Last Friday, I posted a picture of two gentlemen and asked readers to identify the person holding a copy of The Indignant Generation. As promised, I am revealing the answer here: Lawrence P. Jackson is shown speaking to David Wilson who is the President of Morgan State University, a school both of Jackson’s parents attended in the 1950s.

Speaking before a luncheon crowd of 100 at Morgan State University’s Student Center, Baltimore native Jackson impressed the crowd with a history lesson, a Morgan State University history lesson. Jackson, Professor of English and African American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, spoke for an hour about the impactful careers of Morgan English teachers Nick Aaron Ford and Waters Turpin. Jackson cataloged the travails and triumphs of each men’s careers during the era of segregation. The lecture began with a shocking account of the violence black professors faced during the 1940s. Ford and Turpin both resisted the oppressive system. Jackson claimed that Dr. Ford, who served Morgan from 1946 through the 1970s, possessed a “black critical independent spirit.” Novelist Waters Turpin grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and published important works in the second half of the 1930s. Jackson suggested that Turpin’s obscurity today was due to his artistic vision which was too elegant for the Marxists and too militant for the assimilationists.

The lecture was drawn from Jackson’s new book The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960. The 600 page literary and cultural history is being published by Princeton University Press in mid-November. The audience included Morgan’s new president David Wilson, the school’s provost T. Joan Robinson, and the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Burnie Hollis Jr. Agnes Edwards, a Morgan graduate and former student of both Drs. Ford and Turpin, said, “I didn’t know any of that, but I am glad that I do now.” When asked which portions of the new research he would use, Dean Hollis, another former student and friend of both men, smiled broadly and said, “All of it!”

**This text taken from Emory University’s event press release.

Boo! In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land. To help slay these economic zombies, this week’s book giveaway is Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us by John Quiggin. All our FB followers (those who LIKE us) are automatically entered in our weekly drawings. Just in time to be a Hallowe’en treat, the drawing for Zombie Economics takes place this Friday. Will Zombie Economics end up in your Hallowe’en bag amongst the candy and other goodies?

“Killing vampires and werewolves is easy enough. But how does one slay economic zombies–ideas that should have died long ago but still shamble forward? Armed with nothing but the truth, John Quiggin sets about dispatching these dead ideas once and for all in this engaging book. Zombie Economics should be required reading for those who would dare reanimate the economic theories that brought us to the edge of ruin.”–Brad DeLong, University of California, Berkeley

Need another treat and want to find out more about this chilling tale? Check out the Zombie Economics Facebook page.

Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us by John Quiggin

The file name might give you a hint, but make your guess known below in the comments for this post. I’ll reveal the identity of this reader and the location and purpose of the event on Monday.

When we think of bees, words that spring to mind may include honey, hives, or swarming. But democracy? In his new book, Tom Seeley gives us good reason to associate honeybees with democracy, as he shows how bees make a complex group decision in choosing their new nest. In light of his research, Seeley suggests five lessons we could learn from bees about making better group decisions. Seeley has even put these lessons to the test, successfully, when he chaired the Cornell biology department.

The 5 Rules of Honeybee Democracy

1. Compose a decision making group of individuals with shared interests.

In the case of bees, nobody can survive without the group. Humans don’t share this fate nor can they always choose who comprises their decision making group so we are often less inclined to cooperate. However, human groups can remember that the overarching goal is to make decisions that will benefit everyone involved and they can foster good morale and constructive comments.

2. Minimize the role of the leader.

Honeybees make decisions without a leader. The Queen sits on the sidelines and the group makes decisions without a leader telling them what to do. In turn, humans may benefit from a leader who is impartial and does not exert his or her influence on the group. The leader, rather, can create an atmosphere of open inquiry and disagreement and help the group tap its summed knowledge. Only then can the group fully exploit the power of collective decision making.

3. Seek diverse solutions.

Before a honeybee colony decides on a new home, the bees will explore miles of territory and up to 20 possible places to live. Clearly, they like to give themselves options. Here too humans can learn something from bees by promoting a thorough exploration of options when faced with a complex problem.

4. Debate, debate, debate!

Before a decision is made on the best site, there is often disagreement among the honeybees about which nest is the best candidate – the roomiest, sunniest, and highest off the ground. People, too, should engage in a spirited and civil exchange of views. In short, there should be an open and public competition of ideas but, like the bees, each person should make a private and personal evaluation of the ideas.

