Davide Turcato makes the relevance of history dynamically clear. Making Sense of Anarchismis simultaneously a critique of how history is typically written and a demonstration of how to do it right. Us
A bold, groundbreaking argument by a world-renowned expert that unless we treat free speech as the fundamental human right, there can be no others. What are human rights? Are they laid out definitively in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the US Bill of Rights? Are they items on a checklist―dignity, justice, progress, standard of living, health care, housing? In The Most Human Right, Eric Heinze explains why global human rights systems have failed. International organizations constantly report on how governments manage human goods, such as fair trials, humane conditions of detention, healthcare, or housing. But to appease autocratic regimes, experts have ignored the primacy of free speech. Heinze argues that goods become rights only when citizens can claim them publicly and fearlessly: free speech is the fundamental right, without which the very concept of a “right” makes no sense. Heinze argues that throughout history countless systems of justice have promised hum
Liverani (history, U. of Rome) makes use of the work of V. Gordon Childe and Marxist theory to show how Uruk in southern Mesopotamia created a revolution in the fourth millennium BCE that has served a
This monograph makes clear how the format of the literary folio played a fundamental role in book history by encapsulating the unstable negotiation between commerce, cultural prestige, and the fundame
Is democracy still the best form of government? Does it ever work like it’s supposed to?In the middle of an airport, while waiting for a flight, Julie and Lin wonder aloud how America can ever be a democracy when citizens seem to disagree over everything. From there, the reader is whisked through political history, as Julie and Lin explain the differences between systems of power, including monarchy, theocracy, dictatorship, and oligarchy. In this witty and well-argued political graphic novel, Beka Feathers and Ally Shwed shed light on how democracy works, what makes it more effective, and the way it truly gives power to the people as long as we choose to wield it.
An homage to what it means to be Korean American with delectable recipes that explore how new culinary traditions can be forged to honor both your past and your present.New York Times staff writer Eric Kim grew up in Atlanta, the son of two Korean immigrants. Food has always been central to his story, from Friday-night Korean barbecue with his family to hybridized Korean-ish meals for one--like Gochujang-Buttered Radish Toast and Caramelized-Kimchi Baked Potatoes--that he makes in his tiny New York City apartment. In his debut cookbook, Eric shares these recipes alongside insightful, touching stories and stunning images shot by photographer Jenny Huang.Playful, poignant, and vulnerable, Korean American also includes essays on subjects ranging from the life-changing act of leaving home and returning as an adult, to what Thanksgiving means to a first-generation family, complete with a full holiday menu--all the while teaching readers about the Korean pantry, the history of Korean cooking
How interventions to mitigate climate-caused poverty and inequality in India came at a cost to environmental sustainability.In the monsoon regions of South Asia, the rainy season sustains life but brings with it the threat of floods, followed by a long stretch of the year when little gainful work is possible and the threat of famine looms. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, a series of interventions by Indian governments and other actors mitigated these conditions, enabling agricultural growth, encouraging urbanization, and bringing about a permanent decrease in death rates. But these actions―largely efforts to ensure wider access to water―came at a cost to environmental sustainability. In Monsoon Economies, Tirthankar Roy explores the interaction between the environment and the economy in the emergence of modern India. Roy argues that the tropical monsoon climate makes economic and population growth contingent on water security. But in a water-scarce world, the means used to
Korean dishes, some traditional and some reimagined, from the home cook and storyteller behind @thekoreanvegan on TikTok.The single most frequent question Joanne Lee Molinaro gets asked is "How can you be vegan and Korean?" Korean cooking is, after all, synonymous with fish sauce and barbecue. And although grilled meat is indeed prevalent in some Korean food, the ingredients that filled out the bapsangs of Joanne's childhood--doenjang (fermented soybean paste), gochujang (chili sauce), dashima (seaweed), and more--are fully plant-based, unbelievably flavorful, and totally Korean. In her debut cookbook, Joanne shares recipes and narrative snapshots of the food that shaped her family history. Some of the recipes come straight from her childhood: Jjajangmyun, the rich Korean-Chinese black bean noodles she ate on birthdays, or the humble Gamja Guk, a potato-and-leek soup her father makes. Some pay homage: Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake is an ode to the two foods that saved her mother's life,
Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China is a monumental piece of scholarship which breaks new ground in presenting to the Western reader a detailed and coherent account of the development of science, technology and medicine in China from the earliest times until the advent of the Jesuits and the beginnings of modern science in the late seventeenth century. It is a vast work, necessarily more suited to the scholar and research worker than the general reader. This paperback version, abridged and re-written by Colin Ronan, makes this extremely important study accessible to a wider public. The present book covers the material treated in volumes I and II of Dr Needham's original work. The reader is introduced to the country of China, its history, geography and language, and an account is given of how scientific knowledge travelled between China and Europe. The major part of the book is then devoted to the history of scientific thought in China itself. Beginning with ancient times
This book celebrates the history of toy and novelty cameras, explores how these items spurred international photography movements, and makes clear just how popular they remain today. Full-color photog
One of the most detailed works describing the walls of this renowned city, Alexander Van Milligen's Byzantine Constantinople: The Walls of the City and Adjoining Historical Sites (1899) is of use to anyone interested in Byzantine architecture, the Byzantine Empire, and medieval history more generally. Van Milligen uses his expertise as a historian who had lived and taught in Constantinople to provide a detailed account of the Byzantine capital before it fell in 1453. Complete with meticulous verbal descriptions, illustrations, maps and plans, Van Milligen combines historical accounts with physical surveys, tracing Constantinople's expansion. He describes how the city spread and how the walls adapted, pausing to outline the importance of certain structures within the city, and of the hierarchy of gates within the walls. He also includes a table of emperors to assist the general reader, while his painstaking detail makes the book useful to professional scholars as well.
