Search

A groundbreaking history of how the US Post made the nineteenth-century American West. There were five times as many post offices in the United States in 1899 than there are McDonald's restaurants today. During an era of supposedly limited federal government, the United States operated the most expansive national postal system in the world. In this cutting-edge interpretation of the late nineteenth-century United States, Cameron Blevins argues that the US Post wove together two of the era's defining projects: western expansion and the growth of state power. Between the 1860s and the early 1900s, the western United States underwent a truly dramatic reorganization of people, land, capital, and resources. It had taken Anglo-Americans the better part of two hundred years to occupy the eastern half of the continent, yet they occupied the West within a single generation. As millions of settlers moved into the region, they relied on letters and newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, petitions and money orders to stay connected to the wider world. Paper Trails maps the spread of the US Post using a dataset of more than 100,000 post offices, revealing a new picture of the federal government in the West. The western postal network bore little resemblance to the civil service bureaucracies typically associated with government institutions. Instead, the US Post grafted public mail service onto private businesses, contracting with stagecoach companies to carry the mail and paying local merchants to distribute letters from their stores. These arrangements allowed the US Post to rapidly spin out a vast and ephemeral web of postal infrastructure to thousands of distant places. The postal network's sprawling geography and localized operations forces a reconsideration of the American state, its history, and the ways in which it exercised power.

Paul Humphreys pioneered philosophical investigations into the methodological revolution begun by computer simulations. He has also made important contributions to the contemporary literature on emergence by developing the fusion account of diachronic emergence and its generalization, transformational emergence. He is the discoverer of what has come to be called `Humphreys'Paradox'in probability theory and has also made influential contributions to the literature on probabilistic causality and scientific explanation. This collection contains fourteen of his previously published papers on topics ranging from numerical experiments to the status of scientific metaphysics. There is also a previously unpublished paper on social dynamics. The volume is divided into four parts on, respectively, computational science, emergence, probability, and general philosophy of science. The first part contains the seminal 1990 paper on computer simulations, with three other papers arguing that these new methods cannot be accounted for by traditional methodological approaches. The second part contains the original presentation of fusion emergence and three companion papers arguing for diachronic approaches to the topic, rather than the then dominant synchronic accounts. The third part starts with the paper that introduced the probabilistic paradox followed by a later evaluation of attempts to solve it. A third paper argues, contra Quine, that probability theory is a purely mathematical theory. The final section includes papers on causation, explanation, metaphysics, and an agent-based model that shows how endogenous uncertainty undermines utility maximization. Each of the four parts is followed by a comprehensive postscript with retrospective assessments of each of the papers, replies to some responses, and in some cases elaborations of the original arguments. An introduction to the volume provides a general perspective on unifying themes that run through Humphreys'philosophical work.

When Isaac Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left behind a wealth of papers that, when examined, gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed, hinting at a Newton altogether stranger and less palatable than the one enshrined in Westminster Abbey as the paragon of English rationality. These manuscripts had the potential to undermine not merely Newton's reputation, but that of the scientific method he embodied. They were immediately suppressed as'unfit to be printed,'and, aside from brief, troubling glimpses spread across centuries, the papers would remain hidden from sight for more than seven generations. In The Newton Papers, Sarah Dry illuminates the tangled history of these private writings over the course of nearly three hundred years, from the long span of Newton's own life into the present day. The writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity, would eventually come to light as they moved through the hands of relatives, collectors, and scholars. The story of their disappearance, dispersal, and rediscovery is populated by a diverse cast of characters who pursued and possessed the papers, from economist John Maynard Keynes to controversial Jewish Biblical scholar Abraham Yahuda. Dry's captivating narrative moves between these varied personalities, depicting how, as they chased the image of Newton through the thickets of his various obsessions, these men became obsessed themselves with the allure of defining the'true'Newton. Dry skillfully accounts for the ways with which Newton's pursuers have approached his papers over centuries. Ultimately, The Newton Papers shows how Newton has been made and re-made throughout history by those seeking to reconcile the cosmic contradictions of an extraordinarily complex man.

