A philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselvesWhat is art? Why does it matter to us? What does it tell us about ourselves?Normally, we look to works of
How language evolved has been called “the hardest problem in science.” In Adam’s Tongue, Derek Bickerton—long a leading authority in this field—shows how and why previous attempts to solve that proble
By the late 1960s, America felt like it was teetering on the edge of a vast transformation. Helping push it over that edge was a brigade of young radicals, the Students for a Democratic Society, who
In 1979, Steven C. Caton went to a remote area of Yemen to do fieldwork on the famous oral poetry of its tribes. The recent hostage crisis in Iran made life perilous for a young American in the Middl
In Panic at the Pump, Meg Jacobs shows how a succession of crises beginning with the 1973 Arab oil embargo prompted American politicians to seek energy independence, and how their failure to do so sha
In this fast-paced biography, Harvard Sitkoff presents a stunningly relevant and radical King. Honestly assessing his successes alongside his failures, King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop weaves toge
The product of a unique collaboration between a pioneering earth scientist and an award-winning science writer, Fixing Climate takes an unconventional approach to the problem of global warming?and of
A newly revised version of a classic in American historyWhen The American Revolution was first published in 1985, it was praised as the first synthesis of the Revolutionary War to use the new social
American Transcendentalism is a sweeping narrative history of America’s first group of public intellectuals, the men and women who defined American literature and indelibly marked American refo
With this brilliantly innovative book, Stephane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker have shown that the Great War was the matrix on which all subsequent disasters of the twentieth century were formed. T
This collection of forty-seven stories written between 1919 and 1963--the most comprehensive available--showcases Langston Hughes's literary blossoming and the development of his personal and artisti
When most of us take a backward glance at the 1920s, we may think of prohibition and the jazz age, of movies stars and flappers, of Harold Lloyd and Mary Pickford, of Lindbergh and Hoover--and of Bla
Trotsky was a hero to some, a ruthless demon to others. To Stalin, he was such a threat that he warranted murder by ice ax. This polarizing figure set up a world conflict that lasted through the twen
The classic short story--now in full colorShirley Jackson's "The Lottery" continues to thrill and unsettle readers nearly seven decades after it was first published. By turns puzzling and ha
The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics. The Specter of Communism is a concise history of the origins of the C
Changes in the Land is an original interpretation of the changing circumstances in New England's plant and animal communities that occurred with the shift from Indian to European dominance. With the t
The single best short survey in America, now updated.Includes a New Preface and AfterwardIn terms of accessibility and comprehensive coverage, Kolchin's American Slavery is a singularly important achi
Onthe evening of February 17, 1864, the Confederacy’s H. L. Hunley sank the Union’s formidable sloop of war the USS Housatonic and became the first submarine in world history to sin
The Hundred Days, Franklin Roosevelt’s first fifteen weeks in office, have become the stuff of legend, a mythic yardstick against which every subsequent American president has felt obliged to m
