Essay ISMs: Quotations for a new generation March 13, 2024 While Einstein, Darwin, and Jung conducted most of their intellectual work in writing, artists rarely do the same. But it is still possible to know their words. Read More
Interview Urs Gasser and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger on Guardrails March 08, 2024 What are good guardrails in today’s world of overwhelming information flows and increasingly powerful technologies, such as artificial intelligence? Read More
Interview Stephen Porder on Elemental February 27, 2024 It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Read More
Essay Learning from imperial violence February 22, 2024 Historians are supposed to feel lucky when our new books align closely with topics prominently in the news. I would welcome a little less relevance for “They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence.” Read More
Essay Beyond bestiaries: the cats and dogs of Old English February 12, 2024 The words for ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ are virtually the same in Old English – hund (from which we get ‘hound’) and cat or catte (pronounced COT-tuh). Read More
Essay When is an apple not an apple? February 09, 2024 When it comes time to use images to support a written report, a presentation, or a publication, oftentimes people find themselves stumped. The early years of education introduce students to the building blocks of verbal literacy, but very few of us are taught the ways in which images communicate their magic. Read More
Essay My awkward road to unnatural extinction February 06, 2024 Successful writing projects have their tri-partite biographies, informed by the life histories of writer and subject matter and their productive encounter. Some of them are slowly formed while others are the result of a sudden insight or discovery. Read More
Interview Robin Schuldenfrei on Objects in Exile January 30, 2024 Robin Schuldenfrei reveals how the process of migration was crucial to the development of modernism. Read More
Essay Doing great deeds, or on the generosity of the rich January 17, 2024 Across history the rich have achieved plenty of things from which we continue to benefit. Surely, they did it for their own benefit, and to bolster their social status—in plainer words, to show off and to impress their fellow patricians—but the fact remains that we benefit aesthetically from their efforts. Read More
Essay Radio then and now January 17, 2024 When I was a kid, you could actually look inside a radio and see all sorts of neat stuff in there, like the amazing mechanical linkages of the tuning mechanism, or the mysterious, soft yellow glow of the vacuum tubes (the transistor hadn’t yet completely replaced tubes). The wonders of what I could see inside my parents’ 1947 AM/FM radio console hooked me. Read More
Essay New year, old problems January 10, 2024 The struggle against distraction might seem utterly specific to the twenty-first century, but it was in fact singled out as a crisis more than a millennium and a half ago. Read More
Essay A history of twins in science January 08, 2024 Twins share their environment and (in the case of identical siblings) much of their genetic make-up with another person. This has made them idealized research subjects in scientific studies. Read More
Essay Turning language inside out January 05, 2024 We know that words wield immense power. They express, represent, inspire, provoke, evoke. They can wound, figuratively, and also literally. Read More
Interview Ideas and inspiration from Princeton University Press’s 2023 fellows January 03, 2024 Princeton University Press’ Publishing Fellowship was created in 2021 to expand access to publishing careers and address a lack of diversity across the industry. In July 2023, Faye Akpalu and Jon Kriney were welcomed to the press as our third-year Publishing Fellows. Read More
Essay What can we learn from Einstein today? January 03, 2024 Einstein has left his mark not only on physics of the twentieth century but also on the public image of science and scientists and on the cultural and political history of the twentieth century, far beyond his area of expertise. Read More
