Titles

"Fitzgerald's work has always deeply moved me," writes John T. Irwin. "And this is as true now as it was fifty years ago when I first picked up The Great Gatsby. I can still remember the occasions when I first read each of his novels; remember the time, place, and mood of those early readings, as well as the way each work seemed to speak to something going on in my life at that moment. Because the things that interested Fitzgerald were the things that interested me...

Energy sustainability and climate change are two of the greatest challenges facing humankind. Unraveling these complex and interconnected issues demands careful and objective assessment. Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy aims to change the prevailing discourse by examining fifteen core energy questions from a variety of perspectives, demonstrating how, for each of them, no clear-cut answer exists. Is...

Owsei Temkin presents the history of epilepsy in Western civilization from ancient times to the beginnings of modern neurology. First published in 1945 and thoroughly revised in 1971, this classic work by one of the history of medicine's most eminent scholars now returns to print available in both paperback and eBook formats.

Since 2000, the National Science Foundation has depended upon its pioneering FastLane e-government system to manage grant applications, peer reviews, and reporting. In this behind-the-scenes account Thomas J. Misa and Jeffrey R. Yost examine how powerful forces of science and computing came together to create this influential grant-management system, assessing its impact on cutting-edge scientific research. Why did the NSF create FastLane, and how did it anticipate the...

In Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program, Howard E. McCurdy examines NASA's recent efforts to save money while improving mission frequency and performance. McCurdy details the sixteen missions undertaken during the 1990s—including an orbit of the moon, deployment of three space telescopes, four Earth-orbiting satellites, two rendezvous with comets and asteroids, and a test of an ion propulsion engine—which cost less than the...

In May 1788, the roads into Richmond overflowed with horses and stagecoaches. From every county, specially elected representatives made their way to the capital city for the Virginia Ratification Convention. Together, these delegates—zealous advocates selected by Virginia's deadlocked citizens—would decide to accept or reject the highly controversial United States Constitution, thus determining the fate of the American Republic. The rest of the country kept an anxious vigil,...

In the United States, food is abundant and cheap but loaded with hidden costs to the environment, human health, animal welfare, and the people who work in our food systems. The country's current food production systems lack diversity in crops and animals and are intensified but not sustainable, inhumane in the treatment of animals, and inconsiderate of labor. In order to feed the world's rapidly growing population with high-quality,...

In this engaging and reflective essay, Jerry Griswold examines the unique qualities of childhood experience and their reappearance as frequent themes in children's literature. Surveying dozens of classic and popular works for the young—from Heidi and The Wizard of Oz to Beatrix Potter and Harry Potter—Griswold demonstrates how great children's writers succeed because of their uncanny ability to remember what it feels like to be a kid: playing under tables, shivering in bed on a...

As Louise Brown—the first baby conceived by in vitro fertilization—celebrates her 30th birthday, Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner tell the fascinating story of the man who first showed that human in vitro fertilization was possible. John Rock spent his career studying human reproduction. The first researcher to fertilize a human egg in vitro in the 1940s, he became the nation's leading figure in the treatment of infertility, his clinic serving rich and...

Hayden White is celebrated as one of the great minds in the humanities. Since the publication of his groundbreaking monograph, Metahistory, in 1973, White's work has been crucial to disciplines where narrative is of primary concern, including history, literary studies, anthropology, philosophy, art history, and film and media studies. This volume, deftly introduced by Robert Doran, gathers in one place White's important—and often...

From the Arctic waters of Alaska to the southern tip of California, this fully illustrated guide captures the stunning diversity of fishes along the western coastlines of the United States and Canada. The combined work of renowned marine science illustrator Val Kells and distinguished ichthyologists Luiz A. Rocha and Larry G. Allen, A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes: From Alaska to California is this region's most current and thorough fish...

In Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes of Virginia, the foremost experts on Commonwealth fishes bring their decades of field experience to readers, offering a complete reference to the fishes of the entire state of Virginia. Gathering information that until now could only be found scattered across numerous reference works and online...

Imagine an urban oasis with hundreds of thousands of trees and whose mayor wants to plant a million more. That sylvan place is New York City, and this is a guide to the diverse trees that line its streets. Field Guide to the Street Trees of New York City acquaints New Yorkers and visitors alike with fifty species of trees commonly found in the neighborhoods where people live, work, and travel. Beautiful, original drawings of leaves and stunning...

This fascinating history shows how African-American military men and women seized their dignity through barracks culture and community politics during and after World War II. Drawing on oral testimony, unpublished correspondence, archival records, memoirs, and diaries, Robert F. Jefferson explores the curious contradiction of war-effort idealism and entrenched discrimination through the experiences of the 93rd...

No issue in higher education is as salient, or as controversial, as finance. As demand for higher education around the world grows, so do the costs associated with it, especially as governments shoulder less of the burden. Tuition fees rise and student loan debt grows. Who pays for these surging costs? Who should pay? D. Bruce Johnstone and Pamela N. Marcucci examine the universal phenomenon of cost-sharing in higher education—where...

To meet the enormous expenses of maintaining its powerful navy, democratic Athens gave wealthy citizens responsibility for financing and commanding the fleet. Known as trierarchs—literally, ship commanders—they bore the expenses of maintaining and repairing the ships, as well as recruiting and provisioning their crews. The trierarchy grew into a powerful social institution that was indispensable to Athens and primarily responsible for the city's naval prowess...

Since emerging as a discipline in the middle of the eighteenth century, natural history has been at the heart of the life sciences. It gave rise to the major organizing theory of life—evolution—and continues to be a vital science with impressive practical value. Central to advanced work in ecology, agriculture, medicine, and environmental science, natural history also attracts enormous popular interest. In Finding Order in Nature Paul Farber...

In 1985, when Cindy Weinstein was a graduate student at UC Berkeley, her beloved father, Jerry, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. He was fifty-eight years old. Twelve years later, at age seventy, he died having lost all of his memories—along with his ability to read, write, and speak. Finding the Right Words follows Weinstein's decades-long journey to come to terms with her father's dementia as both a daughter and an...

Originally published in 1988. In the decades after 1404, traditionally maritime Venice extended its control over much of northern Italy. Citizens of Vicenza, the first city to come under Venetian rule, proclaimed their city "firstborn of Venice" and a model for the Venetian Republic's dominions on the terraferma. In Firstborn of Venice James Grubb tests commonplace attributes of the Renaissance state through a rich case study of society and politics in fifteenth-century...

Since 2008, when Fixing Global Finance was first published, the collapse of the housing and credit bubbles of the 2000s has crippled the world's economy. In this updated edition, Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf explains how global imbalances helped cause the financial crises now ravaging the U.S. economy and outlines steps for ending this destructive cycle—of which this is the latest and biggest. An expanded conclusion recommends near- and long-term measures to stabilize and protect...