Books published by Princeton University Press

An examination of how the Jews--real and imagined--so challenged the Christian majority in medieval Europe that it became a society that was religiously and culturally antisemitic in new ways In medieval Europe, Jews were not passive victims of the Christian community, as is often assumed, but rather were startlingly assertive, forming a Jewish civilization within Latin Christian society. Both Jews and Christians considered themselves to be God's chosen people. These dueling claims fueled the rise of both cultures as they became rivals for supremacy. In How the West Became Antisemitic, Ivan Marcus shows how Christian and Jewish competition in medieval Europe laid the foundation for modern antisemitism. Marcus explains that Jews accepted Christians as misguided practitioners of their ancestral customs, but regarded Christianity as idolatry. Christians, on the other hand, looked at Jews themselves--not Judaism--as despised. They directed their hatred at a real and imagined Jew: theoretically subordinate, but sometimes assertive, an implacable "enemy within." In their view, Jews were permanently and physically Jewish--impossible to convert to Christianity. Thus Christians came to hate Jews first for religious reasons, and eventually for racial ones. Even when Jews no longer lived among them, medieval Christians could not forget their former neighbors. Modern antisemitism, based on the imagined Jew as powerful and world dominating, is a transformation of this medieval hatred. A sweeping and well-documented history of the rivalry between Jewish and Christian civilizations during the making of Europe, How the West Became Antisemitic is an ambitious new interpretation of the medieval world and its impact on modernity.

A fun, pocket-sized A-Z treasury about sharks, featuring fascinating, little-known facts and captivating illustrations Sharkpedia is an entertaining and enlightening celebration of sharks featuring close to 100 entries, based on the latest knowledge and enriched by original illustrations. Avoiding tired factoids, shark authority Daniel Abel gives new bite to essential information about sharks, including their adaptations as top predators, 450-million-year evolution, behavioral complexity, ecological importance, existential threats, and often sensationalized appearances in popular culture, from Jaws to Shark Week. The notion that sharks are insatiable killing machines is a toothless myth--yet the fear of shark attacks still holds onto many people like a set of locked jaws. Sharkpedia reveals that sharks are much less to be feared--and much more interesting, complicated, and important--than many realize. Filled with compelling stories, Sharkpedia debunks shark myths (for example, that sharks are large and coastal when in fact most are small and inhabit the deep sea), describes their lives (where and how long they live, how many offspring they have, what they eat, and how their bodies function), introduces a variety of iconic and obscure species (such as the Happy Eddie Shyshark), explores our love/hate relationship with sharks, and much more. With charming drawings by leading shark artist Marc Dando, Sharkpedia is a scientific and cultural treasure trove that will leave you with new insights about these remarkable animals. Dive in!Features a cloth cover with an elaborate foil-stamped design

We can repair our democracy by rebuilding the mechanisms that power it What's the best way to determine what most voters want when multiple candidates are running? What's the fairest way to allocate legislative seats to different constituencies? What's the least distorted way to draw voting districts? Not the way we do things now. Democracy is mathematical to its very foundations. Yet most of the methods in use are a historical grab bag of the shortsighted, the cynical, the innumerate, and the outright discriminatory. Making Democracy Count sheds new light on our electoral systems, revealing how a deeper understanding of the mathematics is the key to creating civic infrastructure that works for everyone. In this timely guide, Ismar Volic empowers us to use mathematical thinking as an objective, nonpartisan framework that rises above the noise and rancor of today's divided public square. Examining our representative democracy using powerful clarifying concepts, we see why our current voting system stifles political diversity, why the size of the House of Representatives contributes to its paralysis, why gerrymandering is a sinister instrument that entrenches partisanship and disenfranchisement, and why we must rethink the Electoral College--and we also understand what can work better and why. Volic also discusses the legal and constitutional practicalities involved and proposes a road map for repairing the mathematical structures that undergird representative government. Making Democracy Count gives us the concrete knowledge and the confidence to advocate for a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy.