No foreign policy decision in recent history has had greater repercussions than President George W. Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq. It launched a new doctrine of preemptive war, mired the American military in an intractable armed conflict, disrupted world petroleum supplies, cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, and damaged or ended the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis. Its impact on international politics and America's standing in the world remains incalculable. The Iraq Papers offers a compelling documentary narrative and interpretation of this momentous conflict. With keen editing and incisive commentary, the book weaves together original documents that range from presidential addresses to redacted memos, carrying us from the ideology behind the invasion to negotiations for withdrawal. These papers trace the rise of the neoconservatives and reveal the role of strategic thinking about oil supplies. In moving to the planning for the war itself, the authors not only provide Congressional resolutions and speeches by President Bush, but internal security papers, Pentagon planning documents, the report of the Future of Iraq Project, and eloquent opposition statements by Senator Robert Byrd, other world governments, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the World Council of Churches. This collection addresses every aspect of the conflict, from the military's evolving counterinsurgency strategy to declarations by Iraqi resisters and political figures-from Coalition Provisional Authority orders to Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal of the insurgents as'dead-enders'and Iraqi discussions of state- and nationbuilding under the shadow of occupation. The economics of petroleum, the legal and ethical questions surrounding terrorism and torture, international agreements, the theory of the'unitary presidency,'and the Bush administration's use of presidential signing statements all receive in-depth coverage. The Iraq War has reshaped the domestic and international landscape. The Iraq Papers offers the authoritative one-volume source for understanding the conflict and its many repercussions.

In this groundbreaking work, Kamal Sadiq reveals that most of the world's illegal immigrants are not migrating directly to the US, but to countries in the vast developing world, where they are able to obtain citizenship papers fairly easily. Sadiq introduces'documentary citizenship'to explain how paperwork--often falsely obtained--confers citizenship on illegal immigrants. Across the globe, there are literally tens of millions of such illegal immigrants who have assumed the guise of'citizens.'Who, then, is really a citizen? And what does citizenship mean for most of the world's peoples? Rendered in vivid detail, Paper Citizens not only shows how illegal immigrants acquire false papers, but also sheds light on the consequences this will have for global security in the post 9/11 world.

While well-known for his book-length work, philosopher Peter Unger's articles have been less widely accessible. These two volumes of Unger's Philosophical Papers include articles spanning more than 35 years of Unger's long and fruitful career. Dividing the articles thematically, this first volume collects work in epistemology and ethics, among other topics, while the second volume focuses on metaphysics. Unger's work has advanced the full spectrum of topics at the heart of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, and ethics. Unger advances radical positions, going against the so-called'commonsense philosophy'that has dominated the analytic tradition since its beginnings early in the twentieth century. In epistemology, his articles advance the view that nobody ever knows anything and, beyond that, argue that nobody has any reason to believe anything--and even beyond that, they argue that nobody has any reason to do anything, or even want anything. In metaphysics, his work argues that people do not really exist--and neither do puddles, plants, poodles, and planets. But, as Unger has often changed his favored positions, from one decade to the next, his work also advances the opposite,'commonsense'positions: that there are in fact plenty of people, puddles, plants and planets and, quite beyond that, we know it all to be true. On most major philosophical questions, both of these sides of Unger's significant work are well represented in this major two volume collection. Unger's vivid writing style, intellectual vitality, and fearlessness in the face of our largest philosophical questions, make these volumes of great interest not only to the philosophical community but to others who might otherwise find contemporary philosophy dry and technical.

Leonid Hurwicz (1917-2008) was a major figure in modern theoretical economics whose contributions over sixty-five years spanned at least five areas: econometrics, nonlinear programming, decision theory, microeconomic theory, and mechanism design. In 2007, at age ninety, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (shared with Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson) for pioneering the field of mechanism design and incentive compatibility. Hurwicz made seminal contributions in the other areas as well. In non-linear programming, he contributed to the understanding of Lagrange-Kuhn-Tucker problems (along with co-authors Kenneth Arrowand Hirofumi Uzawa). In econometrics, the Hurwicz bias in the least-squares analysis of time series is a fundamental and commonly cited benchmark. In decision theory, the Hurwicz criterion for decision-making under ambiguity is routinely invoked, sometimes without a citation since his original paper was never published. In microeconomic theory, Hurwicz (along with Arrow and H.D. Block) initiated the study of stability of the market mechanism, and (with Uzawa) solved the classic integrability of demand problem, a core result in neoclassical consumer theory. While some of Hurwicz's work were published in journals, many remain scattered as chapters in books which are difficult to access; yet others were never published at all. The Collected Papers of Leonid Hurwicz is the first volume in a series of four that will bring his oeuvre in one place, to bring to light the totality of his intellectual output, to document his contribution to economics and the extent of his legacy, with the express purpose to make it easily available for future generations of researchers to build upon.

