700+ Scholars, Artists, Creators
This book came from a combination of two streams.The first is my interest in constitutional oddities. When I was a law student, we were discussing presidential pardons and I asked...
It can admittedly be difficult to sense this kind of “sociology” of comedy – in large part because of our nostalgic fixation on images of custard pies and Keystone cops....
The global capitalist=consumerist economy has an entire faith system, which has its own hierarchy, its own institutions, its own marble palaces. It has its own mythology, doctrine of the creation,...
I’ve identified four reasons why our economic system doesn’t support the natural world. All four of these problems can be fixed by straightforward institutional or policy reforms.In fact, there are...
On page 149 I start to describe the Disco Demolition rally in Chicago that occurred just a few days before Jimmy Carter gave his speech. The rally is a wonderful...
There is a short section devoted to the painting reproduced on the book’s cover, which is Rosso Fiorentino’s Dead Christ (1527), a very strange painting and nothing less than a...
I hope that readers will begin with my introduction, which lays out the basic terms of my argument. However, casual readers might prefer to start with one of the chapters...
The book relates to now-traditional ideas within the discipline of Film Studies, that there are significant insights as well as pleasures to be gleaned by the very close analysis of...
The title is an almost absurdly clear description of the book, but the truth is, until my editor suggested that title to me, I wasn’t quite sure that what I...
The Stalin Cult crosses disciplinary boundaries: it is both history and art history and it speaks to the fields of symbolic politics, the high politics of Stalinism, socialist realist visual...
Due to the historical scope of this book there are several themes that weave through the entire narration. Take, for example, the attempts of various writers to understand the concept...
Part of the backdrop to the Commission on Freedom of the Press is the acrimonious relationship between President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration and the press. I knew a bit about...
Not everyone is happy with all the talk of expanding addiction. It bothers clinicians who fear stigmatization, libertarians who smell an excuse for indiscipline, social scientists who fear neuroscientific reductionism...
Histories of disco emphasize the antagonism between rock and disco, and with good reason. Rock publications covered the glitter-ball world begrudgingly and/or sneeringly. Rock radio was even more hostile. Punk...
The book considers issues of class, politics and waiting through reference to a lower middle class of Jats in Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh, especially students from this caste studying in...
I can certainly imagine that parts of Bangladesh will flood and sea level rise may submerge parts of the nation. But I would be surprised if such dramatic changes could...
Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see...
My motivations for writing this book were largely historical and aesthetic. I wanted to explain the proliferation of various tropes of play in Victorian literary representations of modern life. Even...
I began writing this book when I was nine months pregnant. Having just completed a fellowship as a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton I returned to...
Examining how the actions of individuals come together to create an immense commercial empire, Dangerous Economies is studded with the stories of a diverse array of New Yorkers, from slaves...
C. Wright Mills argued that sociological research often springs from the intersection of personal biography and history. My book is no exception.I come from a family that bought organic foods...
I use the example of Copernicus, who literally picked up from Arabic texts almost all of the mathematical theorems he needed for the construction of his astronomy; these theorems were...
A reader of this book would probably be most struck by the many instances of commonplace accidents that one seldom or never thinks about. Human error is everywhere. Workers try...
During an early professional experience writing about artworks for a large public art museum, I had access to files containing fascinating correspondence between artists and the museum. I found diagrams, instructions...
I would hope that “just browsing” readers in a bookstore would encounter the introductory section, “Horse,” or the penultimate chapter, “Dog” first. “Horse” for the simple fact that I try...
There are plans in the works for a multiracial film version of Macbeth. Like the famous 1936 production that Orson Welles directed in Harlem, this adaptation is to be set...
I started writing this book as part of my graduate work in media studies. I was interested in cities and found myself attracted to how cities were represented in films....
Most countries in medieval Europe were monarchies, ruled by a royal or imperial family, a dynasty, so politics at the top level was shaped by the births, marriages, and deaths...
The chapter entitled “Ground Zero in Focus” examines several documentaries composed of candid, amateur footage shot by witnesses in Manhattan and New Jersey as the World Trade Center burned and...
I came to this subject with a longstanding interest in the role of scientists in US policymaking. Growing up as the daughter of a climate scientist, I gained early exposure...
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