"This book is one-of-a-kind. It is the only book that I'm aware of that summarizes the biology, ecology, uses, and management of mesquite.... It is the most complete book in print on mesquite."

—C. Wayne Hanselka, Associate Department Head and Extension Program Leader for Rangeland Ecology and Management, Texas Agricultural Extension Service

A reliable source of food and shelter even in the severest droughts, the mesquite tree sustained American Indians in the Southwest for centuries. Today, mesquite is popular for barbecuing, woodworking, furniture making, flooring, sculpture, jewelry, and food products ranging from honey to jelly and syrup. Even ranchers, who once fought to eradicate mesquite, have come to value its multiple uses on well-managed rangeland.

In this book written especially for a general readership, one of the world's leading authorities on mesquite presents a wealth of information about its natural history and commercial, agricultural, and woodworking uses. Ken Rogers describes the life cycle, species, and wide distribution of the mesquite, which is native or naturalized not only in the Southwest and Mexico, but also in India, Africa, Australia, South America, and Hawaii. He discusses the many consumer and woodworker uses of mesquite at length-even giving instructions for laying a mesquite wood floor and making mesquite bean jelly. He also looks into the ways that people are using mesquite in nature, from rangeland management in the Southwest to desertification prevention in arid countries.

A revelatory new account of the magus—the learned magician—and his place in the intellectual, social, and cultural world of Renaissance Europe.

In literary legend, Faustus is the quintessential occult personality of early modern Europe. The historical Faustus, however, was something quite different: a magus—a learned magician fully embedded in the scholarly currents and public life of the Renaissance. And he was hardly the only one. Anthony Grafton argues that the magus in sixteenth-century Europe was a distinctive intellectual type, both different from and indebted to medieval counterparts as well as contemporaries like the engineer, the artist, the Christian humanist, and the religious reformer. Alongside these better-known figures, the magus had a transformative impact on his social world.

Magus details the arts and experiences of learned magicians including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Trithemius, and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Grafton explores their methods, the knowledge they produced, the services they provided, and the overlapping political and social milieus to which they aspired—often, the circles of kings and princes. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, these erudite men anchored debates about licit and illicit magic, the divine and the diabolical, and the nature of “good” and “bad” magicians. Over time, they turned magic into a complex art, which drew on contemporary engineering as well as classical astrology, probed the limits of what was acceptable in a changing society, and promised new ways to explore the self and exploit the cosmos.

Resituating the magus in the social, cultural, and intellectual order of Renaissance Europe, Grafton sheds new light on both the recesses of the learned magician’s mind and the many worlds he inhabited.

In the mid-eighteenth century, colonial Americans became enamored with the rich colors and silky surface of mahogany. This exotic wood, imported from the West Indies and Central America, quickly displaced local furniture woods as the height of fashion. Over the next century, consumer demand for mahogany set in motion elaborate schemes to secure the trees and transform their rough-hewn logs into exquisite objects. But beneath the polished gleam of this furniture lies a darker, hidden story of human and environmental exploitation.

Mahogany traces the path of this wood through many hands, from source to sale: from the enslaved African woodcutters, including skilled “huntsmen” who located the elusive trees amidst dense rainforest, to the ship captains, merchants, and timber dealers who scrambled after the best logs, to the skilled cabinetmakers who crafted the wood, and with it the tastes and aspirations of their diverse clientele. As the trees became scarce, however, the search for new sources led to expanded slave labor, vicious competition, and intense international conflicts over this diminishing natural resource. When nineteenth-century American furniture makers turned to other materials, surviving mahogany objects were revalued as antiques evocative of the nation's past.

Jennifer Anderson offers a dynamic portrait of the many players, locales, and motivations that drove the voracious quest for mahogany to adorn American parlors and dining rooms. This complex story reveals the cultural, economic, and environmental costs of America’s growing self-confidence and prosperity, and how desire shaped not just people’s lives but the natural world.

The Leipzig Mahzor is one of the most lavish Hebrew illuminated manuscripts of all time. A prayer book used during Jewish holidays, it was produced in the Middle Ages for the Jewish community of Worms in the German Rhineland. Though Worms was a vibrant center of Judaism in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and drew celebrated rabbis, little is known about the city’s Jews in the later Middle Ages. In the pages of its famous book, Katrin Kogman-Appel discovers a portal into the life of this fourteenth-century community.

