival that we learn to do so without delay.

A vivid portrait of the life and work of Carl LinnaeusCarl Linnaeus (1707-1778), known as the father of modern biological taxonomy, formalized and popularized the system of binomial nomenclature used to classify plants and animals. Linnaeus himself classified thousands of species; the simple and immediately recognizable abbreviation "L" is used to mark classifications originally made by Linnaeus. This biography, by the leading authority on Linnaeus, offers a vivid portrait of Linnaeus's life and work. Drawing on a wide range of previously unpublished sources-including diaries and personal correspondence-as well as new research, it presents revealing and original accounts of his family life, the political context in which he pursued his work, and his eccentric views on sexuality. The Man Who Organized Nature describes Linnaeus's childhood in a landscape of striking natural beauty and how this influenced his later work. Linnaeus's Lutheran pastor father, knowledgeable about plants and an enthusiastic gardener, helped foster an early interest in botany. The book examines the political connections that helped Linnaeus secure patronage for his work, and untangles his ideas about sexuality. These were not, as often assumed, an attempt to naturalize gender categories but more likely reflected the laissez-faire attitudes of the era. Linnaeus, like many other brilliant scientists, could be moody and egotistical; the book describes his human failings as well as his medical and scientific achievements. Written in an engaging and accessible style, The Man Who Organized Nature-one of the only biographies of Linnaeus to appear in English-provides new and fascinating insights into the life of one of history's most consequential and enigmatic scientists.

What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combination of passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine. Modern culture exhibits two attitudes toward truth: suspicion of being deceived (no one wants to be fooled) and skepticism that objective truth exists at all (no one wants to be naive). This tension between a demand for truthfulness and the doubt that there is any truth to be found is not an abstract paradox. It has political consequences and signals a danger that our intellectual activities, particularly in the humanities, may tear themselves to pieces. Williams's approach, in the tradition of Nietzsche's genealogy, blends philosophy, history, and a fictional account of how the human concern with truth might have arisen. Without denying that we should worry about the contingency of much that we take for granted, he defends truth as an intellectual objective and a cultural value. He identifies two basic virtues of truth, Accuracy and Sincerity, the first of which aims at finding out the truth and the second at telling it. He describes different psychological and social forms that these virtues have taken and asks what ideas can make best sense of them today. Truth and Truthfulness presents a powerful challenge to the fashionable belief that truth has no value, but equally to the traditional faith that its value guarantees itself. Bernard Williams shows us that when we lose a sense of the value of truth, we lose a lot both politically and personally, and may well lose everything.

In this landmark book, Scott Page redefines the way we understand ourselves in relation to one another. The Difference is about how we think in groups--and how our collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Why can teams of people find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the very qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity--not what we look like outside, but what we look like within, our distinct tools and abilities. The Difference reveals that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers with enormous IQs than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality. Page shows how groups that display a range of perspectives outperform groups of like-minded experts. Diversity yields superior outcomes, and Page proves it using his own cutting-edge research. Moving beyond the politics that cloud standard debates about diversity, he explains why difference beats out homogeneity, whether you're talking about citizens in a democracy or scientists in the laboratory. He examines practical ways to apply diversity's logic to a host of problems, and along the way offers fascinating and surprising examples, from the redesign of the Chicago "e;El"e; to the truth about where we store our ketchup. Page changes the way we understand diversity--how to harness its untapped potential, how to understand and avoid its traps, and how we can leverage our differences for the benefit of all.

