Princeton University Press Blog http://press.princeton.edu/blog Commentary and Insight from Princeton University Press's Authors and Staff Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:58:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Philip Freeman talks Cicero and HOW TO WIN AN ELECTION on NPR’s All Things Considered HOW TO WIN AN ELECTION: An Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians on NPR's All Things Considered. Host Robert Siegel even reads from the book! Take a listen if you have a few minutes!]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/08/philip-freeman-talks-cicero-and-how-to-win-an-election-on-nprs-all-things-considered/ Christopher Loss talks government involvement in higher education Inside Higher Ed turned to Christopher Loss, author of Between Citizens and the State to discuss the dramatic outcomes of the federal government's involvement in higher education over the years. Check out his Q&A with Serena Golden for his insights on when exactly the federal government made college-going a "national priority", and how the privatization of higher education in the past few decades has changed education's function as a "mediator between citizen's and state". ]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/07/christopher-loss-talks-government-involvement-in-higher-education/ “Beyond Mechanical Markets” is a finalist for the 2011 TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award Roman Frydman and Michael D. Goldberg's bookBeyond Mechanical Markets: Asset Price Swings, Risk, and the Role of the State is a finalist for the 2011 TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award. This award is named after Nobel Prize winner Paul A. Samuelson in honor of his achievements in the field of economics, as well as for his service as a CREF trustee from 1974-1985. The Samuelson Award is given annually in recognition of an outstanding research publication containing ideas that the public and private sectors can use to maintain and improve America’s lifelong financial well being. The book was also a Financial Times (FT.com) non-fiction favourite of 2011, and was reviewed by the FT's John Authers:

"The debate over how to re-regulate [markets and banks] to avoid another financial crisis is urgent and it cannot conclude without resolving the problem that economics' most basic assumption is flawed. [Beyond Mechanical Markets is one] of the most interesting contributions [to] find a new way to model markets."

]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/07/beyond-mechanical-markets-is-a-finalist-for-the-2011-tiaa-cref-paul-a-samuelson-award/ Bill Cook launches companion app to book In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman Twenty-four years ago a 2,392-city example of the TSP was solved in a 23-hour run on a super computer to set a new world record. This same problem now solves in 7 minutes on an iPhone 4 thanks to a free app: Concorde TSP Solver! iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/concorde-tsp/id498366515 Press release for Concorde TSP Solver: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Cook-TSP-app.pdf Bill Cook, author of In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman, has just launched a FREE app in the iTunes store called CONCORDE TSP SOLVER. The app allows users to plot TSP routes for an uploaded list of cities or any number of random cities. The CONCORDE TSP SOLVER app is a powerful display of the potential to solve on mobile devices large examples of even the most difficult computational problems. This makes it an ideal tool for understanding and teaching the mathematics behind the most successful line-of-attack on the salesman problem. The colorful graphics show step-by-step how a tool called linear programming zeros in on the optimal route to visit a displayed collection of cities. CONCORDE TSP SOLVER is a great companion to Cook’s book In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman for general readers and mathematics students alike. Some early reviews from Twitter: @CompSciFact (2/5/12) “We have an embarrassment of computational riches when we can solve traveling salesmen problems on a phone.” @misterbrash (2/5/12) “This unravels by University degree and hurts my brain! Solve traveling salesman problem(s) on your iPhone. In seconds.” @ehtayer (2/5/12) “Computational life is lush: traveling salesman app.” @miketrick (2/4/11) “Touring lots of cities? There’s an app for that! Amazing work by @wjcook and gang.”]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/07/bill-cook-launches-companion-app-to-book-in-pursuit-of-the-traveling-salesman/ Mammals Monday In the spotlight this week is the wolverine -- no, not the kind Hugh Jackman plays in X-Men. The X-Men character was named for traits often found in wolverines such as aggressive behavior and the ability to successfully attack animals many times their own size. Wolverines are solitary animals that live in isolated Northern areas. For more information, download the new Mammals of North America App! Check out a video of a wolverine staring down a bear, shot in Sweden: ]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/06/mammals-monday-7/ “The Indignant Generation” wins the 2012 BCALA Literary Award Congratulations to Lawrence P. Jackson, whose book The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 has won the 2012 BCALA Literary Award in the Nonfiction Category. This award recognizes excellence in adult fiction and nonfiction by African American authors published in 2011. According to the BCALA press release:

"The Indignant Generation is a fascinating exploration of the development of African American literature after the Harlem Renaissance to the modern day Civil Rights Movement. Lawrence P. Jackson offers readers rare insights into the lives of key players who contributed to the breadth of writing that flourished between 1934 and 1960. From Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes to James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, Jackson highlights the unique challenges faced by the writers during the time of the Great Depression, Jim Crow, World War II and the Cold War. Dozens of illustrations and photographs enhance this stunning work that celebrates African American artistic and intellectual achievement in writing. Professor Jackson teaches English and African American Studies at Emory University."

