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19201 products


  • Verified  How to Think Straight Get Duped Less

    The University of Chicago Press Verified How to Think Straight Get Duped Less

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“Lively and pithy, suitable for students. . . . Engaging, insightful, and useful.” * American Biology Teacher *"Fortunately, a new book from two leading academics has arrived to help arm us against the flood of deliberate attempts to sow distrust and separate us from our own senses of what’s real and not.” * Chicago Tribune *“A much-anticipated book by two leading experts of the field, Verified goes beyond defining the problem and offers readers clear advice on how to navigate a world of spin, trolls, and lies. Wonderful to see this guide published!” -- Maria Ressa, winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for work to safeguard freedom of expression“Verified is the book and mindset that society needs right now. This is, of course, assuming that you want society to survive." -- Guy Kawasaki, Host of "Remarkable People and author of The Art of the Start“As the value of information literacy becomes increasingly clear, Verified offers timely, research-based solutions to the ever-present and elusive problem of misinformation run amok.” -- Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia, author of Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make it Easy"Verified is a sorely needed intervention into today’s chaotic, often deceitful, information environment of influencers, ChatGPT, deepfakes, viral videos, and distrust. Offering ways to combat the mindset of knee-jerk cynicism, it responds to a world in which political power, not truth seeking, has too often become the ultimate arbiter of truth. Verified will be a treasured resource for debunking internet disinformation to instructors, students, and for you (to hand to parents and skeptics)." -- André Brock, author of Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures“An indispensable guide for students and citizens of all ages and backgrounds.” -- Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University, and author of The End of History and the Last Man and Liberalism and its Discontents“This book should be required reading for students, journalists, content creators, and anyone else who regularly consumes and shares information (i.e. pretty much everyone). Rich with actionable guidance and real-world examples, Verified helps readers learn the skills to stay out of the weeds of online misinformation and find the best available evidence for any claim. I’m so grateful to Caulfield and Wineburg for creating this resource.” -- Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, author of The Wellness Trap“Verified offers an ethos that can help all of us understand and confidently use what we find online. This book belongs in every backpack, classroom, library, workplace, and home.” -- Phillip Jones, Grinnell College Libraries“Verified does more than preach against the dangers of misinformation and online mischief, it provides clear, focused strategies for navigating and researching online that should become part of every literate person’s repertoire of skills. Every educator whose students touch the web—which is to say all of us—needs this book.” -- Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Executive Director, National Writing Project“Verified is a lifeline. With research-verified and surprisingly simple techniques, the authors show us, step-by-step, how to sift the real, useful, true information from the tsunami of online bogosity. Read it, give it to parents and their high school-age children, give it as high school graduation gifts, and please teach it at colleges and universities.” -- Howard Rheingold, internet futurist and author of "Net Smart: How to Thrive Online"“Anyone who wants to avoid being duped by all the fake news, distorted videos, and stealth ads that populate today's online universe needs this book. Verified offers a multitude of user-friendly tools for navigating our digital new world in which we cannot always trust the seemingly trustworthy sources we encounter.” -- Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, authors of "They Say, I Say" “The internet accelerated the spread of misinformation but has also given us veritable superpowers for vetting the information that we encounter. This is the genius of Caulfield and Wineburg’s approach. We don’t have to be passive dupes of online misinformation. We can use the wonders of an online world to become better information consumers than ever before.” -- Carl Bergstrom, coauthor, Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World “Caulfield and Wineburg have gone remarkably deep into how our children—and all the rest of us in America—think and learn. At the moment we are losing the battle against ignorance and misplaced assumptions, but this wonderfully written book could save us. Among many wise pieces of advice, they recommend we not only be critical thinkers, but savvy critical IGNORERS. That means learning how to detect crappy sources of information quickly and efficiently. We all need to read this.” -- Jay Mathews, education journalist“Under a deluge of disinformation and conspiracism, our modern world faces an epistemological crisis— an inability to parse reality from fiction, truth from lies. Verified offers readers the invaluable tools they need to navigate the flood; to regain clarity and attachment to the real world of facts, logic, and reason; and to restore the foundations of democratic discourse. It's essential reading for our chaotic times.” -- David Neiwert, author of The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right's Assault on American Democracy“With humor, clarity, and real-world examples, the authors illustrate both simple and nuanced strategies for making sense of an increasingly complex digital realm. Students, everyday citizens, and educators at all levels will find their varied examples relevant and applicable.” -- Andrea Baer and Daniel Kipnis, Librarians at Rowan University“As the value of information literacy becomes increasingly clear to society at large, Verified offers timely, research-based solutions to the ever-present and often elusive problem of misinformation run amok.” -- Rob Detmering and Amber Willenborg, University of Louisville“Verified will help librarians, students, and anyone else move beyond well-meaning but oversimplified checklists to be better at sifting the wheat from the chaff when looking for good information online.” -- Brad Sietz, Director LOEXTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 Get Quick Context: It Can Take as Little as Thirty Seconds—Seriously! The Three Contexts “Do I Know What I’m Looking At?” Introducing SIFT Stop! (Or, How to Fail at Source-Checking Even If You’re the New York Times) Investigate the Source Find Better Coverage Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to Their Original Context Takeaways 2 Cheap Signals: Or, How Not to Get Duped Easily Fakeable Questions Gameable Signals of Credibility First Impressions Matter . . . Except When They Don’t URLs Matter . . . Except When They Don’t What about Dot-Coms? Going Deeper: The “Org” of Dot-Org Is Big Business Nonprofit Status: “Nearly Anything Goes” Numbers That Bamboozle Links That Lead Astray Takeaways 3 Google: The Bestie You Thought You Knew Interpreting and Mining Search Results Why Seeing on the Internet Isn’t Believing Decoding Google’s Knowledge Panel Different Sources, Different Purposes Going Deeper: What Arsonist Birds Teach Us about Different Sources When Featured Snippets Get It Wrong Going Deeper: Google’s Three Vertical Dots Are a Great Hack for Lateral Reading Keywords and Inferred Intent: How to Think like Your Search Engine Keywords: The Underlying Architecture of Search Inferred Intent: Providing Google with a “Tell” Google Is a Mirror Reflecting Back What You Give It A Search Engine, Not a “Truth Engine” Takeaways 4 Lateral Reading: Using the Web to Read the Web Get off the Page! Lateral Reading: Checking Information like a Fact-Checker Why Lateral Reading Works Little Shift, Big Payoff Lateral Reading Puts You in Control Avoid Promiscuous Clicking: Practice Click Restraint The “Vibe” of the Search Engine Results Page Takeaways 5 Reading the Room: Benefiting from Expertise When You Have Only a Bit Yourself Why You Can’t “Just Do the Math” Reading the Room: Quick Assessment of a Range of Expert Views Going Deeper: Why We Call This “Reading the Room” Trust Compression, or How to Avoid Info-Cynicism Reading the Room on the Mask Issue The Perils of the Single Academic Contrarian Going Deeper: What Makes a Good Summary Source? Takeaways 6 Show Me the Evidence: Why Scholarly Sources Are Better than Promotional Materials, Newsletters, and Random Tweets What’s Peer Review? Peer Review: “The Worst Way to Judge Research, Except for All the Others” The Problem of the Single Study Literature Reviews: A Bird’s-Eye View of Multiple Studies Going Deeper: Journals That Prey on Unsuspecting Victims Real History, Fake History: How to Tell the Difference Using Google Scholar to Find Scholarly Sources The Vibe of Google Scholar’s Results Page Using Google Scholar as a Quick Reputation Check Takeaways 7 Wikipedia: Not What Your Middle School Teacher Told You What about the Mistakes? Going Deeper: Wikipedia to Britannica: “He That Is without Sin . . .” Anyone Can Change Wikipedia, Can’t They? Isn’t Wikipedia Biased? Wikipedia as a Tool for Research Using Wikipedia to Validate Sources Going Deeper: Quickly Validating a Reference from a Book Using Wikipedia for Quick Checks of Unfamiliar Websites Quick Investigation of a Claim Quick Checks of an Unfamiliar Academic Source Using Wikipedia to “Read the Scholarly Room” Using Wikipedia to Jump-Start Your Research Going Deeper: Deciphering the Hieroglyphics of a Bibliographical Reference The Messiness of Making Knowledge Takeaways 8 Video Games: The Dirty Tricks of Deceptive Video False Context Exploiting “Seeing Is Believing” Going Deeper: Online News Is Often More Credible Than You Think Falsely Implied Date Connect My Dots, or Creating a False Sense of “Research” Deceptively Cropped Video Takeaways 9 Stealth Advertising: When Ads Masquerade as News The Problem: Stealth Advertising Works A Con Is Born Newspapers Become Ad Agencies The Problem in Three Words: Conflict of Interest Disappearing Warning Labels Sponsored Propaganda Half Truths Are Not Whole Truths When Stealth Ads Move to Social Media Going Deeper: How Stealth Ads Lose Their Warning Labels Protecting Yourself in an Age of Slimy Advertising Takeaways 10 Once More with Feeling: Using Your Emotions to Find the Truth Emotion Doesn’t Know the Truth, But It Knows What You Care About Going Deeper: Man versus Machine “Compellingness” Tells Us What’s Important to Check Surprise Is a Sign Our Assumptions Might Be Wrong Why Compellingness and Surprise Beat the Checklist Going Deeper: Mutant Flowers Feeling Overwhelmed? Rethink Your Approach Takeaways 11 Conclusion: Critical Ignoring Postscript: Large Language Models, ChatGPT, and the Future of Verification Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    2 in stock

    £12.00

  • Loving the World Appropriately

    The University of Chicago Press Loving the World Appropriately

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisA revolutionary approach to rhetoric that asks why audiences need persuading. What is persuasion? For some, it is the ideal alternative to violence. For others, persuasion is simply a neutral instrumentalitya valued source of soft power. Both positions rest on a fundamental belief: persuasion is a power that resides in a speaker acting on an audience. Loving the World Appropriately asks a different, more fundamental, question: why does an audience need persuasion? In shifting our focus, James Kastely delivers a provocative new history of rhetoric and philosophy, one that describes rhetoric as more than a matter of effective communication and recasts persuasion as a philosophical concern central to notions of human subjectivity. Ultimately, Kastely insists, persuasion enables us to love the world appropriately.Trade Review"[Kastley's] excellent synthesis of the philosophies of such theorists as Leo Bersani, Anne Carson, and Sigmund Freud makes for an intellectually potent investigation of persuasion . . . . This rewards careful study." * Publisher's Weekly *“In this timely, impressive text, Kastely provides a rigorous reconsideration of the definitions and meanings of persuasion and constructs a clear case for redefinition. . . . Relocated from rhetoricians to subjects, persuasion is redefined to mean an action and event in which subjectivity is transformed. In its efforts, persuasion justifies the practice of rhetoric and exists as a value that, Kastely writes, is a ‘core value for democracy.’ Persuasion, a value in itself, guides individuals’ growth in ‘loving the world appropriately.’” * Choice *“Loving the World Appropriately presents a robust rhetorical theory of mind on its way to an entirely new formulation of persuasion. And Kastely is just the scholar to present such a theory. The resulting account is by turns riveting, delightful, and weighty.” -- Debra Hawhee, Pennsylvania State University“In the battle between the ancients and the moderns in rhetoric, Kastely provides generous readings of a variety of texts that will serve as a resource for all students of rhetoric, regardless of their aims. An original work that is a pleasure to read.” -- Eugene Garver, Saint John’s University“In Loving the World Appropriately, Kastely reimagines the rhetorical tradition through the multifaceted lens of postmodern critique, refashioning ancient ideas shared by the likes of Euripides, Plato, and Aristotle. He does these thinkers no violence, however, locating within their thought a meaningful response to pressing concerns about the force of persuasion. Like the reconstitution he proposes, Kastely never imposes his reading; rather, he invites the reader to reconsider the constitution of rhetoric with sincerity, humility, and appropriately, love.” -- John J. Jasso, Ave Maria UniversityTable of ContentsPreface Chapter 1: The Problem of Persuasion Chapter 2: Persuasion, Liberal Alienation, and Hegemony Chapter 3: The Eros of Sameness and the Rhetoric of Difference in Plato’s Phaedrus Chapter 4: Responsiveness: Toward a Theory of Rhetorical Subjectivity Chapter 5: Persuasion, Conceptualization, and Emotion: Reconstituting Subjectivity Chapter 6: The Individual and Political Persuasion Chapter 7: Persuasion, Tragedy, and Transformative Discourse Chapter 8: The Ethics of Persuasion Chapter 9: Conclusion: Persuasion in Light of Post-Structural Rhetoric Acknowledgments Works Cited Index

    2 in stock

    £34.20

  • Delivering on Promises  The Domestic Politics of

    The University of Chicago Press Delivering on Promises The Domestic Politics of

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"As the trade regime struggles with trade wars and Europe confronts exit and rebellion among members, Peritz offers an insightful look at the politics of compliance. Careful analysis of legal rulings and policy reforms by the World Trade Organization and European Court of Justice reveals how domestic politics shapes outcomes. Both those who believe in the power of international law and those skeptical of its promises will find that the theory and evidence of this compelling new book offer fresh perspectives." -- Christina Davis, Harvard University“Peritz’s insightful and rigorous work provides both good and bad news for those who support the use of international courts to promote economic liberalization. She shows, through the examination of both policy and economic outcomes, that reluctant governments often do change policies in the face of adverse decisions from the WTO or the ECJ. However, she also shows that these policy changes are at times blocked by domestic veto players, who are able to lock in favored policies that violate international commitments. Her work provides additional understanding of the backlash against legalization, and provides concrete suggestions for a path forwards.” -- Lisa Martin, University of Wisconsin-Madison“International economic integration is increasingly on the ropes. How do domestic politics and international courts impose limits on international cooperation? On that question, Peritz’s Delivering on Promises delivers.” -- Chad P. Bown, Peterson Institute for International Economics“At a time when international institutions are under siege, Delivering on Promises provides compelling new evidence that they matter. Through careful empirical analysis, Peritz demonstrates that international courts can induce governments to follow even rules they clearly wish to break. How successfully they do this, however, depends on systematic and observable features of domestic politics. Engaging and meticulously researched, Delivering on Promises sheds new light on how domestic and international pressures interact to shape the rules of the global political economy.” -- Daniel Yuichi Kono, University of California, DavisTable of ContentsChapter 1 International Adjudication, Stakeholders, and Domestic Divisions Chapter 2 A Theory of International Courts, Compliance, and Domestic Veto Players Chapter 3 The Design and Operation of Two International Courts Chapter 4 Policy Compliance in WTO Disputes Chapter 5 Trade Cooperation in WTO Disputes Chapter 6 The ECJ and Domestic Constraints on the Single Market Chapter 7 Reshaping International Economic Courts Acknowledgments A1 Appendix for Chapter 4 A2 Appendix for Chapter 5 A3 Appendix for Chapter 6 Notes References Index

    1 in stock

    £25.20

  • Argonauts of West Africa Unauthorized Migration

    The University of Chicago Press Argonauts of West Africa Unauthorized Migration

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"The book is a sophisticated and detailed account of the social aspects of African migrants’ lives in precarious contexts. The stories of the different protagonists enable us to look anew at the meaning of kinship and its importance for personhood and social identity formation in contemporary Europe. They advance our understanding of the usefulness of theories on kinship, the family and friendship in the context of migration. As such, the book is a very valuable resource for students, researchers, and policymakers who are interested to learn about migration, kinship and social inequality." * Ethnic and Racial Studies *“In this sophisticated, original, and wonderfully detailed ethnography of migrants’ lives, Andrikopoulos shows how the creative possibilities of kinship provide a highly flexible resource for migrants to ‘craft’ documented selves and settle in Europe. In so doing, he illuminates both the expansive and generative possibilities of kinship and its continued pertinence as a means of resisting state efforts to control migration and citizenship.” * Janet Carsten, University of Edinburgh *“A lively account of how undocumented migrants in Amsterdam use kinship as they seek to establish themselves in the context of the Dutch state’s efforts to control immigration and increasing migrant precarity. With its detailed narratives, fresh perspectives, and important research, Argonauts of West Africa will be of interest to scholars of Africa, Europe, and migration—and, of course, kinship.” * Jennifer Cole, coeditor of Affective Circuits: African Migrations to Europe and the Pursuit of Social Regeneration *“This is a fascinating ethnography of West African nimble-footedness. It explores and explains ties and thirsts that defy the European logic and practice of containment of mobility and the incompleteness that fuels it.” * Francis B. Nyamnjoh, University of Cape Town *Table of Contents1 Navigating Kinship 2 Unauthorized Identity Craft 3 “Working with My Sister’s Papers” 4 Dying Relations? 5 Marriage, Love, and Inequality Conclusion Unpredictable Dynamics of Kinship Acknowledgments Appendix: Trust and Ethics Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £68.00