Medieval mahzorim were used only for special services in the synagogue and “belonged” to the whole congregation, so their visual imagery reflected the local cultural associations and beliefs. The Leipzig Mahzor pays homage to one of Worms’s most illustrious scholars, Eleazar ben Judah. Its imagery reveals how his Ashkenazi Pietist worldview and involvement in mysticism shaped the community’s religious practice. Kogman-Appel draws attention to the Mahzor’s innovations, including its strategy for avoiding visual representation of God and its depiction of customs such as the washing of dishes before Passover, something less common in other mahzorim. In addition to decoding its iconography, Kogman-Appel approaches the manuscript as a ritual object that preserved a sense of identity and cohesion within a community facing a wide range of threats to its stability and security.

This book was published with the support of the Israel Science Foundation.

Moses Maimonides was the most significant Jewish thinker, jurist, and doctor of the Middle Ages. Author of both a monumental code of Jewish law and the most influential and controversial work of Jewish philosophy, Maimonides looms larger than any other figure in the Jewish Middle Ages.

The essays in this volume were written to mark the 800th anniversary of Maimonides’s death in 1204. Written by the leading scholars in the field, they cover all aspects of Maimonides’s work and infuence. From his work on Jewish law to his unique understanding of God; from his view of the soul to his understanding of other religions; from his influence on Jewish scholars in the eastern Mediterranean to his impact on the emergence of modern Judaism—the essays in this volume cover all this and more. It is an indispensable collection for all those interested in the history of Judaism over the last 800 years.

Until the last century, it was generally agreed that Maimonides was a great defender of Judaism, and Spinoza—as an Enlightenment advocate for secularization—among its key opponents. However, a new scholarly consensus has recently emerged that the teachings of the two philosophers were in fact much closer than was previously thought. In his perceptive new book, Joshua Parens sets out to challenge the now predominant view of Maimonides as a protomodern forerunner to Spinoza—and to show that a chief reason to read Maimonides is in fact to gain distance from our progressively secularized worldview.

During the nineteenth century, Americans celebrated their towns and cities through printed landscapes. In Maine, lithographs were commissioned from such leading artists as Fitz Henry Lane and talented, lesser known local artists, such as Esteria Butler. This book reproduces many of these works and provides insights into how these growing centers of commerce and industry viewed themselves and wished to be viewed by others. 

It’s the perfect book for those who love Maine, both full-time residents and those who make it a beloved summer destination. 

Published in association with the Bowdoin College Museum of Art on the occasion of the bicentennial of Maine statehood.

Winner, Best First Monograph, British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies

The first scholarly book on John Hughes examines Hollywood's complex relationship with genre, the role of the auteur in commercial cinema, and the legacy of favorites such as Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

In the 1980s and 1990s, John Hughes was one of Hollywood's most reliable hitmakers, churning out beloved teen comedies and family films such as The Breakfast Club and Home Alone, respectively. But was he an artist? Hughes, an adamantly commercial filmmaker who was dismissed by critics, might have laughed at the question. Since his death in 2009, though, he has been memorialized on Oscar night as a key voice of his time. Now the critics lionize him as a stylistic original.

Holly Chard traces Hughes's evolution from entertainer to auteur. Studios recognized Hughes's distinctiveness and responded by nurturing his brand. He is therefore a case study in Hollywood's production not only of movies but also of genre and of authorship itself. The films of John Hughes, Chard shows, also owed their success to the marketers who sold them and the audiences who watched. Careful readings of Hughes's cinema reveal both the sources of his iconic status and the imprint on his films of the social, political, economic, and media contexts in which he operated.

The first serious treatment of Hughes, Mainstream Maverick elucidates the priorities of the American movie industry in the New Hollywood era and explores how artists not only create but are themselves created.

Sometime around 1500 AD, an African farmer planted a maize seed imported from the New World. That act set in motion the remarkable saga of one of the world’s most influential crops—one that would transform the future of Africa and of the Atlantic world. Africa’s experience with maize is distinctive but also instructive from a global perspective: experts predict that by 2020 maize will become the world’s most cultivated crop.

James C. McCann moves easily from the village level to the continental scale, from the medieval to the modern, as he explains the science of maize production and explores how the crop has imprinted itself on Africa’s agrarian and urban landscapes. Today, maize accounts for more than half the calories people consume in many African countries. During the twentieth century, a tidal wave of maize engulfed the continent, and supplanted Africa’s own historical grain crops—sorghum, millet, and rice. In the metamorphosis of maize from an exotic visitor into a quintessentially African crop, in its transformation from vegetable to grain, and from curiosity to staple, lies a revealing story of cultural adaptation. As it unfolds, we see how this sixteenth-century stranger has become indispensable to Africa’s fields, storehouses, and diets, and has embedded itself in Africa’s political, economic, and social relations.