A definitive scholarly edition of the correspondence and papers of Albert Einstein After a prolonged illness, this volume finds Einstein recovered and traveling again, to Paris, London, and Zurich to receive three honorary doctorates; to the Sixth Solvay Congress in Brussels and to Leyden; and to attend the Constituent Meeting of the Jewish Agency Council in Zurich and the twelfth session of the ICIC in Geneva. By the end of the volume, Einstein embarks for a transatlantic voyage for the first time in five years to spend an academic term at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Einstein's work focuses on the teleparallel approach to unified field theory, on which he engages in intensive correspondence with Élie Cartan and begins his collaboration with Walther Mayer. He also presents popular accounts of his work, surveying the historical progression from classical to twentieth-century physics leading up to the latest developments in unified field theory. He also engages in lively exchanges on both technical and foundational issues in quantum mechanics with W. Pauli, M. Born, M. Schlick, and others. His personal correspondence reflects eventful changes: the Einsteins realize their dream of owning a summer house outside Berlin, Einstein becomes a grandfather, his younger son Eduard commences his university studies and has his first serious mental health crisis, and his younger stepdaughter Margot gets married. Einstein's ties to the Zionist movement are seriously tested in the wake of the violence that erupts in British Mandate Palestine in 1929, to which he reacts with forceful calls for a genuine symbiosis between Jews and Arabs, proposing the establishment of joint administrative, economic, and social organizations. He warns that without finding "the path to honest cooperation and honest negotiations with the Arabs," "we [Jews] have learned nothing from our two-thousand year ordeal and deserve the fate that will befall us." In Germany, too, Einstein champions democracy in the face of rising support for the Nazi Party, is active on behalf of Jewish refugees, opposes the death penalty, and supports abortion rights and the decriminalization of homosexuality. Einstein promotes pacifism more vigorously. His efforts to promote peace follow three distinct transnational avenues: disarmament, conscientious objection, and apolitical pacifism, aimed "to find practical mechanisms to restrict the nation state."

An illustrated mini-encyclopedia about the weird and wonderful world of lichens Lichenpedia is a delightfully entertaining and beautifully illustrated A-Z treasury about the strange, obscure, and remarkable world of lichens, from their unique and essential roles in nature and the ways they are used in dyeing, brewing, and drug-making--to how they have inspired writers and artists, from Henry David Thoreau to modern painters. In 100 brief entries written in a vivid, lively style, Kay Hurley introduces key aspects of lichen biology, environmental roles, emerging uses, scientific history, and myth. She describes the variety of forms that lichens take, from leafy to filamentous to things reminiscent of skin diseases, with imaginative names like witch's hair. She explains the surprising ways that birds and beasts--from reindeer and moose down to tiny tardigrades--use lichens, and how lichens survive in extreme environments, from deserts to Antarctica to outer space. Hurley also introduces some of the innovators who have advanced the knowledge of lichens, from the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus to today's professional lichenologists. With charming drawings by Susan Adele Edwards, Lichenpedia promises to put you in touch with the natural world in a new way by opening your eyes to these vital organisms, which are all around us, hidden in plain sight.Features a cloth cover with an elaborate foil-stamped design

A sweeping account of male nurturing, explaining how and why men are biologically transformed when they care for babies It has long seemed self-evident that women care for babies and men do other things. Hasn't it always been so? When evolutionary science came along, it rubber-stamped this venerable division of labor: mammalian males evolved to compete for status and mates, while females were purpose-built to gestate, suckle, and otherwise nurture the victors' offspring. But come the twenty-first century, increasing numbers of men are tending babies, sometimes right from birth. How can this be happening? Puzzled and dazzled by the tender expertise of new fathers around the world--several in her own family--celebrated evolutionary anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy set out to trace the deep history of male nurturing and explain a surprising departure from everything she had assumed to be "normal." In Father Time, Hrdy draws on a wealth of research to argue that this ongoing transformation in men is not only cultural, but profoundly biological. Men in prolonged intimate contact with babies exhibit responses nearly identical to those in the bodies and brains of mothers. They develop caring potential few realized men possessed. In her quest to explain how men came to nurture babies, Hrdy travels back through millions of years of human, primate, and mammalian evolution, then back further still to the earliest vertebrates--all while taking into account recent economic and social trends and technological innovations and incorporating new findings from neuroscience, genetics, endocrinology, and more. The result is a masterful synthesis of evolutionary and historical perspectives that expands our understanding of what it means to be a man--and what the implications might be for society and our species.

