Essay The universe from a 3D perspective April 25, 2022 The universe is huge. If we could travel at the speed of light (and we can’t) it would take us only about a second to go to the Moon. Read More
Essay Why tech innovation alone isn’t good enough April 20, 2022 The list of crises we face today seems to grow daily. As if inequality and civil wars and global warming and refugee crises weren't enough, we have also grappled with a global pandemic and the sudden threat of nuclear war. Read More
Interview R. Douglas Arnold on Fixing Social Security April 20, 2022 Since its establishment, Social Security has become the financial linchpin of American retirement. Yet demographic trends—longer lifespans and declining birthrates—mean that this popular program now pays more in benefits than it collects in revenue. Read More
Essay Poems from After Callimachus April 20, 2022 In After Callimachus, esteemed poet and critic Stephanie Burt’s attentive translations and inspired adaptations introduce the work, spirit, and letter of Callimachus to today’s poetry readers. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Africa’s Struggle for Its Art April 14, 2022 For decades, African nations have fought for the return of countless works of art stolen during the colonial era and placed in Western museums. In Africa’s Struggle for Its Art, Bénédicte Savoy brings to light this largely unknown but deeply important history. Read More
Reading List Join us in support of our Earth April 13, 2022 With our global commitment to publishing science books that illuminate the nature of the planet, Princeton University Press is delighted to partner with EarthDay.org and the Canopy Project in supporting the ecology and evolution of planet Earth. Read More
Interview Margaret Cohen on The Underwater Eye April 12, 2022 In The Underwater Eye, Margaret Cohen tells the fascinating story of how the development of modern diving equipment and movie camera technology has allowed documentary and narrative filmmakers to take human vision into the depths, creating new imagery of the seas and the underwater realm, and expanding the scope of popular imagination. Read More
Essay Fortune’s knave April 11, 2022 In the spring of 1924, Stalin’s nemesis and rival, Lev Trotsky, told the “Old Bolshevik” Vladimir Smirnov, “Stalin will become the dictator of the USSR.” “Stalin?” Smirnov reacted. “But he is a mediocrity, a colorless non-entity.” Read More
Essay Scientific rationalism in an irrational world April 08, 2022 As a young student in the mid-1980s, I read a popular science book called To Acknowledge the Wonder by Euan Squires about the then latest ideas in fundamental physics. At a time when I was contemplating a career in physics, the chance to acknowledge the wonders of the physical world was what really inspired me to devote my life to science. Read More
Essay Vladimir Putin’s case April 07, 2022 Law is neither dead nor irrelevant in wartime. It permeates the bureaucratic, legalistic structure of the modern war machine. All world leaders, including Vladimir Putin, acknowledge the post–World War II legal basis for waging war. Read More
Interview 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
Interview 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
Essay 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
Podcast 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
Interview 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