The Rohonc Code

Tracing a Historical Riddle

Benedek Láng

“The Rohonc Code is a valuable guide for how to approach an old unsolved cipher. Historians will benefit from learning some of the mathematical approaches that Láng describes, while mathematicians will benefit from Láng’s detailing of how he pursued potential historical leads.”
—Craig P. Bauer, author of Unsolved! The History and Mystery of the World’s Greatest Ciphers from Ancient Egypt to Online Secret Societies

Philip II of Spain and the Architecture of Empire

Laura Fernández-González

“Laura Fernández-González’s attention to understudied buildings is admirable, as is her characterization of the Spanish Empire as one under construction. Philip II of Spain and the Architecture of Empire makes an important contribution to the study of domestic architecture and will certainly put the Royal Archive at Simancas on the map of important undertakings by Philip II.—Jesús Escobar, author of The Plaza Mayor and the Shaping of Baroque Madrid

Caricature and National Character

The United States at War

Christopher J. Gilbert

“By examining the editorial cartoons of James Montgomery Flagg, Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Ollie Harrington, and Ann Telnaes—whose powerful imagery ‘animated American values in war cultures from the First World War forward’—Gilbert provides a vigorously argued account of the contribution of political cartooning to the construction and deconstruction of contending national myths.”—Kent Worcester, editor of Silent Agitators: Cartoon Art from the Pages of “New Politics”

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere

Postmodern “Truthiness” and Civic Engagement

James E. Caron

“Any scholar or student interested in the roles of comic and satiric discourse in twenty-first-century culture will benefit from reading this book. In my own engagements with satire, I will turn to this book first as an authoritative sorting-out of where we are and where we are going.”—Bruce Michelson, author of Mark Twain on the Loose: A Comic Writer and the American Self

The Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought says of The First Inauguration by Stephen Howard Browne: “A paean to the country’s past as well as its ever-present possibility, The First Inauguration reminds us of a time in which presidential addresses left, as one observer at the scene of Washington’s described, ‘Expressions of every Face so affected, and overpowered me, that I could not command the Emotions of my Heart.’”

The American Historical Review says that Tanya Sheehan’s Study in Black and White: Photography, Race, Humor “warrants an attentive hearing from researchers and teachers who are seeking to understand the politics of race as it unfolds on the streets and in social media—in years past and in the days to come.”

The essay “Damaged Type and Areopagitica’s Clandestine Printers,” that appeared in Milton Studies Vol. 62, Issue 1, has been awarded honorable mention in the Rare Book School’s Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography Essay Prize! Click here to learn more.

PSU Press Journals has introduced a simplified way to view subscription and pricing information all in one place. View individual journal information here.

We are very happy to announce that the journal Methodist History will be joining Penn State University Press Journals in 2022!

The following journals have been selected for inclusion in the Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation Index: Calíope: Journal of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry, Journal of Theological Interpretation, and Journal of Modern Periodical Studies!

Ramat Raḥel VI

The Renewed Excavations by the Tel Aviv–Heidelberg Expedition (2005–2010). The Babylonian-Persian Pit

Oded Lipschits, Liora Freud, Manfred Oeming, and Yuval Gadot

Copublished with Tel Aviv University

This is part of a three-volume final report of the renewed excavations at Ramat Raḥel by the Tel Aviv–Heidelberg Expedition (2005–2010). It presents the finds from the Babylonian-Persian pit, one of the most dramatic find-spots at Ramat Raḥel.

First Isaiah and the Disappearance of the Gods

Matthew J. Lynch

“The references to idols in the first half of the book of Isaiah have never before been studied together in detail. Given the prominence of the subject in the second half of the book, this is a surprising gap that Lynch here fills with great insight. This will prove to be an enduring contribution to the wider topic of the development of monotheism in Israel.”—H. G. M. Williamson, Emeritus Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Oxford

Dirty Biology

The X-Rated Story of the Science of Sex

Léo Grasset, Illustrated by Colas Grasset

“The mix of giggle-inducing factoids and incisive scientific insights make this investigation of copulation well worth digging into”—Publishers Weekly

The Body Factory

From the First Prosthetics to the Augmented Human

Héloïse Chochois

“This surprisingly delightful and empathetic examination offers an exemplar in the graphic medicine genre”—Publishers Weekly