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A history of three transnational political projects designed to overcome the inequities of imperialism After the dissolution of empires, was the nation-state the only way to unite people politically, culturally, and economically? In Post-Imperial Possibilities, historians Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper examine three large-scale, transcontinental projects aimed at bringing together peoples of different regions to mitigate imperial legacies of inequality. Eurasia, Eurafrica, and Afroasia--in theory if not in practice--offered alternative routes out of empire. The theory of Eurasianism was developed after the collapse of imperial Russia by exiled intellectuals alienated by both Western imperialism and communism. Eurafrica began as a design for collaborative European exploitation of Africa but was transformed in the 1940s and 1950s into a project to include France's African territories in plans for European integration. The Afroasian movement wanted to replace the vertical relationship of colonizer and colonized with a horizontal relationship among former colonial territories that could challenge both the communist and capitalist worlds. Both Eurafrica and Afroasia floundered, victims of old and new vested interests. But Eurasia revived in the 1990s, when Russian intellectuals turned the theory's attack on Western hegemony into a recipe for the restoration of Russian imperial power. While both the system of purportedly sovereign states and the concentrated might of large economic and political institutions continue to frustrate projects to overcome inequities in welfare and power, Burbank and Cooper's study of political imagination explores wide-ranging concepts of social affiliation and obligation that emerged after empire and the reasons for their unlike destinies.

"An authoritative, hands-on introduction to the foundational theory and experimental tests of particle physicsThe Standard Model is an elegant and extremely successful theory that formulates the laws of fundamental interactions among elementary particles. This incisive textbook introduces students to the physics of the Standard Model while providing an essential overview of modern particle physics, with a unique emphasis on symmetry principles as the starting point for constructing models. The Standard Model equips students with an in-depth understanding of this impressively predictive theory and an appreciation of its beauty, and prepares them to interpret future experimental results.Describes symmetry principles of growing complexity, including Abelian symmetries and their application in QED, the theory of electromagnetic interactions, non-Abelian symmetries and their application in QCD, the theory of strong interactions, and spontaneously broken symmetries and their application in the theory of weak interactionsDerives the Lagrangian that implements these symmetry principles and extracts the phenomenology that follows from it, such as elementary particles and accidental symmetriesExplains how the Standard Model has been experimentally tested, emphasizing electroweak precision measurements, flavor-changing neutral current processes, neutrino oscillations, and cosmologyDemonstrates how to extend the model to address experimental and observational puzzles, such as neutrino masses, dark matter, and the baryon asymmetry of the universeFeatures a wealth of problems drawing from the latest researchIdeal for a one-semester graduate course and an invaluable resource for practitionersOnline solutions manual (available only to instructors)"--

"Young people coming out of high school today can expect to hold many jobs over the course of their lives, which is why they need a range of essential skills. The Career Arts provides a corrective to the widespread and misleading notion that there is a direct trade-off between going to college and acquiring practical job skills. Ben Wildavsky cuts through the noise and anxiety surrounding this issue to offer sensible, clear-eyed guidance for anyone who is making decisions about education and career preparation with a view to getting ahead in the workforce. Drawing on evidence-based research, illuminating case studies, and in-depth interviews, Wildavsky shares the most vital lessons of what he calls the career arts, which include cultivating a mix of broad and targeted skills, taking advantage of employer-funded education benefits, and preparing for the world as it is, not as you wish it could be. He explains why college remains the gold standard of credentials, and presents the most promising high-quality supplements and alternatives to college that can help learners combine general and job-specific skills. He shows how building social capital is also critical to success, particularly for disadvantaged students. An invaluable guidebook for students, parents, counselors, and educators, The Career Arts reveals why college education and job preparation are not either-or propositions, and identifies the blend of education and networking needed to support real-world career aspirations"--

