New Books in Intellectual History

David Myer Temin, "Remapping Sovereignty: Decolonization and Self-Determination in North American Indigenous Political Thought" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Accounts of decolonization routinely neglect Indigenous societies in North America and Australasia, yet Native communities have made unique contributi...

Emma R. Jones, "Being as Relation in Luce Irigaray" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Many scholars have struggled with Irigaray’s focus on sexuate difference, in particular with her claim that it is “ontological,” wondering if th...

Elizabeth Anderson, "Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the work ethic? Does it justify policies that promote the wealth and power of the One Percent at workers' expense? Or does it advance policies...

Musab Younis, "On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought" (U California Press, 2022)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought (U California Press, 2022) examines the reverberations of anticolonial ideas t...

Natasha Wheatley, "The Life and Death of States: Central Europe and the Transformation of Modern Sovereignty" (Princeton UP, 2023)

12 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Natasha Wheatley is an Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University. Her bold and riveting debut monograph, The Life and Death of States: C...

Aditya Balasubramanian, "Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India" (Princeton UP, 2023)

11 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Toward a Free Economy: Swantantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India (Princeton University Press, 2023), Aditya Balasubramanian charts t...

Matthew J. Clavin, "Symbols of Freedom: Slavery and Resistance Before the Civil War" (NYU Press, 2023)

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early United States, anthems, flags, holidays, monuments, and memorials were powerful symbols of an American identity that helped unify a divid...

Ed Simon, "Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology" (Cernunnos, 2023)

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ineffable, invisible, inscrutable--angels are enduring creatures across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and human experiences of the divine as media...

Austin Surls, "Making Sense of the Divine Name in the Book of Exodus: From Etymology to Literary Onomastics" (Eisenbrauns, 2017)

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The obvious riddles and difficulties in Exodus 3:13-15 and 6:2-8 have attracted an overwhelming amount of attention and comment. These texts make impo...

Carson Bay, "Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this volume entitled Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2023), Carson Bay focuses on an important ...

Empires, States, Corporations: A Discussion with Historians Philip J. Stern and Quinn Slobodian

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Smith wrote that, “Political economy belongs to no nation; it is of no country: it is the science of the rules for the production, the accumula...

Melvin L. Rogers, "The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2023)

01 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” is notoriously fiery. No doubt part of what’s gripping about it is ...

Daniele Lorenzini, "The Force of Truth: Critique, Genealogy, and Truth-Telling in Michel Foucault" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

01 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A groundbreaking examination of Michel Foucault’s history of truth. Many blame Michel Foucault for our post-truth and conspiracy-laden society. In t...

Paolo Sandro, "The Making of Constitutional Democracy: From Creation to Application of Law" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

01 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This book is a tour de force. In The Making of Constitutional Democracy: From Creation to Application of Law (Bloomsbury, 2022), Dr Paolo Sandro e...

Leonie Hannan, "A Culture of Curiosity: Science in the Eighteenth-Century Home" (Manchester UP, 2023)

30 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Leonie Hannan's book Culture of Curiosity: Science in the Eighteenth Century Home (Manchester University Press, 2023) explores the practice of scie...

Youcef L. Soufi, "The Rise of Critical Islam: 10th-13th Century Legal Debate" (Oxford UP, 2023)

27 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Youcef Sufi's book The Rise of Critical Islam: 10th-13th Century Legal Debate (Oxford University Press, 2023) is a fascinating and engaging explor...

Stuart McHardy, "The Nine Maidens: Priestesses of the Ancient World" (Luath Press, 2023)

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When King Arthur was conveyed to Avalon they were there. When Odin summoned warriors to Valhalla they were there. When Apollo was worshipped on Greek ...

Denise D. Meringolo, "Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism" (Amherst College Press, 2021)

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uncovering a radical tradition at the heart of public history within the United States, Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justi...

Scott Kamen, "From Union Halls to the Suburbs: Americans for Democratic Action and the Transformation of Postwar Liberalism" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023)

25 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) was perhaps the most influential multi-issue organization in American liberalism. The first book-le...

Matthew Thiessen, "A Jewish Paul: The Messiah's Herald to the Gentiles" (Baker Academic, 2023)

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Excavating and interpreting Paul’s thought, belief, ideas, and mission from his authentic letters and those otherwise attributed to him remains an o...

