Princeton University Press

A comprehensive overview of the behavioral ecology of a highly social group of North American mammalsBest known for their large colonies, complex burrows, and frequent alarm calls, prairie dogs are diurnal, herbivorous rodents endemic to the grasslands of western North America. Prairie Dogs synthesizes forty-five consecutive years of John Hoogland’s pioneering field research on the ecology and social behavior of these remarkable animals, including many far-reaching discoveries published here for the first time. Hoogland investigates all four species of prairie dogs that inhabit the western United States, offering invaluable insights about cooperation and competition among social animals living under natural conditions. He examines topics ranging from alarm calls, mating, predation, and vigilance to conservation, dispersal, population dynamics, and potential avenues for future research. Hoogland presents a wealth of new findings, describing how prairie dogs give alarm calls not only for offspring but also for more distant kin such as nieces, nephews, and first cousins. He documents how females reap substantial benefits from copulating with more than one male; how they avoid incest with offspring, parents, and siblings but regularly copulate with more distant kin; how nonparental infanticide is a major cause of juvenile mortality and varies directly with colony density; and how females of one species improve reproductive success by killing nearby ground squirrels. Rich in personal stories and comparisons with more than five hundred other species ranging from amoebas to humans, this beautifully illustrated book is essential reading for behavioral ecologists and conservation biologists as well as mammalogists and curious naturalists. Hoogland’s magnum opus offers a master class in how to do careful long-term research.

An invaluable guide for every step of the college experience, from deciding if and where to go to maximizing academic, social, personal, and professional opportunitiesThe College Handbook shows how college is a journey rather than simply a destination, guiding undergraduates and their families through each phase of student life using a proven approach that is clear, practical, and effective. Rachel Gable shares bite-sized tips for cultivating a mindset that empowers students to navigate the thicket of choices they will make before, during, outside of, and after college. Rather than focusing on things like rankings and GPAs, she takes a customizable “you centered” approach uniquely designed to help each student make the most of their time inside and outside the classroom, regardless of their personal history, socioeconomic background, or the type of college they attend. Gable provides questions and exercises that enable students to identify and capitalize on the critical activities, habits, and attitudes that make college a transformative experience. Along the way, she covers topics such as identifying the best college for you, preparing to matriculate, leaving home and arriving on campus, making friends, orienting oneself, mastering effective academic habits, maximizing social and personal opportunities, developing professional skills and habits, deciding when and how to leave college, and charting a path through today’s rapidly changing academic landscape. Blending the latest research with Gable’s invaluable personal insights as a mentor, teacher, scholar, and parent, The College Handbook is the ultimate guide to college success, putting the goals, strengths, needs, and interests of students at the center of their choices.

A revealing account of the entrenched inequities that harm our most vulnerable students and what colleges can do to help them excelWhen the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial unrest gripped the world, elite colleges scrambled to figure out what to do with the diversity they so fervently recruited—and disadvantaged students suffered. Class Dismissed exposes how woefully unprepared colleges were to support these students, who share their stories of how they were left to weather the storm alone and unprotected. Drawing on the firsthand experiences of students from all walks of life at elite colleges, Anthony Abraham Jack reveals the hidden and unequal worlds students navigated before and during the pandemic closures and upon their return to campus. He shows how COVID-19 exacerbated the very inequalities that universities ignored or failed to address long before campus closures. Jack examines how students dealt with the disruptions caused by the pandemic, how they navigated social unrest, and how they grappled with problems of race both on campus and off. A provocative and much-needed book, Class Dismissed paints an intimate and unflinchingly candid portrait of the challenges of undergraduate life for disadvantaged students even in elite schools that invest millions to diversify their student body. Moreover, Jack offers guidance on how to make students’ path to graduation less treacherous—guidance colleges would be wise to follow.

The responsibilities of speakers and platforms in a world where content can go viralThe debate over free speech is often marked by two extremes: in one corner, those who think that the right to free speech is nearly absolute; in the other, those who defend sweeping prohibitions on harmful speech. In Setting Fire to Reason, Jeffrey Howard rejects both extremes. He argues that free speech is among our most important moral rights, but—like all rights—it has limits, determined by moral duties we owe to each other. Yet exactly how these moral limits should be translated into law is complex, depending on the particular speech regulation at issue and the risks of government abuse.Using incitement as his central example of harmful speech, Howard sets out an integrated framework of speakers’ rights and duties, determining when and why speech restrictions can be justified. In developing this original theory, Howard pinpoints the ethical duties of social media platforms, assesses the role of counter-speech as a weapon against harmful communications, and explores how the law and morality of free speech can and should diverge.

