The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers accessible, concise, beautifully produced books on topics of current interest. Written by leading thinkers, the books in this series deliver expert overviews of subjects that range from the cultural and the historical to the scientific and the technical. In today's era of instant information gratification, we have ready access to opinions, rationalizations, and superficial descriptions. Much harder to come by is the foundational knowledge that informs a principled understanding of the world. Essential Knowledge books fill that need. Synthesizing specialized subject matter for nonspecialists and engaging critical topics through fundamentals, each of these compact volumes offers readers a point of access to complex ideas.

The EK series does not have official editors who perform the traditional function of series editors, though topics and authors are vetted by an internal MITP board ahead of proposal and/or peer review of proposal. Note that EK is the only series acquired across lists and by all editors at the Press, and subjects in the series do not necessarily reflect topics we traditionally acquire.

To submit a proposal to this series: please send me an email describing your project, or, if you have a proposal already drafted, please feel free to send me that. If you do not hear back from me within two weeks, please follow up.

A few books of mine in the series…