A copy of Mark Kleiman’s “When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment” was recently filched from Gordon Wasserman’s desk in the Lords chambers. Evidently, one of his Peers has excellent taste in books!

Dr. Leora Batnitzky, author of “How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought” will be giving a lecture tomorrow night at Drexel University.

We invite you to be among the first to browse our new 2012 cognitive science catalog.
Browse and download it to your e-reader:
http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/cog12.pdf

PUP’s sociology and cognitive science editor, Eric Schwartz, will be attending the Society for Social Neuroscience (S4SN) and the Science Society for Neuroscience’s (SfN) annual meeting in Washington, DC this month. You can find PUP books at booth No. 138. Of special interest at this year’s meetings are appearances by two PUP authors: neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland will be responding to the S4SN Keynote Address and economist Robert Shiller will be joining SfN President Susan Amara and neuroscientists Antonio Rangel and Wolfram Schultz in a discussion about the interplay between economics and the brain: http://www.sfn.org/am2011/index.aspx?pagename=amn_072011_Shiller.

You can read the introduction to Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George A. Akerlof & Robert J. Shiller at: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9163.pdf and Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality? by Patricia S. Churchland at: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9399.pdf.

The cognitive science catalog is full of great authors and great books. Eric Schwartz introduces the 2012 cognitive science catalog:

Our cognitive science publishing reflects the state-of-the-art of the field, and includes
work by psychologists and neuroscientists, philosophers of mind, evolutionary biologists, and social scientists of all stripes.

The catalog highlights recent and forthcoming books by Max
H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, Patricia S. Churchland,
Nicholas Humphrey, Michael C. Corballis, Robert Kurzban,
Enrico Coen, and Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, among
others. We are proud to make available in paperback Paul
Thagard’s acclaimed The Brain and the Meaning of Life, George
A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton’s important Identity Economics,
and Peter Singer’s classic The Expanding Circle. We also use
this opportunity to draw your attention to significant earlier
works published by the Press by authors such as Louise Barrett,
Robin Dunbar, Frans de Waal, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Richard
L. Gregory, Richard H. Thaler, Robert J. Shiller, and Thomas
Henry Huxley. Unifying all of these authors and books, past and
present, is an effort to provide a clearer understanding of the
relationship between the brain, the mind, individual behavior,
social interaction, and social institutions.

This catalog is indicative of the bright future for the Princeton
University Press cognitive science program and we hope that
within these pages you find books and ideas that will inspire
and enlighten.

Cognitive Science Catalog 2012:
http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/cog12.pdf

FACT: “In World War II (1939–45) more men (and women) were mobilized than in the Great War. The United States mustered 14.9 million men and women; the British Empire raised 6.2 million; the USSR 25 million; Germany 12.5 million; Japan 7.5 million. Many women entered the armed forces to fill noncombat positions. The U.S. Army Air Force had hundreds of women pilots, some of whom had such hazardous duty as flying aircraft from the United States to the war zones.”

On War and Leadership: The Words of Combat Commanders from Frederick the Great to Norman Schwarzkopf
by Owen Connelly

What can we learn about leadership and the experience of war from the best combat leaders the world has ever known? This book takes us behind the scenes and to the front lines of the major wars of the past 250 years through the words of twenty combat commanders. What they have to say—which is remarkably similar across generational, national, and ideological divides—is a fascinating take on military history by those who lived it. It is also worthwhile reading for anyone, from any walk of life, who makes executive decisions.

The leaders showcased here range from Frederick the Great to Norman Schwarzkopf. They include such diverse figures as Napoleon Bonaparte, commanders on both sides of the Civil War (William Tecumseh Sherman and Stonewall Jackson), German and American World War II generals (Rommel and Patton), a veteran of the Arab-Israeli wars (Moshe Dayan), and leaders from both sides of the Vietnam War (Vo Nguyen Giap and Harold Moore). What they have had in common is an unrivaled understanding of the art of command and a willingness to lead from the front. All earned the respect and loyalty of those they led—and moved them to risk death.

