BBC News reports that a concerned citizen questioned Leicester City Council members about the potential threat of a zombie invasion. Council members responded and admitted they are not prepared. Read the full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-13713798

Perhaps Daniel Drezner’s new book, Theories of International Politics and Zombies can be of some assistance to council members. Correcting the zombie gap in international relations thinking and addressing the genuine but publicly unacknowledged fear of the dead rising from the grave, Theories of International Politics and Zombies presents political tactics and strategies accessible enough for any zombie to digest.

Theories of International Politics and Zombies
by Daniel W. Drezner
We invite you to read the introduction online:
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9388.pdf

FACT: Syrphid flies may look similar to bees or yellowjacket wasps, but they are harmless to humans. The adults usually can be seen feeding at flowers. Syrphid flies are particularly important in controlling aphid infestations early in the season and are capable of entering the tightly curled leaves some aphids produce.

Garden Insects of North America:
The Ultimate Guide to Backyard Bugs
By Whitney Cranshaw

Garden Insects of North America is the most comprehensive and user-friendly guide to the common insects and mites affecting yard and garden plants in North America. In a manner no previous book has come close to achieving, through full-color photos and concise, clear, scientifically accurate text, it describes the vast majority of species associated with shade trees and shrubs, turfgrass, flowers and ornamental plants, vegetables, and fruits–1,420 of them, including crickets, katydids, fruit flies, mealybugs, moths, maggots, borers, aphids, ants, bees, and many, many more. For particularly abundant bugs adept at damaging garden plants, management tips are also included. Covering all of the continental United States and Canada, this is the definitive one-volume resource for amateur gardeners, insect lovers, and professional entomologists alike.

We invite you to check out more samples from the book at:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7713.html

Available in paperback.

Check out these great interviews of Edwidge Danticat, author of Create Dangerously, at the New York Public Library’s LIVE event.

(And pick up a copy of the book, too!)

In the Foreign Policy article The Least Wanted Most Wanted Man, author David Scheffer explains the complicated situation surrounding the arrest of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic. He argues that Mladic, who had evaded capture for nearly sixteen years, could and should have been easily arrested within months. Scheffer served as senior advisor and counsel to Madeleine Albright during her tenure as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and later as the first U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues. With this perspective, his frustration with the handling of Mladic’s arrest carries extra weight.

The article provides a troubling glimpse at US foreign policy from an insightful insider. To learn more pick up a copy of All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals in which Scheffer discusses more of his own experiences as a part of America’s continuing struggle for international justice.

(To hear more about Mladic’s arrest, check out the Scheffer’s interview on CNN here.)

We were thrilled to hear our bestseller THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly cited by media personality and Democratic pundit James Carville on Imus in the Morning on Fox Business.

From Our Man In Boston:

You can thank academic presses for many things including publishing books not necessarily academic. In this case, I am pleased to point out that Princeton University Press has done the world of literature a good turn, publishing poet, Road Scholar and Exquisite Corpse editor Andrei Codrescru’s Whatever Gets You through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments.

Watch the author of Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink speak with Liz Claman about solutions to the government debt crisis on yesterday’s “Red Ink Watch” segment:

“This Scientology watcher is beside himself with joy,” writes Tony Ortega at the Village Voice web site. What is the cause of such celebration, you might ask? Well, Ortega explains that, “in the past couple of days, we’ve received not one but TWO new advance copies of new books on Scientology.”

And one of them is a PUP title! The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion by Hugh B. Urban will be available in bookstores in August and the timing couldn’t be better as there is a new expose publishing this summer called Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman. While the two books will likely be quite different in style and tone, they are a perfect pair for anyone who wants to learn more about Scientology and perhaps herald an era of increased study of Scientology.

This week’s book giveaway is in response to our Facebook query last Friday where we asked what books to give away in June. Thanks to Hugo, this week is for our bird lovers: Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build by Peter Goodfellow.

Birds are the most consistently inventive builders, and their nests set the bar for functional design in nature. Avian Architecture describes how birds design, engineer, and build their nests, deconstructing all types of nests found around the world using architectural blueprints and detailed descriptions of the construction processes and engineering techniques birds use. This spectacularly illustrated book features 300 full-color images and more than 35 case studies that profile key species worldwide. Each chapter covers a different type of nest, from tunnel nests and mound nests to floating nests, hanging nests, woven nests, and even multiple-nest avian cities.

To be in our weekly random draw for our book giveaways, LIKE US on Facebook.

Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build by Peter Goodfellow.

Maybe you were lucky enough to be there, or perhaps you caught it live on C-Span, but Martin Marty was interviewed at the Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Lit Fest over the weekend. You can watch the program here: http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/Dietr&showFullAbstract=1.

Marty was on hand to discuss the new series The Lives of Great Religious Books and specifically his new book in that series, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison.

If you were lucky enough to be one of the 273 people in the audience last week at the Kansas City Public Library you heard Andrei Codrescu speak about his new book Whatever Gets You Through the Night (which just made the Los Angeles Times’s prestigious Summer Reading list!). I just ran across this fun article at the KC Library’s blog which describes Andrei’s book and also lists other popular re-tellings of famous stories. Head over there to see if your favorite makes their list and if not, leave a note in the comments section.

Author and National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu discussed his new book Whatever Gets You Through the Night at the Plaza Branch on June 2, 2011.

Introducing:

The Inner Life of Empires:
An Eighteenth-Century History
By Emma Rothschild

They were abolitionists, speculators, slave owners, government officials, and occasional politicians. They were observers of the anxieties and dramas of empire. And they were from one family. The Inner Life of Empires tells the intimate history of the Johnstones–four sisters and seven brothers who lived in Scotland and around the globe in the fast-changing eighteenth century. Piecing together their voyages, marriages, debts, and lawsuits, and examining their ideas, sentiments, and values, renowned historian Emma Rothschild illuminates a tumultuous period that created the modern economy, the British Empire, and the philosophical Enlightenment.

One of the sisters joined a rebel army, was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, and escaped in disguise in 1746. Her younger brother was a close friend of Adam Smith and David Hume. Another brother was fluent in Persian and Bengali, and married to a celebrated poet. He was the owner of a slave known only as “Bell or Belinda,” who journeyed from Calcutta to Virginia, was accused in Scotland of infanticide, and was the last person judged to be a slave by a court in the British isles. In Grenada, India, Jamaica, and Florida, the Johnstones embodied the connections between European, American, and Asian empires. Their family history offers insights into a time when distinctions between the public and private, home and overseas, and slavery and servitude were in constant flux.

Based on multiple archives, documents, and letters, The Inner Life of Empires looks at one family’s complex story to describe the origins of the modern political, economic, and intellectual world.

Emma Rothschild is the Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History and director of the Joint Center for History and Economics at Harvard University, and a fellow of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. She is the author of Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment.

We invite you to read the introduction online:
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9407.pdf