Jeremy DeSilva on A Most Interesting Problem January 22, 2021 On February 24, 1871 Charles Darwin published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, a follow-up to his most famous book On the Origin of Species. Read More
MLK Day reflections on diversifying publishing January 17, 2021 Publishing itself is an act of mutuality, a series of symbiotic relationships ranging from idea and page, to author and publisher, to bookseller and reader. The garments we create—books—are shaped by current knowledge, imagination, and tools, and are also often cloaked by or interwoven with fabrics of history. Read More
Translating science: The real work of forensic scientists January 16, 2021 When I tell people about my new book about forensic scientists, Blood, Powder and Residue: How Crime Labs Translate Evidence into Proof, they usually think about popular TV shows such as “CSI.” But there’s a gap between the public image of scientists and what scientists do, and this gap matters. Read More
Material unfurling, digital scrolling, urban strolling, c. 1830–now January 14, 2021 The companion website, developed with support from Princeton University Press’s Global Equity Grant, supplements The Place of Many Moods: Udaipur’s Painted Lands and India’s Eighteenth Century. While taking the book to broader audiences, the website features objects published and studied for the first time in-depth. Read More
Listen in: Rome Is Burning January 06, 2021 According to legend, the Roman emperor Nero set fire to his majestic imperial capital on the night of July 19, AD 64 and fiddled while the city burned. It’s a story that has been told for more than two millennia—and it’s likely that almost none of it is true. Read More
How Each Line Appears | some loose leaves January 04, 2021 Rain in Plural is the much-anticipated fourth collection of poetry by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, who has been praised by The Rumpus as “a master of musicality and enlightening allusions.” In the wholly original world of these poems, Sze-Lorrain addresses both private narratives and the overexposed discourse of the polis, using silence and montage, lyric and antilyric, to envision what she calls “creating between liberties.” Read More
Katherine Zubovich on Moscow Monumental December 17, 2020 In 1947, Stalin decreed that eight monumental buildings be built in the Soviet capital. Seven of these neoclassical structures were completed in the 1950s and these buildings continue to stand today as originally intended: as elite apartment complexes, luxury hotels, and the headquarters of key institutions including Moscow State University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Read More
The irrationality of 2020 December 16, 2020 Irrationality was published in 2019, but the real subject of the book, it turns out, is the year 2020. The book now seems to me to be describing a world that had been gestating for some years, but that only came out kicking and screaming, loud enough for all to hear and for none to deny, in the pandemic era, which coincides, significantly, with the final year of Donald Trump’s ignominious presidency. Read More
The mountain memories that fuelled Tolkien’s epic tales December 14, 2020 ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door.’ Bilbo Baggins is thinking of adventure, of course, not pandemics. ‘You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.’ Yet The Lord of the Rings is a lesson in how far you can travel without leaving home. Read More
Reaffirming human rights December 10, 2020 On December 19, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It took more than two years of intense, difficult negotiations, but the members of the drafting committee understood that they could not fail. Read More
Timeless wisdom on generosity and gratitude December 01, 2020 The approach of the winter holidays invites us to wrestle once again with the complexities of giving. On surface it seems simple enough: Buy something nice, wrap it in colorful paper, present it to your giftee. Read More
By Design | Books about books, or the cataloging of ideas November 27, 2020 Sales catalogs have a noble lineage, one that an academic press would gladly embrace. The first catalog was published in Venice in 1498 by Aldus Manutius, founder of the Aldine Press. Read More
Can logic be fun? November 24, 2020 Many people have tried to define logic. James Thurber wrote, “Since it is possible to touch a clock without stopping it, it follows that one can start a clock without touching it.” Read More
Looking at medieval objects November 17, 2020 A few years ago, I was in the Medieval Collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City examining one of the objects I was writing a book about when a father came by with two children, a boy of about 10 and a girl of 7 or 8. He was taking them to see the medieval armor in the next exhibit room. Read More
Leadership in a time of crisis: Nero and the Great Fire of Rome November 13, 2020 There is one political failing that people seem unable to forgive. In the case of George W. Bush it was not the bitterly divisive invasion of Iraq that blighted his presidential image, nor was Donald Trump’s belligerent governing style his most serious liability in the 2020 election. Read More
