Why books? Lindsay Waters has already sparked a heated debate in the academy, warning that the academic system in the United States, based on the "publish or perish" dictum, is breaking down. In this
It's an enduring axiom of political science: before there is democracy, there is rule of law. The pillars of the American legal system, however, are falling apart. And so too, argues Thomas Geoghegan
Why do we understand media the way we do? Sometimes we think about media simply as means of communication and instruments of human creativity. At other times we understand media as powerful technolog
Pasta and pizza are inextricably connected to Italian identity. In this book, Franco La Cecla tells the story of how a food born in the south of Italy during the Arab conquest became a foundation for
Reflecting the decline in college courses on Western Civilization, Marshall Sahlins aims to accelerate the trend by reducing "Western Civ" to about two hours. He cites Nietzsche to the effect that dee
What do you say after you say that the world - or at least human life on it - looks like it's nearing its end? How about starting with wonder at the possibility that subjectivity and dialogue - human
First devised as after-dinner entertainment at a decennial meeting of the Association of Social Anthropologists in Great Britain, and first published by Prickly Pear Press in 1993, this expanded editi
Thomas Frank has been sending wake-up calls to just about everyone within reach over the past decade, in venues from The Village Voice to Harper's. His takes on labor politics, advertising, the virtu
The Companion Species Manifesto is about the implosion of nature and culture in the joint lives of dogs and people, who are bonded in "significant otherness." In all their historical complexity, Donna
A key figure in theory and criticism, James Clifford has published seminal essays on topics ranging from art and identity to museum studies and fieldwork. This collection of interviews captures Cliff
Art criticism was once passionate, polemical and judgmental: now critics are more often interested in ambiguity, neutrality, and nuanced description. And while art criticism is ubiquitous in newspape
Evolutionary psychology claims to be the authoritative science of "human nature." Its chief architects, including Stephen Pinker and David Buss, have managed to reach well beyond the ivory tower to w
In the twenty-first century, the idea of race in sports is rapidly changing. The National Basketball Association, for instance, was recently home to a new kind of racial conflict. After a recent play
Increasingly today, intellectual rights over traditional knowledge are fiercely contested and have revived debates about culture in major ways. But how should we make sense of the politics and meanin
The Iran depicted in the headlines is a rogue state ruled by ever-more-defiant Islamic fundamentalists. Yet inside the borders, an unheralded transformation of a wholly different political bent is oc
The apparent resurgence of hostility toward Jews has been a prominent theme in recent discussions of Europe; at the same time, the adversities faced by the continent’s Muslim population have received
Far from an unfortunate cliche medievalism has become a dominant paradigm for comprehending the identity and motivations of America's perceived enemy in the War on Terror. Yet as Bruce Holsinger argue
