• The editor has been given unique access to the man behind some of the greatest works of modern drama
• Contains new information about Arthur Miller’s celebrated plays, including illuminating insights into how they were initially created and staged
• Provides insights into major historical events of the twentieth century such as the McCarthy trials, as well as Miller’s own personal life
The Arthur Miller Tapes
A Life In His Own Words
By Christopher Bigsby
Christopher Bigsby and Arthur Miller shared a regular correspondence which stretched over nearly three decades of friendship. Their interaction and collaboration included a unique series of recorded interviews which now bring fresh and surprising perspectives to the life, thought and creative motivations of one of the greatest modern dramatists. The conversations range richly across topics such as the notorious McCarthy trials, the intent behind Miller’s own work, and his family dynamics and relationships –including his short-lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Containing new insights into Miller’s celebrated plays, including extensive meditations on Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, these illuminating interviews also give readers unrivalled access to the playwright himself.
About the Author
Christopher Bigsby is Emeritus Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an award-winning novelist and theatre historian. Among his many books are his two-volume biography of Miller along with critical works on twentieth- and twenty-first century American theatre and drama.
Advance Praise
‘This is a transfixing, fantastic record of a playwright’s vision As an actor and director, I found it an invaluable piece of work�’
Brian Cox, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actor and director ‘The Arthur Miller Tapes is consistently illuminating, enjoyable and full of unexpected insights I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in twentieth-century theatre, culture or politics ’
Richard Eyre, theatre director, writer and former Artistic Director of the National Theatre
‘Only Christopher Bigsby would have the deep and comprehensive knowledge of Arthur Miller’s life and work to enable him to ask such insightful questions� And because Arthur trusted and respected Chris, he always answers incisively and without evasion Bigsby enables him to speak uninterrupted, allowing us to hear Arthur Miller’s voice as if we were in the room with him ’
David Thacker, theatre, film and television director, former Director of the Young Vic� Professor of Theatre and Film, University of Greater Manchester
SETH MASKET
The Elephants in the Room
How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders
The Elephants in the Room HowTrumpVotersSeizedthePartyfromRepublican Leaders
Seth Masket
The 2024 nomination of Donald Trump was both predictable and wildly unusual; parties almost never nominate anyone who has previously lost the presidency, no less one who helped organize a riot and faced dozens of criminal indictments. Why, then, did Republicans nominate Trump for a third time?
In this fascinating followup to Learning from Loss, leading scholar and political analyst Seth Masket conducted surveys and interviews with local Republican leaders across the country between 2021 and 2024. He finds that most were deeply wary of nominating Trump for a third time but had lost any control they once had over their party to a passionate core of voters.
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
225 pages
9781009601139
Hardback
£25 | $29�95 USD | $33�95 CAD
At a Glance
Uses Donald Trump’s 2024 nomination as a lens for understanding how Republicans interpret election losses and adjust for future elections
• Illustrates that voters, not party leaders, are the ones really in charge of decision making in the current Republican party
• Shows that transformations in the Republican Party largely occurred before Trump ever ran for office
The Elephants in the Room captures a political party in the act of making a fateful decision; attempts to understand what has happened within the Republican party in recent years by focusing on the people most critical to it; and looks at how the party has changed, what we should be learning from it, and how the U.S. political system has changed as result.
About the Author
Seth Masket is a professor of political science at the University of Denver. He has written five books on political parties, including Learning from Loss: The Democrats 2016-2020 (2020). He was the Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Vanderbilt University (20242025), and the Kluge Chair in American Law and Governance at the Library of Congress (2018). He writes regularly at his “Tusk” newsletter.
A NTHONY S ELDON
The Brexit Effect, 2016-2026
The Brexit Effect, 2016-2026
Edited by Anthony Seldon
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
225 pages
9781009749626
Paperback
c� £16�99 | c� $21�99 USD
c� $24�99 CAD
At a Glance
•Brings together leading voices from political, academic, and economic spheres on both sides of the Brexit debate to offer a comprehensive and balanced insight into one of the most pivotal events in modern British history�
•Covers every facet and nuance of the Brexit debate, leaving no stone unturned in a thorough exploration of the issues – providing a complete picture of its complexities and consequences�
•Far more than a simple recount of events, TheBrexitEffectweaves historical analysis with firsthand accounts and ongoing political ramifications to deliver a rich, elevated perspective on Brexit and its lasting impact�
On 23rd June 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. A decade on, Brexit remains one of the most divisive and consequential events in modern British politics, reshaping the nation in profound ways. The Brexit Effect, 2016-2026 brings together leading voices from both the Remain and Leave camps to offer a compelling, multi-perspective account of Brexit and its legacy. Far more than just another discussion about Brexit, it traces the referendum’s aftermath and its impact on every corner of British life: from economics and Britain’s global standing to political party dynamics and the Northern Irish Question. It sheds light on why the referendum campaign defied predications and how negotiations on Britain’s withdrawal unfolded. As the dust continues to settle, The Brexit Effect, 2016-2026 delivers a vital and timely analysis of where the referendum has taken Britain and Europe, and where it might lead in the second quarter of the 21st century.
About the Editor
Sir Anthony Seldon is the country’s top political historian and acknowledged national authority on all matters to do with the Government and Number 10.His book Churchill’s Indian Summer: The Conservative Government, 1951–55 (1981), was published forty years ago, and since then he has written or edited many books, including The Blair Effect, 2001-5 (Cambridge, 2005), The Coalition Effect, 2010–2015 (Cambridge, 2015), The Impossible Office (Cambridge, 2021)”, and The Conservative Effect (Cambridge, 2024). He has been the honorary historian at Number 10 Downing Street, chair of the National Archives Trust, and has interviewed virtually all senior figures who have worked in Number 10 in the last fifty years.
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009651875 Hardback
£25 | $29�95 USD | $33�95 CAD
At a Glance
Uses human stories to recover what it was like to live with disease hundreds of years ago
Illuminates everyday sexual intimacies at all levels of society
• Uncovers the voices of those who left few, if any, words behind
The Dreaded Pox Sex and Disease in Early Modern London
Olivia Weisser
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, venereal disease, or the ‘pox,’ was a dreaded diagnosis throughout Europe. Its ghastly marks, along with their inexorable link to sex, were so stigmatizing that it was commonly called ‘the secret disease.’ How do we capture everyday experiences of a disease that so few people admitted having? Olivia Weisser’s remarkable history invites readers into the teeming, vibrant pox-riddled streets of early modern London. She uncovers the lives of the poxed elite as well as of the maidservants and prostitutes who left few words behind, showing how marks of the disease offered a language for expressing acts that were otherwise unutterable. This new history of sex, stigma, and daily urban life takes readers down alleys where healers peddled their tinctures, enters kitchens and gardens where ordinary sufferers made cures, and listens in on intimate exchanges between patients and healers in homes and in taverns.
About the Author
Olivia Weisser is Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Advance Praise
‘Uncurable, but infinitely treatable, in 18th-century London venereal disease changed lives� The Dreaded Pox interrogates a hidden world of home remedies, quack nostrums and sexual violence, unearthing the experience of individual sufferers� It will be necessary reading for social historians of all stamps�’
Tim Hitchcock, co-author of London Lives: Poverty Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690–1800
‘Weisser takes us on a compelling tour of the world of venereal disease in 18th century London� From streets to coffeehouses to courtrooms, we discover ordinary women and men’s encounters with a dreaded disease, and their ingenious remedies for it, marketed through handbills, or scribbled in recipe books Between the lines of the archive, she uncovers the informal, pragmatic routes that servants, wives, and respectable men took to manage an intractable set of symptoms Women are powerful agents in this story, selling remedies, fighting disease, and even using the evidence of infection to convict their own husbands of sexual misconduct� Full of rich evidence and revealing stories, Weisser’s book reconstructs the havoc the pox wreaked, and the strategies women and men deployed to survive ’
Laura Gowing, author of Ingenious Trade: Women and Work in SeventeenthCentury London
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009466578
Hardback
£22 | $27�95 USD | $31�95 CAD
At a Glance
Demonstrates the power and utility of upgrades over innovation
• Utilizes case studies pulled from today’s headlines to ground theoretical analysis in current events
• Provides readers with warning signs they can use to spot dangerous innovations
Move Slow and Upgrade The Power of Incremental Innovation
Evan Selinger and Albert Fox Cahn
For far too long, tech titans peddled promises of disruptive innovation -fabricating benefits and minimizing harms. The promise of quick and easy fixes overpowered a growing chorus of critical voices, driving a sea of private and public investments into increasingly dangerous, misguided, and doomed forms of disruption, with the public paying the price. But what’s the alternative? Upgrades - evidence-based, incremental change. Instead of continuing to invest in untested, high-risk innovations, constantly chasing outsized returns, upgraders seek a more proven path to proportional progress. This book dives deep into some of the most disastrous innovations of recent years - the metaverse, cryptocurrency, home surveillance, and AI, to name a few - while highlighting some of the unsung upgraders pushing real progress each day. Timely and corrective, Move Slow and Upgrade pushes us past the baseless promises of innovation, towards realistic hope.
About the Authors
Evan Selinger is a Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the ethical and privacy dimensions of emerging technology. Selinger’s previous Cambridge University Press books included the co-authored Re-Engineering Humanity (2019) and co-edited The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Privacy (2018). He is a contributing writer at The Boston Globe.
Albert Fox Cahn is the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project’s founder and executive director. He has served as Practitioner-in-Residence at NYU Law School’s Information Law Institute and a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center For Human Rights Policy, Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, Ashoka, and TED.
Advance Praise
‘In this wise and timely book, Evan Selinger and Albert Fox Cahn offer an incisive critique of the ‘move fast and break things’ ideology of innovation that has done such harm to society in recent years But they do something more: they provide a practical alternative, an approach to technological progress that aims not to disrupt people’s lives but to make them richer and more fulfilling�’
Nicholas Carr, author of Superbloom and The Shallows
‘Move Slow and Upgrade is the perfect book for our high-tech moment: an ode to the joys and power of carefully and meticulously improving our high-tech systems, instead of lunging for the latest shiny toy It’s also a fun read – crammed with fascinating stories� Read it and upgrade yourself�’
Clive Thompson, author of Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
300 pages
9781009649810
Hardback
£27 | $32�95 USD | $35�95 CAD
At a Glance
Identifies and examines the core themes of administrative burden and inequity in healthcare coverage
Utilizes patient narratives to highlight the human stories behind healthcare data
• Provides an interdisciplinary analysis that weaves a thread through politics, policy, and patients’ health
Coverage Denied How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States
Miranda Yaver
In the aftermath of the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024, everyday Americans took to social media to share stories of the challenges they’d faced trying to navigate the American health insurance system. Why did this event strike such a nerve with the American public? For a topic as central to the lives of Americans as healthcare, there is no book that examines the impact of coverage denial, whereby health insurers decide whether to cover health services that appear to be within the scope of a plan’s benefits – not until now. In Coverage Denied, health policy professor Miranda Yaver offers a sobering account of the ways in which coverage denials damage patient health and exacerbate inequalities along income, education, and racial lines. Combining rich interview material with original survey data, Yaver draws critical attention to the tens of millions of medical claims denied by health insurers every year, shining a necessary light on our inequitable health care system.
About the Author
Miranda Yaver is an assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of Pittsburgh. She was the 2025 Author-in-Residence at the Roosevelt Institute. Her research has been published in several journals, including American Journal of Political Science and Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law. Her op-eds and other health care commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage Blog, STATNews, and The Hill
Advance Praise
‘Miranda Yaver has produced a deeply disturbing interrogation of America’s deeply dysfunctional health care system� Brilliantly researched, with stories that will enrage you, Coverage Denied is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand why America’s health insurance bureaucracy can be so arbitrary and heartless – and why it doesn’t have to be that way�’
Jonathan Cohn, author of The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage
‘Infuriating and original, urgent and expert, Coverage Denied lays bare the power of private health insurers to decide who gets care – and who does not� Combining path-breaking survey research, compelling stories, and a keen understanding of America’s distinctive policy landscape, Miranda Yaver has written the book on insurance coverage denials, why they cause so much hardship and inequality, and how they must be fixed�’
Jacob S. Hacker, Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science, Yale University, and author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009573702
Hardback
£25 | $29�95 USD | $33�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Separates the truth from fiction regarding the limited health outcomes of everyone living in America
• Details the economic inequalities leading to a stressed society resulting in more chronic ailments and fatal diseases than in many other nations Clearly lays out evidence that early life support is vital to prevent development of later ill health
Born Sick in the USA Improving the Health of a Nation
Stephen Bezruchka
How healthy you are is dependent on where you live. Americans suffer more cancers, heart diseases, mental illness and other chronic diseases than those who live in other wealthy nations. Despite having the most expensive healthcare system in the world. Why? Embark on a journey to unravel the profound impact of public policies on American health from birth in Born Sick in the USA. Delve into the intricate web where economic inequality weaves a tapestry of chronic ailments and fatal diseases in a stressed society. This compelling read illuminates the need for transformative change in social safety nets and public policies to uplift national health and well-being. Through vivid storytelling, the book unveils the symptoms, diagnosis, and ‘medicine’ required to steer the nation towards a healthier future. Join the movement for a healthier America by embracing the insightful revelations and empowering call-to-action presented within the pages of this eye-opening book.
About the Author
Stephen Bezruchka is Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington. He is the author of Nepali for Trekkers (1991), The Pocket Doctor: A Passport to Healthy Travel (1999), Altitude Illness: Prevention and Treatment (2005), Trekking in Nepal: A Traveler’s Guide (2011), and Inequality Kills Us All: COVID-19’s Health Lessons for the World (2022), and contributed to Far From the Road: A Community Health Project in the Himalayas (2025), among other titles. He also set up a remote district hospital in the western part of Nepal and supervised Nepali doctor training there.
