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The Story of America is selected in Publishers Weekly list of ‘Best New Books for the week’

October 9, 2012 by

Jill Lepore’s The Story of America has caught the attention of Publishers Weekly’s Gabe Habash in his article (posted in the PW Tip Sheet):

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/54241-pw-picks-the-best-new-books-for-the-week-of-october-8-2012.html

“The Story of America: Essays on Origins by Jill Lepore (Princeton University Press) – “I wanted to try to explain how history works, and how it’s different from politics,” states Harvard history professor Lepore (The Mansion of Happiness), introducing her collection of essays, almost all previously published in the New Yorker. History involves making an argument by telling a story “accountable to evidence,” which she marshals ably in discussing personalities real and fictional, from Benjamin Franklin to Charlie Chan. Her argument that Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” was an abolitionist “call to arms,” subsequently “juvenilized” for schoolrooms, is as pointed as a legal brief. Varying her tone—brisk when detailing changes in how Americans cast their votes, poignant when recounting Edgar Allan Poe’s career—Lepore also provides drollery. Nixon’s attempt to give a concise and, he hoped, memorable inaugural address “led him to say things briefly but didn’t save him from saying them badly.” Even the footnotes contain buried treasures; history buffs and general readers alike will savor this collection.”

 

Lepore has also received high praises elsewhere for her American History novel:

“Jill Lepore is one of America’s most interesting scholars–a distinguished historian and a brilliant essayist. This prolific collection of articles and essays is a remarkable body of work that moves from early America to our present, contentious age.”–Alan Brinkley, author of The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century

“Jill Lepore is one of our finest historians of the battle over the story called ‘America,’ which, as she says, is constantly being fought over and over. In this stunning collection of essays, Lepore makes the case that the rise of democracy is bound up with the history of its reading and writing. That history is conflicted, ragged, and contradictory but, in Lepore’s capable hands, as gripping and compelling as a novel.”–Cathy N. Davidson, Duke University

“Tackling a wide variety of subjects–e.g., the Founding Fathers, Charles Dickens, Clarence Darrow, Charlie Chan, voting regulations, the decline of inaugural speeches–the author proves to be a funny, slightly punky literary critic, reading between the lines of American history. . . . As smart, lively, and assured as modern debunker gets.”–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

 

Read more about Lepore’s book at the Princeton University Press website:

The Story of America:
Essays on Origins
Jill Lepore

 

 

Filed Under: American History, Awards, International Relations, International Studies, Political Science

Richard Crossley receives the 2012 ABA Robert Ridgway Award for Publications in Field Ornithology from the American Birding Association

October 4, 2012 by


(from l. to r.): Jeffrey Gordon, Michael Bowen, Richard Crossley, Lou Morrell. Photo credit: Jim White

This is not a book award, but more of a body-of-work award, although, according to Jeffrey Gordon, President of the ABA, The Crossley ID Guide was “an important reason [Richard] received [the award].”

Here is a description of the award from the ABA website: “Given for excellence in publications pertaining to field ornithology. The award is given specifically for publications on the subjects of field identification and bird distribution in North America. It is given to either authors or artists. This award recognizes professional achievements in field ornithology literature.”

The attached photo of Richard receiving his plaque was taken at the awards ceremony.

Filed Under: Awards, Birds and Natural History, The Crossley ID Guide, Twitter

AIDP Book of the Year Award to Professor David Scheffer

September 14, 2012 by

On September 7th in Cleveland, Professor David Scheffer received the 2012 Book of the Year Award from the American National Section of L’Association Internationale de Droit Penal (AIDP) for his recent book, All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton University Press, 2012).    Scheffer, who was U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues during the Clinton Administration, recounts his eight-year mission to confront the atrocities of the 1990s and build five war crimes tribunals to render justice.  The legal and diplomatic challenges he undertook at home and abroad frame this personal story of law, politics, and morality.

 

Professor Jens Meierhenrich of the London School of Economics and Political Science wrote of Scheffer’s book: “All the Missing Souls is a masterful, well-paced read that fills a glaring gap in the literature on international justice.  I have no doubt that All the Missing Souls will come to rank alongside Telford Taylor’s The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trails.  Scheffer is the Taylor of our times.”

 

Print and e-book versions of All the Missing Souls are available from Princeton University Press. The audio book will be available from Audible.com in late September.

