Biology, life sciences Books
The University of Chicago Press Planet of Microbes The Perils and Potential of
Book SynopsisWe live in a time of unprecedented scientific knowledge about the origins of life on Earth. But if we want to grasp the big picture, we have to start small very small. That's because the real heroes of the story of life on Earth are microbes, the tiny living organisms we cannot see with the naked eye. Microbes were Earth's first lifeforms, early anaerobic inhabitants that created the air we breathe. Today they live, invisible and seemingly invincible, in every corner of the planet, from Yellowstone's scalding hot springs to Antarctic mountaintops to inside our very bodies more than a hundred trillion of them. Don't be alarmed though: many microbes are allies in achieving our to say nothing of our planet's health. In Planet of Microbes, Ted Anton takes readers through the most recent discoveries about microbes, revealing their unexpected potential to reshape the future of the planet. For years, we knew little about these invisible invaders, considering them as little more than our enemi
£20.90
The University of Chicago Press Principles of Animal Behavior 4th Edition
Book SynopsisSince the last edition of this definitive textbook was published in 2013, much has happened in the field of animal behavior. In this fourth edition, Lee Alan Dugatkin draws on cutting-edge, new work not only to update and expand on the studies presented, but also to reinforce the previous editions' focus on ultimate and proximate causation, as well as the book's unique emphasis on natural selection, learning, and cultural transmission. The result is a state-of-the art textbook on animal behavior that explains underlying concepts in a way that is both scientifically rigorous and accessible to students. Each chapter in the book provides a sound theoretical and conceptual basis upon which the empirical studies rest. A completely new feature in this edition are the Cognitive Connection boxes in Chapters 2-17, designed to dig deep into the importance of the cognitive underpinnings to many types of behaviors. Each box focuses on a specific issue related to cognition and the particular topic Trade Review"The book reveals a richly illustrated panoramic view of animal behavior and, where it can, it also provides examples of the physiological, neurobiological and molecular genetic mechanisms that may underlie it. . . . Dugatkin's text . . . can be enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in the beauty of animal behavior. . . . Excellent."--Times Higher Education, on the second edition "Up to date, highly integrative, and richly illustrated. It thus merits serious consideration by anyone looking for a textbook to support undergraduate offerings in animal behavior or behavioral ecology. . . . Principles of Animal Behavior is comprehensive and readable, summarizing not only what is well documented but more importantly where integrated understanding is lacking, and thus where further research will prove most profitable."--Animal Behavior, on the first edition
£77.90
The University of Chicago Press Tropical Forest Remnants Ecology Management
Book SynopsisThe fragmentation of the tropical rain forests is the subject of this study, which looks at the devastating damage caused to these sensitive areas. Covering geographic areas from Southeast Asia and Australia to Madagascar and the New World, the book summarizes contemporary knowledge and research.
£47.50
The University of Chicago Press Uncomfortable Situations Emotion between Science
Book SynopsisWhat is a hostile environment? How exactly can feelings be mixed? What on earth might it mean when someone writes that he was happily situated as a slave? The answers, of course, depend upon whom you ask. Science and the humanities typically offer two different paradigms for thinking about emotion--the first rooted in brain and biology, the second in a social world. With rhetoric as a field guide, Uncomfortable Situations establishes common ground between these two paradigms, focusing on a theory of situated emotion. Daniel M. Gross anchors the argument in Charles Darwin, whose work on emotion has been misunderstood across the disciplines as it has been shoehorned into the perceived science-humanities divide. Then Gross turns to sentimental literature as the single best domain for studying emotional situations. There's lost composure (Sterne), bearing up (Equiano), environmental hostility (Radcliffe), and feeling mixed (Austen). Rounding out the book, an epilogue written with ecologica
£33.25
The University of Chicago Press Principles of Geology Volume 1
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£31.35
The University of Chicago Press Principles of Geology Volume 3
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£42.75
The University of Chicago Press What Is Biodiversity
Book SynopsisArguing that we can not make rational decisions about what it is to be protected without knowing what biodiversity is, this title offers a theoretical and conceptual exploration of the biological world and how diversity is valued. It explains the different types of biodiversity important in evolutionary theory, developmental biology, and ecology.Trade Review"Researchers in several different fields will benefit from the breadth of Maclaurin and Sterelny's tour of the biodiversity literature and from their often penetrating analyses. What Is Biodiversity? deserves to be widely read; if its central messages are absorbed, the level of debate about this vitally important topic will improve." - Todd Grantham, College of Charleston"
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press The Postgenomic Condition
Book SynopsisWhile the sequencing of the human genome was a landmark achievement, the availability and manipulation of such a vast amount of data about our species has inevitably led to questions that are increasingly fundamental and urgent: now that information about human bodies can be transformed into a natural resource, how will and should we interpret and use it? With The Postgenomic Condition, Jenny Reardon draws on more than a decade of research in molecular biology labs, commercial startups, governmental agencies and civic spaces to examine the extensive efforts after the completion of the Human Genome Project to transform genomics from high tech informatics practiced by a few well-financed scientists and engineers to meaningful knowledge beneficial to all people. Through her in-depth profiles of genomic initiatives around the world, we see hopes to forge public knowledge and goods from blood and DNA meet the reality of limited resources and conflicting values. Building the argument around the limits of liberal concepts of openness, information, inclusion, privacy, property and the public concepts that proved salient at different points in the unfolding story of efforts to make sense of human genomes Reardon shows how genomics challenges us to move beyond existing liberal frameworks to ask deeper questions of knowledge and justice. While the news media is filled with grand visions of future designer drugs and babies, The Postgenomic Condition brings richly into view these hard on-the-ground questions about what can be known and who and how we will live on a depleted but data-rich, interconnected yet fractured planet, where technoscience garners disproportionate resources.
£31.00
The University of Chicago Press Dreamers Visionaries and Revolutionaries in the
Book SynopsisThe third in a series of collections of brief lives of prominent scientists, this one focuses on the life sciences and thus features some major names, from Darwin to Crick to Goodall.
£33.25
The University of Chicago Press Plant Allometry The Scaling of Form and Process
Book SynopsisAllometry, the study of the growth rate of an organism's parts in relation to the whole, has produced various results in research on animals. This text applies allometry to studies of the evolution, morphology, physiology and reproduction of plants.
£42.75
The University of Chicago Press This Land Is Your Land
Book SynopsisField biology is enjoying a resurgence due to several factors, the most important being the realization that there is no ecology, no conservation, and no ecosystem restoration without an understanding of the basic relationships between species and their environmentsan understanding gleaned only through field-based natural history. With this resurgence, modern field biologists find themselves asking fundamental existential questions such as: Where did we come from? What is our story? Are we part of a larger legacy? In This Land Is Your Land, seasoned field biologist Michael J. Lannoo answers these questions and more in a tale rooted in the people and institutions of the Midwest. It is a story told from the ground up, a rubber bootbased natural history of field biology in America. Lannoo illuminates characters such as John Wesley Powell, William Temple Hornaday, and Olaus and Adolph Muriehomegrown midwestern field biologists who either headed east to populate major research centers or went west to conduct their fieldwork along the frontier. From the pioneering work of Victor Shelford, Henry Chandler Cowles, and Aldo Leopold to contemporary insights from biologists such as Jim Furnish and historians such as William Cronon, Lannoo's unearthing of Americanand particularly midwesternfield biologists reveals how these scientists influenced American ecology, conservation biology, and restoration ecology, and in turn drove global conservation efforts through environmental legislation and land set-asides. This Land Is Your Land reveals the little-known legacy of midwestern field biologists, whose ethos and discoveries have enabled us to preserve and understand not just their land, but all lands.
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Life on Display
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£32.30
The University of Chicago Press After the Ice Age
Book SynopsisThe fascinating story of how a harsh terrain that resembled modern Anarctica has been transformed gradually into the forests, grasslands, and wetlands we know today". . . . offers a chance to travel through 20,000 years of environmental change from varied perspectives".--Robert T. Lackey, Bioscience. Photographs.
