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01/21/2025

Eva Payne, author of Empire of Purity, speaks with Miranda Melcher about her new book for New Books Network: https://hubs.ly/Q033jvDn0

01/21/2025

Why “hopeful pessimism” is not a contradiction in terms but a powerful source of moral and political commitment.

Mara van der Lugt's Hopeful Pessimism is out now!

The climate debate is rife with calls for optimism. While temperatures rise and disasters intensify, we are asked to maintain optimism and hope, as if the real threat is pessimism and despair. In this erudite and engaging book, Mara van der Lugt argues that this is a mistake: crude optimism can no longer be a virtue in a breaking world, and may well prove to be our besetting vice. In an age of climate change and ecological devastation, the virtue we need is hopeful pessimism.

Drawing on thinkers that range from J.R.R.Tolkien and Mary Shelley to Albert Camus and Jonathan Lear, van der Lugt invites us to rethink what we thought we knew about optimism and pessimism, hope and despair, activism and grief. She shows that pessimism is closely linked to a tradition of moral and political activism, and offers a different way to think about pessimism: not as synonymous with despair but as compatible with hope. Gently yet fiercely, van der Lugt argues that what we need to avoid is not pessimism but fatalism or self-serving resignation. Pessimism does not imply the loss of courage or the lack of a desire to strive for a better world; on the contrary, these are the very gifts that pessimism can bestow.

What Hopeful Pessimism asks instead is that we strive for change without certainties, without expecting anything from our efforts other than the knowledge that we have done what we are called upon to do as moral agents in a time of change.

Learn more about this important book: https://hubs.ly/Q032xhsk0 (18 March UK pub)

01/21/2025

In Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men, Patricia Owens shows how a field built on the intellectual labor and expertise of women erased them.

The academic field of international relations presents its own history as largely a project of elite white men. And yet women played a prominent role in the creation of this new cross-disciplinary field. In Erased, Patricia Owens shows that, since its beginnings in the early twentieth century, international relations relied on the intellectual labour of women and their expertise on such subjects as empire and colonial administration, anticolonial organising, non-Western powers, and international organisations. Indeed, women were among the leading international thinkers of the era, shaping the development of the field as scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals—and as heteros*xual spouses and intimate same-s*x partners.

Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, and weaving together personal, institutional, and intellectual narratives, Owens documents key moments and locations in the effort to forge international relations as a separate academic discipline in Britain. She finds that women’s ideas and influence were first marginalised and later devalued, ignored, and erased. Examining the roles played by some of the most important women thinkers in the field, including Margery Perham, Merze Tate, Eileen Power, Margaret Cleeve, Coral Bell, and Susan Strange, Owens traces the intellectual and institutional legacies of misogyny and racism. She argues that the creation of international relations was a highly gendered and racialised project that failed to understand plurality on a worldwide scale. Acknowledging this intellectual failure, and recovering the history of women in the field, points to possible sources for its renewal.

Now available in the UK, learn more about this compelling book: https://hubs.ly/Q032xZvQ0 (March 11 US pub)

01/20/2025

Providing a new understanding of postwar architectural history in the United States, Eva Hagberg's When Eero Met His Match is 60% off in our print flash sale!

Learn more about this poignant book: https://hubs.ly/Q032VZkt0

Aline B. Louchheim (1914–1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. She would become his wife and the driving force behind his rise to critical prominence. When Eero Met His Match draws on the couple’s personal correspondence to reconstruct the early days of their thrilling courtship and traces Louchheim’s gradual takeover of Saarinen’s public narrative in the 1950s, the decade when his career soared to unprecedented heights.

01/20/2025

How to Lose Yourself presents lively, accessible, and expert new translations of ancient Buddhist writings about the central, unique, and powerful Buddhist teaching of “no-self.”

Out January 28. Learn more about this inviting book: https://hubs.ly/Q032xgLM0

From self-realization and self-promotion to self-help and the selfie, the modern world encourages us to be self-obsessed. We are even told that finding ourselves is the key to happiness. Better to lose yourself! More than 2,500 years ago, the Buddha argued that the self is an illusion—and that our belief in it is the cause of most, if not all, of our suffering. How to Lose Yourself presents lively, accessible, and expert new translations of ancient Buddhist writings about the central, unique, and powerful Buddhist teaching of “no-self.”

