History: In the News

Beyond the Lines examines how Palestinian militant groups adapted and remained resilient during conflict by leveraging everyday social networks to manage logistical and informational challenges, showing how local contexts shaped their organizational evolution.

Citizen Strangers examines the paradoxical status of Palestinian citizens in Israel post-1948, exploring how Jewish leaders navigated the tension between international human rights norms and colonial policies, a conflict that continues to shape Israeli society today.

Dwelling in Conflict explores land disputes in Israel’s Negev region, examining how physical and social boundaries shape conflicts between Jewish and Bedouin Arab communities, while also highlighting efforts to challenge and bridge these divisions.

Colin Shindler's history of Israel traces its journey from optimistic beginnings in 1948 to the challenges of wars, internal divisions, and shifting international perceptions, examining recent developments like the rise of the far right, political Islam, and the impact of the Arab Spring.

Orit Rozin's scholarship examines the construction of citizenship in early Israel, highlighting both the limitations imposed by ideological and bureaucratic pressures and the ways in which Israelis protested and navigated these constraints, focusing on issues like childhood rights, freedom of movement, and the right to speak out.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the Arab minority in Israel over six decades, examining when and why they choose negotiation, protest, or violence, and offering a framework for policymakers to reduce tensions by understanding minority leadership and addressing grievances.

The Limits of the Land offers a nuanced historical analysis of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, arguing that while Israeli leaders initially sought to conquer the territory, their strategic shift toward nuclear deterrence by 1967 ultimately led to a diplomatic stalemate that persists today.

National Minority, Regional Majority reexamines the relationship between Israel's Jewish majority and Palestinian Arab minority, using the theory of "interlocking conflicts" to analyze the dynamics of their complex, alternating periods of peace and rebellion, and offering insights into conflict management.

One Land, Two Peoples provides an updated analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, examining the impact of the Oslo Accords and the complexities of national identity, economics, culture, and religion in the ongoing struggle, while emphasizing the need for a resolution between the parties themselves.

Our Promised Land provides an in-depth exploration of the Israeli Messianic Zionist movement, examining the beliefs, political influence, and controversial role of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and their impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinian Literature in Exile is the first English-language study of the Palestinian short story, exploring how literary works by authors like Samira Azzam, Ghassan Kanafani, and Ibrahim Nasrallah reflect political and historical contexts, particularly around key events like the Nakba, Naksa, and the First Intifada.

The Power of Dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians presents twenty-five interviews with alumni of peacebuilding courses in Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam, showcasing how their transformative experiences in conflict transformation workshops continue to inspire professional roles dedicated to peacebuilding and offering hope for a sustainable, peaceful coexistence.

Settler-Indigeneity in the West Bank explores how Israeli settlers invoke and perform indigeneity to justify their presence in the West Bank, examining the cultural, religious, and political implications of these claims, and analyzing how settler-nativization shapes the region's landscape and international discourse.

Dilip Hiro, one of the most experienced of Middle East hands, provides readers with a comprehensive chronicle of Israeli and Palestinian lives, shaped by negotiation and confrontation, right up to the present.

The Holocaust and the Birth and Growth of Israel intertwines the gripping personal history of Gabriel Laufer's father, a Holocaust survivor, with Laufer’s own experiences as an Israeli Defense Force officer, exploring their roles in key twentieth-century events like the Six-Day War and subsequent conflicts.

The most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to AI theory and practice. The revised edition provides a unified presentation of AI concepts, offering expanded coverage on topics like machine learning, deep learning, robotics, natural language processing, and more. It also addresses emerging areas such as causality, probabilistic programming, privacy, fairness, and safe AI, making it an essential resource for students and professionals alike.

This book critically examines the role of artificial intelligence in citizen-government relations, exploring its risks, benefits, and the need for a human-centric framework that prioritizes equality, freedom, and human rights in the context of liberal democracy.

This volume features Chinese scholars examining how global governance can address major challenges posed by globalization and China's rise, including economic, environmental, and security issues.