Advance Praise
‘By examining the United States as his patient, Stephen Bezruchka has found a brilliant way to diagnose the serious, multigenerational health problems afflicting the country From shortening lifespans to the emergence of chronic diseases in young people, his diagnoses are laid out in plain and powerful English Dr Bezruchka combines his decades of experience as a physician wandering the villages of Nepal and his teaching at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health to gently but firmly deliver the truth about how the world’s most expensive healthcare system makes us sick� His treatment plan would be easy and less costly, if only we can free ourselves from the delusion that the US enjoys the world’s best healthcare system ’
David Cay Johnston, bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter
‘Capitalism, its greatest critic showed, is full of contradictions� On one side, widely boasted, are its tendencies to improve public health as a by-product of capital accumulation On the other side, widely denied or repressed, are its tendencies to undermine public health This book, Born Sick in the USA, corrects the imbalance by systematically exploring the latter tendencies Here is socially applied medical science that culminates in a persuasive call for action by its readers ’
Richard D. Wolff, co-founder of Democracy at Work and author of The Sickness Is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself
UK publication March 2026
US publication March 2026
350 pages
9781009668323
Hardback
£27 | $32�95 USD | $35�95 CAD
At a Glance
Tacks between past and present, and history and memory, to collapse the distance between them
Uses family history to shed light on the foundational Black history of the region - colonialism, slavery, development, war, citizenship, unfinished freedom
• Brings together archival documents, oral histories, and popular culture to create a new understanding of Black US history
Helps explain the source of contemporary political and social tensions
Sweet Home Feliciana
Family, Slavery, and the Hauntings
of History
Rashauna Johnson
In this tapestry of intersecting stories, including those of her own family, Rashauna Johnson charts the global transformation of a rural region in Louisiana from European colonialism to Jim Crow. From her ancestor Virgil to her cousin Veronica and her hand-sewn Mardi Gras memorial suit more than a century later, this history is one of triumphs and trauma, illustrating the ways people of African descent have created sites of endurance, belonging, and resistance. Johnson uses her grandmother’s birthplace in East Feliciana as a prism to illuminate foundational, if fraught, aspects of US history including colonialism, slavery, war, citizenship and unfinished freedom. The result is a portrait of the world in a family, a family in a region, and a region in the world that insists on the bristling and complicated relationships of people to place and creates a new understanding of what it means to be American.
About the Author
Rashauna Johnson is Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago. She is the author of the prize-winning book Slavery’s Metropolis: Unfree Labor in New Orleans during the Age of Revolutions (2016).
Advance Praise
‘In lyrical prose as moving as song, Sweet Home Feliciana haunts a notorious southern anthem and the troubling nostalgia associated with it� Relying on a wealth of sources and a rare gift of interpretation, historian Rashauna Johnson tells a bold, blues story of Indigenous people, Black enslaved people, their defiant descendants, and the Louisiana lands they still call home� Readers of this book will never see New Orleans or the rural South in the same way again�’
Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
‘A stunning work of social and cultural history and of creative historical thinking� Rashauna Johnson has given us a multi-layered story that not only conjoins the local, regional, and international but also shows how our present lives in the past and our past in the present� Sweet Home Feliciana exemplifies historical scholarship at its finest and most inventive�’
Steven Hahn, author of Illiberal America: A History
UK publication May 2026
US publication May 2026
9781009553179
Hardback
At a Glance
Makes the authoritative scholarly edition of Gulliver’s Travels available to general readers in a beautiful, celebratory and collectible new rendering
• Full annotations identify political figures, ideas and historical references unfamiliar to the modern reader, enabling Swift’s piercing satire to be fully appreciated and comprehended
• Includes all the original illustrations, images and maps
• Offers illuminating new readings of Gulliver’s Travels that explain ideas and details often overlooked or misunderstood
Gulliver’s Travels The Cambridge Anniversary Edition
Jonathan Swift
Edited by David Womersley
Gulliver’s Travels is one of the landmarks of world literature. Gulliver’s adventures with the tiny but spirited Lilliputians, the giant inhabitants of Brobdingnag, the flying island of Laputa, and the rational horses of Houyhnmhnmland have become globally famous for their satirical wit and visionary creativity. Early editions credited Gulliver himself as the author, and many readers believed him to be a real person. Later commentators have variously described the work as proto-science fiction, as inspired children’s literature and as a forerunner of the modern novel. The editor’s introduction to this celebratory anniversary edition contextualises Gulliver’s Travels in Swift’s life and work as a whole while exploring its rich and remarkable afterlife. All the original illustrations and maps are included, as are the frontispiece portraits. Generous annotation explains textual details which might now seem obscure, and appendices contain additional documents and images to enhance contemporary understanding and enjoyment.
About the Editor
David Womersley is Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford, is a Fellow of the British Academy, and was in 2018–19 a Fellow of the prestigious C. F. von Siemens Stiftung in Munich. He has published extensively on eighteenth-century literature and culture and is internationally celebrated for his expertise on Jonathan Swift and his writings. Professor Womersley’s scholarly edition of Gulliver’s Travels was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012, a major work which this accessible tercentenary edition now complements and augments.
UK publication March 2026
US publication March 2026
9781009627696
Hardback
£22 00 | $29 95 USD | $33 95 CAD
At a Glance
• A much-needed historical perspective on the roots and evolution of white supremacy
• Shows that white supremacy defies national borders and has never been a localised issue
• Breaks down the notion that white supremacy is timeless or natural
• Traces the emergence of white supremacy to reveal the the historybound nature of invented races
White Supremacy A Short History
John Broich
When did whiteness begin? Was its rise inevitable? In this powerful history, John Broich traces the emergence, evolution and contradictions of white supremacy, from its roots in the British empire, to the racial politics of the present. Focussing on the English-speaking world, he examines how ideas of whiteness connect to the history of slavery, Enlightenment thought, European colonialism, Social Darwinism and eugenics, fascism and capitalism. Far from being the natural order of things, Broich demonstrates that white supremacy is a brittle concept. For centuries, it has been constantly shifting, rebranding, and justifying itself in the face of resistance. The oft-repeated excuse that its architects were simply “men of their time” collapses under scrutiny. With brutal honesty, Broich exposes the lies embedded in the grim biography of an invented race. White Supremacy calls for a deeper understanding of the past, that we might undo its grip on the present.
About the Author
John Broich is Associate Professor of History at Case Wetern Reserve University. His previous books include Squadron: Ending the African Slave Trade (2022) and Blood, Oil, and the Axis (2022) and he has written for The Guardian, Washington Post and BBC History Magazine.
Advance Praise
‘Historians rarely offer such a thorough and powerfully accurate account of white supremacy in a digestible and succinct text as John Broich has written White Supremacy: A Short History is a tremendous resource for scholars and students alike� Broich succeeds in taking readers through a journey over the centuries of racial thinking drawing their attention to horrors of white violence and debilitating proliferation of white supremacist ideology within the United States and Europe Highly recommended ’
Tommy Curry, author of Another White Man’s Burden
‘John Broich expertly distils a vast literature on race, slavery and imperialism into a brisk and bracing narrative which is impossible to ignore� White Supremacy is a wide-ranging, highly readable and impressively concise account of the toxic idea which continues to distort our world ’
Nicholas Guyatt, author of Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
9781009435482
Hardback
£25 | $32 95 USD | $35 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Illustrated by talented illustrator Hazel Mead, this informative book is aimed at every woman and person with a uterus, stuck in the ‘information gap’, finding it challenging to digest the jargon on medical websites and unable discern the facts from misinformation across TikTok and Instagram
• Covers everything you didn’t get taught in school: factually correct and reliable information coming from a practicing gynaecology doctor
Many women’s health books exist, but the concepts can sometimes feel complex and difficult to make sense of
Bloody Powerful
The taboo-busting guide to periods, menopause and everything in-between
Dr Brooke Vandermolen Illustrated by Hazel Mead
Brought to life with art from talented illustrator Hazel Mead, this incredible book is aimed at every woman stuck in the ‘information gap’ navigating the jargon and myths about their gynaecological health online. Bloody Powerful covers everything you didn’t get taught in school: giving you factually correct and reliable information coming from a practicing gynaecology doctor. It is a non-judgemental and insightful guide to empowering yourself to take charge of your body. Dr Brooke Vandermolen answers questions you have always wanted to ask, from ‘Do I need supplements to balance my hormones?’ to ‘How do I know if my period is too heavy?’ sprinkled with facts you may never have realised about your body. Thought-provoking, inspiring and inclusive, this book will show you how we’re all the same in wanting to know more about our own bodies, and we are each utterly and beautifully unique.
About the Author
For many, Dr. Brooke Vandermolen is better known by her online handle, ‘The OBGYN Mum’. Brooke is a practicing Obstetrics & Gynaecology doctor at working in London hospitals. She has a particular interest and experience in benign gynaecology with a focus on paediatric and adolescent gynaecology. Brooke’s journey into creating medical content as ‘The OBGYN Mum’ started with her first pregnancy. Despite her medical qualifications, Brooke found it difficult to obtain accurate, evidence-based information that she could understand and trust to guide her through her first pregnancy and parenthood. Alarmed at how much harder it would be for the average parent, Brooke decided to use her knowledge and credentials to create her platform ‘The OBGYN Mum’. To her rapidly growing audience, Brooke began sharing insights and tips around pregnancy, birth, fertility, menopause and more through social media and blog posts. Her evidence-based information has since taken the internet by storm, smashing down taboos around areas of previously reserved areas of medicine.
Illustrator Hazel Mead uses her diverse, poignant art to discuss topics not explored enough, while inviting us all to look at each other with empathy. Her cute, playful style along with a sense of humour helps to soften some of the taboo topics she illustrates, making them a little more palatable for British sensibilities. She takes great joy in tugging on people’s heartstrings and funny bones, which has resulted in a dedicated online following who resonates with her pieces. Hazel works commercially across publishing, advertising, branding, and mural painting. Her debut book Why Aren’t We Talking About This?! was released by Squarepeg, Penguin last year.
Tipping Out of Trouble
Marten Scheffer
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
9781009699754 Hardback
£25 | $29 95 USD | $33 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Provides a scientifically credible roadmap toward a sustainable future
• Shows how tipping points work at a societal level and that individual actions, however small, bring us closer to a fundamental revision of society
Highlights the entrenched interests which hold back change including the role of large corporations and wealthy oligarchies
Tipping Out of Trouble How Societies
Transformed and How We Can Do So Again
Marten Scheffer
What kind of trouble lies ahead? How can we successfully transition towards a sustainable future? Drawing on a remarkably broad range of insights from complex systems and the functioning of the brain to the history of civilizations and the workings of modern societies, the distinguished scientist Marten Scheffer addresses these key questions of our times. He looks to the past to show how societies have tipped out of trouble before, the mechanisms that drive social transformations and the invisible hands holding us back. He traces how long-standing practices such as the slave trade and foot-binding were suddenly abandoned and how entire civilizations have collapsed to make way for something new. Could we be heading for a similarly dramatic change? Marten Scheffer argues that a dark future is plausible but not yet inevitable and he provides us instead with a hopeful roadmap to steer ourselves away from collapse-and toward renewal.
About the Author
Marten Scheffer is a distinguished professor at Wageningen University and an expert on stability of complex systems ranging from the climate and the brain to societies and ecosystems. His work is highly cited and he is associated to the Dutch as well as the US academies of sciences.
Advance Praise
‘In this eye-opening book, Marten Scheffer shows that the “good Anthropocene” is within our reach, but that it will require bold collective action and massive wealth redistribution A must-read ’
Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century
‘This page turner makes a convincing case of how the widely perceived values of nature could now well become key drivers of long-needed change� I couldn’t stop reading ’
Gretchen Daily, author of The New Economy of Nature and winner of the Volvo Environment Prize
MICHAEL HANDFORD
Lump in My Throat
What Cancer Taught Me about Communication
UK publication July 2026
US publication July 2026
9781009631396
Hardback
£25 | $29 95 USD | $33 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Explores how communication skills can empower people with cancer and their carers to navigate diagnosis and treatment with greater confidence�
Connects language and care by showing how insights from linguistics can improve doctor–patient interactions and support more compassionate healthcare
• Challenges cultural stereotypes by offering a thoughtful, nuanced view of Japan and the UK that deepens understanding without resorting to clichés
Lump in My Throat What Cancer Taught Me About Communication
Michael Handford
When faced with a cancer diagnosis, navigating the maze of emotions and decisions can be overwhelming. In this inspiring and deeply personal memoir, Michael Handford – a professor of intercultural communication – shares his experience of a stage-4 throat cancer diagnosis at the age of 42 while living and working in Japan and the UK. Weaving together his professional insights and personal experiences, and through vivid storytelling, Handford examines how communication – whether with doctors, loved ones, or oneself – can shape the cancer experience. He shows that creating meaning and agency in the face of illness can provide a sense of control amidst the chaos. This book is not just about surviving cancer but about reframing it as part of a quest for connection, resilience, and understanding. Poignant, and at times brutally funny, Lump in My Throat offers guidance, hope, and tools to navigate the toughest of times with dignity and strength.
About the Author
Michael Handford is an internationally renowned academic, having held professorships and honorary fellowships at the Universities of Tokyo, Cardiff and Birmingham. His research explores the relationship between communication and culture, often in professional settings. In 2011–12, he was treated for stage-4 throat cancer in Tokyo and Birmingham. This work interprets his cancer experiences through cultural and communication lenses.
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
454 pages
9781009661287
Paperback
£22 99 | $34 99 USD | $39 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Revised and updated edition of this acclaimed history of punk culture�
• Includes a new foreword by Paul Morley on the emergence of punk
• Demonstrates how punk and its related cultures reflected and even shaped social and political change
No Future! Punk,
Politics and British Youth Culture, 1976–1984 - Anniversary Edition
Matthew Worley
‘No Feelings’, ‘No Fun’, ‘No Future’. The years 1976 to 1984 saw punk emerge and evolve as a fashion, a musical form, an attitude and an aesthetic. Against a backdrop of social fragmentation, violence, high unemployment and socioeconomic change, punk rejuvenated and re-energised British youth culture, inserting marginal voices and political ideas into pop. Rejecting both tired clichés and nostalgic myths, Matthew Worley provides the definitive account of how punk was constructed and utilised from the ground up. He takes youth culture seriously as a way of understanding history, demonstrating how punk not only reflected but directly impacted social and political history through its unique ability to provoke, disrupt and subvert. This revised and updated edition marks 50 years since the birth of punk and includes a new foreword from acclaimed music journalist, Paul Morley. It remains the foremost history of British punk.
About the Author
Matthew Worley is Professor of Modern History at the University of Reading. He has written widely on punk-related cultures in various journals and is the author of Zerox Machine: Punk, Post-Punk and Fanzines in Britain, 1976–88.