How the euro survived a series of crises, and how to make it more resilientThe euro has survived crises unimagined at its founding: the financial meltdown of 2007-2009, the sovereign debt crisis of 2010-2012, the pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The European Central Bank fought these crises with dramatic policy innovations, buying up vast amounts of debt, and providing large loans to banks. But now everyone expects the ECB to intervene routinely, and the euro is more fragile as a result. Crisis Cycle recounts this history and offers recommendations for restoring a durable monetary union. Monetary and fiscal policy are intertwined, especially in a currency union like the eurozone. Member states can be tempted to borrow and spend too much, and then count on the ECB to rescue them by printing money to buy their bonds. To avoid these disincentives, the ECB was founded with a narrow mandate: use interest rates to pursue price stability, and don't buy sovereign debt. Debt and deficit rules would keep countries from getting into trouble. The ECB's emergency innovations brought back these disincentives. How can the EU avoid larger and larger bailouts? The authors argue that Europe needs a a joint fiscal institution that can provide temporary help to sovereigns, a resolution mechanism so sovereign default is a motivating possibility, and bank reform that ensures sovereign default will not bring down the financial system. This timely book shows how to restore the euro's ambitious and effective founding framework. The unique group of authors combine extensive policy experience and authoritative academic credentials.

From the acclaimed author of The Gunpowder Age, a book that casts new light on the history of China and the West at the turn of the nineteenth centuryGeorge Macartney's disastrous 1793 mission to China plays a central role in the prevailing narrative of modern Sino-European relations. Summarily dismissed by the Qing court, Macartney failed in nearly all of his objectives, perhaps setting the stage for the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century and the mistrust that still marks the relationship today. But not all European encounters with China were disastrous. The Last Embassy tells the story of the Dutch mission of 1795, bringing to light a dramatic but little-known episode that transforms our understanding of the history of China and the West.Drawing on a wealth of archival material, Tonio Andrade paints a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of an age marked by intrigues and war. China was on the brink of rebellion. In Europe, French armies were invading Holland. Enduring a harrowing voyage, the Dutch mission was to be the last European diplomatic delegation ever received in the traditional Chinese court. Andrade shows how, in contrast to the British emissaries, the Dutch were men with deep knowledge of Asia who respected regional diplomatic norms and were committed to understanding China on its own terms.Beautifully illustrated with sketches and paintings by Chinese and European artists, The Last Embassy suggests that the Qing court, often mischaracterized as arrogant and narrow-minded, was in fact open, flexible, curious, and cosmopolitan.

A landmark book on the influential many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanicsIn 1957, Hugh Everett proposed a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics-a view that eventually became known as the many-worlds interpretation. This book presents Everett's two landmark papers on the idea-"'Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics" and "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function"-as well as further discussion of the idea in papers from a number of other physicists: J. A. Wheeler, Bryce DeWitt, L. N. Cooper and D. Van Vechten, and Neill Graham. In his interpretation, Everett denies the existence of a separate classical realm and asserts the propriety of considering a state vector for the whole universe. Because this state vector never collapses, reality as a whole is rigorously deterministic. This reality, which is described jointly by the dynamical variables and the state vector, isn't the reality customarily perceived; rather, it's a reality composed of many worlds. By virtue of the temporal development of the dynamical variables, the state vector decomposes naturally into orthogonal vectors, reflecting a continual splitting of the universe into a multitude of mutually unobservable but equally real worlds, in each of which every good measurement has yielded a definite result, and in most of which the familiar statistical quantum laws hold. Bryce S. DeWitt (1923-2004) was a prize-winning theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Texas at Austin. Neill Graham (1941-2015) was a physicist and writer.

A landmark book on the influential many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanicsIn 1957, Hugh Everett proposed a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics-a view that eventually became known as the many-worlds interpretation. This book presents Everett's two landmark papers on the idea-"'Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics" and "The Theory of the Universal Wave Function"-as well as further discussion of the idea in papers from a number of other physicists: J. A. Wheeler, Bryce DeWitt, L. N. Cooper and D. Van Vechten, and Neill Graham. In his interpretation, Everett denies the existence of a separate classical realm and asserts the propriety of considering a state vector for the whole universe. Because this state vector never collapses, reality as a whole is rigorously deterministic. This reality, which is described jointly by the dynamical variables and the state vector, isn't the reality customarily perceived; rather, it's a reality composed of many worlds. By virtue of the temporal development of the dynamical variables, the state vector decomposes naturally into orthogonal vectors, reflecting a continual splitting of the universe into a multitude of mutually unobservable but equally real worlds, in each of which every good measurement has yielded a definite result, and in most of which the familiar statistical quantum laws hold. Bryce S. DeWitt (1923-2004) was a prize-winning theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Texas at Austin. Neill Graham (1941-2015) was a physicist and writer.

