Pakal was one of the greatest ancient rulers and the most prominent among a long line of monarchs who held sway at Palenque from AD 300 to 800. This "queen of Maya cities," as Palenque has been called, fell into ruin and was abandoned along with other...

When Hansel and Gretel try to eat the witch's gingerbread house in the woods, are they indulging their "uncontrolled cravings" and "destructive desires" or are they simply responding normally to the hunger pangs they feel after being abandoned by their...

There has never been a single way that social life has been organized by sex. The ancient Greeks saw men and women as expressing varying degrees of a single sexual potential; many Native American societies considered sexual identity as something that...

The clash of faith and science in Napoleonic FranceThe Dendera zodiac―an ancient bas-relief temple ceiling adorned with mysterious symbols of the stars and planets―was first discovered by the French during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, and quickly...

This unique book carries out a comprehensive reconstruction of the evolutionary history of living and fossil primates. The text takes a comparative approach and covers the broadest possible spectrum of evidence. Although emphasis is placed on reviews of...

A mind-expanding exploration of the ethical bonds we share with the nonhumanMoral relationships saturate the living world, and the line between the human and nonhuman is blurrier than we might think. Animals, Robots, Gods provides a bold new vision of...

An accessible historical exploration of the methods and motivations behind using magic in ancient Greece and Rome.In the ancient world, magic was everywhere. The supernatural abounded, turning flowers into fruit and caterpillars into butterflies. In a...