£22.80
The University of Chicago Press The Balance of Nature Ecological Issues in the
Book SynopsisEcologists, although they acknowledge the problems involved, generally conduct their research on too few species, in too small an area, over too short a period of time. In The Balance of Nature?, a work sure to stir controversy, the distinguished theoretical ecologist Stuart L. Pimm argues that ecology therefore fails in many ways to address the enormous ecological problems now facing our planet. Ecologists describing phenomena on larger scales often use terms like stability, balance of nature, and fragility, and Pimm begins by considering the various specific meanings of these terms. He addresses five kinds of ecological stability--stability in the strict sense, resilience, variability, persistence, and resistance--and shows how they provide ways of comparing natural populations and communities as well as theories about them. Each type of stability depends on characteristics of the species studied and also on the structure of the food web in which the species is embedded and the physi
£38.00
The University of Chicago Press The Meaning of Fossils Episodes in the History of
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£31.35
University of Chicago Press Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe
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£76.95
The University of Chicago Press An Orchard Invisible A Natural History of Seeds
Book SynopsisThe story of seeds, in a nutshell, is a tale of evolution. This book presents the oft-ignored seed with the natural history it deserves, one nearly as varied and surprising as the earth's flora itself. It delves into the science of seeds: How and why do some lie dormant for years on end? How did seeds evolve?Trade Review"Anyone who has ever marveled at the idea of a tree exploding from something as tiny as a seed will exalt in the beauty of this book." - San Francisco Chronicle "I loved this little book.... An Orchard Invisible practically spills over with interesting insights." - Boston Globe "A subtle but engaging narrative of the evolutionary struggles of seeds.... Each of the first twelve chapters of this book tells a remarkable story, accompanied by well-chosen literary excerpts." - Times Literary Supplement "Silvertown is a witty botanist with a flair for seeds.... All botanists will enjoy this tribute to seeds." - Choice "Seeds may look small and boring, yet tricks, bribes and devious deceptions lie at the heart of their evolution, as ecologist Jonathan Silvertown entertainingly recounts in this fascinating celebration of the green world upon which all human life depends." - New Scientist "A fabulous book.... Silvertown's skills are in telling stories. Expect wonders, too.... In this book, Silvertown has produced a gem.... Read it as a gardener, scientist, food aficionado, historian, botanist, or naturalist, and you'll not be disappointed." - Times Higher Education"
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Explorers of the Amazon
Book SynopsisThe history of Amazonian exploration, wonderfully told by Anthony Smith, is awash with madness--an extravagant mixture of the malevolent and the miraculous.--Stephen Mills, Times Literary Supplement
£35.15
The University of Chicago Press Sex and Death An Introduction to Philosophy of
Book SynopsisIn this introduction to philosophy of biology, Kim Sterelny and Paul E. Griffiths present both the science and the philosophical context necessary for a critical understanding of the debates shaping biology at the end of the 20th century.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Neotropical Birds Ecology and Conservation
Book SynopsisA synthesis of the ecological information on 4037 species of birds found from Mexico south to Tierra del Fuego. This work summarizes details on 40 key ecological parameters for each bird species. Additional data and further analyses are provided for migratory species.
£49.40
The University of Chicago Press Tiger Moon Tracking the Great Cats in Nepal
Book Synopsis"Tiger Moon" is the powerful, poetic story of the Sunquists' two years studying tigers in Nepal. A new afterword tells the story of promising efforts to reconnect fractured Nepalese tiger habitats.Trade Review"[F]ull of unusual anecdotes... sloth bears shuffle by, leopards prowl the campsite's perimeter, scores of brilliant birds flit overhead, and camp elephants reveal their personalities.... [T]he tiger and the environment it occupies have become... a symbol of what is at stake. Tiger Moon is a chronicle of this symbolism, told passionately and accurately." - Ronald L. Tilson, Natural History
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press The Coevolutionary Process
Book SynopsisIn this text, the author outlines his geographic mosaic theory of coevolution. Through this theory, he creates connections between the study of specialization and coevolution in local communities and the study of patterns seen in comparisons of the phylogenies of interacting species.
£30.00
University of Chicago Press The Natural History of Inbreeding and Outbreeding
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£52.25
The University of Chicago Press Ecological Morphology Integrative Organismal
Book SynopsisEcological morphology examines the relation between an animal's anatomy and physiology - its form and function - and how the animal has evolved in, and can inhabit, a particular environment. This book provides a synthesis of major concepts in this field.
£40.85
The University of Chicago Press Reading the Shape of Nature
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£38.00
The University of Chicago Press Our Once and Future Planet Restoring the World
Book SynopsisThe environmental movement is plagued by pessimism. And that's not unreasonable: with so many complicated, seemingly intractable problems facing the planet, coupled with a need to convince people of the dangers we face, it's hard not to focus on the negative. But there are success stories. This book deals with ecological restoration.Trade Review"This is a great piece of investigative journalism, based on extensive research in many countries, on a topic vital to the future of people and biodiversity on Earth. Paddy Woodworth has captured the spirit and detail of contemporary ecological restoration, its strengths, weaknesses, controversies, and especially its message of hope. I would commend this book to all interested in the challenge of devising new ways of sustainably living with biodiversity in a rapidly changing world." -Stephen D. Hopper, former CEO and chief scientist, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew"
£31.00
The University of Chicago Press Evolution and the Genetics of Populations Volum
Book Synopsis"Wright's views about population genetics and evolution are so fundamental and so comprehensive that every serious student must examine these books firsthand. . . . Publication of this treatise is a major event in evolutionary biology."-Daniel L. Hartl, "BioScience"
£47.50
The University of Chicago Press Evolution and the Genetics of Populations
Book Synopsis"Wright's views about population genetics and evolution are so fundamental and so comprehensive that every serious student must examine these books firsthand. . . . Publication of this treatise is a major event in evolutionary biology."-Daniel L. Hartl, "BioScience"
£47.50
The University of Chicago Press Ignoring Nature No More
Book SynopsisFor far too long humans have been ignoring nature. This title features a host of renowned contributors who argue that we need a new mind-set about nature, one that centers on empathy, compassion, and being proactive.Trade Review"An important new, bold, eclectic, and forward-looking anthology that scans the planet for flash points where animal protection and conservation biology are in direct correlation, conflict, ethically ambiguous point-counterpoint, or simply off the radar charts of most local, regional, and international discussion. This thoughtful book is a must-read for students of behavioral ecology, environmental ethics, conservation biology, and conservation psychology." (Michael Charles Tobias, coauthor of God's Country: The New Zealand Factor)"
£35.15
The University of Chicago Press Deceptive Beauties The World of Wild Orchids
Book SynopsisAcross the centuries, orchids have captivated us with their elaborate exoticism, their perfumes, and their sublime seductiveness. But the disquieting beauty of orchids is an unplanned marvel of evolution. This book features over 150 color photographs that capture the diversity and magnificence of orchids in their natural habitats.Trade Review"The moment that the orchid stumbled upon one of the keys to human desire and used it to unlock our hearts, it conquered a whole new world-our world-and enlisted a vast new crew of credulous animals more than happy to do its bidding. Let's face it: we're all orchid dupes now." -Michael Pollan, from the Introduction "Orchid flowers have long been understood to be ridiculously fascinating, and this book shows just that, gorgeously. They certainly merit the 'Oh my' reputation they have acquired over the centuries. But, the problem for us mere mortals is that even if most lucky, we only bump into one in the wild every now and then. And here you have many of their kinds all at once, as though you were incredibly lucky in the forest, though of course there is no place or date on earth when you can see them like this. This new look is a fantastic and fantasmatic companion for any day when you are lucky enough to encounter one of these flowers, so unique as to turn any flower show into oatmeal." -Dan Janzen, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania"
£40.00
Columbia University Press Reason Awake Science for Man
Book SynopsisThe author evaluates the consequences of the application of scientific knowledge to all aspects of human affairs, particularly the sphere of social problems.