The Congress of Neurological Surgeons Essential Papers in Neurosurgery brings to the neurosurgical community a unique collection of critically appraised neurosurgical papers shedding light on some of the most impactful studies in the history of the field. Separating the signal from the noise, this text offers papers that have shaped the practice of neurosurgery, selected through a rigorous process, and commented on by editorialists to reconcile conflicting points and summarize the take-home message of each study. Each paper is reviewed by a panel of two experts who provide editorials evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the paper as well as the impact it had on the editorialist's personal practice of neurosurgery. This book is equally suited for neurosurgery residents, practicing neurosurgeons, and anyone interested in evidence-based clinical neuroscience. The body of literature covered in this book has in many ways defined the gold standards of neurosurgical practice and is a must-know for every student of neurosurgery.

This volume collects the best and most influential essays on knowledge, rationality and morality that Stephen Stich has published in the last 40 years. All of the essays are concerned, in one way or another, with the ways in which findings and theories in the cognitive sciences can contribute to, and sometimes reshape traditional philosophical conversations and debates. A central theme in the essays on epistemology and rationality is the philosophical significance of empirical work on human reasoning done by researchers in the'heuristics and biases'tradition, and by their critics in evolutionary psychology. In the essays on morality, a wide range of empirical work is explored, including studies of the psychological foundations of norms, work on the moral / conventional distinction, and empirical attempts to determine whether humans ever act on altruistic motives. Stich was one of the pioneers in the experimental philosophy movement, and work in experimental philosophy plays a prominent role in many of these essays. The volume includes a new introductory essay that offers an overview of the papers and traces the history of how they emerged.

This volume collects the best and most influential essays that Stephen Stich has published in the last 40 years on topics in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. They discuss a wide range of topics including grammar, innateness, reference, folk psychology, eliminativism, connectionism, evolutionary psychology, simulation theory, social construction, and psychopathology. However, they are unified by two central concerns. The first is the viability of the commonsense conception of the mind in the face of challenges posed by both philosophical arguments and empirical findings. The second is the philosophical implications of research in the cognitive sciences which, in the last half century, has transformed both our understanding of the mind and the ways in which the mind is studied. The volume includes a new introductory essay that elaborates on these themes and offers an overview of the papers that follow.

Written by a group of the nation's leading constitutional scholars, a deeply informed, thoughtful, and often surprising examination of who has First Amendment rights to disclose, to obtain, or to publish classified information relating to the national security of the United States. One of the most vexing and perennial questions facing any democracy is how to balance the government's legitimate need to conduct its operations-especially those related to protecting the national security-in secret, with the public's right and responsibility to know what its government is doing. There is no easy answer to this issue, and different nations embrace different solutions. In the United States, at the constitutional level, the answer begins exactly half a century ago with the Supreme Court's landmark 1971 decision in the Pentagon Papers case. The final decision, though, left many important questions unresolved. Moreover, the issue of leaks and secrecy has cropped up repeatedly since, most recently in the Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning cases. In National Security, Leaks and Freedom of the Press, two of America's leading First Amendment scholars, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone, have gathered a group of the nation's leading constitutional scholars-including John Brennan, Eric Holder, Cass R. Sunstein, and Michael Morell, among many others-to delve into important dimensions of the current system, to explain how we should think about them, and to offer as many solutions as possible.

Consists of fifteen selected papers dealing with a variety of topics in ontology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language.

Pavlov's research was foundational to the twentieth-century understanding of physiology and psychology, yet much of his work remains untranslated from the original Russian language. In this book, Olga Yokoyama sets out to translate the third volume of Pavlov's Complete Works, as well as his last unpublished paper. This volume also contains the papers from the sixth edition of Twenty Years of Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Activity of Animals, arguably the most impactful work by the 1904 Nobel Laureate. His concept of the conditional reflex has influenced human thought far beyond physiology, affecting the ways we view not only such practical matters as learning and child-rearing, but philosophical questions of the mind and its relationship to the psyche, creativity, and individual freedom. This translation is accompanied by three introductory essays which contextualize Pavlov's work from three perspectives: that of Pavlov's text as it was subjected to translation, that of neuropsychological science today, and that of the history of scientific thought and practices.