  • Chinese Whispers Toward a Transpacific Poetics

    The University of Chicago Press Chinese Whispers Toward a Transpacific Poetics

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“An exile writer who fled the massacre of Tiananmen Square to begin a new literary life in American universities, Huang has a unique perspective on what he calls the ‘transpacific crossover’ between China and Anglo-America, particularly between our poetries, poetics, and translations. The Chinese Whispers of Huang’s title are those ‘inscrutable moments’ when poetry determines—and is determined by—political, national, and linguistic difference, dispelling all notions of universal intelligibility and global translatability. Indeed, Huang’s study details the ways our two literary cultures have in fact understood (and misunderstood) one another, using as test cases the works of I. A. Richards, Ernest Fenollosa, Lin Yutang, and Ezra Pound. Huang has produced a superb study that is theoretically sophisticated and yet also highly personal, witty, and deeply moving.” * Marjorie Perloff, author of 'Infrathin' *“Huang’s poetics and scholarship, relentless and original at their entangled core, have helped over these past decades to provide an expanded comparative vision of the American transpacific in its transnational, transcultural, off-center, writerly, and transcendental elements. Chinese Whispers continues this uncanny world-making project. Once again, we encounter timely transnational concerns with displacement, textual migrancy, cross-cultural translation, and stylistic experimentation, but here deployed in a quasi-surrealistic pattern of juxtaposition that gives Chinese Whispers imaginative force, eloquent engagement, professional edge, and staying power.” * Rob Sean Wilson, University of California, Santa Cruz *Table of ContentsList of Figures Introduction. Serve the People, Read Them Verse: A Transpacific Journey in Poetics and Politics 1. Through the Looking Glass: Basic English, Chinglish, and Translocal Dialect 2. Listening to Marco Polo: Sound, Money, and Vernacular Imagination 3. Words Made in China: Ezra Pound as a Translational Poet 4. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Too Big to Fail: Wallace Stevens, John Cage, and the Poetics of Risk 5. Chinese Whispers: The Future of Meaning in the Age of Information Coda: The Story of Mr. Shi Eating Lions Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £68.00

  • Chinese Whispers Toward a Transpacific Poetics

    The University of Chicago Press Chinese Whispers Toward a Transpacific Poetics

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“An exile writer who fled the massacre of Tiananmen Square to begin a new literary life in American universities, Huang has a unique perspective on what he calls the ‘transpacific crossover’ between China and Anglo-America, particularly between our poetries, poetics, and translations. The Chinese Whispers of Huang’s title are those ‘inscrutable moments’ when poetry determines—and is determined by—political, national, and linguistic difference, dispelling all notions of universal intelligibility and global translatability. Indeed, Huang’s study details the ways our two literary cultures have in fact understood (and misunderstood) one another, using as test cases the works of I. A. Richards, Ernest Fenollosa, Lin Yutang, and Ezra Pound. Huang has produced a superb study that is theoretically sophisticated and yet also highly personal, witty, and deeply moving.” * Marjorie Perloff, author of 'Infrathin' *“Huang’s poetics and scholarship, relentless and original at their entangled core, have helped over these past decades to provide an expanded comparative vision of the American transpacific in its transnational, transcultural, off-center, writerly, and transcendental elements. Chinese Whispers continues this uncanny world-making project. Once again, we encounter timely transnational concerns with displacement, textual migrancy, cross-cultural translation, and stylistic experimentation, but here deployed in a quasi-surrealistic pattern of juxtaposition that gives Chinese Whispers imaginative force, eloquent engagement, professional edge, and staying power.” * Rob Sean Wilson, University of California, Santa Cruz *Table of ContentsList of Figures Introduction. Serve the People, Read Them Verse: A Transpacific Journey in Poetics and Politics 1. Through the Looking Glass: Basic English, Chinglish, and Translocal Dialect 2. Listening to Marco Polo: Sound, Money, and Vernacular Imagination 3. Words Made in China: Ezra Pound as a Translational Poet 4. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Too Big to Fail: Wallace Stevens, John Cage, and the Poetics of Risk 5. Chinese Whispers: The Future of Meaning in the Age of Information Coda: The Story of Mr. Shi Eating Lions Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    2 in stock

    £18.00

  • Nietzsches Kind of Philosophy  Finding His Way

    The University of Chicago Press Nietzsches Kind of Philosophy Finding His Way

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"Schacht provides a 'large-scale reconsideration' of Nietzsche’s work that emphasizes the need to examine the philosopher’s assertions in the context of his entire corpus to understand the ways in which his thinking evolved. Doing so, the author contends, reveals that Nietzsche’s reputation as a nihilist is overblown . . . [and that] Nietzsche wasn’t an individualist . . . Scholars will find this an evenhanded . . . take on Nietzsche." * Publishers Weekly *“Nietzsche is notoriously hard to situate on the philosophical map, given his stylistic variety and nonsystematic aspirations. Schacht argues that various labels commonly applied to the German philosopher are only apt to a point. Examining a range of Nietzsche’s writings, Schacht shows how each work contributes to the philosopher’s broad project of interpreting human beings as natural creatures capable of developing more than ‘merely natural’ capacities. This accessible but interpretively rich book will help general readers find their way when reading Nietzsche while also engaging the interest of scholars.” -- Kathleen Higgins, University of Texas at Austin“Schacht’s latest book is one of a kind. With unparalleled insight, he offers a comprehensive, sharp-sighted, and scrupulously honest rendering of Nietzsche’s main concerns, but above all an illuminating investigation into the primary, determining questions: What exactly is the purpose of philosophy, according to Nietzsche? How did he radically transform the discipline? And why did he have to? A priceless book which provides a lucid understanding of Nietzsche’s specific stance and logic.” -- Patrick Wotling, University of ReimsTable of ContentsPreface Reference Key Introduction Prologue 1 Toward Understanding Nietzsche Part I Nietzsche Becoming Nietzsche 2 The Nietzsche of Human, All Too Human Addendum: The Nietzsche of Daybreak 3 The Nietzsche of Joyful Inquiry I–IV 4 The Nietzsche of Thus Spoke Zarathustra 5 The Nietzsche of Beyond Good and Evil Addendum: The Nietzsche of Joyful Inquiry V 6 The Nietzsche of On the Genealogy of Morality Addendum: The Nietzsche of 1888 Part II Nietzsche Becoming—What? 7 Nietzsche as Nihilist? 8 Nietzsche as Existentialist? 9 Nietzsche as Individualist? 10 Nietzsche as “Free Spirit”? 11 Nietzsche as Naturalist? Backstory and Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography of Related Nietzsche Studies Index

    1 in stock

    £38.00

  • Instrument of War  Music and the Making of

    University of Chicago Press Instrument of War Music and the Making of

    4 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    4 in stock

    £26.60

  • The Design of Books

    The University of Chicago Press The Design of Books

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisSeasoned designer Debbie Berne presents an accessible introduction to book design for authors, editors, and other book people. Design is central to the appeal, messaging, and usefulness of books, but to most readers, it's mysterious or even invisible. Through interiors as well as covers, designers provide structure and information that shape the meaning and experience of books. In The Design of Books, Debbie Berne shines a light on the conventions and processes of her profession, revealing both the aesthetic and market-driven decisions designers consider to make books readable and beautiful. In clear, unstuffy language, Berne reveals how books are put together, with discussions of production considerations, typography and fonts, page layouts, use of images and color, special issues for ebooks, and the very face of each book: the cover. The Design of Books speaks to readers and directly to books' creatorsauthors, editors, and other publishing professionalshelping them to become more informed partners in the design of their projects. Berne lays out the practical steps at each stage of the design process, providing insight into who does what when and offering advice for authors on how to be effective advocates for their ideas while also letting go and trusting their manuscripts with teams of professionals. She includes guidance as well for self-publishing authors, including where to find a designer, what to expect from that relationship, and how to art direct your own book. Throughout, Berne teaches how understanding the whats, hows, and whys of book design heightens our appreciation of these cherished objects and helps everyone involved in the process to create more functional, desirable, and wonderful books.

    1 in stock

    £17.10

  • Computing Taste Algorithms and the Makers of

    The University of Chicago Press Computing Taste Algorithms and the Makers of

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"Artists and music journalists have been coining genres for decades, based on sounds shared between artists. This new era for genre is derived from listener data and labelled by engineers who, Seaver says, never expected to become authorities on the matter. This speaks to the contradiction at the heart of Computing Taste: it’s both easier and harder to pinpoint a person’s music taste than you might expect. It all depends on what you think taste is. Spotify can tell us how many times we loop a favorite song, make reasonable assumptions about the genres that speak to us, and deduce from GPS data what we might want to hear in the gym as opposed to the office. But Seaver stresses that a key anthropological question remains unwrapped: why do people love the songs that they do?" -- Katie Hawthorne * Guardian *"Recommendations now 'drive close to half of all users’ streams', according to Spotify’s co-president Gustav Söderström. In Computing Taste, an ethnography of the data scientists and product managers working in 'the world of music recommendation', Seaver gives an account of the way this sort of technology operates. The job of his interviewees, who tend to work for private companies hired by streaming services, is to help their clients 'answer an apparently simple question: what’s next?'" * London Review of Books *"The central premise uniting these theories is that we can’t really tell an algorithm who we are; we have to show it. Platforms used to offer recommendations based on clear user inputs (consider that Netflix used to ask you to rate a movie out of five stars); now things have gotten murkier as our behavior is tracked and collated in complex, opaque ways. Consumers have learned to adjust their actions to get the content they want, according to Nick Seaver, an anthropology professor at Tufts University and the author of Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation. 'You were much more in control of how you represented yourself under those [earlier] systems,' Seaver told me. Now our behavior—even the embarrassing kind—generates our unique media world." * Atlantic *"A useful deep dive into precisely how these systems are built, the people who build them, their goals and aspirations, and much more." -- Bill Marx * Arts Fuse *"Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation is a pleasure to read. It is well-written, with nice turns of phrase. I commend it to anyone interested in how media works in the 21st century." * Metascience *"Streaming music services are the norm today, but people don't often think about how they work or how they recommend the next song. Seaver peeks behind the musical curtain in this book about the humans behind the algorithms. . . . Music lovers and those who like books about artificial intelligence will enjoy Seaver's deep dive into the culture, data, and science of music recommendation systems. Computing Taste offers insight into algorithmic music recommendations that's entertaining and easily digestible." -- Natalie Browning * Library Journal *"I would recommend this book if you identify with the following phrase, which is taken from Seaver’s interview with one music company engineer: ‘I’m plagued by the idea that there’s something I haven’t heard yet.’ Music nerds will especially appreciate that Seaver proposes definitions for topics that are hard to describe, like taste and genre. They will enjoy identifying their habits in Chapter 3, ‘What are Listeners Like?’ and learning how music engineers define obscure subgenres like ‘shiver pop.’ . . . The peeks into these veiled companies are almost reminiscent of spy novels. If you’re interested in start-up culture and liked The Social Network, there’s something for you in this book. Throughout Computing Taste, Seaver comments on the balancing act between artificial intelligence and human expertise. He says the title ‘is meant to index that tension’—to probe how technological systems can coexist with something as personal as music taste." -- Hope Karnopp * Daily Cardinal *"The gap between technology and culture might not be as wide as we think, says Seaver in his analysis of how music recommender systems are produced. . . . You’ll come away from Computing Taste realizing that algorithms aren’t the enemy, ready to think again.“ * Engineering and Technology *“Seaver’s nimble account of how contemporary music recommendation systems are conceived and crafted takes readers beyond easy oppositions of humans and algorithms to explore the captivating dynamics of taste and technics, hearing and computing, guidance and coercion.” -- Natasha Dow Schüll, author of "Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas"“Computing Taste tells a fresh story in the increasingly crowded scholarship on artificial intelligence and culture. It will be immensely useful for those outside of computer science and engineering who want to understand how people think and work in the AI industry.” -- Jonathan Sterne, author of "Diminished Faculties," "MP3," and "The Audible Past""Seaver’s exquisite and essential book brings us into an expert community aspiring to find the delicate balance between caring for and controlling the sprawling phenomenon of taste. The ethnographically engaging Computing Taste offers a complex rendering of the makers of music recommendation systems who believe that algorithms can predict and shape musical taste while also wrestling with the reductive absurdity of such a claim. Seaver’s theoretical creativity both pushes critical studies of technology in new directions and makes this book a joy to read.” -- Lisa Messeri, author of "Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds"“Who are the programmers writing the music recommendation recipes that structure so many of our auditory habits in these digital days? How do these new taste makers script listeners into the musical multiverses their algorithms create? Seaver brilliantly tunes us to the cadences of these people’s works and lives, decoding the mix of cosmologies, capital, and computation that channel how and what we hear today.” -- Stefan Helmreich, author "Sounding the Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond"“Perhaps there’s no accounting for taste, but as Seaver demonstrates in Computing Taste, his resonant and resourceful ethnography of music recommendation algorithms, musical taste can indeed be counted and coded. By listening to the sociotechnical dynamics of that translation process—the means by which aesthetic, subjective, social, and situational choices are transcribed into human-orchestrated algorithms—Seaver helps us appreciate not only the myriad harmonic parts that music and machines play in our personal and social lives, but also the many modes and contexts in which we listen.” -- Shannon Mattern, author of "A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences"Table of ContentsPrologue: Open Plan Introduction: Technology with Humanity Chapter 1 Too Much Music Chapter 2 Captivating Algorithms Chapter 3 What Are Listeners Like? Chapter 4 Hearing and Counting Chapter 5 Space Is the Place Chapter 6 Parks and Recommendation Epilogue: What Are We Really Doing Here? Acknowledgments Notes Works Cited Index

    1 in stock

    £16.00

  • Brown Skins White Coats

    The University of Chicago Press Brown Skins White Coats

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisA unique narrative structure brings the history of race science in mid-twentieth-century India to vivid life. There has been a recent explosion in studies of race science in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but most have focused either on Europe or on North America and Australia. In this stirring history, Projit Bihari Mukharji illustrates how India appropriated and repurposed race science to its own ends and argues that these appropriations need to be understood within the national and regional contexts of postcolonial nation-makingnot merely as footnotes to a Western history of normal science. The book comprises seven factual chapters operating at distinct levelsconceptual, practical, and cosmologicaland eight fictive interchapters, a series of epistolary exchanges between the Bengali author Hemendrakumar Ray (18881963) and the protagonist of his dystopian science fiction novel about race, race science, racial improvement, and dehumanization. In this way, Mukharji fills Trade Review“Brown Skins, White Coats offers a richly detailed, gripping, and largely overlooked history of the mobilization of racial thinking and of race science in anticolonial movements and postcolonial nationalisms. . . . The thrill of this magnificent book rests in details that are impossible to replicate here. I invite historians of the human sciences to enjoy firsthand this most recent work of one of the most imaginative historians of medicine of South Asia. Besides reminding us of the continued investment in race science in the present, in India, and elsewhere, this book paves the way for scholarly inquiries into non-European histories of whiteness, South Asian contributions to the universe of twentieth-century race science, and the multiple roots of South Asian racism. A stern reminder of the racial thinking that pervaded scientific and social scientific disciplines in India in the twentieth century, this work is essential reading for scholars of colonial and postcolonial South Asia across the disciplines.” * Social History of Medicine *“Fruitfully achieving the difficult balance between a high level of historical detail, a synoptic overview, and theoretical advancements, the book takes the reader on an analytical journey that follows key science-actors and their racializing practices . . . One of the key contributions of Brown Skins, White Coats, both to postco­lonial studies and to studies of science, lies in how it further pushes the debate on race beyond the hegemonic binaries white/Black and colonizer/colonized, by diving into the muddy, brown, and at times turbulent waters of Indian scientists’ engagements with racialization also in post-independence times.” * Journal of the History of Biology *“A remarkable methodological novelty of this book are the two sets of narratives: besides the historical chapters, Mukharji inserts ‘interchapters’ that constitute literary reflections on human morality, ethical limits of scientific progress and the boundaries between the rational and the supernatural. In crafting the interchapters, Mukharji draws from Bengali writer Hemendrakumar Ray’s literary oeuvre who was contemporaneous with Indian seroanthropologists. The interchapters substantiate Mukharji’s commendable attempt to expand what social context of historical actors entail, in this case, of the seroanthropologists. . . . Overall, this book is a formidable analysis of the practice of race science as a modern and ‘normal’ science in India. It offers important insights into the tension between science’s reliance on social ideas and practices, and its increasing alienation from the social, cultural layered narratives of identities, community relations and life-worlds.” * H-Soz-Kult *“Race science enjoyed a prestigious place in Indian academic life in the twentieth century. Mukharji’s book is a startling revelation of how leading Indian anthropologists and statisticians used serological techniques to study caste. This is the forgotten story of Indian eugenics in the service of national development.” -- Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University“Mukharji’s Brown Skins, White Coats is a brilliant book, absorbing to read and brimming with lyrical insight about the vexed history of global racial science, identity, nationalism, and alienation. The book offers a masterful, often poetic journey into the ever-shifting practices of racial scientists striving relentlessly to weave notions of skin, blood, caste, tissues, disease, and belief into a potent yet illusory science of Indian identity, whiteness, and biologized difference. A captivating, pathbreaking new work in race studies and science studies.” -- Keith Wailoo, Princeton University“Brown Skins, White Coats is the most innovative and engaging book I have read on the fraught relationship between race and genetics. Combining rigorous historical research with compelling fictional interludes, Mukharji recalls India’s forgotten history of seroanthropology, a form of race science that links colonial anthropometry to contemporary genomics. A must-read for area studies and history of science alike, Mukharji’s book skillfully shows how the underappreciated contributions of Indian scientists to global human genetics also reinforced essentialist and often discriminatory narratives of racial difference within South Asia.” -- Elise K. Burton, University of TorontoTable of ContentsContents List of Illustrations Parable of Brownness An Advertisement for White Coats Acknowledgments Introduction Interchapter: Letter 1 1: Seroanthropological Races Interchapter: Letter 2 2: Mendelizing Religion Interchapter: Letter 3 3: A Taste for Race Interchapter: Letter 4 4: Medicalizing Race Interchapter: Letter 5 5: Blood Multiple Interchapter: Letter 6 6: Refusing Race Interchapter: Letter 7 7: Racing the Future Interchapter: Letter 8 Conclusion Notes Sources for Interchapters Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £26.60

