Books published by Princeton University Press

Analyzes the reconstitution of the Russian polity. This book looks at Russia's democratic transition at the local level. It explains why some of the political institutions in the Russian provinces weathered the monumental changes of the early 1990s better than others.

Philosophical debates over the fundamental principles that should guide life-and-death medical decisions usually occur at a considerable remove from the tough, real-world choices made in hospital rooms, courthouses, and legislatures. This title seeks to change that.

Shows how, beginning with Lenin, the Communists established a state monopoly of the media that absorbed literature, art, and science into a stylized and ritualistic public culture. This work explores the close relationship between language and the implementation of the Stalinist-Leninist program.

Argues for participatory democracy without dependence on abstract metaphysical foundations, and stresses the relationship among democracy and civil society, civic education and culture. This book is divided into sections including 'American Theory: Democracy, Liberalism, and Rights' and 'American Practice: Leadership, Citizenship, and Censorship'.

Argues that boundaries of political liberal theorizing must be redrawn. This work proposes a theory of liberal nonpublic life. It offers a fresh look at liberal theory and what it means for a liberal society to function well.

In the years following its near-bankruptcy in 1976 until the end of the 1980s, New York City came to epitomize the debt-driven of the Reagan era. This book asks why a city with a large minority population and a long tradition of liberalism elected a conservative mayor who promoted real-estate development and belittled minority activists.

An ethnography of contemporary Java. It analyzes how language operates to organize and to order an Indonesian people. It exposes the ways a culture reconstitutes itself. It leads to insights into the 'accidents' that precede the formulations of culture as such.

Princeton University's Elias Stein was the first mathematician to see the profound interconnections that tie classical Fourier analysis to several complex variables and representation theory. This volume gathers papers from internationally renowned mathematicians, many of whom have been Stein's students.

Assesses what associations do and don't do for democracy. This book explains how and when associational life expands the domain, inclusiveness, and authenticity of democracy. It looks at which associations are most likely to foster individuals' capacities for democratic citizenship.

Did Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages cohabit in a peaceful "interfaith utopia"? Or were Jews under Muslim rule persecuted, much as they were in Christian lands? Rejecting both polemically charged ideas as myths, the author offers a comparison of Jewish life in medieval Islam and Christendom.

Provides an understanding of the area of analysis on fractals, focusing on the construction of a Laplacian on the Sierpinski gasket and related fractals. This book is intended for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and mathematicians who seek an understanding of analysis on fractals.

Evaluates the evidence for the sort of strange-sounding ideas that can shape our lives. This book takes up issues such as global warming, the dangers of cholesterol, and the effectiveness of placebos. It shows readers how to use the tools of science to judge the accuracy of strange ideas and the trustworthiness of ubiquitous "experts."

Using data on every civil war fought between 1940 and 1992, the author details the conditions that lead combatants to partake in what she defines as a three-step process - the decision on whether to initiate negotiations, to compromise, and, finally, to implement any resulting terms.

Begins by addressing basic questions about active galactic nuclei: What are they? How can they be found? How do they evolve? This book assesses the evidence for massive black holes and considers how they generate power by accretion. It discusses X-ray and g-ray emission, radio emission and jets, emission and absorption lines, and others.

Business papers are in a triumphant mood, buoyed by a conviction that the economic stagnation of the last quarter century has vanished in favor of a new age of robust growth. This book challenges the economic orthodoxies of the political right and center, popularized by such economists as Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman.

Chronicles the Queen's decision making throughout her reign. This book talks about Elizabeth's many mythic images and the steps of Elizabethan policy-makers as they grappled with the most crucial political problems of their day. It investigates how Elizabeth and her ministers governed in the years between the Armada of 1588 and her death in 1603.

Drawing together the classical conception of the language arts, the Renaissance sense of scientific discovery, and the modern study of the mind, this title offers a vision of the central role that language and the arts of language can play in the great adventure of modern cognitive science, the discovery of the human mind.

Looks at how campaigns actually work, from the framing of issues to media coverage to voters' decisions. Examining contested US Senate races between 1988 and 1992, this work challenges the common wisdom that campaigns are a noisy, symbolic aspect of electoral politics, in which the outcomes are determined mainly by presidential popularity.

Presents a social and political history of German communism from its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century to the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1990. This book describes the emergence of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) against the background of Imperial and Weimar Germany.

Reimagines the origins of "American" identity by juxtaposing authors such as Hawthorne, Melville, and Thoreau with Native American, African American, and women authors. This book identifies an unresolvable conflict between America's multicultural history and its violent will to monoculturalism.

Combines field research with historical inquiry to produce a study of a minority people in Russia, the Khanty (Ostiak) of Northwest Siberia. This book shows that processes of acquiring ethnic identity can involve transcending victimhood. It brings Khanty views of their history and life into focus, revealing multiple levels of cultural activism.