£70.40
Columbia University Press Species Concepts and Phylogenetic Theory
Book SynopsisPresents a debate among systematic biology theorists to consider the strengths and weaknesses of five competing concepts. This book is suitable for scientists, conservationists, policy-makers, and students of biology.Trade ReviewThis is an important and valuable book, with the arguments coming straight from the horses' mouths. Even if readers do not change their minds, they will at least be better informed in their prejudices. Biologist This book focuses on the numerous controversies in phylogenetic theory and the underlying philosophies which are of importance to a diverse audience. Scientists, conservationists, and students of biology will find that this book provides a critical evaluation of the literature on this complex field. Southeastern NaturalistTable of ContentsPreface, by Quentin D. Wheeler & Rudolf Meier 1: Introduction, by Joel Cracraft A. Position Papers (Point) 2: The Biological Species Concept, by Ernst Mayr 3: The Hennigian Species Concept, by Rudolf Meier and Rainer Willmann 4: Monophyly, Apomorphy, and Phylogenetic Species Concepts, by Brent D. Mishler and Edward Theriot 5: The Phylogenetic Species Concept, by Quentin D. Wheeler and Norman I. Platnick 6: The Evolutionary Species Concept, by Edward O. Wiley and Richard L. Mayden B. Critique Papers (Counter-Point) 7: What is a Species, and What is Not?: A Critique from the Biological Species Concept Perspective, by Ernst Mayr 8: A Critique from the Hennigian Species Concept Perspective, by Rainer Willmann and Rudolf Meier 9: Monophyly, Apomorphy, and Phylogenetic Species Concepts: A Critique from "the" Phylogenetic Species Concept Perspective, by Brent D. Mishler and Norman I. Platnick 10: Problems with Alternative Species Concepts: A Critique from "the" Phylogenetic Species Concept Perspective, by Quentin D. Wheeler and Norman I. Platnick 11: A Critique from the Evolutionary Species Concept Perspective, by Edward O. Wiley and Richard L. Mayden C. Reply Papers (Rebuttal) 12: A Defense of the Biological Species Concept, by Ernst Mayr 13: A Defense of the Hennigian Species Concept, by Rudolf Meier and Rainer Willmann 14: Monophyly, Apomorphy, and Phylogenetic Species Concepts: A Defense of "the" Phylogenetic Species Concept, by Brent D. Mishler and Edward Theriot 15: A Defense of "the" Phylogenetic Species Concept, by Norman I. Platnick and Quentin D. Wheeler 16: A Defense of the Evolutionary Spoecies Concept, by Edward O. Wiley and Richard L. Mayden
£102.85
Columbia University Press Claude McKay The Making of a Black Bolshevik
Book SynopsisOne of the foremost Black writers and intellectuals of his era, Claude McKay (1889–1948) was a central figure in Caribbean literature, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Black radical tradition. Winston James offers a revelatory account of McKay’s political and intellectual trajectory from his upbringing in Jamaica through 1921.Trade ReviewA compelling and provocative rendering of the complex transnational racial geographies that shaped the remarkable Claude McKay. Winston James illuminates underexplored features of post-emancipation history and, through exhaustive research, dramatizes the deep entanglements between place and psyche, poetry and politics, violence and hope. -- Honor Ford-Smith, York UniversityThe wandering poet and revolutionary socialist Claude McKay was one of the twentieth century’s most captivating writers, noted for his intellectual intensity and emotional depth. Combining unparalleled erudition, literary sensitivity, and political nous, Winston James’s book provides a compelling and authoritative account of the life that McKay made and the circumstances within which he made it. -- Peter Hulme, professor emeritus, University of EssexMeticulously researched and superbly written, this is the premier work on Claude McKay’s astonishing artistic range and diverse passions. It is also an incisive examination of the wider Jamaican and Caribbean colonial context, and a major contribution to the history of the Atlantic world, the Harlem Renaissance, and the overlooked connection with the founders of Négritude. -- Franklin W. Knight, Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor Emeritus of History, Johns Hopkins UniversityWinston James’s resurrection of the many lives of Claude McKay is a revelation. Page after page, his McKay becomes an increasingly startling figure, never conforming to prevailing expectations. As the narrative gathers pace, McKay shimmers, the life outgrowing the circumstances of his history. The unfolding story presents us with a portrait that is simultaneously compelling and troubling. McKay will never be the same. -- Bill Schwarz, Queen Mary University of LondonJames provides a deep understanding of McKay’s early political formation and radicalization and how these origins structured McKay’s thinking and art. He ably historicizes McKay while retaining a keen sensitivity to McKay’s literary contributions. -- Michelle Ann Stephens, Rutgers University–New BrunswickElegantly written and carefully reasoned, this is a fascinating look at the political evolution of a key literary figure. * Publishers Weekly *James is a perceptive literary critic, and his close readings are some of the most electrifying parts of The Making of a Black Bolshevik. -- Jennifer Wilson * Dissent Magazine *A powerfully relevant study about an iconoclastic Black thinker and poet who was dedicated to economic reform as well as the eradication of racism. -- Thomas Filbin * The Arts Fuse *The revolutionary Jamaican poet Claude McKay deserves a good Marxist biographer and has found one. Winston James’s new book on McKay illuminates the mind and art of one of the most important writers of the early twentieth century as it responded to the seismic contest between capitalism, colonialism, and Socialism in the age of the Russian Revolution. -- Bill Mullen * Tempest Magazine *[In] The Making of a Black Bolshevik, McKay properly joins the greats of black America, now accorded his due respect in this scrupulous and thoughtful study. It is a wonderful book, which draws the reader into McKay’s tempestuous world. At every point James’s interpretation is coolly judicious, bringing a lifetime’s thought to fruition. * History Workshop's Radical Reads of 2022 *Writing with precision and flair and drawing on his own impeccable research, James limns McKay's political life and legacy of influence in American letters . . . Highly recommended. -- L. L. Johnson * Choice Reviews *Claude McKay goes beyond biography. Although an excellent biography of a pivotal period in McKay's early political education, the book is also an important contribution to scholarship in several other fields . . . Few scholars have been so detailed and sympathetic in their treatment of McKay's early experiences. James has succeeded in effectively demonstrating how McKay's ideology was marked by both continuity and change and has given serious weight to the idea that McKay and his black contemporaries were ahead of their time ideologically. -- Jasmine Calver * H-Socialisms *James is the ideal person to author such a work . . . [This] biography makes important interventions. -- Owen Walsh * Radical Americas *A trenchant and astonishing work. James’ care with details, research, and analysis—along with a pleasurable style of writing—make for a captivating biography of the first part of McKay’s radical life. -- Joel Wendland-Liu * People's World *Table of ContentsList of AbbreviationsAcknowledgmentsProloguePart I: Jamaican Beginnings: The Formation of a Black Fabian, 1889–19121. A Son of the Soil: Jamaica’s Claude McKay2. Holding the Negro in Subjection: Claude McKay’s Jamaica3. You Caan’ Mek We Shet Up: McKay’s Jamaican Poetry of Rebellion4. The Man Who Left Jamaica: Claude McKay in 1912Part II: Coming to America: From Fabianism to Bolshevism, 1912–19195. “Six Silent Years”: McKay and America, 1912–19186. Fighting Back: Claude McKay and the Crisis of 1919Part III: England, Their England: McKay’s British Sojourn, 1919–19217. English Innings and Left-Wing Communism: McKay’s Bolshevization in Britain8. Making Spring in New Hampshire, the 1917 Club, Standing Up, and Thinking of EnglandA CodaNotesIndex
£101.70
Columbia University Press Long Road Home
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewKim gives us a marvelously unsympathetic portrait of a brain-washed apparatchik. -- Christian Oliver Financial Times [Kim's] dispassionate account of how one man endured the unendurable offers a clue as to how such extreme inhumanity can occur. -- Donald Richie Japan Times A reminder of the brutality of the North Korean regime. -- John Feffer Korean QuarterlyTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Author's Note Introduction, by Kim Suk-Young 1. Coming of Age 2. Living for the Great Leader 3. Downfall of a Model Citizen 4. In the Mouth of Death 5. Escape 6. Across the Continent Afterword: Unfinished Story Notes
£58.77
Columbia University Press Long Road Home
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewKim gives us a marvelously unsympathetic portrait of a brain-washed apparatchik. -- Christian Oliver Financial Times [Kim's] dispassionate account of how one man endured the unendurable offers a clue as to how such extreme inhumanity can occur. -- Donald Richie Japan Times A reminder of the brutality of the North Korean regime. -- John Feffer Korean QuarterlyTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Author's Note Introduction, by Kim Suk-Young 1. Coming of Age 2. Living for the Great Leader 3. Downfall of a Model Citizen 4. In the Mouth of Death 5. Escape 6. Across the Continent Afterword: Unfinished Story Notes
£18.00
Columbia University Press Eternal Ephemera