  • Voices That Matter Kurdish Women at the Limits of

    The University of Chicago Press Voices That Matter Kurdish Women at the Limits of

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“A most welcome contribution to a steadily developing area of research. Written with great clarity and precision, Voices That Matter will be an instant addition to reading lists on gender in the Middle East, ethnography, sociolinguistics, and ethnomusicology.” * Christine Robins, University of Exeter *“Voices That Matter offers an invaluable contribution to anthropological scholarship on voice and to conversations in related fields of music, media, and sound studies. It is also powerfully written, and its arguments take shape in carefully composed and evocative ethnographic writing. This truly is accomplished and compelling work.” * Daniel Fisher, University of California, Berkeley *Table of ContentsNote on Language, Naming, and Musical Notation Introduction 1 The Potency of Vocal Form 2 Vocal Services 3 Voice, Self, and Pain 4 Claiming Voice 5 Making Voices Matter Conclusion: Resonance and Its Limits Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £22.80

  • Birth Figures

    The University of Chicago Press Birth Figures

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"In this fascinating porthole into English pregnancy culture in the 16th to 18th centuries, cherubic representations of fetuses in transparent wombs greet bewildered readers . . . . By recasting birth figures as evolving feminist iconography, Whiteley places these artifacts in the context of contemporary debates over reproductive rights." * Scientific American *“During this early-modern period, female midwives delivered most babies. Whiteley convincingly argues that the profusion of midwifery manuals at this time (with drawings mainly by men), ‘triggered a change in how midwives both thought about and treated the laboring body.’ Even though birth figures were sometimes used to exert ‘masculine authority’ over women’s practice, they also helped midwives to ‘envision the body, and particularly the position of the fetus, in a newly concrete way.’ . . . Now as then, the birth figure remains powerful . . . . It empowers, but it can be misused. It is revealing, but also mysterious—a tiny cosmos, in utero.” * Nature *“Whiteley’s Birth Figures considers the images of fetal positioning that were included in printed midwifery manuals and helped midwives visualize the presentation of the fetus, whether it was cephalic (ideal) or breech (not good) or impacted (very bad), in order that they might better prepare for a complex birth. These images become an occasion for an intricate meditation: on the nature of the womb, and the unseen; on the representation in static images of dynamic process and bodily transformation; on the contingent and shifting boundary between interior and exterior, nature and history.” * London Review of Books *“Provides important insights into early modern body knowledge as well as the relationship between women and men in the field of obstetrics in England.” * Sehepunkte *“With Birth Figures, Whiteley adds much to our historical understanding of pregnancy and childbirth. Moving beyond old historical narratives of the conflict between male midwives—with their instruments and interventionist approach—and traditional female midwives, who assisted in the natural process of birth, Whiteley presents a more complex and nuanced story of shifting understandings among both men and women and new skill sets required of both male and female birth attendants. The book also adds to the growing literature on the relationship between art and science and the creation of 'visual languages' to convey knowledge of different subjects.” -- Kathleen Crowther, University of Oklahoma“The history of midwifery is transformed by this first sustained analysis of printed drawings showing birth presentations in pregnant wombs. Recovering midwives’ pictorial practice while putting anatomy in its place, Whiteley reconstructs how copying drove innovation and viewers made meanings. Her appealing book thus extends reproductive, gender, and visual studies, as well as histories of art, medicine, and the body.” -- Nick Hopwood, University of Cambridge"Whiteley’s work, at the intersection of medical and art history, beautifully illuminates the multiple meanings of images of unborn children in early modern Europe. She offers fresh, sophisticated, and nuanced interpretations of images that have puzzled me for years!" -- Mary E. Fissell, Johns Hopkins UniversityTable of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note on Terminology Introduction: Picturing Pregnancy Part I: Early Printed Birth Figures (1540–1672) Chapter 1: Using Images in Midwifery Practice Chapter 2: Pluralistic Images and the Early Modern Body Part II: Birth Figures as Agents of Change (1672–1751) Chapter 3: Visual Experiments Chapter 4: Visualizing Touch and Defining a Professional Persona Part III: The Birth Figure Persists (1751–1774) Chapter 5: Challenging the Hunterian Hegemony Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £38.00

  • Each One Another

    The University of Chicago Press Each One Another

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“What can art teach us that other forms of thought cannot? What can we learn from the movements in dance or the shapes in painting? In this innovative book, Haidu suggests that interpretations once deemed ‘formal’ actually have a surfeit of meaning, and how we describe that excess is hardly neutral; in fact, it often has something to say about the perennial problem of the subject or subjectivity—of both the maker and the viewer. This book will make you pay close attention to the texture and meanings of the words we use when we talk about art and possibly show you that those words are also a means of talking about ourselves.” -- Helen Molesworth, curator and author of Duchamp: By Hand, Even“Each One Other is a fascinating, beautifully written, brilliantly conceived, and expertly researched reflection on three basic elements of artistic form—shape, character, and role—as vehicles for the experience of selfhood. Haidu offers vivid and compelling introductions to each aesthetic concept, and she pays lavish attention to the works and artists she considers. Indeed, her stunning descriptions and readings of individual works are unrivaled.” -- Jonathan Flatley, author of Like Andy Warhol“Each One Another is an original and ambitious examination of selfhood as an experience of interiority and one’s ownness. Haidu’s treatment of the work of six artists shows how shape, character, and role uniquely function within particular media, and she explores the possibilities they bring to the domain of aesthetics and to the understanding of selfhood as an experience of what’s left over ‘for us’ beyond our construction as subjects. Executed in distinctive and alluringly abstract prose, the book transcends disciplinary habits and is a pleasure to read.” -- Eve Meltzer, author of Systems We Have LovedTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction I Shape Philip Guston: Late Work Amy Sillman: Shape, Structure, and Feeling II Character James Coleman: Retake with Evidence Steve McQueen: Shame III Role Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Work/Travail/Arbeid Yvonne Rainer, The Concept of Dust, or How do you look when there’s nothing left to move? Acknowledgments Notes Index

    2 in stock

    £30.40

  • Oak Origins

    University of Chicago Press Oak Origins

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £26.60

  • The Modern Myths

    The University of Chicago Press The Modern Myths

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith The Modern Myths, brilliant science communicator Philip Ball spins a new yarn. From novels and comic books to B-movies, it is an epic exploration of literature, new media and technology, the nature of storytelling, and the making and meaning of our most important tales. Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of timefun and fantastical, but no longer believed by anyone. Yet, as Philip Ball shows, we are still writing themand still living themtoday. From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called modern myths. But Ball argues that we should take that idea seriously. Our stories of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes are doing the kind of cultural work that the ancient myths once did. Through the medium of narratives that all of us know in their basic outline and which have no clear moral or resolution, these modern myths explore some of our deepest fears, dreams, and Trade Review"Ball does an impressive job with the literary histories behind each iconic title, assembling a set of origin stories rich in cultural history and imagination. . . . To Ball, mythic writing is where the conditions of irrationality, superstition, and enchantment persist: forms of wonder that depend on the disconnect between what we know for sure and what we simply believe." -- Sophie Gee * New York Times Book Review *"Myths themselves commonly embody the religious beliefs of ancient or preliterate peoples, but Ball suggests that we are still generating them. Subtitled Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination, his book, The Modern Myths, cogently argues for the originality and potent cultural resonance of Robinson Crusoe, Victor Frankenstein and his creature, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, alien invaders like those of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, Batman, and even zombies. All these soon escaped from their original creators’ control and are now at large, their stories capable of multiple and even conflicting interpretations. The key to the mythic mode, asserts Ball, is ambivalence." -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post *"A persistent myth of the modern West is that it has outgrown the need for myths, along with religion, magic and other 'irrational' beliefs of the benighted past. This triumphalist story of rationality was proclaimed by Enlightenment philosophers and documented by later social scientists; through the 1990s, 'the disenchantment of the world' became an incantation within the parched groves of academe. Ball is among those who counter that enchantment and modernity aren’t incompatible. In The Modern Myths, he makes a persuasive case that myth isn’t gone but can be found in stories closer to our current obsessions such as science and technology, globalization and individual psychology. . . . His provocations to debate are among the book's many pleasures." -- Michael Saler * Wall Street Journal *"Ball makes a case that myths are not things of the past. Modern myths, Ball posits, are still being written and are just as crucial and revelatory as ancient ones." * Publishers Weekly *"From acclaimed popular science writer Ball comes a fresh look at the modern legends that shape our perception of reality. Stories like Dracula, Batman, Sherlock Holmes, or Frankenstein, which we keep retelling and reimagining, are doing the kind of cultural work that ancient myths and fairy tales once did. How do they operate, and why do we need them? And what tales will come to be the new myths of the future?" * Bookseller *"Modern myths—of which Ball identifies seven, starting with Robinson Crusoe and ending with Batman—are not, despite their origins in specific texts, so much singular narratives as ‘evolving web[s] of many stories—interweaving, interacting, contradicting each other’—but with one thing in common: ‘[A] rugged, elemental, irreducible kernel charged with the magical power of generating versions of the story.’ This fecund capacity to produce new narratives is what allows these myths to do their ‘cultural work’: they ‘erect a rough-hewn framework on which to hang our anxieties, fears, and dreams.’" -- Rob Latham * Los Angeles Review of Books *“Aquarians love people, and they love their stories, too—that’s one of the reasons they make such great writers (and readers). They will be fascinated and inspired by this book, which investigates many of our ‘modern myths’—what they are, why we love them, and why we need them, from Dracula to Sherlock Holmes. They’re all stories we know—but what do they know about us?” -- Emily Temple * Literary Hub, "Astrology Book Club" *Most Anticipated Books of May 2021 * Book Culture *"To Ball, 'myth' doesn’t just mean a set of ancient stories—Greek mythology as one canon, Norse another, etc. Instead, it refers to a mode of story-making that still exists today. In fact, it seems to be a way of telling stories that we can’t help but enact; Ball believes these modern myths are coming into being almost without our realizing it, and that, by recognizing their existence and being more alert to their power, we might better understand ourselves." * Fare Forward *"Ball’s fascinating study concerns itself with seven stories from the eighteenth century through the present that have become 'modern myths,' a concept he blueprints in the opening chapter and elaborates along the way. . . . An admirable amount of research has clearly gone into each of the seven case studies. The material is well-organized and the writing lucid, often snappy. . . . Our exuberantly guided tour of these modern myths is enlivened by fun facts." * LOCUS *"Funny and insightful reading for anybody interested in popular culture and how it was impacted by the current hunger for myths and their modern incarnations." * Popcultureshelf.com *"Ball is an exceptional writer and researcher, but with this and his other books, he demonstrates that there is an audience and appetite, beyond the field’s confines, for works that tell sophisticated stories about science and society. The book also affirms the value of the humanities for understanding the field’s central problems." * Medium *"There are different ideas about what makes a myth exactly, but most agree that myths tell us something fundamental about human nature. We’re familiar with Greek myths, but Philip Ball wonders what more recent stories may have been elevated to mythic status, even if we might not think of them in those specific terms. Ball, a writer on science, here ascends the cliff and climbs into the cave to wrestle with those unscientific, literary creations that have become embedded in our collective psyche." * Insights *"Admirably clear-headed." * Magonia Review of Books *"Compulsively readable literary criticism. . . . Valid and persuasive. . . . Worth a look." * Fortean Times *"Ball begins by making the case for the modern myth, highlighting the attributes that allow some stories to grow beyond their origins and disregarding notions that the modern cannot be mythical. Ball shows how these characters and stories have seeped into collective consciousness—so much so that one no longer has to read the original texts to understand the stories or characters. He further illustrates how modern myths have been reimagined and repackaged to reflect modern worries, allowing the reader to come to terms with the conditions of existence. The Modern Myths is well researched, as evidenced by twenty-two pages of notes, eight pages of bibliography, and footnotes and images scattered throughout. Ball draws parallels between original works and modern interpretations and representations in films, television, comic books, and B-movies. Readers will find Ball’s arguments clear and easy to understand. Highly recommended." * Choice *"For those of us who care about mythopoetic fiction, this is a ringing endorsement of the significance of what we study." * Mythlore *“Ball always brings your attention to things that were in your field of vision all along but you just hadn't noticed. He gives you the tools to investigate and dig deeper. The Modern Myths makes the world a more thrilling place. This is a book filled with delight and curiosity that will change the way you see the stories that are all around you.” -- Robin Ince“The Modern Myths is a very impressive piece of writing. It is sharp. It is witty. It is deeply insightful in too many places to list. Ball’s erudition on these topics is extraordinary, really. How did he read all of this? And how did he see all of these movies? Does he sleep? A very fine study of seven really important stories in modern literature, fantasy, and film.” -- Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of "Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal"

    2 in stock

    £17.10

  • Big Med  Megaproviders and the High Cost of

    The University of Chicago Press Big Med Megaproviders and the High Cost of

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“David Dranove and Lawton R. Burns offer an exhaustive . . . analysis of the consolidation of US hospitals and the effect it has had on both the cost and quality of health care. . . . As the country tries to rein in the cost of health care, Big Med offers a forceful argument for focusing our attention on hospitals.” * Washington Monthly *"David Dranove and Lawton Burn’s new collaboration Big Med: Megaproviders and the High Cost of Health Care in America provides readers with a comprehensive tutorial on consolidation in United States healthcare markets over the past 40 years. . . . anyone with a serious interest in the prices of U.S. healthcare will want to have this rigorous and timely treatment on their bookshelf." * Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics *“For years, allies of big medicine have argued that Bigger is Better. Dranove and Burns take on that argument and show it is not true. They point out how big medicine is failing and how it can be reformed. This book is wonderfully informed and thoughtfully presented.” -- David Cutler, Harvard University“Incorporating tough-minded analysis with powerful rhetoric, this book describes why the US healthcare delivery system fails us, why mergers are unlikely to help, and what industry and policy leaders can do to turn things around.” -- Leemore Dafny, Harvard Business School“Big Med is an absolute treasure trove of health care antitrust history, offering an important overview of the last two decades of the US health care industry through a competition lens. Its findings will appeal to health systems leaders and health economists alike.” -- Melissa Thomasson, Julian Lange Professor of Economics at Miami University and research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research"The book is highly readable, even punctuated with pleasant moments of dry wit... The book also has what I call perfect pitch. It dives deep into the psychology of the various players, accurately explaining their hopes and fears... The authors' perfect pitch—knowing exactly what the various players are thinking and feeling, and why—merges into the book’s third great value: the book rings true." * Law & Liberty *

