Tag archieven: Yale University Press

Biografie, Schotland, Schotse schrijver

Leo Damrosch – Storyteller The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson

Leo Damrosch Storyteller The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson review, recensie en informatie biografie van de Schotse schrijver. Op 2 september 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press de biografie van Robert Louis Stevenson, geschreven door Leo Damrosch. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.

Leo Damrosch Storyteller The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson review en recensie

  • “Damrosch brings to Stevenson’s life the calm, humane interpretive powers that he deployed with such success in The Club … Stevenson was a master of sensory clarity, [and] learning how he achieved his ‘kinetic’ effects is one of the great pleasures of this excellent book.” (Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal)
  • “In this biography told as an adventure story, Leo Damrosch convincingly portrays R. L. Stevenson as one of the most endearing writers in the English language.” (Alberto Manguel, author)
  • “This will now stand as the standard modern life of Robert Louis Stevenson, its scholarly authority enhanced by its readability. The events of Stevenson’s extraordinary life are narrated with verve, and RLS himself is brought vividly before us, his complexity and charisma conveyed without any note of hagiography (or, conversely, critical debunking).” (Ian Duncan, University of California)
  • “Is there a better biographer alive today than Leo Damrosch? His latest, a full-scale biography of Robert Louis Stevenson, is a brilliant storytelling achievement worthy of both its title and the redoubtable subject at its center. Stevenson lived more in his forty-four years than most do in a lifetime.” (Morten Høi Jensen)

Leo Damrosch Storyteller The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson

Storyteller

The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson

  • Auteur: Leo Damrosch (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: biografie
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 2 september 2025
  • Omvang: 584 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs $ 35,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van de biografie van de Schotse schrijver Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) is famed for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but he published many other novels and stories before his death at forty-four. Despite lifelong ill health, he had immense vitality; Mark Twain said his eyes burned with “smoldering rich fire.” Born in Edinburgh to a family of lighthouse engineers, Stevenson set many stories in Scotland but sought travel and adventure in a life as romantic as his novels. “I loved a ship,” he wrote, “as a man loves burgundy or daybreak.” The adventures were shared with his free-spirited American wife, Fanny, with whom he moved to the South Pacific.

Samoan friends named Stevenson “Storyteller.” Reading, he said, “should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves.” His own books have been translated into dozens of languages. Jorge Luis Borges called his stories “one of the forms of happiness,” and other modernist masters as various as Proust, Nabokov, and Calvino have paid tribute to his greatness as a literary artist.

In Storyteller, Leo Damrosch brings to life an unforgettable personality, illuminated by many who knew Stevenson well and drawing from thousands of the writer’s letters in his many voices and moods—playful, imaginative, at times tragic.

Leo Damrosch is the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature Emeritus at Harvard University. His many books include Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius (National Book Award finalist); Adventurer: The Life and Times of Giacomo Casanova, The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age and Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World (National Book Critics Circle Award winner, Pulitzer Prize finalist). He lives in Newton, MA.

Bijpassende boeken en informatie

Engelse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken, Oorlogsgeschiedenis, Tweede Wereldoorlog

Gareth Williams – The Impossible Bomb

Gareth Williams The Impossible Bomb review, recensie en informatie de verborgen geschiedenis van Britse wetenschappers en de race om een ​​atoombom te ontwikkelen. Op 2 september 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het boek van Gareth Williams de emeritus hoogleraar van de University van Bristol over de rol van Britse wetenschappers bij de ontwikkeling van de atoombom. er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Gareth Williams The Impossible Bomb review en recensie

  • “Winston Churchill’s wartime military assistant Ian Jacob quipped to him that the Allies won the war ‘because our German scientists were better than their German scientists.’ Three of these scientific refugees from 1930s Nazi Germany who became British citizens played key roles in the pivotal British contribution to creating the apparently all-American atomic bomb—the subject of Gareth Williams’s history, which reveals and brings to life this crucial but unfamiliar drama.” (Andrew Robinson, author of Einstein on the Run)
  • “An engaging, well-researched account … The Impossible Bomb reads like an eye-witness account. With colorful descriptions, Williams portrays the British scientists who contributed their insights and expertise to the atomic bomb project. His book is a timely tribute on the 80th anniversary of the Anglo-American project’s success.” (Cynthia C. Kelly, president, Atomic Heritage Foundation)
  • “A significant contribution to our understanding of ‘the most significant international collaboration of the 20th century.’ It’s eminently readable, too.” (Christopher Harding, Telegraph)

Gareth Williams The Impossible Bomb

The Impossible Bomb

The Hidden History of British Scientists and the Race to Create an Atomic Weapon

  • Auteur: Gareth Williams (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: oorlogsgeschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 2 september 2025
  • Omvang: 480 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 40.00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over de rol van Britse wetenschappers bij de atoombom

The remarkable story of the forgotten British scientists who enabled the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb.

