"The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement--precision--in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future. The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were...

"A balanced, readable portrait. A refreshing perspective.” —New York Times Book Review

With intelligence, insight, eloquence, and wit, bestselling author Christopher Hitchens gives us an artful portrait of a complex, formative figure in American history and his turbulent era.

In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new

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A sensation upon its publication in 1970, Sexual Politics documents the subjugation of women in great literature and art. Beginning in 1830 and targeting four revered authors: D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and Jean Genet, Kate Millett builds a damning profile of literature's patriarchal myths and their extension into psychology, philosophy, and politics. Her eloquence and popular examples taught a generation to recognize inequities masquerading...

"A magisterial history of the centuries-long conflict between "progress" and "tradition" in the world's largest international institution. The story of Roman Catholicism has never followed a singular path. In no time period has this been more true than over the last two centuries. Beginning with the French Revolution, extending to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and concluding with present-day crises, John T. McGreevy chronicles the dramatic...

Presents a brief profile of the life and works of sixteenth-century playwright, William Shakespeare; and contains black-and-white illustrations that include a diagram of the Globe Theater.

As You Like It (1599) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. As You Like It was probably inspired by Thomas Lodge's Rosalynd, Euphues Golden Legacie (1587), a story based on "The Tale of Gamelyn," a Middle English romance. For its deconstruction of traditional gender roles and depiction of homoeroticism, As You Like It remains an important and frequently performed play in Shakespeare's oeuvre. "All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely...

"In a collection that includes new essays written explicitly for this volume, one of our sharpest and most influential critics confronts the past, present, and future of literary culture. If every outlet for book criticism suddenly disappeared -- if all we had were reviews that treated books like any other commodity -- could the novel survive? In a gauntlet-throwing essay at the start of this brilliant assemblage, Cynthia Ozick stakes the claim that,...

"Western philosophy is now two and a half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years. In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, The Dream of Reason, Anthony Gottlieb documented the first burst, which came in the Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now, in his sequel, The Dream of Enlightenment, Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of...

"The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) is a Christian allegory by English writer and Puritan preacher John Bunyan. Begun during Bunyan’s twelve-year imprisonment for refusing to abide by English laws forbidding nonconformist evangelism, The Pilgrim’s Progress is his most famous work as well as one of the most republished works in English literary history. Often cited as the first English novel, The Pilgrim’s Progress is told as a dream sequence from...

The definitive biography: a masterly account of Marlowe's work and life and the world in which he lived. Shakespeare's contemporary, Christopher Marlowe revolutionized English drama and poetry, transforming the Elizabethan stage into a place of astonishing creativity. The outline of Marlowe's life, work, and violent death are known, but few of the details that explain why his writing and ideas made him such a provocateur in the Elizabethan era have...