    1 in stock

    £14.40

  • Science on a Mission

    The University of Chicago Press Science on a Mission

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"Impressive and authoritative. . . . Over the past two decades, Oreskes has helped transform how scholars understand the history of scientific and political debates over continental drift and anthropogenic climate change. Her latest work weaves together insights from these and other intellectual spheres to deliver a crucial message: Patronage of knowledge production—that is, who pays for science—matters deeply. . . . Oreskes uses fascinating historical episodes to reveal serious, underappreciated consequences of oceanographers' prolonged reliance on secret, mission-driven navy projects. . . . We need more historical scholarship on how powerful entities produce ignorance as well as knowledge, and Oreskes provides a model for doing so. . . . As an exposé of how navy-sponsored oceanographers wound up constraining their own research agendas and believing their own myths, the book should give pause to all scientists who consider themselves immune to the potential influence of their funders, or who romanticize the golden age of military scientific patronage." * Science *"Insightful. . . . The book reminds us that science does not happen in a vacuum." * Scientific American *"Science on a Mission is what you want in a history: interesting research, stories with context and multiple points of view, clearly and compellingly written." * Nature *"With its empirical richness and its conceptual concerns, this book is essential reading." * Metascience *"Anyone who really wants to understand Cold War-era oceanography now has a definitive text to turn to... Oreskes makes a strong case for why histories of physics must now encompass oceanography." * Physics Today *"In Science on a Mission, historian Naomi Oreskes delves into the role of patronage in science, what emerges is a vivid portrait of how naval oversight transformed what we know about the sea. It is a detailed, sweeping history that illuminates the ways funding shapes the subject, scope, and tenor of research, and it raises profound questions about American science. What difference does it make who pays? A lot." * Yale Climate Connections *"Important and fascinating work. . . . The book is well documented and features many interesting stories and illustrations that professionals and academicians will find appealing. . . . Highly recommended." * Choice *"Had I known then what I have learned from Oreskes’s new book, I would have been a better Scripps director." -- Charles Kennel, former director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography"Oreskes's timely, clear-eyed, and extensive history serves as a powerful reminder in a time when our oceans and basic science are under attack: we must defend scientific truth." -- Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island"Science on a Mission is a subtle, human picture of science at war, both hot and cold. Focusing on three vastly important institutes of oceanography, Oreskes tracks how the demands of international conflict have shaped the discipline. In fascinating detail, she explores the discovery of the deep ocean currents and their dynamics; in another precisely documented section, she illuminates the military origins of the ‘pure science’ bathysphere Alvin. With engaging prose and scientific grasp, Oreskes gives us a rich and well-told history of how the navy’s engagement redefined the field, ushering in central discoveries of modern oceanography while hiding its secret-cloaked depths." -- Peter Galison, Harvard University“With her characteristic but rare combination of philosophical and historical insight, and her sharp eye for the politics beneath the surface, Oreskes has skillfully interpreted the wide-ranging legacies of oceanography and brought them into our understanding of scientific—and political—debates of the present day." -- Katharine Anderson, York University"Oreskes has given us a monumental history of the social and political construction of Cold War science. Her analysis lends fascinating insight to the role of the war economy in the creation of American oceanography and raises complex questions about scientific integrity, intellectual autonomy, and the difference between pure and tainted science." -- Matthew England, University of New South Wales"Science on a Mission is a remarkable work of scholarship built on deep research into the institutions and people involved in advancing American oceanography at the height of the Cold War. Oreskes relies on a detailed approach, including over a dozen illustrations and diagrams alongside extensive quotations from relevant scientific papers, to provide internal histories, whether in accounting for how one experiment led to the next or how personalities and ideologies clashed within an institution. As such, the work makes important contributions to the literature and is an excellent companion to texts on naval and industrial laboratories." * Isis *"In this book, Naomi Oreskes demonstrates once again that the history of science is not merely a discipline for the ivory tower. In her work on the denial of man-made climate change and on the procedures that guarantee the trustworthiness of scientific knowledge, she combines historical analysis with topics of current political importance in an exemplary manner." * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (translated from German) *“Highly recommended for anyone interested in the broad topics of geophysics, the history of the oceans, and how American naval spending influenced the shape of modern oceanography.” * The Northern Mariner *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 The Personal, the Political, and the Scientific 2 Seeing the Ocean through Operational Eyes: The Stommel-Arons Model of Abyssal Circulation 3 Whose Science Is It Anyway? The Woods Hole Palace Revolt 4 Stymied by Secrecy: Harry Hess and Seafloor Spreading 5 The Iron Curtain of Classification: What Difference Did It Make? 6 Why the Navy Built Alvin 7 Painting Projects White: The Discovery of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents 8 From Expertise to Advocacy: The Seabed Disposal of Radioactive Waste 9 Changing the Mission: From the Cold War to Climate Change Conclusion: The Context of Motivation Acknowledgments Sources and Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £24.70

  • Hearing Happiness

    The University of Chicago Press Hearing Happiness

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisWeaving together lyrical history and personal memoir, Virdi powerfully examines society'sand her ownperception of life as a deaf person in America. At the age of four, Jaipreet Virdi's world went silent. A severe case of meningitis left her alive but deaf, suddenly treated differently by everyone. Her deafness downplayed by society and doctors, she struggled to pass as hearing for most of her life. Countless cures, treatments, and technologies led to dead ends. Never quite deaf enough for the Deaf community or quite hearing enough for the normal majority, Virdi was stuck in aural limbo for years. It wasn't until her thirties, exasperated by problems with new digital hearing aids, that she began to actively assert her deafness and reexamine society'sand her ownperception of life as a deaf person in America. Through lyrical history and personal memoir, Hearing Happiness raises pivotal questions about deafness in American society and the endless quest for a cure. Taking us from theTrade Review“In part a critical memoir of her own life, this archival tour de force centers on d/Deafness, and, specifically, the obsessive search for a “cure”… This survey of cure and its politics, framed by disability studies, allows readers—either for the first time or as a stunning example in the field—to think about how notions of remediation are leveraged against the most vulnerable.” * Public Books *"Engaging . . . A sweeping chronology of human deafness fortified with the author’s personal struggles and triumphs." * Kirkus Reviews *"Part memoir, part historical monograph, Virdi’s Hearing Happiness breaks the mold for academic press publications." * Publishers Weekly *“In her insightful book, Virdi probes how society perceives deafness and challenges the idea that a disability is a deficit. . . . [She] powerfully demonstrates how cures for deafness pressure individuals to change, to ‘be better’.” * Washington Post *"Hearing Happiness provides a welcome extended view of the medical-technological impetus to“fix” deafness, revealing an unsettling historical continuity concerning the perversities and shortcomings of deafness cures over the last two centuries. For this, Hearing Happiness is a resounding success, exploring the deep ambivalences that often arise from normalization projects and their attendant medical technologies." * ISIS: A Journal of the History of Science Society *"Informative and engaging." * Ms. Magazine *"The most striking thing about Virdi’s book is how it confirms that hearing loss isn’t a minor annoyance that afflicts a few people. Rather, with tremendous archival work, she shows us that, over the past three centuries, Anglo-American culture has been virtually obsessed with trying to cure deafness." * Times Higher Education *"This unique book combines autobiography with broader history. Virdi traces her own personal history along with the history of treatments, assistive devices, and attempted cures for deafness in the U.S. from the 1860s to the present." * Book Riot *"Offers a well-illustrated history of the marketing of hearing aids, particularly in North America. The material proves to be remarkably rich, and also rather troubling. . . . An enlightening book." * Times Literary Supplement *"Virdi’s book offers an educational and personal exploration of the cultural history for treatment of deafness. She provides an engrossing examination of the remedies and ministrations that display the spectrum of diversity within the deaf community. Virdi’s research proffers a strong voice for every person who is impacted by the inability to hear." * Story Circle Network *"[Virdi] guides us through the history of deafness cures as both a historian immersed in the archive as well as a deaf woman with her own experiences navigating today’s landscape of treatments and so-called cures. It’s a special gift for a history like this. Virdi is interested in the efficacy of various deafness cures only inasmuch as they demonstrate the huge variety of choices and experiences deaf and hard of hearing people have had in navigating a hearing world. That is, this is not a book about debunking quackery. It is something much more interesting: a history of who makes decisions about what is normal, who is designated impaired or disabled, who determines such criteria, and how people who experience different types of hearing loss have understood their own bodies and identities." * Lady Science *“Hearing Happiness is as much a personal memoir as it is a contribution to science, technology, and the history of medicine in North America from roughly the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries.” * H-Soz-Kult *“Hearing Happiness… gives us analytical tools to be able to write history and political tools to investigate how illness, abnormality or disability is created in today’s society.” * Morgenbladet *“Hearing Happiness is a spell-binding book of research and stories. . . . In positioning her own story so centrally to the book, Virdi consolidates the power of her argument, and it operates as a political intervention into deafness as well as being a brilliant contribution to the historiography of deafness.” * H-Net *“Poetically weaving her own experiences as a deaf person into a history of hearing loss, Virdi makes a compelling argument that deafness is as much a cultural construct as it is a physical phenomenon. Rigorously researched and eminently readable, Hearing Happiness is packed with historical gems that will fascinate any reader.” * Lindsey Fitzharris, author of 'The Butchering Art' *“Everyone needs to read this fascinating history of hearing loss, technology, medicine, and audism. In examining deafness cures and sharing her own personal story, Virdi reveals society’s ever-evolving processes in creating and enforcing normalcy.” * Alice Wong, founder and director of Disability Visibility *"I always love reading books by deaf authors who grew up mainstream like me. If you want to learn about mainstreamed deaf people and the medical mysteries of deafness and its history, read this book! Virdi shares lots of fascinating information that I never knew before." * Rikki Poynter, Youtuber and deaf activist *“Hearing Happiness is smart, captivating, and immensely important. We can only grow as a society when we listen to the people we’ve placed on the fringes of it. Deaf people don’t need cures—they deserve respect and support. If you want to be a person on the front lines of necessary change, start with this book!” * Keah Brown, creator of #DisabledAndCute and author of The Pretty One *“Told with clarity and compassion, Virdi’s moving story will resonate with any reader seeking to understand what it truly is like to be deaf in the US." * Cäsar Jacobson, activist, author, and actor *“Hearing Happiness provides so much surprising and interesting historical information, as well as many answers about audism, the history of technology, and our perception of hearing loss. Virdi’s personal story is moving, and her research takes us on all kinds of trips back in time. Fascinating.” * Ilya Kaminsky, author of 2019 National Book Award finalist Deaf Republic *“Virdi has written a landmark study in the history of technology: one that shows in powerfully specific and deeply personal ways how technologies construct social norms and mold the way we live. Her nuanced account of the history of technologies designed to ‘cure’ the way that certain people experience the world is a powerful testament to the need for people from marginalized groups to have a seat at the table when technological fixes are proffered by tech corporations and the medical establishment.” * Mar Hicks, author of 'Programmed Inequality' *"An innovative and engaging historical study of deafness cures, Hearing Happiness details the complex relationship between deaf people, technology industries, medical specialists and consumer culture. . . .This refreshingly accessible work will likely become a durable historical resource inside and outside of classrooms." * Social History of Medicine *"Hearing Happiness is a must read for a broad audience interested in modern U.S. history, histories of medicine, technology, science, disability and deaf culture, and Disability and Deaf Studies. Virdi draws the reader in through a combination of masterful narrative, storytelling, and humor. Written in accessible prose, interwoven with the familiar from the broader tapestry of U.S. history, this text is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate courses. Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History is a stunning masterpiece of historical scholarship." * Endeavor *

    1 in stock

    £15.20

  • Up Against the Real Black Mask from Art to Action

    The University of Chicago Press Up Against the Real Black Mask from Art to Action

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"There are many paths through the radical arts of the 1960s. Nadja Millner-Larsen’s Up Against the Real: Black Mask from Art to Action takes one back alley and turns it into a bustling boulevard. . . . Millner-Larsen’s book is lucidly written and densely reasoned. The author doesn’t romanticize Morea’s flame-throwing ideas; she takes them seriously. Up Against the Real is also impressively researched, with a bit more than two hundred pages of text followed by forty-five pages of notes." * Artforum *"Millner-Larsen reproduces examples of Black Mask alongside Abstract Expressionist paintings and images of expanded cinema events and political protests, mapping how the debates laid out in the broadsheet emerged in the ‘real’ world through Black Mask’s commitment to direct action. . . . Though Black Mask and UATWMF are remembered as a vigilante street gang, Millner-Larsen’s historically and materially grounded study specifies the ways in which the group’s commitment to direct action was rooted in an interest in the political and philosophical uses of aesthetics and abstraction, one that was maintained even after their edict to cease artmaking following their name change." * Art Review *"Millner-Larsen’s frequently brilliant analysis by no means isolates the era of Black Mask as separate from our own. Her commentary is effective in its ability to link our present Zeitgeist to both general Black Mask & Up Against the Wall, MF! impressions and specific memories of the 1960s. . . . Up Against the Real offers an expertly crafted documentation of Black Mask paired with a deeply impressive contextualization of this group within a larger picture of post-World War II American art and oppositional communities. It is undoubtedly a masterful contribution to the literature on this subject and anyone interested in Black Mask should take a sojourn in its pages, which are clearly the result of years of breathtaking effort." * Fifth Estate *"In the afternoon of October 10, 1966, six members of a radical anti-arts arts group marched in front of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) handing out leaflets while two members unraveled a large canvas sign announcing, 'MUSEUM CLOSED.' . . . The demonstrators were with the Black Mask and were offended by MoMA’s exhibition, 'Dada, Surrealism and Their Heritage,' which they felt violated the Dadaist and Surrealists very creative visions. . . . Nadja Millner-Larsen brilliantly tells the story of this now nearly all-but-forgotten group and how they pushed art beyond representation into activist demonstrations, foreshadowing the eclipse of the 1960s counterculture." * New York Journal of Books *“Up Against the Real is an original, highly informed, and scholarly examination of a fascinating segment of contemporary art history. Millner-Larsen treats the complex milieu of 1960s radical politics and art as a living force within culture. She weaves a brilliant and scholarly narrative that on one level treats the anarchist art collective Black Mask as an anomaly, but also serves to illuminate the cultural politics of this tumultuous era.” -- Gregory Sholette, author of The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art“In Up Against the Real, Millner-Larsen introduces us to Black Mask, a group of downtown New York anti-art saboteurs who blasted out of the world of experimental painting and cinema and onto the streets, insisting that the abstraction of late modernist art heralded a new, liberatory, antirepresentational politics. With an acute understanding of the historical and theoretical stakes at play, Millner-Larsen restores their cultural revolution to its rightful place alongside the Situationists, the Young Lords, and other exemplars of ’60s radicalism.” -- Tom McDonough, author of The Beautiful Language of My CenturyTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Revolution Will be Real One Direct Painting/Direct Action Two The Subject of Black Three Pure Activism in Theory and Practice Four We’re Looking for People Who Like to Draw Five Sweet Assassins Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Index

    £28.00

  • Raising the Living Dead  Rehabilitative

    The University of Chicago Press Raising the Living Dead Rehabilitative

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisAn eye-opening look at how incarcerated people, health professionals, and others behind and beyond bars came together to problem-solve incarceration. Raising the Living Dead is a history of Puerto Rico's carceral rehabilitation system that brings to life the interactions of incarcerated people, their wider social networks, and health care professionals. Alberto Ortiz Díaz describes the ways that multiple communities of care came together both inside and outside of prisons to imagine and enact solution-oriented cultures of rehabilitation from the 1930s to the 1960s. Scientific and humanistic approaches to well-being were deliberately fused to raise the living dead, an expression that reemerged in the modern Caribbean to refer to prisoners. These reform groups sought to raise incarcerated people physically, mentally, socially, spiritually, and civically. The book is based on deep, original archival research into the Oso Blanco (White Bear) penitentiary in Puerto Rico, yet it situates its study within Puerto Rico's broader carceral archipelago and other Caribbean prisons. The agents of this history include not only physical health professionals, but also psychologists and psychiatrists, social workers, spiritual and religious practitioners, and, of course, the prisoners and their families. By following all these groups and emphasizing the interpersonal exercise of power, Ortiz Díaz tells a story that goes beyond debates about structural and social control. The book addresses key issues in the history of prisons and the histories of medicine and belief, including how prisoners' different racial, class, and cultural identities shaped their incarceration and how professionals living in a colonial society dealt with the challenge of rehabilitating prisoners for citizenship. Raising the Living Dead is not just about convicts, their immediate interlocutors, and their contexts, however, but about how together these open a window into the history of social uplift projects within the (neo)colonial societies of the Caribbean. There is no book like this in Caribbean historiography; few examine these themes in the larger literature on the history of prisons.Trade Review“Humanizing and nuanced . . . [Ortiz’s] overarching approach, centered on human action, agency and (self-)determination, will inspire many with its obvious relevance to the present and future of mass incarceration. In this vital and public-facing conversation, Ortiz’s voice and scholarship will undoubtedly be not only welcome, but essential.” * Social History of Medicine *“Raising the Living Dead makes an excellent case for a new wave of scholarship on the history of crime and punishment. It builds on the existing literature then applies an innovative multiperspectival approach grounded in theory and rich primary sources.” -- Julia E. Rodriguez, University of New Hampshire“This is at once a deeply personal project for the author and a penetrating and nuanced analysis of prison reform and rehabilitation policies in a society caught in between—between imperial projects (declining Spain and rising US), between cultures (Spanish and Anglo-American), between races (‘white’ to ‘black’), and between carceral systems (dungeon to rehabilitative institution). By diving into a rich trove of individual and institutional records, Ortiz Díaz has produced a multifaceted understanding of efforts to change the way punishment worked in Puerto Rico in the second quarter of the twentieth century.” -- Thomas Holloway, University of California, Davis“Through meticulous archival research, Ortiz Díaz has rediscovered a surprising and overlooked era of prison reform in mid-twentieth-century Puerto Rico. Defying the stereotype of the exclusively passive or resistant colonial subject, inmates were active participants in the rehabilitation of their bodies, minds, and social identities. Raising the Living Dead constitutes an important and innovative contribution to the new and vibrant field of international prison history.” -- Mary Gibson, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, City University of New YorkTable of ContentsPreface Introduction: Toward a Holistic History of Incarceration 1 Under a Microscope: Convict Bodies and Prison Biomedicine 2 To Classify and Treat: Correctional Psychology and Psychiatry 3 Interactional Care: Social Workers, Parole Officers, and Social Rehabilitation 4 More Than Flesh: Sacred Knowledge and Experiential Healing 5 In Pursuit of Awakening: Carceral Therapeutic Humanities 6 Health Activism: Executive Clemency on the Mona Passage Conclusion: A Rehabilitative Dream Turned Punitive Nightmare Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £25.20

