Essay Doing great deeds, or on the generosity of the rich January 17, 2024 Across history the rich have achieved plenty of things from which we continue to benefit. Surely, they did it for their own benefit, and to bolster their social status—in plainer words, to show off and to impress their fellow patricians—but the fact remains that we benefit aesthetically from their efforts. Read More
Essay Radio then and now January 17, 2024 When I was a kid, you could actually look inside a radio and see all sorts of neat stuff in there, like the amazing mechanical linkages of the tuning mechanism, or the mysterious, soft yellow glow of the vacuum tubes (the transistor hadn’t yet completely replaced tubes). The wonders of what I could see inside my parents’ 1947 AM/FM radio console hooked me. Read More
Essay New year, old problems January 10, 2024 The struggle against distraction might seem utterly specific to the twenty-first century, but it was in fact singled out as a crisis more than a millennium and a half ago. Read More
Essay A history of twins in science January 08, 2024 Twins share their environment and (in the case of identical siblings) much of their genetic make-up with another person. This has made them idealized research subjects in scientific studies. Read More
Essay Turning language inside out January 05, 2024 We know that words wield immense power. They express, represent, inspire, provoke, evoke. They can wound, figuratively, and also literally. Read More
Essay What can we learn from Einstein today? January 03, 2024 Einstein has left his mark not only on physics of the twentieth century but also on the public image of science and scientists and on the cultural and political history of the twentieth century, far beyond his area of expertise. Read More
Interview Ideas and inspiration from Princeton University Press’s 2023 fellows January 03, 2024 Princeton University Press’ Publishing Fellowship was created in 2021 to expand access to publishing careers and address a lack of diversity across the industry. In July 2023, Faye Akpalu and Jon Kriney were welcomed to the press as our third-year Publishing Fellows. Read More
Essay Galen and health: Inspiration, caution, and some useful advice January 02, 2024 What use to today’s physicians is the writing of Galen, an educated but pompous and (we now see, in 2023) misguided healer who lived 1,800 years ago? Read More
Interview Bryan Penprase and Noah Pickus on The New Global Universities January 02, 2024 The New Global Universities tells the story of educational leaders who have chosen not to give up on higher education but to reimagine it. Read More
Interview Julie A. Phillips on The Lives of Seaweeds November 17, 2023 Our understanding of the evolution of seaweeds and other algae is undergoing a revolution. Over the last five decades, numerous scientific studies have generated a wealth of new data and a new classification scheme that assigns various algal species to four of the six kingdoms of life on Earth—an unprecedented phenomenon in the living world! Read More
Essay PUP Speaks on boosting author voices from page to stage November 15, 2023 In the summer of 2022, I joined Princeton University Press in the second cohort of its annual Publishing Fellowship, a year-long position explicitly intended for individuals with no industry experience. Read More
Interview Robert Wuthnow on Faith Communities and the Fight for Racial Justice November 14, 2023 Have progressive religious organizations been missing in action in recent struggles for racial justice? Robert Wuthnow shows that, contrary to activists’ accusations of complacency, Black and White faith leaders have fought steadily for racial and social justice since the end of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Read More
Essay The long history of the chapter book November 14, 2023 Very few adult readers are likely to remember it, but imagine, if you will, your first experience reading a book divided into chapters. What confronted you was a story that unexpectedly stuttered. Read More
Essay Winning isn’t everything, especially in democracy November 08, 2023 Trump responded to his loss in the 2020 election by being the epitome of a “sore loser”: by denying that he had lost and doubling down on baseless conspiracy theories of electoral fraud. He is not alone. There are multiple examples of sore losers in US politics today. Read More
Essay Approaching 2024: A perspective on opposition and democracy from Indian history November 08, 2023 Next year, the world’s largest democracy will head to the polls. Narendra Modi’s dominant ethnomajoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies will seek to win a third straight victory in India’s General Election. At this crucial crossroads, it is worth reflecting upon the history of one opposition party during the original era of one-party dominance. Read More