Atomic weaponry is widely understood as a story of American scientific achievement—but scientists working in Britain played a vital role in its development. Including Nobel Prize winners and Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, these scientists have long since been forgotten. But without their expertise, Robert Oppenheimer’s research at Los Alamos would never have succeeded.

Gareth Williams unearths the true story of the top-secret British atomic programme, codenamed “Tube Alloys,” established in 1940. These pioneering scientists struggled to convince sceptics in Britain and the USA that an atomic “super-bomb” capable of destroying entire cities was feasible, and could be built in time to influence the outcome of the Second World War. Williams shows how the British atomic programme, despite the often disruptive involvement of political leaders such as Winston Churchill, was vital to the success of the Manhattan Project.

The Impossible Bomb sheds new light on how humanity’s deadliest weapons came to exist—and the massive destruction they wrought.

Gareth Williams is emeritus professor and former dean of medicine at the University of Bristol. He is the author of over 200 medical papers and 20 books, including Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox and Unravelling the Double Helix.

Bijpassende boeken

Canadese schrijvers, Geschiedenisboeken

Eric T. Jennings – Vanilla

Eric T. Jennings Vanilla review, recensie en informatie boek over de geschiedenis van een buitengewone boon. Op 26 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het boek over de geschiedenis van vanille, geschreven door Eric T. Jennings, de Canadese historicus. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Eric T. Jennings Vanilla review en recensie

  • “Eric Jennings is right: Vanilla is no ordinary bean. In this beautifully crafted and brilliantly researched history, Jennings tells the story of how this coveted pod left its home in Mexico to conquer the world, thanks to increasing global demand, imperial connections, and one remarkable enslaved teenager on Réunion Island named Edmond. Vanilla is a tour de force.” (Christopher Goscha, Université du Québec à Montréal)
  • “The stunning Vanilla sits amidst deep and spectacular digging into ecology, history, power shifts in the old and new worlds. With his distinctive command of the polyvalent archive, Eric Jennings turns our head towards an unexpected, rich history. That of Bean Being. What an impressive achievement!” (Ruby Lal, Emory Professor of South Asian History)

Eric T. Jennings Vanilla

Vanilla

The History of an Extraordinary Bean

  • Auteur: Eric T. Jennings (Canada)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenisboek
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgave: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 26 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 312 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 30,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst boek over vanille van Eric T. Jennings

The fascinating and wide-ranging history of vanilla, from the sixteenth century to today.

Vanilla is one of the most expensive of flavorings—so valuable that it was smuggled or stolen by pirates in the early days—and yet it is everywhere. It is a key ingredient in dishes ranging from crème brûlée to Japanese purin. It is the quintessential ice cream flavor in the United States. Eric T. Jennings explains how the world’s only edible orchid, originally endemic to Central America, became embedded in the international culinary and cultural landscape.

In tracing vanilla’s rise, Jennings describes how in the 1840s an enslaved boy named Edmond Albius discovered a way to pollinate vanilla orchids with a toothpick or needle—an ingenious process that is still in use. This method transformed the vanilla sector by enabling the plant to be grown outside of its natural range. Jennings also looks at how the vanilla craze led to the search for now‑pervasive substitutes, and how a vanilla lobby has fought back. He further unravels how vanilla—the world’s most expensive crop and once considered its most refined fragrance—came to mean “bland.”

This tale of botany, production techniques, consumption habits, and colonial rivalry connects the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, revealing how vanilla has become a potent symbol of the modern global village.