Praise for the First Edition
‘Excellent account of how punk articulated itself as a political as well as musical force ’
David Stubbs, Classic Rock
‘Refreshing … Worley throws unfamiliar views and new perception on his well-worn subject�’
Record Collector
The Body Image Book for Girls Love Yourself and Grow Up Fearless
Charlotte Markey
UK publication March 2026
US publication March 2026
9781009545075
Paperback
£16�99 | $19�95 USD | $22�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Provides accurate, evidence-based information about body image, eating habits, mental health and self-care for tween- and teen-aged girls
Helps girls to understand and appreciate their bodies as they become women, and navigate their way through the inaccurate and unrealistic beauty ideals portrayed in the media/social media
New and improved edition includes even more personal stories from girls about their body image experiences, and new ‘expert advice’ provides tips and inspiration from a range of voices
Girls are facing growing pressures that impact their self-esteem, whilst the pandemic and dominance of social media have made it even more challenging for girls to feel good about their bodies. Dr. Charlotte Markey provides girls aged 9–15 with the tools they need to understand, accept, and appreciate their bodies. She provides all the facts on puberty, mental health, self-care, why diets are bad news, dealing with social media, and everything in-between. Girls will find answers to questions they always wanted to ask, the truth behind many body image myths, advice and inspiration from experts, and real-life stories from girls who share their own experiences. Through this updated and beautifully illustrated guide, Dr. Markey teaches girls how to nurture both mental and physical health to improve their own body image, shows the positive impact they can have on others, and empowers them to go out into the world feeling fearless!
About the Author
Dr. Charlotte Markey is Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Health Sciences Department at Rutgers University, Camden. She is a world-leading expert in body image research, having studied body image and eating behavior for over twenty-five years. Through all her roles as a scientist, teacher, writer, and parent she is passionate about understanding what makes us feel good about our bodies and helping others to develop a healthy body image. Dr Markey is the author of four books, including Being You: The Body Image Book for Boys (2022) and Adultish: The Body Image Book for Life (2024). Her research has gained widespread media attention, having been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Economist, ABC News, and Time Magazine.
Praise for the First Edition
‘With first-hand accounts from teenage girls and a glossary of useful terms, this is a sensible, reassuring guide to growing up and developing a healthy body image ’
Emma Lee-Potter, The Independent ‘One of the book’s major strengths is that it doesn’t set out external rules to follow but inspires people to be themselves … its value is that so many of the pieces that contribute to a healthy self-image come together in one accessible volume�’
Karen R. Koenig, New York Journal of Books
UK publication March 2026
US publication March 2026
9781108708593
Paperback
At a Glance
• A sweeping new history of Soviet foreign policy from the end of the Second World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union which uncovers the inner workings of the Kremlin
• Reveals the role that political legitimacy, and the accompanying desire for recognition, played and continue to play in Soviet and Russian foreign policies
Provides new insights into key episodes of the Cold War on the basis of previously unknown archival materials
To Run the World
The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power
Sergey Radchenko
What would it feel like To Run the World? The Soviet rulers spent the Cold War trying desperately to find out. In this panoramic new history of the conflict that defined the postwar era, Sergey Radchenko provides an unprecedented deep dive into the psychology of the Kremlin’s decision-making. He reveals how the Soviet struggle with the United States and China reflected its irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution. This tension drove Soviet policies from Stalin’s postwar scramble for territory to Khrushchev’s reckless overseas adventurism and nuclear brinksmanship, Brezhnev’s jockeying for influence in the third world, and Gorbachev’s failed attempts to reinvent Moscow’s claims to greatness. Perennial insecurities, delusions of grandeur, and desire for recognition propelled Moscow on a headlong quest for global power, with dire consequences and painful legacies that continue to shape our world.
About the Author
Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is a historian of the Cold War, and an expert on Russian and Chinese foreign and security policies. Previous publications include Two Suns in the Heavens: the Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy and Unwanted Visionaries: the Soviet Failure in Asia
Praise
A Sunday Times and Foreign Affairs Book of the Year
‘Masterful indispensable ’
Ed Luce, Financial Times
‘Radchenko’s read provides unparalleled insights into the Soviet leadership’s decision-making processes Not only has it surpassed anything yet written … this book will also likely be the standard-bearer for years, and potentially decades, to come ’
Casey Michel, Foreign Policy
‘The book is exceptionally well researched, even better argued, and beautifully written ’
Serhii Plokhy, New Statesman
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
260 pages
9781108926942
Paperback
At a Glance
• Organised spatially, by zones or areas within the city, allowing readers to explore the city, cutting across historical periods without a preliminary knowledge of the city’s history
• Contains numerous maps, black and white, and colour illustrations, which provides readers with an immersive experience of the city, allowing them to connect the visual with the stories of the city
• This book is written in a lively, personal writing style with the non-specialist reader in mind
Dublin A Writer’s City
Christopher Morash
The words of its writers are part of the texture of Dublin, an invisible counterpart to the bricks and pavement we see around us. Beyond the ever-present footsteps of James Joyce’s characters, Leopold Bloom or Stephen Dedalus, around the city centre, an ordinary-looking residential street overlooking Dublin Bay, for instance, presents the house where Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney lived for many years; a few blocks away is the house where another Nobel Laureate, W. B. Yeats, was born. Just down the coast is the pier linked to yet another, Samuel Beckett, from which we can see the Martello Tower that is the setting for the opening chapter of Ulysses. But these are only a few. Step-by-step, Dublin: A Writer’s City unfolds a book-lover’s map of this unique city, inviting us to experience what it means to live in a great city of literature. The book is heavily illustrated, and features custom maps.
About the Author
Chris Morash has published widely on Irish studies, with books on Irish Famine literature, Irish theatre history, media history, and spatial theory; he has collaborated with the Abbey Theatre, and chairs the judging panel for the Dublin Literary Award, one of the world’s richest literary prizes.
Praise
‘… a fitting tribute to the rich literary history of Dublin�’ Publishers Weekly
‘Dublin, a Writer’s City manages to be compendious in a small space, busy as the streets themselves and true to the remarkable spirit of a town that insists, decade after decade, a century ago and next year, in nurturing, goading and facilitating some of the most vibrant literature to be found in the English-speaking world (an unfashionable opinion … Moving into the 21st century, it respects a living tradition and brings us a crucial step further along ’
Anne Enright, The Irish Times
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
280 pages
9781009060301
Paperback
At a Glance
• Organizes the recent literary history of the city by neighborhoods and particular blocks of streets, allowing readers to navigate the city in the most literal sense through its most important and most inspired writing�
• Brings together relatively remote historical territories with up-to-the minute contemporary developments Readers will be able to engage contemporary and future phenemona in the city with a rich grasp of their deep roots
• Offers some fifty images plus some thirty textboxes to create keen visual interest across its pages
New Orleans A Writer’s City
T. R. Johnson
The neighborhoods of New Orleans have given rise to an extraordinary outpouring of important writing. Over the last century and a half or so, these stories and songs have given the city its singular place in the human imagination. This book leads the reader along five thoroughfares that define these different parts of town – Royal, St. Claude, Esplanade, Basin, and St. Charles – to explore how the writers who have lived around them have responded in closely related ways to the environments they share. On the outskirts of New Orleans today, the city’s precarious relation to its watery surroundings and the vexed legacies of race loom especially large. But the city’s literature shows us that these themes have been near to hand for New Orleans writers for several generations, whether reflected through questions of masquerade, dreams of escape, the innocence of children, or the power of money or of violence or of memory.
About the Author
T. R. Johnson has taught at universities in Louisville and Boston and is now a Professor of English and Weiss Presidential Fellow at Tulane University. He has written books on Lacanian psychoanalysis, the teaching of writing, and prose style and is the editor of New Orleans: A Literary History. Since the late 1990s, he has lived in the 9th Ward of New Orleans near the Mississippi River and hosted a contemporary jazz radio program.
Praise
‘The book shows how New Orleans and its literature both grow together, feeding off each other � � � a masterpiece in its architecture and its scope�’ Counterpunch
Netta Weinstein, Heather Hansen and Thuy‑vy T. Nguyen
Solitude The Science and Power of Being Alone
Netta Weinstein, Thuy-vy T. Nguyen, and Heather Hansen
The Science and Power of Being Alone
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
354 pages 9781009256612
Paperback
£15 99 | $19 95 USD | $22 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Showcases different perspectives, traditions, stories, and research methods on solitude from people around the world
• Explains how we can balance our social and solo needs
• Clearly defines ‘solitude’ and demonstrates how it plays a role in the move toward our best possible selves
• Highlights some of the research conducted by the Solitude Lab and others before and during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Explores a wide range of topics connected to solitude, including but not limited to: creativity, anxiety, authenticity, ageing, and emotional regulation
The average adult spends nearly one-third of their waking life alone. How do we overcome the stigma of solitude and find strength in going it alone? Whether we love it or try to avoid it, we can make better use of that time. The science of solitude shows that alone time can be a powerful space used to tap into countless benefits. Translating key research findings into actionable facts and advice, this book shows that alone time can boost well-being. From relaxation and recharging to problem solving and emotional regulation, solitude can benefit personal growth, contentment, creativity, and our relationships with ourselves and others. Learning what makes us better at spending time alone can help us move toward our best possible selves.
About the Authors
Netta Weinstein is an internationally recognized psychologist and director of the European Research Council’s ‘Solitude: Alone but Resilient (SOAR)’ project. Her research focuses on motivation and well-being. She is also Professor of Psychology at the University of Reading and an associate researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK.
Heather Hansen is an independent science writer and author. She joined SOAR and the Solitude Project in 2020 to lend her expertise in interviewing and communication. She has won awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Society of American Travel Writers, and the Colorado Authors League.
Thuy-vy T. Nguyen is a pioneer and expert in studying solitude in laboratory experiments and investigating the factors that lead to different concepts of solitude. She is also Associate Professor in Psychology at Durham University, a fellow at Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Well-being, and principal investigator of the Solitude Lab at Durham University, UK.
Praise
‘Evocative prose helps convey the shifting realities of solitude as experienced by both the interview subjects and the authors … It’s an illuminating take on a fundamental aspect of being human’
Publishers Weekly
‘Grounded, credible, and highly readable�’
Elle Hunt, New Scientist
“Kind, conversational, and profoundly practical.” Michael Harris, author of The End of Absence
GORDON MCMULLAN
A Cultural History of Greed and Prejudice Cormorant
Cormorant A Cultural History of Greed and Prejudice
Gordon McMullan
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
280 pages
9781009652988 Hardback
£35 | $45�00 USD | $51�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Does for academic study of the cormorant what Stephen Gregory’s prizewinning horror novel did for cormorant fiction: will be similarly influential and impactful
• Fascinating historical comparison of the abhorred satanic cormorant and the saintlike, Christlike pelican will be of interest to anyone interested in ornithology
A powerful, passionately argued refutation of racism and prejudice conducted through the attractive prism of literary, animal, and environmental studies
• Shows how humanities study can have vital, practical value to the sciences
How does prejudice grow and mutate? What does intolerance, when transferred from human beings onto animals, do to those creatures? And what, in return, does it do to us? Cormorant is the gripping story of a ‘greedy’ bird hated across the world, the object of global conflict between the fishing industry on the one hand and environmental science on the other. Gordon McMullan’s book reveals that cormorants have been loathed for centuries, a detestation that has metamorphosed over time. Drawing on fields which include literature, art history and zoology, and ranging from America to China and from Britain to Peru, Cormorant explores racism, xenophobia and capitalism through the remarkable story of a bird. McMullan argues that if in the present we are to recognize prejudicial attitudes towards animals and our fellow human beings, then we need to look to the past to understand how those viewpoints have taken hold.
About the Author
Gordon McMullan is Professor of English at King’s College London. He has written about early modern drama, late-life creativity and cultures of commemoration and has edited plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He is a recipient of the Sam Wanamaker Award from Shakespeare’s Globe and is a Fellow of the English Association and of the Royal Society of Arts.
Advance Praise
'This is one of the most original, stylish and memorable works of cultural criticism I have read in a long time� McMullan’s sheer range of reference is stunningly impressive: he moves with ease and panache between the logo of Liverpool Football Club, the nineteenth-century Peruvian guano trade and Shakespeare� It is beautifully written, packed with startling research and full of jaw-dropping surprises�'
Sir Jonathan Bate, Regents Professor of Literature and Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities at Arizona State University and author of The Song of the Earth
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009726917
Hardback
£30 00 | $39 99 USD | $45 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Introduces a new concept and global phenomenon into the political vernacular
• Alters how we perceive and understand global migration in an era of democratic backsliding
• Provides global coverage, incorporating data from over 140 countries
Democratic Drain Global Migration and the Struggle for Democracy
Justin Gest
Democratic Drain links two of the most compelling topics of our time: immigration and democracy. With a blend of in-depth interviews and data analysis across 149 countries, Justin Gest explores how global migration filters people with liberal democratic values out of authoritarian spaces, enabling democratic backsliding around the world. At a global scale, the correlation between migratory choices and political values introduces a new reason why authoritarian countries may have struggled to democratize in the decades since the end of the Cold War – a period when flows of international migrants have grown so significantly, populism has spread, and authoritarians’ resolve has steadily hardened. At a time when the world is increasingly sorting into democratic and undemocratic spaces, Gest’s timely and innovative analysis raises important political and policy questions about how democracies might compensate for the inadvertent effects of global human mobility.
About the Author
Justin Gest is Professor of Policy and Government and Director of the Public Policy Program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He is the award-winning author of seven books and a regular commentator on immigration and the politics of demographic change.
Big Data, AI and the Challenge to Human Knowledge GRACE
The End of Understanding
The End of Understanding Big Data, AI and the Challenge to Human Knowledge
Grace Huckins
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
Paperback
c� £15�99 | c� $19�99 USD
c� $23�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Winner of the 2024/2025 Nine Dots Prize
• Explores how AI and big data are changing the fundamental objectives of science
Is data failing us? Nine Dots Prize winner Grace Huckins argues that the explosion of public, large-scale datasets and the rapid advancement of AI are precipitating a dramatic change in the way that science operates. Whereas scientists of previous generations needed to devise new laws, models, and mechanisms to make sense of the data they amassed, today's researchers can use cutting-edge AI systems to turn data into useful predictions—without gaining any understanding of where those data come from. It is now possible to ask whether science is primarily about developing new technologies and interventions or understanding the universe, two goals which until now were one and the same. Through interviews with physicists, chemists, and neuroscientists, Huckins explores how scientists are navigating this new reality. As AI tools continue to advance, Huckins argues, scientists—and society at large—may have to fight to keep human understanding at the core of the scientific project.
