April 16, 2007 - Columbia News - Columbia University

TheRecord APRIL 16, 2007 5NEW ON THE SHELVESCompiled by Dan RiveroTen Booksto Add toYourLibraryColumbia faculty write everything from New York Times best-sellers to collegetextbooks. In between classes, research and leisure, professors from everydepartment at the University somehow find the time to write novels, politicalprofiles, and scientific anthologies. Take, for example, PonisserilSomasundaran of the engineering school. Within the last year, this professor of earthand environmental science wrote or edited four books, from a handbook on cleaningand decontamination of surfaces to an encyclopedia on physical chemistry.While not everybody can claim that impressive total, the rest of the faculty is prolificin its own right, recently publishing a range of prose that is consistently diverse andscholarly. On March 30, law professor Robert Ferguson published The Trial in AmericanLife, inspired by his seminar of the same name. Jean Howard, Vice Provost for DiversityInitiatives and the William B. Ransford Professor of English, published Theater of a City:The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642 in December. These two are just a sample ofbooks new on the shelves. Here, The Record highlights 10 of the most recent works fromprofessors in fields ranging from international relations to the arts and sciences.Self-Knowledge andResentmentBY AKEEL BILGRAMI(HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS)Through four questions, philosophyprofessor Akeel Bilgrami argues thatself-knowledge of our intentionalstates is special among all theknowledge we have because it is notan epistemological notion in thestandard sense of that term, butinstead is a fallout of the radicallynormative nature of thought andagency.Conversations with GayatriChakravorty SpivakBY GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK(SEAGULL BOOKS)Newly appointed University ProfessorGayatri Chakravorty Spivak is immortalizedthrough a collection of interviewsthat capture her playful,provocative and intellectual thoughtson feminism, Marxism and post-colonialismin more intimate ways thanher theoretical essays.Iran: A People InterruptedBY HAMID DABASHI (NEW PRESS)In this lucid historical narrative,Iranian studies professor HamidDabashi fills a crucial gap in ourunderstanding of the nation that hasemerged as the United States’ primeantagonist. Reflecting on the last200 years of history, Dabashi discusses,among many events, theIslamic revolution in 1979, The Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, The SalmanRushdie Affair of 1989, the electionof Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asPresident and the current showdownwith the United States and Europe.A History of ModernLebanonBY FAWWAZ TRABOULSI(UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS)Starting with the formation ofOttoman Lebanon in the 16th century,visiting professor FawwazTraboulsi covers the growth of Beirutas a capital for trade and culturethrough the 19th century. The mainpart of the book concentrates onLebanon’s development in the 20thcentury and the conflicts that led upto the major wars in the 1970s and1980s.Democracy and LegalChangeBY MELISSA SCHWARTZBERG(CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS)Associate Professor of political scienceMelissa Schwartzberg arguesthat modifying law is a fundamentaland attractive democratic activity.Against those who would defend theuse of “entrenchment clauses” to protectkey constitutional provisions fromrevision, Schwartzberg seeks todemonstrate historically the strategicand even unjust purposes unamendablelaws have typically served, and tohighlight the regrettable consequencesthat entrenchment may havefor democracies today.Theater of a City: ThePlaces of London Comedy,1598-1642BY JEAN E. HOWARD(UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS)Jean Howard, Shakespearean scholarand vice provost for diversity initiatives,draws from a wide range offamiliar and little-studied plays fromfour decades of a defining era oftheater history to show how thestage imaginatively shaped andresponded to the changing face ofearly modern London.Conversations on Russia:Reform from Yeltsin toPutinBY PADMA DESAI(OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS)In conversations with important figureslike Boris Yeltsin, George Soros,Anatoly Chubais, and Yegor Gaidar,economics professor Padma Desaiconsiders questions such as why theSoviet Union fell apart underGorbachev, what went wrong witheconomic reforms after Gorbachev,whether the privatization of Russianassets could have been manageddifferently, and what the prospectsare for the Russian economy in thenear future.The Good Life in theScientific Revolution:Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz,and the Cultivation ofVirtueBY MATTHEW JONES(UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS)Amid the unrest, dislocation, anduncertainty of seventeenth-centuryEurope, readers seeking consolationand assurance turned to philosophicaland scientific books that offeredways of conquering fears and trainingthe mind. Here, history professorMatthew Jones presents a triptychshowing how three key early modernscientists envisioned their new workas useful for cultivating virtue andfor pursuing a good life.American Vistas: Volume 2:1877 to the PresentEDITED BY LEONARD DINNERSTEINAND KENNETH JACKSON(OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS)Offering up-to-date coverage ofAmerica’s social, political and diplomaticpast, this anthology of articlesby nationally renowned scholarsintroduces students to the excitementof American history. Withseven new selections, the secondvolume is co-edited by history professorKenneth Jackson and hasbeen substantially revised to examinesuch topics as law and order inthe American West, the role ofwomen in the armed forces,American anti-Semitism, and therise of suburban culture centeredaround the mall.The Trial in American LifeBY ROBERT FERGUSON(UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS)In a bravura performance thatranges from Aaron Burr to O.J.Simpson, law professor RobertFerguson traces both the legal implicationsand the cultural ripples ofprominent American legal battles.He brings together courtroom transcripts,newspaper accounts, andthe work of such writers as Emerson,Thoreau, William Dean Howells, andE. L. Doctorow to show what happenswhen courtrooms are forced tocope with unresolved communalanxieties and make legal decisionsthat change how America thinksabout itself.