Knives and forks

Abstract Wheels, doorknobs, forks, and sewing needles are such everyday items that we rarely bother to wonder how they were invented. But where did the idea for t...

Abstract Why do similar patterns and forms appear in nature in settings that seem to bear no relation to one another? The windblown ripples of desert sand follow a s...

The way of laws is as much a defining feature of the modern period as the way of ideas. In one of its forms, it stands as an alternative to the moribund Aristotelian ontology. But ...

Focusing on westward expansion, this chapter studies antebellum warnings that frontier conflicts would cause civil war. It shows how diverging material cultures divided northerners...