"This book is a historical consideration of how poor posture became a dreaded pathology in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. It opens with the "outbreak" of the poor posture epidemic, which began with turn-of-the-century paleoanthropologists: If upright posture was the first of all attributes that separated human from beasts - and importantly a precondition for the development of intellect and speech - what did it mean that a majority of Americans slouched? By World War I, public health officials claimed that 80% of Americans suffered from postural abnormalities. Panic spread, setting into motion initiatives intended to stem the slouching epidemic, as schoolteachers, shoe companies, clothing manufacturers, public health officials, medical professionals, and the popular press exhorted the public toward detection. Wellness programs stigmatized disability while also encouraging the belief that health and ableness could be purchased through consumer goods. What makes this epidemic unique is that, in the absence of a communicable contagion, it was largely driven by a cultural intolerance of disabled bodies, with notions of "ableness" taking hold for much of the twentieth century. The author traces this history through its consequential demise, as social movements of the 1960s prompted people to push back against invasive and discriminatory standards. Large-scale physical fitness assessments designed to weed out defective bodies relied on compliant participants, and the Civil Rights and Women's Movement, as well as the anti-Vietnam war protests and Disability Rights Movements eventually halted that supply, and in the 1990s a public outcry destroyed many of the archives and materials collected. Nevertheless, anxiety over posture persists to this day"--

An inspiring vision of how we can build a more just world-one small change at a time"e;A book as urgent as the moment that produced it."e;-Jelani Cobb, Columbia Journalism SchoolLong before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.Vividly recounting her personal experiences and those of her family, Benjamin shows how seemingly minor decisions and habits could spread virally and have exponentially positive effects. She recounts her father's premature death, illuminating the devastating impact of the chronic stress of racism, but she also introduces us to community organizers who are fostering mutual aid and collective healing. Through her brother's experience with the criminal justice system, we see the trauma caused by policing practices and mass imprisonment, but we also witness family members finding strength as they come together to demand justice for their loved ones. And while her own challenges as a young mother reveal the vast inequities of our healthcare system, Benjamin also describes how the support of doulas and midwives can keep Black mothers and babies alive and well.Born of a stubborn hopefulness, Viral Justice offers a passionate, inspiring, and practical vision of how small changes can add up to large ones, transforming our relationships and communities and helping us build a more just and joyful world.

How Social Security has shaped American politics-and why it faces insolvencySince its establishment, Social Security has become the financial linchpin of American retirement. Yet demographic trends-longer lifespans and declining birthrates-mean that this popular program now pays more in benefits than it collects in revenue. Without reforms, 83 million Americans will face an immediate benefit cut of 20 percent in 2034. How did we get here and what is the solution? In Fixing Social Security, R. Douglas Arnold explores the historical role that Social Security has played in American politics, why Congress has done nothing to fix its insolvency problem for three decades, and what legislators can do to save it.What options do legislators have as the program nears the precipice? They can raise taxes, as they did in 1977, cut benefits, as they did in 1983, or reinvent the program, as they attempted in 2005. Unfortunately, every option would impose costs, and legislators are reluctant to act, fearing electoral retribution. Arnold investigates why politicians designed the system as they did and how between 1935 and 1983 they allocated-and reallocated-costs and benefits among workers, employers, and beneficiaries. He also examines public support for the program, and why Democratic and Republican representatives, once political allies in expanding Social Security, have become so deeply polarized about fixing it.As Social Security edges closer to crisis, Fixing Social Security offers a comprehensive analysis of the political fault lines and a fresh look at what can be done-before it is too late.