On Day 3 of his London tour, Robert Frank, author of The Darwin Economy, recorded an episode of the BBC Radio 4 Analysis program before a live audience of more than 400 at the London School of Economics.

Hosted by Paul Mason, BBC Economics editor, Analysis has an audience of more than 1 million, and the live crowd was filled with luminaries of the London political scene, including “Blue Labour” architect Maurice Glassman and FT commentator Samuel Brittan. The program will air on Monday (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006r4vz).

Day 2 of his London tour saw Robert Frank record a podcast at the Guardian with Economics editor Larry Elliott and leader writer Tom Clark, and deliver a talk on The Darwin Economy at NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts, the UK’s leader in studying and funding innovation. Frank was also interviewed for the BBC World Service program, The Forum, with environmental scientist Peter Liss (pictured) and singer Claron McFadden. The interview which will air on Saturday.

Read about Day 1 here.

Robert Frank began his London tour today with an appearance on CNBC Europe’s Squawk Box and lunch at the Financial Times with a group of senior journalists, including columnist Martin Wolf and Economics leader writer, Martin Sandbu. At the FT, Frank discussed the recent Congressional Budget Office report which showed that the US now has one of the lowest rates of social mobility on the world and an alarming level of inequality. Frank argued for progressive measures to reduce this inequality, including a new consumption tax to redirect income toward savings and investment.

Source: Congressional Budget Office, http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf.

(hat tip to Take the 5th)

“Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society” by PUP author Steven A. Barnes is the winner of the 2011 Baker-Burton Award: “The Award is given by the European History Section of the Southern Historical Association for the best first book in European history by a member of the Section or a [...]

Congratulations to Michael C. Horowitz, whose book The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics has won the 2011 Best Book prize in the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISS) competition. The ISSS Annual Best Book Award is awarded annually to a text “on any aspect of security [...]

We hope you enjoyed our most recent Book Fact Friday, because this week we’re giving away a copy of The First Pop Age!

The First Pop Age: Painting and Subjectivity in the Art of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruscha
by Hal Foster

Who branded painting in the Pop age more brazenly than Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, and Ed Ruscha? And who probed the Pop revolution in image and identity more intensely than they? In The First Pop Age, leading critic and historian Hal Foster presents an exciting new interpretation of Pop art through the work of these Pop Five.

Beautifully illustrated in color throughout, the book reveals how these seminal artists hold on to old forms of art while drawing on new subjects of media; how they strike an ambiguous attitude toward both high art and mass culture; and how they suggest that a heightened confusion between images and people is definitive of Pop culture at large.

As The First Pop Age looks back to the early years of Pop art, it also raises important questions about the present: What has changed in the look of screened and scanned images today? Is our media environment qualitatively different from that described by Warhol and company? Have we moved beyond the Pop age, or do we live in its aftermath?

Find out the latest news from PUP Europe, including information on recent and forthcoming UK publicity events, and updates from our European Advisory Board.

FACT: “The word ‘tabular’ derives from tabula, Latin for ‘table’ but also for ‘writing tablet,’ in which, in ancient use, painting as well as printing figured as a mode of inscription. Richard Hamilton deploys both techniques in his practice (where printmaking is not necessarily secondary to painting); he does so in part because he finds the effects associated with them already imbricated in the media. ‘Tabular,’ then, also invokes writing, which Hamilton involves through his generative lists and programmatic titles. It connotes ‘tabloid’ as well, a form that Hamilton takes up directly in Swingeing London 67 (1968-69), a series of posters and paintings based on press coverage of Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser arrested for drug possession.”

The First Pop Age: Painting and Subjectivity in the Art of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruscha
by Hal Foster

Who branded painting in the Pop age more brazenly than Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, and Ed Ruscha? And who probed the Pop revolution in image and identity more intensely than they? In The First Pop Age, leading critic and historian Hal Foster presents an exciting new interpretation of Pop art through the work of these Pop Five.