The recent spread of maize has been alarmingly fast, with implications largely overlooked by the media and policymakers. McCann’s compelling history offers insight into the profound influence of a single crop on African culture, health, technological innovation, and the future of the world’s food supply.

Mock trial—Roman style.

The Major Declamations stand out for their unique contribution to our understanding of the final stage in Greco-Roman rhetorical training. These exercises, in which students learned how to compose and deliver speeches on behalf of either the prosecution or the defense at imaginary trials, demonstrate how standard themes, recurring situations and arguments, and technical rules were to be handled by the aspiring orator. And what is more, they lay bare the mistakes that students often made in this process.

Declamation was practiced in the ancient world from as early as the fifth century BC, but most of its vast tradition has disappeared. The surviving material is mainly in Greek, from the second century AD onward. In Latin the nineteen declamations in the present anthology are by far the most important evidence. In antiquity they were attributed to Quintilian, but they are now thought to be the work of several authors and to date from around AD 100 to the mid- or late third century.

A wide variety of fascinating ethical, social, and legal details animates the fictional world conjured up by these oratorical exercises, and although the themes of declamation can be unrealistic and even absurd (often reminiscent of ancient novel and tragedy), they seem to provide a safe space in which a student could confront a range of complex issues, so as to attain both the technical knowledge necessary to speak persuasively and the soft skills needed to manage the challenges of adult life under the Roman empire.

Mock trial—Roman style.

The Major Declamations stand out for their unique contribution to our understanding of the final stage in Greco-Roman rhetorical training. These exercises, in which students learned how to compose and deliver speeches on behalf of either the prosecution or the defense at imaginary trials, demonstrate how standard themes, recurring situations and arguments, and technical rules were to be handled by the aspiring orator. And what is more, they lay bare the mistakes that students often made in this process.

Declamation was practiced in the ancient world from as early as the fifth century BC, but most of its vast tradition has disappeared. The surviving material is mainly in Greek, from the second century AD onward. In Latin the nineteen declamations in the present anthology are by far the most important evidence. In antiquity they were attributed to Quintilian, but they are now thought to be the work of several authors and to date from around AD 100 to the mid- or late third century.

A wide variety of fascinating ethical, social, and legal details animates the fictional world conjured up by these oratorical exercises, and although the themes of declamation can be unrealistic and even absurd (often reminiscent of ancient novel and tragedy), they seem to provide a safe space in which a student could confront a range of complex issues, so as to attain both the technical knowledge necessary to speak persuasively and the soft skills needed to manage the challenges of adult life under the Roman empire.

Mock trial—Roman style.

The Major Declamations stand out for their unique contribution to our understanding of the final stage in Greco-Roman rhetorical training. These exercises, in which students learned how to compose and deliver speeches on behalf of either the prosecution or the defense at imaginary trials, demonstrate how standard themes, recurring situations and arguments, and technical rules were to be handled by the aspiring orator. And what is more, they lay bare the mistakes that students often made in this process.

Declamation was practiced in the ancient world from as early as the fifth century BC, but most of its vast tradition has disappeared. The surviving material is mainly in Greek, from the second century AD onward. In Latin the nineteen declamations in the present anthology are by far the most important evidence. In antiquity they were attributed to Quintilian, but they are now thought to be the work of several authors and to date from around AD 100 to the mid- or late third century.

A wide variety of fascinating ethical, social, and legal details animates the fictional world conjured up by these oratorical exercises, and although the themes of declamation can be unrealistic and even absurd (often reminiscent of ancient novel and tragedy), they seem to provide a safe space in which a student could confront a range of complex issues, so as to attain both the technical knowledge necessary to speak persuasively and the soft skills needed to manage the challenges of adult life under the Roman empire.

Individualist and communitarian. Anarchist and totalitarian. Classicist and romanticist. Progressive and reactionary. Since the eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been said to be all of these things. Few philosophers have been the subject of as much or as intense debate, yet almost everyone agrees that Rousseau is among the most important and influential thinkers in the history of political philosophy. This new edition of his major political writings, published in the year of the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth, renews attention to the perennial importance of Rousseau’s work.

To most of us, learning something “the hard way” implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.

Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned.

Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.

A Chronicle of Higher Education “Top 10 Books on Teaching” Selection

To most of us, learning something “the hard way” implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.