About the Author
Grace Huckins is a lecturer in the Civic, Liberal, and Global Education program at Stanford University and a science journalist. They earned their PhD in neuroscience and philosophy from Stanford, where they explored how computational models could help neuroscientists build explanations that are accessible to members of the general public. They also hold master’s degrees in neuroscience and gender studies, which they earned at the University of Oxford with the support of a Rhodes Scholarship. Their award-winning writing on AI, neuroscience, and health has appeared in numerous outlets, including WIRED, MIT Technology Review, Scientific American, and Slate.
UK publication March 2026
US publication March 2026
9781009559775
Hardback
£30�00
At a Glance
• Presents the long-term historical view of China from medieval times to the present
• Provides a nuanced analysis of both academic knowledge and popular perceptions of China
• Suggests ways of moving beyond polarizing views on China
The China Question Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear
Ho-fung Hung
For centuries, Western scholars portrayed China either as a land of superior morality, economy, and governance or as a formidable country of pagans posing a global threat to Western values. Idealized images of China were used to shame rulers for incompetence, while China was demonized as an external threat to exonerate ruling elites for domestic problems. In the twentieth century, the geopolitics of global capitalism enabled more reflexive perspectives on China, but the de-orientalization of knowledge is far from complete. In this thoughtful study, Ho-fung Hung shows how both Western elites and China’s authoritarian regime continue to promote many orientalist stereotypes to advance their economic interests and political projects. He argues for seeing macro-historical political-economic changes as related to changes in the relative dominance of different ideas and suggests how open debate can overcome the extremes of fantasy and fear.
About the Author
Ho-fung Hung is Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy in the Department of Sociology and Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
Advance Praise
‘The China Question belongs on the shelf with classics by Jonathan Spence and Harold Isaacs� Western views of China have oscillated between ‘Contempt and naïve idealization ’ Social science research has brought empirical data to our understanding of China, but Orientalism still exerts powerful sway over policy and academic discourse ’
David M. Lampton, author of Living U.S.-China Relations
‘The China Question provides a fascinating tour d’horizon of changing images of China, foreign and domestic, from medieval days to the present� Based on wide research and deep reflection, historical sociologist Ho-fung Hung has written an accessible and eye-opening account suitable for the general public and academic community alike ’
Elizabeth Perry, author of Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition
ASYA M. PERELTSVAIG
Secrets of a Uniquely Human Ability Language Rules!
Language Rules! Secrets of a Uniquely Human Ability
Asya M. Pereltsvaig
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
298 pages
9781009658287
Paperback
£22�00 | $29�99 USD | $33�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Familiarizes the reader with the key concepts and discoveries of linguistics as a science
• Provides examples of linguistics done as a science in action
• Introduces the linguistic theory step-by-step using ordinarylanguage explanations and examples throughout
What are the key design elements of human language? How does it work? What makes it different from how animals communicate and convey information? How did it evolve, biologically speaking? In what respects do animals fail to do what we humans do so effortlessly? Language is a uniquely human trait, but without a degree in linguistics, it is difficult to comprehend how it works. This fascinating book addresses these and related questions in a lively and engaging way, and demonstrates the ‘nuts and bolts’ of how language actually works. Readers are introduced to key discoveries in the study of language, such as Chomsky’s ideas about ‘language faculty’, and parallels are drawn with well-known issues in science, such as ‘flat earth’, the nature-nurture debate, and the teaching of language to apes. Language –something so universal to all human experience – is a fascinating cognitive system, and this book explains how, and why.
About the Author
Asya M. Pereltsvaig has taught linguistics at Yale and Stanford, and has been teaching in several lifelong education programs since 2010. Her most recent book, Languages of the World: An Introduction, 4th edition (2023) was also published by Cambridge University Press.
CRITICAL THINKING FOR THE MIND AND BRAIN
MELISSA MAFFEO
UK publication March 2026
US publication March 2026
9781009322379
Paperback
£23 00 | $30 00 USD | $34 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Combines folklore, psychological case studies, and historical context to explore reports of the supernatural
• Challenges assumptions and explores the method and limits of scientific explanation
• Connects various supernatural phenomena to well-established principles in psychology and neuroscience
Science of the Supernatural Critical Thinking for the Mind and Brain
Melissa Maffeo
How can science explain ghost sightings, psychic readings, or the feeling of presence in an empty room? This book explores eerie, unexplained experiences through the lens of neuroscience and psychology. With chapters on sleep paralysis, alien abductions, false memories, psychic readings, mystical experiences, and even zombies, it invites readers to examine how the brain generates strange sensations - and why we often interpret them as supernatural. Designed to spark curiosity and sharpen critical thinking, this book blends scientific insight with storytelling. It is perfect for students, educators, and curious readers alike. Whether you’re a skeptic, a believer, or somewhere in between, you’ll come away with a deeper understanding of how our brains shape belief.
About the Author
Melissa Maffeo is an Associate Teaching Professor at Wake Forest University, specializing in behavioral neuroscience. She co-founded the Neuroscience Teaching Conference and has received multiple awards for teaching innovation and excellence. Melissa earned her PhD in Neuroscience from Florida State University.
S. A. SMITH
Supernatural Politics
Mao Zedong and the Drive to Eliminate Religion in China, 1949–79
S. A. Smith
Mao Zedong and the Drive to Eliminate Religion in China, 1949–79
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
9781009600989 Hardback
At a Glance
• Examines popular responses to the revolution of 1949 through the lens of religious practices
• Demonstrates how the CCP used supernatural imagery to make policies meaningful to the people
• Utilises wide-ranging archival material to demonstrate the breadth of Mao-era policies toward religion
In this landmark contribution to the study of modern China, Steve Smith examines the paradox of ‘supernatural politics’. He shows that we cannot understand the meaning of the Communist revolution to the Han Chinese without exploring their belief in gods, ghosts and ancestors. China was a religious society when the Communist Party took power in 1949, and it sought to erode the influence of the minority religions of Buddhism, Daoism, Catholicism and Protestantism. However, it was the folk religion of the great majority that seemed to symbolize China’s backwardness. Smith explores the Party’s efforts to eliminate belief in supernatural entities and cosmic forces through propaganda campaigns and popularizing science. Yet he also shows how the Party engaged in ‘supernatural politics’ to expand its support, utilizing imagery, metaphors and values that resonated with folk religion and Confucianism. Folk religion is thus essential to understanding the transformative experience of revolution.
About the Author
Steve Smith is Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His last book, Russia in Revolution, won the BASEES Alec Nove Prize and the PEN HessellTiltman Prize.
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
9781009600934 Hardback
£35�00 | $ 44�99 USD | $51�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Analyses power relations between the Communist state and its people through the lens of folk religion
• Challenges stereotypes of uniformity to convey the complexities of life under the Mao regime
• Argues that the survival of folk religion can only be understood in the context of rapid state-led secularization
Communism in an Enchanted World
Chinese Folk Religion under Mao Zedong
S. A. Smith
Drawing together decades of research, Steve Smith explores the survival and adaptation of folk beliefs in Mao’s China in the face of seismic social change and growing political repression. Bringing an often-neglected aspect of modern Chinese history to the fore, he shows how folk religion maintained a vital presence in everyday life. In myriad ways, through Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, spirit mediums and spirit healing, divination, geomancy, and the reform of traditional marriage and funeral rites, rituals and beliefs provided resources for adaptation and resistance to the regime. This unique history gives readers a vivid sense of life under Mao Zedong as vibrant, contentious and resilient – a far cry from stereotypes of a secular, regimented and monochrome society.
About the Author
Steve Smith is Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His last book, Russia in Revolution, won the BASEES Alec Nove Prize and the PEN HessellTiltman Prize.
Advance Praise
‘Smith’s monumental synthesis, along with its companion volume, tells a story that was crying to be told for three generations: how the Chinese never ceased to be Chinese during the Mao era� They were religious – living by values and rituals, within a society including much more than just living humans – before Mao, and they are still today Now we read in gripping detail, told from the grassroots, how they continued to be so in spite of the best efforts of the Party’
Vincent Goossaert, author of Making the Gods Speak
‘A dazzlingly rich account of folk belief in the People’s Republic of China, which ranges virtuosically between comparative religion, social, cultural and political history, and granular archival detail Populated by deities, diviners, spirit mediums, healers, ghosts and demons, this book will transform our view of Mao-era China and its relationship with the grassroots ’
Julia Lovell, author of Maoism: A Global History
PHILLIP S. MEILINGER
The Air Corps and the Formation of US Airpower Building an Air Force
Building an Air Force
The Air Corps and the Formation of US Airpower
Phillip S. Meilinger
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
30 b/w illus� 9781009728416
Hardback At a Glance
• Explains how the force structure and procurement strategy of the Air Corps was determined before WWII
• Demonstrates the importance of new technologies and commercial aviation to the development of American air power
Dispels the notion that young air zealots pushed for bomber-heavy force structure, instead highlighting the influence of Army ground doctrine
Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, America did not want war, with the 1930s marked by strong isolationism and an emphasis on defense. However, in December 1941, it wasn’t defensive aircraft the Army Air Corps had been steadily procuring, but offensive long-range heavy bombers, whilst US pursuit planes were decidedly inferior to their European counterparts. In this new history of the development of American air power, Phillip Meilinger dispels the notion that young air zealots pushed for a bomber-heavy force, revealing instead the technological, economic and bureaucratic forces which shaped the air force. He examines the role of scientists and engineers, developments in commercial aviation, and conflicting priorities of the Army and Air Corps, as well as how these were in turn influenced by America’s political leaders. Building an Air Force is essential for understanding a conflict in which whoever controlled the skies controlled the land and seas beneath.
About the Author
Phillip S. Meilinger is a retired USAF colonel and independent scholar. He flew C-130s, was an action officer in the Pentagon, and taught at the Air Force Academy, Naval War College, and the School of Advanced Airpower Studies. He is the author of thirteen books including Thoughts on War (2020) and Avoiding Risk in America’s Wars (2017).
Advance Praise
‘Building an Air Force examines the complexities of early airpower doctrine, interservice politics, national economics, and rapidly evolving technology with concise clarity and a voice that only a writer with decades of experience can provide ’ Lt. Col. Dik Daso, author of Hap Arnold and the Evolution of American Airpower
‘Dr Phillip S Meilinger is a key voice in modern airpower theory, providing both historical context and forward-looking strategic insights that continue to influence military doctrine and education�’
Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman, USAF Chief of Staff, 1993-97
Paul Kléber Monod
Think of
England
Nation, People, and Race in the English Imagination
UK publication January 2026
US publication January 2026
9781009652292
Hardback
£35 00 | $45 00 USD | $51 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Offers a wide-ranging approach to ideas of English identity, covering more than 15 centuries and a diverse set of sources
Provides a longue durée view of the development of English national, ethnic, and racial ideas within the context of imperial expansion
• Raises important questions about the future of English national identity
Think of England Nation,
People, and Race in the English Imagination
Paul Kléber Monod
What is the basis of English national identity? How has this changed over time, and what is its future? Tracing the history of English identity over more than 2,000 years, Think of England explores how being English has been understood as belonging to a nation, a people, or a race. Paul Kléber Monod examines the ancient and medieval inventions of a British and ethnic Anglo-Saxon identity, before documenting the violent creation of an English ethnic state within Britain, and the later extension of that imperial power into the wider world. Monod analyses the persistence of a specifically English language of cultural identity after 1707 and the revival of English racial identity during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, highlighting the crucial role of imperial expansion and the recurring myth of “little England” pitted against larger enemies. Turning to the revival of English identity in the twenty-first century, this study raises probing questions about the resurgence and future of a divisive concept.
About the Author
Paul Kléber Monod is A. Barton Hepburn Professor Emeritus of History at Middlebury College. He is the author of Jacobitism and the English People, 1688–1788 (1989), The Power of Kings: Monarchy and Religion in Europe, 1589–1715 (1999), The Murder of Mr. Grebell (2003), and Solomon’s Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment (2013). He is co-editor, with Susan Amussen, of the forthcoming New Cambridge History of Britain Volume III.
Advance Praise
'There’ll always be an England, as the famous song says� But what, exactly, does being English mean? As Paul Monod shows in this elegant, beautifully written history, such questions have never been easy to answer — not by the ancient Britons, not by the Anglo-Saxons and their Norman conquerors, and certainly not today�'
Eliga Gould, author of Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire
'A fascinating and deeply researched study of what it meant to be English – or British (or not-British) – across two millennia of history� Elegantly written, erudite, and wide-ranging, it explores the changing construction of cultural, national and ethnic identities during times of peace and war and across empires� A must read�'
Tim Harris, Munro-Goodwin-Wilkinson Professor in European History, Brown University
'A sweeping and provocative overview of the historical peculiarities of the English and the English obsession with their own peculiarities, Monod’s sparkling study burnishes his reputation as a daring and original historian of early modern England and Europe�'
Kathleen Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor of History, Stony Brook University
Looks at W eather BENJAMIN HALE
A Philosopher Looks at Weather
Benjamin Hale
UK publication May 2026
US publication May 2026
250 pages
9781009402682
Paperback
£17 99 | $26 99 USD | $31 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Evergreen: the weather is a topic of perpetual fascination – this book explains why it exerts such a powerful hold over us
Urgent: in a context of extreme weather anxiety, the book explores the consequences of trying to control a phenomenon that remains mostly uncontrollable
• Illuminating: brings acute insights to bear on a topic whose philosophy is not self-evident, helping us to understand what the weather really means for us
From barometers to the famous BBC shipping forecast, we have – over the centuries – developed the means to predict, harness, and shield ourselves from what is happening in the atmosphere. Attitudes about the planet’s weather, as well as about human identity, have thereby taken on new meanings. In an era of climatic anxiety, what weather is and how weather behaves have taken on additional currency. Benjamin Hale weaves together philosophy and anecdote into a many-faceted exploration of this powerful force that shapes who we are and how we think about our place in the world. He argues that in our drive to ‘scientize’ weather, with all the technological advances in managing, anticipating, and understanding it, we also risk distancing ourselves from weather and losing a complete sense of what it is. This entertaining book reminds us that the weather is and always will be in some sense outside our control, and that consequently we are and forever will be learning to live alongside it.
About the Author
Benjamin Hale is Professor in the Departments of Environmental Studies and Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is author of The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature (2016), co-editor of the journal Ethics, Policy and Environment, and former President of the International Society for Environmental Ethics.
