Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Trevor Naylor
The written word has always played its part in the spreading of revolutionary ideas and in the recording of historical events. Until the Internet, this was done principally by the bookshops of the world, nowhere more so than across the countries of Asia and the Middle East, where the humble corner bookshop sells not just books, but newspapers, magazines, stationery, and all manner of things to keep its daily customers up to date.
By Donal Donovan
After many years of extraordinary success the dramatic collapse of the Irish economy in 2008 was unprecedented in the history of post-war industrial countries. Who and what was responsible for the demise of the poster boy “Celtic Tiger?” What lessons can be learned form the Irish debacle and can the Tiger come roaring back?
By David Bradshaw and James Smith
The extent of Ezra Pound’s involvement with Italian fascism during the Second World War has been one of the most troubling and contentious issues in modernist literary studies.
By Douglas J. Besharov and Karen Baehler
Let’s assume that Nobel economist Paul Krugman and others are right about China’s economy being “in big trouble” and headed for a “nasty slump.” What does this mean for the 150 million current Chinese workers who left their home villages to fill jobs in the new economy’s growth centers?
By Louis René Beres
Nowadays, chaotic disintegration seems widely evident in world politics, especially in the visibly-fragmenting Middle East. What does it mean to live with a constant and unavoidable awareness of such fracturing? This vital question should be asked everywhere on earth, but most urgently in Israel.
In celebration of the anniversary of the first burlesque show in New York City, I reread a fun murder mystery, The G-String Murders, by Gypsy Rose Lee. “Finding dead bodies scattered all over a burlesque theater isn’t the sort of thing you’re likely to forget. Not quickly, anyway,” begins the story.The editors at Simon & Schuster liked the setting in a burlesque theater and appreciated Gypsy’s natural style, with its unpretentious and casual tone. Her knowledge of burlesque enabled her to intrigue readers, who were as interested in life within a burlesque theater as in the mystery.
By Laura Davis
You know that stress dream that everyone has at one time or another? The one where you’re standing up in front of a giant group of people and something goes horribly wrong? You forget your speech, your voice cracks, you’re not wearing pants.
By Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel
Chemical weapons are horrendous agents. Small amounts can kill and severely injure hundreds of noncombatant women, men, and children in a matter of minutes, as apparently occurred recently in Syria. Some analysts consider them “poor countries’ nuclear bombs.”
Between Edgar Allan Poe’s invention of the detective story with ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ in 1841 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story ‘A Study in Scarlet’ in 1887, chance and coincidence played a large part in crime fiction. Conan Doyle resolved to be different in future.
By David Karpf
Last week, MoveOn.org announced its opposition to President Obama’s proposed military strikes in Syria. MoveOn will now begin mobilizing its eight million+ members to speak out against the Syrian action, and is already planning rallies around the country.
By Lucas Lixinski
In June this year, developments around the Great Barrier Reef were excitedly discussed and closely scrutinized by the World Heritage Committee, a subsidiary organ of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
By Jessica Harris
This month our Oxford World’s Classics reading list is on folk and fairy tales. Many of these stories pre-date the printing press, and most will no doubt continue to be told for hundreds of years to come. How many of these have you heard of, and have we missed out your favourite?
By Georgia Mierswa
Oxford University Press would like to take a moment to honor all grandparents, great-grandparents, and beyond, acknowledging the often extraordinary efforts (more are primary caregivers than ever before in history!) required to build and sustain a family. The information and statistics below have been drawn from numerous articles on the significance of grandparents in Encyclopedia of Social Work.
>By Eric Scerri
After years of lagging behind physics and biology in the popularity stakes, the science of chemistry is staging a big come back, at least in one particular area. Information about the elements and the periodic table has mushroomed in popular culture.
By Roger M. McCoy
Henry Hudson envisioned that he would be the first explorer to find the elusive western passage through North America to the Orient. He persisted in this westward looking vision although his financier, the Dutch East India Company, insisted that he search eastward through the ice-bound sea north of Russia. Hudson had previously tried this northeastern route as well as a northerly route directly over the North Pole. Both had failed due to impassable ice.
On the 7th of September each year, Australia observes National Threatened Species Day, so we thought this would be a good time to look at a species we couldn’t save. The following is an extract from the Encyclopedia of Mammals on the extinct thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger).