Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Perry N. Halkitis
In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, treatment options were limited at best. Most who were living with HIV/AIDS, the majority of whom were gay men, attempted to find and use treatments that would save their lives and control the virus from causing further physical deterioration.
By Ayana Young
As one of the most renowned and recognizable instruments in the modern orchestra, the violin’s petite shape and magnified sound charms listeners, players and dreamers alike. Beyond the aesthetic and captivating sound, the history of the violin is just as enticing.
By Timothy Spangler
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, much ill-feeling remains towards Wall Street, the investment banks and those individuals who profit from short-term movements in the financial markets. As the crisis has dragged on, more questions are being raised about how the modern financial system actually works.
By Anatoly Liberman
I begin almost every set of gleanings with abject apologies. To err is human. So it is not the mistakes I have made in the past and will make in the future that irritate me but the avoidable and therefore unforgivable slips.
By Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein
In 2009, Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, in Long Island Care at Home vs. Evelyn Coke upheld the administrative rule of the US Department of Labor that classified home health care workers as elder companions, excluding them from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
By David J. Bodenhamer
Veneration of the Constitution—and of the Founders who drafted it—began early in the nation’s history. Thomas Jefferson, who in 1787 expressed reservations about the Philadelphia convention, hailed the document two years later as “unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men.”
No one doubts the politics of selecting a Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has withdrawn from consideration and Janet Yellen, current Vice Chairwoman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, is now the frontrunner. What does the new chair have to expect?
By David Ellwood
Is French culture exceptional, exceptionalist, or just… unique ? The question was raised again this year by the row which broke out just before the start of US-EU trade talks. The French government insisted that cultural products, particularly film and television, should be left out of the negotiations due to their special status as timeless acts of artistic creation.
By Luciana O’Flaherty
All those who have read and loved a Very Short Introduction know that they offer a short but sophisticated route into a new or slightly familiar topic. The series was launched in 1995 and has continued to offer new books each year (around 30 a year, at the last count) for students, scholars, and the avidly curious.
By Nigel Biggar
It could well be that current negotiations between the United States, France, and Russia will lead to the Assad regime’s surrender of its chemical weapons. Everyone — bar the regime itself — has a legitimate interest in seeing that happen. Meanwhile, the civil war in Syria drags on, in which far more people have been killed — and will yet be killed — by conventional weapons than by chemical ones. What stance should we take toward this complex conflict, morally speaking?
By Andrew Koppelman
Obamacare has been like the title character in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: everyone talks about it but it never arrives. It is finally about to make its entrance. On 1 October 2013, all 50 states and the District of Columbia will open health insurance marketplaces (sometimes called “exchanges”) for people who aren’t covered by their employer or a government program.
By Charles Geisst
One of the more audacious trading operations in Wall Street history occurred in September 1869. The “Gold Corner” as it quickly became known, involved nothing less than an attempt to force up the price of gold using the resources of the United States government in the process.
Viennese composer Alban Berg played a major role in the transformation of serious music as it entered the modern period. He was also a skilled, analytic writer, whose essays, lectures, and polemics provide a unique perspective on classical music in transition. A new English edition of his Pro Mundo – Pro Domo. edited by Bryan R. Simms, contains 47 essays, many of which are little known and have not been previously available in English. Below is a brief extract from one of his dialogues with critic Julius Bistron.
By Martine Piccart
Personalized medicine is one of the objectives of the European Union’s “Horizon 2020” funding program and a high priority on the ESMO board’s strategic agenda: indeed, in oncology, many therapies share a narrow therapeutic index and high cost, implying that prescribing the wrong treatment to the wrong patient at the wrong time can have very negative consequences for both patients and public health systems.
By Theda Skocpol and Lawrence R. Jacobs
The Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act that was passed by Congress and signed into law in March 2010 sets in motion reforms in U.S. health insurance coming into full effect in 2014. Most Americans are confused about what the law promises — and no wonder.
By Simon Meisenberg
The trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor moved the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) into the limelight of international criminal justice for the last half decade. Without any doubt, the presence of a former Head of State in the dock drew international attention to the smallest of the ad hoc international criminal courts.