The Pre-History of the Abolition of the Death Penalty
Rethinking Capital Punishment The
Pre-History of the Abolition of the Death Penalty
Peter Garnsey
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
9781009760096 Hardback
£35 00 | $ 44 99 USD | $51 95 CAD
At a Glance
• The first comprehensive investigation of the origins of the arguments employed by the first abolitionists of the death penalty
Utilises a broadly chronological approach, showing how arguments for abolition developed over time and across a range of disciplines
• Tackles a subject of great contemporary relevance, interest and concern
The death penalty was accepted almost universally until the eighteenth century, when Giuseppe Pelli of Florence and Cesare Beccaria of Milan produced works calling for its abolition. Why was this form of punishment so integrated into laws and customary practices? And what is the prehistory of the arguments in favour of its abolition? This book is the first to trace the origins of these ideas, beginning with the Lex Talionis in the Code of Hammurabi and moving across the Bible, Plato, to the Renaissance, and the emergence of utilitarianism in the 18th century. It also explores how the advance of the abolition of the death penalty was held up for a time in Britain, and stalled, apparently permanently, in America. Peter Garnsey ranges across philosophy, theology, law, and politics to provide a balanced and accessible overview of the beliefs about crime and punishment that underlay the arguments of the first abolitionists. This study is a compelling and original contribution to the history of ideas about capital punishment.
About the Author
Peter Garnsey is Emeritus Professor of the History of Classical Antiquity at the University of Cambridge. He has published in many areas, including political and legal history and philosophy, famine, food and slavery. Recent publications include Thinking about Property: From Antiquity to the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, 2007), and Against the Death Penalty: Writings from the First Abolitionists – Giuseppe Pelli and Cesare Beccaria (2020).
Joep Leerssen
Charismatic Nations A Cultural History of Nationalism in Europe from 1800 to the Present
Joep Leerssen
Charismatic Nations
UK publication March 2026
US publication March 2026
400 pages
9781009667159
Hardback
At a Glance
• This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core
• Offers, with many telling examples from different art-forms and media, an interdisciplinary historical survey of cultural nationalism
• Enhances a comparative and transnational awareness of how nationalism migrates between different national communities and countries
• Presents how cultural nationalism interacts with social and political activism
At the core of nationalism, the nation has always been defined and celebrated as a fundamentally cultural community. This pioneering cultural history shows how artists and intellectuals since the days of Napoleon have celebrated and taken inspiration from an idealized nationality, and how this in turn has informed and influenced social and political nationalism. The book brings together tell-tale examples from across the entire European continent, from Dublin and Barcelona to Istanbul and Helsinki, and from cultural fields that include literature, painting, music, sports, world fairs and cinema as well as intellectual history. Charismatic Nations offers unique insights into how the unobtrusive soft power of nationally-inspired culture interacts with nationalism as a hard-edged political agenda. It demonstrates how, thanks to its pervasive cultural and ‘unpolitical’ presence, nationalism can shape-shift between romantic insurgency and nativist populism. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
About the Author
Joep Leerssen was educated in the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and Canada and held the chair of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam until 2022. His award-winning work on the comparative history of cultural nationalism (National Thought in Europe, the Encyclopaedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe) is widely authoritative.
Advance Praise
‘A crowning achievement Hardly anyone else would have the knowledge and the vision to grasp this immensity of phenomena, capture their complex interrelations, process them in a comparative fashion, and, most importantly, arrange them into a single, consecutive, coherent narrative For it is one of the greatest strengths of Charismatic Nations that it unfolds pleasantly and effortlessly while incorporating myriad aspects into a coherent landscape of intellectual and social endeavors [ ] Charismatic Nations is a real tour de force with scope and erudition that have few parallels today; it is also a joy to read�’
Sándor Hites, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Literary Studies of the HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities
PATRICK M c NAMARA
From Groups to Gods
Neuroscience and Evolution of the Collective Mind
From Groups to Gods Neuroscience and Evolution of the Collective Mind
Patrick McNamara
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
400 pages
9781009666183
Paperback
£32 00 | $ 45 00 USD | $57 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Presents evidence for how group mind phenomena shape our understanding of political and religious ideas, events and experiences
Offers in-depth coverage of evolutionary frameworks that predict group-level capacities and cognitions in the human lineage
• Integrates evolutionary, cognitive and neuroscience approaches to explore collective cognition and its connection to group mind phenomena
Explore the ‘group mind’ phenomenon and uncover its influences on religious and political experiences. This book investigates the idea that human groups, under certain conditions, can develop distinct personalities and possess “minds” characterized by quasi-rational decision-making processes, emotions, intentional states, and actions in the world. Utilising expert research, Patrick McNamara applies the explosion of findings in collective cognition to topics in evolutionary psychology, social science, and religion to demonstrate the associations between group minds and supernatural agents. The chapters examine the relationship between religious group minds and individual psychology from multiple perspectives, including identity dynamics, intergroup relations, group theory of mind, and the neuroscience of ingroup monitoring. The book also addresses how religious groups evolve, maintain cohesion, and shape individual brains, offering a novel framework for understanding how collective minds emerge and operate. It is an essential resource for those interested in the psychology of religion, philosophy, and religious studies.
About the Author
Patrick McNamara is Professor of Psychology at the National University, USA, and Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University, USA. He has authored and edited several texts in neuropsychology, neuroscience of religious cognition, sleep medicine and evolutionary psychology, including the Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience (2022) and Neuroscience of Sleep and Dreams (2023), both now in their second editions. Patrick is a recipient of a Templeton Foundation award, a Merit Review Award in the Veterans Administration system, and several NIH grants.
THE DUM-DUM BULLET
MAARTJE
ABBENHUIS A LETHAL HISTORY, 1850–1950
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
9781009712910
Hardback
At a Glance
• Provides a history of the uses and abuses of small arms in the industrial period, 1850-1950
• Connects the history of guns to bullet design and their impact on how people understand gun violence
• Situates weapons regulation within the history of public diplomacy and international relations
The Dum-Dum Bullet
A Lethal History, 1850–1950
Maartje Abbenhuis
In this innovative and accessible history of small arms and gun violence, Maartje Abbenhuis reveals how the invention of ready-to-use rifle cartridges in the industrial era revolutionised gun violence on and off the battlefield and made death accessible to all. The most famous of these expanding bullets, which flooded the market from the 1850s onward, was the dum-dum bullet. This bullet fundamentally altered perceptions of who might use a gun and when. The book examines why, of all military inventions, this bullet was regulated by international law, and traces the changing landscape of public responses to their use and abuse through the many wars and instances of state violence during the first half of the twentieth century. It shows that the legal framing of these ‘barbarous’ ammunitions helped to entrench public expectations around their unacceptability, yet also hid a world of actual violence that employed these same technologies repeatedly.
About the Author
Maartje Abbenhuis is Professor in Modern History in the School of Humanities at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland. She is the author of several critically acclaimed books and co-author of Global War, Global Catastrophe, which won the 2022 Tomlinson Prize.
Advance Praise
‘Maartje Abbenhuis has written a jaw-dropping history of a bullet that changed the way we think about lethal violence, both on and off the battlefield� It asks us to reflect on transgression and technology, international norms and laws, and what it means to kill and be killed�’
Joanna Bourke, author of Wounding the World
‘This is a fascinating story of transgression and technology Recounting the social processes through which weapons shift from the mundane to the taboo, Abbenhuis offers a comprehensive history of the dum-dum bullet� This is a sophisticated cultural analysis of a simple and mundane socio-technical system� With so little academic attention paid to the evolution of ammunition, it is a reminder to scholars that what is overlooked often has a rich and worldchanging story Heartily recommended ’
Matthew Ford, author of Weapon of Choice
PHILIPPE BORGEAUD, GUY STROUMSA AND AARON KACHUCK
What is Religion?
What is Religion? European Thought from Antiquity to the Present
Philippe Borgeaud, Translated by Guy Stroumsa and
Aaron Kachuk
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
9781009220347 Hardback
At a Glance
• First translation into English of a groundbreaking book which offers a bold new perspective on the meaning of ‘religion’ and ‘religions’
Strikingly shows how European reflections on religion have been deeply grounded in stories and ideas from the ancient past
• Proposes ways in which those brought up in European cultures can free themselves from this legacy and think about other religions in different and more productive ways
How should we explain differences in religious belief and practice? Philippe Borgeaud’s ambitious intellectual history tells the story of how reflection on religious phenomena emerged, throughout the centuries, in European consciousness and scholarship. Christianity in particular, as Borgeaud shows, long wrestled with how to understand polytheistic cultures versus its own belief in a single omnipotent God. The Church Fathers, the author argues, sought to inherit the core of Graeco-Roman culture while rejecting its deities and religious practices; and patristic ideas were later adopted when Europeans travelling and colonising the world encountered ever more varied polytheistic traditions. At times detached, at times enchanted, these travellers’ reflections provided the basis for the modern study of ‘religions’, and have since conditioned the mindset of anyone brought up in a European culture. The book concludes by arguing for the importance of liberation from these assumptions and instead considering religion as a form of ‘play’.
About the Author
Philippe Borgeaud was, until his retirement, Professor of the History of Ancient Religions at the University of Geneva where he is now an Honorary Professor in the Department of the Sciences of Antiquity. He is one of the world’s leading scholars of the history of religion, originating in his study of ancient Greece. His books include The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece (1988) and Mother of the Gods (2004).
MICHAEL FORAN
Sex, Gender Identity and the Law
UK publication July 2026
US publication July 2026
9781009646291
Paperback
c� £23�99 | c� $33�99 USD
c� $38�99 CAD
At a Glance
• Provides a comprehensive overview of the development of the law on sex and gender identity over the last century
• Offers a fully up-to-date analysis of the law following a major supreme court case which has significant implications across multiple areas of law
• Examines the practical application of equality and human rights law in areas of significant public debate including single-sex spaces, sport, and preferred pronouns
Sex, Gender Identity and the Law
Michael Foran
Over the last century, UK law has moved from endorsing, and in some cases mandating, unjust sex discrimination to a robust framework of distinct protections for women and girls. At the same time, our law has extended anti-discrimination protections to people who undergo gender reassignment, culminating in a system where individuals can change their legally recognised sex for some purposes. Sometimes the interests of these two groups conflict, most notably where the law must differentiate based on biological sex in contexts where those with transgender identities wish to be classed by reference to gender identity instead. For a time, there was uncertainty over the precise interaction between these competing interests within equality law. In 2025 this was resolved in a landmark case brought by the feminist organisation For Women Scotland. This book traces the history of how sex changed within our law and what that means for ongoing controversies over single-sex spaces, freedom of belief, freedom of expression, privacy, sport, and sexual intimacy.
About the Author
Michael Foran is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. His work was cited by the UK Supreme Court in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers, which clarified the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010. Previous work of his informed the UK government veto of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill due to the adverse effect that self-identification of sex would have on the operation of the Equality Act 2010. His first book, Equality Before the Law: Equal Dignity, Wrongful Discrimination and the Rule of Law (2023) was based on his PhD thesis, which won the Yorke Prize from the University of Cambridge.
WILLIAM MULLIGAN
The Fraying Bonds of Peace
The Fraying Bonds of Peace Economic Origins of the First World War
William Mulligan
UK publication June 2026
US publication June 2026
9781009602341
Hardback
At a Glance
• Reveals how economic interdependence transformed European power politics before 1914.
• Analyses the militarisation of interdependence to explain how major war became more likely from 1911.
Sheds new light on the relationship between interdependence and power politics.
What is the relationship between economic interdependence, war, and peace? William Mulligan addresses this key question in a major new account of international economic relations and the origins of the First World War. He shows how economic interdependence reshaped power politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, channelling rivalries into trading and financial relations and constraining states from going to war. However, this reshaping of power relations created new asymmetries of power with winners and losers. And as the losers turned towards the use of military force to compensate for their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, they altered the logic of economic interdependence, which now came to serve the militarisation of European politics, rather than act as a constraint on war. This shift in the logic of economic interdependence was a key pre-condition for the outbreak of war in 1914.
About the Author
William Mulligan is a Professor of History at University College Dublin. He has written widely on international history, including The Origins of the First World War (2010) and The Great War for Peace (2017).
Advance Praise
‘William Mulligan has already established himself as one of the leading European historians of his generation and in The Fraying Bonds of Peace, he tells the story of Europe’s descent into war in a way that has great if frightening resonance for the world today. As Mulligan details brilliantly, the international system that first kept the peace, began to fray badly from 1911 as states that felt they were being left behind increasingly saw the military option as credible. As such, in a very short time, the interconnected economic relations that had kept Europe peaceful, turned into a catalyst for war.’
Phillips O’Brien, author of War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
272 pages
9781009692779 Hardback
£30 00 | $39 99 USD | $ 45 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Reveals the long and ignored history of essential workers in an early modern metropolis
• Includes maps, paintings, and objects to help readers visualize and imagine people’s lived experiences
• Reveals stories that explain change over time from the perspective of ordinary working people
American Metropolis The Making of Mexico City
Tatiana Seijas
Mexico City was America’s largest city in the seventeenth century – a genuine metropolis. In this deeply researched book, Tatiana Seijas reveals a rich tapestry of stories about essential workers who remade and transformed the city during this period. Her narrative style carries readers to a unique place and time with residents from around the world who sold food, facilitated transportation, provided care, and valued the city’s silver. Free and enslaved people from Africa and Asia, immigrants, and Native Americans pursued opportunities in a wealthy, yet deeply unequal environment, where working people claimed parts of the city for themselves. They carved out spaces to create new businesses and protect their livelihoods, altering the cityscape itself in the process. American Metropolis brings Mexico City to life from the perspective of the working people who transformed this early modern metropolis.
About the Author
Tatiana Seijas is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University. She is the author of Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico: From Chinos to Indians and co-editor of As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas.
TATIANA SEIJAS
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9780521811453
Hardback
£35 00 | $45 00 USD | $51 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Provides a comprehensive history of Europe in the early 20th century, integrating previously marginalized countries and distinguishing major cross-country patterns
• Incorporates macrohistory and microhistory, uniting large-scale events with individual lived experiences
• Presents Europe from the vantagepoint of the early-21st century, in the light of contemporary understandings of Europe’s place within a broader global context
The Modernist Wish A History of Europe, 1914-1939
Geoff Eley
As the 20th century recedes, how should its history be written? The 1920s and 1930s were a time of paradox, of great conflict and contradiction. If those years were the crucible of a new metropolitan modernity and its possibilities, what were the forward-moving forces and ideas? What were their effects and where did they lead? The Modernist Wish provides a comprehensive, non-hierarchical and integrated history of Europe’s early 20th century across the whole of the continent. Uniting social, cultural-intellectual, and political history alongside military-strategic and geopolitical dimensions, Geoff Eley examines the distinctiveness of early-20th century modernity. He draws out the exceptional character of the interwar years and their longer-run social and political fallout, based in the excitements of metropolitan living, the progressive achievements of an industrialized machine world, and the material possibilities for fashioning new forms of selfhood. In presenting a truly European history for our time, this study encompasses both the grand narratives of large-scale transformations, and the everyday realities of individual lived experiences.
