The EU and ‘anti anti-fascism’

By Dan Stone
On 1 January 2014 Latvia joined the Eurozone and Romanians and Bulgarians became free to travel and settle in most of the European Union. Twenty years ago these statements would have sounded like fantasy; the EU has reshaped Europe so that the divisions of the Cold War now seem like a bad dream. Yet the sense of wonder that such facts engender is tempered by the realisation that most people in Latvia do not want to join the euro and that most Europeans – at least, if their political leaders and tabloid press are to be believed – do not support the free movement of peoples. What has happened to make the aspirations of the EEC’s founding fathers like Monnet, Schuman and Spinelli seem so unattractive to today’s Europeans?

Escape Plans: Solomon Northup and Twelve Years a Slave

By Daniel Donaghy
During the movie awards season, Steve McQueen’s new film 12 Years a Slave will inspire discussions about its realistic depiction of slavery’s atrocities (Henry Louis Gates Jr. has already called it, “most certainly one of the most vivid and authentic portrayals of slavery ever captured in a feature film.”) and the points at which the film most clearly reflects and departs from Solomon Northup’s original narrative.

In memoriam: Ariel Sharon

By Gil Troy
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s former prime minister who died recently at 85, after being in a vegetative state for eight years, helped save Israel at least twice. The first time, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, won him worldwide acclaim. The second time, against Yasir Arafat’s terror war three decades later, earned him broad denunciations. That shift reflects the change in tactics in the decades-long war against Israel’s existence, and the resulting plunge in Israel’s popularity.

Catching up with Stuart Roberts

In an effort to get to know our Oxford University Press staff better, we are featuring Q&A’s filled out by our staff in different offices. Read on for our Q&A with Stuart Roberts, editorial assistant for our religion and theology Academic/Trade books in New York.

Words of 2013 round-up

By Alice Northover
Word of the Year season in the English-speaking world has come to a close. Oxford Dictionaries kicked off the annual reflection (and often infuriation) regarding words that were particularly relevant this past year. Here’s a brief round-up of the various words singled out by dictionaries, linguists, and enthusiasts.

Volume, variety, and online scholarly publishing

By John Louth
One of the questions we are asked most frequently as university press editors is whether and how our work has changed to accommodate digital publishing. That can be taken to refer to a wide range of changes, but if we mean the digital publication of scholarly monographs, the answer, thankfully, is “not much”.

The current crisis in American legal education

By G. Edward White
There has been a good deal of recent commentary about a perceived “crisis” in American legal education. A combination of rising tuition rates for law schools and a decline in the number of entry-level jobs in the legal profession has resulted in reduced numbers of applicants to law schools, and a corresponding reduction in entering law school class sizes.

Disquiet at the Mark Duggan inquest jury’s conclusion

By P.A.J. Waddington
Many of those who have commented on the Mark Duggan inquest jury verdict have expressed disquiet at the jury’s conclusion that whilst the killing by police officers was lawful, Duggan was not holding the gun at the time he was shot. This is not as bizarre as it might first appear.

Landfill Harmonic: lessons in improvisation

By Siu-Lan Tan

On the first day of class in my ‘Psychology of Music’ course, I often ask students to create their own musical instruments. The catch is… they have to make them out of whatever they happen to have in their backpacks and pockets that day!

What comes after do-re-mi? Ten musicals that could be adapted for TV

By Matthew Kennedy

The 5 December 2013 live broadcast of The Sound of Music became a ratings giant despite withering reviews from armchair critics everywhere. “Hate watchers” Twittered their derision with relish, while NBC laughed all the way to the bank. What was the draw?

Are we there yet?

By Elizabeth Knowles
Dictionary projects can famously, and sometimes fatally, overrun. In the nineteenth century especially, dictionaries for the more recondite foreign languages of past and present (from Coptic to Sanskrit) were compiled by independent scholars, enthusiasts who were ready to dedicate their lives to a particular project.

‘Soft power’ and the politics of influence

By David Ellwood
As the use of military force to resolve disputes between nations becomes less plausible in most regions of the world, the struggle for influence intensifies.

The color gray in full bloom

By Anatoly Liberman
At the end of the nineteenth century, while working on the issue of the OED (then known as NED: New English Dictionary) that was to feature the word gray, James A. H. Murray sent letters to various people, asking their opinion about the differences between the variants gray and grey.

The legacy of the War on Poverty, 50 years later

By Michael B. Katz
On January 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the federal government’s War on Poverty during his State of the Union address. Seven months later, Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act. Time has not been kind to its reputation.

Launching a war on poverty

By Michael L. Gillette
Fifty years ago on the eighth of January, President Lyndon Johnson declared unconditional war on poverty. In his first State of the Union Address, LBJ outlined his offensive, a sweeping domestic agenda that would become known as the Great Society: Medicare, federal aid to education, an expanded food stamp program, extended minimum wage coverage…

In case you missed it … six notable economic stories from 2013

By Richard S. Grossman
2013 was an eventful year from the perspective of economics. The US government was shut down for 16 days as ideologically-driven Republicans held the budget hostage in an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Japan’s new nationalistic government embarked on a bold, and so far largely successful attempt to revive the country’s anemic economy.