Filed Under: Awards, International Relations, Twitter

Eco-Republic – Honor Book, 2012 NJCH Book Award

July 6, 2012 by

http://press.princeton.edu/images/k9426.gifCongratulations to Melissa Lane, author of Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living, for winning Honor Book for the 2012 NJCH Book Award, offered by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

According to the NJCH website: “Each year NJCH recognizes individuals whose exemplary work in the public humanities has made a significant and lasting difference in the lives of New Jerseyans. The Council recognizes and lauds their signal contributions.”

Eco-Republic reveals why we must rethink our political imagination if we are to meet the challenges of climate change and other urgent environmental concerns. The book goes beyond standard approaches to virtue ethics in philosophy and current debates about happiness in economics and psychology. Eco-Republic explains why health is a better standard than happiness for capturing the important links between individual action and social good, and diagnoses the reasons why the ancient concept of virtue has been sorely neglected yet is more relevant today than ever. Melissa Lane is professor of politics at Princeton University. She is the author of Method and Politics in Plato’s “Statesman” and Plato’s Progeny: How Plato and Socrates Still Captivate the Modern Mind.

Check out Chapter 1 of Eco-Republic here.

Filed Under: Awards, Princeton University Press, Twitter

‘Latino Catholicism’ by Timothy Matovina wins College Theology Society Best Book Award

June 11, 2012 by

The Princeton University Press would like to congratulate Timothy Matovina on winning the College Theology Society 2012 Best Book Award for Latino Catholicism:
Transformation in America’s Largest Church.

You can read the first chapter of Matovina’s now award-winning book here. Congratulations again, Timothy!

Filed Under: American History, Awards, Latin American Studies, Princeton University Press, Religion, Twitter

Three Prizes for “No Man’s Land” by Cindy Hahamovitch

April 26, 2012 by

Congratulations to PUP author Cindy Hahamovitch, author of No Man’s Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor.

This past weekend, Hahamovitch collected three rewards for No Man’s Land: the Philip Taft Labor History Book Award, the Organization of American Historians‘ Merle Curti Award (for the year’s best book in American social and/or American intellectual history), and the  Organization of American Historians’ James A. Rawley Prize in American History (for the year’s best book addressing the history of race relations in the United States).

According to the Curti Award Committee:

While we have considerable scholarship about migrant farmworkers in the U.S. West, Hahamovitch is the first to study those in the eastern states. No Man’s Land addresses the history of a massive global phenomenon — corporate employers relying on guestworkers who, because they are not citizens, are unable to defend themselves against exploitation and abuse of their rights as workers. No Man’s Land is a deeply comparative study, resting on extensive knowledge of and research in Jamaica and on more than 25 interviews with former guestworkers. It analyzes agents in the system—notably federal and state governments, in both their actions and their inaction, and also the growers, the Jamaican government, and the workers themselves, not only farmworkers but also the female maids and waitresses brought in after 1986.

Read more here!

Filed Under: American History, Awards, History, Prizes, Twitter

Congratulations to the 2012 Guggenheim Fellows

April 24, 2012 by

The Guggenheim Fellowships have recently been announced. Often characterized as “midcareer” awards, Guggenheim Fellowships are intended for men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. (text from John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation web site).

Apparently, they also have exceptional taste in publishers as the list reads like a who’s who of academic book publishing (see the University of Chicago Press’s congratulatory note here). We are delighted to find among their ranks several of our recently published or forthcoming authors.

 

Creative Arts – Poetry

Kathleen Graber

Kathleen Graber is an Assistant Professor of English in The Creative Writing Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the author of The Eternal City which was a finalist for The National Book Award, The National Book Critics Circle Award, and the winner of The Library of Virginia Literary Award for Poetry.


Humanities – Classics

Melissa Lane

Melissa Lane is professor of politics at Princeton University and author of Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living.


Humanities – English Literature

Jonathan Lamb

Jonathan Lamb is the Andrew W. Mellon Chair of the Humanities at Vanderbilt University and author of
The Things Things Say.


Humanities – Intellectual & Cultural History

Dagmar Herzog

Dagmar Herzog is Professor of History and the Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is author of Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany which received an Honorable Mention for the 2005 Bonnie and Vern L. Bullough Award.


Humanities – Music and Dance Research

Carol J. Oja

Carol J. Oja is William Powell Mason Professor of Music at Harvard University and is editor of Aaron Copland and His World (co-edited with Judith Tick).