  • On Christopher Street Life Sex and Death after

    The University of Chicago Press On Christopher Street Life Sex and Death after

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“Because of his pivotal role in creating modern gay literature, Denneny has perhaps done more than any other single individual to actually create contemporary gay literary culture. On Christopher Street shows that there was a first-rate intellect behind his more familiar role as publisher and editor. While this volume is an important window on the recent past, it also demonstrates the extent to which one man’s lively and humane intellect influenced the creation of contemporary gay culture.” * David Carter, author of Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution *“On Christopher Street offers a remarkable glimpse into the first decades after the Stonewall Riots, a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a new culture in formation. A valuable and thoughtful account of a foundational moment in American cultural history.” * David K. Johnson, author of The Lavender Scare *“There simply is no other person in the LGBT community who has been as pivotal for LGBT publishing, from newspapers and magazines to books. This important book is a testament to the history of our community.” * Mark Segal, founder and publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News and author of And Then I Danced *"Michael Denneny’s memoir-in-essays On Christopher Street illuminates various aspects of gay life in the past half-century. . . . The book’s primary focus is the state of the burgeoning gay literary scene and its public and critical reception. In preserving articles as they appeared at the time, the book revives the atmosphere, hopes, fears, ambitions, and challenges of the nascent community, as experienced by Denneny as a gay man living and working in New York. It also exposes the flawed, underdeveloped personal perspectives that Denneny spent subsequent years grappling with and refining." * Foreword *"As a founder and editor of the wildly influential literary journal Christopher Street and later as the first openly gay editor at a major publishing house, Denneny critically shaped publishing around gay subjects in the 1970s and beyond. At St. Martin’s Press, he acquired a slew of landmark titles by gay authors—many for his groundbreaking Stonewall Inn Editions—propelling queer voices into the mainstream cultural conversation. . . . On Christopher Street revisits that heady period to map out the cultural forces, geographies, and storylines of LGBTQ in those decades. Through 41 micro-chapters, Denneny draws on his journal writings, articles, interviews, and more from the 1970s and ’80s to put us there in this formative and also tragic time." * Queer Forty *"As the queer community has survived countless attempts at suppression and elimination, this book offers not only a historical account of the political environment of the 1970s-80s. It also showcases tried and true forms of activism and rhetoric, ones that have kept and continue to make our survival possible." * Out in Jersey *"If you love reading about gay life, you owe a debt to Michael Denneny." * Passport *Table of ContentsPreface: Becoming Real Part 1: Morning in Gay America (1970–1980)Christopher Street Magazine Dead Souls at The New Yorker: A Puzzling Case Lovers: The Story of Two Men “Everything Is Only Ten Years Old”: A Conversation with Felice Picano Decent Passions: Real Stories about Love Blue Moves: Conversation with a Male Porn Dancer Part 2: Beginning to Count Ourselves (1980–1983) Archeologist of the Present: Michel Foucault in New York City Gay Politics and Its Premises: Sixteen Propositions Sixteen Propositions: An Exchange Scaring the Horses; or the Question of Gay Identity Who Are We? What Do We Want? How Best Might We Get it? Part 3: The State of the Tribe (1983–1987) Gay Pride and Survival in the Eighties The State of Gay Criticism Oedipus Revised: David Leavitt’s The Lost Language of Cranes Paragraph 175, or How Dark Can It Get? A Culture in a Crucible Part 4: Workaday Publishing, or Hegel’s Ernst (1985–1988) Further Down the Road The Universal Voice of Gay Writers A Conversation with Allen Barnett How to Review a Gay Novel Chasing the Crossover Audience and Other Self-Defeating Strategies Editing Fiction and the Question of “Political Correctness” Part 5: On the Raft of the Medusa (1988–1990) The Death of a Generation An Intellectual Ambush A Quilt of Many Colors Preaching to the Choir The Present Moment A Letter to Ed White Part 6: In the Gathering Darkness an Age of Heroes (1991–1996) Eulogy for Allen Barnett Honoring Richard Rouillard Eulogy for Randy Shilts Necessary Bread: Gay Writing Comes of Age Stonewall: From Event to Idea Three Takes on John Preston Food for Life: A Dinner Party in Two Hours Turning . . . Turning: The Boys in the Band A Mouthful of Air: The Case of Larry Kramer Key West Seminar Part 7: Reconsiderations (1996–2014) Hymn to the Gym AIDS Books: Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going Affectionate Men Last Letter to Paul Monette Afterword: Looking Back Appendix A: Out Magazine Appendix B: A Few Words about Christopher Street’s Finances Appendix C: The Stonewall Inn Editions Acknowledgments

    1 in stock

    £17.10

  • The News Event Popular Sovereignty in the Age of

    The University of Chicago Press The News Event Popular Sovereignty in the Age of

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“This is the first major ethnographic study of the way in which the mobilization of a public is now carried out in India primarily through the new digitally powered mass media. From populist politics, court judgments, sensational crime and corruption to police brutality, Cody examines with brilliant clarity and theoretical sophistication the coming together of publics as well as counterpublics in Tamil Nadu.” * Partha Chatterjee, professor emeritus, Columbia University *“In this fascinating study, Cody shows how popular sovereignty is shaped within the media-saturated environment of Tamil Nadu politics, making sovereign power vulnerable to popular politics generated by the fact of the ‘news event’ and its circulation. His unraveling of the boundaries between online and offline communicative acts, the virtual and the actual, or the old media and new media, is accomplished with great sensitivity and attention to the empirical, which provides the grounds for the conceptual to emerge. A splendid achievement.” * Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University *Table of ContentsIntroduction: In the Event of News Chapter One Populist Publics Chapter Two Defamation Machine Chapter Three Law at Large Chapter Four Celebrity Outlaws Chapter Five Short Circuits Epilogue: Environmental Engineering Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    £22.00

  • This Is Rhythm  Ella Jenkins Childrens Music and

    University of Chicago Press This Is Rhythm Ella Jenkins Childrens Music and

    15 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    15 in stock

    £20.90

  • Dream Street  W. Eugene Smiths Pittsburgh Project

    The University of Chicago Press Dream Street W. Eugene Smiths Pittsburgh Project

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“[Dream Street] is Smith’s attempt to record the paradoxes of city life in America—the clutch of industry, the dogged persistence of both community and loneliness, the forces of love, hate, growth and decay. Not even the venerated master of photojournalists could quite pull this off, but Smith’s obsessiveness was harnessed to an enormous talent, and he wasn’t far from the mark when he wrote that [this work] would ‘create history.’" -- Vicki Goldberg * The New York Times, on the original edition *“Inspired by Joyce and Faulkner, Smith envisioned a symphonic, multilayered photo essay portraying the entire city; his failure to complete it haunted him for the rest of his life. Here are more than a hundred and fifty of his nourish and oddly poignant images: gleaming railyards at night; buildings wrapped in clouds of industrial smoke; the face of a steelworker, the Bessemer fires reflected in his safety goggles.” * New Yorker, on the original edition *“These images are about the life that never gets into headlines. When a young teenage girl waits alone by a gleaming black car, she embodies innocence . . . and loss. When men of all ages from sixteen to sixty stand in silhouette along the lit-up counter of a takeout stand, you see a story of age, and ambition denied, a side of the 1950’s that rarely shows up on nostalgia channels. . . . Smith’s Pittsburgh photographs show how much we still resemble those citizens in the summer of 1955. And in his majestic inability to admit defeat we can see how dangerous that confidence could be to a man who saw its limits, and refused to give in.” -- Mary Panzer * Chicago Tribune, on the original edition *“Smith imagined a visual collage to rival Finnegan’s Wake in scope and intensity. His astonishing ambition was . . . his Faustian pact with the city . . . . There are no touching displays of picturesque individuality, just a city aesthetically dissected; an effort to ‘get to the guts of the matter and show the bastards as they are.’” * TIME OUT London, on the original edition *“Smith’s presence haunts this book, even a quarter century after his death.” * Washington City Paper, on the original edition *“Every picture tells a story—but put them all together and you might get Finnegans Wake. In the grand canyons of Pittsburgh, monolithic steel mills overshadow humble spires; hillsides scored with 500-step staircases plunge down to inky pitmouths. By day, the steelworkers hover like ghosts, silhouetted in the furnace flames. By night, the moon shines down Stygian rivers, as the shining railroad snakes away into blackest suburbs. More Dante than Joyce, this is a magnificent vision of light and dark.” * Evening Standard, on the original edition *“Dream Street is a diffuse portrait of a community that still led the world in steel production while grappling with the challenge of making the air breathable. It’s also a time machine that takes those who weren’t alive or around during those years to the moment the soul of modern Pittsburgh was forged. Much like its creator, [Dream Street] is without sentiment. It is clear-eyed, despite the smoke of the coke works, and devoid of pretense. It is full of revelation and surprises. It inspires in a way that only great art—and great themes—are capable of inspiring.” * Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on the original edition *“These dark-toned photographs are dense with meaning. And in [Dream Street] they are given the space to do it. Smith’s best pictures are complete, complicated worlds. The bigness, in every sense, of Smith’s pictures was also the bigness of Pittsburgh.” -- Sarah Boxer * The New York Times, on the original edition *“The range of this project lies not only in its subjects and themes, but also its pictorial and compositional variety, and its strategies and ploys. In other words, Smith used every device and trick he knew, and he knew a lot. The Pittsburgh project found Smith at the height of his abilities, which he brought to bear with vast ambition. Aiming to capture such a cross-section of society, neighborhoods, cityscapes, moods, and feelings, it remains unrivaled in this breadth and depth of its scope. Fifty years later, it jumps out at us, and the nostalgia suffusing [the book] is not just for the past depicted and our assumptions about it . . . but also for a time when a photographer could be so engaged with the real world, and yet so introspective about Americanness, and so secure in the belief that images would elevate the viewer. What Smith accomplished here is shaped not only by his personal ambition, but also by photographers’ ambitions for photography, and Americans’ ambitions for America.” * Photo Review, on the original edition *“This epic portrait of Pittsburgh has become legendary in the history of photography. . . . Viewed together in this compelling, commanding publication, Smith’s photographs present energetic images of hope and despair, rebuilding and decay, poverty and affluence, and solitude and togetherness. . . . These images of mid-century, post-war Pittsburgh powerfully resonate with America today.” * B&W: Black & White Magazine for Collectors of Fine Photography, on the original edition *“Dream Street stands as a final reminder of the power of Smith’s poetic vision.” * The Cleveland Plain Dealer, on the original edition *“The Pittsburgh photographs were Smith’s after-LIFE magnum opus, and with them he produced a darkly urban vision, less out of a magazine than out of film noir . . . the paradoxes of a city churning toward progress and leaving vast segments of its population in squalor [are] metaphors for Smith’s state of mind. . . . What Smith was after was not a series of punchy vignettes but a sprawling epic in the manner of his favorite music: Beethoven’s late string quartets and the rhapsodic improvisations of John Coltrane.” * Los Angeles Times, on the original edition *“Dream Street allows us to assess Smith’s greatest achievement; an extensive, complex, and utterly engaging photo-essay, each element of which has genuine bite. From the skyline to the assembly line, steel workers to city council members, and men on the picket line to children at play, Smith captures the ambitions and inequities of an American city at mid-century with extraordinary deftness and wit.” -- Vincent Aletti * The Village Voice, on the original edition *"For Smith, Dream Street was an artistic obsession. For Stephenson it appears to have been a labor of love. Perhaps much the same thing. Every reader will have his or her own favorite images in Dream Street." -- Michael Patrick Pearson * NYJB *Table of ContentsForeword by Ross Gay “W. Eugene Smith and Pittsburgh” by Sam Stephenson Photographs “‘Man-Breaking City’: W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh” by Alan Trachtenberg W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Layout for Photography Annual1959 Notes to Photographs Acknowledgments

    1 in stock

    £29.61

  • A Certain Justice Toward an Ecology of the

    The University of Chicago Press A Certain Justice Toward an Ecology of the

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“In place of the stale debate over China’s progress toward a Western ‘rule of law,’ A Certain Justice offers a fresh interpretation of Chinese legal culture informed by China’s own literary traditions. Guiding the reader on a colorful journey from spy thrillers and tales of hypocrisy through contemporary court dramas, Lee reveals a vibrant legal imagination that is hierarchical rather than horizontal, encompassing both the ‘high justice’ of the state and the ‘low justice’ of society at large. The result, she suggests, is an intertwining of law and politics animated by a logic quite unlike that of Western jurisprudence, but no less important for informing conceptions of morality and governance.” * Elizabeth J. Perry, Harvard University *“Lee guides us through the rich terrain of literature and film as material archives to examine the fabric of Chinese justice. By avoiding reliance on legal jurisprudence, Lee charts how the Chinese Communist Party has become the actual arbiter of justice. Her critical examination of the legal imagination in fiction and in history suggests that by ‘positioning itself at the moral-ideological pinnacle,’ the party has been able to demand that its own legitimacy and self-preservation are at the root of justice. Her expansive investigation ranges from prewar texts to literature in postwar spy novels, to animal-themed novels in the twenty-first century. Importantly, Lee’s research explains why the injustice meted out at the lower strata of Chinese society is often seen as an acceptable sacrifice for the ‘high justice’ achieved by the state.” * Barak Kushner, University of Cambridge *“This subtle, learned, capacious book looks at China’s alternative to liberalism as a complex interplay between three terms: justice, morality, and law, with law always playing second fiddle (though a necessary fiddle) to the other two. At a moment when the Chinese statist paradigm can no longer be dismissed as an inadequate copy of Western rule of law, this timely study opens up a critical space for reappraisal.” * Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University *"By drawing on a vast and diverse body of textual evidence that allows us to better appreciate the vibrant diversity and unique contributions of Chinese justice to global legal cultures, Haiyan Lee has achieved conceptual breakthroughs with the potential to inspire future generations of scholars for years to come." -- Paul Katz * MCLC Resource Center Publication *"While there is already excellent work in the genre of Chinese Law and Literature, this work sets a new standard for the field. Indeed, it far exceeds the bounds of both law and literature, expanding into adjacent fields of legal and literary humanities: history, political theory, moral philosophy, and cognitive psychology, to name just some of the many literatures on which Lee draws in A Certain Justice: Toward an Ecology of the Chinese Legal Imagination. This is a smart and ambitious book filled with exciting local and global insights, some of which are dazzling." -- Teemu Ruskola * Law and Literature *Table of ContentsList of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. High Justice Chapter 2. Low Justice Chapter 3. Transitional Justice Chapter 4. Exceptional Justice Chapter 5. Poetic Justice Chapter 6. Multispecies Justice Conclusion Glossary Notes Bibliography Index

    2 in stock

    £76.50

  • A Certain Justice  Toward an Ecology of the

    The University of Chicago Press A Certain Justice Toward an Ecology of the

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“In place of the stale debate over China’s progress toward a Western ‘rule of law,’ A Certain Justice offers a fresh interpretation of Chinese legal culture informed by China’s own literary traditions. Guiding the reader on a colorful journey from spy thrillers and tales of hypocrisy through contemporary court dramas, Lee reveals a vibrant legal imagination that is hierarchical rather than horizontal, encompassing both the ‘high justice’ of the state and the ‘low justice’ of society at large. The result, she suggests, is an intertwining of law and politics animated by a logic quite unlike that of Western jurisprudence, but no less important for informing conceptions of morality and governance.” * Elizabeth J. Perry, Harvard University *“Lee guides us through the rich terrain of literature and film as material archives to examine the fabric of Chinese justice. By avoiding reliance on legal jurisprudence, Lee charts how the Chinese Communist Party has become the actual arbiter of justice. Her critical examination of the legal imagination in fiction and in history suggests that by ‘positioning itself at the moral-ideological pinnacle,’ the party has been able to demand that its own legitimacy and self-preservation are at the root of justice. Her expansive investigation ranges from prewar texts to literature in postwar spy novels, to animal-themed novels in the twenty-first century. Importantly, Lee’s research explains why the injustice meted out at the lower strata of Chinese society is often seen as an acceptable sacrifice for the ‘high justice’ achieved by the state.” * Barak Kushner, University of Cambridge *“This subtle, learned, capacious book looks at China’s alternative to liberalism as a complex interplay between three terms: justice, morality, and law, with law always playing second fiddle (though a necessary fiddle) to the other two. At a moment when the Chinese statist paradigm can no longer be dismissed as an inadequate copy of Western rule of law, this timely study opens up a critical space for reappraisal.” * Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University *"By drawing on a vast and diverse body of textual evidence that allows us to better appreciate the vibrant diversity and unique contributions of Chinese justice to global legal cultures, Haiyan Lee has achieved conceptual breakthroughs with the potential to inspire future generations of scholars for years to come." -- Paul Katz * MCLC Resource Center Publication *"While there is already excellent work in the genre of Chinese Law and Literature, this work sets a new standard for the field. Indeed, it far exceeds the bounds of both law and literature, expanding into adjacent fields of legal and literary humanities: history, political theory, moral philosophy, and cognitive psychology, to name just some of the many literatures on which Lee draws in A Certain Justice: Toward an Ecology of the Chinese Legal Imagination. This is a smart and ambitious book filled with exciting local and global insights, some of which are dazzling." -- Teemu Ruskola * Law and Literature *Table of ContentsList of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. High Justice Chapter 2. Low Justice Chapter 3. Transitional Justice Chapter 4. Exceptional Justice Chapter 5. Poetic Justice Chapter 6. Multispecies Justice Conclusion Glossary Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £24.70

