This monograph celebrates the National Gallery's 2015 acquisition of Giovanni da Rimini's "Scenes from the Lives of the Virgin and Other Saints" (c. 1300­1305). The painting is a rare survival from the late Middle Ages, uniting the exquisite detail o...

Essential primary sources reveal the central tensions between American politics and religion throughout the nation's history. Despite the centrality of separation of church and state in American government, religion has played an important role in t...

Dante's "Inferno" inspired Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) to create a series of 34 drawings that comprise one of the most remarkable creative enterprises of 20th-century American art. Completed between 1958 and 1960, "XXXIV Drawings for Dante's Infe...

The first edited edition of a Union soldier's remarkable memoir, offering a rare perspective on guerrilla warfare and on the larger meanings of the Civil War. While tales of Confederate guerilla-outlaws abound, there are few scholarly accounts of th...

An insightful study of the political, economic, and social changes Brazil experienced during the twenty-year rule of its Cold War military regime. Cuba's revolution in 1959 fueled powerful anti-Communist fears in the United States. As a result, in t...

A highly engaging account of the developments-not only legal, but also socioeconomic, political, and cultural – that gave rise to Americans' distinctively lawyer – driven legal culture When Americans imagine their legal system, it is the adversarial...

In his best-selling autobiography, Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments and chief architect of Nazi Germany, repeatedly insisted he knew nothing of the genocidal crimes of Hitler's Third Reich. In this revealing new biography, author Martin Kitchen di...

An insightful, engaging tour by a noted Silicon Valley insider of how accelerating developments in Artificial Intelligence will transform the way we live and work Selected as one of the 10 best science and technology books of 2015 by The Economist Af...

Around 1515, Raphael (1483-1520) designed a set of tapestries for Leo X, the first Medici pope. Each was sumptuously woven in gold, silver, and silk, and depicted scenes from classical mythology with inventive grotesques. Now lost, these spectacular,...

This handsome book explores in depth a group of stunning painted and gilded furniture designed by the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820), best known for originating the plans for the United States Capitol. The furniture was made in Philadel...