 ]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/06/the-indignant-generation-wins-the-2012-bcala-literary-award/ Ruth Grant and STRINGS ATTACHED reviewed in NY Times Sunday Business STRINGS ATTACHED: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives in yesterday's Sunday Business section of the New York Times. WHAT does it mean to treat human behavior as if everyone has a price? That’s the broad question animating “Strings Attached: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives”, by Ruth W. Grant....]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/06/ruth-grant-and-strings-attached-reviewed-in-ny-times-sunday-business/ Video: Richard Crossley on Making Birding Bigger in America ABA president Jeff Gordon and Richard Crossley were out birding ahead of the daily activities at Space Coast Birding Festival and the conversation turned to popularizing birding in America. As Jeff notes, this is a favorite subject for Richard and one on which he has a few thoughts and wishes. Enjoy the video below and post a comment either here or at the ABA blog on what YOU think are the next steps for American birders. For our part -- Princeton University Press will continue publishing great bird books like The Crossley ID Guide, Avian Architecture, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Birds, and The Atlas of Birds and promoting them to the national media and science publications. Deal?]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/06/video-richard-crossley-on-making-birding-bigger-in-america/ This Week’s Book Giveaway This week's book giveaway is The Paradox of Love by Pascal Bruckner, translated by Steven Rendall and with an afterword by Richard Golsan. The sexual revolution is justly celebrated for the freedoms it brought—birth control, the decriminalization of abortion, the liberalization of divorce, greater equality between the sexes, women's massive entry into the workforce, and more tolerance of homosexuality. But as Pascal Bruckner, one of France's leading writers, argues in this lively and provocative reflection on the contradictions of modern love, our new freedoms have also brought new burdens and rules—without, however, wiping out the old rules, emotions, desires, and arrangements: the couple, marriage, jealousy, the demand for fidelity, the war between constancy and inconstancy. It is no wonder that love, sex, and relationships today are so confusing, so difficult, and so paradoxical. Drawing on history, politics, psychology, literature, pop culture, and current events, this book—a best seller in France—exposes and dissects these paradoxes. With his customary brilliance and wit, Bruckner traces the roots of sexual liberation back to the Enlightenment in order to explain love's supreme paradox, epitomized by the 1960s oxymoron of "free love": the tension between freedom, which separates, and love, which attaches. Ashamed that our sex lives fail to live up to such liberated ideals, we have traded neuroses of repression for neuroses of inadequacy, and we overcompensate: "Our parents lied about their morality," Bruckner writes, but "we lie about our immorality."]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/06/this-week%e2%80%99s-book-giveaway-20/ In Memoriam: Wisława Szymborska, 1923-2012 Wisława Szymborska, the noted poet and essayist, passed away this week at the age of 88. Szymborska published over 400 poems in her lifetime, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. The Nobel committee noted that she had been called ''the Mozart of poetry," remarking that the title was "not without justice in view of her wealth of inspiration and the veritable ease with which her words seem to fall into place.'' In 1981, PUP published Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems by Wislawa Szymborska with translators Magnus Krynski and Robert Maguire. Of her poetry, Krynski and Maguire said:

"Her verse is marked by high seriousness, delightful inventiveness, a prodigal imagination, and enormous technical skill. She writes of the diversity, plenitude, and richness of the world, taking delight in observing and naming its phenomena. She looks on with wonder, astonishment, and amusement, but almost never with despair."

Read on for "Memory at Last," a wonderful  Szymborska poem about remembrance and loss.  ]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/03/in-memoriam-wislawa-szymborska-1923-2012/ Q&A with Sönke Johnsen Quinn Fusting, PUP's editorial assistant in the life sciences, has conducted a Q&A with Sönke Johnsen, the author of The Optics of Life: A Biologist's Guide to Light in Nature. Q: When, how, and why did you become interested in light?
A: I grew up in a house where we made just about everything, including science toys. My dad was a physicist, and we would spend weekends building pinhole shoebox cameras, arc lamps from dismantled batteries, and once even a solar hot dog cooker made out of a sledding saucer covered in aluminum foil. He would also bring home surplus items from his lab, like head-sized Fresnel lenses and chunks of sapphire lasers. He also set up a black-and-white darkroom in the attic where I spent much of my childhood and adolescence. My mother was creative as well and introduced me to painting, drawing, tie-dying and such. There were no computers yet, and our TV only got two channels (three if my little brother stood in just the right spot), so I had plenty of time to fiddle around. As for why…well, light is beautiful. What’s more wonderful than the light filtered through new leaves on a windy, Spring day? Or the green bioluminescence trailing your limbs as you swim on a moonless night?  The stars alone are worth having eyes for. I can’t imagine not studying light.
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]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/03/qa-with-sonke-johnsen/ BOOK FACT FRIDAY FACT: “In 1975, the National Society for Autistic Children (NSAC, later the Autism Society of America,) lobbied to include autism as one of the developmental disabilities covered under the Education for All Handicapped Act. They succeeded. The bill, later revised and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, entitled children with autism and other developmental disabilities to a 'free, appropriate, public education.' The NSAC also demanded autism’s inclusion in the Developmental Disabilities Act, a bill authorizing services and support. . . .” Understanding Autism: Parents, Doctors, and the History of a Disorder by Chloe Silverman Autism has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, thanks to dramatically increasing rates of diagnosis, extensive organizational mobilization, journalistic coverage, biomedical research, and clinical innovation. Understanding Autism, a social history of the expanding diagnostic category of this contested illness, takes a close look at the role of emotion—specifically, of parental love—in the intense and passionate work of biomedical communities investigating autism.]]> http://press.princeton.edu/blog/2012/02/03/book-fact-friday-66/