Books published by Princeton University Press

During early periods of Japanese history the monkey's nearness to the human-animal boundary made it a revered mediator or an animal deity closest to humans. Later it became a scapegoat mocked for its vain efforts to behave in a human fashion. This work presents a tripartite study of the monkey metaphor.

Shows how author's teacher and reformer used exceptional rhetorical skills to defend her ideas at a time when women were denied participation in theological discourse. This title correlates the stylistic techniques of humility, irony, obfuscation, and humor with social variables such as the marginalized status of pietistic groups.

Largely unstudied, the religious festivals that attracted Chinese people from all walks of life provide the most instructive examples of the interaction between Chinese forms of social life and the Indian tradition of Buddhism. This title examines one of the most important of such annual celebrations.

A social biography of a rural Moroccan judge. It combines the outlooks and perceptions of the author and those of the shrewd and reflective 'Abd ar-Rahman, supplementing our knowledge of resurgent militant Islamic movements by describing other popularly supported Islamic attitudes toward the contemporary world.

Examines the explosion of terrorist activity that took place in the Russian empire from the years just prior to the turn of the century through 1917, a period when over 17,000 people were killed or wounded by revolutionary extremists.

The description for this book, The How and the Why, will be forthcoming.

How did Buddhism, so prominent in Japanese life for over a thousand years, become the target of severe persecution in the social and political turmoil of the early Meiji era? This title elucidates not only the development of Buddhism in the late nineteenth century but also the strategies of the Meiji state.

Focuses on the importance of medieval political configurations and of military modernization in the early modern period. This title maintains that in late medieval times an array of constitutional arrangements distinguished Western Europe from other parts of the world and predisposed it toward liberal democracy.

Scrutinizing ill-planned urban and suburban development in the United States and the tropical deforestation of Central and South America, this work summarizes our knowledge of the subtle combination of circumstances that is devastating our bird populations.

This is the first book-length treatment of mathematical models of muscle functions. Although physiologists, biophysicists, and bioengineers often mention these models, particularly the important Huxley models, Thomas A. McMahon is the first completely to explain them.

Draws on historical analysis, interviews, and the authors' own professional experience in the intelligence community to provide an evaluation of US strategic intelligence.

Looks more at the operational side of nuclear strategy than previous analysts have done, seeking to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Challenging those who accept or advocate executive supremacy in American foreign-policy making, this title proposes that we abandon the supine roles often assigned our legislative and judicial branches in that field. It offers analysis of foreign policy and constitutionalism.

Explores the process by which our major parties nominate candidates for the presidency in America. This study focuses on the nature and impact of "momentum" in the contemporary nominating system. It examines the consequences of some proposed alternatives to the nominating process, including a regional primary system and a one-day national primary.

Offers a defense of the minimal welfare state substantially independent of any broader commitments, and at the same time better able to withstand challenges from the New Right's moralistic political economy. This defense of the existence of the welfare state is discussed, flanked by criticism of Old Left and New Right arguments.

When we read that scientists have come close to pinpointing the "origin of the universe" by means of a Big Bang cosmology, can we doubt that such inquiries or their results inevitably raise important philosophical questions? This book attempts to answer such questions by examining scientific theories of cosmology in a philosophical context.

The aim of this book is to ask through a study of one of his most complicated treatises on explanation, how far, and in what sense, the demands of the 'scientific person' are Aristotle's.

This work seeks to clarify why and when interest group leaders in Washigton, USA seek to mobilize the public order to influence policy decisions in Congress. It grants a more important role to the need for interest group leaders to demonstrate popular support on particular issues.

Examines how states can and have used international currency relationships and arrangements as instruments of coercive power for the advancement of state security. This work lays the groundwork for the study of monetary power by providing a taxonomy of the forms that such power can take and of the conditions under which it can have effect.

Demonstrates the degree to which modernist styles are related to graphic and typographic design, to printed letters - 'black riders' on a blank page - that create language for the eye. This book sketches the relation of modernist writing to key developments in book design.

Offers a definition of postmodernism as a reformation of time. This book demonstrates the crisis of our dominant idea of history and its dissolution in the rhythmic time of postmodernism. It discusses several crises of cultural identity: the crisis of the object, the crisis of the subject, and the crisis of the sign.

To probe the literary representation of the alienated mind, this work examines mad protagonists of literature and the work of writers for whom madness is a vehicle of self-revelation. It shows how literary interpretations of madness, as well as madness itself, reflect the very cultural assumptions, values, and prohibitions they challenge.

The description for this book, Policy Making in China, will be forthcoming.

A collaborator with Warner Brothers and Paramount in the early days of sound film, the German film director Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) is famous for his sense of ironic detachment. This title focuses on the visual strategies Lubitsch used to convey irony and analyzes his contribution to the rise of classical narrative cinema.