Yale University Press: 2009 books

Published on the occasion of Richard C. Levin’s retirement as president of Yale University, this captivating collection of speeches and essays from the past decade reflects both his varied intellectual passions and his deep commitment to university life and leadership. Whether discussing the...

The entity that became the Yale Law School started life early in the nineteenth century as a proprietary school, operated as a sideline by a couple of New Haven lawyers. The New Haven school affiliated with Yale in the 1820s, but it remained so frail that in 1845 and again in 1869 the University seriously...

This fascinating book tells the story of the Yale University School of Medicine, tracing its history from its origins in 1810 (when it had four professors and 37 students) to its present status as one of the world’s outstanding medical schools. Written by a former dean of the medical school, the book...

College years-when ideas collide, literature intrigues and inspires, lasting passions are first fired-can stamp a young writer for life. This extraordinary book contains the work of dozens of writers whose experiences at Yale over the past three centuries exerted a powerful force on their writing lives....

This engaging collection of speeches and essays, published on the occasion of Richard C. Levin’s tenth anniversary as president of Yale University, reflects both the range of his intellectual passions and the depth of his insight into the work of the university. By turns analytical, reflective, and...

This vivid portrait of Bart Giamatti encompasses his entire eventful life but focuses especially on his years at Yale University (1966–1986) and his brief career as a major league baseball executive (1986–1989). As scholar, teacher, and then university president, Giamatti was an admired and respected...

In 1936, twenty-year-old Edward Weismiller became the youngest poet to win the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets prize. Today, more than sixty years later, he retains that distinction. Yale University Press here reintroduces Edward Weismiller—now the oldest living Younger Poet—with the publication...

A magnet for controversy, the media, and followers, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr. was the premier voice of northern religious liberalism for more than a quarter-century, and a worthy heir to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. From his pulpits at Yale University and, later, New York City’s Riverside...

July 22, 1812. Salamanca, Spain. Frustrated at their first advance, British forces under Wellington’s command have spent the last four days maneuvering and retreating from the French army. Patient and cautious, Wellington is determined not to make a fatal mistake. He glimpses a moment of opportunity...

This book is for every woman who has wished for an unhurried, personal conversation with a sympathetic doctor who will answer her questions about reproductive health. Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, a gynecologist practicing for more than 25 years, presents a complete and up-to-date guide to a healthy reproductive...

Gogol's 1842 novel Dead Souls, a comic masterpiece about a mysterious con man and his grotesque victims, is one of the major works of Russian literature. It was translated into English in 1942 by Bernard Guilbert Guerney; the translation was hailed by Vladimir Nabokov as "an extraordinarily fine piece...

This pioneering book reevaluates the place of converts from Judaism in the narrative of Jewish history. Long considered beyond the pale of Jewish historiography, converts played a central role in shaping both noxious and positive images of Jews and Judaism for Christian readers. Focusing on German Jews...

“One of my oldest crusades is against the distinction between thought and feeling, which is really the basis of all anti-intellectual views: the heart and the head, thinking and feeling, fantasy and judgment . . . and I don’t believe it’s true. . . . I have the impression that thinking is a form...

"Alphabets and names make games and everybody has a name and all the same they have in a way to have a birthday," muses Gertrude Stein in To Do: A Book of Alphabets and Birthdays. Written in 1940 and intended as a follow-up to her children's book The World Is Round, published the previous year, To Do...