A concise new narrative history of Islam that draws on the transformative insights of recent research to emphasize the diversity and dynamism of the traditionToday’s Muslim world is in upheaval: legalists and mystics engage in intense debates, radical groups invoke Sharia, Muslim immigrants in the West face prejudice and discrimination, and Muslim feminists advocate new interpretations of the Koran. At the same time, Islam is mischaracterized as unitary and unchanging by people ranging from right-wing Western politicians claiming that Islam is incompatible with democracy to conservative Muslims dreaming of returning to the golden age of the prophet. Against this contentious backdrop, this book provides an essential and timely new history of the religion in all its astonishing richness and diversity as it has been practiced by Muslims around the world, from seventh-century Mecca to today. Most popular histories of Islam continue to repeat conventional pietistic accounts. In contrast, John Tolan draws on decades of new historical research that has transformed knowledge of the origins and development of the Muslim faith. He shows how the youngest of the three great monotheisms arose in close contact with Jewish, Christian, and other religious traditions in a mixture of cultures, including Arab, Greek, Persian, and Turkish; how Islam spread across an enormous territory encompassing hundreds of languages and cultures; how Muslims have forged widely different beliefs and practices over fourteen centuries; and how Islamic history provides crucial context for understanding contemporary debates in the Muslim world. At a time when much talk about Islam is filled with misunderstanding, stereotypes, and bias, this book provides a fresh and lucid portrait of the continuous and ongoing transformations of a religion of tremendous variety and complexity.

A human perspective on the nature of friendship in the age of artificial intelligenceIs friendship with a chatbot as good as friendship with an actual person? Is there something about human friendships that eludes simulation? If so, what? And how much will the answers to questions like these change as AI develops and becomes more convincingly like us? Artificially Yours explains what friendship is and why it’s valuable—and why there is no perfect substitute for human friends. Blending insights from philosophy, psychology, and her own entertaining experiences with chatbots, Valerie Tiberius addresses a subject at the heart of our growing reliance on AI companions. She defines the ideal friendship as an enjoyable, close relationship built on shared activities between people who care about each other for their own sake. But few things in life are ever ideal, including friendship. Tiberius demonstrates how different kinds of friendships can be valuable in different ways: they can be pleasurable or useful, they can shape who we are and how we see ourselves, and the best ones are good for their own sakes. Using each of these values as her guide, Tiberius finds that relationships with chatbots do in fact exhibit some of the characteristics of friendship—but cautions that even future relationships with advanced AI are highly unlikely to be good in all the ways human friendships are. A vital contribution to our ongoing conversation about human-AI relationships, Artificially Yours weighs the ethical risks before us as we look to a future with intelligent machines and affirms the value of human connections.

A new theory of prejudice reduction, supported by rigorous evidence, arguing that public institutions and the people within them can improve intergroup relations in conflict-ridden societiesDecades of social science research focuses on reducing prejudice, which is considered an impediment to intergroup cooperation. Reducing prejudice is notoriously challenging, however, because it is durable and because it motivates avoidance of experiences that would improve intergroup relations. In Delivering Tolerance, Chagai Weiss develops a theory of prejudice reduction through public institutions. Weiss argues that instrumental, and often unintended, minority inclusion in public institutions that provide essential services—including schools, hospitals, and police forces—can facilitate various forms of exposure to out-group service providers that reduces prejudice at scale. Overcoming the challenges of both durability and avoidance, such exposure is especially persuasive in shifting attitudes toward minorities.To test his theory, Weiss examines what is perhaps the most extreme, prominent, and intractable example of group conflict—the relationship of Israelis and Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCI). He finds that Israelis’ brief yet meaningful interactions with PCI doctors reduce prejudice, and that information about the rate of PCI inclusion in Israeli healthcare institutions reduces intergroup animosity. He also shows that patterns of prejudice reduction generalize beyond the Israeli case of healthcare institutions, examining other institutional domains and examples of inclusion dynamics in the United States and Germany. Reducing prejudice is discouragingly difficult, but Weiss’s account reveals how institutions and the people within them can improve intergroup relations in conflict-ridden societies.

