Susan Wallace Boehmer

In Fall 2012 Harvard University Press is proud to publish a variety of new works, across a range of disciplines, that address many challenging issues of our time. Turning first to the environment, several distinguished authors focus on extinction, asking readers to imagine a planet without our closest relatives the great apes, an Atlantic ocean dead to fisheries, and ancient civilizations defeated by thirst and conflicts over water control. Children’s rights, states’ rights, creators’ rights, and victors’ rights are among the many legal topics teased apart in the books we offer this season. Continuing an inquiry into problems of capitalism, our authors examine the emerging concept of risk at the turn of the twentieth century, the reinvention of free markets following the Great Depression, the paradox of poverty and American abundance, and present-day threats to the European monetary union. Following recently acclaimed biographies of Deng Xiaoping, Charles Dickens, the Keats brothers, Hans Bethe, and Saladin, we showcase the lives and thought of three spiritual leaders, Brigham Young, Pope Pius XII, and Gandhi, as well as dual biographies of Emma Goldman and Sasha Berkman, Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin—and the twin cities Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Readers with an interest in human development and behavior will discover what the best college students do to survive and thrive, what young professionals need to know about everyday ethics, how homosexual men learn to be part of gay culture, how a group of Harvard grads adapted to life’s exigencies well into their tenth decade, and why all human beings spontaneously yawn, hiccup, laugh, and exhibit other curious quirks.

Finally, two reference projects are represented in Fall 2012: the Dictionary of American Regional English, whose sixth and final volume is now available in print (stay tuned for information about the digital edition of this landmark work, scheduled to launch in 2013); and A History of the World, also in six volumes, which will provide a unique account of global society from prehistoric times to the present. As HUP’s editorial and faculty boards work together each month to shape the Press’s list, they share a belief that books written by scholars and published by university presses are essential channels for understanding our interconnected world. With offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, Harvard University Press is proud to be an editorially-driven publishing house, where international currents in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences converge in unexpected ways.