Books published by Princeton University Press

An innovative framework for advancing human rights Human rights are among our most pressing issues today, yet rights promoters have reached an impasse in their effort to achieve rights for all. Human Rights for Pragmatists explains why: activists prioritize universal legal and moral norms, backed by the public shaming of violators, but in fact rights prevail only when they serve the interests of powerful local constituencies. Jack Snyder demonstrates that where local power and politics lead, rights follow. He presents an innovative roadmap for addressing a broad agenda of human rights concerns: impunity for atrocities, dilemmas of free speech in the age of social media, entrenched abuses of women's rights, and more.Exploring the historical development of human rights around the globe, Snyder shows that liberal rights-based states have experienced a competitive edge over authoritarian regimes in the modern era. He focuses on the role of power, the interests of individuals and the groups they form, and the dynamics of bargaining and coalitions among those groups. The path to human rights entails transitioning from a social order grounded in patronage and favoritism to one dedicated to equal treatment under impersonal rules. Rights flourish when they benefit dominant local actors with the clout to persuade ambivalent peers. Activists, policymakers, and others attempting to advance rights should embrace a tailored strategy, one that acknowledges local power structures and cultural practices.Constructively turning the mainstream framework of human rights advocacy on its head, Human Rights for Pragmatists offers tangible steps that all advocates can take to move the rights project forward.

A major history of the British Empire's early involvement in the Middle EastNapoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 showed how vulnerable India was to attack by France and Russia. It forced the British Empire to try to secure the two routes that a European might use to reach the subcontinent-through Egypt and the Red Sea, and through Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. Promised Lands is a panoramic history of this vibrant and explosive age.Charting the development of Britain's political interest in the Middle East from the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimean War in the 1850s, Jonathan Parry examines the various strategies employed by British and Indian officials, describing how they sought influence with local Arabs, Mamluks, Kurds, Christians, and Jews. He tells a story of commercial and naval power-boosted by the arrival of steamships in the 1830s-and discusses how classical and biblical history fed into British visions of what these lands might become. The region was subject to the Ottoman Empire, yet the sultan's grip on it appeared weak. Should Ottoman claims to sovereignty be recognised and exploited, or ignored and opposed? Could the Sultan's government be made to support British objectives, or would it always favour France or Russia?Promised Lands shows how what started as a geopolitical contest became a drama about diplomatic competition, religion, race, and the unforeseen consequences of history.

How decolonization and the cold war influenced literature from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean How did superpower competition and the cold war affect writers in the decolonizing world? In The Aesthetic Cold War, Peter Kalliney explores the various ways that rival states used cultural diplomacy and the political police to influence writers. In response, many writers from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean--such as Chinua Achebe, Mulk Raj Anand, Eileen Chang, C.L.R. James, Alex La Guma, Doris Lessing, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and Wole Soyinka--carved out a vibrant conceptual space of aesthetic nonalignment, imagining a different and freer future for their work. Kalliney looks at how the United States and the Soviet Union, in an effort to court writers, funded international conferences, arts centers, book and magazine publishing, literary prizes, and radio programming. International spy networks, however, subjected these same writers to surveillance and intimidation by tracking their movements, tapping their phones, reading their mail, and censoring or banning their work. Writers from the global south also suffered travel restrictions, deportations, imprisonment, and even death at the hands of government agents. Although conventional wisdom suggests that cold war pressures stunted the development of postcolonial literature, Kalliney's extensive archival research shows that evenly balanced superpower competition allowed savvy writers to accept patronage without pledging loyalty to specific political blocs. Likewise, writers exploited rivalries and the emerging discourse of human rights to contest the attentions of the political police. A revisionist account of superpower involvement in literature, The Aesthetic Cold War considers how politics shaped literary production in the twentieth century.