A stunningly illustrated exploration of the lives of wolves around the worldHunted to near extinction, wolves evoke a sense of our planet’s dwindling wildernesses. Rather than fear them, we should better understand the crucial role they play in ecosystems throughout the world. This engaging, fact-filled book shares insights into the family histories, relationships, and significant life challenges of wolves while linking them to broader questions about wildlife conservation and management. Written by a world-renowned expert in wolf behavior and reintroduction, Wolf: The Illustrated Biography offers a unique perspective on these charismatic animals, charting the life stories of wolves in all their diversity and complexity. Profiles wolves from North America, Europe, and Asia, describing their key characteristics, habitats, distinguishing features, common prey, and distinctive behaviorsDiscusses evolutionary history, biology, ecology, taxonomy, and past and current geographical distributionCovers key stages in the lives of wolves, from pregnancy and den building to birth and adolescence, play fights and learning to hunt, traveling with and leaving the pack, social hierarchy and bonds within packs, communication, territoriality, and moreEmphasizes the leadership role of alpha females in the everyday life of the packExplores the complex relationship between wolves and humans throughout historyConsiders the prospects for wolf populations in an age of accelerating environmental degradation

A sweeping history of the struggle to hold states to account for their gravest crimesThe Criminal State offers a gripping account of how law has confronted the most radical forms of state violence. Beautifully written, broad in scope, and bracingly original, it weaves history with political thought to trace the shifting legal response to state aggression and atrocities, from Leopold’s rule over the Congo to Putin’s war in Ukraine.At its heart is Lawrence Douglas’s fresh interpretation of the law’s reckoning with Nazi aggression and atrocity. He shows how the Nuremberg trials challenged centuries of thought—rooted in Hobbes and other canonical thinkers—that shielded sovereigns from legal scrutiny. Yet Nuremberg’s bid to frame aggression as the cornerstone of a new order of international criminal law largely failed, giving way to a system now centrally concerned with crimes against humanity and genocide—while leaving unresolved the legality and effectiveness of using force to stop the worst violations of human rights.Providing rare historical perspective on the dilemmas facing international courts, The Criminal State is a sweeping, provocative history of the struggle to bring perpetrators of state violence to justice.

One of The Wall Street Journal’s 10 Best Books of the YearFeatured on the New York Times' The Daily podcast and CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPSWhat our failures during the pandemic cost us, and why we must do betterThe Covid pandemic quickly led to the greatest mobilization of emergency powers in human history. By early April 2020, half the world’s population—3.9 billion people—were living under quarantine. People were told not to leave their homes; businesses were shuttered, employees laid off, and schools closed for months or even years. The most devastating pandemic in a century and the policies adopted in response to it upended life as we knew it. In this eye-opening book, Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee examine our pandemic response and pose some provocative questions: Why did we ignore pre-Covid plans for managing a pandemic? Were the voices of reasonable dissent treated fairly? Did we adequately consider the costs and benefits of different policy options? And, aside from vaccines, did the policies adopted work as intende? ith In Covid’s Wake, Macedo and Lee offer the first comprehensive—and candid—political assessment of how our institutions fared during the pandemic. They describe how, influenced by Wuhan’s lockdown, governments departed from their existing pandemic plans. Hard choices were obscured by slogans like “follow the science.” Benefits and harms were distributed unfairly. The policies adopted largely benefited the laptop class and left so-called essential workers unprotected; extended school closures hit the least-privileged families the hardest. Science became politicized and dissent was driven to the margins. In the next crisis, Macedo and Lee warn, we must not forget the deepest values of liberal democracy: tolerance and open-mindedness, respect for evidence and its limits, a willingness to entertain uncertainty, and a commitment to telling the whole truth.

A new history of slavery and the French RevolutionThe First Emancipation is a dramatic account of how slavery and race profoundly influenced the course of the French Revolution and had a central impact on the lives of key leaders, including Mirabeau, Robespierre, Toussaint Louverture, and Napoleon. Acclaimed historian Jeremy D. Popkin brings this often-forgotten story to life, highlighting the arguments put forward by French abolitionists and their opponents and the profound repercussions of the first abolition of slavery in a Western empire. When the French revolutionaries passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, they immediately faced a burning question: did that document’s first article—“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”—apply to the 800,000 enslaved Black people in the country’s colonies? Over the next dozen years, revolutionary leaders fought over this question. The First Emancipation tells how French lawmakers initially protected slavery in their constitution but reversed themselves in 1794, making France the first western country to abolish slavery throughout its empire. Yet only eight years later, in 1802, Napoleon tried to force the emancipated Black populations of the colonies back into slavery. His decision led to his first major military defeat and to the proclamation of the independence of the Black nation of Haiti, but also to the reestablishment of slavery in other French colonies, where it would not finally be abolished until 1848. The story of how France emancipated its enslaved people and declared them full citizens only to return many of them to bondage, The First Emancipation reveals that the course of abolition in the modern world was more winding and halting than is often remembered.

