From the mid-18th century to the beginning of World War I, two approaches to transforming the world—warfare and constitutions—played in tandem. The unusual relationship between them is the fascinating and important subject of Princeton historian Linda Colley’s The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World. 

By 1750, the costs of warfare, in both money and lives, for such European powers as Britain, France and Spain had significantly increased. This pressure, combined with the rise of revolutionary conflicts, expanded the use of written constitutions and the ideas they expressed. In 1767, Catherine the Great published her most important work, the Nakaz, or Grand Instruction. Although it wasn’t a formal constitution, it shows how the concept developed and proliferated. She also developed techniques for political communication that later exponents of constitutions, including Benjamin Franklin, borrowed and built on. 

Colley’s wide-ranging survey covers many aspects of the global impact of constitutions, from the crucial importance of printers and publishers, to Thomas Paine’s interest in putting political and legal concepts on paper, to Toussaint Louverture defying the French in 1801 and publishing his own constitution for a future Black-ruled Haiti. In 1838, for the first time in world history, the inhabitants of Pitcairn, a tiny island in the South Pacific populated by descendants of Tahitian people and British mutineers of the HMS Bounty, proclaimed in their constitution that both adult men and women were to be enfranchised in elections.

This carefully crafted exploration shows how constitutions have helped to bring about an extraordinary revolution in human behavior, ideas and beliefs. Though constitutions are flawed, Colley writes, “in an imperfect, uncertain, shifting, and violent world, they may be the best we can hope for.”

Does fashion matter? In his new book, Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History, Stanford Law School professor and author Richard Thompson Ford argues that it absolutely does—and not just to so-called fashionistas but to everyone, whether they realize it or not.

Over the centuries, people have been praised and punished alike based on their manner of dress. As Ford explains, “Medieval and Renaissance-era sumptuary laws assigned clothing according to social rank” and “the laws of American slave states prohibited black people from dressing ‘above their condition.’ ” What someone wore could be a life-or-death decision, he notes, pointing to Joan of Arc as an example. She was found guilty of heresy for wearing traditionally masculine attire in battle and was burned at the stake, making her “one of history’s first fashion victims” circa 1431. 

In addition to exploring how gender roles influence fashion rules, Ford looks at religion, politics, race and class as they relate to dress codes and their inherent contradictions. For example, a “hoodie sweatshirt is threatening on Trayvon Martin but disarmingly charming on Mark Zuckerberg.” And high heels? They originated as men’s riding shoes, later became a means of controlling women by “literally hobbling them” and are now often seen as signifiers of confidence and empowerment. Fashion’s very flexibility is what makes it exciting, of course. It’s “a wearable language” and means of expression that, depending on the beholder, can be thrilling or confusing, threatening or comforting, which black and white photos demonstrate throughout the book.

In Dress Codes, Ford has created a thorough and well-thought-out history of fashion from a legal and societal perspective. Whether exploring cultural appropriation, praising Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s lace neckwear or cautioning social media users that “every triumph or crime of fashion lives on in a digital archive,” the author is knowledgeable and passionate about his topic. “A dress code can be the Rosetta Stone to decode the meaning of attire,” he writes. Readers will come away with a new understanding of—and critical eye for—what we wear and why.

Land is something many of us take for granted. It’s here, under our feet, grounding us and giving us a sense of home. But as Simon Winchester (The Map That Changed the World) elucidates in his comprehensive new book, Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World, it’s actually a precarious, ever-changing reality that has been stolen, purchased, defended and damaged by human activities.

Weaving together elements of history, geography, geology and science, Winchester paints a raw, in-depth picture of the land that encircles our glorious planet, which is in crisis due to the looming effects of human-induced climate change. He touches on a vast number of topics that have impacted the land since the dawn of civilization, dividing the book into sections that focus on borders, ownership, stewardship, war and restoration.

For example, in terms of land’s borders, things aren’t always what they appear to be. The “longest undefended border in the world,” over 5,000 miles between the U.S. and Canada, isn’t really undefended since there is “an array of unseen and unseeable electronic gadgetry” that guards the U.S. Other borders have been the cause of great pain and suffering, such as the Radcliffe Line drawn by British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe in 1947, fracturing India and Pakistan.

Land has also played a big role in cultural clashes, and Winchester does not mince words as he describes such social injustices as the horrendous treatment of Native Americans by Europeans. These injustices include land theft, cruel policies like “Indian removal” and the infamous westward passage known as the Trail of Tears. 

But Winchester also discusses plenty of positive and beneficial ventures related to land, such as the huge task of mapping and sizing the world, as well as amazing engineering projects such as the Zuiderzee Works in the Netherlands, one of the most impressive hydraulic engineering projects on Earth. Ultimately Land is a truthful, revealing exposé, paying tribute to the territory we all share.