This sweeping exploration of the impact of epidemic diseases looks at how mass infectious outbreaks have shaped society, from the Black Death to today. In a clear and accessible style, Frank M. Snowden reveals the ways that diseases have not only inf...

You know shoddy: an adjective meaning cheap and likely poorly made. But did you know that before it became a popular descriptor, shoddy was first coined as a noun? In the early nineteenth century, shoddy was the name given to a new textile material m...

Vanessa R. Schwartz engagingly presents the jet plane's power to define a new age at a critical moment in the mid-20th century, arguing that the craft's speed and smooth ride allowed people to imagine themselves living in the future. Exploring realms...

In "Necroperformance", Dorata Sajewska proposes an innovative perspective for looking back at the formative process of Polish modernity, delving into repressed areas of experience connected with World War I and the ensuing emancipatory movements. Und...

For sale in CIS only! It may not be the longest, deepest or widest river in the world but few bodies of water reveal as much about a nation's past and present, or are suggestive of its future, as England's River Thames. Tales of legendary lock-keepe...

Originating in the Himalayas and flowing into the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges is India's most important and sacred river. In this unprecedented work, historian Sudipta Sen tells the story of the Ganges, from the communities that arose on its banks to t...

In modern life, technology is everywhere. Yet as a concept, technology is a mess. In popular discourse, technology is little more than the latest digital innovations. Scholars do little better, offering up competing definitions that include everythin...

For sale in CIS only! Orphans have often been beneficiaries of charity and compassion – but society has also punished, abused and ill-treated them. Attitudes behind this maltreatment are rooted in ideas that those without parents are disruptive, mal...

In modern society, we have professionalized our care for the dying and deceased in hospitals and hospices, churches and funeral homes, cemeteries and mausoleums to aid dazed and disoriented mourners. But these formal institutions can be alienating an...

Arwa Salih was a member of the political bureau of the Egyptian Communist Workers Party, which was founded in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War and the Egyptian student movement of the early 1970s. Written more than a decade after Salih quit the party...