A revealing look at the covert and institutionalized racism lurking in the congressional workplace Racism continues to infuse Congress's daily practice of lawmaking and shape who obtains congressional employment. In this timely and provocative book, James Jones reveals how and why many who work there call Congress the "Last Plantation." He shows that even as the civil rights movement gained momentum in the 1960s and anti-discrimination laws were implemented across the nation, Congress remained exempt from federal workplace protections for decades. These exemptions institutionalized inequality in the congressional workplace well into the twenty-first century. Combining groundbreaking research and compelling firsthand accounts from scores of congressional staffers, Jones uncovers the hidden dynamics of power, privilege, and resistance in Congress. He reveals how failures of racial representation among congressional staffers reverberate throughout the American political system and demonstrates how the absence of diverse perspectives hamper the creation of just legislation. Centering the experiences of Black workers within this complex landscape, he provides valuable insights into the problems they face, the barriers that hinder their progress, and the ways they contest entrenched inequality. A must-read for anyone concerned about social justice and the future of our democracy, The Last Plantation exposes the mechanisms that perpetuate racial inequality in the halls of Congress and challenges us to confront and transform this unequal workplace that shapes our politics and society.

A concise illustrated history of one of art's most important and elusive elements Over the millennia, humans have used pigments to decorate, narrate, and instruct. Charred bone, ground earth, stones, bugs, and blood were the first pigments. New pigments were manufactured by simple processes such as corrosion and calcination until the Industrial Revolution introduced colors outside the spectrum of the natural world. Pigments brings together leading art historians and conservators to trace the history of the materials used to create color and their invention across diverse cultures and time periods. This richly illustrated book features incisive historical essays and case studies that shed light on the many forms of pigments--the organic and inorganic; the edible and the toxic; and those that are more precious than gold. It shows how pigments were as central to the earliest artforms and global trade networks as they are to commerce, ornamentation, and artistic expression today. The book reveals the innate instability and mutability of most pigments and discusses how few artworks or objects look as they did when they were first created. From cave paintings to contemporary art, Pigments demonstrates how a material understanding of color opens new perspectives on visual culture and the history of art.

Back in print for the first time in decades, Auden's National Book Award-winning poetry collection, in a critical edition that introduces it to a new generation of readers The Shield of Achilles, which won the National Book Award in 1956, may well be W. H. Auden's most important, intricately designed, and unified book of poetry. In addition to its famous title poem, which reimagines Achilles's shield for the modern age, when war and heroism have changed beyond recognition, the book also includes two sequences--"Bucolics" and "Horae Canonicae"--that Auden believed to be among his most significant work. Featuring an authoritative text and an introduction and notes by Alan Jacobs, this volume brings Auden's collection back into print for the first time in decades and offers the only critical edition of the work. As Jacobs writes in the introduction, Auden's collection "is the boldest and most intellectually assured work of his career, an achievement that has not been sufficiently acknowledged." Describing the book's formal qualities and careful structure, Jacobs shows why The Shield of Achilles should be seen as one of Auden's most central poetic statements--a richly imaginative, beautifully envisioned account of what it means to live, as human beings do, simultaneously in nature and in history.

How an eighteenth-century engraving of a slave ship became a cultural icon of Black resistance, identity, and remembrance One of the most iconic images of slavery is a schematic wood engraving depicting the human cargo hold of a slave ship. First published by British abolitionists in 1788, it exposed this widespread commercial practice for what it really was--shocking, immoral, barbaric, unimaginable. Printed as handbills and broadsides, the image Cheryl Finley has termed the "slave ship icon" was easily reproduced, and by the end of the eighteenth century it was circulating by the tens of thousands around the Atlantic rim. Committed to Memory provides the first in-depth look at how this artifact of the fight against slavery became an enduring symbol of Black resistance, identity, and remembrance. Finley traces how the slave ship icon became a powerful tool in the hands of British and American abolitionists, and how its radical potential was rediscovered in the twentieth century by Black artists, activists, writers, filmmakers, and curators. Finley offers provocative new insights into the works of Amiri Baraka, Romare Bearden, Betye Saar, and many others. She demonstrates how the icon was transformed into poetry, literature, visual art, sculpture, performance, and film--and became a medium through which diasporic Africans have reasserted their common identity and memorialized their ancestors. Beautifully illustrated, Committed to Memory features works from around the world, taking readers from the United States and England to West Africa and the Caribbean. It shows how contemporary Black artists and their allies have used this iconic eighteenth-century engraving to reflect on the trauma of slavery and come to terms with its legacy.