"Edith Hamilton (1867-1963), famed popularizer of the classics, whose books include Mythology and The Greek Way, introduced millions-literally millions-of general readers and young adults to the myths and culture of the Greco-Roman world. In the middle of the 20th century, she was arguably the most visible and widely read person on classics and mythology. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College and then a successful teacher and administrator at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Hamilton became well known to the public only when she was in her sixties. Her writings, written with a middle-American audience in mind, were intended to introduce general readers to a world of antiquity previously thought to be only the purview of those with knowledge of ancient languages. Her most successful book, Mythology, remains the most popular book of its kind and, like The Greek Way and The Roman Way, has never gone out of print. Houseman recounts Hamilton's life of ninety-five years, beginning with her childhood introduction to the study of Latin and Greek under her father's tutelage. Houseman explores the intellectual influences upon her, emphasizing in particular the nineteenth-century British thinkers whose work she encountered during her years as a student at Bryn Mawr, including Matthew Arnold and Edward Caird. It also tells the story of the two romantic relationships that shaped her life. The first was with Lucy Martin Donnelly, an English professor whose intellectual and aesthetic tastes made a profound impact upon Hamilton. The second, and more enduring, was with Doris Fielding Reid, with whom Hamilton lived for over forty years and with whom she raised a family composed of Reid's nephews and nieces. The biography also describes Hamilton's friendships with writers such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, as well as with Senator Ralph E. Flanders, who led the movement in the Senate to censure Joseph McCarthy and inspired Hamilton's depiction of Demosthenes in her final book, The Echo of Greece. Houseman also situates Edith Hamilton's writing in relation to contemporary events such as the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, American involvement in the Second World War, the dropping of the atomic bombs, and American foreign policy during the Cold War, among others. She argues that Hamilton's writing and themes were often a response to these events. Even Mythology, intended as a modern version of Bulfinch's Mythology, was partly written during the fascist Italian invasion of Greece and makes many arguments for the special claims of Greece in Western history. Her work has influenced generations of readers as well, and was even said to have been a favorite of Robert Kennedy's, who drew on The Greek Way for inspiration in drafting speeches. This will be the first biography of Hamilton apart from one written by her partner Doris Fielding which was a mix of memoir and biography. This will also be the first to draw on Hamilton's letters and other primary sources"--

"A richly detailed history of the Bacris and the Busnachs, two renowned Jewish families whose influence and reputation shook the capitals of Europe and America. At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, the Bacri brothers and their nephew, Naphtali Busnach, were perhaps the most notorious Jews in the Mediterranean. Based in the strategic port of Algiers, their interconnected families traded in raw goods and luxury items, brokered diplomatic relations with the Ottomans, and lent vital capital to warring nations. For the French, British, and Americans, who competed fiercely for access to trade and influence in the region, there was no getting around the Bacris and the Busnachs. The Kings of Algiers traces the rise and fall of these two Jewish trading families over four tumultuous decades in the nineteenth century.In this panoramic book, Julie Kalman restores their story-and Jewish history more broadly-to the histories of trade, corsairing, and high-stakes diplomacy in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath. Jacob Bacri dined with Napoleon himself. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Horatio Nelson considered strategies to circumvent the Bacris' influence. As the families' ambitions grew, so did the perils, from imprisonment and assassination to fraud and family collapse.The Kings of Algiers brings vividly to life an age of competitive imperialism and nascent nationalism, and demonstrates how people and events on the periphery shaped perceptions and decisions in the distant metropoles of the world's great nations"--

A monumental illustrated survey of the architecture of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century China The Yuan dynasty endured for a century, leaving behind an architectural legacy without equal, from palaces, temples, and pagodas to pavilions, tombs, and stages. With a history enlivened by the likes of Khubilai Khan and Marco Polo, this spectacular empire spanned the breadth of China and far, far beyond, but its rulers were Mongols. Yuan presents the first comprehensive study in English of the architecture of China under Mongol rule. In this richly illustrated book, Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt looks at cities such as the legendary Shangdu--inspiration for Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Xanadu--as well as the architecture the Mongols encountered on their routes of conquest. She examines the buildings and monuments of diverse faiths in China during the period, from Buddhist and Daoist to Confucian, Islamic, and Christian, as well as unusual structures such as observatories, archways, stone and metal buildings, and sarcophaguses. Steinhardt dispels long-standing views of the Mongols as destroyers of cities and architecture across Asia, showing how the khans and their families built more than they tore down. She demonstrates that the stipulations of the Chinese building system were powerful and resilient enough to guide the architecture that rose under Mongolian rule. Drawing on Steinhardt's groundbreaking textual research in numerous languages as well as her pioneering fieldwork at sites across East Asia, Yuan will become the standard reference on this critical period of cultural and artistic exchange.

