Books published by Yale University Press

From Homer’s epics to mainstream news, stories have lives of their own—and humans may not always control the narratives we create

For the first time, this book locates her, ‘centre frame’, focusing on her importance as a painter, designer and decorator. One of the first British artists to produce fully-resolved abstract paintings, and a driving force behind the Omega Workshops, of which she was a co-founder and director, Bell’s work was often collaborative and anonymous.   Bell provided a role model for her younger sister, Virginia Woolf, in her determination to operate professionally on an equal footing with the best male artists of her generation. New research and previously unpublished correspondence establishes how she deployed her skills as a networker, hostess and administrator, operating ‘beneath the radar’ through her brother and fellow artists, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant. The book outlines the specific prejudices and obstacles that Bell encountered as a professional woman in the first decades of the twentieth century. Her self-deprecating tactics, championing the work of the men in her circle and even allowing them to take credit for her own creative practice while providing the invisible labour of a housekeeper, caregiver and muse will resonate for feminists today.

An ambitious look at how the twentieth century’s great powers devised their military strategies and what their implications mean for military competition between the United States and China

The story of Abraham, the first Jew, portrayed as two lives lived by one person, paralleling the contradictions in Judaism throughout its history

Charting the parallel careers and lives of J. M. W. Turner and John Constable, whose distinct artistic visions revolutionized British art and landscape painting. J. M. W. Turner and John Constable are Britain’s two most famous artists. They were also exact contemporaries. Yet their lives and works could not have been more different. By delving into their contrasting backgrounds and biographies, paintings and private lives, this book uncovers a fascinating history of symmetry and equilibrium, contrast and coincidence. It is the tale of two artists—the “yin and yang” of the art world—complementary opposites who between them transformed the shape of British art.   Traditionally the two men have been cast as rivals, even enemies. This book reveals a more nuanced account, reexamining those moments when their paths crossed as competitors but also as colleagues and even, at times, friends. Toe-to-toe they shared the fight for the recognition and appreciation of landscape and in doing so ensured their reputations were forever intertwined and interlinked. Ultimately the story of Turner and Constable is the story of brothers in arts, the twin pillars of landscape painting at its greatest and most influential moment.

Exploring the role the decorative arts played in the representation of Black people in European visual and material culture

A fascinating and highly original history of medieval magic told through twenty key illuminated manuscripts

One of the world’s leading scholars of Buddhism presents the story of its dramatic journey across the globe, from 2,500 years ago to the present day

An exploration of the multifaceted characters and complex events that have defined the Lone Star State from its inception through today

A study of why the ancient Mediterranean and Indian Ocean took different paths to peace and stability and its lessons for international order today

The tragic life of Julian, the last non-Christian emperor of Rome, by award-winning author Philip Freeman

A gripping account of an alien abduction and its connections to the breakdown of American society in the 1960s

A comprehensive look at how slavery and resistance to it have shaped Yale University

An intimate look at Elie Wiesel, author of the seminal Holocaust memoir Night and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

The first full-length biography of civil rights hero and congressman John Lewis

An award-winning historian reconstructs the life of Francis of Assisi and his medieval world, uncovering the man behind the myths

A sweeping history of the violence perpetrated by governments committed to extreme forms of secularism in the twentieth century

An intimate portrait of James Baldwin, offering a new understanding of his life and work as seen through his close relationships and private life

The rise and fall of William J. Levitt, the man who made the suburban house a mass commodity

The long history of the racial wealth gap in America told through the stories of six Black families who struggled to build wealth over multiple generations

Kenneth Turan brings to life the extraordinary partnership of Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg and their role in creating the film industry as we know it

A panoramic, thousand-year history of Israelite religion, from the Iron Age to the birth of Judaism, by a renowned biblical scholar

A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life and the impact of her extraordinary diary

Commemorating the life and scholarship of Lingyi Zeng, this volume considers production and exchange within the larger context of early Eurasian societies

A monograph on one of the leading figures of German Expressionism, Erich Heckel and on artistic exchange in wartime Europe.

A celebration of Peter Eisenman’s illustrious career as architect, thinker, author, and educator