Counter-Cola explores how The Coca-Cola Company’s global expansion over 130 years exemplifies corporate power in capitalism, while also facing resistance through social, cultural, and political critiques that expose the system’s limits.

This book argues that, contrary to common belief, global capitalism and advanced democracies have historically reinforced each other, with democratic states adapting through public investment and policy to sustain economic growth, middle-class prosperity, and political stability.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond argues that environmental and geographical factors—not racial differences—shaped the unequal development of human societies, explaining why some civilizations came to dominate others.

Market Power Politics presents a new theory explaining how states pursue control over key resources not just for access but to influence global prices, leading them to delay cooperation or engage in conflict, as seen in cases like Iraq, Russia, and China.

This book examines 500 years of international trade conflicts—armed and non-armed—analyzing their economic, ethical, and legal dimensions while calling for stronger economic statecraft and reforms to the global trading system in light of modern challenges like cyber warfare and China's rise.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of global labor history, exploring how capitalism, coerced labor, and labor markets evolved globally—especially from the Global South—and examining international labor standards, inequality, and patterns of worker resistance and revolution.

In this urgent and hopeful book, Blair Sheppard presents the ADAPT framework to explain five global challenges—inequality, technological disruption, age imbalances, polarization, and declining trust—and argues that with bold, creative action, humanity can still avert looming crises in prosperity, technology, institutions, and leadership.

The sixth edition of The American Presidency by Milkis and Nelson explores how constitutional principles and broader social, political, and international forces have shaped the executive office, offering a concise analysis of each presidency and highlighting patterns that reveal the historical expansion of presidential power.

Daniel Farber’s Contested Ground offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the constitutional limits of presidential power, examining historical and modern debates—from the Founders to Trump—and highlighting the ongoing tensions between executive authority, the law, and individual freedoms.

This book presents key debates on pivotal issues facing the modern presidency, encouraging critical thinking through pro/con essays—including new discussions on executive orders, social media's impact, and the role of the vice presidency—while providing context to help students evaluate opposing perspectives.

Richard Ellis’s The Development of the American Presidency offers a comprehensive, historically grounded analysis of how the presidency has evolved from its constitutional origins to the present, focusing on key political science concepts and recent developments, including Trump's presidency, media use, and legal controversies.

The fourth edition of Executive Privilege offers a definitive, updated analysis of the history and limits of presidential power, examining how executive privilege was exercised during the Obama and early Trump administrations, including major controversies like Russian election interference and the 2020 Census citizenship question.

Investigating the President by Douglas Kriner and Eric Schickler provides the most comprehensive analysis of congressional investigations to date, showing how these often-dismissed proceedings serve as a powerful check on presidential power by influencing public opinion and shaping policy outcomes across more than a century of political history.

Presidents and the American Presidency, Second Edition by Lori Cox Han and Diane J. Heith offers a balanced, practical study of the presidency by examining both the institution and its officeholders, combining theoretical analysis with real-world insights, archival materials, and both institutional and individual perspectives.

The Presidents and the Constitution offers a comprehensive exploration of how each U.S. president from George Washington to Barack Obama has shaped—and been shaped by—the Constitution, using constitutional conflicts to reveal how presidential actions have influenced the document’s evolution across American history.

The ninth edition of this well-regarded textbook offers a clear and updated introduction to congressional politics, combining real-world examples, recent developments, and political science research to explore Congress as both a legislative institution and a body of politicians, while emphasizing the importance of a strong legislature in American democracy.

An introduction to the U.S. Congress, from seasoned political historians and teachers In this accessible overview of the United States Congress's past and present, Ginsberg and Hill introduce students to the country's most democratic institution. This text surveys Congressional elections, the internal structure of Congress, the legislative process, Congress and the President, and Congress and the courts. Congress: The First Branch offers a fresh approach to the First Branch grounded in a historical, positive frame.

This work reveals the hidden history of physical violence in the U.S. Congress before the Civil War, showing how brutal clashes—driven largely by tensions over slavery—escalated sectional conflict and helped push the nation toward war, offering a vivid, deeply researched look at the fragility of American democracy in its most turbulent era.