Eric T. Jennings was born 26 July 1970 in Canada. He is chair of the History Department and a fellow at Victoria College at the University of Toronto. He is the author of seven previous books, all of which have been translated into French, and one into Vietnamese, and he has held a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Bijpassende boeken en informatie

True-Crime, Geschiedenisboeken, Politieke geschiedenis

Simon Ball – Death to Order

Simon Ball Death to Order review, recensie en informatie boek met een moderne geschiedenis van politieke moord in opdracht. Op 26 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het nieuwe boek van Simon Ball over huurmoord van de hoogleraar internationale geschiedenis en politiek aan de Universiteit van Leeds. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Simon Ball Death to Order review en recensie

  • “Ball cautions against focusing too much on the assassins or even their victims… His thrust is political: to examine how assassination functions as an instrument, and how states’ reactions to assassination shape its use.” (Dan Piepenbring, Harper’s Magazine)
  • “Death to Order is a masterpiece of international history. Simon Ball wears his great learning lightly, but the new research is prodigious and could hardly be more necessary. As contemporary events keep reminding us, this is a story for our times.” (Richard Aldous)

Simon Ball Death to Order

Death to Order

A Modern History of Assassination

  • Auteur: Simon Ball (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: politieke geschiedenis, true crime
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 26 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 464 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 35,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek van Simon Ball

A deeply researched history of assassination in the modern world, from Franz Ferdinand to Osama bin Laden.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Leon Trotsky, Reinhard Heydrich, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Osama bin Laden, Qasem Soleimani: assassination—the murder of a specific individual by an organised conspiracy in pursuit of political ends—has rarely failed to grip the imagination.

In this incisive new history, Simon Ball shows how targeted political murder has become a tool of democratic states but also a key strategy of those who wish to topple them. Ball introduces us to the techniques of assassination and those who wield them, as well as the security regimes that have developed to prevent this violent practice. From the First World War and the age of empire to terrorism and the development of pilotless drones, Death to Order places assassination at the heart of modern political history—and shows how it continues to impact our world.

Simon Ball is professor of international history and politics at the University of Leeds. He is the author of six acclaimed books, including Secret History, The Bitter Sea, and The Guardsmen.

Bijpassende boeken

Geschiedenisboeken, Engelse historicus

Faisal Devji – Waning Crescent

Faisal Devji Waning Crescent review, recensie en informatie boek over de opkomst en ondergang van de wereldwijde islam. Op 26 augustus 2026 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het nieuwe boek van Faisal Devji de in Islam gespecialiseerde historicus en Beit Hoogleraar Wereld- en Imperiale Geschiedenis en fellow van het Balliol College, Oxford. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Faisal Devji Waning Crescent review en recensie

  • “Faisal Devji has emerged as the preeminent historian of global religion in its most surprising, intractable, and understudied aspects. His newest book is no less original in its stunning and disarming approach. Waning Crescent forms essential reading for a wide audience that will appreciate its erudition and for those rare acute political observers rightly concerned with the present spell cast by our more oppressing spiritual pasts but also intrigued by the normative resources that may yet be found there.” (Hent de Vries, Dutch Philospoher and professor at  New York University)
  • “Every book Faisal Devji writes is important. This biography of Islam as an historical actor is daring, learned, occasionally outrageous, invariably revelatory. Here there is no deference to the Western gaze. Devji gives us not only a study of Islam, but a study of modernity that shifts the world on its axis.” (Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania)

Faisal Devji Waning Crescent

Waning Crescent

The Rise and Fall of Global Islam

  • Auteur: Faisal Devji (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenis van de Islam
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 26 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 280 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 30,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek van Faisal Devji over de opkomst en ondergang van de wereldwijde islam

A compelling examination of the rise of Islam as a global historical actor.

Until the nineteenth century, Islam was variously understood as a set of beliefs and practices. But after Muslims began to see their faith as an historical actor on the world stage, they needed to narrate Islam’s birth anew as well as to imagine its possible death. Faisal Devji argues that this change, sparked by the crisis of Muslim sovereignty in the age of European empire, provided a way of thinking about agency in a global context: an Islam liberated from the authority of kings and clerics had the potential to represent the human race itself as a newly empirical reality.

