Libros de

The world at first light

a new history of the Renaissance

A magisterial history of the Renaissance and the birth of the modern world The cultural epoch we know as the Renaissance emerged at a certain time and in a certain place. Why then and not earlier? Why there and not elsewhere? In The World at ...

Islam

a new history from Muhammad to the present

A concise new narrative history of Islam that draws on the transformative insights of recent research to emphasize the diversity and dynamism of the tradition Today's Muslim world is in upheaval: legalists and mystics engage in intense debates, radical groups invoke Sharia, Muslim immigrants ...

Following nature's lead

ancient ways of living in a dying world

In the spirit of E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful, a dazzling and revelatory exploration of what ancient ideas and ways of living can teach us about creating a more sustainable world How should we think and live in a world facing environmental catastrophe ...

Democracy and solidarity

on the cultural roots of America's political crisis

Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions-most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn ...

Mummified

the stories behind Egyptian mummies in museums

The unsettling stories of how Egyptian mummies came to be held in British and French museums. We all know what a mummy is - or do we? In Mummified, Angela Stienne explores the little-known stories behind the ancient Egyptian remains displayed in British and French museums ...

Hamas

a beginner's guide

The Islamic resistance movement Hamas was created in 1987, won the elections of the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, and governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. The attacks on October 7th and the subsequent war on Gaza have turned the international spotlight on them as ...

The Spirit Within = El espíritu inherente

Art and Life in Latin America = Arte y vida en Latinoamérica

This volume, coinciding with the opening of permanent Art of the Americas galleries at the Walters Art Museum in 2025, examines how, for people in the Indigenous Americas, materials had and continue to have a life of their own. Ancient and modern craftspeople shaped jade ...

China and Russia

four centuries of conflict and concord

A compelling, expansive history of the relationship between China and Russia, from the seventeenth century to the present Russia and China, the largest and most populous countries in the world, respectively, have maintained a delicate relationship for four centuries. In addition to a four-thousand-kilometer border ...

Horace

poet on a volcano

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BCE) wrote some of ancient Rome's greatest poetry, melding languages and cultures with youthful ideals and a realist's recognition of the dictatorial world around him. Horace is famed for his fine phrases, lyric sex, and guidance on how to ...

Sectarianism without sects

This volume analyses the transformation of social sectarianism into political sectarianism across the Arab world. Using a framework of social theories and socio-historical analysis, the book distinguishes between 'ta'ifa', or 'sect', and modern 'ta'ifiyya', 'sectarianism', arguing that sectarianism itself produces 'imaginary sects'. It ...

Beyond Cortés and Montezuma

the conquest of Mexico revisited

Beyond Cortés and Montezuma examines both European and Nahuatl texts and images that shed light on the complex narrative of contact and the ensuing conflict, negotiation, and cooperation that continued well after the colonial period. A diverse group of scholars from Europe, Mexico, and the ...

Debating medieval Europe

the central and later Middle Ages, c.1050-c.1450

Debating medieval Europe serves as an entry point for studying and teaching medieval history. Rather than simply presenting foundational knowledge or introducing sources, it provides the reader with frameworks for understanding the distinctive historiography of the period, digging beneath the historical accounts provided by other ...

Twilight of the saints

the history and politics of salafism in contemporary Egypt

In scarcely a century, Salafism has transformed Sunni Islam. Claiming to be a revival of the purest form of Islam, this movement promotes ultraconservative social and religious norms and rejects all non-Sunni religious groups. In Egypt, its influence has grown to the point of reshaping ...

Sacred habitat

nature and Catholicism in the early modern Spanish Atlantic

Known as a time of revolutions in science, the early modern era in Europe was characterized by the emergence of new disciplines and ways of thinking. Taking this conceit a step further, Sacred Habitat shows how Spanish friars and missionaries used new scholarly approaches, methods ...

Nature's greatest success

how plants evolved to exploit humanity

The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labor force-and the science behind it. Domesticated crops were not human creations, and agriculture was not simply invented. As Robert N. Spengler shows, domestication was the result of an evolutionary process in ...

Brunelleschi and the moment of the Renaissance

Filippo Brunelleschi is at once the most famous and most misunderstood architect of the Renaissance. The founding architect of the movement that led the way to modernity, his originality was not expressed in words or theory but rather in the materials he used, the scenography ...

Ramesses the Great

Egypt's king of kings

Ramesses II ruled the Nile Valley and the wider Egyptian empire from 1279 to 1213 B.C., one of the longest reigns in pharaonic history. He was a cultural innovator, a relentless self-promoter, and an astute diplomat-the peace treaty signed after the Battle of Kadesh ...

Facing down the Furies

suicide, the ancient Greeks, and me

In Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus the Tyrant, a messenger arrives to report that Jocasta, queen of Thebes, has killed herself. To prepare listeners for this terrible news, he announces, "The tragedies that hurt the most are those that sufferers have chosen for themselves." Edith Hall, whose ...

Our Palestine question

Israel and American jewish dissent, 1948-1978

American Jews began debating palestinian rights issues even before Israel's founding in 1948. Geoffrey Levin recovers the voices of american jews who, in the early decades of Israel's existence, called for an honest reckoning with the moral and political plight of palestinians. These ...

Cuarenta años de continuidad institucional democrática en Argentina: un balance pluridisciplinar

Transcurridos cuarenta años desde el regreso de la democracia, Argentina se enfrenta en nuestros días a numerosos interrogantes: ¿cuáles son los principales desafíos para la democracia? ¿Dichos desafíos revelan tanto la regresión en su proceso de consolidación como la amenaza misma de su estabilización? ¿Cómo ...