Search results for ""Princeton University Press""
Princeton University Press The Essential John Nash
When John Nash won the Nobel prize in economics in 1994, many people were surprised to learn that he was alive and well. Since then, Sylvia Nasar's celebrated biography A Beautiful Mind, the basis of a new major motion picture, has revealed the man. The Essential John Nash reveals his work--in his own words. This book presents, for the first time, the full range of Nash's diverse contributions not only to game theory, for which he received the Nobel, but to pure mathematics--from Riemannian geometry and partial differential equations--in which he commands even greater acclaim among academics. Included are nine of Nash's most influential papers, most of them written over the decade beginning in 1949. From 1959 until his astonishing remission three decades later, the man behind the concepts "Nash equilibrium" and "Nash bargaining"--concepts that today pervade not only economics but nuclear strategy and contract talks in major league sports--had lived in the shadow of a condition diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. In the introduction to this book, Nasar recounts how Nash had, by the age of thirty, gone from being a wunderkind at Princeton and a rising mathematical star at MIT to the depths of mental illness. In his preface, Harold Kuhn offers personal insights on his longtime friend and colleague; and in introductions to several of Nash's papers, he provides scholarly context. In an afterword, Nash describes his current work, and he discusses an error in one of his papers. A photo essay chronicles Nash's career from his student days in Princeton to the present. Also included are Nash's Nobel citation and autobiography. The Essential John Nash makes it plain why one of Nash's colleagues termed his style of intellectual inquiry as "like lightning striking." All those inspired by Nash's dazzling ideas will welcome this unprecedented opportunity to trace these ideas back to the exceptional mind they came from.
£31.50
Princeton University Press Algebraic Geometry in Coding Theory and Cryptography
This textbook equips graduate students and advanced undergraduates with the necessary theoretical tools for applying algebraic geometry to information theory, and it covers primary applications in coding theory and cryptography. Harald Niederreiter and Chaoping Xing provide the first detailed discussion of the interplay between nonsingular projective curves and algebraic function fields over finite fields. This interplay is fundamental to research in the field today, yet until now no other textbook has featured complete proofs of it. Niederreiter and Xing cover classical applications like algebraic-geometry codes and elliptic-curve cryptosystems as well as material not treated by other books, including function-field codes, digital nets, code-based public-key cryptosystems, and frameproof codes. Combining a systematic development of theory with a broad selection of real-world applications, this is the most comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the field available. * Introduces graduate students and advanced undergraduates to the foundations of algebraic geometry for applications to information theory * Provides the first detailed discussion of the interplay between projective curves and algebraic function fields over finite fields * Includes applications to coding theory and cryptography * Covers the latest advances in algebraic-geometry codes * Features applications to cryptography not treated in other books
£55.80
Princeton University Press Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica
South America, though home to about one-third of the world's bird species and twice as many endemic families of birds as any other continent, has the world's sparsest population of birdwatchers. Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica illustrates and describes all the known species--more than 1,000 of them--in a vast swath of this underexplored birder's paradise, from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, southern Brazil, and Uruguay to parts of Antarctica. Just some of the birds it covers are teals, tinamous, chachalacas, conebills, cuckoos, macaws, parakeets, parrots, penguins, nightjars, hummingbirds, ovenbirds, tyrants, and tanagers. The habitats range from torrid rainforests and cloudforests to grasslands, the world's driest desert, second highest mountain range, and ice caps. The 97 color plates depict each species' male in breeding plumage, with the female and young often shown as well. On the facing page are concise textual descriptions of each species, highlighting not only salient physical features and behavioral patterns but the calls or songs of each. Casual birders and ornithologists contemplating a journey to the region, or simply interested in a one-volume overview of its bird life, will not want to miss this book.
£22.23
Princeton University Press Singular Integrals and Differentiability Properties of Functions (PMS-30), Volume 30
Singular integrals are among the most interesting and important objects of study in analysis, one of the three main branches of mathematics. They deal with real and complex numbers and their functions. In this book, Princeton professor Elias Stein, a leading mathematical innovator as well as a gifted expositor, produced what has been called the most influential mathematics text in the last thirty-five years. One reason for its success as a text is its almost legendary presentation: Stein takes arcane material, previously understood only by specialists, and makes it accessible even to beginning graduate students. Readers have reflected that when you read this book, not only do you see that the greats of the past have done exciting work, but you also feel inspired that you can master the subject and contribute to it yourself. Singular integrals were known to only a few specialists when Stein's book was first published. Over time, however, the book has inspired a whole generation of researchers to apply its methods to a broad range of problems in many disciplines, including engineering, biology, and finance. Stein has received numerous awards for his research, including the Wolf Prize of Israel, the Steele Prize, and the National Medal of Science. He has published eight books with Princeton, including Real Analysis in 2005.
