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This Week’s Book Giveaway

June 25, 2012 by

Are you following PUP on Google+ yet? If not, today’s the day to add us to your circle—we’re hosting another giveaway this week! Follow us by Friday to win!

Alan Turing: The Enigma
The Centenary Edition
by Andrew Hodges
With a foreword by Douglas Hofstadter
and a new preface by the author

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) saved the Allies from the Nazis, invented the computer and artificial intelligence, and anticipated gay liberation by decades—all before his suicide at age forty-one. This classic biography of the founder of computer science, reissued on the centenary of his birth with a substantial new preface by the author, is the definitive account of an extraordinary mind and life. A gripping story of mathematics, computers, cryptography, and homosexual persecution, Andrew Hodges’s acclaimed book captures both the inner and outer drama of Turing’s life.

Hodges tells how Turing’s revolutionary idea of 1936—the concept of a universal machine—laid the foundation for the modern computer and how Turing brought the idea to practical realization in 1945 with his electronic design. The book also tells how this work was directly related to Turing’s leading role in breaking the German Enigma ciphers during World War II, a scientific triumph that was critical to Allied victory in the Atlantic. At the same time, this is the tragic story of a man who, despite his wartime service, was eventually arrested, stripped of his security clearance, and forced to undergo a humiliating treatment program—all for trying to live honestly in a society that defined homosexuality as a crime.

“One of the finest scientific biographies ever written.”—Jim Holt, New Yorker

“A first-class contribution to history and an exemplary work of biography.”—I. J. Good, Nature

The random draw for this book with be Friday 6/29 at 11 am EST. Be sure to check out our Google+ page and add us to your circle to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Book Giveaway, history of science, Mathematics, Philosophy of Science, Popular Science

Another Google+ Giveaway!

June 18, 2012 by

Are you following PUP on Google+ yet? If not, today’s the day to add us to your circle—we’re hosting another giveaway this week! Follow us by Friday to win!

Finance and the Good Society
by Robert J. Shiller

The reputation of the financial industry could hardly be worse than it is today in the painful aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. New York Times best-selling economist Robert Shiller is no apologist for the sins of finance—he is probably the only person to have predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000 and the real estate bubble that led up to the subprime mortgage meltdown. But in this important and timely book, Shiller argues that, rather than condemning finance, we need to reclaim it for the common good. He makes a powerful case for recognizing that finance, far from being a parasite on society, is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving our common problems and increasing the general well-being. We need more financial innovation—not less—and finance should play a larger role in helping society achieve its goals.

Challenging the public and its leaders to rethink finance and its role in society, Shiller argues that finance should be defined not merely as the manipulation of money or the management of risk but as the stewardship of society’s assets. He explains how people in financial careers—from CEO, investment manager, and banker to insurer, lawyer, and regulator—can and do manage, protect, and increase these assets. He describes how finance has historically contributed to the good of society through inventions such as insurance, mortgages, savings accounts, and pensions, and argues that we need to envision new ways to rechannel financial creativity to benefit society as a whole.

Ultimately, Shiller shows how society can once again harness the power of finance for the greater good.

“Finance is in need of a little redemption. In his priestly new book, Finance and the Good Society, Mr. Shiller . . . sets out to provide it. He argues convincingly that finance can, should and usually does make the world a better place. . . . As an advocate for the financial system . . . he is wonderfully persuasive because he never plays down the problems. . . . Mr. Shiller reminds us of the profound importance of finance to making our society work.”—Robin Harding, Financial Times

We invite you to read the Introduction here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9652.pdf

The random draw for this book with be Friday 6/22 at 11 am EST. Be sure to check out our Google+ page and add us to your circle to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Book Giveaway, Economics, Finance, International Relations, Political Science, Sociology

Another Google+ Giveaway!

June 11, 2012 by

Are you following PUP on Google+ yet? If not, today’s the day to add us to your circle—we’re hosting another giveaway this week! Follow us by Friday to win.

The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
by Richard Crossley

This stunningly illustrated book from acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley revolutionizes field guide design by providing the first real-life approach to identification. Whether you are a beginner, expert, or anywhere in between, The Crossley ID Guide will vastly improve your ability to identify birds.

Unlike other guides, which provide isolated individual photographs or illustrations, this is the first book to feature large, lifelike scenes for each species. These scenes—640 in all—are composed from more than 10,000 of the author’s images showing birds in a wide range of views—near and far, from different angles, in various plumages and behaviors, including flight, and in the habitat in which they live. These beautiful compositions show how a bird’s appearance changes with distance, and give equal emphasis to characteristics experts use to identify birds: size, structure and shape, behavior, probability, and color. This is the first book to convey all of these features visually—in a single image—and to reinforce them with accurate, concise text. Each scene provides a wealth of detailed visual information that invites and rewards careful study, but the most important identification features can be grasped instantly by anyone.

