The production of Wagner's operas is fiercely debated. In this groundbreaking stage history Patrick Carnegy vividly evokes the – often scandalous – great productions that have left their mark not only on our understanding of Wagner but on modern thea...

In this book William C. Chittick provides a first-time look at historic Persian literature and the topic of love, which is at the heart of Islamic spiritual thought. It contains extensive Arabic and Persian material, from the Qur'an up through the tw...

The world's population has grown by five billion people over the past century, an astounding 300 percent increase. Yet it is actually the decline in family size and population growth that is the issue attracting greatest concern in many countries. Th...

"Attack on Aristocratic Vice" examines the outrage against – and attempts to end – the four vices associated with the aristocracy in 18th century in England: duelling, suicide, adultery, and gambling. All four, it was commonly believed, owed their or...

Spanning nearly 500 years of cultural and social history, this book examines the ways that literature and surveillance have developed together, as kindred modern practices. As ideas about personhood – what constitutes a self – have changed over time,...

Named the Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year for 2013, Imran Qureshi combines traditional motifs and techniques of Islamic art with contemporary reflections on the relationship between Islam and the West. His investigations into ornamentation reference...

This deeply imaginative and wide-ranging book shows how, since the first centuries of the Christian era, gentiles have associated Jews with noise. Ruth HaCohen focuses her study on a "musical libel" – a variation on the Passion story that recurs in v...

This landmark book looks at what it means to be a multiracial couple in the United States today. "According to Our Hearts" begins with a look back at a 1925 case in which a two-month marriage ends with a man suing his wife for misrepresentation of he...

Anyone who is diagnosed with cancer receives a frightening blow, and in many cases the diagnosis is accompanied by a bewildering array of treatment choices. In this invaluable book, a compassionate and knowledgeable physician explains what cancer is,...

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), long recognized as the premier 20th-century American realist painter, was famously introverted and reclusive. He rarely spoke about his personal life, and his close friends were few and love interests fewer. Until now, ther...