£103.50
Princeton University Press Evolution in Changing Environments: Some Theoretical Explorations. (MPB-2)
Professor Levins, one of the leading explorers in the field of integrated population biology, considers the mutual interpenetration and joint evolution of organism and environment, occurring on several levels at once. Physiological and behavioral adaptations to short-term fluctuations of the environment condition the responses of populations to long-term changes and geographic gradients. These in turn affect the way species divide the environments among themselves in communities, and, therefore, the numbers of species which can coexist. Environment is treated here abstractly as pattern: patchiness, variability, range, etc. Populations are studied in their patterns: local heterogeneity, geographic variability, faunistic diversity, etc.
£46.80
Princeton University Press The Japanese Theatre: From Shamanistic Ritual to Contemporary Pluralism - Revised Edition
Widely recognized as the standard history of Japanese theatre for Western readers, this work by Benito Ortolani is now available for the first time in paperback. From ancient folk and ritual performances to modern dance theatre, it provides concise summaries about each major theatrical form, situating the genre in its particular social, political, and cultural contexts and integrating a vast array of detail on such topics as staging, costuming, masks and properties, repertory, acting techniques, and noteworthy actors. Complete with illustrations and an extensive bibliography, this book serves undergraduates and specialists both as a reference and as a cultural history of Japan seen from the perspective of the performing arts.
£43.20
Princeton University Press Investment under Uncertainty
How should firms decide whether and when to invest in new capital equipment, additions to their workforce, or the development of new products? Why have traditional economic models of investment failed to explain the behavior of investment spending in the United States and other countries? In this book, Avinash Dixit and Robert Pindyck provide the first detailed exposition of a new theoretical approach to the capital investment decisions of firms, stressing the irreversibility of most investment decisions, and the ongoing uncertainty of the economic environment in which these decisions are made. In so doing, they answer important questions about investment decisions and the behavior of investment spending. This new approach to investment recognizes the option value of waiting for better (but never complete) information. It exploits an analogy with the theory of options in financial markets, which permits a much richer dynamic framework than was possible with the traditional theory of investment. The authors present the new theory in a clear and systematic way, and consolidate, synthesize, and extend the various strands of research that have come out of the theory. Their book shows the importance of the theory for understanding investment behavior of firms; develops the implications of this theory for industry dynamics and for government policy concerning investment; and shows how the theory can be applied to specific industries and to a wide variety of business problems.
£49.50
Princeton University Press States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity
Whether in characterizing Catharine MacKinnon's theory of gender as itself pornographic or in identifying liberalism as unable to make good on its promises, Wendy Brown pursues a central question: how does a sense of woundedness become the basis for a sense of identity? Brown argues that efforts to outlaw hate speech and pornography powerfully legitimize the state: such apparently well-intentioned attempts harm victims further by portraying them as so helpless as to be in continuing need of governmental protection. "Whether one is dealing with the state, the Mafia, parents, pimps, police, or husbands," writes Brown, "the heavy price of institutionalized protection is always a measure of dependence and agreement to abide by the protector's rules." True democracy, she insists, requires sharing power, not regulation by it; freedom, not protection. Refusing any facile identification with one political position or another, Brown applies her argument to a panoply of topics, from the basis of litigiousness in political life to the appearance on the academic Left of themes of revenge and a thwarted will to power. These and other provocations in contemporary political thought and political life provide an occasion for rethinking the value of several of the last two centuries' most compelling theoretical critiques of modern political life, including the positions of Nietzsche, Marx, Weber, and Foucault.
£36.00
Princeton University Press Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life
No other god of the Greeks is as widely present in the monuments and nature of Greece and Italy, in the sensuous tradition of antiquity, as Dionysos. In myth and image, in visionary experience and ritual representation, the Greeks possessed a complete expression of indestructible life, the essence of Dionysos. In this work, the noted mythologist and historian of religion Carl Kerenyi presents a historical account of the religion of Dionysos from its beginnings in the Minoan culture down to its transition to a cosmic and cosmopolitan religion of late antiquity under the Roman Empire. From the wealth of Greek literary, epigraphic, and monumental traditions, Kerenyi constructs a picture of Dionysian worship, always underlining the constitutive element of myth. Included in this study are the secret cult scenes of the women's mysteries both within and beyond Attica, the mystic sacrificial rite at Delphi, and the great public Dionysian festivals at Athens. The way in which the Athenian people received and assimilated tragedy in its immanent connection with Dionysos is seen as the greatest miracle in all cultural history. Tragedy and New Comedy are seen as high spiritual forms of the Dionysian religion, and the Dionysian element itself is seen as a chapter in the religious history of Europe.