Book SynopsisFrom one of evolutionary biology's major contributors, a compelling work that unravels science’s great “Mystery of Mysteries”: how new species arise.Trade ReviewVery cutting edge. The historical insights in this book are original and bring in interesting and important themes in the thinking about species and speciation. -- Donald R. Prothero, author of Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters In this beautifully written book, Niles Eldredge explores not only how scientific views of the origins of species have changed over the past two hundred years but also why they have changed. It is an enthralling personal view of the history of one of the most difficult problems in evolution, written by a leading paleobiologist whose work has helped mold our understanding of the tempo and mode of the diversification of life. A sheer pleasure to read. -- John N. Thompson, University of California, Santa Cruz Niles Eldredge has been one of the most innovative and critical theoretical evolutionary biologists of the past forty years. Now he returns to the roots of modern evolutionary biology to set the stage for new helpful proposals that move evolutionary theory forward. This is required reading for anyone with a serious interest in evolutionary biology. -- Daniel Brooks, University of Toronto Paleontological and evolutionary pioneer Niles Eldredge has produced a scientific and scholarly gem of a book. Lucidly written, it covers the history and science of adaptation and the origin of species, with special emphasis placed on how paleontologists helped to build and expand the evolutionary synthesis. Everyone interested in evolution and paleontology will enjoy reading it. -- Bruce S. Lieberman, University of Kansas Eternal Ephemera is the most articulate and forceful presentation of the concept and implications of punctuated equilibria, originally formulated by Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould, a concept that has played a major role in the research and development of the theory of evolution over the last four decades. Eldredge's scholarly and bibliographic analysis of the historical precedents, from before Darwin to the present, of the related concepts of taxic versus phyletic evolutionary change is impressive. Eternal Ephemera deserves to be read by every evolutionist. -- Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine Eternal Ephemera offers a brilliantly researched and highly readable context for understanding the development of Darwinian models of evolution. It is a book that should be read by everyone, and perhaps especially those who have questions about evolution. -- Simon Underdown Times Higher Education A must-read for armchair biologists! Booklist (*Starred Review) A meticulously researched history of evolutionary theories that will likely be unfamiliar to most readers. Science A masterful work by one of the most influential paleontologists of the past half century, this is a must read for every serious student of evolutionary biology. Choice A clear, useful, and well-written book that critically discusses and analyzes the rise and decline of the taxic perspective in biology and paleontology from the early nineteenth century onwards. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Fascinating and well-written. IsisTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction: Approaching Adaptation and the Origin of Species Part I. Birth of Modern Evolutionary Theory 1. The Advent of the Modern Fauna: On the Births and Deaths of Species, 1801-1831 2. Darwin and the Beagle: Experimenting with Transmutation, 1831-1836 3. Enter Adaptation and the Conflict Between Isolation and Gradual Adaptive Change, 1836-1859 Part II. Rebellion and Reinvention: The Taxic Perspective, 1935- 4. Species and Speciation Reconsidered, 1935- 5. Punctuated Equilibria: Speciation and Stasis in Paleontology, 1968- 6. Speciation and Adaptation: Large-Scale Patterns in the Evolution of Life, 1972- Notes Bibliography Index
£25.00
Columbia University Press Eric Walrond
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA great read, even for readers who do not know about the Harlem Renaissance and Eric Walrond. The book tells a fascinating and moving story of a literary talent's demise, or what it takes to nurture and support the literary talents of minority and impoverished writers struggling with their issues of self-esteem and self-confidence while living in straitened circumstances. -- Michelle Ann Stephens, Rutgers University–New BrunswickEric Walrond, handsome, cosmopolitan, and beguilingly enigmatic, may have been the most promising literary talent of the Harlem Renaissance. His collection, Tropic Death, was an astonishing succes d'estime. A Guggenheim Fellowship certified the promise of The Big Ditch, Walrond's bildungsroman of capitalism, underdevelopment, and race. In one of the more mysterious losses in American letters, the book never appeared and its author disappeared. James Davis's finely written, beautifully paced Eric Walrond is a major biography of a fascinating figure, a triumph of archival sleuthing that reintroduces readers to almost everybody known to his peripatetic protagonist. -- David Levering Lewis, New York UniversityDavis has given us a rich portrait of the writer who may be the greatest conundrum of the Harlem Renaissance: Eric Walrond. He not only situates the 'sepulchral' brilliance of Walrond's best-known book, Tropic Death, but also recovers a much larger corpus of fugitive articles and stories. As peripatetic (with stops in Barbados, Panama, the United States, Haiti, France, and England) as it was ultimately tragic, Walrond's life may be the single most resonant record of the transnational contours of black culture in the period. -- Brent Hayes Edwards, author of The Practice of DiasporaAn eloquent biography. . . . Davis's careful and meticulous research re-establishes Walrond as one of the first black writers to depict Caribbean lives and voices in American fiction, putting him alongside his peers in the Harlem Renaissance. * Publishers Weekly *[A] wonderful biography. -- Darryl Pinckney * New York Review of Books *[Davis's] biography provides deft readings of the Harlem Renaissance and the transatlantic Caribbean, while bringing Walrond out of the shadows. -- Douglas Field * Times Literary Supplement *Well-researched and highly readable. * Caribbean Quarterly *Skillfully researched and engagingly composed, the books stands as a discerning recuperation of a paradigmatic but neglected figure. * Small Axe Salon *[An] excellent new biography of Walrond. -- James Smethurst * Journal of American History *A wonderfully readable book in eleven chapters -- Carole Boyce Davies * Carribbean Studies Association Newsletter *[A] highly readable narrative... excellent, painstakingly researched. * New West Indian Guide *James Davis’s reconstruction of the life of Eric Walrond, and Christian Høgsbjerg’s measured account of the first phase of C L R James’s life in England, are both magnificent contributions to our understanding of the twentieth-century Caribbean. -- Bill Schwartz * Wasafiri *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsChronologyIntroduction: A Harlem Story, a Diaspora Story1. Guyana and Barbados (1898–1911)2. Panama (1911–1918)3. New York (1918–1923)4. The New Negro (1923–1926)5. Tropic Death6. A Person of Distinction (1926–1929)7. The Caribbean and France (1928–1931)8. London I (1931–1939)9. Bradford-on-Avon (1939–1952)10. Roundway Hospital and The Second Battle (1952–1957)11. London II (1957–1966)PostscriptNotesBibliographyIndex
£22.00
Columbia University Press Self and Emotional Life
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSelf and Emotional Life is a timely and wholly original intervention into one of the most debated questions of recent years: the place of the affects in psychoanalytic, neuroscientific, and philosophical accounts of the subject. It is doubly valuable in being authored by two scholars of the stature of Adrian Johnston and Catherine Malabou, philosophers whose range and depth of erudition in recent and emerging scholarship in the neurosciences (especially work on the 'emotional brain') and in clinical psychoanalysis seem to be without peer among scholars working at this intersection today. -- Tracy McNulty, Cornell University While neuroscientists joyfully proclaim the death of philosophy and psychoanalysis, Self and Emotional Life enacts the necessary countermove. It conclusively demonstrates, from a strict materialist standpoint, how brain sciences cannot account for the unconscious processes discovered by Freud and how they remain entangled in a cobweb of their own philosophical presuppositions. The book's subtitle could have been 'prolegomena to any future relationship between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and neurosciences'-which is why it should be read by everyone in these fields. -- Slavoj Zizek, author of Living in the End I have often been surprised by how Continental philosophy and psychoanalysis has managed to ignore biology and at times even reject it. It made no sense to me, and it clearly makes no sense to Johnston and Malabou, who embrace neurobiology and are enriched by it. Their book makes for valuable and often pleasurable reading. -- Antonio Damasio, author of Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain This book flows from the obvious conviction that a philosophy of subjectivity simply cannot ignore the body and must engage with today's biological sciences. The authors' conviction that the link between the subject and the body is best theorized in relation to affect is perhaps less obvious to some, but surely equally correct. It is no surprise, then, that their book touches on many of the deepest questions confronting the mental sciences of our time. It will provoke much disputation-even outrage-yet it focuses our attention on just the right questions. -- Mark Solms, author of The Brain and the Inner World: An Introduction to the Neuroscience of the Subjective Experience a major contribution to the important materialist turn in continental philosophy. -- John Protevi Notre Dame Philosophical Review ... Postulating common ground between [neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and philosophy], and a language for mutual understanding, is the uncommon achievement of Johnston's and Malabou's book. Irish Left ReviewTable of ContentsPreface: From Nonfeeling to Misfeeling-Affects Between Trauma and the Unconscious Acknowledgments Part I. Go Wonder: Subjectivity and Affects in Neurobiological Times (Catherine Malabou) Introduction: From the Passionate Soul to the Emotional Brain 1. What Does "of" Mean in Descartes's Expression "The Passions of the Soul"? 2. A "Self-Touching You": Derrida and Descartes 3. The Neural Self: Damasio Meets Descartes 4. Affects Are Always Affects of Essence: Book 3 of Spinoza's Ethics 5. The Face and the Close-Up: Deleuze's Spinozist Approach to Descartes 6. Damasio as a Reader of Spinoza 7. On Neural Plasticity, Trauma, and the Loss of Affects: The Two Meanings of Plasticity Conclusion Part II. Misfelt Feelings: Unconscious Affect Between Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience, and Philosophy (Adrian Johnston) 8. Guilt and the Feel of Feeling: Toward a New Conception of Affects 9. Feeling Without Feeling: Freud and the Unresolved Problem of Unconscious Guilt 10. Affects, Emotions, and Feelings: Freud's Metapsychologies of Affective Life 11. From Signifiers to Jouis-sens: Lacan's Senti-ments and Affectuations 12. Emotional Life After Lacan: From Psychoanalysis to the Neurosciences 13. Affects Are Signifiers: The Infinite Judgment of a Lacanian Affective Neuroscience Postface: The Paradoxes of the Principle of Constancy Notes Index
