By John A. Thompson (NHC Fellow, 1993–94) Why has the United States assumed so extensive and costly a role in world affairs over the last hundred years? The two most common answers to this question are "because it could" and "because it had to." Neither answer will do, according to this challenging re-assessment of the … Continued
Edited by Sandra E. Greene (NHC Fellow, 2007–08; 2014–15), Martin A. Klein, and Alice Bellagamba What were the experiences of those in Africa who suffered from the practice of slavery, those who found themselves captured and sold from person to person, those who died on the trails, those who were forced to live in fear? … Continued
By James L. W. West, III (NHC Fellow, 1981–82) This book examines literary authorship in the twentieth century and covers such topics as publishing, book distribution, the trade editor, the literary agent, the magazine market, subsidiary rights, and the blockbuster mentality.
By John Beldon Scott (NHC Fellow, 1993–94) The famed linen cloth preserved in Turin Cathedral has provoked pious devotion, scientific scrutiny, and morbid curiosity. Imprinted with an image many faithful have traditionally believed to be that of the crucified Christ "painted in his own blood," the Shroud remains an object of intense debate and notoriety … Continued
By Bernard Wasserstein (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) The twentieth century in Europe witnessed some of the most brutish episodes in history. Yet it also saw incontestable improvements in the conditions of existence for most inhabitants of the continent – from rising living standards and dramatically increased life expectancy, to the virtual elimination of illiteracy, and the … Continued
By K. Steven Vincent (NHC Fellow, 1986–87) Here is the first scholarly study of the life and thought of Benoît Malon (1841-1893), the most persuasive and visible spokesman for reformist socialism during the early years of the French Third Republic. Active in the generation of the French Left that came of age under the Second … Continued
Edited by David Warren Sabean (NHC Fellow, 2008–09), Christopher H. Johnson, Bernhard Jussen, and Simon Teuscher The word “blood” awakens ancient ideas, but we know little about its historical representation in Western cultures. Anthropologists have customarily studied how societies think about the bodily substances that unite them, and the contributors to this volume develop those … Continued
By Jaroslav Folda (NHC Fellow, 1988–89; 1998–99; 2006–07)
Edited by Dorothy C. Wong (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) and Gustav Heldt This volume examines China’s contacts with neighboring cultures in Central, South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia, as well as contacts among those cultures from the beginning of the Common Era to the tenth century and beyond. During this period, transregional and crosscultural exchanges were fostered … Continued
By Laura Gowing (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) This pioneering book explores for the first time how ordinary women of the early modern period in England understood and experienced their bodies. Using letters, popular literature, and detailed legal records from courts that were obsessively concerned with regulating morals, the book recaptures seventeenth-century popular understandings of sex and … Continued