£43.20
Princeton University Press Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics
Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics was a revolutionary book that caused a sea change in theoretical physics. Here, John von Neumann, one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century, shows that great insights in quantum physics can be obtained by exploring the mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. He begins by presenting the theory of Hermitean operators and Hilbert spaces. These provide the framework for transformation theory, which von Neumann regards as the definitive form of quantum mechanics. Using this theory, he attacks with mathematical rigor some of the general problems of quantum theory, such as quantum statistical mechanics as well as measurement processes. Regarded as a tour de force at the time of publication, this book is still indispensable for those interested in the fundamental issues of quantum mechanics.
£82.80
Princeton University Press Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter
The Sanctuary of Eleusis, near Athens, was the center of a religious cult that endured for nearly two thousand years and whose initiates came from all parts of the civilized world. Looking at the tendency to "see visions," C. Kerenyi examines the Mysteries of Eleusis from the standpoint not only of Greek myth but also of human nature. Kerenyi holds that the yearly autumnal "mysteries" were based on the ancient myth of Demeter's search for her ravished daughter Persephone--a search that he equates not only with woman's quest for completion but also with every person's pursuit of identity. As he explores what the content of the mysteries may have been for those who experienced them, he draws on the study of archaeology, objects of art, and religious history, and suggests rich parallels from other mythologies.
£31.50
Princeton University Press The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories
In this book, the prominent theorist Partha Chatterjee looks at the creative and powerful results of the nationalist imagination in Asia and Africa that are posited not on identity but on difference with the nationalism propagated by the West. Arguing that scholars have been mistaken in equating political nationalism with nationalism as such, he shows how anticolonialist nationalists produced their own domain of sovereignty within colonial society well before beginning their political battle with the imperial power. These nationalists divided their culture into material and spiritual domains, and staked an early claim to the spiritual sphere, represented by religion, caste, women and the family, and peasants. Chatterjee shows how middle-class elites first imagined the nation into being in this spiritual dimension and then readied it for political contest, all the while "normalizing" the aspirations of the various marginal groups that typify the spiritual sphere. While Chatterjee's specific examples are drawn from Indian sources, with a copious use of Bengali language materials, the book is a contribution to the general theoretical discussion on nationalism and the modern state. Examining the paradoxes involved with creating first a uniquely non-Western nation in the spiritual sphere and then a universalist nation-state in the material sphere, the author finds that the search for a postcolonial modernity is necessarily linked with past struggles against modernity.
£40.50
Princeton University Press On War
On War is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832, it has been read throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of soldiers, statesmen, and intellectuals.
£34.20
Princeton University Press The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting: A Facsimile of the 1887-1888 Shanghai Edition
Originally published as Volume 2 of The Tao of Painting, this is the first English translation of the famous Chinese handbook, the "Chieh Tzu Yuan Hua Chuan" (original, 1679-1701). Mai-mai Sze has translated and annotated the texts of instructions, discussions of the fundamentals of painting, notes on the preparation of colors, and chief editorial prefaces.
£43.20
Princeton University Press Development Economics
If you are instructor in a course that uses Development Economics and wish to have access to the end-of-chapter problems in Development Economics, please e-mail the author at debraj.ray@nyu.edu. For more information, please go to http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/debraj. If you are a student in the course, please do not contact the author. Please request your instructor to do so. The study of development in low-income countries is attracting more attention around the world than ever before. Yet until now there has been no comprehensive text that incorporates the huge strides made in the subject over the past decade. Development Economics does precisely that in a clear, rigorous, and elegant fashion. Debraj Ray, one of the most accomplished theorists in development economics today, presents in this book a synthesis of recent and older literature in the field and raises important questions that will help to set the agenda for future research. He covers such vital subjects as theories of economic growth, economic inequality, poverty and undernutrition, population growth, trade policy, and the markets for land, labor, and credit. A common point of view underlies the treatment of these subjects: that much of the development process can be understood by studying factors that impede the efficient and equitable functioning of markets. Diverse topics such as the new growth theory, moral hazard in land contracts, information-based theories of credit markets, and the macroeconomic implications of economic inequality come under this common methodological umbrella. The book takes the position that there is no single cause for economic progress, but that a combination of factors--among them the improvement of physical and human capital, the reduction of inequality, and institutions that enable the background flow of information essential to market performance--consistently favor development. Ray supports his arguments throughout with examples from around the world. The book assumes a knowledge of only introductory economics and explains sophisticated concepts in simple, direct language, keeping the use of mathematics to a minimum. Development Economics will be the definitive textbook in this subject for years to come. It will prove useful to researchers by showing intriguing connections among a wide variety of subjects that are rarely discussed together in the same book. And it will be an important resource for policy-makers, who increasingly find themselves dealing with complex issues of growth, inequality, poverty, and social welfare.
