Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Anatoly Liberman
Touch and go. I asked our correspondents whether anyone could confirm or disprove the nautical origin of the idiom touch and go. This is the answer I received from Mr. Jonathan H. Saunders: “As a Merchant Mariner I have used and heard this term for over thirty years.
By Sherry Hamby
One woman, to save money to prepare for leaving her abusive husband, sewed $20 bills into the hemlines of old clothes in the back of her closet. Another woman started volunteering at her school so she could keep close watch over her children and earned Volunteer of the Year at her school.
By Owen Davies
Why is Halloween associated with witches? Look back beyond the twentieth century and you will find few connections. The 31st of October has long been a day of great religious significance of course. It is All Hallows’ Eve, the build-up to the Catholic All Saints’ Day, and then All Souls’ Day on 2 November. This was a time when the worlds of the living and the dead were at their closest.
The nights darken, the wind howls, and branches (or ghostly fingers?) tap against your windowpane. This can only mean one thing – Halloween approaches! To celebrate the day of ghouls, ghosts and other creatures which go bump in the night, we’ve compiled a list of University Press Scholarship Online‘s most spine-chilling chapters (available free for a limited time).
By Daniel B. Klein
I support a classical liberal worldview. I call to social democrats and conservatives alike: Be fair. Let us treat one another like fellow Smithians and come together in Adam Smith.
By Matthew Flinders
Out Paxo’ing Paxman might be one thing but it is quite another to make the leap from comedian to serious political commentator.
With the 31st of October quickly approaching, scores of costumes and vast amounts of candy are disappearing from stores as we prepare for Halloween. But, with all the time and money put into the decorations and celebration, how much do we really know about this widely celebrated tradition? How many of us can even define the term, Halloween?
By Kate Scott
The last time President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln sat for a portrait photograph together was in the early 1870s, five years or more after the president’s death and burial. The president, filmy and translucent, tenderly placed his see-through hands on his wife’s shoulders as she looked into the camera.
I heard about Lou Reed’s death in the most modern of ways. He had taken over my Twitter feed, which on Sunday was suddenly filled with links to Rolling Stone‘s obituary, often preceded by shock-induced expletives or followed by links to a video of a favorite song.
By Kelly Besecke
The relationship between reason and spirituality has been part of our cultural conversation since the advent of modernity. In recent times, we’ve seen this conversation play out in public debates over creationism and arguments between religious leaders and representatives of a “new atheism.”
The 2013 Oxford Place of the Year (POTY) process is now in full swing. The longlist poll closes this Thursday, so be sure to get your votes in! (Scroll to the bottom of this page to vote.) The POTY shortlist will be announced on Monday, 4 November 2013.
By Sergey Vasiliev
In late July 2013, The Guardian reported that the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC), a global Jewish NGO, had launched a poster campaign in Germany requesting the public to assist in identifying and bringing to justice the last surviving alleged perpetrators of crimes under the Nazi regime. Two thousand posters were hung in the streets, featuring a sinister black-and-white image of the most horrific dead-end the modern-era humankind has seen: the snow-covered rail tracks approaching the gate of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp.
By Lizzie Shannon-Little
What better way to send shivers down your spine this Halloween than to curl up with a spooky tale? These Classics have been putting the frighteners on people for quite some time, and we’ve got the collywobbles just thinking about them.
By Henry S. Richardson
A huge amount of ethical angst swirls around the topic of informed consent. Can lay people who are considering signing up as subjects in a medical study really be made to understand the risks they are facing?
By Joseph B. Raskin
Service on the first route of the New York City subway system began 109 years ago today, on 27 October 1904. The occasion was marked by ceremonies in City Hall, led by George A. McClellan and representatives of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the operators of that line. Mayor McClellan saw the opening of the subway as the beginning of a new era for the greater city.
By David Brian Robertson
In the The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay offer us urgent lessons for coping with the kind of gridlock that grips American government today. They were defending a plan intended to replace a failing national government. The proposed Constitution aimed to break a government stalemate that threatened the survival of the infant American republic.