Ordinary Muslims, now recognized as the privileged representatives of Islam, were freed from traditional forms of Islamic authority. However, their conception of Islam as an impersonal actor in history meant that it could not be defined in either religious or political terms. Its existence as a civilizational and later ideological subject also deprived figures like God and the Prophet of their theological subjectivities while robbing the Muslim community of its political agency. Devji illuminates this history and explores its ramifications for the contemporary Muslim world.

Faisal Devji was born in 1964 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is the author of The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence and Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea.

Bijpassende boeken

Oezbeekse roman, Oezbeekse schrijfster, Oezbeekse schrijver, Oezbekistan

Hamid Ismailov – We Computers

Hamid Ismailov We Computers review, recensie en informatie over de inhoud van de roman van de schrijver uit Oezbekistan. Op 19 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press de Engelse vertaling van de roman van Hamid Ismailov, de in Kirgizië geboren Oezbeekse schrijver. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van de roman verkrijgbaar.

Hamid Ismailov We Computers review en recensie

  • “A multilayered exploration of poetry, authorship, and digital intelligence by a writer of immense poetic power.” (Guardian)
  • “Ismailov’s best novel yet, We Computers braids together exquisite classical and modern poetry, disorienting autofiction, and Oulipian metaliterary trickery, without ever losing its sense of fun. Fairweather-Vega’s translation handles the multilingual quotations and protean range of pastiche with remarkable deftness.” (Samuel Hodgkin, Yale University)
  • “Many paths cross in Ismailov’s beautiful new work–poetry, history and the infinite imagination. Every path winding into another. Every path worth taking.” (Patti Smith)

Hamid Ismailov We Computers

We Computers

  • Auteur: Hamid Ismailov (Oezbekistan)
  • Soort boek: Oezbeekse roman
  • Origineel: Bizkim – komputerlar 
  • Engelse vertaling: Shelley Fairweather-Vega
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 19 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 296 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 20.00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon

Flaptekst van de roman van de Oezbeekse schrijver Hamid Ismailov

In the late 1980s, French poet and psychologist Jon‑Perse finds himself in possession of one of the most promising inventions of the century: a computer. Enchanted by snippets of Persian poetry he learns from his Uzbek translation partner, Abdulhamid Ismail, Jon-Perse builds a computer program capable of both analyzing and generating literature. But beyond the text on his screen there are entire worlds—of history, philosophy, and maybe even of love—in the stories and people he and AI conjure.

Hamid Ismailov brings together his work as a poet, translator, and student of literature of both East and West to craft a postmodern ode to poetry across centuries and continents. Crossing the poètes maudits with beloved Sufi classics, blending absurdist dreams with the life of the famed Persian poet Hafez, moving from careful mathematical calculations to lyrical narratives, Ismailov invents an ingenious transnational poetics of love and longing for the digital age. Situated at the crossroads of a multilingual world and mediated by the unreliable sensibilities of digital intelligence, this book is a dazzling celebration of how poetry resonates across time and space.

Hamid Ismailov, was born on 5 May 1954 in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan and raised in Uzbekistan. He is considered Central Asia’s foremost living author. His books include The Railway, The Dead Lake, Manashi, The Underground, Of Strangers and Bees and The Devil’s Dance. He lives in Hertz, UK.

Bijpassende boeken en informatie

Geschiedenisboeken, Deense schrijvers

Sten Rynning – NATO

Sten Rynning NATO review, recensie en informatie boek met een geschiedenis van ’s werelds machtigste alliantie de NAVO. Op 8 juli 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het boek over de NAVO van de Deense professor en schrijver Sten Rynning. Hier lees je informatie over de inhoud van het boek, de auteur en over de uitgave. Een Nederlandse vertaling is niet verkrijgbaar.

Sten Rynning NATO review en recensie

  • “Extremely readable. It provides a great overview of what NATO is, why it came about, and how it has evolved. Rynning does an excellent job.” (James Goldgeier)
  • “The history of NATO is one of constant adaptation and evolution – with many twists and turns along the way. Professor Stan Rynning’s book recounts with style and detail a remarkable story. As someone who lived through some of its most momentous moments I can admire the landscape painted here of seventy five years of growth, power and (mixed) achievement. A billion people sleep easy in their beds today because the NATO Alliance protects them. Here they can, and should, see why that has happened.” (Lord Robertson of Port Ellen KT GCMG, 10th Secretary General of NATO, 1999-2003)

Sten Rynning NATO

NATO

From Cold War to Ukraine, a History of the World’s Most Powerful Alliance

  • Auteur: Sten Rynning (Denemarken)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenis van de NAVO
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 8 juli 2025
  • Omvang: 400 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback
  • Prijs: $ 22,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over de geschiedenis van de NATO

A wide-ranging new history of NATO, from its origins to the present day—published for the alliance’s seventy-fifth anniversary.