About the Author
Geoff Eley is Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History Emeritus at the University of Michigan. His specialisms include modern European history; nationalism and fascism; the European Left; historiography; and social and cultural theory. Previous publications include Reshaping the German Right (1980); Forging Democracy (2002); A Crooked Line (2005); Nazism as Fascism (2013); and History Made Conscious (2023).
Advance Praise
'A sweeping, bold new interpretation of Europe’s history between two world wars: among all the dark foreboding and waking dread that undoubtedly stalked the continent, Eley finds strands of optimism and worlds of possibilities, temporary glimpses of hope that would resurface after 1945 and shape the world to come� Written in clear, beautiful prose, a landmark achievement�' Vanessa Ogle, author of The Global Transformation of Time: 1870–1950
'A master social historian drops us into the scrum of politics, aesthetics and everyday life between Europe’s two world wars� As alive to the era’s victories as its violence, Geoff Eley reminds us that the future is never set�'
Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism
UK publication March 2026
US publication March 2026
9781009680677
Hardback
At a Glance
• Provides more data, detail and factdriven information than typical books on this and related topics
• Offers a timely examination as the Chinese economy may be on a brink of some major developments
• Written in a style accessible to an educated general public
Statism with Chinese Characteristics
A History of China’s Reforms and Reversals
Yasheng Huang
Statism with Chinese Characteristics offers a fresh perspective on the Chinese economy and its impact on the world. By diving into details and data such as the private nature of rural enterprises, early financial reforms, and the critical role of initial political openness, Yasheng Huang challenges the popular view that credits China’s success to a unique blend of government interventions and autocratic governance. Huang shows how China’s growth was driven by private entrepreneurship and gradual liberalization, not by infrastructural development, statist finance, and meritocratic autocracy. He confronts assumptions regarding the conventional wisdom about the Chinese economy, explicitly engaging with the policy pivot from the 1980s to the 1990s and infrastructure as a crucial factor behind China’s growth. Underscoring the significant role of politics in shaping economic outcomes, this second edition explores the challenges facing the Chinese economy today, emphasizing how political changes dictate economic reforms, rather than the opposite.
About the Author
Yasheng Huang is the Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is the author of 12 books in Chinese and English, two of which have been selected as a Best Book of the Year, Foreign Affairs in 2023 and Economist in 2008. He is the recipient of the Sloan Foundation Grant, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, SSRC-MacArthur Fellowship, US Institute of Peace Grant, and the Hoover Fellowship.
Advance Praise
‘Huang powerfully argues that much of what we are told about Chinese economic growth is wrong The origins of the tremendous success lie not in government-directed industrial investments, but in rural reforms It wasn’t topdown expert policymaking from the Chinese Communist Party, but bottom-up initiatives that elites allowed (or couldn’t stop) that were most important� And the future isn’t as bright as scores of China enthusiasts are claiming, despite huge investments in AI� This is a must-read book for everybody interested in China and the global economy, and it will be challenging to many’
Daron Acemuoglu, Institute Professor at MIT and the 2024 Nobel Laureate in Economics
‘Yasheng Huang reframes how we should think about China’s development, showing how political liberalization in the 1980s fostered a broader, more durable form of economic growth than the brittle statist and mercantilist system that has come to the fore in the last generation His insights should inform how the world understands China’s political and economic system today’
Marcus Brauchli, managing partner of North Base Media and the former Editor-in-Chief of The Wall Street Journal
A Safe Climate in Good Faith
Julian Allwood and Andrew Davison
UK publication January 2026
US publication January 2026
9781009563994
Paperback
£19 99 | $25 99 USD | $29 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Provides a grounded description of what climate action involves in the timescales required, written by a world expert from an engineering perspective
• Connects the options to make the climate safe to our values
Cuts through the pretence that climate action will be profitable, and by setting it in the context of what is most important to us, finds previously unnoticed benefits
Promise the Earth A Safe Climate in Good Faith
Julian Allwood and Andrew Davison
Politicians and business leaders tell us that climate change can be solved with new technologies, but global emissions keep rising. Engineers show us technological options that could be deployed quickly, but there is no plan there to save us. We can no longer wait for solutions to climate change. To reduce our emissions quickly, we need to cut back on some aspects of modern life through inventive tweaks – and via restraint. Restraint is normal. It is also fundamental across all religious faiths. In this volume, Julian Allwood, an engineer, and Andrew Davison, a theologian, offer a fresh perspective and prescription for combatting climate change. Rather than starting from the vantage points of economics and politics, they rethink climate action in the long tradition of the virtues – Courage, Justice, Prudence, and Temperance -along with Faith, Hope, and Love from the Bible. By acting in good faith now, a safe climate becomes an expression of our faith in and love for humanity.
About the Authors
Julian Allwood is Professor of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Sustainable Materials: with Both Eyes Open (2011) which established Material Efficiency as an essential component of climate action. A Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Allwood has been a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and contributes to corporate and government strategies on climate mitigation.
Andrew Davison holds the prestigious Regius Professorship of Divinity at the University of Oxford. Trained in both the natural sciences and theology, he is the author of Participation in God (2020) and Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine (2023). He is the founder of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at the University of Cambridge.
Advance Praise
‘Restraint’ and ‘virtue’ are not terms used often in the climate debate, but as this fine book makes clear, they should be� We need wisdom of all kinds, technical and moral, if we’re going to have a chance�'
Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
9781009648332
Hardback
c £30 00 | $39 99 USD | $45 95 CAD
At a Glance
• The first sustained history of homoeroticism and homophobia in medieval Orthodox Christianity
• Innovatively places medieval Eastern Christian monasticism and monastic spirituality within the history of sexuality, rather than outside it
Strong appeal to readers in church history, Byzantine studies, medieval studies, and gender and cultural history
Monastic Desires
Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and the Love of God in
Medieval Constantinople
Derek Krueger
The Byzantine abbot Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) transgressed the homophobic norms of medieval Orthodox society. His longing for God was distinctly homoerotic, and he depicted union with the divine as a queer sort of marriage. His Orthodox theology of theosis, the deification of the entire person, meant that Symeon taught the salvation of all the parts of the body. But monks also desired the eradication of lust and the punishment of those who fell prey to it. Sermons and biblical commentary defined men who had sex with men as sodomites; and saints’ lives warned of the consequences of same-sex desires. Those who renounced sex redirected their desire rather than eliminating it. Symeon’s queer erotics shed light on other devotions distinctive to medieval Orthodoxy, including the veneration of saints and worship with icons. Monastic Desires makes a groundbreaking contribution to the history of sexuality and the history of Christianity.
About the Author
Derek Krueger is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a preeminent scholar of Byzantine Christianity. His books include Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium (2014) and Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East (2004).
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009633314
Hardback
£30 00 | $40 00 USD | $45 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Provides a new interpretation of the Sino-Nor th Korean relationship as pivotal to socialist nation building
• Utilises previously unknown Chinese and North Korean source material
• Integrates the history of emotions with diplomatic and political history
Cold War Comrades
An Emotional History of the Sino-North
Korean Alliance
Gregg A. Brazinsky
In this major new interpretation of Sino-North Korean relations, Gregg A. Brazinsky argues that neither the PRC nor the DPRK would have survived as socialist states without the ideal of Sino-North Korean friendship. Chinese and North Korean leaders encouraged mutual empathy and sentimental attachments between their citizens and then used these emotions to strengthen popular commitment to socialist state building. Drawing on an array of previously unexamined Chinese and North Korean sources, Brazinsky shows how mutual empathy helped to shape political, military, and cultural interactions between the two socialist allies. He explains why the unique relationship that Beijing and Pyongyang forged during the Korean War remained important throughout the Cold War and how it continues to influence the international relations of East Asia today.
About the Author
Gregg A. Brazinsky is Professor of History and International Affairs at The George Washington University and the author or editor of three previous books about China and Korea.
Advance Praise
‘Cold War Comrades is a refreshing study of the Sino-North Korean relationship seen through the lens of a convoluted friendship� By guiding the readers through the front and back stages of the Cold War, Brazinsky shows us how building emotional narratives around friends and foes served state-building projects in ways much more significant than we realize ’
Suk-Young Kim, author of Millennial North Korea
‘Cold War Comrades shows how the existential threat of war was met with not only resistance but also affect—love for one’s own nation and for the neighbor�
The affect instilled between China and North Korea in what Brazinsky calls the emotional regime during the Korean War continues to resonate in the world today as we witness that statecraft and raw sentiments are inseparable ’
Sonia Ryang, author of Language and Truth in North Korea
‘Despite all the disputes, contradictions and tensions that have shaped SinoKorean relations, why have both countries so consistently spoken of their shared blood, mutual struggles, and common family ties? In answering this question, Cold War Comrades brilliantly shows how emotion and culture deeply shaped politics in the socialist world Brazinsky’s research in multi-national archives pushes understanding of Sino-Korean alliance in new directions that scholars do not dare ignore�’
Andre Schmid, author of North Korea’s Mundane Revolution
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
25 b/w illus� 5 maps 9781009652445
£35�00
Hardback At a Glance
• Addresses the comparative lack of scholarship on Red Army discipline relative to that on the Wehrmacht
• Utilises archival sources from Russia, Ukraine, and Serbia, and on personal sources from these countries as well as from Romania, Hungary, and Austria
• Demonstrates how local environments shaped Red Army command policy and troop conduct
Violence and Occupation
The Red Army in the Balkans and Central Europe, 1944–1945
Vojin Majstorović
This ground-breaking history traces the Red Army’s advances across Central Europe and the Balkans in 1944-1945. It focuses on the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts, which occupied Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Austria. Utilizing material from archives across Russia, Ukraine and Serbia, alongside diaries, memoirs, and interviews, Vojin Majstorivić examines the official policies and troops’ behaviour in each country and uncovers a litany of military violations, from deserting and looting to widespread sexual violence. His findings show that the Red Army was an ill-disciplined force, but that military personnel committed fewer crimes against civilians in ‘neutral Bulgaria’ and ‘friendly’ Yugoslavia than in “enemy” Romania, Hungary, and Austria. To explain the variation in troops’ conduct, he stresses the interaction of several continuously evolving factors: Kremlin’s policies, the severity of the fighting, the command’s policies towards criminals, the official propaganda, and troops’ martial masculinity, identity, and views of the local populations.
About the Author
Vojin Majstorović is a military historian at the University of North Texas. He examines the Red Army from the standpoint of frontline soldiers, military commanders in the field, the high command, and armies and civilians who encountered the Red Army.
Advance Praise
‘This important book offers a fresh and much-needed perspective on the intertwined histories of sexual violence, war crimes, military law and discipline in the Red Army With its ambitious geographic scope and rich source base— including largely untapped NKVD records—Violence and Occupation will be required reading for historians of the Second World War ’
Ruth Lawlor, co-editor of The Greater Second World War
‘Violence and Occupation: The Red Army in the Balkans and Central Europe, 1944-1945’ is a tour de force, the foremost book on the Red Army’s move into the Balkans in 1944-1945 Moreover, Majstorovic’s comparative approach offers radical new insights into the sexual violence wrought by Soviet troops
Matthew Lenoe, author of The Kirov Murder and Soviet History
‘While the actions of the Red Army entering Nazi Germany are well-known, Majstorovic’s masterful account of rapacity, indiscipline, and violence in the Soviet march through Eastern Europe brilliantly fills a glaring gap in the scholarship
A deeply researched and sophisticated analysis of the devastating effects of occupation on Hitler’s erstwhile allies ’
Edward B. Westermann, author of Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany
UK publication July 2026
US publication July 2026
9781009609982
Hardback
£35�00 | $44�99 USD | $51�95 CAD
At a Glance
• This first comprehensive study of religion in the British Army since 1950 illustrates the distinctive culture of the British Army in comparison with civilian society
• Draws on a wide range of archival materials, memoirs and interviews to achieve a fuller understanding of the role of religion in British society and Britain’s national institutions
Focusses not only on Christianity but also on Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, and Buddhism
Embattled Belief Religion and the British Army from Korea to Afghanistan
Michael Snape
This book examines the neglected role of religion in the British Army in an era of rapid and far-reaching change. Covering the Cold War, the end of empire, seismic shifts in Britain’s cultural and religious landscape, and the dramatic shrinkage of the armed forces, Michael Snape reveals religion’s abiding importance at an institutional, individual, and operational level. He explores the religious contexts of the Army’s warfighting, counterinsurgency, and peacekeeping operations including the Korean, Falklands, and Gulf Wars; the ‘Emergencies’ in Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus; the Northern Ireland conflict; UN and NATO operations in the Balkans; and Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. He also charts the religious responses of British soldiers to allies, adversaries, and civilian populations. This is a unique and significant contribution to our understanding of the secularisation of British society, the social and cultural history of the British Army, and religion and war in the contemporary world.
About the Author
Michael Snape FBA is Michael Ramsey Professor of Anglican Studies at Durham University. This is the third in a trilogy of titles on the history of religion in the British Army, following The Redcoat and Religion (2005) and God and the British Soldier (2005).
Advance Praise
‘To say that British society, the British army and British religion have changed radically since the 1950s is a commonplace� Less well-known are the subtle, continuing and at times unexpected connections between them – this is a fascinating story expertly told in these pages ’
Grace Davie, author of Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox ‘Embattled Belief is Michael Snape’s most important, most impressive work yet This breathtaking history of religion in the British Army from the 1950s to the 2020s will be required reading among religious and military historians alike��’
Jonathan Ebel, author of G.I. Messiahs: Soldiering, War, and American Civil Religion
ARI Z. BRYEN
The Judgment of the Provinces
The Roman Empire and the Origins of Law and Society
The Judgment of the Provinces
The Roman Empire and the Origins of
Law and
Society
Ari Z. Bryen
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
392 pages
9781009730372
Hardback
£30�00 | $44�99 USD | $51�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Brings together fresh and wideranging evidence, across different media and languages, to account for the full experience of Roman governance
• Shows readers how elite and nonelite perspectives interacted and challenged one another, and how those debates impacted governance
• Provides a genealogy of the law/ society distinction, arguing that it emerged as a response to governing a diverse empire
Roman law is justly famous, but what was its relationship to governing an empire? In this book, Ari Z. Bryen argues that law, as the learned practice that we know today, emerged from the challenge of governing a diverse and fractious set of imperial subjects. Through analysis of these subjects’ political and legal ideologies, Bryen reveals how law became the central topic of political contest in the Roman Empire. Law offered a means of testing legitimacy and evaluating government, as well as a language for asking fundamental political questions. But these political claims did not go unchallenged. Elites resisted them, and jurists, in collaboration with emperors, reimagined law as a system that excluded the voices of the governed. The result was to separate, for the first time, ‘law’ from ‘society’ more broadly, and to define law as a primarily literate and learned practice, rather than the stuff of everyday life.