Humanities – Philosophy

Stephen Yablo

Stephen Yablo is Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and will be the author of a forthcoming book based on the Hempel Lectures he gave at Princeton in the Philosophy Dept..


Natural Sciences – Organismic Biology & Ecology

Laura Landweber

Laura Landweber is a Professor of Biology in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. She is editor of Genetics and the Extinction of Species: DNA and the Conservation of Biodiversity (Co-edited with Andrew P. Dobson).


Natural Sciences – Physics

Robert P. Kirshner

Robert P. Kirshner is Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University and is author of The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos.


Natural Sciences – Science Writing

Janna Levin

Janna Levin is a theoretical physicist and a writer. She is author of How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space.


Social Sciences – Anthropology & Cultural Studies

John R. Bowen

John R. Bowen is the Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. His books include Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space, Can Islam Be French?: Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State, and Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia. .

Kristen R. Ghodsee

Kristen Ghodsee is associate professor of gender and women’s studies at Bowdoin College. She is author of Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria which won the 2011 William A. Douglass Prize in Europeanist Anthropology, Society for the Anthropology of Europe, American Anthropological Association, 2011 Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, the 2011 John D. Bell Memorial Book Prize, Bulgarian Studies Association, and the 2010 Heldt Prize for the best book in Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian women’s studies, Association for Women in Slavic Studies.

Bruce Grant

Bruce Grant is Professor of Anthropology at New York University and author of In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikas.


Social Sciences – Economics

John H. Cochrane

John H. Cochrane is the AQR Capital Management Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and author of
Asset Pricing.


Social Sciences – European and Latin American History

Tonio Andrade

Tonio Andrade is associate professor of history at Emory University and is author of Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West.


Social Sciences – Political Science

John Aldrich

John H. Aldrich is the Pfizer-Pratt University Professor of Political Science at Duke University and co-editor with Kathleen M. McGraw of Improving Public Opinion Surveys: Interdisciplinary Innovation and the American National Election Studies.


ps — I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible, but if I have missed one of our authors, please let me know (jessica_pellien@press.princeton.edu).

Filed Under: Awards, Princeton University Press, Publishing, Twitter

Two PUP Authors on the Time 100 Most Influential People list

April 23, 2012 by

So, the annual issue of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World is out and who appears alongside sports stars like Jeremy Lin and Tim Tebow, politicians like President Barack Obama, and singer Rihanna? Well, none other than PUP authors Elinor Ostrom and Andrew Lo.

In the write up for Elinor Ostrom, Robert Johnson notes, “Virtually all the world’s most urgent problems require collective action. Be it environmental protection, the international financial system or the dimensions of inequality, Ostrom’s work sheds light on the direction society must follow to avoid misuse of shared resources, ‘the tragedy of the commons.’”

Coincidentally, Elinor’s most recent PUP Book Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice (co-authored with Amy R. Poteete and Marco A. Janssen) looks at how collective action works in research. In the book they actually write a revised theory of collective action that includes three elements: individual decision making, microsituational conditions, and features of the broader social-ecological context. We have made a free sample available here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9209.pdf

Rana Foroohar writes in her acknowledgment, “If Adam Smith had a mind meld with Charles Darwin, Andrew Lo might result. A professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Lo is known for his multidisciplinary approach to finance, using everything from statistical analysis to neuroscience to better understand the markets. One of his most important ideas involves the ‘adaptive markets’ theory.”

In Hedge Funds: An Analytic Perspective, Lo turns his complete repertoire to examining and understanding how hedge funds work. The Economist praised the book saying “Anyone who is considering investing in hedge funds, or is involved in regulating the financial-services industry, should give it a go.” We agree and hope you’ll sample this free chapter.

Congratulations to our Time Top 100 authors!

 

For a fun take on the Top 100 of ALL Time, read Joel Stein: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2112269,00.html

Filed Under: Awards, Princeton University Press, Publishing, Twitter

“On Compromise and Rotten Compromises” wins the Hannover Institute’s 2012 Philosophical Book Award

March 26, 2012 by

Avishai Margalit’s book On Compromise and Rotten Compromises has been awarded the 2012 Philosophical Book Award  from the Hannover Institute of Philosophical Research. This prize is awarded for “the best new book of the last three years referring to a controversial problem in practical philosophy.  The Philosophical Book Award is designed to shed some light on urgent philosophical questions and to improve efforts to answer them.”