This book provides a comparative analysis of the 1929 and 2008–2009 stock market crashes, examining the economic conditions and causes leading up to both crises to reveal patterns, draw lessons, and offer insight into how such financial disasters might have been foreseen—and potentially avoided.

This collection of letters from legendary investor Barton Biggs, released publicly for the first time, offers insightful, witty, and prescient commentary on finance, markets, and global economics from 1980 to 2003, showcasing his sharp intellect, historical perspective, and unique voice as one of Wall Street’s most compelling observers.

Michael Lewis’s The Big Short tells the gripping, darkly humorous story of the 2008 financial crisis through the lens of a few unlikely individuals who saw it coming, exposing the corrupt, opaque world of mortgage-backed securities and the systemic failures that allowed Wall Street to profit from economic collapse.

This book explores how unscheduled events and the narratives they generate drive investor behavior and stock market instability, using big data analysis of financial news to support the novelty-narrative hypothesis within the emerging field of narrative economics.

Scott Sumner’s The Midas Paradox offers a groundbreaking analysis of the Great Depression, arguing that a combination of poor monetary policy and government interventions—not just market forces—drove its severity and duration, challenging long-held economic narratives and offering new insights into macroeconomic instability.

The New Stock Market provides a thorough analysis of the transformation of U.S. equity markets due to algorithmic and high-frequency trading, examining how these changes affect market behavior, regulation, and fairness, and offering insights into improving the regulatory framework in light of new trading technologies and practices.

The revised second edition of The Panic of 1907 offers a compelling, in-depth account of one of America's most pivotal but overlooked financial crises, revealing how it led to the creation of the Federal Reserve and providing enduring lessons about the vulnerabilities of modern financial systems despite today’s safeguards.

Carly Goodman’s Dreamland explores the surprising history and global impact of the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery, tracing its origins as a tool to aid white immigrants and its transformation into a crucial pathway for African migration, while highlighting how the program embodies both the hope of the American dream and the challenges of systemic racism and anti-immigrant policy.

This book examines the long-term political and socioeconomic impact of emigration from Southeastern Europe, focusing on how migrant networks, state policies, and national identity shaped both the region and its relationship with its diaspora from the late 19th century through communist Yugoslavia’s decision to liberalize labor migration, highlighting emigration as a deeply influential and multifaceted historical force.

Tyesha Maddox’s A Home Away from Home explores how Caribbean American mutual aid societies—particularly led by women—played a vital role in supporting immigrants, building community, and fostering a collective Pan-Caribbean and Black diasporic identity, ultimately serving as early expressions of Pan-Africanist politics in the United States.

Daniel Wolff’s How to Become an American traces the emotional and historical journey of a Jewish immigrant family from pre-Civil War Charleston to post-WWII Minneapolis, using a recovered diary to illuminate the broader story of immigration, identity, and belonging in a nation that often fails to live up to its ideals of inclusion and equality.

Issues in U.S. Immigration is a comprehensive, student-friendly reference work that explores the complex history and evolving debates surrounding immigration to the United States—from early European settlement through post-9/11 concerns—highlighting the roles of diverse ethnic communities and offering clear, accessible entries, cross-references, and contextual tools to support understanding of immigration’s central role in American history.

Erika Lee’s The Making of Asian America offers a sweeping, deeply researched history of Asian Americans from the 1500s to the present, tracing their struggles and contributions while exposing the persistent racism they’ve faced, and showing how their experiences reshape our understanding of American identity, race, and immigration.

Many Voices, One Nation presents U.S. history through a rich tapestry of artifacts and personal stories, with essays by Smithsonian scholars that explore how diverse peoples have shaped and redefined American ideals like freedom and belonging, ultimately highlighting the complexity and unity of a nation built from many voices.

Lon Kurashige’s Two Faces of Exclusion reveals that U.S. anti-Asian immigration policies—from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act to WWII internment—were not uncontested, highlighting a long, often-overlooked history of powerful opposition to exclusion that shaped both domestic politics and U.S.-Asian relations, ultimately influencing the rise of a more interconnected Pacific world.