Why are so many students intellectually disengaged? Faculty, administrators, and tuition-paying parents have been asking this question for nearly two centuries. And the answer is always more or less the same: students are so deeply absorbed in competitive social play (fraternities, sports, beer pong, World of Warcraft, social media) that they neglect academics.In Minds on Fire, Carnes shows how role-immersion games channel students’ competitive (and sometimes misc...

Designed for all libraries, this large-format, full-color atlas is an authoritative guide to the history of the United States. From the formation of the continent up through current events and information based on the most recent census, this work uses the geography of the United States to portray the history of the land and its people. The 300-plus maps tell the engaging story of America with detailed, clear information; accompanying text highlights key information presented in each map.

Rousseau, Burke, and Revolution in France, 1791 plunges students into the intellectual and political currents that surged through revolutionary Paris in the summer of 1791. As members of the National Assembly gather to craft a constitution for a new France, students wrestle with the threat of foreign invasion, political and religious power struggles, and questions of liberty and citizenship.

In The Trial of Galileo the new science, as brilliantly propounded by Galileo Galilei, collides with the elegant cosmology of Aristotle, Aquinas, and medieval Scholasticism. The game is set in Rome in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Most of the debates occur within the Holy Office, the arm of the papacy that supervises the Roman Inquisition. At times action shifts to the palace of Prince Cesi, founder of the Society of the Lynx-Eyed, which promotes the new science, a...

Defining a Nation is set at Simla, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where the British viceroy has invited leaders of various religious and political constituencies to work out the future of Britain’s largest colony. Will the British transfer power to the Indian National Congress, which claims to speak for all Indians? Or will a separate Muslim state—Pakistan—be carved out of India to be ruled by Muslims, as the Muslim League proposes? And what will happen to the vulnerable minor...

Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor, 1587 is set in the Hanlin Academy in Ming dynasty China. Most students are members of the Grand Secretariat of the Hanlin Academy, the body of top-ranking graduates of the civil service examination who serve as advisers to the Wanli emperor. Some Grand Secretaries are Confucian “purists,” who hold that tradition obliges the emperor to name his first-born son as successor; others, in support of the most senior of the Gran...

The Trial of Anne Hutchinson re-creates one of the most tumultuous and significant episodes in early American history: the struggle between the followers and allies of John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and those of Anne Hutchinson, a strong-willed and brilliant religious dissenter. The controversy pushed Massachusetts to the brink of collapse and spurred a significant exodus. The Puritans who founded Massachusetts were poised between the Middle Ages and the ...

In this newly revised biography, Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood, Gary C. Anderson offers a new interpretation of Sitting Bull’s conflict with General George Custer at Little Big Horn and its aftermath, and details the events and life experiences that ultimately led Sitting Bull into battle. Incorporating the latest scholarship, Anderson profiles this military and spiritual leader of the Lakota people, a man who remained a staunch defender of his nation and way o...

The Threshold of Democracy re-creates the intellectual dynamics of one of the most formative periods in Western history. In the wake of Athenian military defeat and rebellion, advocates of democracy have reopened the Assembly, but stability remains elusive. As members of the Assembly, players must contend with divisive issues like citizenship, elections, remilitarization, and dissent. Foremost among the troublemakers: Socrates.

In 1717, the notorious pirate Blackbeard captured a French slaving vessel off the coast of Martinique and made it his flagship, renaming it Queen Anne’s Revenge. Over the next six months, the heavily armed ship and its crew captured all manner of riches from merchant ships sailing the Caribbean to the Carolinas. But in June 1718, with British authorities closing in, Blackbeard reportedly ran Queen Anne’s Revenge aground just off the coast of what is now North Carolina’s F...

Discover the deep connection between theology, the arts, and the work of the Holy Spirit in Naming the SpiritIn this book, W. David O. Taylor and Daniel Train bring together a remarkable group of theologians, scholars, and artists to offer a fresh perspective on pneumatology through the creative lens of the arts.Each chapter unpacks a particular name for the Holy Spirit and examines its significance, using examples from a variety of artistic medium...

Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fund...