"How our reliance on Child Protective Services makes motherhood precarious for those already marginalizedIt's the knock on the door that many mothers fear: a visit from Child Protective Services (CPS), the state agency with the power to take their children away. Over the last half-century, these encounters have become an all-too-common way of trying to address family poverty and adversity. One in three children nationwide-and half of Black children-now encounter CPS during childhood.In Investigating Families, Kelley Fong provides an unprecedented look at the inner workings of CPS and the experiences of families pulled into its orbit. Drawing on firsthand observations of CPS investigations and hundreds of interviews with those involved, Fong traces the implications of invoking CPS as a "first responder" to family misfortune and hardship. She shows how relying on CPS-an entity fundamentally oriented around parental wrongdoing and empowered to separate families-organizes the response to adversity around surveilling, assessing, and correcting marginalized mothers. The agency's far-reaching investigative apparatus undermines mothers' sense of security and shapes how they marshal resources for their families, reinforcing existing inequalities. And even before CPS comes knocking, mothers feel vulnerable to a system that jeopardizes their parenthood. Countering the usual narratives of punitive villains and hapless victims, Fong's unique, behind-the-scenes account tells a revealing story of how we protect children by threatening mothers-and points the way to a more productive path for families facing adversity"--

"An authoritative, marvelously illustrated field guide to the velvet ants of North AmericaVelvet Ants of North America is a beautiful photographic guide to the species of the wasp family Mutillidae found in the United States and Canada. Featuring hundreds of full-color photos, it covers nearly 460 species-representing more than 9 percent of all velvet ant species, which number in the thousands worldwide-providing comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of this spectacular group of insects. This one-of-a-kind guide serves as an invaluable reference for naturalists, scientific researchers, museum specialists, and outdoor enthusiasts. Covers nearly 460 species found in North America and throughout the worldFeatures stunning high-resolution photos of each speciesDetailed species accounts and keys allow for easy and rewarding identificationSheds invaluable light on taxa from Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and beyondProvides silhouette images depicting the actual size ranges of speciesIncludes distribution maps of nearly all diurnal species in the United States and Canada"--

"A groundbreaking history of the ethics of war in the ancient Near East. Origins of the Just War reveals the incredible richness and complexity of ethical thought about war in the three millennia preceding the Greco-Roman period, establishing the extent to which ancient just war thought prefigured much of what we now consider to be the building blocks of the Western just war tradition.In this incisive and elegantly written book, Rory Cox traces the earliest ideas concerning the complex relationship between war, ethics, and justice. Excavating the ethical thought of three ancient Near Eastern cultures-Egyptian, Hittite, and Israelite-he demonstrates that the history of the just war is considerably more ancient and geographically diffuse than previously assumed. Cox shows how the emergence of just war thought was grounded in a desire to rationalise, sacralise, and ultimately to legitimise the violence of war. Rather than restraining or condemning warfare, the earliest ethical thought about war reflected an urge to justify state violence. Cox terms this presumption in favour of war ius pro bello-the "right for war"-characterizing it as a meeting point of both abstract and pragmatic concerns.Drawing on a diverse range of ancient sources, Origins of the Just War argues that the same imperative still underlies many of the assumptions of contemporary just war thought, and highlights the risks of applying moral absolutism to the fraught ethical arena of war"--

"A powerful case for democracy and how it can adapt and survive-if we want if toIs democracy in trouble, perhaps even dying? Pundits say so, and polls show that most Americans believe that their country's system of governance is being "tested" or is "under attack." But is the future of democracy necessarily so dire? In The Civic Bargain, Brook Manville and Josiah Ober push back against the prevailing pessimism about the fate of democracy around the world. Instead of an epitaph for democracy, they offer a guide for democratic renewal, calling on citizens to recommit to a "civic bargain" with one another to guarantee civic rights of freedom, equality, and dignity. That bargain also requires them to fulfill the duties of democratic citizenship: governing themselves with no "boss" except one another, embracing compromise, treating each other as civic friends, and investing in civic education for each rising generation.Manville and Ober trace the long progression toward self-government through four key moments in democracy's history: Classical Athens, Republican Rome, Great Britain's constitutional monarchy, and America's founding. Comparing what worked and what failed in each case, they draw out lessons for how modern democracies can survive and thrive. Manville and Ober show that democracy isn't about getting everything we want; it's about agreeing on a shared framework for pursuing our often conflicting aims. Crucially, citizens need to be able to compromise, and must not treat one another as political enemies. And we must accept imperfection; democracy is never finished but evolves and renews itself continually. As long as the civic bargain is maintained-through deliberation, bargaining, and compromise-democracy will live"--

