Founded in 1956, Penn State University Press publishes rigorously reviewed, high-quality works of scholarship and books of regional and contemporary interest, with a focus on the humanities and social sciences. The publishing arm of the Pennsylvania State University and a division of the Penn State University Libraries, the Press promotes the advance of scholarship by disseminating knowledge—new information, interpretations, methods of analysis—widely in books, journals, and digital publications.
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Carvajal's Complaint of the Indians in the Court of Death
The first English translation of Michael de Carvajal's Spanish play Complaint of the Indians in the Court of Death, originally published in 1557. Translated by Carlos Jáuregui and Mark Smith-Soto. An annotated bilingual edition, with an introduction that discusses the origins and ideological significance of the ......
Giotto, Enrico Scrovegni, and the Arena Chapel in Padua
At the turn of the fourteenth century, Enrico Scrovegni constructed the most opulent palace that the city of Padua had seen, and he engaged the great Florentine painter, Giotto, to decorate the walls of his private chapel (1303–5). In that same decade, Dante consigned Enrico’s father, a notorious usurer, to the seventh circle of ......
This book is based on detailed notes taken by the author during a decade of study under one of the renowned teachers of piano, whose pupils included such pianists as Gary Graffman, Lilian Kallir, Jacob Lateiner, and Sylvia Saremba and such composer/conductors as Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, and Thomas Scherman. Following a ......
As the principal English interpreter for Mikhail Gorbachev and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, in the critical period of 1985–1991, Pavel Palazchenko participated in all U.S.-Soviet summit talks leading to the end of the Cold War. This personal and political memoir sheds new light on Soviet/American relations and personalities ......
The Commonwealth of Nature explores the role of Tuscan visual culture in the poetic construction of a commonwealth. For Campbell, “commonwealth” should be viewed not only in the context of abstract political theory but also as a living reality, dependent upon the very processes of art making. The book focuses on four ......
How did a mid-eighteenth-century group, the so-called Pennsylvania Germans, build their cultural identity in the face of ethnic stereotyping, nostalgic ideals, and the views imposed by outside contemporaries? Numerous forces create a group’s identity, including the views of outsiders, insiders, and the shaping pressure of religious ......
The Cold War's End and the Soviet Union's Fall Reappraised
Reappraises the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union based on the author's 35-year career as a specialist in Soviet and post-Soviet affairs. Explores the psychological universe of Soviet rulers to clarify the nature of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms.
Considers the contributions of philosophical theories of property rights, political obligation, and self-determination to our moral understanding of political control over geographical space. Focuses on American Indian and other indigenous claims to a separate political status, including potentially to full legal ......
An English translation of Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime, originally written in Latin in the sixteenth-century by Jean Bodin. Structured as a series of discussions on religion and philosophy. Includes introduction, translation, and annotations.