Volume two of the acclaimed three-volume series on modern Japanese colonialism and imperialismThis book brings together essays by leading experts on the history of Japan to examine the period from 1895 to 1937 when Japan’s economic, social, political, and military influence in China expanded so rapidly that it supplanted the influence of competing Western powers. They discuss how Japan’s informal empire emerged in China after Japan entered the Treaty Port system in 1895 and how it shaped Japan’s own internal development. How did Japan’s informal empire expand in size and importance so that Japanese economic and security interests became heavily dependent on China? What influence did Japanese business groups, China experts, and military have on their government’s China policy? How did the Japanese in China deal with the threatening rise of Chinese nationalism? Exploring these and other questions, these essays show how the pursuit of an informal empire in China played a profound role in the emergence of modern Japan. The contributors are Banno Junji, Barbara J. Brooks, Alvin D. Coox, Peter Duus, Albert Feuerwerker, Kitaoka Shin’ichi, Sophia Lee, Mizoguchi Toshiyuki, Ramon H. Myers, Nakagane Katsuji, Mark R. Peattie, Douglas R. Reynolds, and William D. Wray.This is the second volume of a series on modern Japanese colonialism and imperialism. Volume one is The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945. Volume three is The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931–1945.

Volume two of the acclaimed three-volume series on modern Japanese colonialism and imperialismThis book brings together essays by leading experts on the history of Japan to examine the period from 1895 to 1937 when Japan's economic, social, political, and military influence in China expanded so rapidly that it supplanted the influence of competing Western powers. They discuss how Japan's informal empire emerged in China after Japan entered the Treaty Port system in 1895 and how it shaped Japan's own internal development. How did Japan's informal empire expand in size and importance so that Japanese economic and security interests became heavily dependent on China? What influence did Japanese business groups, China experts, and military have on their government's China policy? How did the Japanese in China deal with the threatening rise of Chinese nationalism? Exploring these and other questions, these essays show how the pursuit of an informal empire in China played a profound role in the emergence of modern Japan. The contributors are Banno Junji, Barbara J. Brooks, Alvin D. Coox, Peter Duus, Albert Feuerwerker, Kitaoka Shin'ichi, Sophia Lee, Mizoguchi Toshiyuki, Ramon H. Myers, Nakagane Katsuji, Mark R. Peattie, Douglas R. Reynolds, and William D. Wray. This is the second volume of a series on modern Japanese colonialism and imperialism. Volume one is The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945. Volume three is The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931-1945.