Stability and Stabilization is the first intermediate-level textbook that covers stability and stabilization of equilibria for both linear and nonlinear time-invariant systems of ordinary differential equations. Designed for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics, the book takes a unique modern approach that bridges the gap between linear and nonlinear systems. Presenting stability and stabilization of equilibria as a core problem of mathematical control theory, the book emphasizes the subject's mathematical coherence and unity, and it introduces and develops many of the core concepts of systems and control theory. There are five chapters on linear systems and nine chapters on nonlinear systems; an introductory chapter; a mathematical background chapter; a short final chapter on further reading; and appendixes on basic analysis, ordinary differential equations, manifolds and the Frobenius theorem, and comparison functions and their use in differential equations. The introduction to linear system theory presents the full framework of basic state-space theory, providing just enough detail to prepare students for the material on nonlinear systems. Focuses on stability and feedback stabilization Bridges the gap between linear and nonlinear systems for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students Balances coverage of linear and nonlinear systems Covers cascade systems Includes many examples and exercises

There is no more powerful symbol in American political life than the presidency, and the image of presidential power has had no less profound an impact on American fiction. A Pinnacle of Feeling is the first book to examine twentieth-century literature's deep fascination with the modern presidency and with the ideas about the relationship between state power and democracy that underwrote the rise of presidential authority. Sean McCann challenges prevailing critical interpretations through revelatory new readings of major writers, including Richard Wright, Gertrude Stein, Henry Roth, Zora Neale Hurston, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Norman Mailer, Don Delillo, and Philip Roth. He argues that these writers not only represented or satirized presidents, but echoed political thinkers who cast the chief executive as the agent of the sovereign will of the American people. They viewed the president as ideally a national redeemer, and they took that ideal as a model and rival for their own work. A Pinnacle of Feeling illuminates the fundamental concern with democratic sovereignty that informs the most innovative literary works of the twentieth century, and shows how these works helped redefine and elevate the role of executive power in American culture.

A major new biography of legendary art collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart GardnerIsabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) assembled an extraordinary collection of art from diverse cultures and eras-and built a Venetian-style palazzo in Boston to share these exquisite treasures with the world. But her life and work remains shrouded in myth. Separating fiction and fact, this book paints an unforgettable portrait of Gardner, drawing on her substantial personal archive and including previously unpublished findings to offer new perspectives on her life and her construction of identity.Nathaniel Silver and Diana Seave Greenwald shed new light on Gardner's connections to minority communities in Boston, her views on suffrage and other issues of the day, the sources of her and her husband's wealth, and her ties to politicians, writers, and artists. What emerges is a multifaceted portrait of a trailblazing collector and patron of the arts-from Italian Renaissance paintings to Chinese antiquities-who built a museum unprecedented in its curatorial vision.Beautifully illustrated, this book challenges any portrayal of Gardner as a straightforward feminist hero, revealing instead an exceptional, complex woman who created a legendary museum and played a vibrant and influential role in the art world.Distributed for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

From the acclaimed author of Blue, a beautifully illustrated history of the color white in visual culture, from antiquity to todayAs a pigment, white is often thought to represent an absence of color, but it is without doubt an important color in its own right, just like red, blue, green, or yellow-and, like them, white has its own intriguing history. In this richly illustrated book, Michel Pastoureau, a celebrated authority on the history of colors, presents a fascinating visual, social, and cultural history of the color white in European societies, from antiquity to today.Illustrated throughout with a wealth of captivating images ranging from the ancient world to the twenty-first century, White examines the evolving place, perception, and meaning of this deceptively simple but complex hue in art, fashion, literature, religion, science, and everyday life across the millennia. Before the seventeenth century, white's status as a true color was never contested. On the contrary, from antiquity until the height of the Middle Ages, white formed with red and black a chromatic triad that played a central role in life and art. Nor has white always been thought of as the opposite of black. Through the Middle Ages, the true opposite of white was red. White also has an especially rich symbolic history, and the color has often been associated with purity, virginity, innocence, wisdom, peace, beauty, and cleanliness.With its striking design and compelling text, White is a colorful history of a surprisingly vivid and various color.

