Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel
We live in the richest nation on earth. Yet 15% of the US population (about 46 million people) live below the poverty line — about $23,000 for a family of four. Almost 25% of children live in poverty. The number of American households living on $2 or less grew by 130% between 1996 and 2011.
By Mary A. M. Rogers
Sometimes I think that Click and Clack – you know, the Car Talk™ experts – could give us a lesson on repair. They are pretty good at diagnosis; have plenty of experience in knowing how to test things out; are great listeners to the concerns of people who have a problem; and they really know subtyping – the characteristics specific to certain makes and models of different cars.
By Nick Wilson
As a musician myself I have certainly received my fair share of warranted (and un-warranted) criticism over the years. There is nowhere to hide on the concert platform. Performing music necessarily requires being open to others, exposing more of the self than is demanded in most other walks of life. It is perhaps only natural, therefore, that the controversial subject of authenticity should remain so stubbornly relevant to our understanding and pleasure of (musical) performance.
By Anatoly Liberman
Words, as I have noted more than once, live up to their sense. For instance, in searching for the origin of amaze, one encounters numerous truly amazing reefs. This is the story. Old English had the verb amasian “confuse, surprise.”
By Istvan Hargittai
The Los Alamos National Laboratory came to life in 1943 as the concluding segment of the Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bombs for the US Army. In August 1945, these bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
By Richard S. Grossman
In the early 1600s, the King of Sweden declared that copper, along with silver, would serve as money. He did this because he owned lots of copper mines and thought that this policy would increase the public’s demand for copper—and also its price, making him much wealthier.
By Richard Moe
Barack Obama earlier this year became the first president in recent memory to propose limiting the powers of his office when he called for reigning in the use of drones. “Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions,” he said on 23 May 2013.
By Heidi Moawad
The completion of residency training is a time of key decisions. For residents, the assessment of several strong job options is a long-awaited reward after years of preparation. However, unlike the regimented and scheduled process of residency applications and interviews culminating in match day during the fourth year of medical school, the search for a job or fellowship is self-directed, individualized, and without a set end point or deadline.
By Edward Zelinsky
President Obama has joined with other critics of contemporary legal education in calling for the reduction of law school to a two year program. The President and these other critics are wrong. Indeed, the remedy they propose for the ills of legal education has it exactly backward.
In honor of Oxford’s 20th edition of the acclaimed Atlas of the World, we put together a longlist of 20 places around the globe for our yearly Place of the Year competition. The votes have been tallied, the geography committee has provided their essential input, and the shortlist nominees have been decided upon.
Today marks the 217th anniversary of the start of the third election of the president of the United States on 4 November 1796. Still a young country, the election was center stage that year as George Washington decided to stop running. Many patriots were viable candidates, but John Adams had served as vice president under Washington and was an obvious choice for a candidate.
There are a number of mysteries surrounding the Battle of Midway, and a breadth of new information has recently been uncovered about the four day struggle. We sat down with naval historian Craig L. Symonds, author of The Battle of Midway, newly released in paperback, to answer some questions about the iconic World War II […]
Eric Orts on business theory
Business is one of the most powerful and influential institutions in our world today, but there has been relatively little theoretical work from scholars…We sat down with Eric Orts, author of Business Persons, to discuss thinking critically about business institutions in a theoretical manner.
On Sunday 29 July 2013, we headed off to Wallacea for three weeks to assist comedian Bill Bailey with a documentary he is presenting about Alfred Russel Wallace. George, the Natural History Museum’s Curator of Orthopteroid Insects, acted as the Historical Consultant.
While The Iliad is a fictional tale of the Trojan War between the Trojan and Achaean warriors during the Late Bronze Age (circa 1500-1200 BC), it is set in a real location: the eastern Mediterranean, along the Aegean Sea. We present a brief slideshow of maps from Barry B. Powell’s new translation of the ancient epic, which illustrate the geographic regions mentioned, from towns and cities, to character origins, and even allied battle grounds.
By Tim M. Berra
Charles married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, and together they had ten children, three died in childhood and seven lived long lives.