Drawn from three important Buddhist traditions, these essential Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese writings provide a rich sampling of the ways Buddhist philosophers have understood the idea that we are selfless persons—and why this insight is so therapeutic. When we let go of the self, we are awakened to the presence of all things as they truly are, and we let go of the anxiety, fear, greed, and hatred that are the source of all suffering.

01/20/2025

Tomorrow (January 21) at 6 pm EST: The Paideia Institute welcomes Luca Grillo for a presentation on his recent publication, How to Make Money: An Ancient Guide to Wealth Management. This event is presented in partnership with Citco.

RSVP here: https://hubs.ly/Q0332MS90

01/20/2025

We invite you to explore this sample chapter of Hajar Yazdiha's The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement.

Discover how the misuses of Martin Luther King’s legacy divide us: https://hubs.ly/Q032xhs50

01/19/2025

What is love?

Explore the nature of love in this charming new translation of selections from ’s great dramatic work, the Symposium.

How to Talk about Love: An Ancient Guide for Modern Lovers (translated by Armand D'Angour) arrives January 28. Learn more about the latest in our Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series: https://hubs.ly/Q032w_Zv0

In poetry, songs, fiction, movies, psychology, and philosophy, love has been described, admired, lamented, and dissected in endless ways. Is love based on physical attraction? Does it bring out our better selves? How does it relate to s*x? Is love divine? Plato’s Symposium is one of the oldest, most influential, and most profound explorations of such questions—it is even the source of the idea of “Platonic love.” How to Talk about Love introduces and presents the key passages and central ideas of Plato’s philosophical dialogue in a lively and highly readable new translation, which also features the original Greek on facing pages.

01/19/2025

In The Last Peasant War, Jakub S. Beneš presents a history of the largely forgotten peasant revolution that swept central and eastern Europe after World War I—and how it changed the course of interwar politics and World War II.

As the First World War ended, villages across central and eastern Europe rose in revolt. Led in many places by a shadowy movement of army deserters, peasants attacked those whom they blamed for wartime abuses and long years of exploitation—large estate owners, officials, and merchants, who were often Jewish. At the same time, peasants tried to realize their rural visions of a reborn society, establishing local self-government or attempting to influence the new states that were being built atop the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. In The Last Peasant War, Jakub Beneš presents the first comprehensive history of this dramatic and largely forgotten revolution and traces its impact on interwar politics and the course of the Second World War.

Out January 28. Learn more about this bold book: https://hubs.ly/Q032x9PY0

01/18/2025

Congratulations to Melissa Lane whose book Of Rule and Office: Plato's Ideas of the Political is the Winner of the Journal of the History of Philosophy Book Prize! 🎉

In this study, Melissa Lane reveals how political office and rule were woven together in Greek vocabulary and practices that both connected and distinguished between rule in general and office as a constitutionally limited kind of rule in particular. In doing so, Lane shows Plato to have been deeply concerned with the roles and relationships between rulers and ruled. With this book, Lane offers the first account of the clearly marked vocabulary of offices at the heart of all three of these dialogues, explaining how such offices fit within the broader organization and theorizing of rule.

Read the announcement here: https://hubs.ly/Q031Vhpb0

01/18/2025

Congratulations to Lachlan McNamee whose book Settling for Less: Why States Colonize and Why They Stop is the Winner of the Hedley Bull Prize from the European Consortium for Political Research! 🎉

Settling for Less uncovers the internal dynamics of settler colonialism and the diminishing power of colonizers in a rapidly urbanizing world. Contrasting successful and failed colonization projects in Australia, Indonesia, China, and beyond, this book demonstrates that economic development—by thwarting colonization—has proven a powerful force for indigenous self-determination.

Watch the video announcement here: https://hubs.ly/Q031Vrbb0

01/18/2025

Listen to a sample chapter of The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health by Camilla Nord. Nord explains how we can use what we’ve learned about the to improve our .

https://hubs.ly/Q0333tRC0

01/18/2025

In The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life, Sophia Rosenfeld offers sweeping history of the rise of personal choice in the modern world and how it became equated with freedom.

Choice touches virtually every aspect of our lives, from what to buy and where to live to whom to love, what profession to practice, and even what to believe. But the option to choose in such matters was not something we always possessed or even aspired to. At the same time, we have been warned by everybody from marketing gurus to psychologists about the negative consequences stemming from our current obsession with choice. It turns out that not only are we not very good at realizing our personal desires, we are also overwhelmed with too many possibilities and anxious about what best to select. There are social costs too. How did all this happen? The Age of Choice tells the long history of the invention of choice as the defining feature of modern freedom.