£49.50
Princeton University Press The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance
This book presents the radically new theory of subjectivity found in the work of Jacques Lacan. Against the tide of post-structuralist thinkers who announce "the death of the subject," Bruce Fink explores what it means to come into being as a subject where impersonal forces once reigned, subjectify the alien roll of the dice at the beginning of our universe, and make our own knotted web of our parents' desires that led them to bring us into this world. Lucidly guiding readers through the labyrinth of Lacanian theory--unpacking such central notions as the Other, object a, the unconscious as structures like a language, alienation and separation, the paternal metaphor, jouissance, and sexual difference--Fink demonstrates in-depth knowledge of Lacan's theoretical and clinical work. Indeed, this is the first book to appear in English that displays a firm grasp of both theory and practice of Lacanian psychoanalysis, the author being one of the only Americans to have undergone full training with Lacan's school in Paris. Fink Leads the reader step by step into Lacan's conceptual system to explain how one comes to be a subject--leading to psychosis. Presenting Lacan's theory in the context of his clinical preoccupations, Fink provides the most balanced, sophisticated, and penetrating view of Lacan's work to date--invaluable to the initiated and the uninitiated alike.
£31.50
Princeton University Press The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth
The description for this book, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth, will be forthcoming.
£40.50
Princeton University Press Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies
Ronald Inglehart argues that economic development, cultural change, and political change go together in coherent and even, to some extent, predictable patterns. This is a controversial claim. It implies that some trajectories of socioeconomic change are more likely than others--and consequently that certain changes are foreseeable. Once a society has embarked on industrialization, for example, a whole syndrome of related changes, from mass mobilization to diminishing differences in gender roles, is likely to appear. These changes in worldviews seem to reflect changes in the economic and political environment, but they take place with a generational time lag and have considerable autonomy and momentum of their own. But industrialization is not the end of history. Advanced industrial society leads to a basic shift in values, de-emphasizing the instrumental rationality that characterized industrial society. Postmodern values then bring new societal changes, including democratic political institutions and the decline of state socialist regimes. To demonstrate the powerful links between belief systems and political and socioeconomic variables, this book draws on a unique database, the World Values Surveys. This database covers a broader range than ever before available for looking at the impact of mass publics on political and social life. It provides information from societies representing 70 percent of the world's population--from societies with per capita incomes as low as $300 per year to those with per capita incomes one hundred times greater and from long-established democracies with market economies to authoritarian states.
£40.50
Princeton University Press The Grail Legend
The Holy Grail and its quest is a legend that has had a powerful impact on our civilization and culture. The Grail itself is an ancient Celtic symbol of plenty as well as a Christian symbol of redemption and eternal life, the chalice that caught the blood of the crucified Christ. The story of the Grail sheds profound light on man's search for the supreme value of life, for that which makes life most meaningful. Writing in a clear and readable style, two leading women of the Jungian school of psychology present this legend as a living myth that is profoundly relevant to modern life. We encounter such universal figures as the Fool (the naive young Perceval), the Wise Old Man (the Hermit Gornemanz), the Virgin Maiden (Blancheflor), the Loathly Damsel, and such important themes as the Waste Land, the Trinity, and the vessel of the Grail. Weaving together narrative and interpretation, the authors show us how the legend reflects not only fundamental human problems but also the dramatic psychic events that form the background of our Christian culture. Emma Jung--analyst, writer, and wife of the famous psychologist C. G. Jung--researched and worked on this book for thirty years, until her death in 1955. Marie-Louise von Franz, also eminent in the field of depth psychology, completed the project.
