Yale University Press

An engaging, beautifully illustrated history of London told through twenty-five lost buildingsLondon has been rebuilt and reshaped perhaps more than any other city over its two-millennia history. From the construction of the Underground to slum clearance and the Blitz, buildings have long been damaged or demolished to pave way for the new. Today, demolition is big business, and around 3500 buildings are destroyed each year, most of which are social housing. Paul Knox traces the history of London from the Great Fire to the present day through twenty-five lost buildings. Knox explores surprising and unusual locations in the city’s history, like the Necropolis Station in Waterloo used by funeral parties traveling to a burial ground in Surrey. We see historic landmarks, like Christ Church Greyfriars and the Crystal Palace, as well as everyday places like the White Horse pub in Poplar and a housing estate in Hackney. This is a fascinating study of London’s restless landscape, showing how conservation has changed over 400 years.

An engaging, wide-ranging exploration of the end of Roman Britain and the beginnings of England   In 410 CE, Roman rule of Britain collapsed, bringing a centuries-long occupation to an end. A century later, Britain was dividing into two areas with contrasting cultures, an expansive “Anglo-Saxon” south and east, and a shrinking Celtic west and north. How did this transition happen? And why did the customs of the Germanic incomers prevail in England, unlike elsewhere in Europe?   In this deeply researched account, Nicholas J. Higham addresses these difficult questions head on. Higham draws on archaeological evidence and contemporary literature, including the writings of Gildas, to reconsider the accepted narrative. We see anew the importance of culture, warfare, and language—as the arrival, spread, and dominance of incomers irrevocably changed the country. This period marked the beginnings of Englishness, and of such insular identities as Welsh and Cornish. Offering surprising new insights, Higham provides a penetrating account of how, as Roman Britain ended, Anglo-Saxon England emerged.

A major new history of the two most important British secret service networks in the First and Second World Wars   Intelligence gathering was essential to both sides in the First and Second World Wars. At the heart of MI6’s efforts were two key networks in Belgium. Agents in The White Lady acted as couriers, radio operators and spies to facilitate the end of German control. And, when war broke out again two decades later, the leaders of the network regrouped and established a successor: The Clarence Service.   Helen Fry charts the history of these pivotal intelligence networks. Drawing on recently declassified information, Fry examines who the agents were, how they were recruited, and how the intelligence they gathered directly impacted the outcome of both wars. Operators in the field sent over eight hundred radio messages to London and delivered more than a thousand reports, including groundbreaking information on Hitler’s secret weapon the V-1. This is a compelling account of the agents who risked their lives and found ingenious ways to smuggle intelligence out of occupied Belgium.

A history of masks protecting against bad air—in cities, factories, hospitals, and war trenches—exploring how our identities and beliefs shape the decision to wear a mask“[An] engrossing, finely illustrated account of a subject hitherto surprisingly under-researched.”—Nature, Best Books of 2025 For centuries, humans have sought to protect themselves from harmful air, whether from smoke, dust, vapors, or germs. This book offers the first history of respiratory masks—ranging from simple pieces of cloth to elaborate gas masks—and explores why they have sparked both hope and fear.  Bruno J. Strasser and Thomas Schlich captivate readers with stories of individuals—from renowned doctors and political leaders to forgotten inventors and anonymous factory workers—who passionately debated the value of masks. In Renaissance Italy and Meiji Japan, in Victorian Britain and Cold War America, the way societies have engaged with face coverings reveals their deepest cultural and political fractures. The Mask challenges us to reconsider how we care for one another and the kind of environment we aspire to inhabit.

