Tschinkel describes the ingenious methods he has devised to study ant nests, showing how he fills a nest with plaster, molten metal, or wax and painstakingly excavates the cast. He guides you through living ant nests chamber by chamber, revealing how nests are created and how colonies function. How does nest architecture vary across species? Do ants have "architectural plans?? How do nests affect our environment? As he delves into these and ot...
The Holy Roman Empire emerged in the Middle Ages as a loosely integrated union of German states and city-states under the supreme rule of an emperor, and would endure until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger provides a concise history of the empire, presenting an interpretation of its unique political culture and remarkably durable institutions. In a narrative spanning three turbulent centuries, Stol...
Highly recommended. Angela Douglas has produced a book of great scholarship, clarity, and intelligence--and with the loving touch of a biologist. Douglas has much to teach students and experts alike."--Martin J. Blaser, author of Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues "This ambitious book surveys animal-microbe associations and reimagines the animal as a multi-organismal being. Douglas nicely balances co...
Leaving almost half a million dead and displacing an estimated twelve million people, the Syrian Civil War is a humanitarian catastrophe of unimaginable scale. Syrian Requiem analyzes the causes and course of this bitter conflict?from its first spark in a peaceful Arab Spring protest to the tenuous victory of the Asad dictatorship?and traces how the fighting has reduced Syria to a crisis-ridden vassal state with no prospect of political reform...
Along with Stoicism and Epicureanism, Skepticism is one of the three major schools of ancient Greek philosophy that claim to offer a way of living as well as thinking. How to Keep an Open Mind provides an unmatched introduction to skepticism by presenting a fresh, modern translation of key passages from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, the only Greek skeptic whose works have survived. Complete with the original Greek on facing pages, How to K...
A complete facing-page translation of the Tarjuman, which consists of sixty-one poems composed between 1202 and 1215 CE and published in 1215 at the earliest. The first word of the title can refer to a translator, interpreter, or biographer, on the one hand, and to a translation, interpretation, or biography on the other"--
From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which Ghâna, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in an increasingly globalized world. François-Xavier Fauvelle brings this thrilling era marvelously...
When Iranians overthrew their pro-Western monarchy in favor of an Islamic regime in 1979, many observers predicted that revolutionary turmoil would paralyze the country for years to come. Yet in the decades since, Iran has emerged as a key player in the Middle East and the wider world. In Iran Rising, renowned Iran specialist Amin Saikal describes how the Islamic Republic has managed to survive despite ongoing domestic struggles, Western sanct...
Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men and political window dressing. On Stalin's Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin was a group of loyal men who formed a remarkably effective team with him from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. Taking readers from the cataclysms of the Great Purges and World War II to the p...
Striking out at the conception of criticism as restricted to mere opinion or ritual gesture, Northrop Frye wrote this magisterial work proceeding on the assumption that criticism is a structure of thought and knowledge in its own right. In four brilliant essays on historical, ethical, archetypical, and rhetorical criticism, employing examples of world literature from ancient times to the present, Frye reconceived literary criticism as a total ...
The world's leading authority on Leonardo da Vinci takes readers to the heart of the Renaissance master's genius--his visual thinking. Probing the mystery of how da Vinci thought graphically, on paper, Kemp traces not only his approach to modeling but also fascinating efforts by modern engineers to build his inventions.
This book is a landmark in both content and style of argument. It is a major advance in our understanding of expert judgment in the vitally important and almost impossible task of political and strategic forecasting. Tetlock also offers a unique example of even-handed social science. This may be the first book I have seen in which the arguments and objections of opponents are presented with as much care as the author's own position."--Daniel K...
Contrary to conventional wisdom, countries that ignite a process of rapid economic growth almost always do so while lacking what experts say are the essential preconditions for development, such as good infrastructure and institutions. In Beating the Odds, two of the world's leading development economists begin with this paradox to explain what is wrong with mainstream development thinking--and to offer a practical blueprint for moving poor co...
Why has China grown increasingly important in the world arena while lagging behind the United States and its allies across certain sectors? Using the lens of classical Chinese political theory, Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers explains China's expanding influence by presenting a moral-realist theory that attributes the rise and fall of great powers to political leadership. Yan Xuetong shows that the stronger a rising state's political l...
Active Defense offers the first systematic look at China's military strategy from the mid-twentieth century to today. Exploring the range and intensity of threats that China has faced, M. Taylor Fravel illuminates the nation's past and present military goals, and offers a rich set of cases for deepening the study of how and why states alter their defense policies.
