archive

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

The Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent - In a nutshell

The Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent is the result of my attempt to understand what in the environments of proto-primates might have begun the process of brain modification to...

Lynne A. Isbell

Charlotte Brontë's Life Through Clothes - In a nutshell

In a nutshell, this richly illustrated biography explores Charlotte Brontë’s life through the garments she left behind, pieces that, until now, had remained largely unexplored.Collectively, these material witnesses...

Eleanor Houghton

Fashioning Faces - In a nutshell

Fashioning Faces, a cross-disciplinary study, looks at how literary and visual portraiture in the British Romantic era embodied a newly commercial culture.I consider the Romantic era as a transitional period...

Elizabeth A. Fay

Masters of Craft - The wide angle

There are three broad forces occurring in society today that in concert are leading to these jobs becoming cool. First, how we classify taste is shifting. Consumers are questioning what...

Richard E. Ocejo

Eurolegalism - A close-up

I begin the book with the story of passenger rights in the EU—a story which illustrates many of the dynamics described in the book.Many readers will be familiar with the...

R. Daniel Kelemen

Permanent Revolution - A close-up

I hope browsing readers will feel the palpable connections between the revolutionary period of the Reformation and our own times. The Introduction and Conclusion would be the places to get...

James Simpson

BELZONI - A close-up

Opening my book to pages 64 and 65, you will sit beside Belzoni as he drew the tumbled wonders of Karnak. It is a safe bet that having done so,...

Ivor Noël Hume

Inventing the Israelite - The wide angle

Nineteenth-century French Jews have often received bad press. Denounced by antisemites at the time as the new feudal lords of capitalism, they were also seen as nefarious agents of communist...

Maurice Samuels

The Ecological Thought - A close-up

If I were yelling at someone from a fast moving train and had only one chance to say one thing about my book before they went out of earshot, I...

Timothy Morton

Free Speech Beyond Words - A close-up

We think that the book’s cover is a terrific “provocation” for thinking about the problem. We hope that readers (viewers?) will ask themselves, “Why is this covered by the First...

Mark V. Tushnet

Slab City - A close-up

When you pick up Slab City, you might open it to Donovan’s photograph of an A-frame shelter made of pallets and cardboard. Late one afternoon in June, its builder gave...

Charlie Hailey

Chicago 1890 - The wide angle

Although I was trained as a professional architect, I am principally an architectural historian, drawn especially to the social and political context of architecture and urbanism in nineteenth and early...

Joanna Merwood-Salisbury

The American 1930s - In a nutshell

With the exception only of the Civil War, Americans faced in the Depression of the 1930s the most wrenching and divisive domestic crisis in their history. An economic structure that...

Peter Conn

Presidents and Parties in the Public Mind - A close-up

At the heart of the book are the data. A look at chapter 3 would be a good way to get a feel for my approach. The material in this...

Gary C. Jacobson

The Genius Checklist - A close-up

The marketing people at MIT Press asked me to pick out a brief excerpt from the book that might provide the best entry. I answered that the four-page Prologue would...

Dean Keith Simonton

The Sketch, the Tale, and the Beginnings of American Literature - In a nutshell

Between the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), US folks celebrated US beginnings in all sorts of ways. They formed Forefather Societies. They held Forth of July parades...

Lydia G. Fash

The American Lie - The wide angle

In more than thirty years of teaching politics, I have observed that students’ natural healthy cynicism is constantly criticized by the press and by their teachers. I want to assure...

Benjamin Ginsberg

Academically Adrift - In a nutshell

This book is based on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA)—a project in which my coauthor Josipa Roksa and I followed several thousand students across 24 diverse U.S. four-year colleges and...

Richard Arum

Emancipation After Hegel - A close-up

The first chapter of Emancipation After Hegel lays out the argument of the entire book in detail, so this is a good starting point. Starting at the beginning would give...

Todd McGowan

The Storytelling Animal - The wide angle

My career has focused on bridging the gap between the estranged cultures of the humanities and sciences. How can we use science to better understand fiction? And what can scientists...

Jonathan Gottschall

Peace on Our Terms - A close-up

It is difficult to crack open this book to a particular page and get a strong sense of the whole. Individual chapters highlight the activism of varying groups of women...

Mona L. Siegel

Fantasies of the New Class - In a nutshell

In the decades after World War II, the United States experienced an unprecedented boom in higher education. This boom altered the demographics of American society, creating a growing, educated middle...

Stephen Schryer

Escape from Rome - A close-up

It is always a good idea to start at the end. The epilogue of my book takes its cue from the famous question in the Monty Python movie The Life...

Walter Scheidel

Stalking Nabokov - In a nutshell

Stalking Nabokovfocuses always on Vladimir Nabokov and occasionally also on me in persistent pursuit, wielding a variety of nets, in different seasons and terrains, panting with effort while he flutters...

Brian Boyd

More - The wide angle

People have wrestled with population and the control of reproduction for thousands of years. Yet both of these topics are always sensitive and hence mostly marginalized in literature and public...

Robert Engelman

Success and Suppression - The wide angle

There are many forgotten heritages in Western history, but the issue of Arabic influence is particularly contested because the heritage has its roots in a culture that suffers from Western...

Dag Nikolaus Hasse

A Future in Ruins - In a nutshell

A Future in Ruins tells the story of UNESCO and its efforts to save the cultural wonders of the world, largely through its famous World Heritage program. I wanted to...

Lynn Meskell

Le Corbusier - A close-up

I got to Le Corbusier through his letters. It took me a long time to get him. When I began the book it was like facing a vault wall in...

Nicholas Fox Weber

Fashioning Faces - A close-up

Toward the end of the second chapter I discuss William Hazlitt’s Spirit of the Age. For me, this section embodies all the concepts I try to engage in the book.I...