Out February 4. Read a sample on our website: https://hubs.ly/Q032w7vg0 (1 April UK pub)

01/17/2025

Join us in NYC next Tuesday, January 21st for a free, in-person lecture with Prof. Luca Grillo (University of Notre Dame) on his recent book, How to Make Money: An Ancient Guide to Wealth Management, part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series. Light refreshments will be served. RSVP here: https://www.paideiainstitute.org/how_to_make_money

01/17/2025

Richard Reid's The African Revolution challenges the portrayal of Africa’s transformative nineteenth century as a mere prelude to European colonialism and reveals how this turbulent yet hugely creative era for Africans intersected with global intrusions to shape the modern age.

Out January 28. Learn more about this panoramic global history: https://hubs.ly/Q03319f00

01/17/2025

Congratulations to Leslie Valiant whose book The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness was longlisted for the Non-Obvious Book Awards! 🎉

In this visionary book, Leslie Valiant argues that understanding the nature of our own educability is crucial to safeguarding our future. After breaking down how we process information to learn and apply knowledge, and drawing comparisons with other animals and AI systems, he explains why education should be humankind’s central preoccupation.

See the full list here: https://hubs.ly/Q031Vm8L0

01/17/2025

Dean Rickles's Life Is Short challenges us to rethink what gives life meaning and how to make the most of it.

Now in paperback! Read more about the book here: https://hubs.ly/Q032-fQs0

01/17/2025

Susan Pedersen reviews Tehila Sasson’s new book The Solidarity Economy for London Review of Books and finds it a story ‘written for our times’ – read the full review here https://hubs.ly/Q032ZZRd0

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Providing a new understanding of postwar architectural history in the United States, Eva Hagberg's When Eero Met His Match is 60% off in our print flash sale! Learn more about this poignant book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691206677/

Providing a new understanding of postwar architectural history in the United States, Eva Hagberg's When Eero Met His Match is 60% off in our print flash sale! Learn more about this poignant book: https://hubs.ly/Q032VZkt0 Aline B. Louchheim (1914–1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. She would become his wife and the driving force behind his rise to critical prominence. When Eero Met His Match draws on the couple’s personal correspondence to reconstruct the early days of their thrilling courtship and traces Louchheim’s gradual takeover of Saarinen’s public narrative in the 1950s, the decade when his career soared to unprecedented heights. #Architecture #ArchTwitter

How the notorious author of The 120 Days of Sodom inspired the surrealists and other avant-garde artists, writers, and filmmakers. Alyce Mahon's The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde is now in #paperback! Learn more and save 30% with code PUP30: https:

How the notorious author of The 120 Days of Sodom inspired the surrealists and other avant-garde artists, writers, and filmmakers. Alyce Mahon's The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde is now in #paperback! Learn more and save 30% with code PUP30: https://hubs.ly/Q032vZ5y0 The writings of the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) present a libertine philosophy of sexual excess and human suffering that refuses to make any concession to law, religion, or public decency. In this groundbreaking cultural history, Alyce Mahon traces how artists of the twentieth century turned to Sade to explore political, sexual, and psychological terror, adapting his imagery of the excessively sexual and terrorized body as a means of liberation from systems of power. Mahon shows how avant-garde artists, writers, dramatists, and filmmakers drew on Sade’s “philosophy in the bedroom” to challenge oppressive regimes and their restrictive codes and conventions of gender and sexuality. She provides close analyses of early illustrated editions of Sade’s works and looks at drawings, paintings, and photographs by leading surrealists such as André Masson, Leonor Fini, and Man Ray. She explains how Sade’s ideas were reflected in the writings of Guillaume Apollinaire and the fiction of Anne Desclos, who wrote her erotic novel, Story of O, as a love letter to critic Jean Paulhan, an admirer of Sade. Mahon explores how Sade influenced the happenings of Jean-Jacques Lebel, the theater of Peter Brook, the cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and the multimedia art of Paul Chan. She also discusses responses to Sade by feminist theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Sontag, and Angela Carter. Beautifully illustrated, The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde demonstrates that Sade inspired generations of artists to imagine new utopian visions of living, push the boundaries of the body and the body politic, and portray the unthinkable in their art.

