"What is the shortest possible route for a traveling salesman seeking to visit each city on a list exactly once and return to his city of origin? It sounds simple enough, yet the traveling salesman problem is one of the most intensely studied puzzles in applied mathematics--and …
"Alaska Natives have struggled with the "white plague" of tuberculosis for centuries. At last, physician and historian Robert Fortuine brings their story to light. He provides a comprehensive account of tuberculosis from its earliest occurrence in prehistory through the latest o…
What makes a classical song a song? In a wide-ranging discussion, covering such contrasting composers as Brahms and Berberian, Schubert and Kurtág, Jonathan Dunsby considers the nature of vocality in songs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Guarding Life's Dark Secrets tells the story of an intriguing aspect of the social and legal culture in the United States, the construction and destruction of a network of doctrines designed to protect reputation. The strict and unbending rules of decency and propriety of the ni…
'Unfinished Gestures' presents the social and cultural history of courtesans in South India, focusing on their encounters with colonial modernity in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