The rise and fall of William J. Levitt, the man who made the suburban house a mass commodity   Two material artifacts defined the middle-class American lifestyle in the mid-twentieth century: the automobile, which brought gas stations, highways, commercial strips, and sprawl; and the single-family suburban home, the repository of many families’ long-term wealth. While the man who did the most to make the automobile a mass commodity—Henry Ford—is well known, few know the story of the man who did the same for the suburban house.   Edward Berenson describes the remarkable career of William Levitt, who did more than anyone else to create the modern suburb. In response to an unprecedented housing shortage as veterans returned home from World War II, his Levittown developments provided inexpensive mass-produced housing that was wildly popular—prospective buyers would camp out in line for two days for the chance to put down a deposit on a Levitt house. He was a celebrity, a life-changing hero to tens of thousands, and the pitchman of a renewed American Dream. But Levitt also shared Ford’s dark side. He refused to allow Black people to buy or rent in his developments and doggedly defended this practice against legal challenges. Leading the way for other developers who emulated his actions, he helped ensure that suburbs nationwide remained white enclaves. These legacies are still with us. Levitt made a major contribution to the stubborn wealth disparity between white families and Black families, and his solution to the housing crisis of the 1940s—the detached house and surrounding yard—is a primary cause of the housing crisis today.   As a person, Levitt was a strangely guileless and tragic figure. He accumulated vast wealth but, after losing control of his building company, surrendered it all through foolish investments and a lavish lifestyle that included a Long Island mansion and a two-hundred-foot yacht. Just weeks before his death, as a charity patient in a hospital to which he had once given millions, he was still imagining his great comeback.

The first full-scale history of Theoderic and the Goths in more than seventy-five years, tracing the transformation of a divided kingdom into a great power  “A monumental exploration. . . . It is the most important treatment of its subject since Wilhelm Ensslin’s 1947 biography, and since Mr. Wiemer’s book (here in John Noël Dillon’s fluid English translation) surpasses its predecessor in breadth and sophistication, the author can claim the laurel of having written the best profile of Theoderic we have.”—Kyle Harper, Wall Street Journal   In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors, their wives, and children personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great (454–526). This engaging history of his life and reign immerses readers in the world of the warrior-king who ushered in decades of peace and stability in Italy as king of Goths and Romans. Theoderic transformed his roving “warrior nation” from the periphery of the Roman world into a standing army that protected his taxpaying Roman subjects with the support of the Roman elite. With a ruling strategy of “integration through separation,” Theoderic not only stabilized Italy but also extended his kingdom to the western Balkans, southern France, and the Iberian Peninsula.   Using sources as diverse as letters, poetry, coins, and mosaics, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer brings readers into the world of Theoderic’s court, from Gothic warriors and their families to the notables, artisans, and shopkeepers of Rome and Ravenna to the peasants and enslaved people who tilled the soil on grand rural estates. This book offers a fascinating history of the leader who brought peace to Italy after the disintegration of the Roman Empire.

A panoramic, thousand-year history of Israelite religion, from the Iron Age to the birth of Judaism, by a renowned biblical scholar   From its Iron Age beginnings to its aftermath in the Roman period, Israelite religion went through significant changes and transformations. As the Israelites responded to major historical events and political realities, their collective beliefs and practices evolved over time and developed new forms, even as earlier elements of religious culture remained an active substratum.   Weaving together biblical literature, archaeology, and comparative sources, award-winning author Karel van der Toorn tells the sweeping story of how Israelite religion evolved from a tribal cult honoring the ancestors and the “god of the fathers” to a scriptural religion practiced by an ethnic minority within the Roman Empire. He demonstrates how religion was integral to nation-building as Israel transitioned from a nomadic chiefdom to a monarchical state; how religious practices changed in response to the loss of political independence; and how in the final centuries before the Common Era, as Hellenistic culture permeated the Eastern Mediterranean, Israelite religion gave rise to a variety of reading communities committed to a body of sacred scripture, with the law of Moses at its core.   Combining literary studies, anthropology, linguistics, history, and more, this book tells the fascinating story of Israelite religion as it has never been told before.

The remarkable history of Britain and its animals, told through ten iconic species   Have you ever wondered why we count sheep to get to sleep? Or where the phrase “red herring” comes from? Across British history, animals have been written about in poetry, painted in oils, and even recorded in law. Loved or feared, familiar or endangered, animals are everywhere to be seen.   In this enchanting, beautifully illustrated study, Karen R. Jones takes a journey through the history of ten animals to show the extraordinary story of “beastly” Britain. Jones looks at animals including foxes and hedgehogs, newts and beetles, ghostly hounds and even the Loch Ness Monster. She reveals the place of animals in British cultural identity and sheds new light on the most iconic moments of British history, from the Black Death to World War II.   The story of these isles may be told by human voices, but it is fully brought to life by listening to the squawks, bellows, and howls that make Britain what it is.

