November 20, 2023
Native American Heritage Month was federally declared in 1990 and recognizes “Native Americans are essential to the fabric of the United States.”1 Commemorate with a selection Yale University Press titles… READ MORE
November 17, 2023
Whitney Barlow Robles— The serpent who beguiled Eve. Medusa’s ossifying glance. The hypnotic command of Kaa in Kipling’s Jungle Book. Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, turned upside down by a basilisk…. READ MORE
November 16, 2023
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History has been named the winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction. Finalists celebrated at the 74th… READ MORE
November 10, 2023
Christopher Tyerman— The crusades offer features to fascinate and disturb modern audiences. Surviving evidence–literary, archival, archaeological, visual and material–allows access in some detail to individual experiences as well as large… READ MORE
November 7, 2023
Yael A. Sternhell— Early in his presidency, commentators began calling Donald Trump “the first Confederate president.”1 There were obvious reasons why the sobriquet seemed to take—Trump spoke in a language… READ MORE
November 6, 2023
Peter Stothard — Marcus Licinius Crassus was in his early sixties in the summer of 54 BCE, fit but old for a Roman army commander, red-cloaked and almost ready to… READ MORE
October 27, 2023
Henry Petroski— The bubonic epidemic known as the Great Plague broke out in London in 1665 and lasted for two years. During that time, citizens who could escape to the… READ MORE
October 18, 2023
Francine Prose — If we view Cleopatra through any lens except that of her appearance, her seductiveness, her sexual agency, and her relationships with two men, we see a brave… READ MORE
October 17, 2023
Helen Fry— During wartime women were a valuable source of intelligence-gathering because they could move much more freely in occupied countries than men. They used their “invisibility” to gather and… READ MORE
October 11, 2023
Carlos Eire — Levitating saints raise questions that no historian should avoid. Never mind the metaphysical questions, that floating ten-ton anvil that historians dare not touch, much less acknowledge. Aside… READ MORE
A Conversation with Trudier Harris on Bigger: A Literary Life