£90.00
Columbia University Press Modern Humans
Book SynopsisModern Humans is a vivid account of the most recent—and perhaps the most important—phase of human evolution: the appearance of Homo sapiens in Africa less than half a million years ago and their spread throughout the world. John F. Hoffecker demonstrates that Homo sapiens represents a major transition in the evolution of living systems.Trade ReviewThis is an exceptional book on an inherently interesting topic. Most students of human origins agree that fully modern humans represent the surviving tip of an evolutionary lineage that emerged in Africa, probably beginning at least 300,000 years ago. This was a time when other lineages, including the one that led to the Neanderthals, were evolving in Eurasia. Most specialists also agree that fully modern Africans expanded to Eurasia around 50,000 years ago, where they replaced and sometimes interbred with the Neanderthals and other non-modern people. Much has been written on the ‘Out-of-Africa’ dispersal, but now the emphasis is increasingly on indications that invading Africans acquired some genes from resident Eurasians. Fossils are then valued mostly for their ancient DNA and only incidentally for their form and geographic distribution, while relevant archaeological observations are completely ignored, even though they underlie the most plausible explanations for modern human success. John F. Hoffecker considers everything and ignores nothing, and his synthesis is extraordinary not only for its breadth but for its clarity. Modern Humans will satisfy both curious lay readers and specialists who seek a readily intelligible, authoritative update on where we came from. -- Richard G. Klein, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, author of The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins, Third EditionJohn F. Hoffecker has produced an exhaustively researched but highly accessible account of the evidence—from paleontology, archaeology, material culture, and genomics—for one of the greatest stories ever told: how, from an unremarkable origin in Africa, our species Homo sapiens began behaving in extraordinary and unprecedented ways, and rapidly took over the entire habitable world—with consequences with which we are still grappling. Modern Humans is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in how modern humans came to be the amazing creatures they are. -- Ian Tattersall, Curator Emeritus, Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, author of The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack and Other Cautionary Tales from Human EvolutionEvery so often, a benchmark volume is needed to slow things down a bit and walk readers through the evidence, reminding them of what it all means. This is just such a volume, and, happily Hoffecker's writing style makes the evidence come alive for almost all levels of readers, from the lay public to seasoned professionals. * Choice *An erudite, meticulously researched, and well-presented account of the Spencerian process as applied to deep history. -- Clive Gamble * American Antiquity *Essential reading for anyone involved in human origins research, Modern Humans is a detailed, fact-dense work. -- John J. Shea * Journal of Anthropological Research *Table of Contents1. Information, Complexity, and Human Evolution2. Modern Human Origins and Dispersal: The Synthesis3. An Evolutionary Context for Homo sapiens4. Recent African Origin5. Global Dispersal: Southern Asia and Australia6. Global Dispersal: Northern Eurasia7. Global Dispersal: Beringia and the AmericasNotesBibliographyAcknowledgmentsIndex
£70.40
Columbia University Press Paleopoetics
Book SynopsisUsing new data from neuroscience and evolutionary biology, an exploration of what the development of our species can tell us about the origins of language and the verbal imagination.Trade ReviewThis is a brilliant book. Its argument is careful and convincing and its presentation is erudite and elegant. Paleopoetics presents a history of the co-development of humanity and arts as mutually reinforcing and defining, ranging from deep prehistory to current concerns of arts and literary study. The ideas which are developed are drawn from a range of credible, multidisciplinary sources, and a huge range of literary works serves as final close evidence for much of the argument and discussion. This book represents a timely and major contribution to scholarship. -- Peter Stockwell, University of Nottingham, author of Texture: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Reading For the most part, intellectual discussions of language and its evolution focus on grammar and the dry anatomy of the sentence. Christopher Collins reminds us that language is also, and probably more fundamentally, a vehicle of performance, as expressed in ritual, song, folk tales, drama-in a word, poetics. In coining the term 'paleopoetics,' he recognizes the prehistoric antecedents of poetics in visual arts, gesture, mimesis, crafted tools, and what he calls the presymbolic mind. In linking these with our modern understanding of human cognition and brain function, he offers startling new insights into the nature of human evolution. -- Michael Corballis, University of Auckland, author of From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language Exploring the bodily roots of rhetoric and poetry by combining insights from Aristotle to Heidegger, from Benveniste to Langacker, and from Gestalt psychology to Merlin Donald's theory of human cognitive evolution and modern neuroscience, Paleopoetics represents a bold synthesis that helps bring closer the 'two cultures' of science and the humanities, extending it further towards performance art and literature. This book deserves to be read by all interested in the emerging fields of cognitive poetics and cognitive semiotics. -- Jordan Zlatev, Lund University, coeditor of Moving Ourselves, Moving Others: Motion and Emotion in Intersubjectivity, Consciousness, and Language Paleopoetics is an important book for anyone interested in language, linguistics, discourse, or humanities, but seems especially timely in today's poetic culture. -- Joel Weishaus Rain Taxi Careful and well written... A worthwhile addition to the literature on the evolution of the arts. -- Richard A. Richards Quarterly Review of BiologyTable of ContentsPreface Some Notes on Dating and Nomenclature Acknowledgments 1. The Idea of a Paleopoetics 2. From Dualities to Dyads 3. Play and Instrumentality 4. The World as We See It 5. Human Communication: From Pre-Language to Protolanguage 6. Language: Its Prelinguistic Inheritance 7. The Poetics of the Verbal Artifact Epilogue: The Neopoetics of Writing Notes Bibliography Index
£83.60
Columbia University Press Paleopoetics
Book SynopsisUsing new data from neuroscience and evolutionary biology, an exploration of what the development of our species can tell us about the origins of language and the verbal imagination.Trade ReviewThis is a brilliant book. Its argument is careful and convincing and its presentation is erudite and elegant. Paleopoetics presents a history of the co-development of humanity and arts as mutually reinforcing and defining, ranging from deep prehistory to current concerns of arts and literary study. The ideas which are developed are drawn from a range of credible, multidisciplinary sources, and a huge range of literary works serves as final close evidence for much of the argument and discussion. This book represents a timely and major contribution to scholarship. -- Peter Stockwell, University of Nottingham, author of Texture: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Reading For the most part, intellectual discussions of language and its evolution focus on grammar and the dry anatomy of the sentence. Christopher Collins reminds us that language is also, and probably more fundamentally, a vehicle of performance, as expressed in ritual, song, folk tales, drama-in a word, poetics. In coining the term 'paleopoetics,' he recognizes the prehistoric antecedents of poetics in visual arts, gesture, mimesis, crafted tools, and what he calls the presymbolic mind. In linking these with our modern understanding of human cognition and brain function, he offers startling new insights into the nature of human evolution. -- Michael Corballis, University of Auckland, author of From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language Exploring the bodily roots of rhetoric and poetry by combining insights from Aristotle to Heidegger, from Benveniste to Langacker, and from Gestalt psychology to Merlin Donald's theory of human cognitive evolution and modern neuroscience, Paleopoetics represents a bold synthesis that helps bring closer the 'two cultures' of science and the humanities, extending it further towards performance art and literature. This book deserves to be read by all interested in the emerging fields of cognitive poetics and cognitive semiotics. -- Jordan Zlatev, Lund University, coeditor of Moving Ourselves, Moving Others: Motion and Emotion in Intersubjectivity, Consciousness, and Language Paleopoetics is an important book for anyone interested in language, linguistics, discourse, or humanities, but seems especially timely in today's poetic culture. -- Joel Weishaus Rain Taxi Careful and well written... A worthwhile addition to the literature on the evolution of the arts. -- Richard A. Richards Quarterly Review of BiologyTable of ContentsPreface Some Notes on Dating and Nomenclature Acknowledgments 1. The Idea of a Paleopoetics 2. From Dualities to Dyads 3. Play and Instrumentality 4. The World as We See It 5. Human Communication: From Pre-Language to Protolanguage 6. Language: Its Prelinguistic Inheritance 7. The Poetics of the Verbal Artifact Epilogue: The Neopoetics of Writing Notes Bibliography Index
£25.20
Columbia University Press The CustomMade Brain
