The American Philosophical Society (APS) is the oldest learned society in the United States, founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” In keeping with Franklin’s vision, the APS is currently relaunching its press, producing a new portfolio of publications that will promote and explore the dynamics of “useful knowledge” in today’s multidisciplinary context. The APS Press publishes scholarly books across the disciplines and has a rich backlist of more than 1,000 books, including many landmark works. They are an independent press with books produced and distributed by Penn Press.
Contributions by David Gary, Emily Sneff and Patrick Spero
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 9781606181744
Pub Date: July 2026
Format: Paperback
100 Pages
These Truths explores the emergence of the Declaration of Independence during the revolutionary crisis of 1775–1776. Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same title taking place at the American Philosophical Society Museum, the book demonstrates how the Declaration served as a symbol of national unity, civic participation, and democratic ideals.
Jane Colden (1724–1760) was America’s first woman botanist. This richly illustrated account of her life and work examines Colden’s original writing, the correspondence of her father, Dr. Cadwallader Colden, and eighteenth-century botanic sources, and restores her legacy as one of the country’s great botanists.
A sweeping, thought-provoking exploration of how humans, as a species and as individuals, think about the world and themselves, How We Think takes the anthropological view about the human thought process, while focusing on what makes humans so different from each other although we are also universally so much alike.
Lavishly illustrated, Travels on the Edge not only carries readers to some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the world but also celebrates the challenges and joys of scientific research. Its author brings a rich human perspective to regions few people have had a chance to explore.
The Story of the Scientists Who Discovered Genetics and Reinvented Evolution
William deJong-Lambert
Price: $34.95
ISBN: 9781606181560
Pub Date: September 2026
Format: Hardcover
272 Pages
The Fly Room tells the story of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan’s laboratory at Columbia University where he and his students, by experimenting with and breeding fruit flies, invented genetics, which would eventually lead to the refutation of the theory of eugenics and prove Darwin’s theory of evolution right.
The years 1945 to 2020, from the testing of the first atomic bomb to the rise of artificial intelligence, constitute the “American century,” which coincides with the rise and fall of the United States as a global power. Arnold Thackray’s pioneering expertise in the history of science provides a unique perspective from which to tell this story.
Imperfect Oracle is about both the promise and limits of artificial intelligence. The promise is that in important ways AI is a lot better than we are at making judgments, while its limits are evidenced by the fact that AI cannot always make accurate predictions—not today, not tomorrow, and not the day after, either.
Hunch explores ten issues in geology and astronomy—among them what causes the heating of the sun’s surface and whether Palaeolithic people sailed across oceans—where the accepted scientific answers to these questions were challenged, and how following one’s intuition can often lead to great intellectual rewards.
The Social Philosophers argues that Western social philosophy emerged during the disintegration of the ancient Greek and Roman communities. Robert Nisbet contends that Western ideas of moral authority, freedom, consensus, and personality take on their distinctive character as aspects of humankind’s search for community.
This two-volume collection presents the 250 texts Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), known as the “father of environmentalism,” wrote in English, unabridged in their original form. Containing groundbreaking insights into tropical ecosystems, postcolonial societies, and the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples, they remain relevant today.