"Newburgh, NY-a city of about 30,000 residents, located roughly sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley-is a quintessential example of a small, under-resourced, majority-minority, post-industrial city that has struggled to transition into the service, technology, and knowledge-based economy. Like many other similarly sized cities throughout the American northeast and midwest, white flight and decades of disinvestment left it racially segregated, facing perennially high poverty and crime rates, and offering few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents. And yet, Newburgh is now home to a gentrifying historic district, including an attractive, amenity-filled commercial strip, and an influx of middle-class, creative professionals as residents. Scholarship in urban studies has yet to offer a satisfactory explanation for how small, rust-belt cities such as Newburgh are finding ways to reverse decades of decline. This book is a contribution to that end. Sixty Miles Upriver argues that Newburgh's recent revitalization was motivated not by downtown or waterfront redevelopment, government planning, or existing institutions and assets, but rather by one factor above all else: its proximity to New York City. Drawing on several years of observations of the development of Newburgh's communities and participation in community meetings and volunteer events, as well as over 140 interviews people of diverse backgrounds, Richard Ocejo offers a detailed account of a small city in transition, struggling through the contradictions of gentrification. Ocejo observes that small city gentrification typically results from middle-class urbanites fleeing larger cities like New York. But he argues that, unlike the white flight of previous generations, fear of racial minorities and urban decline are no longer the motivating factors. Instead, small city gentrifiers are driven out of larger cities as affordable, middle-income neighborhoods become scarcer, and they are attracted to cities like Newburgh precisely because of the "grit" and racial diversity that they identify with "authentic" urban life. By engaging with the effects that such transplants have had on the development of Newburgh, and examining the varying ways they navigate race, racial difference, and racialization in majority-minority cities to suit their needs and fulfill their aims, Sixty Miles Upriver helps us make sense of two key phenomena in today's spatial landscape: how gentrification unfolds outside of large cities and how it comes to be seen as good"--

"How the subtle but significant consequences of a hotter planet have already begun-from lower test scores to higher crime rates-and how we might tackle them todayIt's hard not to feel anxious about the problem of climate change, especially if we think of it as an impending planetary catastrophe. In Slow Burn, R. Jisung Park encourages us to view climate change through a different lens: one that focuses less on the possibility of mass climate extinction in a theoretical future, and more on the everyday implications of climate change here and now.Drawing on a wealth of new data and cutting-edge economics, Park shows how climate change headlines often miss some of the most important costs. When wildfires blaze, what happens to people downwind of the smoke? When natural disasters destroy buildings and bridges, what happens to educational outcomes? Park explains how climate change operates as the silent accumulation of a thousand tiny conflagrations: imperceptibly elevated health risks spread across billions of people; pennies off the dollar of productivity; fewer opportunities for upward mobility.By investigating how the physical phenomenon of climate change interacts with social and economic institutions, Park illustrates how climate change already affects everyone, and may act as an amplifier of inequality. Wealthier households and corporations may adapt quickly, but, without targeted interventions, less advantaged communities may not.Viewing climate change as a slow and unequal burn comes with an important silver lining. It puts dollars and cents behind the case for aggressive emissions cuts and helps identify concrete steps that can be taken to better manage its adverse effects. We can begin to overcome our climate anxiety, Park shows us, when we begin to tackle these problems locally"--

"Covering the whole of the ancient Greek experience from its beginnings late in the third millennium BCE to the Roman conquest in 30 BCE, Out of One, Many is an accessible and lively introduction to the Greeks and their ways of living and thinking. In this fresh and witty exploration of the thought, culture, society, and history of the Greeks, Jennifer Roberts traces not only the common values that united them across the seas and the centuries, but also the enormous diversity in their ideas and beliefs." --