Kevin Passmore, "Fascism: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2014)

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is fascism? Is it revolutionary? Or is it reactionary? Can it be both? Fascism is notoriously hard to define. How do we make sense of an ideology...

Grant H. Kester, "The Sovereign Self: Aesthetic Autonomy from the Enlightenment to the Avant-Garde" (Duke UP, 2023)

21 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Sovereign Self: Aesthetic Autonomy from the Enlightenment to the Avant-Garde (Duke UP, 2023), Grant Kester examines the evolving discourse of...

Danielle N. Boaz, "Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur" (Oxford UP, 2023)

21 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Coined in the middle of the nineteenth century, the term "voodoo" has been deployed largely by people in the U.S. to refer to spiritual practices--rea...

Chris Fraser, "Late Classical Chinese Thought" (Oxford UP, 2023)

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Late Classical Chinese Thought (Oxford University Press, 2023) is Chris Fraser's topically organized study of the Warring States period of Chinese ph...

The Unquiet Legacy of Jewish Radical Meir Kahane

19 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of the massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas in October, 2023 I spoke with Shaul Magid, author of Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Polit...

Elena Serrano, "Ladies of Honor and Merit. Gender, Useful Knowledge, and Politics in Enlightened Spain" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2022)

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I interview Elena Serrano, a research member of the Project Cirgen at the Universitat de València and Ramón y Cajal researcher at th...

Vikram Visana, "Uncivil Liberalism: Labour, Capital and Commercial Society in Dadabhai Naoroji’s Political Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uncivil liberalism: Labour, Capital and Commercial Society in Dadabhai Naoroji's Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Vikram V...

Branko Milanovic, "Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War" (Harvard UP, 2023)

16 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"How do you see income distribution in your time, and how and why do you expect it to change?" That is the question Branko Milanovic imagines posing t...

Jonathan Downs, "Discovery at Rosetta: Revealing Ancient Egypt" (American University in Cairo Press, 2020)

15 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1798, young French general Napoleon Bonaparte entered Egypt with a veteran army and a specialist group of savants—scientists, engineers, and arti...

Ben Witherington III, "Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary" (Eerdmans, 2004)

14 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans has been foundational for Christianity, and well-studied throughout the history of the Church. Ben Witheringto...

Patrick Laude, "Surrendering to the Self: Ramana Maharshi's Message for the Present" (Hurst, 2021)

12 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi (1879- 1950) is perhaps the most widely known Indian spiritual figure of the last century, second only to Gandhi. Pat...

Dennis C. Rasmussen, "The Constitution's Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America's Basic Charter" (UP of Kansas, 2023)

12 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dennis Rasmussen’s new book, The Constitution's Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America's Basic Charter (UP of Kansas, 2023), is a p...

Andrea Celli, "Dante and the Mediterranean Comedy: From Muslim Spain to Post-Colonial Italy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

11 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Dante and the Mediterranean Comedy: From Muslim Spain to Post-Colonial Italy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), Andrea Celli explores the complex ways ...

Christopher M. Bellitto, "Humility: The Secret History of a Lost Virtue" (Georgetown UP, 2023)

10 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This cultural history of humility reveals this lost virtue as a secret defense against arrogance and incivility. History demonstrates that when the vi...

The History of Liberalism: A Conversation with Alan Kahan ‘80

10 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is liberalism, and what thinkers shaped it? Does it take a stance on moral and religious issues? What is its relationship with nationalism and po...

Sharon Patricia Holland, "an other: a black feminist consideration of animal life" (Duke UP, 2023)

07 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In an other: a black feminist examination of animal life (Duke UP, 2023), Sharon Patricia Holland offers a new theorization of the human animal/divi...

S. D. Chrostowska, "Utopia in the Age of Survival: Between Myth and Politics" (Stanford UP, 2021)

06 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A pathbreaking exploration of the fate of utopia in our troubled times, this book shows how the historically intertwined endeavors of utopia and criti...

Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar, "Against High-Caste Polygamy: An Annotated Translation" (Oxford UP, 2023)

04 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Against High-Caste Polygamy: An Annotated Translation (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a complete, annotated translation of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar's 1871 ...

Philippe Huneman, "Why?: The Philosophy Behind the Question" (Stanford UP, 2023)

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why did triceratops have horns? Why did World War I occur? Why does Romeo love Juliet? And, most importantly, why ask why? In Why?: The Philosophy Be...

