In this beautifully conceived book, Ayesha Ramachandran reconstructs the imaginative struggles of early modern artists, philosophers, and writers to make sense of something that we take for granted: the world, imagined as a whole. Once a new, excitin...

This generously illustrated volume offers a fresh perspective on classical Japanese poetry (waka), including many poems treated here for the first time in a Western-language publication. Edward Kamens examines these poems both as they relate to mater...

The art and craft of playwriting as explored in candid conversations with some of the most important contemporary dramatists. Edward Albee, Lanford Wilson, Lynn Nottage, A. R. Gurney, and a host of other major creative voices of the theater discuss...

Ludwig Wittgenstein famously declared that philosophy "ought really to be written only as a form of poetry", and he even described the Tractatus as "philosophical and, at the same time, literary". But few books have really followed up on these claims...

Spanning the period between the end of the Russo-Caucasian War and the death of the first female Chechen suicide bomber, this groundbreaking book is the first to compare Georgian, Chechen, and Daghestani depictions of anticolonial insurgency. Rebecca...

In 1963, French-Spanish writer Jorge Semprun published "Le Grand Voyage" ("The Long Voyage"), a fictional account of his deportation to Buchenwald. Later, Semprun became an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and served as Spain's minister of cultur...

Well before publishing the "Lives of the Poets", Samuel Johnson was an accomplished biographer, having written the lives of numerous scholars, scientists, philosophers, critics, and theologians (including Peter Burnham, Sir Thomas Browne, and Confuci...

Thames aficionado Robert Gibbings once wrote that "the quiet of an age-old river is like the slow turning of the pages of a well-loved book". "Writing the Thames" tells a much-loved river's story through the remarkable prose, poetry and illustration...

In this provocative study, Hazel Hutchison takes a fresh look at the roles of American writers in helping to shape national opinion and policy during the First World War. From the war's opening salvos in Europe, American writers recognized the impact...

With his usual wit and elan, esteemed historian Peter Gay enters the contentious, long-standing debates over the romantic period. Here, in this concise and inviting volume, he reformulates the definition of romanticism and provides a fresh account of...