5. Use quorum for an accurate and speedy decision.

Unanimity is not always the answer when it comes to effective group decisions. Honeybees don’t have this luxury as they need to find their new home quickly and efficiently or risk death. The bees use quorum sensing, therefore, to make a speedy, yet accurate decision. Humans, too, can employ this tactic by periodically polling a group to see how close it is to agreement. If far from unanimity, then more debate is needed, but if only a small minority remains in support of a position then further debate may be pointless and it is better to switch to the majority and achieve consensus.

• Are those bees wearing hats? Why yes, in some respect, they are. The bees in the image above have been painstakingly numbered as part of Dr. Seeley’s research.
• Dr. Seeley was interviewed on Late Night Live, airing on Australian Broadcast Radio. Listen in here.

FACT: During the spring of 1933, Stalin’s police rounded up nearly one hundred thousand people as part of the Soviet regime’s “cleansing” of Moscow and Leningrad and deported them to Siberia. Many of the victims were sent to labor camps, but ten thousand of them were dumped in a remote wasteland and left to fend for themselves.

Cannibal Island reveals the shocking, grisly truth about their fate. These people were abandoned on the island of Nazino without food or shelter. Left there to starve and to die, they eventually began to eat each other. Nicolas Werth, a French historian of the Soviet era, reconstructs their gruesome final days using rare archival material from deep inside the Stalinist vaults. Werth skillfully weaves this episode into a broader story about the Soviet frenzy in the 1930s to purge society of all those deemed to be unfit. For Stalin, these undesirables included criminals, opponents of forced collectivization, vagabonds, gypsies, even entire groups in Soviet society such as the “kulaks” and their families. Werth sets his story within the broader social and political context of the period, giving us for the first time a full picture of how Stalin’s system of “special villages” worked, how hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens were moved about the country in wholesale mass transportations, and how this savage bureaucratic machinery functioned on the local, regional, and state levels.

Read chapter one online:
Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag
By Nicolas Werth
Translated by Steven Rendall
Foreword by Jan T. Gross

For more books in the Princeton sale catalog, please visit:
http://press.princeton.edu/booksale/

Also of interest:
Stalin’s Genocides
By Norman M. Naimark

Jerry Muller, whose most recent title from Princeton University Press was Capitalism and the Jews, will be speaking on October 25 at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center (WDCJCC) as part of the organization’s 10-day book festival, which is running from October 17 to October 27. Muller will talk about the relationship between Jews and money, the topic of his book. The event will begin at 7:30 PM and will require tickets, which cost $11 (or $9 at the discounted price).

Samuel Heilman, another PUP author, also participated in the festival. Last night, he discussed his book, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, which is about the life of the renowned leader who revived his community.

For festival passes or tickets for individual events, visit www.washingtondcjcc.org/litfest or call 202-777-3251. Same-day tickets may be available for purchase 30 minutes before the event. To see a schedule of the festival, click here. Hope you can make it!

Edwidge had two sell-out events in Washington DC at Busboys & Poets and Politics & Prose. Next up, she is in Los Angeles for an event with the ALOUD series at the Los Angeles Public Library on October 26th. See you there!

It seems that several books published by Princeton University Press have made it across the border! Photographic evidence below of the PUP books in various bookstores across Toronto. Click on the images to see larger versions.

University of Toronto Bookstore - Makers of Ancient Strategy, Alexander the Great and His Empire

Edwidge Danticat will be in Los Angeles this coming Monday and Tuesday to promote her new title, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work. If you’re in the area, we hope you can make it out to some of the events! See the Facebook page for a complete listing of events featuring Edwidge.

On Monday evening, you’re invited to an intimate evening sponsored by the Hatian Cultural Foundation and Galerie Lakaye in Los Angeles, a unique art gallery showcasing Hatian artwork in a lush, Caribbean-style home setting. In this appropriate space, Edwidge will read from and sign copies of Create Dangerously. She will begin reading from her book at 7:45 pm and will sign until 9:00 pm. Light refreshments will also be served.

Don’t miss your chance to meet Edwidge! Details about this event are below.

Earlier I posted a sneak peek of Rosellas, but I hinted that more was coming. Happy to present another page layout from this outstanding new field guide by Joseph Forshaw, featuring illustrations by Frank Knight.

If you click on the image below, it should open up a larger version:

I have one more exclusive page layout to post. Next up will be the popular African Lovebirds. Check back soon.

