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Close Encounters of the Third Kind - In a nutshell

This book is about Steven Spielberg's 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. A lot of people assume this is special effects driven film and about “wow” and “wonder”—which it is—but it's also about alienated lost masculinity. Part of what I argue—and I think this is the new angle to the book—is that in the beginning of the 70s films by Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese, Hal Ashby, Kubrick and others...

Dana Polan

Reclaiming Modernity - A close-up

Like any proud author, my expectation is that the browsing prospective reader might find delight by turning to virtually any page in my book. However, I will limit myself to...

Larry Bennett

Stalking Nabokov - A close-up

[I recount the story of a shirtless Nabokov catching butterflies in the mountains of Utah in 1943 and responding only slowly to John Downey, a student stopped beside the coal...

Brian Boyd

Others in Mind - The wide angle

Other in Mind is neither just another dry academic book, nor a self-help book. It is about sharing what I see as a crucial aspect of what makes us part...

Philippe Rochat

The Fifth Beginning - The wide angle

I’ve taught prehistory for many years, and I’ve found that although students can accept the fact that humanity has a long and complex history, they also think that history is...

Robert L. Kelly

Civilizing Torture - The wide angle

My interest in these historical events is a product of our times. Prior to 2004 it is unlikely that I would have written a book about torture in the United...

W. Fitzhugh Brundage

Just Like Us - The wide angle

I have been writing and teaching U.S. and world history for more than three decades, for 12 years at Cornell and then 17 years at Nebraska. I have been primarily...

Thomas Borstelmann

Foretelling the End of Capitalism - A close-up

The first part of the book tells a story of disappointments with our ability to forecast the future of capitalism. This story unfolds in several stages: the Victorian era (Chapter...

Francesco Boldizzoni

I Am Not a Tractor! How Florida Farmworkers Took On the Fast Food Giants and Won - The wide angle

Although this effort began in Florida’s tomato fields, the Coalition and the Fair Food Program are providing a model for worker-driven social responsibility that could transform American agriculture, with potential...

Susan L. Marquis

Drawing on Art - In a nutshell

The book’s title Drawing on art: Duchamp and Company refers to Marcel Duchamp’s literal defacement of the Mona Lisa image—and also to its figurative meaning, the treatment of art as...

Dalia Judovitz

Fearless Women - A close-up

When browsing for a book, I enjoy employing Ford Madox Ford’s “page 99” test. An English literary critic and novelist, Ford wrote in the 1920s, “Open the book to page...

Elizabeth Cobbs

The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder - A close-up

My book begins with a largely forgotten California strike that took place at Safeway supermarkets in 2003-04. At first glance, the basic arc of that story is a familiar confrontation...

David Webber

Le Corbusier - In a nutshell

There are hundreds of books about Le Corbusier’s architecture, but very little knowledge about the man himself. This book is an attempt to reveal Le Corbusier’s personality, his motivations, give...

Nicholas Fox Weber

Stalin’s Genocides - In a nutshell

The book—really an extended essay—argues that Stalin’s mass killings in the 1930s should be classified as “genocide.”The book suggests that the definition of genocide, as taken from the work of...

Norman M. Naimark

New World A-Coming - The wide angle

My own engagement with Cuban art began in 1985, the result of a happy accident. I was immediately fascinated by the work that my peers in Havana were making: it...

Judith Weisenfeld

How Schools Really Matter - In a nutshell

This book is about understanding how schools influence achievement gaps. The traditional story is that schools are part of the problem and that large differences in school quality make achievement...

Douglas B. Downey

Behind the Development Banks - In a nutshell

This book is about how American politics affects the multilateral development banks—or “the banks,” for short. The best known of these is the World Bank, but several regional banks that...

Sarah Babb

Innocent Until Interrogated - In a nutshell

My book is a stark but comprehensive look at what really happened following the discovery of two seemingly unrelated cases of murder near Phoenix, Arizona, in 1991.The first case involved...

Gary Stuart

Higher Learning, Greater Good - A close-up

Chapter 5 adopts a rigorous definition of what externalities are, identifies a wide range of external social benefits of higher education, presents and evaluates the empirical evidence for each, and...

Walter W. McMahon

Degradation - The wide angle

My interest in the concept of obscenity grew out of a law school course on the topic of the rhetoric, law and culture. One of the readings was Sophocles’ play...

Kevin W. Saunders

On the Two Faces of the Euro Coins

Normalization of the right is the term that I develop to capture the twin phenomena of the electoral surge of the European right and the mainstreaming of nationalist ideas and...

Mabel Berezin

Saving the Security State - A close-up

Readers encountering my book might first turn to the chapter on Hurricane Katrina, which captures the context of the book, both with regard to the problems of a retreating welfare...

Inderpal Grewal

Permanent Revolution - In a nutshell

Protestants won in Northern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The narrative produced by the winners was and largely remains triumphalist: Protestantism won because it foreshadowed the liberal order....

James Simpson

Dog Economics - A close-up

Each chapter offers interesting research findings interpreted from an economic perspective. “Chasing the Tale” reviews what evolutionary biology tells us about the transformation of wolves into dogs. It also considers...

David L. Weimer

The Code Economy - The wide angle

We have all heard that we’re about to become obsolete, irrelevant. Or if not us, then, certainly, our children. No number of coding camps will help them. And definitely not...

Philip E. Auerswald

Barbarians to Angels - The wide angle

Ever since enrolling in a PhD-program in Economics, I have been troubled by the excessive abstraction whereby economists treat money. While past thinkers, from Aristotle and Plato to Karl Marx...

Peter S. Wells

Constitutional Cliffhangers - A close-up

I think that the six scenarios in my book are all compelling and dramatic. I hope that they draw the reader in, and inspire him or her to delve into...

Brian C. Kalt

I Am Not a Tractor! How Florida Farmworkers Took On the Fast Food Giants and Won - A close-up

Jump into Chapter 4: Has anyone talked with these guys? It gives a sense of what a great, and encouraging, story this is. The Prologue gives a short but comprehensive...