Claudine Chavannes-Mazel and Linda Ijpelaar, "The Green Middle Ages: The Depiction and Use of Plants in the Western World 600-1600" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How 'green' were people in late antiquity and the Middle Ages? Unlike today, the nature around them was approached with faith, trust and care. The pop...

Eric Bennett, "Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War" (U Iowa Press, 2015)

01 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During and just after World War II, an influential group of American writers and intellectuals projected a vision for literature that would save the f...

Rebecca J. Fraser, "Black Female Intellectuals in 19th Century America: Born to Bloom Unseen?" (Routledge, 2022)

01 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on letters, personal testimony, works of art, novels, and historic Black newspapers, this book is an interdisciplinary exploration of Black wo...

Sara Marcus, "Political Disappointment: A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis" (Harvard UP, 2023)

30 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Moving from the aftermath of Reconstruction through the AIDS crisis, a new cultural history of the United States shows how artists, intellectuals, and...

Michelle Karnes, "Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

30 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Marvels like enchanted rings and sorcerers’ stones were topics of fascination in the Middle Ages, not only in romance and travel literature but also...

Craig A. Hefner, "Kierkegaard and the Changelessness of God: A Modern Defense of Classical Immutability" (InterVarsity Press, 2023)

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was not afraid to express his opinions. Living amid what he perceived to be a culturally lukewarm...

Sumit Chakrabarti, "Local Selfhood, Global Turns: Akshay Kumar Dutta and Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century Bengal" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

28 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sumit Chakrabarti's book Local Selfhood, Global Turns: Akshay Kumar Dutta and Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century Bengal (Cambridge UP, 2023) exa...

Michael Wheeler, "The Year that Shaped the Victorian Age: Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What was special about 1845 and why does it deserve particular scrutiny? In The Year that Shaped the Victorian Age: Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845 ...

Michael D. Gordin, "Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2023)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone has heard of the term "pseudoscience," typically used to describe something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unp...

Debapriya Sarkar, "Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Debapriya Sarkar’s new book, titled Possible Knowledge: The Literary Forms of Early Modern Science (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) is a study of ho...

The Civic Bargain: A Conversation with Josiah Ober on Ancients and Moderns

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Amidst increasing acrimony and political strain, many worry that democratic governance has an expiration date. To answer these concerns, Josiah Ober l...

Gary Saul Morson, "Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter" (Harvard UP, 2023)

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A noted literary scholar traverses the Russian canon, exploring how realists, idealists, and revolutionaries debated good and evil, moral responsibili...

Michael Kochenash, "Roman Self-Representation and the Lukan Kingdom of God" (Fortress Academic, 2020)

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Kochenash published his revised dissertation from Claremont School of Theology as Roman Self-Representation and the Lukan Kingdom of God (Le...

Mark Thomas Edwards, "Walter Lippmann: American Skeptic, American Pastor" (Oxford UP, 2023)

25 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Walter Lippmann was arguably the most recognized and respected political journalist of the twentieth century. His "Today and Tomorrow" columns attract...

Alda Balthrop-Lewis, "Thoreau's Religion: Walden Woods, Social Justice, and the Politics of Asceticism" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

25 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Balthrop-Lewis's Thoreau's Religion: Walden Woods, Social Justice, and the Politics of Asceticism (Cambridge UP, 2021) presents a ground-breaking in...

Tracy Rutler, "Queering the Enlightenment: Kinship and Gender in Eighteenth-Century French Literature" (Oxford UP/Liverpool UP, 2021)

23 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tracy Rutler's Queering the Enlightenment: Kinship and Gender in Eighteenth-Century French Literature (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenmen...

Jamie Bronstein, "The Happiness of the British Working Class" (Stanford UP, 2023)

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For working-class life writers in nineteenth century Britain, happiness was a multifaceted emotion: a concept that could describe experiences of hedon...

Matthew R. Dasti, "Vatsyayana's Commentary on the Nyaya-Sutra: A Guide" (Oxford UP, 2023)

20 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Vatsyāyāna's Commentary on the Nyāya-Sūtra: A Guide (Oxford University Press, 2023), Matthew Dasti unpacks a canonical classical Indian text,...

David B. Wong, "Moral Relativism and Pluralism" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to David B. Wong about his book Moral Relativism and Pluralism (Cambridge UP, 2023). The argument for metaethical relativism--the vie...

