David Bordwell’s new book is at once a history of film criticism, an analysis of how critics interpret film, and a proposal for an alternative program for film studies. It is an anatomy of film criticism meant to reset the agenda for film scholarship.

It is tempting to believe that dehumanization is an excess of rhetoric-that no one thinks his foe is truly monstrous. David Livingstone Smith argues otherwise, showing that when we dehumanize our enemies, we consider them both human and not. Dehumanization is a genuine psychological response to political manipulation, with harrowing consequences.

The Making of Iranian Modernity brings together a diverse array of scholars from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds and areas of research specialization to celebrate Houchang E. Chehabi, one of the leading scholars in the field of Iranian Studies.

Exploring 150 years of American marriage, Hartog shatters the myth of a golden age of stable marriage in the 19th century. He shows how our own conflicts and confusions about marital roles and identities are rooted in the history of marriage and the legal struggles that defined and transformed it.

In her notes and introduction to this final volume in Harvard’s annotated Austen series, Deidre Shauna Lynch outlines the critical disagreements Mansfield Park has sparked and suggests that Austen’s design in writing the novel was to highlight, not downplay, the conflicted feelings its plot and heroine can inspire.

Gilligan and her colleagues expand the theoretical base of In A Different Voice and apply their research methods to a variety of life situations. The contrasting voices of justice and care clarify different ways in which women and men speak about relationships and lend different meanings to such phenomena as autonomy, loyalty, and violence.

Sociologist Robert J. Sampson’s influential research redefines how we view crime and youth outcomes in the Unites States. By shifting the focus from individual and family traits to generational change and social character, he reveals the flaws in our assumptions about life trajectories and advocates for a fresh approach to social policy.

Under free-market shock therapy, many economies of former socialist countries of Eastern Europe have declined. Why has there been so much stagnation, inflation, and de-industrialization, and what can be done to produce a turnaround? This book addresses these questions in revealing detail.

When István Hont died in 2013 the world lost a giant of intellectual history. Markets, Morals, Politics brings together a celebrated cast of Hont’s contemporaries to explore his influence, ideas, and methods—a work of interpretation that does justice to Hont’s influence while developing its own provocative, illuminating arguments.