  • A Region among States Law and Nonsovereignty in

    The University of Chicago Press A Region among States Law and Nonsovereignty in

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisBased on long-term ethnographic fieldwork at the Caribbean Court of Justice, A Region among States explores the possibility of constituting a region on a geopolitical and ideological terrain dominated by the nation-state. How is it that a great swath of the independent, English-speaking Caribbean continues to accept the judicial oversight of their former colonizer via the British institution of the Privy Council? And what possibilities might the Caribbean Court of Justicea judicial institution responsive to the region, not to any single nationoffer for untangling sovereignty and regionhood, law and modernity, and postcolonial Caribbean identity? Joining the Court as an intern, Lee Cabatingan studied its work up close: she attended each court hearing and numerous staff meetings, served on committees, assisted with the organization of conferences, and helped prepare speeches and presentations for the judges. She now offers insight into not only how the Court positions itself vis-à-vis the Caribbean region and the world but also whether the Courtand, perhaps, the region itself as an overarching constructmight ever achieve a real measure of popular success. In their quest for an accepting, eager constituency, the Court is undertaking a project of extrajudicial region building that borrows from the toolbox of the nation-state. In each chapter, Cabatingan takes us into an analytical dimension familiar from studies of nation and state buildingmyth, territory, people, language, and brandto help us understand not only the Court and its ambitions but also the regionalist project, beset as it is with false starts and disappointments, as a potential alternative to the sovereign state.Trade Review“This is an empathetic and rigorous anthropology of the CCJ. Sharply constructed and with flowing writing, Cabatingan’s ethnography brings together questions and approaches from postcolonial regionalism, legal anthropology, and Caribbean studies. Through eye-opening conversations with judges and throughout the court, interwoven with a careful study of media and archival material, she shows how the delicate balance between the work of adjudication and of political region making raises dilemmas that otherwise remain right below the surface.” * Naor Ben-Yehoyada, author of The Mediterranean Incarnate *“This fascinating study of the CCJ deftly mines the peripheries of the court’s work to show successfully how the court uses and reimagines the tools of statecraft in its central effort of promoting a region. The book’s rich analysis of the array of activities of and feelings about the CCJ is a great contribution to what we know about the complex work of new apex courts and scholarly debates about region-making projects in the Caribbean.” * Tracy Robinson, coeditor of Transitions in Caribbean Law *Table of ContentsOrientation: The Caribbean Court of Justice 1 Introduction 2 A Myth 3 A Territory 4 A People 5 A Language 6 A Brand 7 A Region Acknowledgments Appendix: Methods and Positionality Notes References Index

    1 in stock

    £76.00

  • A Region among States

    The University of Chicago Press A Region among States

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisBased on long-term ethnographic fieldwork at the Caribbean Court of Justice, A Region among States explores the possibility of constituting a region on a geopolitical and ideological terrain dominated by the nation-state. How is it that a great swath of the independent, English-speaking Caribbean continues to accept the judicial oversight of their former colonizer via the British institution of the Privy Council? And what possibilities might the Caribbean Court of Justicea judicial institution responsive to the region, not to any single nationoffer for untangling sovereignty and regionhood, law and modernity, and postcolonial Caribbean identity? Joining the Court as an intern, Lee Cabatingan studied its work up close: she attended each court hearing and numerous staff meetings, served on committees, assisted with the organization of conferences, and helped prepare speeches and presentations for the judges. She now offers insight into not only how the Court positions itself vis-à-viTrade Review“This is an empathetic and rigorous anthropology of the CCJ. Sharply constructed and with flowing writing, Cabatingan’s ethnography brings together questions and approaches from postcolonial regionalism, legal anthropology, and Caribbean studies. Through eye-opening conversations with judges and throughout the court, interwoven with a careful study of media and archival material, she shows how the delicate balance between the work of adjudication and of political region making raises dilemmas that otherwise remain right below the surface.” * Naor Ben-Yehoyada, author of The Mediterranean Incarnate *“This fascinating study of the CCJ deftly mines the peripheries of the court’s work to show successfully how the court uses and reimagines the tools of statecraft in its central effort of promoting a region. The book’s rich analysis of the array of activities of and feelings about the CCJ is a great contribution to what we know about the complex work of new apex courts and scholarly debates about region-making projects in the Caribbean.” * Tracy Robinson, coeditor of Transitions in Caribbean Law *Table of ContentsOrientation: The Caribbean Court of Justice 1 Introduction 2 A Myth 3 A Territory 4 A People 5 A Language 6 A Brand 7 A Region Acknowledgments Appendix: Methods and Positionality Notes References Index

    1 in stock

    £24.70

  • Statistics for Public Policy  A Practical Guide

    The University of Chicago Press Statistics for Public Policy A Practical Guide

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“Our statistical texts—and often our teaching—ignore the craft that makes quantitative evidence useful for policy makers. In Statistics for Public Policy, Weber draws on his own experience to address the nitty-gritty issues that advisors confront in honestly and effectively interpreting and presenting evidence.” -- David L. Weimer | University of Wisconsin-Madison“The best public policy advisers know how to blend statistical knowledge with an understanding of the context of issues. Weber uses his experience as a White House economist to explain how analysts can make sense of messy real-world data and maintain their credibility even if their numbers turn out to be wrong. Accessible and engaging, Statistics for Public Policy presents practical tips to improve the use of statistics and data in the policy world.” -- Eric M. Patashnik | coauthor of "A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving"“An easily digestible and humorous must-read, Statistics for Public Policy takes a fairly dry subject—but one of utmost importance—and infuses it with real world examples that bring statistics alive for the reader. As someone on the receiving end of many a policy memo, I can say with certainty that every would-be wonk could benefit from this book." -- DJ Nordquist | former Chief of Staff, White House Council of Economic AdvisersTable of ContentsPreface 1. The Big Picture 2. Know Your Sample and Data 3. Know Simple Statistics and Their Power 4. Know What It Means to Account for Potholes 5. Know Large from Small and Explain the Difference 6. Think Hard about Causality 7. Show That You’ve Been to Table School 8. Know How to Be Mostly Right (or at Least Respectfully Wrong) 9. Fail the Test? A Case Study in Using Statistics for Policy Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £85.00

  • Nuclear Minds Cold War Psychological Science and

    The University of Chicago Press Nuclear Minds Cold War Psychological Science and

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“Within the vast scholarship on the atomic bombs the book stands out for its highly original depiction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as ‘ground zero’ for the articulation of the concept of trauma, which is applied so widely today. Historians of Japan, medicine and science and technology studies are likely to find it an enlightening and even moving read.” * British Journal for the History of Science *“This book presents an insightful and persuasive analysis of Japanese psychiatry and the troubled experiences of atom bomb survivors. . . . Zwigenberg provides important evidence to understand why so many people, who had endured unimaginable suffering, were neglected in the post-war period.” * The Psychologist *“Nuclear Minds is a penetrating investigation into how the postwar Japanese psychological and psychiatric establishment encountered the psychic effects of nuclear trauma, exposing a long journey toward an understanding of how political trauma and war deeply effect individuals within their collective society—here, Zwigenberg offers a necessary reflection and examination extremely resonant with current events today.” * History: Reviews of New Books *“After Hiroshima in 1945, the psychological effect of the bomb was, astonishingly, explained away as if caused by anything but the bomb. Science’s obsession with objectivity and universality, compounded by the Cold War realignment of geopolitical powers, made individual suffering of hibakusha utterly invisible. In a clear and compelling analysis, and with appealingly open prose, Zwigenberg strikingly juxtaposes and makes tangible a global web of psychological knowledge, science politics, and survivor activism before the advent of post-traumatic stress disorder.” -- Naoko Wake, Michigan State University“A profound and illuminating journey into the psychological subjectivism experienced by the hibakusha under the Cold War psychiatric gaze. Zwigenberg shows how analyses of surviving nuclear attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were embedded into existing psychological frameworks of militarized emotional harm and yet disrupted them. We see the hibakusha abandoned as suffering individuals even as their wounds were being collectively codified to prepare the world for a dystopic future.” -- Robert A. Jacobs, Hiroshima Peace Institute and Hiroshima City UniversityTable of ContentsNote on Language Introduction Part 1. Bombing Minds Chapter 1. American Psychological Sciences and the Road to Hiroshima and Nagasaki Chapter 2. Bombing “the Japanese Mind”: Alexander Leighton’s Hiroshima Chapter 3. Healing a Sick World: The Nuclear Age on the Analyst’s Couch Chapter 4. Nuclear Trauma and Panic in the United States Part 2. Researching Minds, Healing Minds Chapter 5. Y. Scott Matsumoto, the ABCC, and A-Bomb Social Work Chapter 6. Konuma Masuho and the Psychiatry of the Bomb Chapter 7. Kubo Yoshitoshi and the Psychology of Peace Chapter 8. Social Workers, Nuclear Sociology, and the Road to PTSD Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £76.50

  • Economy and Interest

    University of Chicago Press Economy and Interest

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £38.00

  • Democracy for Busy People

    The University of Chicago Press Democracy for Busy People

    Book SynopsisAdvances an alternative approach to democratic reform that focuses on building institutions that empower people who have little time for politics. How do we make democracy more equal? Although in theory, all citizens in a democracy have the right to participate in politics, time-consuming forms of participation often advantage some groups over others. Where some citizens may have time to wait in long lines to vote, to volunteer for a campaign, to attend community board meetings, or to stay up to date on national, state, and local news, other citizens struggle to do the same. Since not all people have the time or inclination to devote substantial energy to politics, certain forms of participation exacerbate existing inequalities. Democracy for Busy People takes up the very real challenge of how to build a democracy that empowers people with limited time for politics. While many plans for democratic renewal emphasize demanding forms of political participation and daunting ideals oTrade Review"Elliott meets the theoretical challenges to democracy head-on and provides a workable normative model to judge real-world examples by...The theorist, the empiricist, and the activist alike will all find something of value to take away from Democracy for Busy People." * Liberal Currents *"[Elliott] devises a conception of the civic responsibilities of citizenship that is authentically democratic without being overly demanding." * New Books Network *"Highly original and thought-provoking, Elliott takes a quotidian concern—not enough hours in the day to do all that we have to do—and illuminates its implication for democracy and equal citizenship. The unequal distribution of time to do stuff—including, and especially, political stuff like voting, going to a meeting, or keeping up with the issues—has deep implications for inclusive citizenship. From the democratic significance of unequal temporal opportunity to participate in politics, Elliott builds a rich, empirically grounded, and institutionally sophisticated normative picture of how to safeguard the ideal of equal citizenship in 21st century democracies." -- Simone Chambers | University of California, Irvine"Democracy for Busy People is an important book about trade-offs. It's about the trade-offs ordinary people must make in the use of their time, and the real sacrifices of time that people must make to take part in, learn about, or even care about democratic politics. And it's about the trade-offs in institutional design that necessarily follow: how more complicated, frequent, and deliberative modes of democratic politics exclude those with less time on their hands. Kevin Elliott has made a major contribution to empirically-informed democratic theory, both in his arguments for wide-ranging reforms to favor inclusivity and reduced time demands, and in his defenses of elections, parties, and broad-based participation not only against democracy's opponents but also against its too-ambitious advocates." -- Jacob T. Levy | McGill University“Kevin Elliott offers a highly original and extremely engaging analysis of the demands of political participation and the implications for democracy. He begins by acknowledging that people are busy and only have so much time to attend to the requirements of effective democratic participation. But, unlike many who argue that the problem rests with the individual citizen, he argues quite persuasively that the problem lies in the complexity of the system itself. In doing so, he makes a compelling case that busyness is an important determinant of inequality in a democratic society and thus must be remedied as a matter of justice. Democracy for Busy People is an impressive argument that will reward the time spent reading it—regardless of how busy you are.” -- Jack Knight | Duke UniversityTable of Contents1. The Demands of Democratic Citizenship Part I: How Much Democratic Citizenship? 2. Democracy’s Floor: The Case against Apathy 3. When Does Democracy Ask Too Much? Realism and the Paradox of Empowerment 4. The Citizen Minimum: Inclusion and Stand-By Citizenship Part II: Democratic Institutions for Busy People 5. How to Democratize Elections: Annual Elections and Mandatory Voting 6. Engines of Inclusion: Political Parties in Competition 7. Putting Deliberation and Sortition in Their Place Conclusion: Too Much Democracy? Acknowledgments Appendix References Index

    £28.00

  • Life Death

    The University of Chicago Press Life Death

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"In these exceptionally complex, wide-ranging lectures written for a 1975–76 course, Derrida takes very seriously Nietzsche's warning to 'beware . . . saying that death is opposed to life' . . . . Essential." * Choice *"Translated . . . with unparalleled grace and rigor.” * Philosophy Today *"One of Derrida’s most challenging and urgently relevant seminars.” * Style *"Daring and wide-ranging.” * Research in Phenomenology *“Derrida’s 1975-76 seminar, Life Death, is surely one of his greatest achievements. It begins with a deconstructive reading of François Jacob’s Logic of the Living, advancing to a critique of scientific ‘models’ in general. It then takes up Nietzsche’s notions of life and the living in terms of both biography and biology. Finally, it reads Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle in an exciting and challenging way. The translation by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas is reliable and eminently readable.” -- David Farrell Krell, author of The Sea: A Philosophical Encounter“This is a splendid translation of one of Derrida’s most challenging seminars, one that relates, in unprecedented ways, the vocabulary and concepts of historical and contemporary biology and genetics with selected and relevant works of Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Freud.” -- Dawne McCance, author of The Reproduction of Life Death: Derrida's La Vie la Mort"This one is lucid and rich, with sparing translators’ interventions . . . to see even republished material within its original scene is exciting. So too proves the book as a whole." * The Heythrop Journal *Table of ContentsForeword to the English Edition General Introduction to the French Edition Editorial Note Translators’ Note First Session: Programs Second Session: Logic of the Living (She the Living) Third Session: Transition (Oedipus’s Faux Pas) Fourth Session: The Logic of the Supplement: The Supplement of the Other, of Death, of Meaning, of Life Fifth Session: The Indefatigable Sixth Session: The “Limping” Model: The Story of the Colossus Seventh Session Eighth Session: Cause (“Nietzsche”) Ninth Session: Of Interpretation Tenth Session: Thinking the Division of Labor—and the Contagion of the Proper Name Eleventh Session: The Escalade—of the Devil in Person Twelfth Session: Freud’s Leg(acies) Thirteenth Session: Sidestep Detour: Thesis, Hypothesis, Prosthesis Fourteenth Session: Tightenings Index of Proper Names