The definitive comprehensive photographic field guide to the larger mammals of continental South AmericaSouth America’s wide range of habitats support a tremendous diversity of plants and animals, including more than 400 species of larger mammals—those the size of a guinea pig or bigger. Many are truly iconic: Jaguar, Puma, Ocelot and numerous other beautiful cats; the fantastic Maned Wolf; the incomparable Giant Anteater; and an incredible variety of extraordinary primates. This groundbreaking guide provides detailed coverage of these and many other wonderful mammals, including porcupines and peccaries; squirrels, sloths, skunks and seals; opossums, olingos and otters; armadillos, agoutis and Andean Bear; and viscachas and Vicuña—not to mention tapirs and river and estuarine dolphins.The species accounts include a description of key features and information on subspecies, comparisons with similar species that overlap in range, details of the habitats in which the species occurs, a summary of its distribution in South America and information on its conservation status. Each species is illustrated with carefully selected photos, or artwork where suitable photos were not available.Detailed coverage of 420 speciesShowcases over 550 stunning photos, many of rarely photographed speciesFeatures specially commissioned artwork for almost 100 species, including comparative plates of all marmosets and titi monkeysIncludes up-to-date distribution maps

A state-of-the-art illustrated field guide to the birds of Costa Rica Costa Rica is among the most popular birding destinations in the world, with a breathtaking diversity of neotropical birdlife and stunningly beautiful habitats ranging from shady mangrove swamps to mist-enshrouded mountaintops and verdant rainforest. Birds of Costa Rica is the essential illustrated pocket guide to this biologically rich country. It covers all regularly occurring bird species found in the region and features facing-page plates and text that make field identification easy. Concise species accounts describe everything from size and distribution to voice, habitat, and status. This compact guide also features progressive taxonomy and a wealth of color range maps.Covers more than 800 species of birds found in Costa RicaIncludes more than 200 superb color platesFeatures concise species accounts, facing-page plates and text, and up-to-date range mapsIts compact size and field-friendly layout make it the ideal travel companion for any birder

A portable, full-color photographic guide to the most commonly seen bees in the western United States and Canada Bees play a vitally important role in the pollination of native plants and agricultural crops around the globe. These stunningly beautiful insects come in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and colors. There are more than 3,000 species in western North America, and identifying them is a challenging task even for taxonomists. Common Bees of Western North America is the first species-level photographic field guide to the most commonly seen bees in the western United States and Canada, focusing on those that are found in urban environments, specialize on unique plants, or are especially distinctive in appearance. This book walks you through the process of bee identification using breathtaking high-resolution color photos that highlight the key characteristics of each species, making identification easier. Full of essential facts about the natural history of these magnificent creatures, this is a must-have field guide for naturalists and backyard gardeners alike.Covers more than 200 speciesFeatures more than 1,100 stunning close-up color photosShows multiple images of each species, with arrows indicating key featuresIncludes a range map for every speciesProvides silhouette images depicting the actual size of each speciesDescribes key identification features, size, phenology, floral preference, nesting, and related speciesContains a taxonomic key to the bee genera of the region

Settled in the mid-1970s by a small contingent of Hasidic families, Kiryas Joel is an American town with few parallels in Jewish history-but many precedents among religious communities in the United States. This book tells the story of how this group of pious, Yiddish-speaking Jews has grown to become a thriving insular enclave and a powerful local government in upstate New York. While rejecting the norms of mainstream American society, Kiryas Joel has been stunningly successful in creating a world apart by using the very instruments of secular political and legal power that it disavows. Nomi Stolzenberg and David Myers paint a richly textured portrait of daily life in Kiryas Joel, exploring the community's guiding religious, social, and economic norms. They delve into the roots of Satmar Hasidism and its charismatic founder, Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, following his journey from nineteenth-century Hungary to post-World War II Brooklyn, where he dreamed of founding an ideal Jewish town modeled on the shtetls of eastern Europe. Stolzenberg and Myers chart the rise of Kiryas Joel as an official municipality with its own elected local government. They show how constant legal and political battles defined and even bolstered the community, whose very success has coincided with the rise of political conservatism and multiculturalism in American society over the past forty years.

