x

Fifteen Eighty Four

Academic perspectives from Cambridge University Press

Menu

Ordinary Chondrites: The Most Common Meteorites

Meteorites pelt our planet at a rate of 80,000 tons per year. About 70% of this material falls into the oceans, but much of the rest is potentially recoverable. And recovery is essential – meteorites...

Alan E. Rubin | 23 Jun 2026

Genocide Prevention: An Evidence-Based Approach

How do we prevent genocide? The modern world has been plagued with terrible instances of this ‘crimes of crimes’, that has claimed many millions of lives over the past century or more. In 1948, in...

Deborah Mayersen | 23 Jun 2026

Is an Ounce of Prevention Worth a Pound of Cure? Assessing the Development of Dispute Prevention Mechanisms in Infrastructure Financing

While infrastructure development has long been associated with social progress, economic development and advanced living standards, it has likewise given rise to challenges including disruption, environmental...

Shahla F. Ali | 23 Jun 2026

When is a bullet too deadly to use?

When is a bullet too deadly to use? When it is banned in the law of war. But why, in a world of deeply violent weapons, would a bullet be considered too violent when these others are not? Entitled...

Maartje Abbenhuis | 19 Jun 2026

Resilient Humanitarianism. A new history of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement

Whether it’s the recent Ebola crisis in Africa or the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and war in Ukraine, the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent (IFRC) is there, alongside the International...

Romain Fathi, Susanne Schech, Neville Wylie, Melanie Oppenheimer | 18 Jun 2026

International Leviathans: Practices of Sovereignty by International Administrations

Calls to establish international administrations have been made in numerous contemporary contexts, including Afghanistan, the Congo, Haiti, Kosovo, Iraq, Liberia, Libya, Palestine, South Sudan, Syria,...

Nicolas Lemay-Hébert | 17 Jun 2026

Building an Air Force: The Air Corps and the Formation of US Airpower

The United States entered World War II ill-prepared.  This was typical—to avoid preparing for war until it occurred.  At that point, herculean efforts were exerted, industry and resources...

Phillip S. Meilinger | 16 Jun 2026

Why Europe?

Economic growth transformed human society, freeing us from a world where nearly everyone was mired in poverty and half of all kids died before adulthood. Life before growth remained tough even for the...

Philip T. Hoffman | 16 Jun 2026

The Book I Wish Had on My Desk

My first week of doctoral coursework at Johns Hopkins in 2017 came with four hundred pages of reading. The second week came with five hundred. I had been reading science for a living for a decade —...

Genevive Bjorn | 11 Jun 2026

Translanguaging: A practical theory for learning in English language classrooms

In our work with English language educators across the globe, we are frequently asked questions such as: How should different languages be used in the English classroom? How do we assess students fairly?...

Jason Anderson, Suyog Dixit | 11 Jun 2026

Promises Made, Promises Kept?

Politicians are notorious promise breakers. A British prime minister vows to cut net migration to the “tens of thousands,” only to discover that EU free‑movement rules, domestic demand for migrant...

Christina J. Schneider, Robert Thomson | 8 Jun 2026

A Liturgy in the Making: Revising Medieval Dominican Chant

Alleluia Pie pater dominice in the Dominican exemplar manuscript Rome, Santa Sabina, XIV L 1, f. 353v A new chant had been composed for St Dominic’s feast day. The scribe was stumped. He had...

Eleanor J. Giraud | 4 Jun 2026