A penetrating look into the extreme plutocracy Vladimir Putin has created and its implications for Russia's future

A surprising assessment of the ways that virtual worlds are entangled with human psychology Proteus, the mythical sea god who could alter his appearance at will, embodies one of the promises of online games: the ability to reinvent oneself. Yet inhabitants of virtual worlds rarely achieve this liberty, game researcher Nick Yee contends. Though online games evoke freedom and escapism, Yee shows that virtual spaces perpetuate social norms and stereotypes from the offline world, transform play i...

A masterfully researched and compelling history of Iran from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first

A lively reimagining of how the distant medieval world of war functioned, drawing on the objects used and made by crusaders

Although much has been written about the political history of the Russian revolution, the human story of what the revolution meant to ordinary people has rarely been told. This book gives voice to the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of the Russian people—workers, peasants, soldiers—as expressed in their own words during the vast political, social, and economic upheavals of 1917. The documents in the volume include letters from individuals to newspapers, institutions, or leaders; colle...

An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available that contradicts the standard narrative for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations

A beloved introductory physics textbook, now including exercises and an answer key, explains the concepts essential for thorough scientific understanding In this concise book, R. Shankar, a well-known physicist and contagiously enthusiastic educator, explains the essential concepts of Newtonian mechanics, special relativity, waves, fluids, thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics. Now in an expanded edition—complete with problem sets and answers for course use or self-study—this work p...

One World Now seamlessly integrates major developments of the past decade into Peter Singer's classic text on the ethics of globalization, One World. Singer, often described as the world's most influential philosopher, here addresses such essential concerns as climate change, economic globalization, foreign aid, human rights, immigration, and the responsibility to protect people from genocide and crimes against humanity, whatever country they may be in. Every issue is considered from an ethic...

An examination of the rise of Islam, the life of Muhammad, and the Islamic principles of faith. Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair describe the golden age of the Abbasids, the Mongol invasions, and the great Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires that emerged in their wake.

A comprehensive new survey tracing the global history of urbanism and urban design from the industrial revolution to the present “An engaging read for urban planners and non-designer urbanists.

The extent and detail of Mumford’s geographical coverage of the topics are exceptional.”—Christopher Auffrey, Journal of Urban Affairs Written with an international perspective that encourages cross-cultural comparisons, leading architectural and urban historian Eric Mumford presents a compr...