    1 in stock

    £20.90

  • Geometry of Grief

    The University of Chicago Press Geometry of Grief

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"How the fractal nature of grief is both the key to understanding it and the doorway to moving through it is what mathematician Frame explores in his unusual book Geometry of Grief: Reflections on Mathematics, Loss, and Life. After twenty years of working with the visionary father of fractals and another twenty years of teaching fractal geometry at Yale, Frame draws on a lifetime of loss and a lifetime of delicate attention to the details of aliveness we call beauty to interleave memoir and mathematics in an uncommon tapestry of thought, twining Borges and quantum mechanics, evolutionary biology and Islamic art, music and multiverse theory. . . . Attentiveness to beauty is the instrument of transcendence—that essential facet of Frame’s geometry of grief and readjustment." -- Maria Popova * The Marginalian *"Frame has written a poignant and beautiful book. . . . Treat yourself to the wisdom of this sweet, gentle soul." -- Steven Strogatz * @stevenstrogatz *"Frame's new book, Geometry of Grief, suggests that thinking about fractals—and thinking geometrically, in general—can help us process life's most difficult moments... Zooming out instead of in, we might see our individual griefs as small versions of other tragedies in the world. Maybe, Frame says, thinking of grief as a fractal can inspire empathy and lead us to channel our sadness into helping others." * Boston Globe *"This brief, intriguing personal meditation is inspired by mathematician Michael Frame’s lifelong love of geometry — including 20 years’ collaboration with fractal geometer Benoit Mandelbrot — and the childhood loss of his aunt, who set him on his career path. He writes: 'Grief informs geometry and geometry informs grief.' How so? His epiphany on first understanding any beautiful mathematical idea is always tinged with sadness, because it is unrepeatable. With quirky illustrations, he integrates the lives of his Mom and Dad." * Nature *"The word fractal, from the Latin fractus meaning 'broken glass,' was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot, who brought mathematics closer to nature by showing that iterating a simple geometric pattern can result in complex, rough-edged, and beautiful shapes. In Geometry of Grief, Frame, a former colleague of Mandelbrot’s at Yale, aims to unite maths with our lived experience still further by showing how fractals both inform and can help us cope with the experience of irreversible loss. . . . Ambitious and moving.” * Times Literary Supplement *"Frame has written a wonderful memoir. Combining his passion for mathematics and his mastery of the geometry of fractals, in this text he seeks to educate, encourage, and inspire readers in a personal way. Identifying grief as irreversible, Frame makes surprising connections to foundational mathematical concepts such as continuity and self-similarity. . . . Here, he elucidates the foundational intertwining of science and grief in his own life through deeply and surprisingly personal stories from lived experience. Weaving together references from literature, art, popular culture, and mathematics, Frame clarifies the transcendence found through grief as a universal human experience. The text offers a wealth of resources for curious readers and is a must have for the bookshelf of any mathematics teacher who wants to inspire curiosity in students or relate with empathy to a student suffering loss. This book will be a wonderful addition to any advanced or graduate-level seminar, and preprofessionals in mathematics education will certainly benefit from exploring the book's diverse fields of discourse. Highly recommended." * Choice *"Frame writes: ‘Times folds up. So many ghosts crowd into my head. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, dear friends, students… And far too many cats.’ Live long enough oneself and one realizes that half or more of one’s friends and relatives have departed the planet, ‘summoned,’ as the poet Robert Southey had it, ‘on the grand tour of the universe,’ before one. One lives with it, saddened yet grateful oneself still to be in the game. Yet some holes never successfully fill up." * Commentary *“With poignancy and audacity, Frame builds an unexpected bridge between mathematical beauty and human sorrow, illuminating both.” -- Francis Su, author of "Mathematics for Human Flourishing"“I expected to enjoy the experience of thinking in fresh ways with Frame about grief—and encountering his love of cats, really of all nature, made manifest on the page. What blew me away were the exciting new connections among love, grief, beauty, and resilience that flowered in my mind as I read. Immersed in Frame’s world of geometry, including fractals, and its applications to real-world emotions, I sometimes felt afloat in a mysterious, and always inviting, dream. It’s a beautiful place for all of us to spend time.” -- Barbara J. King, author of "How Animals Grieve"“With concision and compassion, Frame shows how a mathematical mind makes sense of a grieving heart. The result is a peculiar, wise, and beautiful book.” -- Ben Orlin, author of "Math with Bad Drawings" and "Change Is the Only Constant"“A unique, meaningful, and moving work that connects the irreversibility of loss that comes with grief and the irreversibility of first deeply understanding something—particularly something mathematical.” -- Susan Jane Colley, Oberlin College, editor of "American Mathematical Monthly"“Captured perfectly an experience that I've long tried to put into words but couldn't—the nostalgic sense that comes immediately after a discovery. It's astonishing how so many important ideas come to us in an almost dream-like state, fully formed and with a hazy beauty that somehow falls away when we more fully work out to implications of that idea and put it into words and onto paper; the whole process makes the idea more real but somehow less charming." -- Christina Stankey, medical student and former student of Michael Frame“Frame believes everyone can fall in love with math if it’s presented with empathy and humor and clarity and context. He portrays math as math-lovers know it: a beautiful garden, a place of curiosity and delight, a tribute to human creativity and the wonders of nature.” -- Steven Strogatz, from the foreword to "Fractal Worlds"Table of ContentsPrologue 1 Geometry 2 Grief 3 Beauty 4 Story 5 Fractal 6 Beyond Appendix: More Math Acknowledgments Notes Index

    £11.77

  • Of Bridges

    The University of Chicago Press Of Bridges

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisOffers a philosophical history of bridgesboth literal bridges and their symbolic counterpartsand the acts of cultural connection they embody. Always, wrote Philip Larkin, it is by bridges that we live. Bridges represent our aspirations to connect, to soar across divides. And it is the unfinished business of these aspirations that makes bridges such stirring sights, especially when they are marvels of ingenuity. A rich compendium of myths, superstitions, and literary and ideological figurations, Of Bridges organizes a poetic and philosophical history of bridges into nine thematic clusters. Leaping in lucid prose between distant times and places, Thomas Harrison questions why bridges are built and where they lead. He probes links forged by religion between life's transience and eternity as well as the consolidating ties of music, illustrated by the case of the blues. He investigates bridges in poetry, as flash points in war, and the megabridges of our globalized world. He illuminatTrade Review“Of Bridges is a fascinating and profound meditation on the semantics and the symbolism of bridges, and the myriad connections to language, to music, to our creativity and the conundrums of the human condition. We are all between worlds and the span of a bridge is the architecture of our common reality.” * Sting, musician *“Of Bridges is a dazzling investigation into the profound semantic and historical resonance of the seemingly simple word bridge, that passage between two points that is unique in its material, metaphoric, and philosophical properties. Harrison has chapters on every possible aspect of bridging, for example, the musical bridge, the poetic bridge as in Hart Crane’s famous poem by that title, the actual historic bridges of Greece and Rome, and the ‘thought’ bridges of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Throughout, Harrison’s book is astonishingly learned, well written, and imaginative. Bridges will never be the same after this brilliant study.” * Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University *“Of Bridges is an extraordinarily sweeping study of bridges as cultural signifiers, extending its analysis from ancient Rome to the contemporary footbridges of major European cities, and providing much intricate detail along the way. This work is a tour de force in multidisciplinary cultural history, presenting the bridge as a simultaneously connective and separating structure, from which Harrison deduces an ensemble of political and ethical ideas. The scholarship is astounding in its particularity, the writing and interpretations brilliant.” * Daniela Bini, University of Texas at Austin *“Keenly erudite, imaginative, interdisciplinary, and lyrical, Of Bridges is a monumental piece of scholarship. Harrison has written a Calvinoesque tale of bridges both invisible and visible, ontological and epistemological. Harrison draws upon his vast knowledge of Italian art and literature to offer a genealogy of thought reflected through and with bridges. In this work, Harrison himself becomes the bridge that he writes about, bringing together events and forms in unique and insightful ways.” * Timothy Campbell, Cornell University *"Of Bridges explores complex questions about the way in which our interaction with the physical world is bound (via bridges of thought, imagination, aspiration, despair) to the world of ideas and, thus, to the development of an ethical and aesthetic conduct of life. . . . Like all great books, each a bridge from lone writer to lone reader, Harrison’s magisterial and lively Of Bridges calls us to attention and makes this difficult task more bearable. For there is no ultimate crossing over, only a temporary dwelling in between." * On the Seawall *"At the heart of Harrison’s book is this desire to share the myriad and often invisible ways in which we experience and use the seemingly mundane architectural phenomenon of bridges in our lives. . . . Of Bridges offers us a transformative journey through its thoughtful pages." -- Aqsa Ijaz * Marginalia Review of Books *"Harrison, a comparativist by training, scours the cultural landscapes of the world for meditations and mediations on the theme of real and imagined bridges. No matter one's area of interest or expertise, these nine intriguing and accessible essays will connect readers to old and new ways of thinking about what bridges do and often to what they might have already done. . . . Harrison combines keen observations with cogent analyses that will make readers think twice before crossing another bridge, whether it is over a highway or waterway or simply connects what one makes in one's mind." * Choice *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction 1. The Great Bridge-Building of God 2. Living on the Bridge 3. Musical Bridges 4. Bridge Brothers and Foes 5. Word Bridges 6. The Bridge as Gallows 7. Nietzsche’s Bridges 8. Sea Bridges and Selves 9. Bridged Disconnection Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    2 in stock

    £21.85

  • The Money Illusion

    The University of Chicago Press The Money Illusion

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"This thoughtful and broad-ranging critique of the post-financial crisis consensus on macroeconomic policy is worth reading for anyone interested in monetary policy. . . . Some may wonder why anyone today would write (or read) a book raking over the [2008] financial crisis, when the world has moved on to dealing with the pandemic, war in Europe, and how to manage economic policy in an era of wild political see-saws. In fact, Sumner’s book is of great significance to our current crises, and his challenge to conventional wisdom is bracing." -- Kenneth Rogoff * Times Literary Supplement *"Were I still teaching monetary economics, I wouldn't hesitate to assign it, not as a textbook, but as the testament of one of today's most original monetary economists. For The Money Illusion is capable of teaching them something no textbook ever will, namely, the importance of thinking for oneself." -- George Selgin * Barron's *"[An] illuminating journey of our macroeconomic past, and the shrouded role that monetary mismatches played in past recessions. . . . It's the kind of book where you learn something on every single page—often several astonishing things." * Frontier Post *"The leading authority on market monetarism re-evaluates the 2008 Recession, rejecting the consensus on the origins of the crisis, and narrows it down to a single cause: allowing the nominal GDP to plummet." * Bookseller (UK) *"As the world’s leading 'market monetarist,' Sumner has forced economists and policymakers to rethink their approach to monetary policy, particularly since the Great Recession of 2008–9. This long-awaited book is clearly and effectively written and brings Sumner's unique and valuable perspective into full view." -- Douglas Irwin, Dartmouth College"Sumner summarizes, clearly and concisely, lessons drawn from a lifetime of studying both monetary theory and economic history. He skillfully shows how his market monetarist framework helps us understand what went wrong in 2008 and what it will take to bring growth and stability back to the US economy." -- Peter Ireland, Boston College"Sumner has assembled all of his ideas and commentary since the beginning of the Great Recession regarding monetary policy, encompassing his writing in journals, books, blogs, and policy papers. Given that Sumner is basically the standard bearer of the market monetarists, this is a welcome task. His systematic application of market monetarism to the Great Recession constitutes a valuable contribution and will probably be used as a reference by many. The virtue of the book is that it is accessible to all." -- Vincent Geloso, King's University College"Sumner uses his well-honed blogging skills to explain, for both amateur and professional economists, the 'market monetarist' perspective. The high point is his historical analysis of monetary policy, in the United States and elsewhere, during the 2008 Great Recession. Sumner's thesis directly contradicts the prevailing view that central banks simply lacked the power to offset the overwhelming force of a massive financial shock, and I think his analysis will eventually prove convincing." -- Nick Rowe, Carleton UniversityTable of ContentsPreface Introduction: The Real Problem Was Nominal Part I. The Value of Money Chapter 1. Cognitive Illusions in Economics Chapter 2. The Value of Money and Money Illusion Chapter 3. What Determines the Value of Money? Chapter 4. The Quantity Theory of Money and the Great Inflation Chapter 5. Money at the Extremes: Hyperinflation and Deflation Chapter 6. It’s (Almost) All about Expectations Part II. The Dance of the Dollar Chapter 7. The Great Depression and the AS-AD Model Chapter 8. One Derivative beyond Hume Chapter 9. Rational Expectations and Efficient Markets Part III. Never Reason from a Price Change Chapter 10. The Musical-Chairs Model Chapter 11. What Is Monetary Policy? Chapter 12. Nominal and Real Exchange Rates Part IV. How to Think about Macroeconomics Chapter 13. The Path to Market Monetarism Chapter 14. I See Dead Patterns Chapter 15. Good Economists Don’t Forecast, They Infer Market Forecasts Chapter 16. The Secret History of Monetary Policy Part V. The Great Recession Chapter 17. Fed Policy in 2008: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis? Chapter 18. A Confession of Contractionary Effect Chapter 19. Schadenfreude on the Titanic Chapter 20. Alternative Explanations of the Great Recession Part VI. What Does It All Mean? Chapter 21. Policy Implications of Market Monetarism Chapter 22. Why Should You Believe in Market Monetarism? Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £19.00

  • Dead Reckoning Air Traffic Control System Effects

    The University of Chicago Press Dead Reckoning Air Traffic Control System Effects

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"From the dead reckoning of early navigation with its reliance on sun, stars, and wind, Vaughan develops her analysis of the present-day work of an air traffic controller, which involves an increasingly high degree of automation with consequent loss of skills and many controllers’ jobs. Drawing on interview data, Vaughan illuminates what has made air travel so safe by examining the large sociotechnical systems in which work is performed, focusing on the changing nature of organizations, technologies, and work. Recommended." * Choice *"Diane Vaughan’s Dead Reckoning: Air Traffic Control, System Effects, and Risk shows exactly how organizational excellence is achieved through organizational member’s ongoing collaborative work undergirded by—and sometimes despite—organizational rules, political pressures, and other societal demands that shapes the external environment. The result is an excellent portrayal of what Daniel F. Chambliss once called the “mundanity of excellence” in complex organizations—showing how far from obvious, or mundane, it is." * Social Forces *"Diane Vaughan’s famous analysis of the Challenger tragedy is followed here with a study of air traffic control. Vaughan really wants to know how it works and she succeeds. As a result she is in the right place, both physically and analytically, to explain what happened to a sky full of airplanes on 9/11. And Vaughan can write: just her introductory description of how she invaded the controllers’ domain is gripping. Like her Challenger book, this sets the gold standard." -- Harry Collins, Cardiff University“With Dead Reckoning, Vaughan—a leading student of how organizations go wrong—studies an organizational system, the air flight control system for commercial aviation, with an extraordinary track record of getting things right. The author approaches her topic from every direction, seamlessly integrating organization theory and technology studies; analyzing how skill is embedded both in individuals and in workgroups but also how the institutional systems in which controllers live and with which they must interact shape their work; and, in a model of multi-method, multi-level research, combining multi-site ethnography with historical analysis spanning forty years and including such events as the PATCO strike and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The result is a breathtaking achievement, a comprehensive, analytically shrewd, and gracefully written study that explains the effectiveness of air flight controllers both in routine times and during crises.” -- Paul DiMaggio, New York University"Vaughan explores air traffic control with unparalleled care: an awe-inspiring breadth, depth, and lyricality that is mostly unmatched in contemporary scholarship on organizations, cementing her reputation as one of the most inspired scholars of her generation." * Organization Studies *Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables Part I: Beginnings Chapter 1. Dead Reckoning Why Air Traffic Control? Introduction to the System: “A Monkey Could Do This Job” System Effects on the Project On Time and Discovery: Historical Ethnography and Socio-technical System History The Architecture of This Book Chapter 2. History as Cause: System Emergence, System Effects A Formation Story Precedent and Innovation: Boundaries and Boundary Work The Age of Innovators: The Diffusion of Ideas, Networks, and Infrastructure Formation, 1880–1920 The Age of Organization: Controllers, Technologies, and Boundaries, Ground and Sky, 1920–1950 The Jet Age: Congestion, Technological Lag, and PATCO, 1950–1980 The Age of Conflict, Decline, and Repair: The Strike, NATCA, and Technological Glitches, 1980–2000 Dead Reckoning at the Turn of the Century: History, Boundaries, and Turf Wars in the Sky, 2000–2001 Part II: Producing Controllers Chapter 3. From Skill Acquisition to Expertise The Academy: The Screen, the Game, and Survival of the Fittest The Facility: The Apprentice and the Trainer The Subtleties of the Craft: Dead Reckoning Chapter 4. Embodiment: The Social Shaping of Controllers Carryover into Everyday Life Fundamental Change: Becoming a Type A Personality A Cultural System of Knowledge: Expertise, Embodiment, and Ethnocognition Part III: Boundary Work: Airspace, Place, and Dead Reckoning System Effects: Culture, Ethnocognition, and Distributed Cognition Chapter 5. Boston Center and Bedford Tower Boston Center Bedford Tower Chapter 6. The Terminal: Boston TRACON and Boston Tower The TRACON: Boston Terminal Radar Approach Control Boston Tower The Terminal: Boston TRACON and Tower Part IV: Emotional Labor, Emotion Work Chapter 7. Mistake and Error: Emotional Labor Close Calls Having a Deal Space, Place, and Boundaries: When Is a Deal Not a Deal? Mistake and Error as System Effects: Crossing the Boundaries of Time and Social Space Chapter 8. Risk and Stress: Emotion Work Losing Control: Stress-Producing Conditions The Social and Cultural Transformation of Risky Work Culture, Cognition, and the Normalization of Risk and Stress The Individual, the Group, and Cultural Devices Part V: “That Little Frisson of Terror” Chapter 9. September 11 Boston Center The Command Center Boston Center The TRACON Boston Tower Bedford Tower The Attacks: System Response and System Effects Chapter 10. The War on Terror: Policing the Sky Changing Boundaries: Restrictions, Translation, and Local Coordination Police Work, Emotion Work A Fragile Stability: 2002 The War on Terror: System Response and System Effects Chapter 11. Symbolic Boundaries: Distinction, Occupational Community, and Moral Work Formal Structure and Occupational Community Status and Moral Work Maintaining Moral Boundaries Part VI: System Effects, Boundary Work, and Risk Boundary Work as Power Work The Intersection of Two Trajectories: Implementation, Budget Battles, Shutdowns, and Failures The Liabilities of Technological and Organizational Innovation Chapter 12. The Age of Automation: 2002–Present Boston Tower and Boston TRACON Boston Tower Boston TRACON Chapter 13. Continuities, Change, and Persistence System Effects, Resilience, and Agency Dead Reckoning: Coordinating Action and Anticipating Futures in Complex Organizational Systems Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £20.90