A cutting-edge introduction to key topics in modern economic theory for first-year graduate students in economics and related fieldsVolume II of Microeconomic Foundations introduces models and methods at the center of modern microeconomic theory. In this textbook, David Kreps, a leading economic theorist, emphasizes foundational material, concentrating on seminal work that provides perspective on how and why the theory developed. Because noncooperative game theory is the chief tool of modeling and analyzing microeconomic phenomena, the book stresses the applications of game theory to economics. And throughout, it underscores why theory is most useful when it supports rather than supplants economic intuition.Introduces first-year graduate students to the models and methods at the core of microeconomic theory todayCovers an extensive range of topics, including the agency theory, market signaling, relational contracting, bilateral bargaining, auctions, matching markets, and mechanism designStresses the use-and misuse-of theory in studying economic phenomena and shows why theory should support, not replace, economic intuitionIncludes extensive appendices reviewing the essential concepts of noncooperative game theory, with guidance about how it should and shouldn't be usedFeatures free online supplements, including chapter outlines and overviews, solutions to all the problems in the book, and more

A richly illustrated natural history of ants, covering their diversity, ecology, anatomy, behavior, and morePlentiful and familiar, ants make up an estimated one-third of the world's insect biomass and can be found in virtually every part of the globe, from rain forest canopies to city sidewalks. But their importance is about more than numbers: ants are fundamental species in a range of habitats and their interactions with plants, fungi, and other animals ensure the survival of many fragile and complex ecosystems. This beautifully illustrated book explores the extraordinary diversity of ants and offers insights into their elaborate social systems, investigating the key collective and competitive behaviors that operate within their varied colony structures.Featuring exceptional close-up photographs and clearly organized thematic chapters, the book covers anatomy, evolution, life cycle, ecology, and other important topics. Each chapter also features profiles of standout genera, chosen for their fascinating characteristics, including Leafcutter Ants, who build nests containing up to 7,000 chambers; Pugnacious Ants whose colonies can destroy populations of crabs within hours; and Honeypot Ants whose worker caste store food in their stomachs for other colony members to consume. Drawing on current research, Ants offers an inviting and accessible introduction to these remarkable insects.Includes more than 200 stunning color photographs, plus infographics and diagramsPresents full profiles of 42 iconic genera from across the worldFeatures clearly structured thematic chapters

A lavishly illustrated guide to the seaweed families of the worldSeaweeds are astoundingly diverse. They're found along the shallows of beaches and have been recorded living at depths of more than 800 feet; they can be microscopic or grow into giants many meters long. They're incredibly efficient at using the materials found in the ocean and are increasingly used in the human world, in applications from food to fuel. They're beautiful, too, with their undulating shapes anchored to the sea floor or drifting on the surface. Seaweeds aren't plants: they're algae, part of a huge and largely unfamiliar group of aquatic organisms. Seaweeds of the World makes sense of their complicated world, differentiating between the three main groups-red, green, and brown-and delving into their complex reproductive systems. The result is an unprecedented, accessible, and in-depth look at a previously hidden ocean world.Features close to 250 beautiful color photos as well as diagrams and distribution mapsCovers every major family and genus

An authoritative and comprehensive graduate textbook on the modern insurance sectorThe traditional role of insurers is to insure idiosyncratic risk through products such as life annuities, life insurance, and health insurance. With the decline of private defined benefit plans and government pension plans around the world, insurers are increasingly taking on the role of insuring market risk through minimum return guarantees. Insurers also use more complex capital management tools such as derivatives, off-balance-sheet reinsurance, and securities lending. Financial Economics of Insurance provides a unified framework to study the impact of financial and regulatory frictions as well as imperfect competition on all insurer decisions. The book covers all facets of the modern insurance sector, guiding readers through its complexities with empirical facts, institutional details, and quantitative modeling.An up-to-date textbook for graduate students in economics, finance, and insuranceCovers a broad range of topics, including insurance pricing, contract design, reinsurance, portfolio choice, and risk managementProvides promising new directions for future researchCan be taught in courses on asset pricing, corporate finance, industrial organization, and public economicsAn invaluable resource for policymakers seeking an empirical and institutional account of today's insurance sector