A marvelously illustrated look at wild orcasOf the world’s iconic predatory species, orcas are among the most fearsome. Their awesome physical power combined with their cooperative hunting skills and ability to problem-solve make them uniquely efficient killers. Yet orcas also celebrate births, grieve losses, and maintain lifelong family bonds. This stunningly illustrated book draws on five decades of field research and cutting-edge science to provide an incomparable look at the biology, natural history, culture, and conservation of these awe-inspiring marine animals. It explores the behaviors and characteristics of the world’s diverse orca populations—from Antarctica, Iceland, and South America to Norway, Spain, South Africa, the Pacific Northwest of Canada, and the United States —and reveals the startling discoveries that scientists have made in recent years. Wild Orcas takes you on an epic ocean excursion to encounter these magnificent creatures as you have never seen them before. Features a wealth of breathtaking color photosCovers everything from social structure and family dynamics to evolution, physiology, interactions with humans, and the fascinating ways orcas learn from each otherExplores orcas’ underwater lives, such as how they “see” with soundDiscusses the innovative and state-of-the-art ways researchers study orcasSheds light on orca culture, from vocal dialects and hunting strategies to behaviors such as greeting ceremonies, beach rubbing, and porpoise tossing

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Shia RevivalNow with a new afterword by the author, this gripping account overturns simplistic portrayals of Iran as a theocratic pariah state, revealing how its strategic moves on the world stage are driven by two pervasive threats—external aggression and internal dissolutionIran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country’s goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran’s political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today’s Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world. Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, and original in-depth interviews with Iranian decision makers, Nasr brings to light facts and events in Iran’s political history that have been overlooked until now. He traces the roots of Iran’s strategic outlook to its experiences over the past four decades of war with Iraq in the 1980s and the subsequent American containment of Iran, invasion of Iraq in 2003, and posture toward Iran thereafter. Nasr reveals how these experiences have shaped a geopolitical outlook driven by pervasive fear of America and its plans for the Middle East. Now with an afterword by the author that addresses recent developments in Iran’s domestic and world affairs, Iran’s Grand Strategy challenges the notion that Iran’s foreign policy simply reflects its revolutionary values or theocratic government. It provides invaluable insights into what Iran wants and why, explaining the country’s resistance to the United States, its nuclear ambitions, and its pursuit of influence and proxies across the Middle East.

A beautifully illustrated photographic identification guide to the marine crustaceans of Britain and Ireland—essential for divers, snorkellers and beachcombersCrustaceans are a diverse group of animals found all around the coasts of Britain and Ireland, from beaches to deep offshore waters. This field guide offers a practical, easy-to-use approach for identifying the crustacean species commonly seen in the region. The book’s incisive text and informative diagrams highlight key identification features and are accompanied by numerous photos of each species in its natural environment wherever possible. It also clearly explains when species identification is not possible, indicating an appropriate taxonomic level in such cases. Published in association with the UK’s Marine Conservation Society, Marine Crustaceans of Britain and Ireland is an invaluable addition to the series of marine photographic titles of Seasearch, a long-standing species-recording project for volunteers. Features in-depth descriptions of each species with information on size, depth range, habitat and distribution in the Seasearch guide icon formatIllustrates each species in its natural environment to aid visual recognitionIncludes image galleries comparing colour variation where appropriateEmphasises key identification features and possible confusion speciesIncludes a ‘confidence guide’ distinguishing between easily recognisable species and those requiring closer examinationFeatures additional sections highlighting noteworthy species, behaviours and other topicsProvides information on protected and non-native species, taxonomy, commercial importance and pressures, shifting distributions and conservation status

The remarkable first two books of poetry by the Pulitzer Prize finalist and former U.S. poet laureate—now combined in a single volume with a new preface by the authorAward-winning poet Robert Pinsky’s first two collections—Sadness And Happiness and An Explanation of America—announced the arrival of a major new voice in American poetry. Now, these acclaimed books are presented together in a single volume featuring a new preface by the author, introducing a new generation of readers to the groundbreaking early work of a beloved poet. Sadness And Happiness explores everyday subjects such as the streets and oceanfront of Pinsky’s hometown of Long Branch, New Jersey, while the long title poem of An Explanation of America examines personal and national myths as it transports readers across the country.

From The New York Times–bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello, a groundbreaking collection of Thomas Jefferson’s writings on race that every American should readAmong America’s Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson’s most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects—the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson’s public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson’s ideas about—and self-image in relation to—African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson’s conflicted attitudes—and the impact of race and slavery on American history.