Posts by Yale University Press

Creating Life Stories from the Oracular

“Shall I receive the gift?” “Shall I be reconciled with my son?” “Shall I be poisoned?” These questions were all found in an oracle book created in the late third century B.C., as part of an exhaustive numbered list of queries one might pose. Their answers could be found by

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How I Learned to Think Like a Cartoonist

Earlier this year, Yale University Press was thrilled to publish a “classroom in a book” by Ivan Brunetti. Brunetti, an acclaimed cartoonist and illustrator, has taught courses on illustration and comics at the University of Chicago and Columbia College Chicago. His book Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice is a 15-week series of lessons

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The Forces of King Solomon

King Solomon is famous for using his wisdom to mediate weighty conflicts. Yet, in his new biography of the Biblical figure, Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom, Steven Weitzman makes it clear that Solomon’s knowledge extended to a wide variety of areas: some Jamaicans credit the king with the discovery of

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Lest We Forget: A Religion of Their Own

Sarah Underwood— Mabel Barltrop has been alternatively described as a cult leader, a lunatic, and the Second Coming, but to me, she appears to be a combination of Susan B. Anthony, Martha Stewart, and Jesus. With Octavia, Daughter of God: The Story of a Female Messiah and Her Followers, author

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A Novel Narration of Religious Conversion

Craig Harline knows that history can be boring. He regrets the way in which many historians, himself included, often “write only for each other, in our special language” or “choose to write about subjects that are not exactly obvious in their relevance.” Accordingly, Harline’s Conversions: Two Family Stories from the

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Leila Ahmed on the History of the Veil

Leila Ahmed is best known as the first professor of women’s studies at Harvard Divinity School. In 1992, Yale University Press published her seminal book, Women and Gender in Islam, establishing the discourse for contemporary gender analysis in the historical and social contexts of Islam. Her latest book, A Quiet

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Garry Wills on the Ides of March, Rhetorically Speaking

The Ides of March, George Clooney’s latest directorial turn, stars Ryan Gosling as a campaign manager in a hotly contested Democratic primary that evokes both recent and ancient history. The film, adapted from a 2008 play by the name of Farragut North, plays on memories of the past two presidential

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Notes from the Field: NY Art Book Fair

Last weekend, Yale University Press joined over 200 other exhibitors at the 6th annual NY Art Book Fair, presented by Printed Matter and situated throughout Long Island City’s extraordinary MoMA PS1.  From the Fair’s opening on the evening of Thursday, September 29th straight through to its end on the evening

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Harold Bloom’s Brave Appreciation of the King James Bible

There is no doubt that Harold Bloom is a brave man. Indeed, only a brave man can acknowledge in his most recent book that “disputes concerning the Bible have been murderous,” and then declare in an interview for the San Francisco Chronicle published a few months later that, “There is

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David Margolick on Writing the Story of Elizabeth and Hazel

Today, we officially publish David Margolick’s new biography, Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock, looking at one of the most unforgettable photographs of the civil rights era and recounting the impact on the lives of Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery. We’ve shown you the book trailer, and

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