Revisiting an almost-forgotten American interracial literary culture that advanced racial pluralism in the decades before the 1960sIn Impermanent Blackness, Korey Garibaldi explores interracial collaborations in American commercial publishing-authors, agents, and publishers who forged partnerships across racial lines-from the 1910s to the 1960s. Garibaldi shows how aspiring and established Black authors and editors worked closely with white interlocutors to achieve publishing success, often challenging stereotypes and advancing racial pluralism in the process.Impermanent Blackness explores the complex nature of this almost-forgotten period of interracial publishing by examining key developments, including the mainstream success of African American authors in the 1930s and 1940s, the emergence of multiracial children's literature, postwar tensions between supporters of racial cosmopolitanism and of "e;Negro literature,"e; and the impact of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements on the legacy of interracial literary culture.By the end of the 1960s, some literary figures once celebrated for pushing the boundaries of what Black writing could be, including the anthologist W. S. Braithwaite, the bestselling novelist Frank Yerby, the memoirist Juanita Harrison, and others, were forgotten or criticized as too white. And yet, Garibaldi argues, these figures-at once dreamers and pragmatists-have much to teach us about building an inclusive society. Revisiting their work from a contemporary perspective, Garibaldi breaks new ground in the cultural history of race in the United States.

A major new history of the genocide of Roma and Jews during World War II and their entangled quest for historical justiceJews and Roma died side by side in the Holocaust, yet the world did not recognize their destruction equally. In the years and decades following the war, the Jewish experience of genocide increasingly occupied the attention of legal experts, scholars, educators, curators, and politicians, while the genocide of Europe's Roma went largely ignored. Rain of Ash is the untold story of how Roma turned to Jewish institutions, funding sources, and professional networks as they sought to gain recognition and compensation for their wartime suffering.Ari Joskowicz vividly describes the experiences of Hitler's forgotten victims and charts the evolving postwar relationship between Roma and Jews over the course of nearly a century. During the Nazi era, Jews and Roma shared little in common besides their simultaneous persecution. Yet the decades of entwined struggles for recognition have deepened Romani-Jewish relations, which now center not only on commemorations of past genocides but also on contemporary debates about antiracism and Zionism.Unforgettably moving and sweeping in scope, Rain of Ash is a revelatory account of the unequal yet necessary entanglement of Jewish and Romani quests for historical justice and self-representation that challenges us to radically rethink the way we remember the Holocaust.

A richly illustrated history of self-taught artists and how they changed American artArtists without formal training, who learned from family, community, and personal journeys, have long been a presence in American art. But it wasn't until the 1980s, with the help of trailblazing advocates, that the collective force of their creative vision and bold self-definition permanently changed the mainstream art world. In We Are Made of Stories, Leslie Umberger traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, they redefined who could be rightfully seen as an artist and revealed a much more diverse community of American makers.Lavishly illustrated throughout, We Are Made of Stories features more than one hundred drawings, paintings, and sculptures, ranging from the narrative to the abstract, by forty-three artists-including James Castle, Thornton Dial, William Edmondson, Howard Finster, Bessie Harvey, Dan Miller, Sister Gertrude Morgan, the Philadelphia Wireman, Nellie Mae Rowe, Judith Scott, and Bill Traylor. The book centralizes the personal stories behind the art, and explores enduring themes, including self-definition, cultural heritage, struggle and joy, and inequity and achievement. At the same time, it offers a sweeping history of self-taught artists, the critical debates surrounding their art, and how museums have gradually diversified their collections across lines of race, gender, class, and ability.Recasting American art history to embrace artists who have been excluded for too long, We Are Made of Stories vividly captures the power of art to show us the world through the eyes of another.Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art MuseumExhibition ScheduleSmithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DCJuly 1, 2022-March 26, 2023