By making identification easier, more accurate, and more fun than ever before, The Crossley ID Guide will completely redefine how its users look at birds. Essential for all birders, it also promises to make new birders of many people who have despaired of using traditional guides.

  • Revolutionary. This book changes field guide design to make you a better birder
  • A picture says a thousand words. The most comprehensive guide: 640 stunning scenes created from 10,000 of the author’s photographs
  • Reality birding. Lifelike in-focus scenes show birds in their habitats, from near and far, and in all plumages and behaviors
  • Teaching and reference. The first book to accurately portray all the key identification characteristics: size, shape, behavior, probability, and color
  • Practice makes perfect. An interactive learning experience to sharpen and test field identification skills
  • Bird like the experts. The first book to simplify birding and help you understand how to bird like the best
  • An interactive website—www.crossleybirds.com—includes expanded captions for the plates and species updates

 

We invite you to read the Introduction here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9384.pdf

The random draw for this book with be Friday 6/15 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to check out our Google+ page and add us to your circle to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Biological Sciences, Birds and Natural History, Book Giveaway, The Crossley ID Guide

This Week’s Book Giveaway (on Google+!)

June 4, 2012 by

Are you following PUP on Google+ yet? If not, today’s the day to add us to your circle—we’re giving away a copy of The Founder’s Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman. Follow us by Friday to win!

The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup
by Noam Wasserman

Often downplayed in the excitement of starting up a new business venture is one of the most important decisions entrepreneurs will face: should they go it alone, or bring in cofounders, hires, and investors to help build the business? More than just financial rewards are at stake. Friendships and relationships can suffer. Bad decisions at the inception of a promising venture lay the foundations for its eventual ruin. The Founder’s Dilemmas is the first book to examine the early decisions by entrepreneurs that can make or break a startup and its team.

Drawing on a decade of research, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them. He looks at whether it is a good idea to cofound with friends or relatives, how and when to split the equity within the founding team, and how to recognize when a successful founder-CEO should exit or be fired. Wasserman explains how to anticipate, avoid, or recover from disastrous mistakes that can splinter a founding team, strip founders of control, and leave founders without a financial payoff for their hard work and innovative ideas. He highlights the need at each step to strike a careful balance between controlling the startup and attracting the best resources to grow it, and demonstrates why the easy short-term choice is often the most perilous in the long term.

The Founder’s Dilemmas draws on the inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, while mining quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders.

People problems are the leading cause of failure in startups. This book offers solutions.

“Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman is one of the writers and teachers who best captures the high stakes decisions that entrepreneurs face every day.”—Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe

“[T]he definitive book on the topic. . . . If you are a founder or thinking about becoming one, you should read this book.”—Dharmesh Shah, OnStartups.com

We invite you to read Chapter 1 here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9687.pdf

The random draw for this book with be Friday 6/8 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to check out our Google+ page and add us to your circle to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Book Giveaway, Finance

This Week’s Book Giveaway

May 21, 2012 by

The War of the Sexes: How Conflict and Cooperation Have Shaped Men and Women from Prehistory to the Present
by Paul Seabright

As countless love songs, movies, and self-help books attest, men and women have long sought different things. The result? Seemingly inevitable conflict. Yet we belong to the most cooperative species on the planet. Isn’t there a way we can use this capacity to achieve greater harmony and equality between the sexes? In The War of the Sexes, Paul Seabright argues that there is—but first we must understand how the tension between conflict and cooperation developed in our remote evolutionary past, how it shaped the modern world, and how it still holds us back, both at home and at work.

Drawing on biology, sociology, anthropology, and economics, Seabright shows that conflict between the sexes is, paradoxically, the product of cooperation. The evolutionary niche—the long dependent childhood—carved out by our ancestors requires the highest level of cooperative talent. But it also gives couples more to fight about. Men and women became experts at influencing one another to achieve their cooperative ends, but also became trapped in strategies of manipulation and deception in pursuit of sex and partnership. In early societies, economic conditions moved the balance of power in favor of men, as they cornered scarce resources for use in the sexual bargain. Today, conditions have changed beyond recognition, yet inequalities between men and women persist, as the brains, talents, and preferences we inherited from our ancestors struggle to deal with the unpredictable forces unleashed by the modern information economy.

Men and women today have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve equal power and respect. But we need to understand the mixed inheritance of conflict and cooperation left to us by our primate ancestors if we are finally to escape their legacy.