A bold new interpretation of Augustine's virtue of hope and its place in political life When it comes to politics, Augustine of Hippo is renowned as one of history's great pessimists, with his sights set firmly on the heavenly city rather than the public square. Many have enlisted him to chasten political hopes, highlighting the realities of evil and encouraging citizens instead to cast their hopes on heaven. A Commonwealth of Hope challenges prevailing interpretations of Augustinian pessimism, offering a new vision of his political thought that can also help today's citizens sustain hope in the face of despair. Amid rising inequality, injustice, and political division, many citizens wonder what to hope for in politics and whether it is possible to forge common hopes in a deeply polarized society. Michael Lamb takes up this challenge, offering the first in-depth analysis of Augustine's virtue of hope and its profound implications for political life. He draws on a wide range of Augustine's writings--including neglected sermons, letters, and treatises--and integrates insights from political theory, religious studies, theology, and philosophy. Lamb shows how diverse citizens, both religious and secular, can unite around common hopes for the commonwealth. Recovering this understudied virtue and situating Augustine within his political, rhetorical, and religious contexts, A Commonwealth of Hope reveals how Augustine's virtue of hope can help us resist the politics of presumption and despair and confront the challenges of our time.

From the bestselling coauthor of Wittgenstein's Poker, an entertaining and illuminating biography of a brilliant philosopher who tried to rescue morality from nihilism Derek Parfit (1942-2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius. Believing that we should be less concerned with ourselves and more with the common good, Parfit dedicated himself to the pursuit of philosophical progress to an extraordinary degree. He always wore gray trousers and a white shirt so as not to lose precious time picking out clothes, he varied his diet as little as possible, and he had only one serious non-philosophical interest: taking photos of Oxford, Venice, and St. Petersburg. In the latter half of his life, he single-mindedly devoted himself to a desperate attempt to rescue secular morality--morality without God--by arguing that it has an objective, rational basis. For Parfit, the stakes could scarcely have been higher. If he couldn't demonstrate that there are objective facts about right and wrong, he believed, his life was futile and all our lives were meaningless. Connecting Parfit's work and life and offering a clear introduction to his profound and challenging ideas, Parfit is a powerful portrait of an extraordinary thinker who continues to have a remarkable influence on the world of ideas.

A history of the Ottoman incorporation of Arab lands that shows how gentlemanly salons shaped culture, society, and governanceHistorians have typically linked Ottoman imperial cohesion in the sixteenth century to the bureaucracy or the sultan's court. In Empire of Salons, Helen Pfeifer points instead to a critical but overlooked factor: gentlemanly salons. Pfeifer demonstrates that salons-exclusive assemblies in which elite men displayed their knowledge and status-contributed as much as any formal institution to the empire's political stability. These key laboratories of Ottoman culture, society, and politics helped men to build relationships and exchange ideas across the far-flung Ottoman lands. Pfeifer shows that salons played a central role in Syria and Egypt's integration into the empire after the conquest of 1516-17.Pfeifer anchors her narrative in the life and network of the star scholar of sixteenth-century Damascus, Badr al-Din al-Ghazzi (d. 1577), and she reveals that Arab elites were more influential within the empire than previously recognized. Their local knowledge and scholarly expertise competed with, and occasionally even outshone, that of the most powerful officials from Istanbul. Ultimately, Ottoman culture of the era was forged collaboratively, by Arab and Turkophone actors alike.Drawing on a range of Arabic and Ottoman Turkish sources, Empire of Salons illustrates the extent to which magnificent gatherings of Ottoman gentlemen contributed to the culture and governance of empire.

A groundbreaking history of the political ideas that made modern IndiaViolent Fraternity is a major history of the political thought that laid the foundations of modern India. Taking readers from the dawn of the twentieth century to the independence of India and formation of Pakistan in 1947, the book is a testament to the power of ideas to drive historical transformation.Shruti Kapila sheds new light on leading figures such as M. K. Gandhi, Muhammad Iqbal, B. R. Ambedkar, and Vinayak Savarkar, the founder of Hindutva, showing how they were innovative political thinkers as well as influential political actors. She also examines lesser-known figures who contributed to the making of a new canon of political thought, such as B. G. Tilak, considered by Lenin to be the "e;fountainhead of revolution in Asia,"e; and Sardar Patel, India's first deputy prime minister. Kapila argues that it was in India that modern political languages were remade through a revolution that defied fidelity to any exclusive ideology. The book shows how the foundational questions of politics were addressed in the shadow of imperialism to create both a sovereign India and the world's first avowedly Muslim nation, Pakistan. Fraternity was lost only to be found again in violence as the Indian age signaled the emergence of intimate enmity.A compelling work of scholarship, Violent Fraternity demonstrates why India, with its breathtaking scale and diversity, redefined the nature of political violence for the modern global era.

