Robert K. Durkee on The New Princeton Companion April 05, 2022 The New Princeton Companion, edited by Robert K. Durkee, former vice president and secretary of Princeton University, is both a compendium and a chronicle of one of America’s finest institutions of higher learning. Read More
Book Club Pick: The Mushroom at the End of the World April 01, 2022 Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world—and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the Northern Hemisphere. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s account of these sought-after fungi offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: What manages to live in the ruins we have made? Read More
A look inside Lives of Houses March 31, 2022 The writing of lives often involves writing about houses. Bringing a house to life through observation, familiarity, memory, or excavation can be a vital part of narrating the life of an individual, a family, or a group: life-writing as housework. Read More
Does Skill Make Us Human? March 30, 2022 Skill—specifically the distinction between the “skilled” and “unskilled”—is generally defined as a measure of ability and training, but Does Skill Make Us Human? shows instead that skill distinctions are used to limit freedom, narrow political rights, and even deny access to imagination and desire. Read More
Michael Brenner on In Hitler’s Munich March 28, 2022 In the aftermath of Germany’s defeat in World War I and the failed November Revolution of 1918–19, the conservative government of Bavaria identified Jews with left-wing radicalism. Read More
A new vision for a celebrated history series March 28, 2022 In 1996, Princeton University Press founded the Politics and Society in Modern America book series, with William H. Chafe, Linda Gordon and Gary Gerstle as founding editors, and Julian Zelizer joining the team in 2001. Read More
Listen in: Work Pray Code March 25, 2022 We all want our jobs to be meaningful and fulfilling. Work Pray Code reveals what can happen when work becomes religion, and when the workplace becomes the institution that shapes our souls. Read More
Stephen B. Heard on The Scientist’s Guide to Writing March 23, 2022 The ability to write clearly is critical to any scientific career. The Scientist’s Guide to Writing provides practical advice to help scientists become more effective writers so that their ideas have the greatest possible impact. Read More
Madison’s balancing act March 22, 2022 The further the American Revolution recedes into history, the easier it is to miss just how close the United States of America came to being a divided collection of competing colonies under the punishing heel of an angry Britain. Read More
The evolution of bird migration March 21, 2022 To an earthbound species like humans, bird migration is nothing short of extreme. A four-ounce Arctic tern can fly to Antarctica and back each year during a lifetime that spans 30 years. Read More
PUP Speaks: Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake on correcting economic disappointments March 18, 2022 The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Read More
Carolyn Chen on Work Pray Code March 16, 2022 Silicon Valley is known for its lavish perks, intense work culture, and spiritual gurus. Work Pray Code explores how tech companies are bringing religion into the workplace in ways that are replacing traditional places of worship, blurring the line between work and religion and transforming the very nature of spiritual experience in modern life. Read More
A spacetime interval March 14, 2022 Albert Einstein is dead. Bohemia, too, no longer exists. They have ascended to the realm of myths and legends, become words to conjure with—yet they are not, in general, invoked together. Read More
Is the human brain a biological computer? March 14, 2022 Electrically, the brain remains largely a black box. We send electrical signals in and we get electrical signals out, but what it all exactly means is open to a lot of interpretation and some intense controversy. Read More
So Simple a Beginning March 11, 2022 The form and function of a sprinting cheetah are quite unlike those of a rooted tree. A human being is very different from a bacterium or a zebra. Read More