Listen to a sample chapter of Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World by R. Jisung Park. Park explains how climate change operates as the silent accumulation of a thousand tiny conflagrations. Discover how we can begin to overcome our climate anxiety. https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/listen-in-slow-burn #climate #environment #Economics #Health #GlobalWarming

Robert Hansen and Jackson D. Shedd's California Amphibians and Reptiles is a spectacularly illustrated field guide to the #amphibians and #reptiles of California. Out now! Learn more about this this state-of-the-art guide and save 30% with code PUP30: ht

Robert Hansen and Jackson D. Shedd's California Amphibians and Reptiles is a spectacularly illustrated field guide to the #amphibians and #reptiles of California. Out now! Learn more about this this state-of-the-art guide and save 30% with code PUP30: https://hubs.ly/Q032n6pF0 California is home to more than 200 species of reptiles and amphibians that can be found in an extraordinary array of habitats, from coastal temperate rainforests with giant redwoods to southeastern deserts offering dazzling wildflower displays each spring. California Amphibians and Reptiles covers every species and subspecies in this biodiverse region of the United States, with outstanding color photography and in-depth species accounts that draw on the latest findings on taxonomy and distribution. Setting a new standard for regional field guides, this state-of-the-art guide will serve as the definitive reference for California’s amphibian and reptile fauna for many years to come. • Covers all 209 species of amphibians and reptiles found in California • Features hundreds of stunning photos that illustrate geographic and within-species variation as well as differences among males, females, and young • Includes first-ever color images and species accounts for newly discovered species • Shows every species and subspecies in full color on a white background • Depicts all amphibian larvae in breathtaking color • Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, similar species, habitat, range and elevation, activity and behavior, diet, reproduction, and conservation • Provides updated status of all threatened, endangered, nonnative, and special concern species • Accurate range maps reflect contemporary and, where applicable, historical distributions in light of significant habitat loss across the state • An invaluable resource for amateur naturalists, resource managers, and professional herpetologists

Kara Walker is renowned for her bold examinations of the dynamics of power and the exploitation of race and sexuality through her profound work that has appeared in exhibitions around the world. She has created monumental sculptures, including A Subtlety

Kara Walker is renowned for her bold examinations of the dynamics of power and the exploitation of race and sexuality through her profound work that has appeared in exhibitions around the world. She has created monumental sculptures, including A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby (2014), for the former Domino Sugar refinery in Brooklyn, and Fons Americanus (2019) for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. This beautifully designed book documents the creation of Walker’s major new commission, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) (2024), at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The installation features eight Black automatons, including the seven-foot-tall prophetess, Fortuna, who responds to each visitor with a choreographed routine and a printed fortune fresh from her mouth. Situated in fields of obsidian—a volcanic glass with deep spiritual properties—the other robotic dolls, or Gardeners, rise and fall, gesture, turn, and clamor—trapped in a never-ending cycle of ritual and struggle. Evoking wonder, reflection, respite, and hope, the work explores the memorialization of trauma, the objectives of technology, and the possibilities of transforming the negative energies that plague contemporary society. This book presents Walker’s working drawings and paintings, photographs of her creative process with collaborators, and detailed images of the final installation. Also included are an illuminating text by Walker, an essay by product designer David A. M. Goldberg, a selection of fashion designer Gary Graham’s notebook pages, an excerpt from Donna Haraway’s influential essay “A Cyborg Manifesto,” experimental short fiction by writer Damani McNeil, and a conversation between Walker and curator Eungie Joo. Out now. Learn more about this gorgeously illustrated book: https://hubs.ly/Q030wL1R0 Exhibition Schedule SFMOMA, San Francisco July 1, 2024–Spring 2026 Published by SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in association with PUP.

From the world’s leading expert on negotiation, an essential guide to negotiating in any situation—whether over Zoom, across political and cultural divides, or during a supply chain crisis. The world has changed dramatically in just the past few years

From the world’s leading expert on negotiation, an essential guide to negotiating in any situation—whether over Zoom, across political and cultural divides, or during a supply chain crisis. The world has changed dramatically in just the past few years—and so has the game of negotiation. COVID-19, Zoom, political polarization, the online economy, increasing economic globalization, and greater workplace diversity—all have transformed the who, what, where, and how of negotiation. Today, traditional negotiating tactics, while still effective, need to be tailored to vastly different situations and circumstances. In Negotiation: The Game Has Changed, legendary Harvard Business School professor Max Bazerman, a pioneer in the field of negotiation, shows you how to negotiate successfully today by adapting proven negotiation principles and strategies to the challenging new contexts you face—from negotiating across cultural and political differences to trying to reach an agreement over Zoom or during a supply chain crisis. Negotiation: The Game Has Changed is out now. Learn more: https://hubs.ly/Q030nnbb0

