Books published by Princeton University Press

"An inspiring anthology of writings by trailblazing women astronomers from around the globe ... [this work] is an internationally diverse collection of autobiographical essays by women who broke down barriers and changed the face of modern astronomy. Virginia Trimble and David Weintraub vividly describe how, before 1900, a woman who wanted to study the stars had to have a father, brother, or husband to provide entry, and how the considerable intellectual skills of women astronomers were still not enough to enable them to pry open doors of opportunity for much of the twentieth century. After decades of difficult struggles, women are closer to equality in astronomy than ever before. Trimble and Weintraub bring together the stories of the tough and determined women who flung the doors wide open. Taking readers from 1960 to today, this triumphant anthology serves as an inspiration to current and future generations of women scientists while giving voice to the history of a transformative era in astronomy"--

A diverse set of contributions to the expanding field of ecocritical studies Seeking a broad reexamination of visual culture through the lenses of ecocriticism, environmental justice, and animal studies, Picture Ecology offers a diverse range of art historical criticism formulated within an ecological context. This book brings together scholars whose contributions extend chronologically and geographically from eleventh-century Chinese painting to contemporary photography of California wildfires. The book's fifteen interdisciplinary essays provide a dynamic, cross-cultural approach to an increasingly vital area of study, emphasizing the environmental dimensions inherent in the content and materials of aesthetic objects. Picture Ecology provides valuable new approaches for considering works of art in ways that are timely, intellectually stimulating, and universally significant. With contributions by Alan C. Braddock, Maura Coughlin, Rachael Z. DeLue, T. J. Demos, Mónica Domínguez Torres, Finis Dunaway, Stephen F. Eisenman, Emily Gephart, Karl Kusserow, De-nin D. Lee, Gregory Levine, Anne McClintock, James Nisbet, Andrew Patrizio, Sugata Ray, and Greg M. Thomas. Distributed for the Princeton University Art Museum

Arguing that there is a necessary connection between liberty and truth, this book excoriates the press, claiming that it exists primarily for its own purposes and agendas and only incidentally to promote the honest interplay of facts and ideas.

Suitable for readers who want to learn about amphibians, the animal group that includes frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians, this work looks at the "natural history" of amphibians worldwide: where they live; how they reproduce; how they have been affected by evolutionary processes; and what factors will determine their destinies over time.

Suggests that the cybernetic theory of decision as developed in such diverse fields as information theory, mathematical logic, and behavioral psychology generates a systematic but non-rational analysis that seems to explain quite naturally decisions that are puzzling when viewed from the rational perspective.

In the decades following the Civil War - as industrialization, urbanization, and economic expansion reshaped the landscape - many Americans began seeking adventure and aesthetic gratification through avian pursuits. This book reconstructs this story through the experiences of birdwatchers, collectors, conservationists, and taxidermists.

Addresses the listener whose enjoyment of music is filled with questions and whose curiosity makes him eager to grasp the sense of music, despite a lack of theoretical training.

Approaching Herman Melville as a figure caught in the politics of a nation and an "imperial self", the author aims to challenge our view by demonstrating a link between the individualism that enabled Melville to write as a sovereign author and the nationalism that allowed America to grow into what Jefferson hoped would be an "empire for liberty".

Explores the role visual images and technologies have played in shaping modern understandings of race. This book traces the subtle shifts that occurred in European and South American depictions of Andean Indians from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, and explains how these shifts led to the modern concept of racial difference.

Tells the story of the ancient Egyptian city of Mendes, home of the mysterious cult of the 'fornicating ram who mounts the beauties'. This book describes the discoveries of the great temple of the ram and the 'Mansion of the Rams', where the embalmed bodies of the avatars of the god were buried.

Reinterprets Stendhal's metaphor and tracks the different worlds of an array of twentieth-century writers ranging from realists to wildly inventive postwar writers. This book puts forward an argument that fiction yields rich insight into its subject, and that literature can also be a form of historical understanding.

Did William Shakespeare ever meet Queen Elizabeth I? This title explores the history of invented encounters between the poet and the Queen, and examines how and why the mythology of these two charismatic and enduring cultural icons has been intertwined in British and American culture.

"First Princeton paperback printing, 1989"--T.p. verso.

Offers a more effective way to go about identification - he calls it the "Whole Bird and More" approach - that will enable you to identify more birds, more quickly. The author shows how to use geography and an understanding of habitats, ecology, and even the weather to enrich your birding experience and help you find something out of the ordinary.

A work on the Whitman disciples - the fascinating, eclectic group of nineteenth-century men and women who regarded Walt Whitman not simply as a poet but as a religious prophet. It presents a colorful portrait of an era of intense religious, political, and sexual passions, focusing on why Whitman's work continues to appeal to so many.

When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, thousands of ordinary people across the globe seized the opportunity to participate in the start of the Space Age. This book tells the story of this network of pioneers who, fueled by civic pride and exhilarated by space exploration, took part in the scientific endeavor.

Looking at the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century people who wrote about the Andean region that became Peru, this work shows how the lens of Rome had a profound influence on Spanish understanding of the Incan empire. It focuses on issues such as the role of language in conquest, the interpretation of civil war, and the founding of cities.

The American welfare state is supposed to be a pale imitation of 'true' welfare states in Europe and Canada. This book argues that the American welfare state is in fact larger, more popular, and more dynamic than commonly believed.

What adventure novelist could have invented the life of Giuseppe Garibaldi? This title tells the story of Garibaldi's public and private life, separating its myth-like reality from the outright myths that have surrounded Garibaldi since his own day.

"If you go out and simply look up, everything - from the Moon to the planets to the stars to the band of the Milky Way - appears to be pasted on the two-dimensional surface of the dome of the sky. Yet, the story of astronomy as a science is how, over time, astronomers have discovered the cosmos in depth. It is the story of the measurement of position and distance, and how our 2D view of the sky above us evolved into a more sophisticated comprehension of the real 3D depths of space. The distances to the stars were first measured using the parallax effect - that is, by comparing the view from opposite sides of the Earth's orbit. This is the same effect that your brain uses (comparing the views from your left and right eyes) to effortlessly give you depth perception. In this book, the authors present the most spectacular stereo images available in astronomy. (Stereo images are pairs of images of the same object, taken 6 months apart - which, as the Earth turns, means viewed from opposite sides of the Earth's orbit.) Each pair of stereo images, when viewed with a special stereo viewer (to be contained in the book itself), portrays the object in 3D. Each striking 3D picture is accompanied by a caption on the facing page, which tells the story and significance of the image in a mini-essay and points out its interesting features. Rather than a random assortment of astronomical wonders, the pictures are arranged in order of their distance from Earth. The book starts out with the Moon and moves outward through planets, stars, and galaxies, finally reaching the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the most distant thing we can see. The distances of objects are given in light travel times - from 1.3 light-seconds for the Moon to 13.8 billion light-years for the CMB. These distances, along with highlights of how each object was discovered and measured by astronomers, provide a framework and narrative thread for the book, which is carried forward from one caption to the next. At each stage of this outward journey, the reader will learn new and surprising facts about fascinating objects in the depths of space. The book also features an introductory Preface that outlines the story of the discovery of the universe in depth, describes the parallax effect, and provides the background and context for the forthcoming visual tour of the observable universe in 3D"--