Founded in 1956, Penn State University Press publishes rigorously reviewed, high-quality works of scholarship and books of regional and contemporary interest, with a focus on the humanities and social sciences. The publishing arm of the Pennsylvania State University and a division of the Penn State University Libraries, the Press promotes the advance of scholarship by disseminating knowledge—new information, interpretations, methods of analysis—widely in books, journals, and digital publications.
Scholarly publishing has faced monumental challenges over the past few decades. The Press takes its place among those institutions moving the enterprise forward. Its innovative projects continue to identify and embrace the technological advances and business models that ensure scholarly publishing will remain feasible, and widely accessible, well into the future.
The Development of American Torpedoes in World War II
Ultimately, World War II was the first war won by technology, but within only a few weeks after the war began, the U.S. Navy realized its torpedo program was a dismal failure. Submarine skippers reported that most of their torpedoes were either missing the targets or failing to explode if they did hit. The United States had to work fast if it ......
Examines patterns of income inequality among 16 advanced democracies from the mid 1970s to the early 2000s and explains why some societies have a large and growing divide between the rich and the poor while others, facing similar global economic pressures, maintain more egalitarian income distributions.
Explores the role played by technocrats in the political and institutional evolution of Chile since the late nineteenth century until today, with emphasis on the period from 1938-1973 as well as the period following democratic restoration in 1990.
Examines theater and portraiture as interrelated social practices in seventeenth-century Spain. Features visual images and cross-disciplinary readings of selected plays that employ the motif of the painted portrait to key dramatic and symbolic effect.
Explores the relationship of the life and work of Alexis de Toqueville (1805-1859) to modern feminisms, especially as they pertain to the analysis of gender, sex, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, nationality, and colonialism.
Narrative, Figuration, and Pictorial Ingenuity in the Arena Chapel
A discussion of the murals by Giotto in the Arena Chapel of Padua, Italy. The artist's work is considered in terms of its relationship to the structure of the poetry of Dante, biblical exegesis, geometry, and symmetry.
Viceroys, Merchants, and the Military in Late Colonial Peru
The overthrow of Viceroy Joaquín de la Pezuela on 29 January 1821 has not received much attention from historians, who have viewed it as a simple military uprising. Yet in this careful study of the episode, based on deep archival research, Patricia Marks reveals it to be the culmination of decades of Peruvian opposition to the Bourbon ......
Blacks of the Rosary tells the story of the Afro-Brazilian communities that developed within lay religious brotherhoods dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary in Minas Gerais. It shows how these brotherhoods functioned as a social space in which Africans and their descendants could rebuild a communal identity based on a shared history of ......