Lenora Hanson, "The Romantic Rhetoric of Accumulation" (Stanford UP, 2022)

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lenora Hanson's The Romantic Rhetoric of Accumulation (Stanford UP, 2022) provides an account of the long arc of dispossession from the British Rom...

Peter Adamson, "Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): a Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2023)

17 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Adamson's book Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): a Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2023) provides an introduction to the most important philosopher o...

Joshua Ehrlich, "The East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

16 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The East India Company is remembered as the world's most powerful, not to say notorious, corporation. But for many of its advocates from the 1770s to ...

The Future of Anarchism: A Discussion with Ruth Kinna

16 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

50 years ago, anarchism was written off by some as a set of outdated idealistic ideas that had no contemporary relevance. Then came protests at events...

Julia C. Schneider, "Nation and Ethnicity: Chinese Discourses on History, Historiography, and Nationalism (1900s-1920s)" (Brill, 2017)

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Julia Schneider’s Nation & Ethnicity: Chinese Discourses on History, Historiography, and Nationalism (1900s-1920s), published with Brill in 2017, i...

Rebecca Kingston, "Plutarch's Prism: Classical Reception and Public Humanism in France and England, 1500–1800" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

14 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout the early modern period, political theorists in France and England drew on the works of Plutarch to offer advice to kings and princes. Eliz...

Matthew McManus, "The Political Right and Equality: Turning Back the Tide of Egalitarian Modernity" (Routledge, 2023)

13 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

McManus presents an intellectual history of the conservative and reactionary tradition, stretching from Aristotle and Filmer to Alexander Dugin and Pa...

Neil Tarrant, "Defining Nature's Limits: The Roman Inquisition and the Boundaries of Science" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

13 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looking at the longer history of censorship, considering a five-hundred-year continuity of goals and ...

Jacob Abell, "Spiritual and Material Boundaries in Old French Verse: Contemplating the Walls of the Earthly Paradise" (Medieval Institute Publications, 2023)

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Earthly Paradise was a vibrant symbol at the heart of medieval Christian geographies of the cosmos. As humanity’s primal home now lost through t...

Religion and Politics in the Lord of the Rings

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork The Lord of the Rings delighted so many of us as children, yet it and its vast body of accompanying work, such as the S...

A Better Way to Buy Books

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has alre...

Sarah Ruden, "Vergil: The Poet's Life" (Yale UP, 2023)

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Aeneid stands as a towering work of Classical Roman literature and a gripping dramatization of the best and worst of human nature. In the proces...

Muḥsin Jāsim Mūsawī, "The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Cultures: Global Commodification, Translation, and the Culture Industry" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The stories in the Thousand and One Nights, or the Arabian Nights, are familiar to many of us: from the tales of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba ...

Jared Secord, "Christian Intellectuals and the Roman Empire: From Justin Martyr to Origen" (Penn State UP, 2020)

09 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Early in the third century, a small group of Greek Christians began to gain prominence and legitimacy as intellectuals in the Roman Empire. Examining ...

L. M. Ratnapalan, "Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pacific: The Transformation of Global Christianity" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

09 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How does Robert Louis Stevenson’s engagement with Pacific Islands cultures demonstrate processes of inculturation and the transformation of global C...

Vincent W. Lloyd, "Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination" (Yale UP, 2022)

09 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This radical work by one of the leading young scholars of Black thought delineates a new concept of Black dignity, yet one with a long history in Blac...

Situating Religion and Medicine (with Michael Stanley-Baker)

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I sit down for an in-depth conversation with my good friend, Michael Stanley-Baker, a scholar of Chinese religion and medicine. We talk about Mi...

Oliver Crisp and Daniel J. Hill, eds., "Reason in the Service of Faith: Collected Essays of Paul Helm" (Routledge, 2023)

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Helm is a distinguished philosopher, with particular interests in the philosophy of religion. His work covers some of the most important aspects ...

Michael S. Roth, "The Student: A Short History" (Yale UP, 2023)

07 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Student: A Short History (Yale UP, 2023), Michael S. Roth narrates a vivid and dynamic history of students, exploring some of the principal m...

Matthew W. Knotts, "On Creation, Science, Disenchantment and the Contours of Being and Knowing" (Bloomsbury, 2019)

05 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For Augustine, the world is replete with meaning; it represents not merely a collection of facts to be catalogued but a repository of truths to be dis...

The Philosophy of Music and the Attunement of the Soul

05 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we speak with Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness core faculty, Jack Bagby about his engagement with the philosophy of music, from...