Book SynopsisTwo leading neuroscientists introduce the concepts of cerebral plasticity and the regenerating brain, describing what we know now about the processes through which the brain constantly reconstructs itself and the potential benefits this knowledge could have in addressing concerns for neurological, cognitive, and emotional health. The authors begin with a survey of the fundamental scientific developments that led to our current understanding of the regenerative mind, elucidating the breakthrough neurobiological studies that paved the way for our present understanding of the brain's plasticity and regenerative capabilities. They then discuss the application of these findings to such issues as depression, dyslexia, schizophrenia, and cognitive therapy, incorporating the latest technologies in neuroimaging, optogenetics, and nanotechnology. Their work shows the brain is anything but a static organ, ceasing to grow as human beings become adults. Rather, the brain is dynamic, evolving organTrade ReviewHighly informative, up to date, and entertaining, The Custom-Made Brain emphasizes that the brain is constantly being constructed during an individual's lifetime, like a medieval cathedral that is never finished and yet ages without reaching 'maturity.' The brain, like the cathedral, is forever being repaired and restored. A stimulating read. -- Israel Rosenfield, City University of New York, author of The Invention of Memory: A New View of the Brain This book is written to simplify the facts about synaptic plasticity and its application to restorative neurology. Our thinking about the use of science to repair or even regenerate the human mind is experiencing a revolution in how we understand the potential of our brain to make good the harmful effects of aging and even neurodegenerative disease. This short account succeeds in an original and thought-provoking manner. It will become a valuable resource for clinicians who manage the care of those disabled by stroke, brain injury, or dementia. Many young scientists will be encouraged to take up the challenge of brain repair in the face of decades of therapeutic pessimism. -- Lawrence Whalley, University of Aberdeen, author of The Aging Brain Building on their lifetimes of brain research, Jean-Didier Vincent and Pierre-Marie Lledo explain the brain in an intellectual tour de force from Descartes to Ray Kurzweil and the future, from medieval cathedrals to modern molecular biology and psychology. To those whose brains are ravaged by disease, they bring hope for new possibilities of repair, and they discuss the latest advances in brain nanotechnology that bring inspiration for enhancing our mental and emotional lives. -- Gordon M. Shepherd, Yale University School of Medicine, author of Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters The Custom-Made Brain furnishes us with a fascinating narrative about brain structure and development along with some challenging issues related to future developments and possibilities. NY Journal of Books Other works have addressed all these issues separately, but no other single book integrates them into one cohesive volume... Highly recommended. CHOICETable of ContentsAcknowledgments Translator's Note 1. Introduction 2. And Then There Was Shape 3. The Masterpiece 4. The Workshop of the Brain 5. The Brain Under Repair 6. The Enhanced Brain Epilogue Notes Index
£19.80
Columbia University Press Fear Wonder and Science in the New Age of
Book SynopsisThis book helps individuals make informed choices about in vitro fertilization, abortion, egg freezing, surrogacy, and other matters of reproduction. Scott Gilbert and Clara Pinto-Correia explain why some of the major forms of assisted reproductive technologies were invented, how they are used, and what they can and cannot accomplish.Trade ReviewScott Gilbert and Clara Pinto-Correia come to readers as whole persons in this unusual and much-needed book... Each part of this rich tapestry of stories is woven in an acute consciousness of complex social, personal, and technical histories. Each part requires-as well as nurtures-emotional, intellectual, and sociohistorical intelligence. -- from the foreword by Donna Haraway Impressive in its breadth, Fear, Wonder, and Science in the New Age of Reproductive Biotechnology contains case studies, historical narratives, and ethical conundrums showcasing the advances in our understanding of the basic science of human fertilization and development. Correcting misconceptions that have permeated the mainstream infertility literature, Gilbert and Pinto-Correia write the kind of lucid explanations of these complex technological feats that have probably never reached this readership but should have a long time ago. -- Katayoun Chamany, New School University Every book on science and its social uses should be like this one. But Fear, Wonder, and Science in the New Age of Reproductive Technology is probably an unrepeatable marvel. To bring it to pass, a scientist with philosophical inclinations and literary flair has joined up with a novelist with scientific training and a moving and culturally resonant personal story. They have created what may be the most accessible source to date for how humans are made, how the process can be manipulated technologically, and how benign impulses can go awry in the face of biological and social complexities. -- Stuart Newman, New York Medical College This pathbreaking book is a milestone, giving us a new way of understanding human fertility, reproduction and childbirth. Scott Gilbert and Clara Pinto-Correia's contrasting yet complementary perspectives will educate, enliven, delight and inform any reader. The insights presented here will enable us to question, break, and move beyond the reigning contemporary paradigms of disempowerment, and find the true empowerment that both men and women so sorely need. -- Steven Borish, California State University - East BayTable of ContentsForeword: Making Babies, Making Kin, by Donna HarawayPrefaceAcknowledgmentsPart I. The Importance of the Story1. Conceptual Detox: Returning to Hogwarts to Learn Human Embryology, by Scott Gilbert2. Stories of Infertility and Its Conquest: The Sisterhood of Bloody Mary, by Clara Pinto-CorreiaPart II. Fertilization and Its Discontents3. Fertilization: Two Cells At The Verge of Death Cooperate to Form a New Body That Lasts Decades, by Scott Gilbert4. Fertility Rites: Artificial Insemination and In Vitro Fertilization—Their Hopes and Their Fears, by Clara Pinto-CorreiaPart III. The Mother and Her Fetus 5. Normal Development and The Beginning of Human Life: Why Scientists Are Being Asked Theological Questions and Why Theologians Are Being Asked Scientific Questions, by Scott Gilbert6. Technological Motherhood, by Clara Pinto-CorreiaPart IV. Improving The Human Condition Through Biology: The Reality and the Fantasy7. Cloning Animals, Cells, and Genes: Where Did Cloning Come From, and Where Is It Going to Right Now?, by Scott Gilbert8. Glory Days: My Personal Account of Cloning, by Clara Pinto-CorreiaPart V. Epilogues9. Infertility Wars: How Life Feels After Everything Fails, and, By the Way, How Do We Survive It?, by Clara Pinto-Correia10. The Human Condition of Fear and Wonder: In Celebration of Bodies, by Scott GilbertAppendix: A Field Guide to Assisted Reproductive TechnologiesGlossaryNotesReferencesIndex
£28.50
Columbia University Press Soseki
Book SynopsisJohn Nathan provides a lucid and vivid account of Natsume Sōseki, the father of the modern novel in Japan. This biography elevates Sōseki to his rightful place as a great synthesizer of literary traditions and a brilliant chronicler of universal experience who, no less than his Western contemporaries, anticipated twentieth-century modernism.Trade ReviewNathan, a master translator and a gifted storyteller. . . . paints a portrait of this singular man based mostly on primary sources, accompanied by convincing textual analyses of the novelist’s representative works. The result is an accessible account of a tortured, difficult, and yet ultimately irresistible soul that is touching even to those who are not yet familiar with the pleasures of Sōseki’s writing. -- Eri Hotta * Times Literary Supplement *[Natsume Sōseki's] life and work are explored insightfully in John Nathan’s outstanding and cohesive literary biography. -- Eileen Battersby * Financial Times *Comprehensive and discerning. . . . A revealing portrait of a writer who deserves a new audience. * Kirkus Reviews *A compelling narrative of this complicated man....Recommended. * Choice *Sōseki captures the soul of Japan’s greatest modern writer in the best tradition of biography. Here the venerated figure comes fully alive with his infuriating failings and astounding intelligence, his maddening ambitions and biting self-deprecations. The book also offers a vibrant portrayal of Japan’s rapidly transforming society—an extraordinary feast. -- Minae Mizumura, author of Inheritance from MotherA vivid portrait of Sōseki’s anxious and troubled life, of his violent mood swings, as well as of the chaos that constantly lurked just below the surface, ready to explode at any moment. -- Martin LaFlamme * Japan Times *A vibrant portrayal of the transformation of a modern Japan as witnessed through the story of one of that country’s best writers. * International Examiner *A fine biographical work that also helpfully covers Sōseki's major works in quite good depth, Sōseki is a solid and interesting biography -- M.A. Orthofer * Complete Review *Anyone with an interest in Japanese literature will enjoy the book. Not only is it a nice introduction to his work, but it also provides fascinating insights into a life cut short. As such, Sōseki: Modern Japan’s Greatest Novelist is a work to be recommended, an easy read about a great writer. * Tony's Reading List *[An] illuminating biography. . . . Nathan’s incisive portrait of Sōseki as a troubled yet widely celebrated literary game changer—his image adorned the ¥1,000 banknote in 1984—will likely drive new readers to his fiction. * Publishers Weekly *All the varied accomplishments of this man who's often considered Japan's greatest writer, together with his many shortcomings, are put in perspective and context by literary scholar John Nathan. Sōseki: Modern Japan's Greatest Novelist provides a literary biography of the finest sort: an engaging, reasonably paced narrative of Sōseki 's life punctuated by just enough literary analysis to render the book intellectually important as well. -- Hans Rollman * PopMatters *In John Nathan’s excellent and very readable new biography, Sōseki: Modern Japan’s Greatest Novelist, the first English-language biography of the writer’s life in fifty years, we are given a portrait of a complex, troubled individual who spent his career resisting black-and-white interpretations. -- Angela Qian * Cha: An