The first modern English edition of diverse Enlightenment-era writings by Prussian monarch Frederick the Great Frederick II of Prussia (1712-1786), best known as Frederick the Great, was a prolific writer of philosophical discourses, poems, epics, satires, and more, while maintaining extensive correspondence with prominent intellectuals, Voltaire among them. This edition of selected writings, the first to make a wide range of Frederick's most important ideas available to a modern English readership, moves beyond traditional attempts to see his work only in light of his political aims. In these pages, we can finally appreciate Frederick's influential contributions to the European Enlightenment--and his unusual role as a monarch who was also a published author. In addition to Frederick's major opus, the Anti-Machiavel, the works presented here include essays, prefaces, reviews, and dialogues. The subjects discussed run the gamut from ethics to religion to political theory. Accompanied by critical annotations, the texts show that we can understand Frederick's views of kingship and the state only if we engage with a broad spectrum of his thought, including his attitudes toward morality and self-love. By contextualizing his arguments and impact on Enlightenment beliefs, this volume considers how we can reconcile Frederick's innovative public musings with his absolutist rule. Avi Lifschitz provides a robust and detailed introduction that discusses Frederick's life and work against the backdrop of eighteenth-century history and politics. With its unparalleled scope and cross-disciplinary appeal, Frederick the Great's Philosophical Writings firmly establishes one monarch's multifaceted relevance for generations of readers and scholars to come.

A biophysicist reveals the hidden unity behind nature's breathtaking complexityThe form and function of a sprinting cheetah are quite unlike those of a rooted tree. A human being is very different from a bacterium or a zebra. The living world is a realm of dazzling variety, yet a shared set of physical principles shapes the forms and behaviors of every creature in it. So Simple a Beginning shows how the emerging new science of biophysics is transforming our understanding of life on Earth and enabling potentially lifesaving but controversial technologies such as gene editing, artificial organ growth, and ecosystem engineering.Raghuveer Parthasarathy explains how four basic principles-self-assembly, regulatory circuits, predictable randomness, and scaling-shape the machinery of life on scales ranging from microscopic molecules to gigantic elephants. He describes how biophysics is helping to unlock the secrets of a host of natural phenomena, such as how your limbs know to form at the proper places, and why humans need lungs but ants do not. Parthasarathy explores how the cutting-edge biotechnologies of tomorrow could enable us to alter living things in ways both subtle and profound.Featuring dozens of original watercolors and drawings by the author, this sweeping tour of biophysics offers astonishing new perspectives on how the wonders of life can arise from so simple a beginning.

An enriching collection of classical writings about how ancient Romans made--and thought about--money Ancient Romans liked money. Buy how did they make a living and sometimes even become rich? The Roman economy was dominated by agriculture, but it was surprisingly modern in many ways: the Romans had companies with CEOs, shareholders, and detailed contracts regulated by meticulous laws; systems of banking and taxation; and a wide range of occupations, from merchant and doctor to architect and teacher. The Romans also enjoyed a relatively open society, where some could start from the bottom, work, invest, and grow rich. How to Make Money gathers a wide variety of ancient writings that show how Romans thought about, made, invested, spent, lost, and gave away money. The Roman elite idealized farming and service to the state but treated many other occupations with suspicion or contempt, from money lending to wage labor. But whatever their attitudes, pecunia made the Roman world go round. In the Satyricon, Trimalchio brags about his wealth. Seneca accumulated a fortune--but taught that money can't buy happiness. Eumachia inherited a brick factory from her father, married well, and turned to philanthropy after she was widowed. How to Make Money also takes up some of the most troubling aspects of the Roman economy, slavery and prostitution, which the elite deemed unrespectable but often profited from. Featuring lively new translations, an illuminating introduction, and the original Latin and Greek texts on facing pages, How to Make Money offers a revealing look at the Roman worlds of work and money.