This collection showcases the most influential published essays by philosopher Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski. One of the most distinguished thinkers working in epistemology today, particularly where the theory of knowledge meets ethics and the philosophy of religion, Zagzebski is well-known for broadening epistemology and refocusing it on epistemic virtue and epistemic value. Her work has greatly influenced the trajectory of contemporary epistemology, opening up new fields in analytic epistemology. The papers collected here are organized into six sections to underline the scope of her impact on six key subject areas of epistemology: (1) knowledge and understanding, (2) intellectual virtue, (3) epistemic value, (4) virtue in religious epistemology, (5) intellectual autonomy and authority, and (6) skepticism and the Gettier problem.

Context Counts assembles, for the first time, the work of pre-eminent linguist Robin Tolmach Lakoff. A career that spans some forty years, Lakoff remains one of the most influential linguists of the 20th-century. The early papers show the genesis of Lakoff's inquiry into the relationship of language and social power, ideas later codified in the groundbreaking Language and Woman's Place and Talking Power. The late papers reflect her continued exposition of power dynamics beyond gender that are established and represented in language. This volume offers a retrospective analysis of Lakoff's work, with each paper preceded by an introduction from a prominent linguist in the field, including both contemporaries and students of Lakoff's work, and further, Lakoff's own conversation with these responses. This engaging and, at times, moving reevaluation pays homage to Lakoff's far-reaching influence upon linguistics, while also serving as an unusual form of autobiography revealing the decades'long evolution of a scholarly career.

This volume collects the published articles in philosophy of religion by the pre-eminent philosopher Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski. The volume focuses on the major themes of her career, which is reflected in the sections of the volume: 1) Foreknowledge and Fatalism, 2) The Problem of Evil, 3) Death, Hell, and Resurrection, 4) God and Morality, 5) Omnisubjectivity, 6) The Rationality of Religious Belief, 7) Rational Religious Belief, Self-Trust, and Authority, and 8) God, Trinity, and the Metaphysics of Modality. A companion volume to Epistemic Values, her collected articles in epistemology, this volume will be an important resource for scholars in the philosophy of religion, religious epistemology, and religious ethics.

As a scientist, you are a professional writer: your career is built on successful proposals and papers. Success isn't defined by getting papers into print, but by getting them into the reader's consciousness. Writing Science is built upon the idea that successful science writing tells a story. It uses that insight to discuss how to write more effectively. Integrating lessons from other genres of writing with those from the author's years of experience as author, reviewer, and editor, the book shows scientists and students how to present their research in a way that is clear and that will maximize reader comprehension. The book takes an integrated approach, using the principles of story structure to discuss every aspect of successful science writing, from the overall structure of a paper or proposal to individual sections, paragraphs, sentences, and words. It begins by building core arguments, analyzing why some stories are engaging and memorable while others are quickly forgotten, and proceeds to the elements of story structure, showing how the structures scientists and researchers use in papers and proposals fit into classical models. The book targets the internal structure of a paper, explaining how to write clear and professional sections, paragraphs, and sentences in a way that is clear and compelling. The ideas within a paper should flow seamlessly, drawing readers along. The final section of the book deals with special challenges, such as how to discuss research limitations and how to write for the public. Writing Science is a much-needed guide to succeeding in modern science. Its insights and strategies will equip science students, scientists, and professionals across a wide range of scientific and technical fields with the tools needed to communicate effectively.

In Wild Unrest, Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz offers a vivid portrait of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the 1880s, drawing new connections between the author's life and work and illuminating the predicament of women then and now. Horowitz draws on a treasure trove of primary sources to explore the nature of 19th-century nervous illness and to illuminate the making of Gilman's famous short story,'The Yellow Wall-Paper': Gilman's journals and letters, which closely track her daily life and the reading that most influenced her; the voluminous diaries of her husband, Walter Stetson; and the writings, published and unpublished of S. Weir Mitchell, whose rest cure dominated the treatment of female'hysteria'in late 19th-century America. Horowitz argues that these sources ultimately reveal that Gilman's great story emerged more from emotions rooted in the confinement and tensions of her unhappy marriage than from distress following Mitchell's rest cure. Hailed by The Boston Globe as'an engaging portrait of the woman and her times,'Wild Unrest adds immeasurably to our understanding of Charlotte Perkins Gilman as well as the literary and personal sources behind'The Yellow Wall-Paper.'