In 1958, an African-American handyman named Jimmy Wilson was sentenced to die in Alabama for stealing two dollars. Shocking as this sentence was, it was overturned only after intense international attention and the interference of an embarrassed John Foster Dulles. Soon after the United States' segregated military defeated a racist regime in World War II, American racism was a major concern of U.S. allies, a chief Soviet propaganda theme, and an obstacle to American Cold War goals throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Each lynching harmed foreign relations, and "e;the Negro problem"e; became a central issue in every administration from Truman to Johnson. In what may be the best analysis of how international relations affected any domestic issue, Mary Dudziak interprets postwar civil rights as a Cold War feature. She argues that the Cold War helped facilitate key social reforms, including desegregation. Civil rights activists gained tremendous advantage as the government sought to polish its international image. But improving the nation's reputation did not always require real change. This focus on image rather than substance--combined with constraints on McCarthy-era political activism and the triumph of law-and-order rhetoric--limited the nature and extent of progress. Archival information, much of it newly available, supports Dudziak's argument that civil rights was Cold War policy. But the story is also one of people: an African-American veteran of World War II lynched in Georgia; an attorney general flooded by civil rights petitions from abroad; the teenagers who desegregated Little Rock's Central High; African diplomats denied restaurant service; black artists living in Europe and supporting the civil rights movement from overseas; conservative politicians viewing desegregation as a communist plot; and civil rights leaders who saw their struggle eclipsed by Vietnam. Never before has any scholar so directly connected civil rights and the Cold War. Contributing mightily to our understanding of both, Dudziak advances--in clear and lively prose--a new wave of scholarship that corrects isolationist tendencies in American history by applying an international perspective to domestic affairs. In her new preface, Dudziak discusses the way the Cold War figures into civil rights history, and details this book's origins, as one question about civil rights could not be answered without broadening her research from domestic to international influences on American history.

One of the most important mathematical achievements of the past several decades has been A. Grothendieck's work on algebraic geometry. In the early 1960s, he and M. Artin introduced etale cohomology in order to extend the methods of sheaf-theoretic cohomology from complex varieties to more general schemes. This work found many applications, not only in algebraic geometry, but also in several different branches of number theory and in the representation theory of finite and p-adic groups. Yet until now, the work has been available only in the original massive and difficult papers. In order to provide an accessible introduction to etale cohomology, J. S. Milne offers this more elementary account covering the essential features of the theory. The author begins with a review of the basic properties of flat and etale morphisms and of the algebraic fundamental group. The next two chapters concern the basic theory of etale sheaves and elementary etale cohomology, and are followed by an application of the cohomology to the study of the Brauer group. After a detailed analysis of the cohomology of curves and surfaces, Professor Milne proves the fundamental theorems in etale cohomology -- those of base change, purity, Poincare duality, and the Lefschetz trace formula. He then applies these theorems to show the rationality of some very general L-series.Originally published in 1980.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A magisterial history of the Renaissance and the birth of the modern worldThe cultural epoch we know as the Renaissance emerged at a certain time and in a certain place. Why then and not earlier? Why there and not elsewhere? In The World at First Light, historian Bernd Roeck explores the cultural and historical preconditions that enabled the European Renaissance. Roeck shows that the rediscovery of ancient knowledge, including the science of the medieval Arab world, played a critical role in shaping the beginnings of Western modernity. He explains that the Renaissance emerged in a part of Europe where competing states and cities formed relatively open societies. Most of the era's creative minds-from Leonardo de Vinci and Michelangelo to Copernicus and Galileo-came from the middle classes. The art of arguing flowered, the basso continuo to intellectual and cultural breakthroughs. Roeck argues that two revolutions shaped the Renaissance: a media revolution, triggered by Gutenberg's invention of movable type-which itself was a driving force behind the scientific revolution and the advent of modern science. He also reports on the dark side of the era-hatred of Jews, witch panic, religious wars, and the atrocities of colonialism. In a series of meditative counterfactuals, Roeck considers other cultural rebirths throughout the first millennium, from the Islamic empire to the Carolingians, examining why the epic developments of the Renaissance took place in the West and not elsewhere. The complicated legacy of the Renaissance, he shows, encompasses the art of critical thinking as learned from the ancients, the emergence of the modern state, and the genesis of democracy.