£27.00
Princeton University Press Chapman's Homer: The Iliad
George Chapman's translations of Homer are the most famous in the English language. Keats immortalized the work of the Renaissance dramatist and poet in the sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." Swinburne praised the translations for their "romantic and sometimes barbaric grandeur," their "freshness, strength, and inextinguishable fire." The great critic George Saintsbury (1845-1933) wrote: "For more than two centuries they were the resort of all who, unable to read Greek, wished to know what Greek was. Chapman is far nearer Homer than any modern translator in any modern language." This volume presents the original (1611) text of Chapman's translation of the Iliad, making only a small number of modifications to punctuation and wording where they might confuse the modern reader. The editor, Allardyce Nicoll, provides an introduction and a glossary. Garry Wills contributes a preface, in which he explains how Chapman tapped into the poetic consonance between the semi-divine heroism of the Iliad's warriors and the cosmological symbols of Renaissance humanism.
£25.20
Princeton University Press Ants: A Visual Guide
A richly illustrated natural history of ants, covering their diversity, ecology, anatomy, behavior, and morePlentiful and familiar, ants make up an estimated one-third of the world’s insect biomass and can be found in virtually every part of the globe, from rain forest canopies to city sidewalks. But their importance is about more than numbers: ants are fundamental species in a range of habitats and their interactions with plants, fungi, and other animals ensure the survival of many fragile and complex ecosystems. This beautifully illustrated book explores the extraordinary diversity of ants and offers insights into their elaborate social systems, investigating the key collective and competitive behaviors that operate within their varied colony structures.Featuring exceptional close-up photographs and clearly organized thematic chapters, the book covers anatomy, evolution, life cycle, ecology, and other important topics. Each chapter also features profiles of standout genera, chosen for their fascinating characteristics, including Leafcutter Ants, who build nests containing up to 7,000 chambers; Pugnacious Ants whose colonies can destroy populations of crabs within hours; and Honeypot Ants whose worker caste store food in their stomachs for other colony members to consume. Drawing on current research, Ants offers an inviting and accessible introduction to these remarkable insects. Includes more than 200 stunning color photographs, plus infographics and diagrams Presents full profiles of 42 iconic genera from across the world Features clearly structured thematic chapters
£25.20
Princeton University Press The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City
How four American cities shaped Poe's life and writingsEdgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) changed residences about once a year throughout his life. Driven by a desire for literary success and the pressures of supporting his family, Poe sought work in American magazines, living in the cities that produced them. Scott Peeples chronicles Poe's rootless life in the cities, neighborhoods, and rooms where he lived and worked, exploring how each new place left its enduring mark on the writer and his craft.Poe wrote short stories, poems, journalism, and editorials with urban readers in mind. He witnessed urban slavery up close, living and working within a few blocks of slave jails and auction houses in Richmond and among enslaved workers in Baltimore. In Philadelphia, he saw an expanding city struggling to contain its own violent propensities. At a time when suburbs were just beginning to offer an alternative to crowded city dwellings, he tried living cheaply on the then-rural Upper West Side of Manhattan, and later in what is now the Bronx. Poe's urban mysteries and claustrophobic tales of troubled minds and abused bodies reflect his experiences living among the soldiers, slaves, and immigrants of the American city.Featuring evocative photographs by Michelle Van Parys, The Man of the Crowd challenges the popular conception of Poe as an isolated artist living in a world of his own imagination, detached from his physical surroundings. The Poe who emerges here is a man whose outlook and career were shaped by the cities where he lived, longing for a stable home.
£15.99
Princeton University Press Eco-evolutionary Dynamics
An invaluable guide for students and researchers working at the interface of evolution and ecologyScientists are increasingly realizing that evolution can occur on timescales much shorter than the "long lapse of ages" that was emphasized by Darwin. In fact, evolutionary change is occurring all around us all the time. This book provides an authoritative and accessible introduction to eco-evolutionary dynamics, an exciting field that unifies evolution and ecology into a common conceptual framework focusing on rapid and dynamic ecological and evolutionary change. Topics range from natural selection, adaptive divergence, ecological speciation, and gene flow to population and community dynamics, ecosystem function, plasticity, and genomics. An essential introduction for students and researchers alike, Eco-evolutionary Dynamics reveals how evolution and ecology interact on short timescales to shape the world around us.