How the politicization of the pandemic endangers our lives-and our democracyCOVID-19 has killed more people than any war or public health crisis in American history, but the scale and grim human toll of the pandemic were not inevitable. Pandemic Politics examines how Donald Trump politicized COVID-19, shedding new light on how his administration tied the pandemic to the president's political fate in an election year and chose partisanship over public health, with disastrous consequences for all of us.Health is not an inherently polarizing issue, but the Trump administration's partisan response to COVID-19 led ordinary citizens to prioritize what was good for their "e;team"e; rather than what was good for their country. Democrats, in turn, viewed the crisis as evidence of Trump's indifference to public well-being. At a time when solidarity and bipartisan unity were sorely needed, Americans came to see the pandemic in partisan terms, adopting behaviors and attitudes that continue to divide us today. This book draws on a wealth of new data on public opinion to show how pandemic politics has touched all aspects of our lives-from the economy to race and immigration-and puts America's COVID-19 response in global perspective.An in-depth account of a uniquely American tragedy, Pandemic Politics reveals how the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has profound and troubling implications for public health and the future of democracy itself.

A sweeping global history of the birth of modern Greece In 1821, a diverse territory in the southern Balkans on the fringe of the Ottoman Empire was thrust into a decade of astounding mass violence. The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism traces how something new emerged from an imperial mosaic of myriad languages, religions, cultures, and localisms--the world's first ethnic nation-state, one that was born from the destruction and the creation of whole peoples, and which set the stage for the modern age of nationalism that was to come. Yanni Kotsonis exposes the everyday chaos and brutality in the Balkan peninsula as the Ottoman regime unraveled. He follows the future Greeks on the seaways to Odesa, Alexandria, Livorno, and the Caribbean, and recovers the stories of peasants, merchants, warriors, aristocrats, and intellectuals who navigated the great empires that crisscrossed the region. Kotsonis recounts the experiences of the villagers and sailors who joined the armed battalions of the Napoleonic Wars and learned a new warfare and a new practice of mass mobilization, lessons that served them well during the revolutionary decade. He describes how, as the bloody 1820s came to a close, the region's Muslims were no more and Greece was an Orthodox Christian nation united by a shared language and a claim to an ancient past. This panoramic book shows how the Greek Revolution was a demographic upheaval more consequential than the overthrow of a ruler. Drawing on Ottoman sources together with archival evidence from Greece, Britain, France, Russia, and Switzerland, the book reframes the birth of modern Greece within the imperial history of the global nineteenth century.

From one of today's most inspired architects and urban advocates, a manifesto for architecture as a force for addressing our largest social challenges The world is facing unprecedented challenges, from climate change and population growth, to political division and technological dislocation, to declining mental health and fraying cultural fabric. With most of the planet's population now living in urban environments, cities are the spaces where we have the greatest potential to confront and address these problems. In this visionary book, Vishaan Chakrabarti argues for an "architecture of urbanity," showing how the design of our communities can create a more equitable, sustainable, and joyous future for us all. Taking readers from the great cities of antiquity to the exurban sprawl of our postindustrial age, Chakrabarti examines architecture's relationship to history's greatest social, technological, and environmental dilemmas. He then presents a rich selection of work by a global array of practicing architects, demonstrating how innovative design can dramatically improve life in big cities and small settlements around the world, from campuses and refugee camps to mega-cities like São Paulo, Lima, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and Tokyo. Lavishly illustrated with a wealth of original graphics, data visualizations, photographs, and drawings, The Architecture of Urbanity eloquently explains why cities are the last, best hope for humanity, and why designers must, alongside political, business, community, and cultural leaders, steward the healing of our planet.