About the Author
Ari Z. Bryen is Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Department of Classical and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation (2013).
KAREN STOLLZNOW
How We Learn, Use, and Lose Language Beyond Words
Beyond Words How We Learn, Use, and Lose Language
Karen Stollznow
UK publication May 2026
US publication May 2026
9781009587433
Paperback
£22�99 | $29�99 USD | $33�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Provides the answers to all the big questions you never knew you had about how we learn, use, and lose language
Introduces the fascinating field of psycholinguistics in an easy-to-read and accessible style�
Showcases both classic and cuttingedge research in the field, as well as popular research and examples from pop culture
What is language, really? Where did it come from, and how did we figure it out? How do babies go from babbling to full sentences? Why can some people juggle multiple languages, while others wrestle with one? How does language work, and what happens when it doesn’t? With sharp insight and a sense of humor, Stollznow dives into the strange and endlessly fascinating world of language and the mind. From animal communication to AI, wild children to word slips, and first words to last, this book takes you deep into the science of psycholinguistics, where nothing is ever simple, and everything speaks volumes. Packed with pop culture, real-life cases, and eye-opening experiments, Beyond Words reveals how we learn, use, and lose language, and what it all says about being human. If you’ve ever fumbled for a word or feared forgetting your own name, this thoughtful, surprising book is for you.
About the Author
Karen Stollznow is a linguist, researcher, and podcaster. She’s the author of Bitch: The Journey of a Word; On the Offensive; Missed Conceptions; and Language Myths, Mysteries, and Magic. Karen is a Host of Monster Talk and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Swedish Safety Matches, Intellectual Property Law, Innovation and Influence
UK publication July 2026
US publication July 2026
9781009721059
Hardback
At a Glance
• Richly illustrated with matchbox labels that have been lavishly reproduced and sourced from archives all over Sweden
Provides a history of intellectual property law in Sweden and uses the Swedish Match as a case study to tell this history
• Offers an accessible illustrated history of Swedish safety matches, intellectual property law, innovation and influence that will appeal to a broad audience
Strike! Swedish Safety Matches, Intellectual Property
Law, Innovation and Influence
Amanda Scardamaglia
Invented in Sweden in 1844, the safety match illuminated the lives of people around the world. The labels adorning these matchboxes were equally illuminating. There was a time when matchboxes were ubiquitous, carried in the pockets of people around the world. For this reason, the humble matchbox was embraced as a vehicle for influence.
As the home of the safety match, Swedish matchbox labels became a valuable commodity in and of themselves. Swedish match factories were not just selling safety matches. They were selling a message to the people of Sweden and around the world.
Strike! brings this forgotten world to life, showcasing hundreds of full colour Swedish matchbox labels. It also serves as a reminder of intellectual property law’s pervasive historical influence, deeply interwoven into all facets of our lives.
About the Author
Amanda Scardamaglia is Professor of law at Swinburne University of Technology and an award-winning author. She writes and researches in intellectual property law, with a special focus on empirical and historical studies of trade mark law, branding, and advertising.
‘ALAMGIR and the Mughal Empire
A History Retold
Munis D. FARUQUI
UK publication July 2026
US publication July 2026
9781009683371
Hardback
At a Glance
• Draws on a large multi-lingual archive including Persian collections of reports from the Mughal court
• Introduces the role of the imperial eunuchate and harem, presenting a fresh perspective on gender and power in Mughal India�
Rewrites Emperor ‘Alamgir’s place in Mughal history and beyond
Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir and the Mughal Empire A
History Retold Munis D. Faruqui
Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir (r. 1658-1707) was the last of the so-called “great” Mughal emperors. He remains a controversial historical figure: castigated for religious intolerance and placed at the centre of a narrative of Mughal decline by some; considered a great Muslim hero by others. In this richly researched exploration of Aurangzeb Alamgir’s life and times, Munis D. Faruqui contests such simplistic understandings to unearth a more nuanced picture of the emperor and his reign. Drawing on a large and varied archive, Faruqui provides new insights into the emperor’s rise to power, his administrative and religious policies, and the role of the imperial eunuchate and harem. By unpicking the complex dynamics of a long reign, from Aurangzeb Alamgir’s accession to the last weeks of his life and his eighteenth-century memorialisation, this remarkable new history cuts through the many myths that have obscured the extraordinary life-story of Emperor Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir.
About the Author
Munis D. Faruqui is Professor of South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1504-1719 (2012).
Advance Praise
‘Faruqui offers a deep-dive into the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir, one of India’s most influential and debated kings, based on impeccable archival work� His book is essential reading for anyone interested in how political power was cultivated and lost in early modern India ’
Audrey Truschke, author of India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent ‘Faruqui’s book engagingly advances an insightful and persuasive new interpretation of the life and career of Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir, the highly controversial, final “great” Mughal Emperor� Based on unique archival research, Faruqui’s work will transform scholarly and popular understanding of this entire era and its subsequent historiography’
Michael H. Fisher, author of A Short History of the Mughal Empire
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009426800
Hardback
£35�00 | $ 44�99 USD | $51�95 CAD
At a Glance
• A vividly told exploration of the cultural significance of Syrian and Mediterranean commodities in medieval England which will make a significant impact in medieval studies
• Will be of particular interest to readers of medieval literature, especially those working on Chaucer, late medieval romance, pilgrim narratives, Sir John Mandeville, mysticism, queer medievalism, Jewish history, and alchemy
• By innovatively exploring themes of trade, travel, and premodern racialisation across a range of literary, visual, and material sources and through the lens of contemporary conceptual art, the book will also appeal to cultural theorists, art historians, historians of material culture and science, as well as readers of travel literature
• Opens up impor tant and previously inaccessible materials to readers unfamiliar with Middle English, Latin, and Arabic
The Desire for Syria in Medieval England
E. K. Myerson
In June 1458, two boats were cornered by pirates off the coast of Malta. Their captain – Robert Sturmy – proved no match for the notorious Genoese freebooter Giuliano Gattilusio and was summarily killed by him. The precious cargo for which Sturmy paid with his life contained stealable goods but also cultural significance. Sweet wines, spices, silks, jewels, and minerals – these alluring commodities gripped the medieval English imagination. E. K. Myerson utilises this dramatic incident of Mediterranean plunder to reveal the impact of Syrian imports on medieval art, language, and everyday life. They argue that the cultural category of ‘Syriana’ became a powerful tool, used to evoke both the sacred sites of the Holy Land and the global marketplaces of the Mamluk Empire. Myerson’s innovative book draws on their research into medieval archives, conceptual art, and postcolonial and queer theory, showing how medieval ‘Syriana’ transformed English society in ways which continue to resonate today.
About the Author
E. K. Myerson is an artist, writer, and curator, currently studying at the Royal College of Art. Their academic and creative writing has appeared in publications including GLQ, The TLS, Wasafiri Magazine, New Medieval Literatures, postmedieval, and Wellcome Collection Stories. They were a Genesis Jewish Book Week Emerging Writer in 2021–2. They received their PhD in medieval literature from Birkbeck College in 2022, and have held postdoctoral fellowships at the Wellcome Trust / ISSF Fund, the Parker Library, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Their essay-film ‘submerged reliquary of a Kentish saint’, made with artist Sophie Mei Birkin at the Jarman Lab, was screened at the Birkbeck Institute of the Moving Image in 2022 and 2023.
Advance Praise
‘The Desire for Syria in Medieval England is an eloquent and original study of the internationalism of medieval Europe and the Near East� E� K� Myerson shows how the global marketplace of the later Middle Ages influenced English culture, as commerce and commodification went hand in hand with an ambivalent desire for the East The Desire for Syria in Medieval England helps us to see the intersections of longing and power in a timely account of how medieval culture understood the wider world ’
Anthony Bale, Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English, University of Cambridge
‘A rich and timely book that explores the deep connections between European markets and the products of the Holy Land The story of a shipwreck is the starting point for a fascinating analysis of medieval texts, from poetry to pilgrimage accounts� Myerson has a wonderful eye for detail and brings the objects and fantasies of the fifteenth century into sharp – and thoughtprovoking – focus�’
Marion Turner, J� R� R� Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language, University of Oxford
Christopher S. Celenza
The Evolution of WESTERN THOUGHT
A New History, from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009699174
Hardback
c� £30�00 | c� $39�99 USD
c� $45�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Cristopher Celenza is one of the preeminent historians of the Renaissance and of the intellectual trajectory of the West
An ambitious and expansive new history of Western thought by a modern master
Rather than treating religion and philosophy as strictly separate domains, it uniquely puts Christianity and religious tradition at the centre of the development of Western thought
Unlike many intellectual histories that focus primarily on abstract argumentation and systematic thought, this book emphasizes philosophy as a lived practice—one that shaped ethics, communities, and personal identity over time”
The Evolution of Western Thought A New History, from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era
Christopher S. Celenza
A rich and immersive reinterpretation of the entire history of Western thought, this volume – the first in a major trilogy – explores the transmission and development of philosophical ideas from Plato and Aristotle to Jesus, Paul, Augustine and Gregory the Great. Christopher Celenza recalibrates philosophy’s story not as abstract argumentation but rather as lived practice: one aimed at excavating wisdom and shaping life. Emphasizing the importance of textual tradition and elucidation across diverse contexts, the author shows how philosophical and religious ideas were transformed and readjusted over time. By focusing on the centrality of Christianity to Western thought, he reveals how ancient ideas were alchemized within religious frameworks, and how – across the centuries – ethical and intellectual traditions intersected to shape culture, memory, and the pursuit of sagacity. Ever attentive to ongoing conversations between past and present, this expansive intellectual history brings perspectives to the subject that are both nuanced and fresh.
About the Author
Christopher S. Celenza is Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and a Professor of History and Classics at Johns Hopkins University. A former Director of the American Academy in Rome, he has also held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the Fulbright Foundation. He is a scholar whose wide interests and expertise span Renaissance thought, classical tradition, and intellectual history. His many books include Machiavelli: A Portrait (Harvard University Press, 2015), The Intellectual World of the Italian Renaissance: Language, Philosophy, and the Search for Meaning (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and The Italian Renaissance and the Origins of the Modern Humanities: An Intellectual History, 1400-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Advance Praise
‘A bold and data-rich reinterpretation of African and European economic divergence By placing slavery and freedom at the center of the story, Whatley offers a provocative account of how the two regions became mirror images of each other; an argument that will challenge readers and energize debate across disciplines�’
Marlous van Waijenburg, author of Financing the African Colonial State ‘Warren Whatley has given us a sweeping interpretation of interactions between European and African development, with slavery and freedom at the center of the historical narrative The results are stunning Highly recommended to readers of all backgrounds�’
Gavin Wright, author of Slavery and American Economic Development
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009407144
Hardback
At a Glance
• Reinterprets the economic history of Africa in light of recent research on how international slave trades altered African norms, institutions, cultures, and development
• Develops our understanding of the origins and persistence of social stratification in Western civilization
• Argues that freedom, as a widespread social norm, is the source of modern economic growth
Slavery, Freedom, and Development How Africa Became the Mirror Image of Europe
Warren C. Whatley
In this innovative reinterpretation of the economic history of Africa and Europe, Warren C. Whatley argues that freedom from Western-style slavery is the origin of modern Western economic growth. Such freedom was achieved around the 13th century in Western European Christendom by making enslavement among European Christians a sin but still a recognized property right and form of wealth. After 1500, the triangular trade in the North Atlantic integrates the slave and free sectors of expanding European Empires, spreading freedom and development in Europe and slavery and underdevelopment in Africa. Whatley documents when the slave and/or free sectors drove the expansion of Empire, and how exposure to slave trades in Africa spread institutions and norms better suited to capturing and trading people – slavery, polygyny, ethnic stratification and inherited aristocracies –some of the mechanisms through which the past is still felt in Africa today.
About the Author
Warren C. Whatley is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Michigan whose scholarly research in economic history spans Africa, Europe and the Americas. He served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Economic History and Explorations in Economic History, and as President of the National Economic Association.
Advance Praise
‘A bold and data-rich reinterpretation of African and European economic divergence By placing slavery and freedom at the center of the story, Whatley offers a provocative account of how the two regions became mirror images of each other; an argument that will challenge readers and energize debate across disciplines�’
Marlous van Waijenburg, author of Financing the African Colonial State ‘Warren Whatley has given us a sweeping interpretation of interactions between European and African development, with slavery and freedom at the center of the historical narrative The results are stunning Highly recommended to readers of all backgrounds�’
Gavin Wright, author of Slavery and American Economic Development
STEPHEN HINDS
Latin Poetry Across Languages
Latin Poetry Across Languages Adventures
in Allusion, Translation and
Classical Tradition
Stephen Hinds
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781108835800
Hardback
£35�00 | $ 44�99 USD | $51�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Combines up-to-the-minute literary critical interventions in classics, classical reception studies and modern literary studies in a single volume
• Offers sets of specific stories about Latin poetry across languages, each considered in its own terms, but all with broader potential to shed light upon a range of linked and recurrent questions, preoccupations, themes and tropes
• By showing two languages in play, highlights the relations of poets and their readers with language itself”
Latin poetry is defined by its relationships with poetry in other languages. It was originally constituted by its relation to Greek, and in later times has been constituted by its relation to the European vernaculars. In this bold and innovative book, distinguished Latinist Stephen Hinds explores these relationships through a series of vignettes. These explore ancient conversations between Latin and Greek verse texts, followed by modern (especially early modern) conversations between Latin and European vernacular verse texts, reflecting the linked stories of reception that make up the so-called ‘classical tradition’: conversations across language, across period, and sometimes both at the same time. The book’s range is expansive, ranging from Homer through Virgil and the Augustans to late antiquity, the Renaissance, Romanticism and on to Seamus Heaney. There is an especial focus on the parallel vernacular and Latin output of Milton and Marvell in England and Du Bellay in France.
