This ambitious study presents Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) as the most outstanding and influential thinker of modernity--and examines the question of whether he was the "first secular Jew." A number-one bestseller in Israel, Spinoza and Other Heretics is...

"A remarkably complex portrait of Aretha Franklin's music and her tumultuous life." --Rolling StoneAretha Franklin began life as the golden daughter of a progressive and promiscuous Baptist preacher. Raised without her mother, she was a gospel prodigy...

The 1982 Falklands War was not only one of the most extraordinary military confrontations of recent years but also a turning point in the politics of Britain and Argentina. This unusual book makes it possible for us to follow the development of the war...

A richly detailed account of the only messianic movement ever to engulf the entire Jewish world.The twentieth century produced a galaxy of extraordinary Jewish historians. Gershom Scholem stands out among them for the richness and power of his historical...

How rulers in ancient and medieval Europe expressed their power through cities, buildings, and sitesThe Power of Place explores the nature of power—the power of kings, emperors, and popes—through the places that these rulers created or developed,...

An essential handbook for literary studiesThe Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms―drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics―provides an authoritative guide to the most important terms in the study of...

For some, the idea of an Islamic state serves to fulfill aspirations for cultural sovereignty and new forms of ethical political practice. For others, it violates the proper domains of both religion and politics. Yet, while there has been much discussion...

Today complex numbers have such widespread practical use--from electrical engineering to aeronautics--that few people would expect the story behind their derivation to be filled with adventure and enigma. In An Imaginary Tale, Paul Nahin tells the...

In an era of stark racial injustice, Aaron Dixon dedicated his life to revolution, founding the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968 at age nineteen. In My People Are Rising, he traces the course of his own radicalization, and that of a...

A richly textured account of what it means to be poor in AmericaBaltimore was once a vibrant manufacturing town, but today, with factory closings and steady job loss since the 1970s, it is home to some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in America...