  • Reactionary Mathematics

    The University of Chicago Press Reactionary Mathematics

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“The complex relationship between tradition and modernization is the pulsing heart of this engaging book. Beside a valuable historical analysis, Reactionary Mathematics offers an interesting and useful synthesis vision to help us understand, in these times of rapid and convulsive transformation, the mathematics of the present and, most importantly, the reasons for the mathematics that will come.” * Nature *“Reactionary Mathematics is an ambitious book that is more than just a history of mathematics but an episode in the history of reason, furnished with a delightful display of different kinds of evidence, from archival documents to political satires to theological treatises to paintings to mathematics textbooks. . . . [It] is a deftly written and timely book brimming with empirical, conceptual and historiographical insights.” * British Journal for the History of Science *"For anyone interested in the "politics of mathematical modernity," this book shows how allegiances to particular types or styles of mathematics may indeed be related to Neapolitan academicians' personal responses to the urgent political pressures of their day." * Choice *“One notable strength of Mazzotti’s book is its ability to transition seamlessly between different levels of analysis. It connects an in-depth historical exploration of a specific local context, such as Naples, with the social and political constraints unique to that site. Simultaneously, it addresses major upheavals and broad conceptual changes such as the evolution of purity, rigor, and abstraction and the very definition of 'modernity' in mathematics. In doing so, the book tackles a critical methodological challenge in the social history of mathematics, bridging the gap between the claim of universality associated with mathematical knowledge and the intricate study of the local contexts and social practices that underpin the production of such knowledge. Mazzotti’s thought-provoking narrative not only demonstrates . . . that mathematics is intimately connected to its cultural, social and political context, but it also prompts readers to consider new avenues of research.” * Historia Mathematica *“Mazzotti offers us a superbly crafted historical study of the interweaving of mathematics, politics, religion, social order, and even olive oil presses in the Kingdom of Naples around 1800. This gives him a distinctive, striking platform from which to address big questions: the relationship between science and politics, the connections between mathematics and modernity, and how we should understand mathematics’ past.” -- Donald MacKenzie, University of Edinburgh“Mazzotti has written a fascinating case study of ‘mathematical resistance’ in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Naples. On the most fundamental level, the book’s exploration of ‘mathematics as politics’ observes the reciprocal interactions between the mathematical imagination of historical actors and their sociopolitical circumstances. Mazzotti’s keen attention to the political actors themselves tells a very human story of mathematics, and of the events and changes that led to the development of this seemingly quixotic Neapolitan resistance to mathematical modernity.” -- Sean Cocco, Trinity College“A landmark account of Neapolitan reactionary mathematics in context that contributes insightfully to the histories of Naples, reaction, and mathematics in their separate and interacting respects.” -- Michael Barany, University of EdinburghTable of ContentsIntroduction: Mathematics as Social Order 1 Adventures of the Analytic Reason 2 Mathematics at the Barricades 3 Empire of Analysis 4 The Shape of the Kingdom Intermezzo: Algorithm or Intuition? 5 The Geometry of Reaction 6 A Scientific Counterrevolution 7 A Reactionary Reason 8 Mathematical Purity as Return to Order Notes Bibliography Index

    £90.00

  • The God behind the Marble

    The University of Chicago Press The God behind the Marble

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisA history of Germans' attempts to transform society through art in an age of revolution. For German philosophers at the turn of the nineteenth century, beautiful works of art acted as beacons of freedom, instruments of progress that could model and stimulate the moral autonomy of their beholders. Amid the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Germans struggled to uphold these ideals as they contended with the destruction of art collections, looting, and questions about cultural property. As artworks fell prey to the violence they were supposed to transcend, some began to wonder how art could deliver liberation if it could also quickly become a spoil of war. Alice Goff considers a variety of worksincluding forty porphyry columns from the tomb of Charlemagne, the Quadriga from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Laocoön group from Rome, a medieval bronze reliquary from Goslar, a Last Judgment from Danzig, and the mummified body of an official from the Rhenish hamlet of Sinzigfollowing tTrade Review"For idealists such as Hegel, beauty was meant to transcend politics—so what happened when, as often in the Napoleonic era, works of art became spoils of war? Goff takes up the question with a close study of objects including the Laocoön Group." * Apollo "Off the Shelf" column *“Goff’s engaging book delves into the cultural politics of revolutionary-era France and the German states conquered, then lost, by Napoleon—a pivotal, electric moment in which art and its meanings were up for grabs. An astute reader of images as well as texts, Goff makes a distinctive contribution with her insistence on keeping art, aesthetics, political engagement, and institutional histories firmly intertwined and in conflict.” -- Susan A. Crane, University of Arizona “Goff’s fine book is a deeply researched and elegantly written analysis of a significant chapter in the long and complex history of art’s role in German culture and politics.” -- James Sheehan, professor emeritus, Stanford University“The God behind the Marble provides a treasure chest of famous and little-known scholars, statesmen, and artists in the era of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French fought, conquered, and grabbed as much art as they could from the cities, courts, and monasteries in the territories they conquered, then transported it back to Paris. The Germans called this the Kunstraub and pushed back. This is a book that takes seriously both the material and the political aspects of art objects. Goff provides a compelling portrait of what is at stake in confiscating art and trying to protect it in its original spaces.” -- Celia Applegate, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History, Vanderbilt University"This groundbreaking and extraordinarily timely study is an object lesson in what happens if we recognize the dynamic nature of institutions that seem so stable, if we read the historical record for the passions and aspirations of individuals attempting to understand and organize the meaning of art objects. From noble patrons to imperial plunderers, from museum visitors to curators and museum guards, from philosophers to architects: the turn of the nineteenth century saw a number of vital and mutually shaping responses to what art could be. We are still living in the aftermath of an unresolved process that Goff illustrates in a number of richly developed case studies, sensitive at once to historical context, the history of ideas, and the experience of individuals attempting to understand the relationship between material objects, display, and the feelings and ideas those objects and forms of display are based on and shape." -- Jonah Siegel, author of "Overlooking Damage: Art, Display and Loss in Times of Crisis"Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction 1 To the Vandals They Are Stone 2 A Brilliant Place 3 The State of the Supplicant 4 Uncertain Saints 5 Stepping onto the Pedestal 6 Hegel’s Neighbor Coda Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £34.20

  • Remapping Sovereignty  Decolonization and

    The University of Chicago Press Remapping Sovereignty Decolonization and

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"Remapping Sovereignty places Indigenous anticolonial thought at the center of twentieth century global struggles over nation-state, political economy, and international order. Through a beautiful synthesis of political theory and history, Temin not only powerfully reconceives classic debates but he also demonstrates the essential conceptual importance of North American Indigenous arguments for making sense of the past and future of the decolonial project. The result is a truly innovative work of political reconstruction, with critical insights for both scholars and activists." -- Aziz Rana | author of "The Constitutional Bind""Temin aptly describes aspects of historical and contemporaneous social context associated with each theorist, including treaties; settler state citizenship; termination policy; the African American civil rights movement focused on individual integrationist inclusion in the settler state; the Canadian multicultural approach; capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy; “Third World” anticolonialism, decolonization, and socialism; and relations between radical Indigenous activists and established Indigenous nations." * Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Remapping Sovereignty Chapter One. Indigenous Self-Determination against Political Slavery: Zitkala-Ša and Vine Deloria Jr. on the Colonialism of US Sovereignty and Citizenship Chapter Two. The Struggle for Treaty: Ella Cara Deloria and Vine Deloria Jr. on Anticolonial Relations Chapter Three. “The Land Is Our Culture”: George Manuel on the Fourth World and the Politics of Resurgence Chapter Four. Indigenous Marxisms: Howard Adams and Lee Maracle on Colonial-Racial Capitalism Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    £26.00

  • Woven Histories

    The University of Chicago Press Woven Histories

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"This major looker of an exhibition catalog loosens up the warp and weft of conventional views of modern art—all those tight-knotted hierarchical categories (high versus low, art versus craft) on which our institutions and markets still rest—and demonstrates the universe of formal and conceptual brilliance that has always traveled on a parallel track. The sheer variety of work produced by more than 50 artists chosen by the book’s editor, Lynne Cooke, will knock your socks off. (Just wait till you see what’s happening in the field of basketry alone.) So will the visual imaginations of individual geniuses we already know like Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, Gego, Lenore Tawney and Sheila Hicks, and the others we’re introduced to here." * New York Times, on "Best Art Books of 2023" *"In centering weaving—thread, fiber, and cloth—Woven Histories differently tracks adaptations from within the frame of its traditions." * Brooklyn Rail *"Placing textiles — and centrally weaving — at the heart of modern abstract art, Cooke selected from the work of around fifty textile artists. She also invited five art critics to respond to the thorny issues raised when weaving and abstract art are linked. Most powerfully, six contemporary fiber artists were asked to draw on their creative perspectives to comment on the works of other fiber artists in the show. . . . Cooke’s majestic compendium of woven artists contains over one hundred finely reproduced illustrations." * Arts Fuse *Table of ContentsForeword Modernist Histories: Braided, Interlaced, and Aligned — Lynne Cooke Plates Artists’ ResponsesLisa Oppenheim Harmony Hammond Jeffrey Gibson Ann Hamilton Ellen Lesperance Ulrike Müller Carole Frances Lung Unavoidable Nature — Darby English Textile Thinking — Briony Fer Not Your Grandmother’s Labor — Bibiana K. Obler Dimensions of Basketry — Elissa Auther Textility and Technology — Michelle Kuo Notes List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Index

    3 in stock

    £47.50

  • Thoreaus God

    University of Chicago Press Thoreaus God

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £15.20

  • Love Songs in Motion  Voicing Intimacy in

    The University of Chicago Press Love Songs in Motion Voicing Intimacy in

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review“This book is a joy to read: conceptually innovative, empirically rich, and beautifully written, it takes us into the lives and thoughts of the people who create and circulate love songs in Somaliland. Combining musical and textual insights of a high order, Love Songs in Motion gives us new ways of thinking about intimacy, publicness, and creative work ‘in motion.’ It is one of the best ethnographies ever written on an African popular culture genre, and it will be an instant classic.” * Karin Barber, emerita, University of Birmingham *“A beautiful and moving ethnographic account of the role and importance of hees jacayl, or love songs, in present-day Somaliland. Drawing on the author’s extensive and intimate experience in Somaliland, this finely crafted book presents a compelling alternative to ‘Afro-pessimist’ discourses in showing how the performance and circulation of hees jacayl is a hopeful, future-oriented act that fosters personal healing and postwar reconciliation and cultivates a sense of belonging in Somaliland.” * Amanda Weidman, Bryn Mawr College *Table of ContentsList of Figures Notes on Language and Terminology Companion Website Preface: It’s about Love, of Course! Introduction 1. Anatomy of a Love Song 2. Lie Down in the Love Hospital (or, How Love Finds Its Voice) 3. Storied Voices, Storied Songs (or, I Am Calaacal) 4. Listening to Love 5. Bodies of Music, Instruments of Love 6. Staging Love Conclusion Acknowledgments Glossary Notes References Index

    1 in stock

    £24.70

  • The Force of Truth

    The University of Chicago Press The Force of Truth

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"A timely intervention into the current debates on post-truth and Foucault’s significance for them. Lorenzini argues, again compellingly, that we need to steer clear of the false dilemma of either conceding that truth is only an effect of power, or strenuously defend the value of absolute truth against fake news and alternative facts. Foucault’s rejection of the Truth—truth understood as timeless and absolute—does not amount to a rejection of truth altogether. Rather, Foucault’s history of truth should be understood precisely as an attempt to criticize the claim that such an understanding of truth is necessary to stop our critical theories and practices from dissolving into relativism." -- Johanna Oksala * Critical Inquiry *"Lorenzini has established himself as the most brilliant interpreter of the work of Michel Foucault in his generation. Yet, even beyond this distinction, he has learned, as few people have, to use Foucault's work and perspective to approach topics that Foucault himself never discussed. Moreover, in his extraordinary genealogy of truth, presented in this book, Lorenzini brings together Foucault's writings with those of J. L. Austin and Stanley Cavell, among others, to give us a remarkable new way to think about some of the central issues concerning the idea of truth. Anyone who believes that analytic philosophy and continental philosophy cannot speak to one another can read this book as a superb example of how these two traditions of philosophy can mutually contribute, when read together, to the understanding of fundamental philosophical problems. If Lorenzini is the future of philosophy, philosophy is in excellent hands." -- Arnold I. Davidson, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem"In this urgent study, Lorenzini offers a powerful corrective to stubborn criticism of Foucault as a postmodern architect of the post-truth age. With stunning command of Foucault’s corpus, Lorenzini reconstructs Foucault’s history of truth as a political epistemology for our troubled times. This extraordinary book reshapes how we should understand—and resist—lying, disinformation, and other forms of political untruth." -- Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson, Syracuse University"This groundbreaking book refutes the dominant view of Foucault as a relativist and elevates the debate about his notion of truth to a new philosophical level. With exceptional clarity, Lorenzini develops an ethics and politics of truth-telling that is essential reading for everyone who seeks to take responsibility for their claims about the truth—in both theory and practice.” -- Martin Hägglund, Yale University“In this brilliant and provocative book, Lorenzini upends the conventional way that critics read Foucault as a precursor to our post-truth society. Through a meticulous reading of the Collège de France lectures, Lorenzini masterfully shows how Foucault’s lifelong passion for truth and truth-telling culminates in a powerful theory of truth as a political and ethical practice. A veritable tour de force.” -- Bernard E. Harcourt, Columbia UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: Writing the History of Truth A History of Truth That Does Not Rely on “the Truth” Toward an Ethics and Politics of Truth-Telling The Force of Words and the Force of Truth 1. Truth-Event “A Little History of Truth in General” The Emergence of the Alethurgic Subject Confessional Sciences 2. Regimes of Truth Truth Obligations? Games and Regimes of Truth A Critical (An)archaeology Language Games and Games of Truth The Value of Truth Regimes of Truth and Spirituality 3. Truth as Force Cavell, Austin, and the PerlocutionaryParrhesia as Speech Act Unpredictability, Freedom, and Criticism Risk and Courage Transparency, or Parrhesia and Rhetoric 4. Dramatics of Truth Alethurgy Sincerity, Authenticity, Confession Putting the Truth to the Test of Life 5. Critique and Possibilizing Genealogy Beyond the Vindicatory-Subversive Dichotomy Foucault, Habermas, and the Question of Normativity The Genealogy of Critique Genealogy and We-Making Conclusion: Rethinking Critique Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £19.00

  • The Mistral

    The University of Chicago Press The Mistral

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £30.76

  • The Feeling of Forgetting Christianity Race and

    The University of Chicago Press The Feeling of Forgetting Christianity Race and

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review"With unabashed frankness and unrelenting truth-telling, Corrigan offers much-needed clarity to the ongoing attempts to account for enduring racism and religious hatred that too often portray the coexistence of Christianity and racism as an unfortunate contradiction or oversimplify the relationship between ideology and violence. A game-changing study." -- Sylvester Johnson, Virginia Tech“Corrigan draws on a lifetime of research and writing about religion, race, and violence to offer insights where others have shrugged with befuddlement. White racial anxiety, he argues, is a feeling produced by the unsuccessful labor of forgetting the violence inherent to chattel slavery and Native dispossession. The result is a charged meditation on religious whiteness in the United States.” -- Jennifer Graber, University of Texas at Austin“Corrigan offers a nuanced look at America’s sorry history of racism, violence, and trauma from the colonial era to January 6 and beyond, taking on American Christianity’s proclivity for forgetting our society’s traumatic past. This is a wise and important book with the potential to reshape our national discourse." -- Randall Balmer, Dartmouth College“Through a sweeping critical review of interdisciplinary work on emotions, trauma, memory, and history, Corrigan carefully assembles a way to understand the intergenerational transmission of trauma among both victims and perpetrators of collective violence. A remarkable and courageous book.” -- William M. Reddy, Duke UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: Bad Memories Chapter 1: Colonial Legacies Chapter 2: Trauma Chapter 3: Emotion Chapter 4: Forgetting and Remembering Chapter 5: Anxiety, Erasure, and Affect Chapter 6: Race, Religion, and Nation Conclusion: The Feeling of Forgetting Acknowledgments Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £21.60

  • Solvable

    The University of Chicago Press Solvable

    2 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    2 in stock

    £19.95

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