One of today's leading astronomers takes readers inside the decades-long search for the first galaxies and the origin of starlightAstronomers are like time travelers, scanning the night sky for the outermost galaxies that first came into being when our universe was a mere fraction of its present age. When Galaxies Were Born is Richard Ellis's firsthand account of how a pioneering generation of scientists harnessed the world's largest telescopes to decipher the history of the universe and witness cosmic dawn, the time when starlight first bathed the cosmos and galaxies emerged from darkness.In a remarkable career spanning more than forty years, Ellis has made some of the most spectacular discoveries in modern cosmology. He has traveled the world to conduct observations in locales as beautiful and remote as the Australian outback, the Canary Islands, Hawaii, and the Chilean desert. In this book, he brings to life a golden age of astronomy, describing the triumphs and the technical setbacks, the rivalries with competing teams, and the perennial challenge of cloudy nights. Ellis reveals the astonishing progress we have made in building ever larger and more powerful telescopes, and provides a tantalizing glimpse of cosmic dawn.Stunningly illustrated with a wealth of dramatic photos, When Galaxies Were Born is a bold scientific adventure enlivened by personal insights and anecdotes that enable readers to share in the thrill of discovery at the frontiers of astronomy.

An artist's uniquely personal journey across AmericaIn the nineteenth century, ornithologist and painter John James Audubon set out to create a complete pictorial record of North American birdlife, traveling from Louisiana and the Florida Keys to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the cliffs of the Yellowstone River. The resulting work, The Birds of America, stands as a monumental achievement in American art. Over a period of sixteen years, recording his own journey in journals and hundreds of original paintings, renowned French watercolorist Denis Clavreul followed in the naturalist's footsteps.In the Footsteps of Audubon brings together some 250 of Clavreul's stunning watercolors along with illuminating selections from Audubon's journals and several of his paintings. With pencil and brush in hand, Clavreul turns his naturalist's eye and painterly skill to the landscapes that Audubon encountered on his travels, and to the animals and plants that Audubon depicted in his art. A passionate ornithologist, Clavreul sketches birds in the wild with rare dexterity, bringing them vividly to life on the page. He documents his encounters along the way with people who live with nature, many of whom are passionately engaged in preserving it, drawing on his insights as both a biologist and an artist to connect the past, present, and future.A spellbinding, richly evocative journey, In the Footsteps of Audubon is an invitation to see the natural world as Audubon saw it-and to see with new eyes what it has become today.

An exciting look at the essential roles that parasites play in Earth's ecosystemsThis book looks at the weird and wonderful world of parasites, the most abundant form of life on Earth. Parasites come in all forms and sizes and inhabit every free-living organism. Parasitism is now, and always has been, a way to survive under changing environmental conditions. From arctic oceans to tropical forests, Scott Gardner, Judy Diamond, and Gabor Racz investigate how parasites survive and evolve, and how they influence and provide stability to ecosystems.Taking readers to the open ranges of Mongolia, the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska, the Andes of Bolivia, and more, the authors examine the impact parasites have on humans and other animals. Using examples of parasites from throughout the tree of life, the authors describe parasite-host relationships as diverse as those between trematodes and snails and tapeworms and whales. They even consider the strange effects of thorny-headed worms on their hosts. Parasites offer clues to the evolutionary history of particular regions, and they can provide insights into the history of species interactions. Through parasites, biologists can weave together a global knowledge of the past to predict the challenges that we will face in the future.Revealing that parasites are so much more than creepy-crawlies, this book gives up-to-date context for these critical members of the biological diversity of our planet.

How a new mathematical field grew and matured in America Graph Theory in America focuses on the development of graph theory in North America from 1876 to 1976. At the beginning of this period, James Joseph Sylvester, perhaps the finest mathematician in the English-speaking world, took up his appointment as the first professor of mathematics at the Johns Hopkins University, where his inaugural lecture outlined connections between graph theory, algebra, and chemistry-shortly after, he introduced the word graph in our modern sense. A hundred years later, in 1976, graph theory witnessed the solution of the long-standing four color problem by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken of the University of Illinois.Tracing graph theory's trajectory across its first century, this book looks at influential figures in the field, both familiar and less known. Whereas many of the featured mathematicians spent their entire careers working on problems in graph theory, a few such as Hassler Whitney started there and then moved to work in other areas. Others, such as C. S. Peirce, Oswald Veblen, and George Birkhoff, made excursions into graph theory while continuing their focus elsewhere. Between the main chapters, the book provides short contextual interludes, describing how the American university system developed and how graph theory was progressing in Europe. Brief summaries of specific publications that influenced the subject's development are also included.Graph Theory in America tells how a remarkable area of mathematics landed on American soil, took root, and flourished.