A richly illustrated look at the intersection of art and science in Renaissance EuropeArt played a pivotal role in the development of natural history during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. European colonial expansion enabled naturalists to study previously unknown insects, animals, and other beestjes-"little beasts"-from around the globe. Little Beasts explores how artists such as Joris Hoefnagel and Jan van Kessel helped deepen and spread knowledge of these creatures with highly detailed and playful works that inspired generations of printmakers, painters, decorative artists, and naturalists. This appealing book begins by mapping the origins of natural history as a discipline, showing how early illustrated treatises reflected a vibrant exchange between artists and naturalists that contributed to the growth of natural science and sparked public fascination with the animal kingdom. It shares insights into Hoefnagel's engagement with contemporary natural history, as demonstrated in his Four Elements-a four-volume series of some three hundred watercolor miniatures of animals-and examines how intaglio printmaking enabled natural history studies to reach new audiences. The volume concludes with a discussion of Van Kessel's small oil paintings, likely made for discerning collectors of both natural and artistic curiosities. Blending lively and informative essays with beautiful illustrations, Little Beasts traces the connections between artists, naturalists, and collectors in an age of scientific discovery and broadening horizons, inviting readers to look with wonder at nature's variety. Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DCExhibition ScheduleNational Gallery of Art, Washington, DCMay 18-November 2, 2025

The virulent new brand of Islamic extremism threatening the WestIn November 2015, ISIS terrorists massacred scores of people in Paris with coordinated attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, cafes and restaurants, and the national sports stadium. On Bastille Day in 2016, an ISIS sympathizer drove a truck into crowds of vacationers at the beaches of Nice, and two weeks later an elderly French priest was murdered during morning Mass by two ISIS militants. Here is Gilles Kepel's explosive account of the radicalization of a segment of Muslim youth that led to those attacks-and of the failure of governments in France and across Europe to address it. It is a book everyone in the West must read.Terror in France shows how these atrocities represent a paroxysm of violence that has long been building. The turning point was in 2005, when the worst riots in modern French history erupted in the poor, largely Muslim suburbs of Paris after the accidental deaths of two boys who had been running from the police. The unrest-or "e;French intifada"e;-crystallized a new consciousness among young French Muslims. Some have fallen prey to the allure of "e;war of civilizations"e; rhetoric in ways never imagined by their parents and grandparents.This is the highly anticipated English edition of Kepel's sensational French bestseller, first published shortly after the Paris attacks. Now fully updated to reflect the latest developments and featuring a new introduction by the author, Terror in France reveals the truth about a virulent new wave of jihadism that has Europe as its main target. Its aim is to divide European societies from within by instilling fear, provoking backlash, and achieving the ISIS dream-shared by Europe's Far Right-of separating Europe's growing Muslim minority community from the rest of its citizens.

An interdisciplinary history of trigonometry from the mid-sixteenth century to the early twentiethThe Doctrine of Triangles offers an interdisciplinary history of trigonometry that spans four centuries, starting in 1550 and concluding in the 1900s. Glen Van Brummelen tells the story of trigonometry as it evolved from an instrument for understanding the heavens to a practical tool, used in fields such as surveying and navigation. In Europe, China, and America, trigonometry aided and was itself transformed by concurrent mathematical revolutions, as well as the rise of science and technology.Following its uses in mid-sixteenth-century Europe as the "e;foot of the ladder to the stars"e; and the mathematical helpmate of astronomy, trigonometry became a ubiquitous tool for modeling various phenomena, including animal populations and sound waves. In the late sixteenth century, trigonometry increasingly entered the physical world through the practical disciplines, and its societal reach expanded with the invention of logarithms. Calculus shifted mathematical reasoning from geometric to algebraic patterns of thought, and trigonometry's participation in this new mathematical analysis grew, encouraging such innovations as complex numbers and non-Euclidean geometry. Meanwhile in China, trigonometry was evolving rapidly too, sometimes merging with indigenous forms of knowledge, and with Western discoveries. In the nineteenth century, trigonometry became even more integral to science and industry as a fundamental part of the science and engineering toolbox, and a staple subject in high school classrooms.A masterful combination of scholarly rigor and compelling narrative, The Doctrine of Triangles brings trigonometry's rich historical past full circle into the modern era.