Eileen Power, best known for her posthumously published Medieval Women, was one of the foremost scholars of medieval economic and social history in the first half of the twentieth century. This 1922 work is a substantial study of medieval English nunneries between 1275 and 1535. Power examines in depth who entered the convents, how they were organised, their finances, activities and problems. Although medieval nunneries were significantly poorer and less well documented than the monastic houses, Power uses the available sources to build up a multifaceted picture of medieval life. Her arguments are firmly rooted in documentary evidence, but are presented in an extremely accessible and engaging style. The book reveals that convent life was not particularly ascetic or learned, and that in poorer houses the nuns had to find additional sources of income. Power's account of their methods of coping makes fascinating reading.
“This book will change your sense of how grand the sweep of human history could be, where you fit into it, and how much you could do to change it for the better. It's as simple, and as ambitious, as that.”—Ezra KleinAn Oxford philosopher makes the case for “longtermism” — that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.The fate of the world is in our hands. Humanity’s written history spans only five thousand years. Our yet-unwritten future could last for millions more — or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today. In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. From this perspective, it’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization
From the bestselling author of the Don’t Know Much About series and the ALA Notable and YALSA finalist In the Shadow of Liberty comes a dramatic nonfiction YA account of the origins of democracy, the history of authoritarianism, and the reigns of five of history's deadliest dictators.What makes a country fall to a dictator? How do authoritarian leaders―strongmen―capable of killing millions acquire their power? How are they able to defeat the ideal of democracy? And what can we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?By profiling five of the most notoriously ruthless dictators in history―Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein―Kenneth C. Davis seeks to answer these questions, examining the forces in these strongmen’s personal lives and historical periods that shaped the leaders they’d become. Meticulously researched and complete with photographs, Strongman provides insight into the lives of five leaders who callously transformed the world and serves
How Richard Riemerschmid’s designs of everyday―but “extraordinary”―objects recalibrate our understanding of modernism.At the beginning of the twentieth century, German artist Richard Riemerschmid (1868–1957) was known as a symbolist painter and, by the advent of World War I, had become an important modern architect. This, however, the first English-language book on Riemerschmid, celebrates his understudied legacy as a designer of everyday objects―furniture, tableware, clothing―that were imbued with an extraordinary sense of vitality and even personality. Freyja Hartzell makes a case for the importance of Riemerschmid's designed objects in the development of modern design―and for the power of everyday things to change the way we live our lives, understand history, and design our future. Hartzell offers for the first time an interpretive history of Riemerschmid's design practice embedded in a fresh examination of modernism told by the objects themselves. Hartzell explores Riemerschmid's
How states develop the capacity to tax is a question of fundamental importance to political science, legal theory, economics, sociology, and history. Increasingly, scholars believe that China's relative economic decline in the 18th and 19th centuries was related to its weak fiscal institutions and limited revenue. This book argues that this fiscal weakness was fundamentally ideological in nature. Belief systems created through a confluence of traditional political ethics and the trauma of dynastic change imposed unusually deep and powerful constraints on fiscal policymaking and institutions throughout the final 250 years of China's imperial history. Through the Qing example, this book combs through several interaction dynamics between state institutions and ideologies. The latter shapes the former, but the former can also significantly reinforce the political durability of the latter. In addition to its historical analysis of ideological politics, this book makes a major contribution t
The remains of ancient Mediterranean art and architecture that have survived over the centuries present the modern viewer with images of white, the color of the stone often used for sculpture. Antiquarian debates and recent scholarship, however, have challenged this aspect of ancient sculpture. There is now a consensus that sculpture produced in the ancient Mediterranean world, as well as art objects in other media, were, in fact, polychromatic. Color has consequently become one of the most important issues in the study of classical art. Jennifer Stager's landmark book makes a vital contribution to this discussion. Analyzing the dyes, pigments, stones, earth, and metals found in ancient art works, along with the language that writers in antiquity used to describe color, she examines the traces of color in a variety of media. Stager also discusses the significance of a reception history that has emphasized whiteness, revealing how ancient artistic practice and ancient philosophies of co
Makes accessible recommendations on how to take an active role in one's health, tracing the history of mind-body medicine while describing how meditation-based therapies are used in a variety of cultu
For anyone who's ever dreamed of ruling over their own empire, here's your chance! Micronations are imaginary countries that have a lot of the same things as real ones: laws, customs, history, and their own flags, coins, and postage stamps. Micronations: Invent Your Own Country and Culture takes readers step-by-step to create their own unique realm, using examples from real nations, micronations, and fictional lands. What makes a country a country? What symbols and systems define a country and help it function? Learn about geography and government, technology and the environment, art and culture, and the literary device of "world-building" used in works like The Hobbit and Harry Potter.Activities show readers how to create authentic-looking artifacts and documents such as maps, currency, passports, a declaration of independence, and a constitution. Kids get to invent their own language, music, games, clothing, food, and holidays to fit their micronation's tradition. Whether they create
What are the roots of creativity? What makes for great leadership? How do influential people end up rippling the surface of history?In this collection of essays, Walter Isaacson reflects on the lesso
