Last Tuesday, September 11, United States ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three of his staff members were killed when violent riots broke out in Benghazi, fueled by a 14-minute YouTube trailer of an American-made film called “Innocence of Muslims.” Now, U.S. officials believe that the Benghazi riots were
Since December 2010 countries across the Middle East have employed a variety of tactics that have brought down multiple dictators and irrevocably changed the region. In The Battle for the Arab Spring: Revolution, Counter-Revolution and the Making of a New Era, Lin Noueihed and Alex Warren break down the timeline and
Looking ahead to September’s Political Economy theme on the Yale Press Log, this month we celebrate the one-year publication anniversary of two powerful books from Yale University Press: Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen and Donna Hicks’s Dignity. On the surface, these authors have established themselves in very different niches of the
In 1908 Robert Sterling Clark, accompanied by a team of hand-picked professionals and support staff, explored the far reaches of Northern China and oversaw the creation of one of the first maps of a largely uncharted area of the world. Before this expedition, Clark served in the army in the
Continuing the discussion of Uruguayan poet Delmira Agustini, author Cathy L. Jrade explores the rebellious side of this Spanish American poet as she attempted to operate in a man’s world in this excerpt from Delmira Agustini, Sexual Seduction, and Vampiric Conquest. For Agustini, the eroticism and overt sexuality of her verse place her at
Ferdinand and Isabella, Catholic monarchs of Spain, are often remembered by their association with the famous sea voyage in history: Christopher Columbus’ journey to the Americas in 1492. In New Worlds: A Religious History of Latin America, John Lynch explores the influence of the Spanish monarchy, and later the Pope, on
Follow @yaleSCIbooks We have a popular notion that the human brain is neatly divided: the right side dealing with emotion, the left side, with reason. In his acclaimed book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, Iain McGilchrist suggests that there is
Fiestas abound in Cuba year-round, and July is no exception. This month is particularly fiesta-centered in the nation’s second-largest city, Santiago de Cuba, where the Fiesta del Fuego has just wrapped up and the Carnival de Santiago de Cuba is about to begin, overlapping with the national celebration of Fidel
“I’m bored,” are dreaded words parents hear from the backseat on a road trip, but the problem may be inevitable. In Boredom: A Lively History Peter Toohey contextualizes boredom using various artistic and literary examples and ultimately theorizes that boredom may actually be a good thing and stimulate creativity. From
A Happy Bastille Day to one and all! France’s national holiday is a day for celebrating its people as a collective force to be reckoned with. Specifically, it remembers those who came together to storm the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789. More generally, however, it celebrates the forging