Libby Murphy— During the Great War, French soldiers struggled to make sense of their experience, both for themselves and for their compatriots. Soldier-writers used fiction to recalibrate civilians’ expectations about the war and to teach them to see through the “skull-stuffing” of the mainstream media—exaggeration, euphemisms, and outright lies. Many of
Welcome to our weekly roundup of news from university presses! Once again, there is a lot to share this week from our fellow academic publishing houses and much to learn on What SUP at the social university presses. This week, we found conversations on the influence of Twitter on presidential
On September 20th, we will publish Laura Trevelyan’s The Winchester: The Gun That Built an American Dynasty. As Trevelyan leads us through the history of the Winchester rifle, we reflect on the impact of the Winchester Repeating Arms company on our own city of New Haven, Connecticut. Douglas W. Rae—
Benjamin Ginsberg— 1. Presidential succession is governed by the Twentieth and Twenty-Fifth Amendments of the Constitution and by the Presidential Succession Act. Neither the amendments nor the act covers the possibility that the general election winner might die or become incapacitated before the Electoral College votes or that the apparent
Steven B. Smith— No period of modern history has come under more intense scrutiny than has the Enlightenment. What is—or was—the Enlightenment? We have not ceased asking this question and the answer or answers are far from settled. The question was most famously stated by Immanuel Kant at the start
Meghnad Desai— The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed one of the many episodes of globalization. This one was built on the industrial and financial revolutions. The new inventions in transport and communications – railroads, steamships and the introduction of the telegraph – had connected the many parts of
Alex Zucker— Translating Tomáš Zmeškal’s Love Letter in Cuneiform was a joy, to be honest, because of his sense of humor and the play and playfulness within the text itself. One example of this that also demonstrates how literary translation is not simply a reproduction in English of the original
Ben H. Shepherd— For decades after the Second World War, the German army of the Third Reich retained an image as an oasis of decency amid the depravities of the Nazi regime. Yet the reality, which studies of recent decades have conclusively demonstrated, was that the army was deeply implicated,
Dieter Helm— The trouble with strong sustainability is that it contains very little by way of guidance as to what we should do, except ‘preserve everything’. It is in essence the claim that natural capital should be regarded as non-substitutable, and hence, following Eric Neumayer, strong sustainability can be called
Neil Faulkner— In the early days, the Olympics seem to have been an informal local festival with only aristocratic contestants. Athletes competed not so much as representatives of their cities – many of which were little more than villages, or at best hilltop strongholds – but on their own accounts,