Ken Reinert, co-editor, with Ramkishen Rajan, of the authoritative new reference THE PRINCETON ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE WORLD ECONOMY, has penned a fantastic piece about how to teach the world economy during one of the worst financial collapses since the Great Depression.  Hopefully, Ken’s piece can help our international economics teachers help their students understand the problems–and prevent it from happening again.  Enjoy!

Stuart Clark, author of our terrific book THE SUN KINGS: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began, shortlisted in 2008 for the the 2008 Royal Society Prizes for Science Books, General Prize, will begin a series of weekly popular science/astronomy Twitter chats next Tuesday, November 24. Five chats are planned for 2009, on Tuesdays beginning November 24 at 1PM EST (10AM PST, 6PM GMT).  Each week the chat will focus on a different popular astronomy topic.

We are extremely pleased and thrilled to see our collaboration with the esteemed international news and commentary provider Project Syndicate and our new book THE PRINCETON ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE WORLD ECONOMY go live on their website.  They bring some of the world’s most distinguished voices to a global community that includes 431 leading newspapers in 150 countries. 

Together with the great folks at Project Syndicate, we’ve created a “Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy ” feature that appears on their homepage.  Click on the Wiki to find out the answer to the word of the day–or Terms of Trade!

Over at Balkinization, Brian Tamanaha describes his book Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide as a corrective to this “largely false account”. Click through to read more, but here’s a tidbit or two:

The United States legal culture has swallowed whole a largely false account of our legal history. The book demonstrates that this false yet widely believed story has warped political science research on courts as well as legal theory debates about judging.

…

The historical argument in the book will likely generate controversy, for the conventional formalist-realist narrative has many expositors and defenders. It is stupefying to think that we could have been collectively wrong for so long about something so important and well known. Until conducting the research for this book, I too believed that it was true. The abundant evidence I present to show that it is false will come as a shock to many.

The Math Factor speaks with Michael Huber about, among other things, how he came up with the idea for the book Mythematics in which he uses the 12 labors of Hercules as a jumping off point for a series of mathematical problems. Turns out a visit to the MET inspired him to research the labors and eventually to write the book.

I know. It sounds like a set up for a bad joke, but the answer is they are both proud owners of The China Diary of George H. W. Bush.

The Examiner site reports that Yao Ming twittered about receiving a gift from former President George H. W. Bush–a copy of his 2008 book. The book is a day-by-day account of President Bush’s time in China as head of the United States Liaison Office in Beijing . The entries from 1974 and 1975 capture the culture (biking around Beijing) and the political conflicts (most famously with Henry Kissinger) of the era.

As I posted earlier, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger was interviewed “live” on the Metanomics program in Second Life. Here are some screen shots from the interview. As you’ll see, it was really well attended.

The Metanomics studio space in Second Life. The view from the top of the auditorium.

Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield (right) interviews Viktor Mayer-Schonberger.

An attentive, and interactive audience, listened in and posted questions via the chat function.

Viktor Mayer-Schonberger fields questions from the audience.

Zocalo just posted a great interview with Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, author of DELETE. Do you agree with Viktor about the virtue of forgetting and the dangers posed by infinite and ageless digital memory? Post your comments below.

It is very rare here in the Princeton Univ Press publicity dept to get interviews on Charlie Rose and Newshour, but we did just that this past week with Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff and their sizzling new book THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.  They also did a Q&A with viewers online at the Newshour after the show.  Read the Q&A and see the clip here.  It just goes to show that charts and graphs rule!  NY Times bestseller list here we come!

An interesting series of comments on the cover design for This Time Is Different by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff over at the Book Design review. What does the cover suggest to you?

Be part of the “live” studio audience when Metanomics interviews Viktor Mayer-Schonberger in Second Life this Wednesday at 12 PM pacific. If Second Life isn’t your cup of tea, the interview will also be available on their web site later in the day.