A compelling account of South Africa's post-Apartheid democracyAt a time when many democracies are under strain around the world, Until We Have Won Our Liberty shines new light on the signal achievements of one of the contemporary era's most closely watched transitions away from minority rule. South Africa's democratic development has been messy, fiercely contested, and sometimes violent. But as Evan Lieberman argues, it has also offered a voice to the voiceless, unprecedented levels of government accountability, and tangible improvements in quality of life.Lieberman opens with a first-hand account of the hard-fought 2019 national election, and how it played out in Mogale City, a post-Apartheid municipality created from Black African townships and White Afrikaner suburbs. From this launching point, he examines the complexities of South Africa's multiracial society and the unprecedented democratic experiment that began with the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994. While acknowledging the enormous challenges many South Africans continue to face-including unemployment, inequality, and discrimination-Lieberman draws on the country's history and the experience of comparable countries to demonstrate that elected Black-led governments have, without resorting to political extremism, improved the lives of millions. In the context of open and competitive politics, citizens have gained access to housing, basic services, and dignified treatment to a greater extent than during any prior period.Countering much of the conventional wisdom about contemporary South Africa, Until We Have Won Our Liberty offers hope for the enduring impact of democratic ideals.

A marvelous compendium of mathematical symbols and their fascinating histories Galileo famously wrote that the book of nature is written in mathematical language. The Language of Mathematics is a wide-ranging and beautifully illustrated collection of short, colorful histories of the most commonly used symbols in mathematics, providing readers with an engaging introduction to the origins, evolution, and conceptual meaning of each one. In dozens of lively and informative entries, Raúl Rojas shows how today's mathematics stands on the shoulders of giants, mathematicians from around the world who developed mathematical notation through centuries of collective effort. He tells the stories of such figures as al-Khwarizmi, René Descartes, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Karl Weierstrass, Sofia Kovalevskaya, David Hilbert, and Kenneth Iverson. Topics range from numbers and variables to sets and functions, constants, and combinatorics. Rojas describes the mathematical problems associated with different symbols and reveals how mathematical notation has sometimes been an accidental process. The entries are self-contained and can be read in any order, each one examining one or two symbols, their history, and the variants they may have had over time. An essential companion for math enthusiasts, The Language of Mathematics shows how mathematics is a living and evolving entity, forever searching for the best symbolism to express relationships between abstract concepts and to convey meaning.

A panoramic global history of Africa in the age of imperialism Africa's long nineteenth century was a period of revolutionary ferment and cultural innovation for the continent's states, societies, and economies, yet the decades preceding what became known as "the Scramble for Africa" by European powers in the decades leading up to World War I have long been neglected in favor of a Western narrative of colonial rule. The African Revolution demonstrates that the "Scramble" and the resulting imperial order were as much the culmination of African revolutionary dynamics as they were of European expansionism. In this monumental work of history, Richard Reid paints a multifaceted portrait of a continent on the global stage. He describes how Africa witnessed the emergence of new economic and political dynamics that were underpinned by forms of violence and volatility not unlike those emanating from Europe. Reid uses a stretch of road in what is now Tanzania--one of the nineteenth century's most vibrant commercial highways--as an entry point into this revolutionary epoch, weaving a broader story around characters and events on the road. He integrates the African experience with new insights into the deeper currents in European societies before and after conquest, and he shows how the Africans themselves created opportunities for European expansion. Challenging the portrayal of Africa's transformative nineteenth century as a mere prelude to European colonialism, The African Revolution reveals how this turbulent yet hugely creative era for Africans intersected with global intrusions to shape the modern age.