As Princeton’s very own Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1913, “Power consists in one’s capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.” Our society relies on the principles of cooperative interaction, but what exactly motivates a person to “link his will with the purpose of others,” to work with someone else to achieve a common goal? Psychology professor and PUP author Tom Tyler attempts to answer this question in his latest book, Why People Cooperate: The Role of Social Motivations. Examining cooperation in work organizations, neighborhoods, and political communities, Tyler challenges the idea that self-interest motivates individuals within groups and instead illustrates that shared attitudes, values, and identities foster cooperative human behaviors. Tyler’s argument suggests that cooperation is socially-motivated, rather than oriented toward obtaining incentives or individual advantage, which carries widespread implications for management of organizations and governance. Tyler specifically addresses the law enforcement perspective in his other PUP book, Why People Obey the Law (2006). Tom Tyler recently discussed the ideas behind Why People Cooperate, and his plans for future research, in this brief interview with PUP.

How did you arrive at your field of research?

I have been studying compliance with laws for many years. However, over that time legal scholars and social scientists studying the law have increasingly recognized that society benefits from a more active conception of the citizen. We do not want people who simply follow the rules. We want people who work actively with authorities to manage social order in their communities. This increasing focus upon voluntary cooperation makes traditional models of deterrence increasingly inadequate. Instead, we need to develop a more social model of motivation in which the focus is on creating internal attitudes, values and identities that support voluntary behaviors. When people have supportive internal motivations their behavior is motivated by factors within the person and is not linked to incentives and sanctions in the environment. And, as a consequence people infuse their behavior with their own particular competencies and knowledge leading their contributions to be more creative and valuable to the group. This transformation in thinking has not only changed the field of law. Similar changes are occurring in the social sciences more generally. For example, in management there is a focus on voluntary contributions to the workplace (extra-role behavior), while participatory procedures and civic engagement have been increasingly studied in political science and public policy. My goal in Why People Cooperate is to present a conceptual framework within which voluntary cooperation can be profitably studied across these arenas. Drawing from management, law and politics I present a unified model of the motivations underlying such voluntary cooperation.

What is the most surprising finding in your research?

In my experience most people think that human behavior is motivated by material gains and losses. This is certainly a message that is widely articulated by both scholars and policy makers. So I think the most surprising message of the studies I review is that material gains and losses are not the primary aspect of people’s connection to groups, organizations and societies that shapes their willingness to cooperate. Instead, it is people’ social connections to others – their attitudes, values and identity – that is motivating. These social dispositions, in turn, are shaped by the policies and practices that people experience within the group. If people believe that the group and its authorities and institutions are exercising authority fairly (procedural justice) and are motivated to do what is best for all of the people in the group (motive-based trust) they develop favorable dispositions toward the group and are more likely to engage in cooperative behavior. The centrality of social motivations is often surprising to people who believe that people’s connections to others are rooted in a more instrumental framework of incentives and sanctions.

Where do you see your work leading you in the future?

In Why People Cooperate I present a general framework for understanding voluntary cooperation. However, there are many issues within this overall model that need to be better understood. One is when different socially-based dispositions are important. In the book I distinguish among attitudes, values and identity and show that these motivations are important as a group. However, future studies need to develop a more contextual model indicating the strengths and weaknesses of each type of social motivation under different circumstances. Similarly, this analysis treats procedural justice and motive-based trust as parallel aspects of policies and practices. However, it is likely that each is important under particular circumstances. Again, further studies need to specify their relationship more clearly. Further, we need to develop better models which specify the antecedents of procedural justice and motive-based trust. The best available model, the relational model of procedural justice, does a good job of explaining both procedural justice and motive-based trust, but does not adequately identify elements that are unique to each. As a consequence it is difficult to design strategies focused upon building one or the other. Instead the general strategy employed in current research is to engage in a broadly based effort to strengthen both. Yet, procedural justice and motive-based trust are found to distinctly contribute to defining social dispositions, suggesting that each has unique antecedents. These various suggestions accept the basic premise that social motivations are central to voluntary cooperation and elaborate the dynamics of a social motivation based model.

Gyan Prakash, author of the recently published MUMBAI FABLES, will discuss the new book with fellow Princeton professor Eduardo Cadava at the Labyrinth Bookstore in Princeton tonight at 5:30 pm. The new book is a fascinating cultural history of the ever-changing metropolis of Bombay, and the basis of a new movie being produced in India [...]