We invite you to read Chapter 1 here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9654.pdf

The random draw for this book with be Thursday 5/17 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to like us on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Biological Sciences, Book Giveaway, Economics, Sociology

This Week’s Book Giveaway

May 14, 2012 by

Alan Turing’s Systems of Logic: The Princeton Thesis
Edited and introduced by Andrew W. Appel

Between inventing the concept of a universal computer in 1936 and breaking the German Enigma code during World War II, Alan Turing (1912-1954), the British founder of computer science and artificial intelligence, came to Princeton University to study mathematical logic. Some of the greatest logicians in the world—including Alonzo Church, Kurt Gödel, John von Neumann, and Stephen Kleene—were at Princeton in the 1930s, and they were working on ideas that would lay the groundwork for what would become known as computer science. Though less well known than his other work, Turing’s 1938 Princeton PhD thesis, “Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals,” which includes his notion of an oracle machine, has had a lasting influence on computer science and mathematics. This book presents a facsimile of the original typescript of the thesis along with essays by Andrew Appel and Solomon Feferman that explain its still-unfolding significance.

A work of philosophy as well as mathematics, Turing’s thesis envisions a practical goal—a logical system to formalize mathematical proofs so they can be checked mechanically. If every step of a theorem could be verified mechanically, the burden on intuition would be limited to the axioms. Turing’s point, as Appel writes, is that “mathematical reasoning can be done, and should be done, in mechanizable formal logic.” Turing’s vision of “constructive systems of logic for practical use” has become reality: in the twenty-first century, automated “formal methods” are now routine.

Presented here in its original form, this fascinating thesis is one of the key documents in the history of mathematics and computer science.

A slight change this week—the random draw for this book with be Thursday 5/17 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to like us on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Book Giveaway, Cognitive Science, history of science, Mathematics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

This Week’s Book Giveaway

May 7, 2012 by

Did you know that May is Zombie Awareness Month? We’re celebrating by offering one lucky winner a copy of Zombie Economics! In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land. . .

Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us
by John Quiggin
With a new chapter by the author

The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism—the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many—members of the public, commentators, politicians, economists, and even those charged with cleaning up the mess. In Zombie Economics, John Quiggin explains how these dead ideas still walk among us—and why we must find a way to kill them once and for all if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crisis in the future.

Zombie Economics takes the reader through the origins, consequences, and implosion of a system of ideas whose time has come and gone. These beliefs—that deregulation had conquered the financial cycle, that markets were always the best judge of value, that policies designed to benefit the rich made everyone better off—brought us to the brink of disaster once before, and their persistent hold on many threatens to do so again. Because these ideas will never die unless there is an alternative, Zombie Economics also looks ahead at what could replace market liberalism, arguing that a simple return to traditional Keynesian economics and the politics of the welfare state will not be enough—either to kill dead ideas, or prevent future crises.

In a new chapter, Quiggin brings the book up to date with a discussion of the re-emergence of pre-Keynesian ideas about austerity and balanced budgets as a response to recession.

“Entertaining and thought-provoking.”—Philip Coggan, Economist

“Lucid, lively and loaded with hard data, passionate, provocative and . . . persuasive. . . . (Zombie Economics) should be required reading, even for those who aren’t Keynesians or Krugmaniacs.”—Glenn C. Altschuler, Barron’s

The random draw for this book with be Friday 5/11 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to like us on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Book Giveaway, Economics, Finance, Political Philosophy

This Week’s Book Giveaway

April 30, 2012 by

This week’s book giveaway is for our loyal fans on our Princeton Birds and Natural History Facebook page. One lucky winner will receive a copy of Parrots of the World by Joseph M. Forshaw.

From the macaws of South America to the cockatoos of Australia, parrots are among the most beautiful and exotic birds in the world—and also among the most endangered. This stunningly illustrated, easy-to-use field guide covers all 356 species and well-differentiated subspecies of parrots, and is the only guide organized by geographical distribution—Australasian, Afro-Asian, and neotropical. It features 146 superb color plates depicting every kind of parrot, as well as detailed, facing-page species accounts that describe key identification features, distribution, subspeciation, habitat, and status. Color distribution maps show ranges of all subspecies, and field identification is further aided by relevant upperside and underside flight images. This premier field guide also shows where to observe each species in the wild, helping make this the most comprehensive and user-friendly guide to the parrots of the world.

-The only parrot guide to focus on geographical distribution

-Covers all 356 species

-Features 146 color plates depicting all species and well-differentiated subspecies

-Provides detailed facing-page species accounts that describe key identification features, distribution, subspeciation, habitat, and status

-Includes color distribution maps

-Shows where to observe each species in the wild

“Provides an interesting look into the diversity of one of the most well-known families of birds and also some of the most rare and beautiful species on the planet.”—Birdfreak.com

“This guide is a must-have for any parrot lover or bird enthusiast.”—Eva Matthews, Flying Mullet

The random draw for this book with be Friday 4/27 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to like our Princeton Birds and Natural History Facebook page if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Biological Sciences, Birds and Natural History, Book Giveaway

This Week’s Book Giveaway

April 23, 2012 by

The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science: The Very Best Backyard Science Experiments You Can Do Yourself
by Neil A. Downie

The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science is Neil Downie’s biggest and most astounding compendium yet of science experiments you can do in your own kitchen or backyard using common household items. It may be the only book that encourages hands-on science learning through the use of high-velocity, air-driven carrots.