About the Author
Stephen Hinds is Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is also the author of Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge 1998) and The Metamorphosis of Persephone: Ovid and the Self-Conscious Muse (Cambridge 1987). With Denis Feeney, he co-founded and co-edited the Cambridge series Roman Literature and its Contexts.
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009687898
Paperback
At a Glance
• Locates the present technological and legal struggles over EV sales in the long story of the American automobile
Draws on the author’s personal experiences in the middle of the direct sales wars and his access to key industry, public interest, and political players
• Outlines implications for environmental and transportation policy, urban design, and many other aspects of public policy
Direct Hit How Tesla Went Straight to Consumers and Smashed the Car Dealers’ Monopoly
Daniel A. Crane
Since 2013, Elon Musk has been at war with car dealers in the United States. Battles have played out in legislative backrooms, courtrooms, governors’ offices, and news media outlets across the country. As of now, Musk has won the war. Telsa has established a foothold across the country, sold over 2 million cars without using a dealer, established a loyal customer base, and overcome most states’ franchise dealer laws. Direct Hit tells the story of this fight, taking readers into courtrooms and legislative halls where the dealers tried in vain to derail Tesla’s advances. The book shares key insights on the strategic choices made by dealers, legacy car companies, and electric-vehicle startups. With a combination of historical narrative, blow-by-blow accounts of the Tesla wars, and a consideration of America’s longstanding romance with the personal automobile, Direct Hit shares a uniquely American drama over cars and the people who sell them.
About the Author
Daniel A. Crane is the Richard W. Pogue Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, An expert in antitrust law, he has written over 200 books and articles in that field. Since 2014, Professor Crane has been the leading academic voice on the controversies surrounding direct-to-consumer sales of automobiles in the United States.
Advance Praise
‘In Direct Hit, one of our greatest experts on competition and regulation puts automobile sales under the microscope And what he shows us is high drama: special interests pulling the levers of power, a thrilling wave of technological innovation, and - at last - a growing movement for change� Don’t miss this tour de force from a brilliant writer on a subject that affects us all�’
Daniel Francis, New York University School of Law
‘Direct Hit is a must read for anyone who has ever had a bad experience haggling for a car Daniel Crane skillfully lays out how car dealers across the country convinced states to adopt laws that supposedly protected consumers but in practice just protected the dealerships� It took a Goliath - in the form of Elon Musk at the helm of Tesla - to break their stranglehold� Crane’s account of how it took an ambitious, hard-charging and wealthy entrepreneur to disrupt laws that hurt consumers is a testament to all that is broken in today’s political system ’ Kathryn Judge, Columbia Law School
Charity After Empire
Empire
CHARITY After
British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation and Development
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
9781009675109
Hardback
At a Glance
• Provides a history of humanitarianism from all sides: from donors, supporters, governments, politicians, aid workers and recipients
Offers a powerful new interpretation of modern British history in the latter half of the twentieth century
Reconsiders the proper role and function of charity in the mixed economy of welfare, at home and abroad
British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation and Development
Why did charity become the outlet for global compassion? Charity After Empire traces the history of humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid. It shows how they obtained a permanent presence in the alleviation of global poverty, why they were supported by the public and how they were embraced by governments in Britain and across Africa. Through several fascinating life stories and illuminating case studies across the UK and in countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe and Kenya, Hilton explains how the racial politics of Southern Africa shaped not only the history of international aid but also the meaning of charity and its role in the alleviation of poverty both at home and abroad. In doing so, he makes a powerful case for the importance of charity in the shaping of modern Britain over the extended decades of decolonization in the latter half of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Matthew Hilton is Professor of Social History at Queen Mary University of London. He has written widely on the history of political activism, social movements and nongovernmental organisations. Previous publications include Prosperity for All: Consumer Activism in an Era of Globalisation (2009) and, as co-author, The Politics of Expertise: How NGOs Shaped Modern Britain (2013).
Matthew Hilton
Matthew Hilton
NICOLAS JABKO
The Fed, the ECB, and the Changing Politics of Money Technocrats in Turmoil
Technocrats in Turmoil
The Fed, the ECB, and the Changing Politics of Money
Nicolas Jabko
UK publication April 2026
US publication April 2026
9781009727457
Hardback
c £25 00 | c $30 00 USD
c $35 95 CAD
At a Glance
• Discusses how central bankers, as economic technocrats, simultaneously navigate different arenas
• Investigates forms of politics understudied by social scientists, which take place inside central banks and inside the economics profession
Highlights the suppor t and later the retreat of technocrats as an important and understudied dimension of neoliberalism
Despite the continuity of a highly financialized economy, the politics of money has considerably changed since the late 1970s. American and European central bankers first allied with conservative forces to fight inflation in the 1980s, and later disassociated from these forces after 2008. Many observers gloss over this evolution because they see central bankers either as stewards of financial markets or as economists dedicated to economic stability. In Technocrats in Turmoil, Nicolas Jabko explains how changing alliances between central bankers, economists, and politicians enable broad regime shifts. He argues that central bankers are economic technocrats who not only navigate but also powerfully shape three intersecting arenas – their own internal monetary policy committees; the economics profession; and the broader public arena. Based on a machine-assisted analysis of central bank archives, the author shows how Fed and European Central Bank (ECB) policymakers played in the waxing and waning of technocratic neoliberalism.
About the Author
Nicolas Jabko is an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. He has published extensively about European and American political economy, the European Union, liberalization and neoliberalism, money and central banks, crises and sovereignty. A transatlantic scholar at heart, he has spent most of his life and career between the United States and Europe.
A Concise History of the European Union
A Concise History of the European Union
Kiran Klaus Patel
UK publication May 2026
US publication May 2026
9781009717151
Paperback
At a Glance
• Offers an engaging and accessible survey of the EU’s history for the general reader
• Provides a balanced account of the history that led to today’s European Union
• Explores institutional developments and their effects on wider society
European integration has many origins, although its history goes back less far than is often assumed. This study offers an accessible and engaging overview of the past and present of today’s European Union, from the postwar era to the present day. Beginning with the foundational treaties of the 1950s, the book examines how the EU became an increasingly global actor through the 1980s and 1990s. Focusing particularly on recent developments, Kiran Klaus Patel explores how the EU’s current role was far from a given and remains fragile. Looking beyond public discourse fixated on crisis, Patel highlights the adaptability and resilience of the EU and how it has turned challenges into opportunities and expanded its own role in the process. This book sheds new light on the past in order to understand the present – and possible options for the future. In the process, it challenges conventional wisdoms of Europhiles and Eurosceptics alike.
About the Author
Kiran Klaus Patel holds the Chair for Modern History at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich where he also serves as the director of Project House Europe, LMU’s centre for interdisciplinary research on the history of contemporary Europe. His teaching and research focus on European and US history. Previous publications include Project Europe: A History (Cambridge, 2020).
A C oncise Histo ry of Ireland
A Concise History of Ireland
Caitriona Clear
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
366 pages
9781009494007
Paperback
£25�00 | $33�00 USD | $35�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Offers a political, social, economic and cultural history of Ireland between 432 and the present
• Explores the lived experiences of ordinary men and women in Ireland across the centuries
• Provides an accessible and engaging narrative of Irish history
Situated on one of Europe’s busiest sea-roads, Ireland has always been connected to other cultures. This accessible and engaging history explores these connections across 1,600 years, from the arrival of Christianity in the 5th century to the present day. While the Norman invasion in 1169 brought the English crown into Irish politics, the impulse to preserve the Irish language and early Irish history united many of the Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Normans from the 14th century. The Irish nationhood that emerged later was based more on Catholicism, as Ireland became a minor theatre of bitter European conflicts of the early modern period. Political (and religious) loyalties which solidified at this point determined Irish politics for the next three centuries, through the Troubles and beyond. Alongside these major political events, Caitriona Clear examines the living and working conditions of ordinary men and women - what they traded and farmed, how they lived and loved, and how they were often affected, but not always overwhelmed, by the politics of their time.
About the Author
Caitriona Clear lectured in history at the University of Galway until her retirement. Her publications include Nuns in 19th-Century Ireland (1987), Women of the House in Ireland 1926–1961 (2000), Social Change and Everyday Life in Ireland 1850–1922 (2007) and Women’s Voices: Women’s Magazines in Ireland in the 1950s and 60s (2016).
UK publication February 2026
US publication February 2026
9781009692601
Paperback
£28�00 | $38�00 USD | $ 43�95 CAD
At a Glance
• Offers diverse perspectives on the central issues raised by the Declaration of Independence
• Allows readers to engage with the debates over natural law and the life of the Declaration in one source
• Explores the unique perspectives members of different generations bring to the Declaration of Independence
The Cambridge Companion to the Declaration of Independence
Edited by Mark A. Graber and Michael Zuckert
The Cambridge Companion to the Declaration of Independence offers a wide-ranging and accessible anthology of essays for understanding the Declaration’s intellectual and social context, connection to the American Revolution, and influence in the United States and throughout the world. The volume places the document in the context of ideas during the Enlightenment and examines the language and structure to assess its effect and appeal throughout the centuries and across countries. Here are contributions from law, history, and political science, considering such matters as the philosophical foundations of the Declaration, the role of religion, critics of its role in American political development, and whether “Jefferson’s handiwork” is still relevant in the twenty-first century. Written by distinguished and emerging scholars, the Companion provides new and diverse perspectives on the most important statement of American political commitments.
About the Editors
Mark A. Graber is the Regents Professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, one of only seven professors to hold the highest honor in the University of Maryland system. He has published fifteen books and over 100 articles. In 2023, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association.
Michael Zuckert is the Nancy R. Dreux Professor, Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and Clinical Professor at Arizona State University. He has worked extensively in the area of American political thought. He was the founding editor of the journal American Political Thought and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Political Thought section of the American Political Science Association. His many books include The Natural Rights Republic (1994).
EDITED BY MICHAEL JONIK
The New Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson
UK publication May 2026
US publication May 2026
276 pages
9781009347761
The New Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edited by Michael Jonik
While Emerson’s place in American literary history has remained secure, the New Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson draws on a wealth of recent Emerson scholarship which has highlighted his contemporary relevance for questions of philosophy and politics, ecology and science, poetics and aesthetics, or identity and race, and connects these to the key formal and interpretive issues at stake in understanding his work. The volume’s contributors engage the full breadth of Emerson’s writing, developing novel approaches to canonical works like Nature, the essays “Self-Reliance” “Experience,” or to his poetry and journals, and bringing critical attention to his lectures and to the long-overlooked texts of his later period. This New Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson thus both bears witness to the new Emersons that have emerged in the past decades, and draws a new circle in Emerson’s reception.
Paperback At a Glance
£18�99 | $24�99 USD | $28�95 CAD
About the Editor
• Provides a critical resource for both new and seasoned readers of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writing
• Opens new conversations regarding themes in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work such as climate and nature, Asia, transatlanticism, slavery and race, power, aesthetics or poetics
• Brings critical attention to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s lectures and to the long-overlooked texts of his later period
Michael Jonik is Professor of American Literature and Philosophy at the University of Sussex. He is author of Herman Melville and the Politics of the Inhuman (Cambridge 2018) and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook to Herman Melville. He is book reviews and special issues editor for the journal Textual Practice.
Customer Services
Booksellers
For customer service, please contact: UK, Europe: internationaltrade2@cambridge org
Middle East, North Africa & Japan: internationaltrade1@cambridge org
North America: customer_service@cambridge org
Central & South America, Caribbean: internationalorders@cambridge org
Asia: asia@cambridge org
Account-holding booksellers can order online at www.PubEasy.com
Cambridge University Press Bookshop
Cambridge University Press Bookshop occupies the historic site of 1 Trinity Street, Cambridge CB2 1SZ, where the complete range of titles is on sale�
Bookshop Manager: Cathy Ashbee
Phone + 44 (0)1223 333333
Fax + 44 (0)1223 332954
Email bookshop@cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
Around the World
Cambridge University Press has offices, representatives and distributors in some 60 countries around the world; our publications are available through bookshops in virtually every country
United Kingdom and Ireland
Academic Sales Department
Cambridge University Press, University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, UK email: information@cambridge.org
www cambridge org
Europe, Middle East and North Africa
Academic Sales Department
Cambridge University Press, University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, UK
email: information@cambridge.org
www cambridge org
Asia
79 Anson Road Unit #06-04/06
Singapore 079906
Phone: + 65 6323 2701
Fax: + 65 6323 2370
email: singapore@cambridge.org www�cambridge�org
The Americas
North, Central, South America and Caribbean
Cambridge University Press
One Liberty Plaza, Floor 20
New York, NY 10006
Phone: + 1 212 924 3900
Fax: + 1 212 691 3239
email: customer_service@cambridge.org
www cambridge org
Institutional ebook access
If you’re interested in institution-wide access to ebooks, or other Cambridge digital publications, please contact online@cambridge org in the Americas or library sales@cambridge org in the rest of the world
Sub-Saharan Africa
Cambridge University Press African Branch
Lower Ground Floor, Nautica Building, The Water Club, Beach Road, Granger Bay – 8005, Cape Town, South Africa
Phone: + 27 21 412 7800
Fax: + 27 21 419 8418
email: information@cambridge.org
www cambridge org
Australia and New Zealand
Cambridge University Press Australian Branch 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Phone: +61 3 8671 1411
Fax: +61 3 9676 9966
email: info@cambridge.edu.au www�cambridge�org
Retail
and Wholesale Representatives
North America
Cambridge University Press One Liberty Plaza
Floor 20
New York, NY 10006
Phone: (212) 337-5949 or Toll Free: (800) 221-4512 email: ustradesales@cambridge.org
For Bulk Sales, please email Special_Sales@cambridge.org
India
Cambridge University Press India Pvt Ltd Splendor Forum, 3rd Floor Plot No 3, Jasola District Centre
New Delhi 110025
Phone: +91 11 43543500 www.cambridgeindia.org
Australia
Cambridge University Press - Australia 477 Williamstown Road
Port Melbourne VIC 3207
M: 0437 389 810
Phone: +61 (03) 8671 1411
email: info@cambridge.edu.au www.cambridge.edu.au
(Higher Education: SA & WA; Trade and Special Sales: ANZ)
Publicity
UK and Europe
Chris Burrows Publicity Manager email: chris.burrows@cambridge.org
