Just as a traveler crossing a continent won't sense the curvature of the earth, one lifetime of reading can't grasp the largest patterns organizing literary history. This is the guiding premise behind "Distant Horizons", which uses the scope of data...

The Green River, the most significant tributary of the Colorado River, runs 730 miles from the glaciers of Wyoming to the desert canyons of Utah. Over its course it meanders through ranches, cities, national parks, endangered fish habitats, and some...

Born to an African American father and Japanese mother, Frederick D. Kakinami Cloyd, the narrator of "Dream of the Water Children", finds himself not only to be a marginalized person by virtue of his heritage, but often a cultural drifter, as well. I...

"Many memories, many myths" – this is how Wendy Doniger begins the story of her parents' origins in Europe and sharply bifurcated life in America. Recalling their contrasting attitudes toward Judaism and religion in general – and acknowledging the my...

The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) was enacted by Congress in June of 1933 to assist the nation's recovery during the Great Depression. Its passage ushered in a unique experiment in US economic history: under the NIRA, the federal government...

"Doing Honest Work in College" stands on three principles: do the work you say you do, give others credit, and present your research fairly. These are straightforward concepts, but the abundance of questionable online sources and temptation of a quic...

John Dewey is known as a pragmatic philosopher and progressive architect of American educational reform, but some of his most important contributions came in his thinking about art. Dewey argued that there is strong social value to be found in art, a...

Many Americans imagine the Arctic as harsh, freezing, and nearly uninhabitable. The living Arctic, however – the one experienced by native Inuit and others who worked and traveled there – is a diverse region shaped by much more than stereotype and my...

Focusing on the figures of Plato, Archimedes, and Caravaggio, The Divine Spark of Syracuse discloses the role that Syracuse, a Greek cultural outpost in Sicily, played in fueling creative energies. Among the topics this book explores are Plato and th...

The twentieth century was the most destructive in human history, but from its vast landscapes of ruins was born a new architectural type: the cultural monument. In the wake of World War I, an international movement arose which aimed to protect archit...