How Literatures Begin: A Global History (Princeton University Press), edited by Denis Feeney, professor of classics, and Joel B. Lande, professor of German, is a history of the factors that contributed to literary traditions around the world. This compilation reveals surprising similarities among disparate literary movements.

In Democracy Rules (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), professor of politics Jan-Werner Müller argues that uncertainty is a component of democracy, a major difference from the predictability of authoritarianism. He argues for the importance of political parties and the free press and calls for reforms to democratic institutions.