Endre Sashalmi, "Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign" (Academic Studies Press, 2022)

04 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic...

Sarah Clegg, "Women's Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi" (Apollo, 2023)

02 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Creatures like Lilith, the seductive first wife of Adam, and mermaids, who lured sailors to their death, are familiar figures in the genre of monstrou...

Marion Holmes Katz, "Wives and Work: Islamic Law and Ethics Before Modernity" (Columbia UP, 2022)

01 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this interview, I speak with Marion Holmes Katz about her latest book Wives and Work: Islamic Law and Ethics Before Modernity (Columbia UP, 2022)...

Hans Van Eyghen, "The Epistemology of Spirit Beliefs" (Routledge, 2023)

01 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hans Van Eyghen's book The Epistemology of Spirit Beliefs (Routledge, 2023) assesses whether belief in spirits is epistemically justified. It presen...

Joshua Daniel Schachterle, "John Cassian and the Creation of Monastic Subjectivity" (Equinox Publishing, 2022)

30 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In John Cassian and the Creation of Monastic Subjectivity (Equinox Books, 2023), a revision of his 2019 dissertation, Joshua Schachterle evaluates t...

H. Norman Strickman, "The Secret of the Torah: A Translation of Abraham Ibn Ezra's Sefer Yesod Mora" (Kodesh Press, 2021)

30 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra is one of the most important Jewish personalities of all time. Aside from being a Bible commentator of great consequence, his w...

Sara Protasi, "The Philosophy of Envy" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Envy is almost universally condemned and feared. But is its bad reputation always warranted? In The Philosophy of Envy (Cambridge UP, 2022), Sara Pr...

How Should Protestants Engage With Natural Law Theory?

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Natural law theory is known to be more emphasized among Catholics than Protestants. Why is that the case, and should it be? Do Protestants need to foc...

Barbara Sattler, "The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

28 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Barbara M. Sattler's book The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics (Cambridge UP, 2020) examin...

The Ideology of Entrepreneurship: A Conversation with Robert Eberhart

28 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Eberhart, Associate Professor of Management and Faculty Director of International Business at the University of San Diego, talks about his work...

Hollis Robbins, "Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition" (U Georgia Press, 2020)

26 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As I learned from Hollis Robbins’s monograph Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition (U Georgia Press, 2020), th...

Mbaye Lo and Carl W. Ernst, "I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar Ibn Said's America" (UNC Press, 2023)

25 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Carl Ernst’s and Mbaye Lo’s new book I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar Ibn Said's America (UNC Press, 2023) is a fascin...

Lawrence Goldman, "Victorians and Numbers: Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2022)

25 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A defining feature of nineteenth-century Britain was its fascination with statistics. The processes that made Victorian society, including the growth ...

Smita A. Rahman et al., "Globalizing Political Theory" (Routledge, 2022)

24 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Three political theorists, Smita A. Rahman (DePauw University), Katherine A. Gordy (San Francisco State University), and Shirin S. Deylami (Western Wa...

Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates, "Noah's Arkive" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

24 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At a moment when the world has tipped over into irreversible violence and corruption, a divinity contacts a righteous man. The man is directed to buil...

Travis Holloway, "How to Live at the End of the World: Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene" (Stanford UP, 2022)

23 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

the near universal disappearance of shared social enterprise: the ruling class builds walls and lunar shuttles, while the rest of us contend with the ...

Thomas Simpson, "The Frontier in British India: Space, Science, and Power in the Nineteenth Century" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

22 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Frontier in British India: Space, Science, and Power in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 2021), Thomas Simpson provides an innovative a...

Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity

21 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode from the Institute’s Vault we hear from Rebecca Goldstein, an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She holds a P...

Laura R. Kremmel, "Romantic Medicine and the Gothic Imagination: Morbid Anatomies" (U Wales Press, 2022)

20 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Romantic Medicine and the Gothic Imagination: Morbid Anatomies (U Wales Press, 2022) demonstrates a little-studied crossover between the Gothic imagi...

Peter Moore, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Britain and the American Dream (1740–1776)" ( FSG, 2023)

20 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The most famous phrase in American history once looked quite different. "The preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness" was how Thom...

Samuel Moyn, "Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times" (Yale UP, 2023)

19 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

By the middle of the twentieth century, many liberals looked glumly at the world modernity had brought about, with its devastating wars, rising totali...