Harvard University Press imprint: 1080 books

Since the time of the Vikings, the Atlantic has shaped the lives of people who depend on it for survival, and people have shaped the Atlantic. In his account of this interdependency, Bolster, a historian and professional seafarer, takes us through a millennium-long environmental history of our impact on one of the largest ecosystems in the world.

One of the world’s most captivating scientists challenges us to think about nature’s foundations and the entanglement of science and society. Steven Weinberg, author of The First Three Minutes, offers his views on fascinating aspects of physics and the universe, but does not seclude science behind disciplinary walls, or shy away from politics.

Drawing inspiration from philosophy, history, and literature, Martha C. Nussbaum takes us to task for our religious intolerance, identifies the fear behind it, and offers a way past fear toward a more equitable, imaginative, and free society, through the consistent application of universal principles of respect for conscience.

After Vietnam the army promised its all-volunteer force a safety net long reserved for career soldiers: medical and dental care, education, child care, financial counseling, housing assistance, legal services. Jennifer Mittelstadt shows how this unprecedented military welfare system expanded at a time when civilian programs were being dismantled.

Governments make too little use of the skills and experience of citizens. New tools—what Beth Simone Noveck calls technologies of expertise—are making it possible to match citizen expertise to the demand for it in government. She offers a vision of participatory democracy rooted not in voting or crowdsourcing but in people’s knowledge and know-how.

It seems like common sense that children do better when parents are actively involved in their schooling. But how well does the evidence stack up? The Broken Compass puts this question to the test in the most thorough scientific investigation to date of how parents across socioeconomic and ethnic...

Flannery and Marcus demonstrate that the rise of inequality was not simply the result of population increase, food surplus, or the accumulation of valuables but resulted from conscious manipulation of the unique social logic that lies at the core of every human group. Reversing the social logic can reverse inequality, they argue, without violence.

Andrea Wiley contrasts the practices of the world's leading milk producers, India and the United States. In both countries, milk is considered to have special qualities. Drawing on ethnographic and scientific studies, popular media, and government reports, she shows that the cultural significance of milk goes well beyond its nutritive value.

America has always been a composite of racially blended peoples, never a purely white Anglo-Protestant nation. The Mexican American historian Neil Foley offers a sweeping view of the evolution of Mexican America, from a colonial outpost on Mexico’s northern frontier to a twenty-first-century people integral to the nation they have helped build.

The Puritans were not as busy policing their neighbors’ behavior as Nathaniel Hawthorne or many early American historians would have us believe. Keeping their own households in line occupied too much of their time. Under Household Government reveals that family members took on the role of watchdogs in matters of sexual indiscretion.

Writing in the digital age has been as messy as the inky rags in Gutenberg’s shop or the molten lead of a Linotype machine. Matthew Kirschenbaum examines how creative authorship came to coexist with the computer revolution. Who were the early adopters, and what made others anxious? Was word processing just a better typewriter, or something more?

Theft causes greater economic injury than any other criminal offense. Yet fundamental questions about what should count as stealing remain unresolved. Green assesses our legal framework at a time when our economy commodifies intangibles (intellectual property, information, ideas, identities, and virtual property) and theft grows more sophisticated.

Wayne Franklin’s introduction to The Pathfinder describes the personal and financial circumstances that led James Fenimore Cooper to the resurrection of his most popular character, underscoring the author’s aim to offer Natty Bumppo as a “Pathfinder” for a nation he feared had lost its moral bearings.

Humanism has mostly considered the question “What does it mean to be human?” from a Western perspective. Dabashi asks it anew from a non-European perspective, in a groundbreaking study of 1,400 years of Persian literary humanism. He presents the unfolding of this vast tradition as the creative and subversive subconscious of Islamic civilization.