A lively and provocative account of Bernard Mandeville and the work that scandalised and appalled his contemporaries--and made him one of the most influential thinkers of the eighteenth century In 1714, doctor, philosopher and writer Bernard Mandeville published The Fable of the Bees, a humourous tale in which a prosperous hive full of greedy and licentious bees trade their vices for virtues and immediately fall into economic and societal collapse. Outrage among the reading public followed; philosophers took up their pens to refute what they saw as the fable's central assertion. How could it be that an immoral community thrived but the introduction of morality caused it to crash and burn? In Man-Devil, John Callanan examines Mandeville and his famous fable, showing how its contentious claim--that vice was essential to the economic flourishing of any society--formed part of Mandeville's overall theory of human nature. Mandeville, Callanan argues, was perfectly suited to analyse and satirise the emerging phenomenon of modern society--and reveal the gap between its self-image and its reality. Callanan shows that Mandeville's thinking was informed by his medical training and his innovative approach to the treatment of illness with both physiological and psychological components. Through incisive and controversial analyses of sexual mores, gender inequality, economic structures and political ideology, Mandeville sought to provide a naturalistic account of human behaviour--one that put humans in close continuity with animals. Aware that his fellow human beings might find this offensive, he cloaked his theories in fables, poems, anecdotes and humourous stories. Mandeville mastered irony precisely for the purpose of making us aware of uncomfortable aspects of our deepest natures--aspects that we still struggle to acknowledge today.

A collection of compelling quotations from JR--the renowned French photographer, street artist, and activist JR is perhaps best known for taking portraits of regular people, reproducing the images at a monumental scale, and pasting them on the sides of buildings in the subjects' neighborhoods. Among his many other notable projects are a gigantic photo of child peering over the top of the barrier at the US-Mexico border and an enormous mural of inmates that covers the ground of an outdoor exercise yard at a California prison. Collected from interviews, writings, and other sources, JR-isms is an inspiring and thought-provoking collection of quotations from an exciting artist and activist whose work reaches far beyond the traditional art world, from the streets of New York to the suburbs of Paris to the favelas of Brazil. "I was writing my names on walls to say 'I exist, ' then I started pasting pictures of people with their names to say they exist." "Art is not supposed to change the world. It can offer a new perspective, a new look, break down the walls we build between us, and humanize the 'other.' " "I always make sure in my art that I even confront my own perspective." "You know what they say, that the criminal always goes back to the crime scene? It works the same for the artist. When you do something in the street, you come back to see how people approach it. No one knows it's you, but you're right there."

A collection of fascinating and provocative quotations from the world-renowned performance artist Marina Abramovic is arguably the most important and influential performance artist of our time. For decades, she has broken boundaries in iconic works such as The Artist Is Present (2010), where she sat in silence across from members of the public at the Museum of Modern Art for up to eight hours a day for three months, and Rhythm 0 (1974), a six-hour performance in which she stood next to a table holding seventy-two objects, including a scalpel and a loaded gun, and a sign suggesting audience members could do to her whatever they wanted. Gathered from interviews, lectures, writings, and other sources, Abramovic-isms is a unique collection of quotations that offers a window into the mind of this iconic trailblazer. "Artists have to be free human beings. They have to have the complete freedom to express their ideas with no restrictions." "Our body is an absolute replica of the Universe, and this is why I took to studying myself--by studying myself, I can understand everything else and everybody else." "Beauty doesn't have a definition. What is important is what moves you." "Don't ever call me the grandmother of performance art. Just call me a warrior."

A sobering look at the seductive power of fascist ideas for the young Radical nationalism is on the rise in Europe and throughout the world. Living Right provides an in-depth account of the ideas and practices that are driving the varied forms of far-right activism by young people from all walks of life, revealing how these social movements offer the promise of comradery, purpose, and a moral calling to self-sacrifice, and demonstrating how far-right ideas are understood and lived in ways that speak to a variety of experiences. In this eye-opening book, Agnieszka Pasieka draws on her own sometimes harrowing fieldwork among Italian, Polish, and Hungarian militant youths, painting unforgettable portraits of students, laborers, entrepreneurs, musicians, and activists from well-off middle class backgrounds who have all found a nurturing home in the far right. Providing an in-depth account of radical nationalist communities and networks that are taking root across Europe, she shows how the simultaneous orientation of these groups toward the local and the transnational is a key to their success. With a focus on far-right morality that challenges commonly held ideas about the right, Pasieka describes how far-right movements afford opportunities to the young to be active members of tightly bonded comradeships while sharing in a broader project with global ramifications. Required reading for anthropologists and anyone concerned about the resurgence of the far-right militancy today, Living Right sheds necessary light on the forces that have made the growing appeal of fascist idealism for young people one of the most alarming trends of our time.