£40.50
Princeton University Press The Forces of Economic Growth: A Time Series Perspective
In economics, the emergence of New Growth Theory in recent decades has directed attention to an old and important problem: what are the forces of economic growth and how can public policy enhance them? This book examines major forces of growth--including spillover effects and externalities, education and formation of human capital, knowledge creation through deliberate research efforts, and public infrastructure investment. Unique in emphasizing the importance of different forces for particular stages of development, it offers wide-ranging policy implications in the process. The authors critically examine recently developed endogenous growth models, study the dynamic implications of modified models, and test the models empirically with modern time series methods that avoid the perils of heterogeneity in cross-country studies. Their empirical analyses, undertaken with newly constructed time series data for the United States and some core countries of the Euro zone, show that models containing scale effects, such as the R&D model and the human capital model, are compatible with time series evidence only after considerable modifications and nonlinearities are introduced. They also explore the relationship between growth and inequality, with particular focus on technological change and income disparity. The Forces of Economic Growth represents a comprehensive and up-to-date empirical time series perspective on the New Growth Theory.
£22.00
Princeton University Press The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume I
The Collected Works of Spinoza provides, for the first time in English, a truly satisfactory edition of all of Spinoza's writings, with accurate and readable translations, based on the best critical editions of the original-language texts, done by a scholar who has published extensively on the philosopher's work. This first volume contains Spinoza's single most important work, the Ethics, and four earlier works: the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being, Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy," and Metaphysical Thoughts. Also included are Spinoza's letters from the periods when these works were being written. The elaborate editorial apparatus--including prefaces, notes, glossary, and indexes--assists the reader in understanding one of the world's most fascinating, but also most difficult, philosophers. Of particular interest is the glossary-index, which provides extensive commentary on Spinoza's technical vocabulary. A milestone of scholarship more than forty-five years in the making, The Collected Works of Spinoza is an essential edition for anyone with a serious interest in Spinoza or the history of philosophy.
£43.20
Princeton University Press Trading at the Speed of Light: How Ultrafast Algorithms Are Transforming Financial Markets
A remarkable look at how the growth, technology, and politics of high-frequency trading have altered global financial marketsIn today’s financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face-to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions. Trading at the Speed of Light tells the story of this epic transformation. Donald MacKenzie shows how in the 1990s, in what were then the disreputable margins of the US financial system, a new approach to trading—automated high-frequency trading or HFT—began and then spread throughout the world. HFT has brought new efficiency to global trading, but has also created an unrelenting race for speed, leading to a systematic, subterranean battle among HFT algorithms.In HFT, time is measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second), and in a nanosecond the fastest possible signal—light in a vacuum—can travel only thirty centimeters, or roughly a foot. That makes HFT exquisitely sensitive to the length and transmission capacity of the cables connecting computer servers to the exchanges’ systems and to the location of the microwave towers that carry signals between computer datacenters. Drawing from more than 300 interviews with high-frequency traders, the people who supply them with technological and communication capabilities, exchange staff, regulators, and many others, MacKenzie reveals the extraordinary efforts expended to speed up every aspect of trading. He looks at how in some markets big banks have fought off the challenge from HFT firms, and how exchanges sometimes engineer technical systems to favor certain types of algorithms over others.Focusing on the material, political, and economic characteristics of high-frequency trading, Trading at the Speed of Light offers a unique glimpse into its influence on global finance and where it could lead us in the future.
£20.00
Princeton University Press The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom
"A stunning and ambitious origins story."—Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning and #1 New York Times–bestselling authorThe remarkable history of how college presidents shaped the struggle for racial equalitySome of America’s most pressing civil rights issues—desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and free speech—have been closely intertwined with higher education institutions. Although it is commonly known that college students and other activists, as well as politicians, actively participated in the fight for and against civil rights in the middle decades of the twentieth century, historical accounts have not adequately focused on the roles that the nation’s college presidents played in the debates concerning racism. Based on archival research conducted at a range of colleges and universities across the United States, The Campus Color Line sheds light on the important place of college presidents in the struggle for racial parity.Focusing on the period between 1948 and 1968, Eddie Cole shows how college presidents, during a time of violence and unrest, strategically, yet often silently, initiated and shaped racial policies and practices inside and outside of the educational sphere. With courage and hope, as well as malice and cruelty, college presidents positioned themselves—sometimes precariously—amid conflicting interests and demands. Black college presidents challenged racist policies as their students demonstrated in the streets against segregation, while presidents of major universities lobbied for urban renewal programs that displaced Black communities near campus. Some presidents amended campus speech practices to accommodate white supremacist speakers, even as other academic leaders developed the nation’s first affirmative action programs in higher education.The Campus Color Line illuminates how the legacy of academic leaders’ actions continues to influence the unfinished struggle for Black freedom and racial equity in education and beyond.
