The interactions between apex predators and their prey are some of the most awesome and meaningful in nature – displays of strength, endurance, and a deep coevolutionary history. And there is perhaps no apex predator more impressive and important in...

Differences among religious communities have motivated – and continue to motivate – many of the deadliest conflicts in human history. But how did political power and organized religion become so thoroughly intertwined? And how have religion and relig...

In his meticulous notes on the natural history of Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau records the first open flowers of highbush blueberry on May 11, 1853. If he were to look for the first blueberry flowers in Concord today, mid-May would be...

America's model of representational government rests on the premise that elected officials respond to the opinions of citizens. This is a myth, however, not a reality, according to James N. Druckman and Lawrence R. Jacobs. In "Who Governs?", Druckman...

In January 2010, the Gemini was moored in the Swinomish Slough on a Native American reservation near Anacortes, Washington. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the rusted and dilapidated boat was in fact the most famous fishing vessel ever to have sailed...

In the popular imagination, slavery in the United States ended with Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation may have been limited – freeing only slaves within Confederate states who were able to make their way to Union lines – b...

This volume contains essays that explore explicit and implicit communication through linguistic research. Taking as a framework Paul Grice's theories on "what is said", the contributors explore a number of areas, including: the boundary between seman...

Few virtues are as celebrated in contemporary culture as openness. Rooted in software culture and carrying more than a whiff of Silicon Valley technical utopianism, openness – of decision-making, data, and organizational structure – is seen as the cu...

Ancient walls, barbed-wire walls, metaphorical walls, political walls: all form, reform, and dissect our world. They mark sacred space and embody earthly power. They maintain peace and cause war. They enforce difference and create unity. Walls are pe...

Harking from the golden age of fiction set in American suburbia – the school of John Updike and Cheever – this work from the great American humorist Peter De Vries looks with laughter upon its lawns, its cocktails, and its slightly unreal feeling of...