A richly illustrated collection of never-before-seen writings and drawings from the notebooks, portfolios, and personal papers of C. G. Jung's wife and collaborator Emma Jung (1882-1955) was the life and work partner of one of the great intellectual figures of the twentieth century, yet she kept most of her creative and personal life private. Dedicated to the Soul brings together previously unpublished materials from Jung's private archive, introducing her voice into the literature of the early psychoanalytical movement and revealing a vibrant inner life and a glowing presence that until now was known only to her family and a handful of patients, students, and friends. This fully annotated collection features journal entries, dream accounts, drawings, paintings, and lectures. It sheds new light on Jung as an early collaborator in the creation of analytical psychology who may have originated the concept of the animus, one of C. G. Jung's central constructs. It paints a riveting portrait of a dynamic woman who, determined to break free of the conventional world of her upbringing, fearlessly interrogated her social environment and developed her own systems of meaning. With introductory essays that chart Jung's personal, intellectual, and psychological development, Dedicated to the Soul brings the creative work of this boldly imaginative and irreverent spirit to a wider audience and offers new perspectives on the role of women in the early history of analytical psychology.

A beautifully illustrated and designed book of the important Pop artist's previously unpublished working studies This book sheds new light on the fascinating working processes of American Pop artist James Rosenquist. Using the techniques of billboard painting and the visual language of advertising, Rosenquist's paintings explore consumer culture, politics, war, and other themes through startling juxtapositions of powerful imagery, including of cars, women, celebrities, food, appliances, a fighter jet, and the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. James Rosenquist: Collages, Drawings, and Paintings in Process presents previously unpublished preparatory work by the artist--quick sketches to capture ideas, detailed studies, color keys, source materials, and photographs--alongside the iconic paintings that resulted.

Tools from macroeconomics and finance to incorporate the central role that data plays in the economy The most valuable firms in the global economy are valued largely for their data. Amazon, Apple, Google, and others have proven the competitive advantage of a good data set. And yet despite the growing importance of data as a strategic asset, modern economic theory neglects its role. In this book, Isaac Baley and Laura Veldkamp draw on a range of theoretical frameworks at the research frontier in macroeconomics and finance to model and measure data economies. Starting from the premise that data is digitized information that facilitates prediction and reduces uncertainty, Baley and Veldkamp uncover the ways that firm-level data choices resonate throughout the broader macroeconomic and financial landscapes. With The Data Economy Baley and Veldkamp put forward a broad research agenda with a formal yet accessible approach, offering an analysis of the data economy and its welfare effects that will be of interest to practitioners, researchers, and graduate students. The tools presented, many of them information-related methods from macroeconomics and finance, are theoretical but introduced with careful attention to how they can inform or enable measurement. Applications include assessing the economic worth of data and unraveling its influence on the structure of production, inflation, and pricing dynamics; firm and investor behavior; advertising; market power; and asset pricing. Baley and Veldkamp bring readers to the cutting edge of this novel research area, equipping them to formulate their own theoretical advances and policy analysis.

