Books published by Princeton University Press

Mack offers a wide-ranging exploration of the creative power of literary tradition, from the middle ages to the 21st century, revealing in new ways how it helps writers and readers make new works and meanings.

In The Underwater Eye, Margaret Cohen tells the fascinating story of how the development of modern diving equipment and movie camera technology has allowed documentary and narrative filmmakers to take human vision into the depths, creating new imagery of the seas and the underwater realm, and expanding the scope of popular imagination. Innovating on the most challenging film set on earth, filmmakers have tapped the emotional power of the underwater environment to forge new visions of horror, tragedy, adventure, beauty, and surrealism, entertaining the public and shaping its perception of ocean reality. Examining works by filmmakers ranging from J. E. Williamson, inventor of the first undersea film technology in 1914, to Wes Anderson, who filmed the underwater scenes of his 2004 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou entirely in a pool, The Underwater Eye traces how the radically alien qualities of underwater optics have shaped liquid fantasies for more than a century. Richly illustrated, the book explores documentaries by Jacques Cousteau, Louis Malle, and Hans Hass, art films by Man Ray and Jean Vigo, and popular movies and television shows such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Sea Hunt, the Bond films, Jaws, The Abyss, and Titanic. In exploring the cultural impact of underwater filmmaking, the book also asks compelling questions about the role film plays in engaging the public with the remote ocean, a frontline of climate change.

Mathletics is a remarkably entertaining book that shows readers how to use simple mathematics to analyze a range of statistical and probability-related questions in professional baseball, basketball, and football, and in sports gambling. How does professional baseball evaluate hitters? Is a singles hitter like Wade Boggs more valuable than a power hitter like David Ortiz? Should NFL teams pass or run more often on first downs? Could professional basketball have used statistics to expose the crooked referee Tim Donaghy? Does money buy performance in professional sports? In Mathletics, Wayne Winston describes the mathematical methods that top coaches and managers use to evaluate players and improve team performance, and gives math enthusiasts the practical tools they need to enhance their understanding and enjoyment of their favorite sports--and maybe even gain the outside edge to winning bets. Mathletics blends fun math problems with sports stories of actual games, teams, and players, along with personal anecdotes from Winston's work as a sports consultant. Winston uses easy-to-read tables and illustrations to illuminate the techniques and ideas he presents, and all the necessary math concepts--such as arithmetic, basic statistics and probability, and Monte Carlo simulations--are fully explained in the examples. After reading Mathletics, you will understand why baseball teams should almost never bunt, why football overtime systems are unfair, why points, rebounds, and assists aren't enough to determine who's the NBA's best player--and much, much more. In a new epilogue, Winston discusses the stats and numerical analysis behind some recent sporting events, such as how the Dallas Mavericks used analytics to become the 2011 NBA champions.

Looking at Americans and their politics, this book argues for a more complex understanding of the "space" occupied by politics in nineteenth-century American society and culture. It explores a wide range of political actions and attitudes.

A comprehensive interpretation of John Locke's solution to one of philosophy's enduring problems: free will and the nature of human agency. It shows us that Locke conceived free agency not just as the freedom to express oneself, but as including also the freedom to transcend oneself and act in accordance with "the good."

Argues that it is necessary to move 'beyond the Constitution', to the principles that stood antecedent to the text, if we are to understand the text and apply the Constitution to the cases that arise every day in our law.

Addresses the problems that arise not only from a politicized foreign policy process but also from excessive bureaucratization and lack of leadership in the Foreign Service itself.

Yoga has come to be an icon of Indian culture and civilization, and it is widely regarded as being timeless and unchanging. This book challenges this popular view by examining the history of yoga, focusing on its emergence in modern India and its dramatically changing form and significance in the twentieth century.

A long-dominant reading of American politics holds that public policy in the United States is easily captured by special interest groups. Countering this view, this title traces the development of government intervention in agriculture from its nineteenth-century origins to contemporary struggles over farm subsidies.

