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Fifteen Eighty Four

Academic perspectives from Cambridge University Press

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When should you start to learn how to solve math and science problems?

There are 2520 tours in an 8-city TSP. All of these tours are shown in this animation that runs about 4 minutes. Our subjects produce optimal tours for such problems almost 90% of the time. If you label...

Zygmunt Pizlo | 15 Jun 2022

Why are the Netherlands Protestant and Belgium Catholic?

Anyone who travels through the adjacent countries of Belgium and the Netherlands today immediately sees the contrast: Belgium is full of resplendent, lavishly decorated Catholic churches, while its neighbor...

Christine Kooi | 14 Jun 2022

Some Common Misunderstandings About Biology and Race

The following is adapted from Understanding Race by Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall, Cambridge University Press (2022). When addressing the “reality” of race, we need to realize that the word was...

Ian Tattersall, Rob DeSalle | 13 Jun 2022

Why American Song and Struggle? And Why Begin with Columbus?

I’ve made my name mostly as a Woody Guthrie scholar. Around the time of the Guthrie centenary in 2012, I became increasingly aware of references to Guthrie as ‘the father of American protest music’...

Will Kaufman | 13 Jun 2022

The Arts of Dancing with Death

With the pandemic still looming above us, thoughts of passing away may have crossed your mind repeatedly over the last while. Those thoughts, revolving around a kernel of inert fear, most likely did not...

William E. Engel, Grant Williams, Rory Loughnane | 10 Jun 2022

Neoliberal deindustrialization, working-class identity and collective action in Argentina

How do workers react to the undermining of their means of livelihood? What are the political consequences of rising unemployment and inequality? In recent years, the expansion of right-wing movements...

Marcos E. Pérez | 8 Jun 2022

Impacts of human population on wildlife: a British perspective.

That wildlife is in trouble all around the globe is old news. Less well known is the fact that the UK is a country suffering among the most serious declines in plant and animal populations.  Britain...

Trevor J. C. Beebee | 7 Jun 2022

Understanding Intelligence

There are a lot of questions about the validity of IQ tests and the nature of ‘intelligence’. Ken Richardson, author of Understanding Intelligence tries to tackle the problem at the heart of the subject of intelligence by putting intelligence in the context of living functions.

Ken Richardson | 7 Jun 2022

Putting the Conqueror in context: the new Cambridge Companion to the Age of William the Conqueror

This is not a book about William the Conqueror. It is a book about the world into which William was born, in which he grew up, parts of which he conquered, and which he left behind upon his death. This...

Benjamin Pohl | 7 Jun 2022

Private entrepreneurs can elevate public innovations – But they also need better Governments

There is no shortage of proposals to address society’s most pressing problems—poverty, health, urban infrastructure, climate change, and many others. These propositions often involve single-handed...

Armen Ovanessoff, Felippe de Medeiros Oliveira, Nobuiuki Costa Ito, Leandro S. Pongeluppe, Sergio G. Lazzarini | 7 Jun 2022

The history of others, or: The historian as a privileged outsider

In recent years, the combined influence of global history and decolonial movements has reinforced the demand that historians must reflect upon their positionality, including, of course, their relationship...

Christoph Kalter | 2 Jun 2022

Lifeblood: the challenges of managing water and sanitation in Australian cities

In our new book, Cities in a Sunburnt Country, we consider how Australians have met the challenges posed by the need to provide safe water in the world’s driest inhabited continent and sewerage systems...

Peter Spearritt, Martin Shanahan, Ruth A. Morgan, Jenny Gregory, Andrea Gaynor, Lionel Frost, Margaret Cook | 31 May 2022