£25.20
Princeton University Press Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence
Why birds are smarter than we thinkBirds have not been known for their high IQs, which is why a person of questionable intelligence is sometimes called a "birdbrain." Yet in the past two decades, the study of avian intelligence has witnessed dramatic advances. From a time when birds were seen as simple instinct machines responding only to stimuli in their external worlds, we now know that some birds have complex internal worlds as well. This beautifully illustrated book provides an engaging exploration of the avian mind, revealing how science is exploding one of the most widespread myths about our feathered friends—and changing the way we think about intelligence in other animals as well.Bird Brain looks at the structures and functions of the avian brain, and describes the extraordinary behaviors that different types of avian intelligence give rise to. It offers insights into crows, jays, magpies, and other corvids—the “masterminds” of the avian world—as well as parrots and some less-studied species from around the world. This lively and accessible book shows how birds have sophisticated brains with abilities previously thought to be uniquely human, such as mental time travel, self-recognition, empathy, problem solving, imagination, and insight.Written by a leading expert and featuring a foreword by Frans de Waal, renowned for his work on animal intelligence, Bird Brain shines critical new light on the mental lives of birds.
£23.95
Princeton University Press - WILDGuides British and Irish Wild Flowers and Plants A Pocket Guide
£13.60
Hackett Publishing Co, Inc The New Politicians of Fifth-century Athens
A reprint of the Princeton University Press edition of 1972, with new Preface by the author.In this powerful contribution to our understanding of politics in fifth-century Athens, Connor constructs models of Athenian political groupings to explain the rise of the "new politicians," young men who launched a new kind of democracy by appealing to the citizenry at large. With Pericles as prototype and Cleon as exemplar of the new politician, this engaging work provides an important insight into the politics of Athens at the height of its power.
£35.09
Hackett Publishing Co, Inc The New Politicians of Fifth-century Athens
A reprint of the Princeton University Press edition of 1972, with new Preface by the author.In this powerful contribution to our understanding of politics in fifth-century Athens, Connor constructs models of Athenian political groupings to explain the rise of the "new politicians," young men who launched a new kind of democracy by appealing to the citizenry at large. With Pericles as prototype and Cleon as exemplar of the new politician, this engaging work provides an important insight into the politics of Athens at the height of its power.
£17.99
New Directions Publishing Corporation Curve Away from Stillness
In Curve Away from Stillness, John Allman affirms the connections between poetry and science. They are, he says, as "old as the ones between poetry and cosmology, beauty and knowledge, pleasure and speculation." In reading this collection of "Science Poems," we are reminded of a philosophical tradition in literature that, with Lucretius, sees in the power of love the binding force of the universe. Allman's poems, however—meditations on "Physics," "Chemistry," "Biology," essential "Principles," the "Planets"—are grounded in the science of our time, in all its elegance and awesomeness. Curve Away from Stillness is Allman's fourth book of poetry, his third with New Directions. His previous publications include Scenarios for a Mixed Landscape (1986), speculative reflections on art and nature; the "historical epiphanies" of Clio's Children (1985); and Walking Four Ways in the Wind (Princeton University Press, 1979).
£8.10
Edinburgh University Press Translation and the Untranslatable: Paragraph Volume 38, Number 2
The ground-breaking and monumental encyclopedia of philosophical terms read through the history of their translation, Vocabulaire Européen des philosophies: Dictionnaire des Intraduisibles, ed. Barbara Cassin (Paris: Robert/Le Seuil, 2004), finally appeared in English translation in 2014 with Princeton University Press as the Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, eds. Barbara Cassin, Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, Michael Wood. Translations of the Vocabulaire are now under way in several other major languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Romanian, Italian, Ukrainian and Russian. This special issue of Paragraph will be the first sustained critical reflection following the publication of the Dictionary of Untranslatables, and includes contributions by those who were most closely involved in the editing of this volume, by two of the translators (Mehlman, Syrotinski), as well as others whose work has been significantly inflected or influenced by the questions raised by the Dictionary.
£22.99
Edinburgh University Press Thomas Reid on Practical Ethics
The pervasiveness of Protestant natural law in the early modern period and its significance in the Scottish Enlightenment have long been recognised. This book reveals that Thomas Reid (1710-1796) -- the great contemporary of David Hume and Adam Smith -- also worked in this tradition. When Reid succeeded Adam Smith as professor of moral philosophy in Glasgow in 1764, he taught a course covering pneumatology, practical ethics, and politics. This section on practical ethics took its starting point from the system of natural law and rights published by Francis Hutcheson. Knud Haakonssen has reconstructed it here for the first time from Reid's manuscript lectures and papers, and it provides a considerable addition to our understanding not only of Reid but of the thought of the Scottish Enlightenment and of the education system of the time. The present work is a revised version of a work first published by Princeton University Press in 1990 which has long been out of print.