An authoritative illustrated guide to the fearsome predators that dominated the Mesozoic world for 180 million years New discoveries are transforming our understanding of the theropod dinosaurs, revealing startling new insights into the lives and look of these awesome predators. The Princeton Field Guide to Predatory Dinosaurs provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of the mighty hunters that ruled the earth for tens of millions of years. This incredible guide covers some 300 species and features stunning illustrations of predatory theropods of all shapes and sizes. It discusses their history, anatomy, physiology, locomotion, reproduction, growth, and extinction, and even gives a taste of what it might be like to travel back to the Mesozoic. This one-of-a-kind guide also discusses the controversies surrounding these marvelous creatures, taking up such open questions as the form and habitats of the gigantic Spinosaurus and the number of Tyrannosaurus species that may have existed.Features detailed species accounts of some 300 theropod dinosaurs, with the latest size and mass estimatesShares new perspectives on iconic predators such as T. rex and VelociraptorCovers everything from the biology of predatory dinosaurs to the colorful history of paleontologyFeatures a wealth of color and black-and-white drawings and figures, including life studies, scenic views, and original skeletal, skull, and muscle reconstructionsIncludes detailed color maps

An engaging account of the life and work of the legendary polymath Alexander von Humboldt In this lucid biography, Andreas Daum offers a succinct and novel intrepretation of the life and oeuvre of Alexander von Humboldt (1769―1859). A Prussian nobleman born into the age of European Enlightenment, Humboldt was a contemporary of Napoleon, Simón Bolívar, and Charles Darwin. As a naturalist and scholar, he traveled the world, from the Americas to Central Asia, and recorded his observations in multiple volumes. Humboldt is still admired today for his interdisciplinary outreach and ecological awareness. Moving beyond the conventional views of Humboldt as either intellectual superhero or gentleman colonizer, Daum's incisive account focuses on Humboldt in the context of the tumultuous period of history in which he lived. Humboldt embodied the contradictions that marked the age of Atlantic Revolutions. He became a critic of slavery and embraced the emerging civil society but remained close to authoritarian rulers. He dedicated his life to scientific research yet was driven by emotional impulses and pleaded for an aesthetic appreciation of nature. Daum introduces a man passionately striving to establish a "cosmic" understanding of nature while grappling with the era's explosion of knowledge. This book provides the first concise biography of Humboldt, covering all periods of his life, exploring his personality, the vast range of his works, and his intellectual networks. Daum helps us understand Humboldt as a seminal historical figure and illuminates the role of science at the dawn of the global world.

How new technology is rapidly changing the nature of money and the way we pay A diverse and growing range of financial institutions and platforms--from PayPal and Venmo to WeChat, Alipay, and the brave new world of stablecoins--have harnessed new technology to disrupt the system of money and payments as we know it. Beyond Banks explains why this disruption holds out the promise of faster, cheaper, more convenient, and more secure payments, but also how it increasingly risks exposing consumers, businesses, and governments to the problem of bad money. Dan Awrey traces the origins of our current bundled system of banking, money, and payments. He explains why the problem of bad money--the result of antiquated and inadequate laws and regulation that fail to establish credible commitments to hold, transfer, or return a customer's money on demand--requires that policymakers fundamentally rethink their approach toward the design of the laws and institutions at the heart of this system. He presents ways to effectively unbundle banking from money and payments, ensure the credibility of monetary commitments, and promote the stability of this system. Awrey also envisions a more forward-looking role for policymakers in encouraging greater technological experimentation, competition, and innovation in the realm of payments. Beyond Banks sheds critical light on the important but too often dysfunctional relationship between technology, regulation, and money, and lays the foundations for a safer, more nimble, and more inclusive system of money and payments.

A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world's whales Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Whales is an accessible and enjoyable mini reference about the world's whales, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics--from anatomy, diversity, and reproduction to habitat and conservation. It also includes curious facts and a section on whales in myths and folklore from around the world. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing lives of whales.A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift

A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world's weather Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile anyone who is curious about weather. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Weather is an accessible and enjoyable mini reference about the world's weather, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics--from weather forecasting and extreme events such as hurricanes and typhoons to the future of weather with climate change. It also includes curious facts, myths, and history--from whether animals can predict the weather to the bad weather that helped doom Napoleon and Hitler's invasions of Russia and the Soviet Union. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing world of weather.A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift

A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of dinosaurs Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any dinosaur lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Dinosaurs is an accessible and enjoyable mini reference. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics--from dinosaur diversity and social behaviors to their extinction and rediscovery. It also includes curious facts and a section on dinosaurs in myths, folklore, and popular culture from around the globe. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing world of dinosaurs.A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift

