From Leonardo da Vinci and John Dee to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge. Nonetheless, in our current age of specialization, polymaths are often remembered for only one part of their varied achievements....

In this book, Sumanta Banerjee analyzes the development of the folk culture of Calcutta's urban poor following the establishment of the British colonial system in Bengal. Consisting primarily of traditional artisans who migrated from neighboring vill...

"Nations need identities. These are created from perceptions of how societies have evolved. In this, history plays a central role. Insisting on reliable history is therefore crucial to more than just a pedagogic cause. Delicate relationships between...

In the twenty-first century piracy has regained a central place in Western culture, thanks to a surprising combination of Johnny Depp and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise as well as the dramatic rise of modern-day piracy around Somalia and th...

The Victorians invented mass entertainment. As the nineteenth century's growing industrialized class acquired the funds and the free time to pursue leisure activities, their desires were satiated by determined entrepreneurs building new venues for po...

Literature has, from the start of the nineteenth century, cast the suburbs as dull, vulgar, and unimaginative margins where, by definition, nothing important takes place. Sarah Bilston argues that such attitudes were forged to undermine the cultural...

Whether it's the discovery of $1.6 billion in Nazi-looted art or the news that Syrian rebels are looting UNESCO archaeological sites to buy arms, art crime commands headlines. Erin Thompson, America's only professor of art crime, explores the dark hi...

How did cultural diversity become a buzzword fraught with tension? And what do the controversies surrounding it reveal about contemporary policy making? "Producing Cultural Diversity" investigates these questions through an empirical analysis of the...

From the candy bar to the cigarette, records to roller coasters, a technological revolution during the last quarter of the nineteenth century precipitated a colossal shift in human consumption and sensual experience.  Food, drink, and many other cons...

A dance begins beneath the outstretched branches of the giant umunyinya tree in Rwanda. First there is drumming and clapping, then the lead dancers step into the center of the gathering. The dancing subsides and the gacaca court, the community hearin...