Is the United States a nation of materialistic loners whose politics are dictated by ethnic, racial, religious, or sexual identities? This book explores the institutional structures of American society, emphasizing its ability to accommodate difference and reduce conflict.

A history of American federalism that argues that nation-building cannot be understood apart from the process of industrialization and the making of the working class in the late-eighteenth-century United States.

Lets American anarchists speak for themselves. This title contains fifty-three interviews conducted by the author over a period of thirty years, interviews that portray the human dimensions of a movement much maligned by the authorities and contemporary journalists.

Using class analysis to understand the dynamics of political conflict in mid-nineteenth-century France, this title explores political activity among workers in three industrialized French cities - Toulouse, Saint-Etienne, and Rouen. It analyses the failed municipal revolutions of 1871 and the triumph of liberal-democratic institutions in France.

Americans claim a strong attachment to the work ethic and regularly profess support for government policies to promote employment. Why, then, have employment policies gained only a tenuous foothold in the United States? This title highlights two related elements: the power of ideas in policymaking and the politics of interest formation.

From President Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972 to the aftermath of the Tiananmen tragedy, this book examines the changing perceptions of the United States articulated by China's 'America Watchers', whose occupation is to interpret the 'beautiful imperialist' for China's elite and public.

Before the intifada began, the author had already looked at local organizations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and seen there the main elements that would eventually be used to mobilize the Palestinian masses. This title studies these organizations.

Drawing on work with Indian and Japanese patients, this title explores inner worlds that are markedly different from the Western psyche. It features case studies that illustrate this argument: the 'familial self', rooted in the subtle emotional hierarchical relationships of the family and group, predominates in Indian and Japanese psyches.

Intended for those interested in the differences in function between the left and right brain hemispheres.

'An important new book-length analysis of Soviet policy toward developing countries is Alvin Z. Rubinstein's Moscow's Third World Strategy.' Roger E. Kanet, Soviet Studies

Presents a discussion focused on economic topics.

Offers the study of changes in Soviet cinema that have been taking place since 1985. This title examines a variety of films from "BOMZH" (initials standing for homeless drifter) through Taxi Blues and the glasnost blockbuster "Little Vera" to the Latvian documentary "Is It Easy to Be Young?" and the "new wave" productions of "Wild Kazakh boys."

Explores the interaction of political ideology and academic social science in democratic and totalitarian regimes, the transformation of German conservatism by the experience of National Socialism, and the ways in which tension between former collaborators and former opponents of National Socialism continued to mold West German intellectual life.

Did bilateral and regional bargaining choke off international commerce and finance in the 1930s and prolong the Great Depression? This title shows how economic discrimination can foster international economic openness by facilitating political exchange.

'Writing as he does with energy and grace, Kernan is a thoughtful guide to the world Johnson lived in and helped to make...What is best about Kernan's book is that it is up to date but not voguish; he has assimilated new scholarship but not been overpowered by it.' - W.B. Carnochan, The Times Literary Supplement

Offers a look at Italy from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries focusing on a literary tradition. This book moves from a reframing of literature from the first half of the nineteenth century - including readings of works by Byron, de Stael, Barrett Browning, and others - to an examination of Henry James's engagement with Europe.

Despite his celebrity and his fame, a series of literary feuds and the huge volume of sources have precluded a satisfying biography of Allen Tate. This work explores his attempt, first through politics and then through art, to reconcile his fierce talent and ambition with the painful history of his family and of the South.

Since the desegregation battles of the 1960s and 1970s, the legal pursuit of educational opportunity in the United States has been framed around race. This book examines the consequences of efforts to use state constitutional provisions to reduce the 'resource segregation' of American schools and the politics of the opposition to these decisions.

How do the places we live in and visit shape our lives and memories? What does it mean to reside in different locations across the span of a life? Presenting the portraits of places seen from within, the author contemplates how places create and gather their stories and how, in turn, a sense of place locates the stories of our own lives.