“If you want to read a lively and engaging book on the science of learning, this is a must.”
—Hazel Christie, Times Higher Education

“Many educators are interested in making use of recent findings about the human brain and how we learn…Make It Stick [is] the single best work I have encountered on the subject. Anyone with an interest in teaching or learning will benefit from reading this book.”
—James M. Lang, Chronicle of Higher Education

Melding universities’ strategic goals with libraries’ teaching and learning mission, the academic library makerspace can be a powerful catalyst for information literacy, offering faculty partners a place for interdisciplinary, experiential learning. If you’re pondering what it takes to get your makerspace into the curriculum, this volume’s relatable, first-hand accounts from librarians, makerspace staff, and faculty partners will give you the confidence to make the leap. Contributors, drawn from the IMLS-funded Maker Literacies project, describe pilots and assessment for a variety of demographics, course subjects, and makerspace equipment. Guided by their experiences, you’ll be ready to fully partner with faculty through the course integration and assessment process. Inside, you’ll learn

• why academic librarians are uniquely situated to be leaders in the realm of makerspaces and makerspace literacy;
• how the ACRL Framework informs maker competencies;
• methods for using competencies and assessment in designing course assignments;
• 5 steps for guiding faculty in creating assignments for makerspaces;
• advice on developing a new staffing and service model to handle course-wide use of the makerspace;
• steps for taking students through concept, design, prototype, and final product in a project management course;
• how an ethical perspective engaged a women’s history course toward the “In Her Shoes” project; 
• pedagogical strategies for integrating the makerspace into fine arts classes; and
• ways to showcase makerspace outputs to generate excitement around campus.

The decades of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s were a time of growth and change in producing, marketing, and collecting Native American artwork and craftwork. During this time William R. Wright amassed a collection notable for its broad representation of twentieth-century Native American products. Focusing on the Southwest, he included contemporary Pueblo ceramics, Navajo and Hopi textiles, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni jewelry, and baskets from some forty different Native American groups. The objects Wright gathered, which are now part of the collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, reflect developments in the intersecting worlds of makers, markets, and collectors, including the challenges faced by makers to successfully balance tradition and innovation in their work and their lives.

This volume examines selected objects from the Wright collection to explore the market-influenced environment of modern Native American makers and their work, from what some consider the low end of tourist art multiples to the high end of unique, signed fine art objects.

Hardly more than a decade old, the twenty-first century has already been dubbed the Asian Century in recognition of China and India’s increasing importance in world affairs. Yet discussions of Asia seem fixated on economic indicators—gross national product, per capita income, share of global trade. Makers of Modern Asia reorients our understanding of contemporary Asia by highlighting the political leaders, not billionaire businessmen, who helped launch the Asian Century.

The nationalists who crafted modern Asia were as much thinkers as activists, men and women who theorized and organized anticolonial movements, strategized and directed military campaigns, and designed and implemented political systems. The eleven thinker-politicians whose portraits are presented here were a mix of communists, capitalists, liberals, authoritarians, and proto-theocrats—a group as diverse as the countries they represent.

From China, the world’s most populous country, come four: Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Revolution; Zhou Enlai, his close confidant; Deng Xiaoping, purged by Mao but rehabilitated to play a critical role in Chinese politics in later years; and Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang party formed the basis of modern Taiwan. From India, the world’s largest democracy, come three: Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indira Gandhi, all of whom played crucial roles in guiding India toward independence and prosperity. Other exemplary nationalists include Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, Indonesia’s Sukarno, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, and Pakistan’s Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. With contributions from leading scholars, Makers of Modern Asia illuminates the intellectual and ideological foundations of Asia’s spectacular rise to global prominence.

Modern India is the world's largest democracy, a sprawling, polyglot nation containing one-sixth of all humankind. The existence of such a complex and distinctive democratic regime qualifies as one of the world's bona fide political miracles. Furthermore, India's leading political thinkers have often served as its most influential political actors—think of Gandhi, whose collected works run to more than ninety volumes, or Ambedkar, or Nehru, who recorded their most eloquent theoretical reflections at the same time as they strove to set the delicate machinery of Indian democracy on a coherent and just path.

Out of the speeches and writings of these thinker-activists, Ramachandra Guha has built the first major anthology of Indian social and political thought. Makers of Modern India collects the work of nineteen of India's foremost generators of political sentiment, from those whose names command instant global recognition to pioneering subaltern and feminist thinkers whose works have until now remained obscure and inaccessible. Ranging across manifold languages and cultures, and addressing every crucial theme of modern Indian history—race, religion, language, caste, gender, colonialism, nationalism, economic development, violence, and nonviolence—Makers of Modern India provides an invaluable roadmap to Indian political debate.

An extensive introduction, biographical sketches of each figure, and guides to further reading make this work a rich resource for anyone interested in India and the ways its leading political minds have grappled with the problems that have increasingly come to define the modern world.