On Compromise and Rotten Compromises deals with the topic of political compromise, in particular “rotten compromises” made in the name of peace. A great read in the run-up to election season!

Filed Under: Awards, Books To Add To Your Reading List, Philosophy, Political Science, Prizes, Twitter

Q&A with Maria Lindenfeldar, designer of the award-winning cover for “The First Pop Age”

March 8, 2012 by

This year, Princeton University Press won two awards in the AAUP Book, Jacket and Journal Show. One of the award-winning covers belonged to The First Pop Age: Painting and Subjectivity in the Art of Hamilton, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Richter, and Ruscha by Hal Foster. Maria Lindenfeldar, an Art Director here at the press and designer of the cover, answered some questions about the design process.

Maria learned book design “on the job” — she majored in Government and has a graduate degree in Architectural History. Her only formal graphic design training was one semester in the post-baccalaureate program at Moore College of Art and Design. Her experiences have taught her that you can turn a hobby into a career if you work hard enough and find someone willing to take a chance on you.

Stay tuned for another Q&A post with Jason Alejandro, the designer of the second winning cover: Whatever Gets You Through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments by Andrei Codrescu.

Q: What is the most important thing that you personally keep in mind when coming up with a cover?

A: I love this question and really appreciate your asking it.

When coming up with a cover, I always try to have the image and/or type make sense. On a very basic level, this can mean choosing a typeface for a history book from the period discussed in its pages. Stepping back a bit further, a collection of Victorian letters can be enhanced by decorative ornaments that suggest their author’s milieu. On an even more conceptual level, “making sense” can involve searching for a symbolic or metaphorical image: intertwined green and red/white/blue rings for a book about the United States diplomacy in the Muslim world; a forest of frozen trees for an account of people deserted in Siberia; a child’s outstretched hand for a book about Europe’s rise from poverty. There is a 19th-century concept of “propriety” (often invoked by architects from that era) that I always keep in mind when designing. It makes me feel very connected to the Press’s history. Very nerdy, I know, but something that is constantly with me. When I think about the Press’s building, modeled after a printing museum in Belgium, I know that the same spirit was at work.

After meeting that most fundamental criterion, I turn to style. I try to make each jacket look current as well as timeless. This is harder than it seems—I want the jacket to reflect my own taste, what is fashionable, and what is appropriate for the material. My own preferences toggle between the decorative and the minimal (and sometimes combine the two), and I prefer a constrained dignity to a “push the limits” aesthetic. Having said that, I admire (and sometimes attempt) more aggressive design, particularly if it suits the project.

Finally, I work with the details until the whole design clicks into place, and I know it is finished. It’s the most magical moment, something that any creative person experiences and that keeps him/her coming back for more.

Q: How much input do authors have into the process?

A: This varies from author to author. In the case of The First Pop Age, Hal Foster had the idea of using Richard Hamilton’s image of Mick Jagger and Hamilton’s art dealer, Robert Fraser. We had some lengthy discussions with marketing and the art editor about this. The audience for books about Pop Art might have expected a Lichtenstein or a Warhol on the cover, and we didn’t want to miss appealing to them. In the end, we did several jackets, most more predictable than this one. Fortunately, the author’s convictions helped us to be a bit risky, and we went forward with this jacket. It meets all of the criteria outlined above, and I am very happy with the results. We even got a compliment from Hamilton himself. He said, “there is a real sparkle in the embossed silver handcuffs. it’s wonderful what they can do with covers these days. it reminds me of the cover for the 1960 green box book your cover should make a good impression on the shelves and that’s where books sell. people might think they are buying a lost raymond chandler. it’s a winner, go for it man.” In this case, I had the amazing opportunity to work with a top-rate art historian and a world-class artist. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Q: What do you like the best about the two prizewinning covers?

A: I like how I integrated a clunky sans-serif typeface filled with rainbows and an iconic 1960s image for the cover of The First Pop Age. It felt vaguely irreverent and maybe a bit too “Mork ad Mindy,” but it worked. Also, I like how the back board and flaps are glossy while the image itself it matte. It’s subtle, but it makes the book feel good when it is held. The unusual trim size (a squat rectangle) and thick spine add to that positive experience.

Q: How do you integrate the cover design with the interior? What details in these particular projects achieve the goal of designing a total package?

