This “engrossing history of censorship” is an urgent, timely read for our era of social media trolls, fake news, and free speech debates (The Economist).How restricting speech continuously shapes our culture, props up authorities, and maintains class and gender disparitiesThrough compelling narrative, historian Eric Berkowitz reveals how drastically censorship has shaped our modern society. More than just a history of censorship,

Sex and Punishment tells the story of the struggle throughout millennia to regulate the most powerful engine of human behaviour: sex. From the savage impalement of an Ancient Mesopotamian adulteress to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde for 'gross indecency' in 1895, Eric Berkowitz evokes the entire sweep of Western sex law. The cast of Sex and Punishment is as varied as the forms taken by human desire itself: royal mistresses, gay charioteers, medieval transvestites, lonely goat-lovers, pros...

Take an “enormously informative and entertaining” tour through the history of Western sex law, from ancient times through the 19th century (Boston Globe)!What royal mistresses and gay charioteers, medieval cross-dressers and lonely goat–lovers, can tell us about the history of human desire . . .The “raging frenzy” of the sex drive, to use Plato’s phrase, has always defied control. However, that’s not to say the Sumerians, Victorian...

The act of reproduction, and its variants, never change much, but our ideas about the meaning of sex are in constant flux. Switch a decade, cross a border, or traverse class lines and the harmless pleasures of one group become the gravest crimes in another.Combining meticulous research and lively storytelling, The Boundaries of Desire traces the fast–moving bloodsport of sex law over the past century, and challenges our most cherished notions about family, power, gender, a...

A fascinating examination of how restricting speech has continuously shaped our culture, and how censorship is used as a tool to prop up authorities and maintain class and gender disparitiesThrough compelling narrative, historian Eric Berkowitz reveals how drastically censorship has shaped our modern society. More than just a history of censorship, Dangerous Ideas illuminates the power of restricting speech; how it has defined states, ideas, and culture; a...

Uranium, a nondescript element when found in nature, in the past century has become more sought after than gold. Its nucleus is so heavy that it is highly unstable and radioactive. If broken apart, it unleashes the tremendous power within the atom—the most controversial type of energy ever discovered.Set against the darkening shadow of World War II, Amir D. Aczel's suspenseful account tells the story of the fierce competition among the day's top scientists to harness nuclear power....

William R. Polk provides an informative, history of a country which is moving quickly toward becoming the dominant power and culture of the Middle East.A former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, Polk describes a country and a history misunderstood by many in the West. While Iranians chafe under the yolk of their current leaders, they also have bitter memories of generations of British, Russian, and American espionage, invasion, and dominance. There are impor...

Unequal Gains offers a radically new understanding of the economic evolution of the United States, providing a complete picture of the uneven progress of America from colonial times to today. While other economic historians base their accounts on American wealth, Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson focus instead on income-and the result is a bold reassessment of the American economic experience. America has been exceptional in its rising inequality after an egalitarian start, but not in i...

Why aren't left-handers extinct? What makes a rainbow round? How is a pancreas . . . like a pendulum?These may not look like math questions, but they are—because they all have to do with patterns. And mathematics, atheart, is the study of patterns.That realization changed Eddie Woo's life—by turning the "dry" subject he dreaded in high school into a boundless quest for discovery. Now an award-winning math teacher, Woo sees patterns ...

Covering 13.8 billion years, a calculatedly concise, wryly intelligent history of everything, from the Big Bang to the advent of human civilizationWith wonder, wit, and flair—and in record time and space—geophysicist David Bercovici explains how everything came to be everywhere, from the creation of stars and galaxies to the formation of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans to the origin of life and human civilization. Bercovici marries humor and legitimate scientific intrigue, rocketing ...

Alexander the Great is considered one of the most successful commanders of all time and was known to be undefeated in battle. He is mentioned in the Bible as well as the Qur’an and is on the shortest of short lists whenever the world’s best military leaders are catalogued. When asked to name other great military leaders, Caesar reportedly said Alexander was the only great one.Born in 356 B.C., the son of Philip II of Macedonia, Alexander the Great was educated by Aristotle, became ...

While European intellectual, cultural, and commercial life stagnated during the early medieval period, Asia flourished as the wellspring of science, philosophy, and religion.Linked together by a web of religious, commercial, and intellectual connections, the different regions of Asia's vast civilization, from Arabia to China, hummed with commerce, international diplomacy, and the brisk exchange of ideas.Stewart Gordon has fashioned a fascinating and unique look at Asia from...