For seven decades, NATO’s stated aim has been the achievement of world peace—but playing great power politics always involves conflict. Russia’s war on Ukraine and on Europe’s security order puts the alliance under threat, but also demonstrates why transatlantic cooperation is so necessary. But how did NATO get to where it is today, and what does its future hold?

In this incisive new account, Sten Rynning traces the full history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation from its origins to the present. Across its seventy-five years, NATO has navigated the twists and turns of Cold War diplomacy and nuclear deterrence, and has grown its membership. The alliance has become a guarantor of peace, but Rynning explores how its complex inner workings alongside Russian and Chinese opposition are now shaping its direction.

At a time of strategic competition and geopolitical upheaval, Rynning offers us a clear-sighted account of the alliance’s intriguing history—and asks what its ambitions might be for the future.

Sten Rynning has researched and written on NATO for twenty-five years. He is a professor and director of the Danish Institute for Advanced Study, University of Southern Denmark, and the author of NATO in Afghanistan.

Bijpassende boeken

Ierland, Geschiedenisboeken, Ierse schrijvers

John Gibney – A Short History of Ireland

John Gibney A Short History of Ireland review, recensie en informatie over de inhoud van het boek over de geschiedenis van Ierland. Op 24 juni 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het boek over de Ierse geschiedenis geschreven door de Ierse historicus John Gibney. Hier lees je informatie over de inhoud van het boek, de auteur en over de uitgave. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.

John Gibney A Short History of Ireland review en recensie

  • “A Short History of Ireland stands out for its brevity, but also for its accessibility. (…) A solid introduction not only to the key events and themes of Irish history, but also to the processes of that history, too.” (Seán Hewitt, Irish Times)
  • “This admirable, succinct account of developments in Irish society from the sixteenth century to the present identifies several unresolved historiographical issues, and offers an especially judicious discussion of controversies concerning the 18th and 19th centuries.” (Nicholas Canny, National University of Ireland)

John Gibney A Short History of Ireland

A Short History of Ireland

1500 – 2000

  • Auteur: John Gibney (Ierland)
  • Soort boek: Ierse geschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 24 juni 2025
  • Omvang: 304 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 20,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over de geschiedenis van Ierland

A brisk, concise, and readable overview of Irish history from the Protestant Reformation to the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Five centuries of Irish history are explored in this informative and accessible volume. Beginning with Ireland’s modern period at the dawn of the sixteenth century, John Gibney continues through to virtually the present day, offering an integrated overview of the island nation’s cultural, political, and socioeconomic evolution.

This succinct, scholarly study covers important historical events, including the Cromwellian conquest and settlement, the Great Famine, and the struggle for Irish independence. Along the way, it explores major themes such as Ireland’s often contentious relationship with Britain, the impact of the Protestant Reformation, the ongoing religious tensions it inspired, and the global reach of the Irish diaspora. This unique, wide-ranging work assimilates the most recent scholarship on a wide range of historical controversies, making it an essential addition to the library of any student of Irish studies.

John Gibney completed his doctorate at Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of a number of books including The Shadow of a Year: The 1641 Rebellion in Irish History and Memory.

Bijpassende boeken en informatie

Geschiedenisboeken, Non-Fictie

Bruno J. Strasser & Thomas Schlich – The Mask

Bruno J. Strasser & Thomas Schlich The Mask recensie, review en informatie boek over de geschiedenis van het inademen van slechte lucht. Op 24 juni 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het boek The Mask, A History of Breathing Bad Air, geschreven door Bruno J. Strasser en Thomas Schlich. Hier lees je informatie over de inhoud van het boek, de auteurs en over de uitgave. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.