An insightful new biography of the central figure in the Dreyfus Affair, focused on the man himself and based on newly accessible documents “An admirable introduction not only to its nominal subject but to . . . great historical events.”—Geoffrey Wheatcroft, New York Review of Books   On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting “Death to Judas!” In this book, Maurice Samuels gives readers new insight into Dreyfus himself—the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus’s early life in Paris, his promising career as a French officer, the false accusation leading to his imprisonment on Devil’s Island, the fight to prove his innocence that divided the French nation, and his life of quiet obscurity after World War I.   Samuels’s striking perspective is enriched by a newly available archive of more than three thousand documents and objects donated by the Dreyfus family. Unlike many historians, Samuels argues that Dreyfus was not an “assimilated” Jew. Rather, he epitomized a new model of Jewish identity made possible by the French Revolution, when France became the first European nation to grant Jews full legal equality. This book analyzes Dreyfus’s complex relationship to Judaism and to antisemitism over the course of his life—a story that, as global antisemitism rises, echoes still. It also shows the profound effect of the Dreyfus Affair on the lives of Jews around the world.

An award-winning classicist turns to Greek tragedies for the wisdom to understand the damage caused by suicide and help those who are contemplating suicide themselves   “Remarkable, brave and compassionate.”—Rowan Williams, New Statesman   In Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the Tyrant, a messenger arrives to report that Jocasta, queen of Thebes, has killed herself. To prepare listeners for this terrible news, he announces, “The tragedies that hurt the most are those that sufferers have chosen for themselves.” Edith Hall, whose own life and psyche have been shaped by such loss—her mother’s grandfather, mother, and first cousin all took their own lives—traces the philosophical arguments on suicide, from Plato and Aristotle to David Hume and Albert Camus.   In this deeply personal story, Hall explores the psychological damage that suicide inflicts across generations, relating it to the ancient Greek idea of a family curse. She draws parallels between characters from Greek tragedy and her own relatives, including her great-grandfather, whose life and death bore similar motivations to Sophocles’ Ajax: both men were overwhelmed by shame and humiliation.   Hall, haunted by her own periodic suicidal urges, shows how plays by Sophocles and other Greek dramatists helped her work through the loss of her grandmother and namesake Edith and understand her relationship with her own mother. The wisdom and solace found in the ancient tragedies, she argues, can help one choose survival over painful adversity and offer comfort to those who are tragically bereaved.

Drawing on the riches of Western tradition, Anthony T. Kronman defends a humane conservatism for our enlightened age “Rigorous and philosophically demanding, Kronman’s book invites principled argument from every side.”—Kirkus Reviews As the party of the left has grown more strident, its conservative critics have responded in kind. Each year conservatives do a poorer job of defending their position as a citadel of human values without lapsing into an angry assault on ideals that they and progressives share. It becomes harder to see the enduring appeal of a true conservatism that celebrates the worth of custom and inheritance; the splendor of what is excellent and rare; the expansive solidarity of our friendship with the dead; and the dignity, indeed necessity, of our longing for a connection to the eternal and divine—while affirming that these timeless human goods are compatible with the modern ideals of equality, toleration, and reasoned argument.  In this bracing book, Anthony T. Kronman defends a conservative philosophy of life that respects our enlightened ideals but decries the damage their arrogant simplification causes in our moral, political, and spiritual lives. Drawing on the work of Aristotle, Cicero, Spinoza, Burke, Hume, Madison, Tocqueville, Lincoln, Arendt, Heidegger, and others, he argues that humanism is conservatism, today as in the past. He reminds us that our humbling parameters make possible every form of human greatness, every human glory, every human love worthy of the name.

A sweeping history of the violence perpetrated by governments committed to extreme forms of secularism in the twentieth century   A popular truism derived from the Enlightenment holds that violence is somehow inherent to religion, to which political secularism offers a liberating solution. But this assumption ignores a glaring modern reality: that putatively progressive regimes committed to secularism have possessed just as much and often a vastly greater capacity for violence as those tied to a religious identity. In Broken Altars, Thomas Albert Howard presents a powerful account of the misery, deaths, and destruction visited on religious communities by secularist regimes in the twentieth century.   Presenting three principal forms of modern secularism that have arisen since the Enlightenment—passive secularism, combative secularism, and eliminationist secularism—Howard argues that the latter two have been especially violence-prone. Westerners do not fully grasp this, however, because they often mistake the first form, passive secularism, for secularism as a whole. But a disconcertingly more complicated picture emerges with the adoption of a broader global vision. Admitting different species of secularism, greater historical perspective, and case studies drawn from the former Soviet Union, Turkey, Mexico, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Mongolia, and China, among other countries, Howard calls into question the conventional tale of modernity as the pacifying triumph of secularism over a benighted religious past.

