Anthony Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University. Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) was a Dutch humanist, scholar, and social critic, and one of the most important figures of the Renaissance. The Praise of Folly is perhaps his best-known work. Originally written to amuse his friend Sir Thomas More, this satiric celebration of pleasure, youth, and intoxication irreverently pokes fun at the pieties of theologians...

R. R. Palmer (1909–2002) was professor emeritus of history at Yale University and a guest scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His books include Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution (Princeton). The first volume of The Age of the Democratic Revolution won the Bancroft Prize in 1960. David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University. For the Western world, the period...

One of the most important books of the twentieth century, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is an uncompromising defense of liberal democracy and a powerful attack on the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. Popper was born in 1902 to a Viennese family of Jewish origin. He taught in Austria until 1937, when he emigrated to New Zealand in anticipation of the Nazi annexation of Austria the following year, and he settled in England in...

"F.E. Peters, a scholar in the comparative study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, revisits his pioneering work after twenty-five years. Peters has rethought and thoroughly rewritten his classic The Children of Abraham for a new generation of readers - at a time when the understanding of these three religious traditions has taken on a new and critical urgency." "Peters traces the three faiths from the sixth century B.C. when the Jews returned to...

"Murder, mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide, and incest: the darker side of classic fairly tale figures as the subject matter for this study of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's Nursery and Household Tales. This updated and expanded second edition includes a new preface and an appendix containing new translations of six tales, along with commentary by Maria Tatar. Throughout the book, Tatar employs the tools not only of a psychoanalyst but also of a folklorist,...

Judith Herrin is professor emeritus in the Department of Classics at King's College London. Her books include Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe; Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire; Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium; Margins and Metropolis: Authority across the Byzantine Empire; and Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium (all Princeton). She lives in Oxford, England. A groundbreaking history...

From one of the great modern writers, the acclaimed lectures, in which he draws on a lifetime of experience to take the measure of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets "W. H. Auden, poet and critic, will conduct a course on Shakespeare at the New School for Social Research beginning Wednesday. Mr. Auden... proposes to read all Shakespeare's plays in chronological order." So, the New York Times reported on September 27, 1946, giving notice of a rare opportunity...

"Winner of the 2002 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Philosophy, Association of American Publishers" "Winner of the 2003 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, American Academy of Religion" "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003" Susan Neiman is director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam. Her books include Why Grow Up? and Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (Princeton). A compelling look at the problem...