Bruno J. Strasser & Thomas Schlich The Mask recensie en review

  • “This captivating and richly illustrated book offers an ambitious and expansive history of ‘bad air,’ the plague, and approaches to widespread disease. It uses the mask—as both physical object and metaphor—to uncover and reveal, brilliantly charting a course through the intertwined histories of disease, war, the environment, and identity.” (Sharrona Pearl)
  • “A thoroughly documented and well-illustrated accounting of mask wearing over two millennia.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Bruno J. Strasser & Thomas Schlich The Mask

The Mask

A History of Breathing Bad Air

  • Auteur: Bruno J. Strasser, Thomas Schlich
  • Soort boek: geschiedenisboek
  • Taal: Engels
  • Verschijnt: 24 juni 2025
  • Omvang: 288 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 38,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over maskers als bescherming tegen slechte lucht

A history of masks protecting against bad air—in cities, factories, hospitals, and war trenches—exploring how our identities and beliefs shape the decision to wear a mask.

For centuries, humans have sought to protect themselves from harmful air, whether from smoke, dust, vapors, or germs. This book offers the first history of respiratory masks—ranging from simple pieces of cloth to elaborate gas masks—and explores why they have sparked both hope and fear.

Bruno J. Strasser and Thomas Schlich captivate readers with stories of individuals—from renowned doctors and political leaders to forgotten inventors and anonymous factory workers—who passionately debated the value of masks. In Renaissance Italy and Meiji Japan, in Victorian Britain and Cold War America, the way societies have engaged with face coverings reveals their deepest cultural and political fractures. The Mask challenges us to reconsider how we care for one another and the kind of environment we aspire to inhabit.

Bruno J. Strasser is a historian, a full professor at the University of Geneva, and an affiliate of History of Medicine at Yale University.

Thomas Schlich is the James McGill Professor in the History of Medicine at McGill University, and a former practicing physician.

Bijpassende boeken

Tanzania, Tanzaniaanse schrijver

Euphrase Kezilahabi – Rosa Mistika

Euphrase Kezilahabi Rosa Mistika recensie, review en informatie roman uit 1971 van de Swahili schrijver uit Tanzania. Op 17 juni 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press de Engelse vertaling van de in Swahili geschreven roman van de Tanzaniaanse schrijver Euphrase Kezilahabi. Hier lees je informatie over de inhoud van de roman, de auteur en over de uitgave. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Euphrase Kezilahabi Rosa Mistika recensie en review

  • “A tremendously important novel.” (Abdulrazak Gurnah, winnaar van de Nobelprijs voor de Literatuur in 2021)
  • “Carefully and beautifully translated, Rosa Mistika is a profound meditation on how we come to independence as individuals, as women and men steeped in patriarchy, and in societies still wearing neocolonial rags—and then when tasked with freedom, what we do with it.” (Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ)

Euphrase Kezilahabi Rosa Mistika

Rosa Mistika

The Margellos World Republic of Letters

  • Auteur: Euphrase Kezilahabi (Tanzania)
  • Soort boek: Swahili roman, Tanzaniaanse roman
  • Engelse vertaling: Jay Boss Rubin
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 17 juni 2025
  • Omvang:  176 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 18,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van de Swahili roman van Euphrase Kezilahabi

A controversial Swahili classic by one of Tanzania’s most revered writers, banned on publication and finally translated into English.

Teenage Rosa lives with her parents and four younger sisters in a village on Ukerewe Island in Lake Victoria, where she attends the local school and helps out on the family farm. Life would be relatively peaceful if it weren’t for Rosa’s father, who drinks to oblivion and abuses his wife and daughters. Initially relieved to be admitted into a residential school on the mainland, Rosa soon discovers that she’s ill prepared for life outside her village. As she becomes accustomed to the attention—and manipulations—of men, she begins to understand her sexuality as a weapon. But this understanding, born of the need to survive in a world of double standards, comes with a price.

Rosa Mistika is a radical narrative exploration of womanhood, maternal love, agency, and authority—and the first-ever Swahili novel to address issues of domestic violence, sexual coercion, and abortion. Through the story of a young woman and her community it poses the enduring question: To what degree are we responsible for the choices we make, and to what degree are we acted upon by forces outside our control?

Euphrase Kezilahabi is born on 13 April 1944 on Ukerewe Island in Tanzania. He was a Tanzanian novelist, poet, and scholar who wrote in Swahili. On 9 January 2020 he died in Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania.

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