A revelatory history of the first artist collective in the United States and its effort to reshape nineteenth-century art, culture, and politicsThe American Pre-Raphaelites founded a uniquely interdisciplinary movement composed of politically radical abolitionist artists and like-minded architects, critics, and scientists. Active during the Civil War, this dynamic collective united in a spirit of protest, seeking sweeping reforms of national art and culture. Painting Dissent recovers the American Pre-Raphaelites from the margins of history and situates them at the center of transatlantic debates about art, slavery, education, and politics.Artists such as Thomas Charles Farrer and John Henry Hill championed a new style of landscape painting characterized by vibrant palettes, antipicturesque compositions, and meticulous brushwork. Their radicalism, however, was not solely one of style. Sophie Lynford traces how the American Pre-Raphaelites proclaimed themselves catalysts of a wide-ranging reform movement that staged politically motivated interventions in multiple cultural arenas, from architecture and criticism to collecting, exhibition design, and higher education. She examines how they publicly rejected their prominent contemporaries, the artists known as the Hudson River School, and how they offered incisive critiques of antebellum society by importing British models of landscape theory and practice.Beautifully illustrated and drawing on a wealth of archival material, Painting Dissent transforms our understanding of how American artists depicted the nation during the most turbulent decades of the nineteenth century.

An illuminating look at a fundamental yet understudied aspect of Italian Renaissance paintingThe Italian Renaissance picture is renowned for its depiction of the human figure, from the dramatic foreshortening of the body to create depth to the subtle blending of tones and colors to achieve greater naturalism. Yet these techniques rely on a powerful compositional element that often goes overlooked. Groundwork provides the first in-depth examination of the complex relationship between figure and ground in Renaissance painting."e;Ground"e; can refer to the preparation of a work's surface, the fictive floor or plane, or the background on which figuration occurs. In laying the material foundation, artists perform groundwork, opening the ground as a zone that can precede, penetrate, or fracture the figure. David Young Kim looks at the work of Gentile da Fabriano, Giovanni Bellini, Giovanni Battista Moroni, and Caravaggio, reconstructing each painter's methods to demonstrate the intricacies involved in laying ground layers whose translucency and polychromy permeate the surface. He charts significant transitions from gold ground painting in the Trecento to the darkened grounds in Baroque tenebrism, and offers close readings of period texts to shed new light on the significance of ground forms such as rock face, wall, and cave.This beautifully illustrated book reconceives the Renaissance picture, revealing the passion and mystery of groundwork and discovering figuration beyond the human figure.

A revisionist reading of modern art that examines how artworks are captured as property to legitimize powerIn this provocative new account, David Joselit shows how art from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries began to function as a commodity, while the qualities of the artist, nation, or period themselves became valuable properties. Joselit explores repatriation, explaining that this is not just a contemporary conflict between the Global South and Euro-American museums, noting that the Louvre, the first modern museum, was built on looted works and faced demands for restitution and repatriation early in its history. Joselit argues that the property values of white supremacy underlie the ideology of possessive individualism animating modern art, and he considers issues of identity and proprietary authorship.Joselit redefines art's politics, arguing that these pertain not to an artwork's content or form but to the way it is "e;captured,"e; made to represent powerful interests-whether a nation, a government, or a celebrity artist collected by oligarchs. Artworks themselves are not political but occupy at once the here and now and an "e;elsewhere"e;-an alterity-that can't ever be fully appropriated. The history of modern art, Joselit asserts, is the history of transforming this alterity into private property.Narrating scenes from the emergence and capture of modern art-touching on a range of topics that include the Byzantine church, French copyright law, the 1900 Paris Exposition, W.E.B. Du Bois, the conceptual artist Adrian Piper, and the controversy over Dana Schutz's painting Open Casket-Joselit argues that the meaning of art is its infinite capacity to generate experience over time.