Global outlaws

crime, money, and power in the contemporary world

Carolyn Nordstrom explores the pathways of global crime in this stunning work of anthropology that has the power to change the way we think about the world. To write this book, she spent three years traveling to hot spots in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the ...

Liberalism for a new century

American liberalism today is in a state of confusion and disarray, with the "L word" widely considered a term of derision. By examining both the historical past and the fractious present, "Liberalism for a New Century" restores a proud political tradition and carves out a ...

Opting out?

why women really quit careers and head home

Noting a phenomenon that might seem to recall a previous era, "The New York Times Magazine" recently portrayed women who leave their careers in order to become full-time mothers as "opting out." But, are high- achieving professional women really choosing to abandon their careers in ...

Falling behind

how rising inequality harms the middle class

Although middle-income families don't earn much more than they did several decades ago, they are buying bigger cars, houses, and appliances. To pay for them, they spend more than they earn and carry record levels of debt. In a book that explores the very ...

An intimate affair

womwn, lingerie, and sexuality

Intimate apparel, a term in use by 1921, has played a crucial role in the development of the "naughty but nice" feminine ideal that emerged in the twentieth century. Jill Fields' engaging, imaginative, and sophisticated history of twentieth-century lingerie tours the world of women's ...

Mesopotamia

assyrians, sumerians, babylonians

This beautifully illustrated guide to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, is the perfect companion for travelers and armchair travelers alike. It provides a concise survey of three ancient cultures that have often been misunderstood, both because of ...

Rome

This pocket-size reference draws on the vast treasures of this ancient civilization to illustrate the remarkable achievements of one of the great empires of the West, from the traditional date of Rome's founding - 754 B.C. - until the fall of the Western Empire in ...

Egypt in the byzantine world, 300-700

Egypt in the period from the reign of the emperor Constantine to the Arab conquest was both a vital part of the Late Roman and Byzantine world, participating fully in the culture of its wider Mediterranean society, and a distinctive milieu, launched on a path ...

Ending slavery

how we free today´s slaves

In his 1999 book, Disposable People, Kevin Bales brought to light the shocking fact of modern slavery and described how, nearly two hundred years after the slave trade was abolished (legal slavery would have to wait another fifty years), global slavery stubbornly persists. In Ending ...

Historical Atlas of California with original maps

Using nearly five hundred historical maps and many other illustrations - from rough sketches drawn in the field to commercial maps to beautifully rendered works of art - this lavishly illustrated volume is the first to tell the story of California's past from a unique visual ...

Creationism and its critics in Antiquity

The world is configured in ways that seem systematically hospitable to life forms, especially the human race. Is this the outcome of divine planning or simply of the laws of physics? This book examines this question and offers fresh historical perspectives on the pantheon of ...

Medieval cuisine of the Islamic World

a concise history with 174 recipes

Vinegar and sugar, dried fruit, rose water, spices from India and China, sweet wine made from raisins and dates--these are the flavors of the golden age of Arab cuisine. This book, a delightful culinary adventure that is part history and part cookbook, surveys the gastronomical ...

Historical Atlas of the United States

with original maps

Using more than five hundred historical maps from collections around the world, this stunning book is the first to tell the story of America's past from a unique geographical perspective. Covering more than half a millennium in U.S. history - from conception to colonization ...

Alef, Mem, Tau

kabbalistic musings on time, truth, and death

Wolfson is a leading scholar of Judaism. This book derives from his Taubman Letures at UC Berkeley, 2000, and it is the second book in "The Taubman Lecture Series in Jewish Studies", edited by Daniel Boyarin. This highly original, provocative, and poetic work explores the ...

Scenting salvation

ancient christianity and the olfactory imagination

This is not just a book about the Christianity of the Greco-Roman world; it embraces the entire Middle East through its rare ability to conjure up the imaginative world of the Christians of the Syriac- speaking region. It is a survey of a broad range ...

The mother of the gods, Athens and the tiranny of Asia

a study of sovereignty in ancient religion

This book elegantly illustrates how ancient divinities were not static types, but rather expressions of cultural systems that responded to historical change. Presenting a new perspective on the context in which the Homeric and Hesiodic epics were composed, Munn traces the transformation of the Asiatic ...

Immediate struggles

people, power and place in rural Spain

Although the focus of the book is on a region in Spain, many of the changes on the ground there are present world wide making the book of interest to scholars outside of Spain. This is an important study of a region in which great ...

The life of hinduism

The Life of Hinduism brings together a series of essays--many recognized as classics in the field--that present Hinduism as a vibrant, truly "lived" religion. Celebrating the diversity for which Hinduism is known, this volume begins its journey in the "new India" of Bangalore, India's ...

A critical history of early Rome

from prehistory to first punic war

Printing and book culture in late Imperial China