A: I usually integrate interior and jacket by employing a repeating motif. In this case, the idea of filling bold type with pattern/color became the unifying device. I repeated the rainbow theme used for the title in the interior ornamented space break—several bullets moved from red through violet. Also, I used very large chapter numbers filled with recognizable textures for each artist discussed in the book. Similar textures were used in the numbers in the table of contents. The same typeface was used for display throughout, and the extra wide jacket flaps featured a rainbow band. I think of it as variations on a theme.

Materials can help with this as well. Rather than choose a safe endsheet color, I picked a sort of odd turquoise that could have been a blend of Jagger’s suit and tie. Headbands and cloth create the same uneasy tension. I wanted the reader to think: Is this attractive or not? Successful or not? I was trying to make it feel familiar but a bit off—something that the Pop artists seemed to be after as well.

Filed Under: Awards, Princeton University Press, Twitter

PUP books take home 14 prizes from the 2011 PROSE Awards!

February 13, 2012 by

Princeton University Press rocked the house at the 2011 PROSE Awards in Washington D.C., taking home a staggering 14 prizes!

“The PROSE Awards annually recognize the very best in professional and scholarly publishing by bringing attention to distinguished books, journals, and electronic content in over 40 categories. Judged by peer publishers, librarians, and medical professionals since 1976, the PROSE Awards are extraordinary for their breadth and depth.”

The press took home two Awards of Excellence, five Category Award Winners, and seven Honorable Mentions! Congratulations to our fantastic authors. A full list of who won what is available after the jump!


 

Awards of Excellence:
Patricia S. Churchland, Braintrust: what Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality
Winner of the 2011 PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological & Life Sciences

Richard Crossley, The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
Winner of the 2011 PROSE Award for Excellence in Reference Works

 

Category Award Winners
Patricia S. Churchland, Braintrust: what Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality
Winner of the 2011 PROSE Award, Biomedicine & Neuroscience

Lawrence P. Jackson, The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960
Winner of the 2011 PROSE Award, Literature

Peter Goodfellow, Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build
Winner of the 2011 PROSE Award, Popular Science & Popular Mathematics

Richard Crossley, The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
Winner of the 2011 PROSE Award, Single Volume Reference/Science

Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron & Meera Balarajan, Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future
Winner of the 2011 PROSE Award, Sociology & Social Work

 

Honorable Mention Winners
David A. Weintraub, How Old Is the Universe?
2011 PROSE Award, Honorable Mention, Cosmology & Astronomy

Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters
2011 PROSE Award, Honorable Mention, Economics

Robert H. Frank, The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good
2011 PROSE Award, Honorable Mention, Economics

Daniel W. Drezner, Theories of International Politics and Zombies
2011 PROSE Award, Honorable Mention, Government & Politics

Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age
2011 PROSE Award, Honorable Mention, Philosophy

Robert Wuthnow, Remaking the Heartland: Middle America since the 1950s
2011 PROSE Award, Honorable Mention, Sociology & Social Work

Leora Batnitzky, How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought
2011 PROSE Award, Honorable Mention, Theology & Religious Studies

Filed Under: Awards, Princeton University Press, Twitter

Three PUP authors to receive National Humanities Medal today

February 13, 2012 by

Princeton University Press is pleased to congratulate Kwame Anthony Appiah (The Ethics of Identity), Andrew Delbanco (College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be), and Teofilo Ruiz (The Terror of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization), all of whom will receive a National Humanities Medal today.  A total of eight writers will be honored, including poet John Ashbery, historian Robert Darnton, musical scholar Charles Rosen, literary scholar Ramón Saldívar, and Amartya Sen,  Nobel laureate in economics.

From the White House press release:

Kwame Anthony Appiah for seeking eternal truths in the contemporary world. His books and essays within and beyond his academic discipline have shed moral and intellectual light on the individual in an era of globalization and evolving group identities.

Andrew Delbanco for his insight into the American character, past and present. He has been called “America’s best social critic” for his essays on current issues and higher education. As a professor in American studies, he reveals how classics by Melville and Emerson have shaped our history and contemporary life.

Teofilo Ruiz, medieval historian, for his inspired teaching and writing. His erudite studies have deepened our understanding of medieval Spain and Europe, while his late examination of how society has coped with terror has taught important lessons about the dark side of western progress.

The ceremony will begin streaming live at 1:45 PM Eastern time and you can watch it here.

 

 

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