The World Atlas of Deserts and Drylands (edited by David Thomas) is a richly illustrated atlas of the world’s deserts and drylands, their ecosystems, & their environments. • Features a wealth of color photos, maps, and infographics • Describes the r

The World Atlas of Deserts and Drylands (edited by David Thomas) is a richly illustrated atlas of the world’s deserts and drylands, their ecosystems, & their environments. • Features a wealth of color photos, maps, and infographics • Describes the resilient and complex biodiversity of the world’s desert and dryland terrains • Covers subtropical deserts, continental deserts, rain shadow deserts, and ocean margin deserts • Addresses the challenges posed by global warming and human activity, and discusses solutions and opportunities • Written by a team of leading experts Out now. Learn more about the ultimate reference book for deserts: https://hubs.ly/Q030x8nH0

Celebrating the brilliant life and work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, born #OnThisDay in 1960. https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/basquiat-jean-michel #JeanMichelBasquiat #Basquiat

Celebrating the brilliant life and work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, born #OnThisDay in 1960. https://hubs.ly/Q02-YQG50 #JeanMichelBasquiat #Basquiat

Give the perfect gift for the curious people on your list, a gift card from Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/buy/gift-card

Give the perfect gift for the curious people on your list, a gift card from Princeton University Press. https://hubs.ly/Q030j1tv0

Written during his exile from Florence in the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy describes the poet’s travels through hell, purgatory, and paradise, exploring the state of the human soul after death. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” narrates th

Written during his exile from Florence in the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy describes the poet’s travels through hell, purgatory, and paradise, exploring the state of the human soul after death. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” narrates the remarkable reception of Dante’s masterpiece, one of the most consequential religious books ever written. Joseph Luzzi charts how the dialogue between religious and secular ideas in The Divine Comedy has shaped issues ranging from changing conceptions of women’s identity and debates about censorship to the role of canonical literature in popular culture. Recently we asked Joseph to share his thoughts on Dante’s enduring influence. Watch the full In Dialogue piece on Ideas: https://hubs.ly/Q02_X3Lp0

Now available worldwide, #Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland: Third Edition is a fully revised & updated edition of the bestselling photographic guide. Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland is a beautifully illustrated photographic field guide to this increas

Now available worldwide, #Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland: Third Edition is a fully revised & updated edition of the bestselling photographic guide. Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland is a beautifully illustrated photographic field guide to this increasingly popular group of insects, focusing on the species that can be most readily identified. It is the perfect companion for wildlife enthusiasts, professional ecologists and anyone with an interest in this fascinating group of insects, and is designed to appeal to beginners and experts alike. This updated third edition covers 13 additional species and offers a host of improvements to aid reliable identification. Accessible, authoritative and easy-to-use, this book features an essential guide to hoverfly tribes and presents hundreds of remarkable photographs of hoverflies in their various life stages, including images of at least one representative from each of the British and Irish genera. The species included are mainly those that can be identified by eye or using a magnifying glass. Individual species accounts highlight key identification features, provide information on behaviour and habitat requirements, status, population trend and flight-period, and include an up-to-date distribution map covering Britain and Ireland. Sections on hoverfly biology, where and when to find hoverflies, legislation and conservation, recording, putting data to good use and gardening for hoverflies are also included. • Features 1,048 stunning photographs, 400 more than in the previous edition • Provides detailed information on 177 species, including at least one from each of the 69 genera recorded • Updated taxonomy, nomenclature and information on status and population trends • Includes a complete list of the 285 species recorded to date, with an indication of how difficult each is to identify in the field and from photographs Learn more about this guide today: https://hubs.ly/Q02_08pm0 WILDGuides

Explore your world with stunningly illustrated atlases, from deserts and drylands; rivers, estuaries, and deltas; and trees and forests. Learn more: https://press.princeton.edu/search?search=world+atlas

Explore your world with stunningly illustrated atlases, from deserts and drylands; rivers, estuaries, and deltas; and trees and forests. Learn more: https://hubs.ly/Q02-KH1k0

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