A fascinating collection of questions and answers-about courtship, marriage, love, and sex-from a seventeenth-century periodical The Athenian Mercury-a one-page, two-sided periodical published in 1690s London-included the world's first personal advice column. Acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Beth Norton's "I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer" is a remarkable collection of questions and answers drawn from this groundbreaking publication. In these exchanges, anonymous readers look for help with their most intimate romantic problems-about courting, picking a spouse, getting married, securing or avoiding parental consent, engaging in premarital sex and extramarital affairs, and much more. Spouses ask how to handle contentious marriages and tense relationships with in-laws. Some correspondents seek ways to ease a conscience troubled by romantic and sexual misbehavior. The lonely wonder how to meet a potential partner-or how to spark a warmer relationship with someone they already have an eye on. And both men and women inquire about how to extract themselves from relationships turned sour. Many of these concerns will be familiar to readers of today's advice columns. But others are delightfully strange and surprising, reflecting forgotten social and romantic customs and using charmingly unfamiliar language in which, for example, "kissing is a luscious diet," a marriage might provide "much love and moderate conveniency," and an "amorous disposition" can lead to trouble. Delightful and entertaining, "I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer" provides a unique, intriguing, and revealing picture of what has-and hasn't-changed over the past three centuries when it comes to love, sex, and relationships.

From one of today's most innovative ancient historians, a provocative new vision of why ancient history matters-and why it needs to be told in a radically different, global wayIt's easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history-obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history-a global history that captures antiquity's pivotal role as a decisive phase in human development, one that provided the shared foundation of our world and continues to shapes our lives today. For Scheidel, ancient history is when the earliest versions of today's ways of life were created and spread-from farming, mining, and engineering to housing and transportation, cities and government, writing and belief systems. Transforming the planet, this process unfolded all over the world, in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, often at different times, sometimes haltingly but ultimately unstoppably. Yet it's rarely studied or taught that way. Since the eighteenth century, Western intellectuals have dismembered the ancient world, driven not only by their quest for professional expertise but also by nationalism, colonialism, racism, and the idealization of Greece and Rome. Specialized scholarship has fractured into numerous academic niches, obscuring broader patterns and dynamics and keeping us from understanding just how much humanity has long had in common. The time has come, Scheidel argues, to put the ancient world back together-by moving beyond the limitations of Greco-Roman "classics," by systematically comparing ancient societies, and by exploring early exchanges and connections between them. The time has come, in other words, for an ancient history for everyone.

A dazzling new history of the Indian subcontinent and its diverse peoples in global context-from antiquity to todayMuch of world history is Indian history. Home today to one in four people, the subcontinent has long been densely populated and deeply connected to Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas through migration and trade. In this magisterial history, Audrey Truschke tells the fascinating story of the region historically known as India-which includes today's India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Afghanistan-and the people who have lived there. A sweeping account of five millennia, from the dawn of the Indus Valley Civilization to the twenty-first century, this engaging and richly textured narrative chronicles the most important political, social, religious, intellectual, and cultural events. And throughout, it describes how the region has been continuously reshaped by its astonishing diversity, religious and political innovations, and social stratification. Here, readers will learn about Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, and Sikhism; the Vedas and Mahabharata; Ashoka and the Mauryan Empire; the Silk Road; the Cholas; Indo-Persian rule; the Mughal Empire; European colonialism; national independence movements; the 1947 Partition of India; the recent rise of Hindu nationalism; the challenges of climate change; and much more. Emphasizing the diversity of human experiences on the subcontinent, the book presents a wide range of voices, including those of women, religious minorities, lower classes, and other marginalized groups. You cannot understand India today without appreciating its deeply contested history, which continues to drive current events and controversies. A comprehensive and innovative book, India is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the past, present, or future of the subcontinent.

Presents a study of network flow problems. This title introduces the models and algorithms that can be used in the fields of transportation systems, manufacturing, inventory planning, image processing, and internet traffic. It is suitable for the researchers working with networks.