The gripping story of Indira Gandhi’s premiership—and the profound influence she had on India   Indira Gandhi’s ascent as prime minister of India in 1966 was entirely unforeseen. But she soon emerged as one of the most powerful political leaders of her times, who transformed the world’s largest democracy. She served as prime minister for a remarkable fifteen years, leaving behind a complex and deeply controversial legacy.   In this fascinating account, Srinath Raghavan tells the story of Indira Gandhi’s political career and the momentous changes that India experienced under her leadership. From her tentative start in high office to her remarkable electoral victories, the dark days of the Emergency of 1975–77, and her assassination at the hands of her bodyguards in 1984, Raghavan sheds new light on her politics and government, as well as on her adversaries and critics. He shows how the 1970s were the hinge on which the history of the country turned—and how Indira Gandhi transformed the new postcolonial nation into the India of today.

The last work by “one of the most singular voices of twentieth-century French philosophy” (Critical Inquiry) on the complexities of love in public and private life   Vladimir Jankélévitch stands alongside Emmanuel Levinas as one of the most admired French ethicists of the twentieth century, known for his work on everything from the possibility of forgiveness after the Holocaust to the philosophy of music.   In his final work, The Paradox of Morality (1981), Jankélévitch turns his attention to the fundamental questions of the moral life: the struggle between egoism and self-sacrifice, the question of whether pure or infinite love exists, and moral agency in the pursuit of human rights. In dialogue with philosophers from Plato to Nietzsche, Jankélévitch proposes that the moral life comprises an acrobatic act in which we must balance the demands of love and our responsibility to the other against our natural attachment to the self. Morality is the activity of realizing and combining, in each individual action, the maximum amount of love possible with the minimum of being. This oscillation between self and other—and between being and love—is never fixed or stable. In the end, morality is not something that exists in the world of contemplation; instead, it is the substance of what must be done here and now: created anew in each new moment.

An ambitious look at how the twentieth century’s great powers devised their military strategies and what their implications mean for military competition between the United States and China   How will the United States and China evolve militarily in the years ahead? Many experts believe the answer to this question is largely unknowable. But Zack Cooper argues that the American and Chinese militaries are following a well-trodden path. For centuries, the world’s most powerful militaries have adhered to a remarkably consistent pattern of behavior, determined largely by their leaders’ perceptions of relative power shifts. By uncovering these trends, this book places the evolving military competition between the United States and China in historical context.   Drawing on a decade of research and on his experience at the White House and the Pentagon, Cooper outlines a novel explanation for how militaries change as they rise and decline. Tides of Fortune examines the paths of six great powers of the twentieth century, tracking how national leaders adjusted their defense objectives, strategies, and investments in response to perceived shifts in relative power. All these militaries followed a common pattern, and their experiences shed new light on both China’s recent military modernization and America’s potential responses.

A gripping account of an alien abduction and its connections to the breakdown of American society in the 1960s  “Excellent and exhaustive.”—Colin Dickey, Slate   In the mid-1960s, Betty and Barney Hill became famous as the first Americans to claim that aliens had taken them aboard a spacecraft against their will. Their story—involving a lonely highway late at night, lost memories, and medical examinations by small gray creatures with large eyes—has become the template for nearly every encounter with aliens in American popular culture since.   Historian Matthew Bowman examines the Hills’ story not only as a foundational piece of UFO folklore but also as a microcosm of 1960s America. The Hills, an interracial couple who lived in New Hampshire, were civil rights activists, supporters of liberal politics, and Unitarians. But when their story of abduction was repeatedly ignored or discounted by authorities, they lost faith in the scientific establishment, the American government, and the success of the civil rights movement.   Bowman tells the fascinating story of the Hills as an account of the shifting winds in American politics and culture in the second half of the twentieth century. He exposes the promise and fallout of the idealistic reforms of the 1960s and how the myth of political consensus has given way to the cynicism and conspiratorialism and the paranoia and illusion of American life today.