A modern translation of the ancient Roman poet Ovid's Remedies for Love--a witty and irreverent work about how to fall out of love Breakups are the worst. On one scale devised by psychiatrists, only a spouse's death was ranked as more stressful than a marital split. Is there any treatment for a breakup? The ancient Roman poet Ovid thought so. Having become famous for teaching the art of seduction in The Art of Love, he then wrote Remedies for Love (Remedia Amoris), which presents thirty-eight frank and witty strategies for coping with unrequited love, falling out of love, ending a relationship, and healing a broken heart. How to Get Over a Breakup presents an unabashedly modern prose translation of Ovid's lighthearted and provocative work, complete with a lively introduction and the original Latin on facing pages. Ovid's advice--which he illustrates with ingenious interpretations of classical mythology--ranges from the practical, psychologically astute, and profound, to the ironic, deliberately offensive, and bizarre. Some advice is conventional--such as staying busy, not spending time alone, and avoiding places associated with an ex. Some is off-color, such as having sex until you're sick of it. And some, for modern readers, is, simply and delightfully, weird--such as becoming a lawyer and not eating arugula. But far more often, How to Get Over a Breakup reveals an Ovid whose advice--good or bad, entertaining or outrageous--can sound startlingly modern.

A richly illustrated account of the life and work of the twentieth-century Mexican artist and writer who reimagined what the book could look like, mean, and do Ulises Carrión (1941-1989) was one of the most remarkable artists and writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Part of a generation of artists that challenged the boundaries separating visual arts, literature, music, and performance, Carrión worked in a wide range of media: artists' books, sound poetry, performance art, mail art, video art, theoretical writing, and exhibitions. Today, Carrión's work is inspiring a new generation of artists, art historians, and cultural practitioners around the world. Ulises Carrión: Bookworks and Beyond presents a richly illustrated, panoramic account of his life and work, and highlights how he transformed conventional understandings of the book by reimagining it as a material, semiotic, and social platform capable of redefining the artist's role in society. A promising young writer, Carrión left his native Mexico in the late 1960s to study literature in Europe. In 1972, he settled in Amsterdam, a progressive city where he could live as an openly gay man, and joined a community of like-minded artists. In 1975, he founded the legendary Other Books & So, a trailblazing bookstore-gallery that became a hub for exhibiting and promoting artistic experiments taking place in Amsterdam and internationally. Ulises Carrión includes an evocative and representative selection of the artist's books, artworks, and ephemera, most of them from Princeton University Library, which has one of the largest collections of his work in North America. Featuring original scholarly and literary essays, the book mirrors and engages with Carrión's own mixture of scholarly and creative work. With its key primary material, interdisciplinary critical perspectives, and new interpretations, the book sheds much new light on an important multimedia artist. Exhibition SchedulePrinceton University Library, Princeton, New JerseyFebruary 21-June 16, 2024

A visually stunning exploration of the artistic process by an award-winning nature artist Drawing Nature presents the creative process of an acclaimed nature artist, guiding readers from field sketches to finished art and demonstrating how science and the close observation of nature can be integrated into the artist's work to create dynamic, meaningful images. With chapters that flow from drawing basics to more advanced methods and concepts, this beautifully illustrated book is like a look inside the artist's sketchbooks to discover their secrets. Linda Miller Feltner demonstrates how observation and recording are sparks to creativity. Her journey from loose sketches and drawings to a completed work begins with observing a natural process, object, or interaction between organisms. Her curiosity generates scientific inquiry that, when researched, helps her to answer a question or make broad, often surprising connections. Blending examples of her stunning artwork with invaluable insights into time-honored art techniques, Feltner illustrates how sketching, developing an image, and scientific accuracy are essential to her art and encourages each of us to cultivate our own powers of observation and discover anew the world around us. Drawing Nature enables us to look at nature through an artist's eyes, draw inspiration from a place or a moment, and give expression to its beauty.