£190.00
WW Norton & Co Walden / Civil Disobedience / and Other Writings: A Norton Critical Edition
As a unique feature, the Third Edition includes generous excerpts from Thoreau's journal, reprinted by special arrangements with Princeton University Press from the definitive edition of his writings. Spanning the years 1845-54, these selections vividly display Thoreau's intensive exploration of his local landscape; the fusion of literary and natural history field work that informs Walden, "Walking," and "Wild Apples"; and the growth of his environmental imagination. “Reviews and Posthumous Assessments” for this edition collects eight new reviews of Thoreau's antislavery and late environmental essays as well as of Walden. To the influential portraits of Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell, the Third Edition adds John Burroughs's "Another Word on Thoreau," his response to them and to his great predecessor. ”Recent Criticism” includes eighteen selections of the best historical, political, philosophical, poststructuralist, and environmental criticism of Thoreau's writing since the mid-twentieth century. To classic pieces by E. B. White, Leo Marx, Barbara Johnson, and Stanley Cavell, the Third Edition adds essays by nine new contributors, among them Laurence Buell, Laura Dassow Walls, Evan Carton, Robert A. Gross, Albert J. von Frank, Steven Fink, and William Rossi. A Chronology of Thoreau's life and work, new to the Third Edition, and an expanded and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.
£14.78
St Augustine's Press A Second Look at First Things – A Case for Conservative Politics: The Hadley Arkes Festschrift
The conservative movement in America seems to have fallen on hard times. Even though conservative talk radio is at its height, and President Obama had to shift to the political center to win the 2008 election (only to disappoint months after his inauguration), conservative ideas garner little excitement or serious engagement among young people as they once did even just two decades ago. We have gone from Eric Voegelin “Don’t immanentize the eschaton” to Hannity’s “Sean, you’re a great American.” To be sure, many conservative and liberal young people have firm opinions on issues along the conservative-liberal fault line. They can opine, and fiercely so, by blog, twitter, or email on issues as wide ranging as same-sex marriage, Constitutional interpretation, abortion, free markets, and the role of religion in the public square. But very few, if any, of them seem to be aware of the intellectual patrimony from which their views sprang, and the arguments and reasons that animated the proponents of the ideas they claim to sincerely and deeply hold. “Hope” and “change,” though fine words in their own right, do not qualify as actual ideas that may guide presidents and prime ministers to excellence in statecraft. There was a time when many students in college or graduate school would participate in robust discussions with friend and foe alike about the ideas and arguments plumbed from the works authored by conservative luminaries as diverse as Hayek, Strauss, Voegelin, Buckley, Weaver, Friedman, Kirk, Lewis, Chesterton, and Anscombe, to name just a few. Sadly, there is very little of this going on today in our universities and colleges. A Second Look at First Things: A Case for Conservative Politics has two purposes. The first is to remedy this contemporary deficit by offering, in one volume, an intelligent, winsome, and readable articulation of conservative ideas on a variety of issues and questions. They range from the abstract (“Why the Natural Law Suggests a Divine Source”) to the practical (“Lincoln and the Art of Political Leadership”), and to the provocative (“Being Personal These Days: Designer Babies and the Future of Liberal Democracy”). The second purpose is to honor the great conservative political philosopher, Hadley P. Arkes, the Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College. In 2010 he celebrated his 70th birthday, and 2011 marked the 25th anniversary of his classic monograph on natural law and public policy, First Things: An -Inquiry Into the First Principles of Morals and Justice (Princeton University Press, 1986). So, in celebration of these milestones, the editors have chosen to produce a work that is consistent with Hadley’s vocation as an exceptional teacher of young people. Although most of those who have read Hadley’s books and articles think of him as an engaging and productive scholar, which indeed he is, his students – including both those at Amherst as well as those who have had the privilege to hear his spell-binding lectures elsewhere – know him as an outstanding teacher. His ability to unpack a principle of jurisprudence by weaving together an analytical argument with an enthralling tale or insightful anecdote is truly magical to behold. Contributors include Michael Novak, Daniel Robinson, Gerard Bradley, Allen Guelzo, Peter Augustine Lawler, Larry Arnn, James Schall, s.j., and Christopher Tollefesen.
£25.16