A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world's fungi Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Fungi is an accessible and enjoyable mini reference about the world's fungi, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics--from morphology, diversity, and reproduction to habitat and conservation. It also includes curious facts and a section on fungi in myths, folklore, and modern culture from around the world. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing lives of fungi.A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift

A delicious feast of ancient Greek and Roman writings on living well by eating well Today, we're stuffed with dietary recommendations from every direction. Social media, advertising, food packaging, diet books, doctors--all have advice on what, how much, and when to eat. This would have been no surprise to ancient Greeks and Romans. Their doctors were intensely interested in food, offered highly prescriptive dietary advice, and developed detailed systems to categorize foods and their health effects. How to Eat is a delectable anthology of Greco-Roman writings on how to eat, exercise, sleep, bathe, and manage your sex life for optimal health. It also gathers ancient opinions on specific foods of all sorts, from how to deploy onions to cure baldness and cabbage to get sober to whether lentils are healthy and why arugula increases your sex drive. With lively new translations by Claire Bubb, and the original Greek and Latin texts on facing pages, How to Eat features voices from medicine, philosophy, natural history, agriculture, and cooking, including Hippocrates, Pliny the Elder, Galen, Seneca, and Cato. While medicine and science have obviously changed enormously since the classical world, and some Greco-Roman beliefs about diet now appear hilariously off the mark, How to Eat reveals that much of their advice still resonates--and all of it is fascinating.

The remarkable family of proteins that can make us very ill--but can also be linked to long-term memory, immunity, and the origin of life Over the last decade, scientists have discovered the importance and widespread presence in the body of a remarkable family of proteins known as prion proteins. Research links various types of prion proteins to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's--and this has fueled the search for new drugs that could halt the progression of these terrible disorders. Other discoveries have revealed the essential roles prion proteins play in memory and immunity, and--in an extraordinary finding--the part they may have played in the beginnings of life on our planet. In this engaging and accessible book, Michel Brahic tells the story of these amazing and versatile proteins. Brahic, a leading researcher on diseases of the central nervous system, first describes the discovery of prions and their role in infection, beginning with early work on the animal disease scrapie and a mysterious human illness in New Guinea, apparently transmitted by cannibalism. Prions were eventually identified and named by Stanley Prusiner in the 1980s. (Brahic tells us Prusiner's alternate name for prion was "piaf.") Prion proteins were then revealed as the cause of other illnesses, from "mad cow" disease and its human counterpart, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, to such noninfectious brain disorders as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. While the prion proteins responsible for diseases are definitively "bad," Brahic also explains that these abnormal prions are rare exceptions. Most of the time, prion proteins actually serve "good" and vital functions--and they may even have been present at the origin of life itself.

Why some cities are more effective than others at reducing inequalities in the built environment: urban governance in São Paulo and Johannesburg For the first time in history, most people live in cities. One in seven are living in slums, the most excluded parts of cities, in which the basics of urban life--including adequate housing, accessible sanitation, and reliable transportation--are largely unavailable. Why are some cities more successful than others in reducing inequalities in the built environment? In Urban Power, Benjamin Bradlow explores this question, examining the effectiveness of urban governance in two "megacities" in young democracies: São Paulo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa. Both cities came out of periods of authoritarian rule with similarly high inequalities and similar policy priorities to lower them. And yet São Paulo has been far more successful than Johannesburg in improving access to basic urban goods. Bradlow examines the relationships between local government bureaucracies and urban social movements that have shaped these outcomes. Drawing on sixteen months of fieldwork in both cities, including interviews with informants from government agencies, political leadership, social movements, private developers, bus companies, and water and sanitation companies, Bradlow details the political and professional conflicts between and within movements, governments, private corporations, and political parties. He proposes a bold theoretical approach for a new global urban sociology that focuses on variations in the coordination of local governing power, arguing that the concepts of "embeddedness" and "cohesion" explain processes of change that bridge external social mobilization and the internal coordinating capacity of local government to implement policy changes.