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In the tenth century Shi'a scholars assembled accounts of twelve imams' lives, portraying them as miracle workers who were betrayed. These biographies invoked shared cultural memories, shaped communal responses and ritual practices of mourning, and inspired Shi'a identity and religious imagination for centuries to come, Matthew Pierce shows.

Hegel's philosophy of history which most critics view as a theory of inevitable progress toward modern European civilization is widely regarded as a failure today. Terry Pinkard's spirited defense of the Hegelian view, based on a subtle understanding of human subjectivity, will play a central role in contemporary reevaluations of Hegel's work.

Oliver Goldsmith arrived in England a penniless Irishman and toiled for years in the anonymity of Grub Street. Norma Clarke tells how this destitute scribbler became one of literary London's most celebrated authors, transmuting dark truths about the empire into fable and nostalgia whose undertow of Irish indignation remains just barely perceptible.

Tort law recognizes the many ways one person wrongs another. Arthur Ripstein brings coherence to torts' diversity in a philosophically grounded, analytically powerful theory. He shows that all torts violate the basic moral idea that each person is in charge of his or her own person and property, and never in charge of another's person or property.

W. Russell Neuman examines how the transition from the industrial-era media of one-way publishing and broadcasting to the two-way digital era of online search and social media has affected the dynamics of public life. The issues range from propaganda studies and Big Brother to information overload and Internet network neutrality.

Timbuktu is famous as a center of learning from Islam's Golden Age. Yet it was one among many scholarly centers to exist in precolonial West Africa. Ousmane Kane charts the rise of Muslim learning in West Africa from the beginning of Islam to the present day and corrects lingering misconceptions about Africa's Muslim heritage and its influence.

Scotland and England produced well-known intellectuals during the Enlightenment, but Ireland's contribution to this revolution in Western thought has received less attention. Michael Brown shows that Ireland also had its Enlightenment, which for a brief time opened up the possibility of a tolerant society, despite a history of sectarian conflict.

Tracing credit from colonial times to the present and highlighting its productive role in building national prosperity, Rowena Olegario probes questions that have divided Americans: Who should have access to credit? How should creditors assess creditworthiness? How can borrowers and lenders accommodate to the risks of a credit-dependent economy?

When the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750 CE and ushered in Islam's Golden Age, ideas about gender and sexuality were central to the process by which the caliphate achieved self-definition and articulated its systems of power and thought. Nadia Maria El Cheikh's study reveals the importance of women to the writing of early Islamic history.

This volume intends to contribute to the nascent discourse on Judaism and ecology by clarifying diverse conceptions of nature in Jewish thought and by using the insights of Judaism to formulate a constructive Jewish theology of nature.

The poetry of Bullhe Shah, who drew upon Sufi mysticism, is considered one of the glories of premodern Panjabi literature. His lyrics, famous for their vivid style and outspoken denunciation of artificial religious divisions, have been held in affection by Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus, and continue to win audiences in the global Panjabi diaspora.

Jerome McGann takes his readers on a spirited tour through a wide range of Poe's verse as well as the critical and theoretical writings in which he laid out his arresting ideas about poetry and poetics. In a bold reassessment, McGann argues that Poe belongs alongside Whitman and Dickinson as a foundational American poet and cultural presence.

Being among bees is a full-body experience, Mark Winston writes. Bee Time presents his reflections on three decades spent studying these remarkable creatures, and on the lessons they can teach about how humans might better interact with one another and the natural world, from the boardroom to urban design to agricultural ecosystems.

Today 12.5 million U.S. Latinos self-identify as Protestant, and Assemblies of God is the destination for one out of four converts. Gaston Espinosa reveals the church's struggle for indigenous leadership, racial equality, women in the ministry, and immigration reform and shows why "Silent Pentacostals" are an activist voice in Evangelical politics.

Overregulated and displaced by barges, trucks, and jet aviation, railroads fell into decline. Their misfortune was measured in lost market share, abandoned track, bankruptcies, and unemployment. Today, rail transportation is reviving. American Railroads tells a riveting story about how this iconic industry managed to turn itself around.

Saladin represents the best kind of biography--a portrait of a man who is said to have made an age, and the most complete account we have to date of an age that made the man. The result is a unique view of the Crusades from an Arab perspective, and an erudite biography of a political figure whose image was layered in myth with the passage of time.

Focusing on the heart of German romanticism, the Rhineland, Thomas Lekan examines nature protection activities from Wilhelmine Germany through the end of the Nazi era to illuminate the relationship between environmental reform and the cultural construction of national identity.

Kotlowski offers a surprising study of an administration that redirected the course of civil rights in America. He examines such issues as school desegregation, fair housing, voting rights, and affirmative action, as well as Native American and women's rights, and details Nixon's role, revealing a president who favored deeds over rhetoric.

In this book, Shell, himself a victim of polio, offers an inspired analysis of the disease. Part memoir, part cultural criticism and history, part meditation on the meaning of disease, Shell's work combines the understanding of a medical researcher with the sensitivity of a literary critic.

Deep Secrets reveals the false story we tell about boys, friendships, and human nature. Niobe Way argues that boys experience a "crisis of connection" as they approach manhood. Human needs and capacities are given a sex (female) and a sexuality (gay), and thus are discouraged for those who are neither.

Over the 20th century, American Indians fought for the right to be both American and Indian. Rosier traces how Indians defined democracy, citizenship, and patriotism in domestic and international contexts. Native Americans served as a visible symbol of an America searching for rights and justice; American history is incomplete without their story.

This study in comparative politics takes two countries with similar historical experiences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and asks why they had very different responses to the same natural shock-the depression of the 1930s. In analyzing their responses, Berman makes a convincing case for the important role ideas play in politics.

Not only did the Declaration announce the entry of the United States onto the world stage, it became the model for other countries to follow. This unique global perspective demonstrates the singular role of the United States document as a founding statement of our modern world.

From the Vikings to the EU the Baltic has been a Nordic Mediterranean, a shared maritime zone with distinct patterns of trade, cultural exchange, and conflict. Covering a thousand years in a part of the globe where seas are more connective than land, Michael North's overview transforms the way we think about one of the world's great waterways.

Under the microscope of recent scholarship the universality of Greek tragedy has started to fade, as particularities of Athenian culture have come into focus. Miriam Leonard contests the idea of the death of tragedy and argues powerfully for the continued vitality and viability of Greek tragic theater in the central debates of contemporary culture.

Americans look to China with fascination and fear, unsure whether it is friend or foe but certain it will play a crucial role in their future. This is nothing new, Gordon Chang says. Fateful Ties draws on literature, art, biography, popular culture, and politics to trace America's long and varied preoccupation with China.

Patronage systems in public service are reviled as undemocratic and corrupt. Yet patronage was the prevailing method of staffing government for centuries, and in some countries it still is. Grindle considers why patronage has been ubiquitous in history and explores the processes through which it is replaced by merit-based civil service systems.

Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, this fascinating book reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.

Months before crowds in Moscow dismantled monuments to Lenin, residents of the western Ukrainian city of Lviv toppled theirs. Risch argues that Soviet politics of empire created this anti-Soviet city, and that opposition from the periphery as much as from the imperial center was instrumental in unraveling the Soviet Union.

Despite western Europe's traditional disdain for the United States' "adversarial legalism," the European Union is shifting toward a similar approach to the law, according to Daniel Kelemen. Coining the term "eurolegalism" to describe the hybrid, he shows how the political and organizational realities of the EU make this shift inevitable.