Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Jacob Darwin Hamblin
Fifty years ago, the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union signed a pact to stop testing nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, oceans, and space. As we commemorate the treaty, we will not agree on what to celebrate. There are two sides of the story.
By Kathleen Cavanaugh
Since 2003, Iraq has experienced significant political unrest and the emergence of ethno-religious divisions. That there is a sectarian complexion to emerging socio-political movements in Iraq (religious, ethno-political) is not in question. The ‘fear of sectarianism’ has undoubtedly shaped and formed how protest movements in Iraq (and indeed regionally) are constituted.
By Desmond McNeill
Modern vaccines are among the most powerful tools available to public health. They have saved millions of lives, protected millions more against the ravages of crippling and debilitating disease, and have the capacity to save many more. But like all complex and sophisticated tools, they can be used for different purposes, in different ways, and with various consequences.
Today, debate in the West remains largely focused on energy security and decreased dependence on foreign oil, but in the Middle East, an equally threatening crisis looms in a shortage of food and water. Ahead of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association & CAES Joint Annual Meeting (4-6 August 2013 in Washington, D.C.), we present a […]
By Matthew Beaumont
Pater’s most celebrated and controversial book, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) is about the distant past, superficially at least, and therefore risked seeming irrelevant even in his own time. It could not however have inspired a generation of undergraduates, including Oscar Wilde, to embrace aestheticism, and a cult of homoeroticism, as his critics claimed, if it had not also been a coded polemic about the present.
By Tatiana Holway
Two hundred years ago today, on 3 August 1813, Joseph Paxton turned ten. In a farm hand’s family of nine children, this was likely to have been a nonevent. A decade after that, the day would also have come and gone like any other.
By Leonard A. Jason, Amy A. Mericle, Douglas L. Polcin, and William L. White
Drug abuse and addiction are among the costliest of health problems, totaling approximately $428 billion annually. People recovering from substance abuse disorders face many obstacles in our current health care system.
By Ephrem Fernandez, Ph.D.
What is anger? In essence, anger is a subjective feeling tied to perceived wrongdoing and a tendency to counter or redress that wrongdoing in ways that may range from resistance to retaliation. Like sadness and fear, the feeling of anger can take the form of emotion, mood, or temperament.
By Jonathan Kroberger
Today is International Beer Day and there’s nothing we like to talk about more than a few good brews. Between the Oxford Companion to Beer, America Walks into a Bar, Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing, The Economics of Beer, and several episodes of The Oxford Comment, OUP employees have managed to imbibe a little expertise in the area.
The Mabinogion is the title given to eleven medieval Welsh prose tales preserved mainly in the White Book of Rhydderch (c.1350) and the Red Book of Hergest (c.1400). They were never conceived as a collection—the title was adopted in the nineteenth century when the tales were first translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest.
The World Championships in Athletics takes place this month in Moscow. Since 1983 the championship has grown in size and now includes around 200 participating countries and territories, giving rise to the global prominence of athletics. The Ancient Greeks were some of the earliest to begin holding competitions around athletics, with each Greek state competing in a series of sporting events in the city of Olympia once every four years.
Linda Woodhead
We are living through a very significant historical change: the collapse of the historic churches which have shaped British society and culture. The Church of England, by law established, is no exception. A survey I recently carried out with YouGov for the Westminster Faith Debates (June 2013) shows that in Great Britain as a whole only 11% of young people in their twenties now call themselves CofE or Anglican, compared to nearer half of over-70s. The challenge facing the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is to address this decline. But the initial indications suggest he may be heading in the wrong direction.
By Sam Lebovic
Since its creation in the summer of 1946, the Fulbright program has become the “flagship international educational exchange program” of the US government. Over the past 67 years, almost 320,000 students, scholars and teachers have traveled internationally as part of the program’s vast effort to improve mutual understanding between nations.
By Ken Crossland
The story of Rosemary’s Clooney’s rise, fall, and rise again to the summit of American music is a story unparalleled in American showbiz history. From her emergence at the archetypal girl-next-door in the Fifties, through to her late life renaissance as an interpreter par excellence of jazz and popular song, Clooney’s 57-year career scaled all the heights.
By George Graham and Owen Flanagan
Even before the much-heralded DSM-5 was released, Thomas Insel the Director of NIMH criticized it for lacking “scientific validity.” In his blog post entitled “Transforming Diagnosis,” Insel admitted that the symptom-based approach of DSM is as good as we can get at present and that it yields “reliability” by disciplining the use of diagnostic terminology among professionals.
By Miles Witham and Marion McMurdo
It’s a Thursday morning in February, and I have just arrived on the ward to start my ward round. Mrs Y, a lady in her 90’s with dementia, was admitted with pneumonia a few days ago. She is on the mend, rehabilitating well, and we planned to get her home tomorrow with some extra home care.