Asian Literary Journal *This biography and literary study describes a difficult, demanding man, plagued by poor physical and mental health, yet one who was also a master stylist with an extraordinary gift. * Times Higher Education *Nathan offers a lucid view of the life and works of the writer many consider to be Japan’s most important, and best, novelist. He deftly shows how Sōseki's life reflects the many social and intellectual changes that occurred over the tumultuous decades of his lifetime—decades of Japan’s transformation into a modern nation. -- Alan Tansman, University of California, BerkeleyIt’s been half a century since the appearance of the most recent English-language biography of Natsume Sōseki, one of the giants of twentieth-century world literature, so the arrival of John Nathan’s fine new study is cause for celebration. Sōseki's life story often reads like one of his novels, and Nathan captures it in prose worthy of his subject. -- Michael Bourdaghs, University of ChicagoJohn Nathan has certainly shown in this biography why Sōseki is such an important figure in Japanese literature, as well as demonstrating that he can hold his own with the best novelists the West have to offer. * Asian Review of Books *John Nathan has given us a robust portrayal of Sōseki’s aesthetic practices and what they meant for his life and his work. His thoughtful readings, always grounded in his own aesthetic and emotional response and further honed through translation, provide an inspiring model for the Japanese literary criticism of the future. * Monumenta Nipponica *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgments1. Beginnings2. School Days3. Words4. The Provinces5. London6. Home Again7. I Am a Cat8. Smaller Gems9. The Thursday Salon10. A Professional Novelist11. Sanshirō12. A Pair of Novels13. Crisis at Shuzenji14. A Death in the Family15. Einsamkeit16. Grass on the Wayside17. The Final YearNotesSelected BibliographyIndex
£69.26
Columbia University Press Karl Polanyi
Book SynopsisA biography that connects the theorist’s maverick intellect and political commitments to the turbulent times in which he lived.Trade ReviewHere is the book the many admirers of Karl Polanyi have been waiting for: a vivid, thoroughly researched, and lucidly written intellectual biography that is worthy of its subject. It traces Polanyi's life and developing ideas first in central Europe, then in Britain and North America, showing both their rootedness in the 'lost world' of twentieth-century socialism and their ever-greater relevance to making sense of the market societies of our own time. -- Steven Lukes, author of Power: A Radical View One of the best biographies ever written of any intellectual emerging from the horrors of mid-twentieth-century Europe. It meticulously covers the whole ground-from the Jewish roots in Budapest through the First War, brilliantly reconstructs the milieu and debates of interwar Vienna, and adds enormously to our understanding of The Great Transformation. A compelling portrait, it is successful not just as an intellectual biography but as a personal one as well. -- John A. Hall, author of Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography Writing the intellectual biography of one of the truly great thinkers of the twentieth century, an heir to Rousseau-comparable in importance to Max Weber or to John Maynard Keynes-is a daunting enterprise. Particularly so, since Polanyi's life is bound to the history of a European radicalism now defunct or dormant. Gareth Dale is equal to this task, the complexity of which is incredible. I have no doubt that this is a durable work that will be read by generations. Also, it will show that this half-submerged chapter in the chronicle of revolutionary and-to say the same with another word-theoretical upheavals is indispensable for everybody who still insists on being able to think critically. -- G. M. Tamas, author of Innocent Power: 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts This is a well-written, often sparkling, always informative, comprehensive narrative about the life and work of Karl Polanyi. The analysis is rich with cultural and historical contextualization, full of interesting allusions and reflections, and wonderfully evocative of the unfolding events on a European and transatlantic stage-it will be the standard reference point for all future work on Polanyi. -- Bob Jessop, University of Lancaster This much needed and accessibly crafted biography by a recognized authority on Karl Polanyi is well researched and supported by a range of sources, including archival material, interviews, and other contemporaneous scholars. The rich historical sourcing provides stimulating material for both scholarly audiences and general readers interested in the lives, contributions, and intellectual thought of fascinating individuals and scholars who lived through this particularly era. -- Sally Randles, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester Institute of Innovation Research The long wait for an intellectual biography of Karl Polanyi is finally over. The task is intimidating because Polanyi's concepts are difficult to untangle and his life was divided into successive sojourns in five different countries with three different languages. But Gareth Dale has succeeded in writing an engaging and meticulously researched book that illuminates Polanyi's ideas and situates them in their proper historical context. -- Fred Block, author of The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's Critique Gareth Dale's new biography offers us a bracing reminder of a far richer world of socialist activity that once existed in much of the West. -- Nikil Saval The Nation Gareth Dale has done an outstanding job of recounting Polanyi's very full life in both the political and academic realms... For those interested in the work, not only of Karl Polanyi... this book will be invaluable. EH-NetTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. In the East-West Salon 2. Bearing the Cross of War 3. Triumph and Tragedy of Red Vienna 4. Challenges and Responses 5. The Cataclysm and Its Origins 6. "Injustices and Inhumanities" 7. The Precariousness of Existence Epilogue: A Lost World of Socialism Notes Index
£80.39
Columbia University Press The Theory That Changed Everything
Book SynopsisThe renowned cognitive scientist Philip Lieberman demonstrates that there is no better guide to the world’s living—and still evolving—things than Darwin and that the phenomena he observed are still being explored at the frontiers of science. Lieberman relates the insights that led to groundbreaking discoveries in both Darwin’s time and our own.Trade ReviewLieberman's The Theory That Changed Everything takes Darwin's theory out of academia's dusty lecture halls, returning it to where it began—with a young person curious about the world around them. Engagingly, Lieberman explains how Darwin developed his theories and why those theories matter today. The final chapter, 'What would Darwin Think About…' will energize high school and college biology classes for years to come. -- John J. Shea, Stony Brook UniversityAn awesome accompanying book for anyone who reads On the Origin of Species. -- Rob DeSalle, curator of entomology at the American Museum of Natural HistoryStrikes a balance between the historical context in which Darwin made his remarkable contributions to science and contemporary scientific work. -- Christina Behme, Brandon UniversityLieberman clearly explains complex issues such as epigenetic mechanisms...engage[s] readers interested in the evolution of humans. * Publishers Weekly *An enjoyable and well-written book for those who appreciate Species and its impact on our lives today. * Library Journal *Written with an infectious delight in the way that Darwin’s thinking continues to guide scientific inquiry across disciplines. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Big brains, language, and almost infinite cultural flexibility are quintessential human features. This lucidly written little gem from a leader in the study of human language evolution uses language as a case study to explain how a Darwinian approach is the only way to understand the evolution of human brains and behavior. Written in a very personal voice, it provides a fully accessible synthesis of research in fields as diverse as linguistics, functional genomics, psychology, neuroanatomy, and evolutionary theory. It makes excellent supplementary reading for a diverse range of courses, from evolutionary biology to anthropology and linguistics. -- David Pilbeam, Harvard UniversitySuited for general readers and students interested in the sciences. * Choice *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgments1. Strawberries2. No Cats, No Flowers3. Grandfather Erasmus4. Crafting the Human Brain5. What Would Darwin Think About . . .NotesBibliographyIndex
£19.00
Columbia University Press Down the Up Staircase Three Generations of a
Book SynopsisIn Down the Up Staircase, Bruce D. Haynes and Syma Solovitch trace the social history of Harlem through the lens of one family across three generations, connecting their journey to the historical and social forces that transformed Harlem. This story is told against the backdrop of a crumbling three-story brownstone in Sugar Hill.Trade ReviewBruce D. Haynes's story is a classic American tale—which combines the big themes of history with the gritty reality of a single family's extraordinary story. -- Jeffrey Toobin, staff writer at The New Yorker and senior legal analyst at CNNHaynes channels W. E. B. Du Bois to provide a rich sociological portrait of his "talented tenth" family. The lively writing conveys both universal family dramas of social mobility (up and down) as well as the particular context of Harlem across the twentieth century. A great read! -- Dalton Conley, author of Honky, Princeton UniversityAn utterly captivating work that shows off Haynes's brilliant sociological imagination on every page. He and Solovitch are masterful at linking the small personal details of everyday family and community life to social structure and history. Like Dalton Conley's Honky, this book will be seen as a significant contribution to the emerging literary form of sociological memoir. -- Mitchell Duneier, author of Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea, Princeton UniversityDown the Up Staircase is a beautifully written, captivating, and absorbing book that connects seemingly private concerns with public policies and structures in clear and convincing fashion. It delineates vividly how poverty and downward mobility do not make people noble, resilient, and resourceful, but instead shatter social ties and self-esteem. This fast-paced book will likely be consumed by readers in one sitting, but its powerful and poignant stories will linger in the mind long afterwards. -- George Lipsitz, author of How Racism Takes PlaceDown the Up Staircase is a riveting narrative about three generations of a black family and their struggle to maintain inherited privilege. Written with elegance and penetrating insight, the book shines light on the precarity that all blacks confront, regardless of their social class and personal ambitions. -- Stephen Steinberg, author of Race Relations: A Critique, professor of urban sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New YorkA candid and profoundly personal contribution to America's racial history. