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....

The artist has been a privileged figure in the modern age, embodying ideals of personal and political freedom and self-fulfillment. Does it matter who gets to be an artist? And do our deeply held beliefs stand up to scrutiny? "Making the Modern Artis...

This innovative study explores the transition in Brazil from a hegemonically Catholic society to a religiously pluralistic society. With sensitivity and nuance, Erika Helgen shows that the rise of religious pluralism was fraught with conflict and vio...

When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zig-zagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way...

How many acts of murder have each of us followed on a screen? What does that say about us? Do we remain law-abiding citizens who wouldn't hurt a fly? Film historian David Thomson, known for wit and subversiveness, leads us into this very delicate sub...

This book examines the history of early secret police forces in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. Molly Pucci delves into the ways their origins diverged from the original Soviet model based on differi...

Rogers Smith has long argued for the importance of "stories of peoplehood" in constituting political communities. By enabling a people to tell others and themselves who they are, such stories establish the people's identity and values and guide its a...

Now available in English for the first time, Austrian satirist and polemicist Karl Kraus's "Third Walpurgis Night" was written in immediate response to the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 but withheld from publication for fear of reprisals against Jews...

Ever since the age of the Grand Tour in the eighteenth century, the Mediterranean has had a significant pull for Britons – including many painters and poets – who sought from it the inspiration, beauty, and fulfillment that evaded them at home. Refer...

How can we make sense of our lives when we do not know where we come from? This was a pressing question for the youngest survivors of the Holocaust, whose prewar memories were vague or nonexistent. In this beautifully written account, Rebecca Cliffor...