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *This masterful account begins as a portrait of a house that was a living, breathing extension of the family that lived in it both in hopeful times and in darker ones. But it soon reaches out into the larger social landscape of Harlem and then into the changing history and culture of an entire land. In doing so, it shifts seamlessly from a sensitive biography to a thoughtful ethnographic sketch of an important place in an important time, and then into a wise and compelling essay on the social history of our time. What we encounter on the printed page, of course, is written narrative, but it is conveyed to us in what might best be described as a rich and perceptive voice. In every way, a remarkable work. -- Kai Erikson, Yale UniversityThis thoughtful and sobering memoir weaves the beauty and tragedy of Haynes's family story into the complex history of Harlem.... Like Harlem's story, the memoir is bittersweet, painting a full and complicated picture of black upper-class life over generations. * Publishers Weekly *Down the Up Staircase combines elements of memoir and sociology, culminating in an incredibly rich story. * Bookish *In this thoughtfully conceived and crafted memoir, the authors offer evocative, relentlessly honest portrayals without judgment. In doing so, they encourage the reader to ponder the variables in her own life, the tides and forces that help or hinder her pursuit of the sweet life. -- Elizabeth Dowling Taylor * The New York Times Book Review *[A] moving memoir. -- Georgia Rowe * East Bay Times *As Isabel Wilkerson did expertly in 'The Warmth of Other Suns' — the Pulitzer Prize-winning epic tale of the Great Migration — Haynes and Solovitch follow their relatives through decades, revealing the impact of public policy and social change on the family from generation to generation. -- Krissah Thompson * Washington Post *Haynes and Solovitch weave memoir and sociology to document the shifting fortunes of the black middle-class family, and of Harlem itself, and illuminate the tenuous nature of status and success among the black middle class. * The Davis Enterprise *Interweaving a variety of sociological concepts and historical examinations with intimate portraits of this singular family, Down the Up Staircase takes readers on an entertaining and provocative tour of twentieth-century urban America. -- Richard E. Ocejo * New Books in Sociology *Down The Up Staircase is more than a story of a family, far more than the chronology of a home. And yet the entire tale — the story of the black experience in the 20th century—feels like it’s being very intimately told to you from the parlor. * The Bowery Boys *Like Harlem’s story, the memoir is bittersweet, painting a full and complicated picture of black upper-class life over generations. * Harlem World Magazine *In Down the Up Staircase: Three generations of a Harlem Family, Bruce D. Haynes (with his co-author, Syma Solovitch) gives us a poignant memoir of his own Uptown youth in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and also reaches further back to when his grandparents bought a townhouse in the Sugar Hill district in 1931. -- Benjamin George Friedman * Times Literary Supplement *Every sociologist—indeed everyone—interested in race, mobility, and the African American experience should read this book. It will motivate rethinking of the stakes and consequences for African Americans striving to get or stay ahead. For sociologists and other scholars of race and the urban experience, as well as lay readers who desire to understand more fully much of what black family life in urban America was all about during the past 100 years, it should be a required text. -- Alford A. Young, Jr. * Sociological Forum *Haynes and Syma Solovitch show a surprisingly complex account of black middle class life in a biographically and analytically novel way. . . . Down the Up Staircase adds an important lens to the numerous complexities of generational social mobility for African Americans in the United States. -- Edwin Grimsley * City & Community *Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family is at once a history of Black Harlem, Black social science in and beyond the academy, and the Black elite class. . . . In Haynes and Solovitch’s narrative hands, the book’s key characters – the three generations of the Haynes family, the Convent Avenue brownstone, and Harlem – do sweeping and personal historical work about race, class, and cities in twentieth century America. -- Zandria F. Robinson * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family, guides readers through the double glass doors of the Haynes family home as the tell the tale of Harlem's historical and social transformation using the family's crumbling three-story brownstone as the backdrop. Haynes and Solovitch pull back the proverbial curtains to document the tenuous nature of achievement, success, and status among the black middle class. * Contemporary Sociology *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPreface1. Mad Money2. Not Alms but Opportunity3. New Negroes4. Soul Dollars5. Stepping Out6. Do for Yourself7. Free Fall8. Moving on Down9. Keep on Keepin' onNotes
£17.09
Columbia University Press The Black Circle A Life of Alexandre Koj232ve
Book SynopsisJeff Love reinterprets Alexandre Kojève’s works, showing him to be a provocative thinker who challenged modernity's valuation of self-interest. Joining intellectual history, close textual analysis, and philosophy, The Black Circle reveals Kojève’s thought as a profound critique of capitalist individualism and a timely meditation on human freedom.Trade ReviewThe Black Circle is an extraordinary study in which hardcore philosophical issues are approached at a cosmic level but lyrically, almost as part of an intimate conversation. Alexandre Kojève was so thoroughly at home in German and French culture that his origins in yet a third culture have been neglected. In this book, Jeff Love restores Russian contexts to Kojève’s thought on Hegel and the ‘end of history.’ -- Caryl Emerson, Princeton UniversityKojève is best known as arguably the best twentieth-century commentator on Hegel. But Love’s incisive book shows that he is much more. This is by far the best, most comprehensive overview of Kojève’s thinking in any language and the only one to draw in detail on Kojève’s Russian background. Clearly, elegantly written and argued, it is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the complexity and range of twentieth-century thought. -- William Todd Mills, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor of Literature, Harvard UniversityKnown only in Anglophone letters for a drastically truncated translation of his idiosyncratic and influential Parisian “Lectures on Hegel,” Alexandre Kojève bequeathed to posterity a multitude of tantalizing manuscripts and has finally received the intellectual contextualization and philosophical interpretation he deserves. In his magisterial study Jeff Love uncovers the profound presence of nineteenth-century Russian thought within Kojève’s literary style and his philosophy of negation, finality, perfection, repetition, political community, and radical freedom, such that Kojève emerges from Dostoevsky's underground as a distinctly Russian Hegelian existentialist thinker worthy of serious consideration today. -- Henry W. Pickford, Duke UniversityIn this excellent intellectual biography, Jeff Love explicates the thought and speculates on the intentions of expatriate Russian Hegelian philosopher Alexandre Kojève. Love’s readings of neglected Russian influences on Kojève (Dostoevsky and philosophers Vladimir Soloviev and Nikolai Fedorov) and of Kojève himself are satisfyingly complex, clear, and accessible. His Kojève is deep, controversial, and a 'philosophical propagandist' still relevant today. -- Donna Orwin, University of TorontoA sophisticated contribution to the study of one of the most enigmatic modern thinkers, this book is simultaneously scholarly and bold. It not only retraces Kojève’s roots in more than a century of Russian literature and thought but also–attuned to the paradoxes and ironies embedded in his kaleidoscopic corpus–orchestrates a spirited exchange among canonical figures of the 'Western tradition,' from Plato and Aristotle to Beckett and Leo Strauss. -- Ilya Kliger, New York UniversityLove’s thoughtful account and probing interrogation of Kojève’s texts shed light on both the powerful arguments and interpretations that Kojève presents and the bewildering paradoxes and problems that the outcomes of these arguments leave us with. -- James H. Nichols * H-Net *This lucid book goes far in clarifying the origins of and the problems with Kojeve's 'end of history' thesis. * Choice *Meticulously researched and boasting an extensive bibliography in multiple languages . . . of interest to philosophers [and] intellectual historians. * Slavic Review *Kojève’s thought is complex, puzzling, and intense—and so is this book about writings and ideas he puts forward. It is no easy reading, but the reader who takes the challenge will be rewarded with a (not the) profound grasp of the philosophical thought of this important Russian-European thinker. * Studies in East European Thought *Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgments ixList of Abbreviations xiIntroduction: A Russian in Paris 1I. Russian Contexts1. Madmen 172. The Possessed 443. Godmen 70II. The Hegel Lectures4. The Last Revolution 1035. Time No More 1326. The Book of the Dead 161III. The Later Writings7. Nobodies 1938. Roads Or Ruins? 2139. Why Finality? 257Epilogue: The Grand Inquisitor 279Notes 291Bibliography 335Index 347
£80.39