Downie, the undisputed maestro of Saturday science, here reveals important principles in physics, engineering, and chemistry through such marvels as the Helevator—a contraption that’s half helicopter, half elevator—and the Rocket Railroad, which pumps propellant up from its own track. The Riddle of the Sands demonstrates why some granular materials form steep cones when poured while others collapse in an avalanche. The Sunbeam Exploder creates a combustible delivery system out of sunlight, while the Red Hot Memory experiment shows you how to store data as heat. Want to learn to tell time using a knife and some butter? There’s a whole section devoted to exotic clocks and oscillators that teaches you how.


The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science features more than seventy fun and astonishing experiments that range in difficulty from simple to more challenging. All of them are original, and all are guaranteed to work. Downie provides instructions for each one and explains the underlying science, and also presents experimental variations that readers will want to try.

“This is the most extensive collection of project ideas at this level that I know of. Downie gives better ‘how to’ explanations and takes the ideas further than most other books of this kind. The Ultimate Book of Saturday Science is a true omnibus.”—David Willey, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

The random draw for this book with be Friday 4/27 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to like us on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Biological Sciences, Book Giveaway, Mathematics, Physics

This Week’s Book Giveaway

April 16, 2012 by

Last week, Princeton University Press announced the acquisition of the WILDGuides natural history list and the formation of our new imprint: Princeton WILDGuides. This week, we’re giving you the opportunity to win one of the great books in Princeton WILDGuides as part of this week’s book giveaway!

The Jewel Hunter
Chris Gooddie

A tale of one man’s obsession with rainforest jewels, this is the story of an impossible dream: a quest to see every one of the world’s most elusive avian gems—a group of birds known as pittas—in a single year.

Insightful, compelling, and laugh-out-loud funny, this is more than a book about birds. It’s a true story detailing the lengths to which a man will go to escape his midlife crisis. A travelogue with a difference, it follows a journey from the suburban straitjacket of High Wycombe to the steamy, leech-infested rainforests of remotest Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Dangerous situations, personal traumas, and logistical nightmares threaten The Jewel Hunter’s progress. Will venomous snakes or razor-clawed bears intervene? Or will running out of fuel mid-Pacific ultimately sink the mission? The race is on. . . .

If you’ve ever yearned to escape your day job, wondered what makes men tick, or simply puzzled over how to make a truly world-class cup of tea, this is a book for you.

To learn more and see a complete list of books in Princeton WILDGuides please visit:
http://press.princeton.edu/wildguides/

The random draw for this book will be Friday 4/20 at 3pm EST. Be sure to like us on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Biological Sciences, Birds and Natural History, Book Giveaway, Princeton WildGuides

This Week’s Book Giveaway

April 9, 2012 by

Finance and the Good Society
by Robert J. Shiller

The reputation of the financial industry could hardly be worse than it is today in the painful aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. New York Times best-selling economist Robert Shiller is no apologist for the sins of finance—he is probably the only person to have predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000 and the real estate bubble that led up to the subprime mortgage meltdown. But in this important and timely book, Shiller argues that, rather than condemning finance, we need to reclaim it for the common good. He makes a powerful case for recognizing that finance, far from being a parasite on society, is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving our common problems and increasing the general well-being. We need more financial innovation—not less—and finance should play a larger role in helping society achieve its goals.

Challenging the public and its leaders to rethink finance and its role in society, Shiller argues that finance should be defined not merely as the manipulation of money or the management of risk but as the stewardship of society’s assets. He explains how people in financial careers—from CEO, investment manager, and banker to insurer, lawyer, and regulator—can and do manage, protect, and increase these assets. He describes how finance has historically contributed to the good of society through inventions such as insurance, mortgages, savings accounts, and pensions, and argues that we need to envision new ways to rechannel financial creativity to benefit society as a whole.

Ultimately, Shiller shows how society can once again harness the power of finance for the greater good.

“Finance is in need of a little redemption. In his priestly new book, Finance and the Good Society, Mr. Shiller . . . sets out to provide it. He argues convincingly that finance can, should and usually does make the world a better place. . . . As an advocate for the financial system . . . he is wonderfully persuasive because he never plays down the problems. . . . Mr. Shiller reminds us of the profound importance of finance to making our society work.”—Robin Harding, Financial Times

The random draw for this book with be Friday 4/13 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to like us on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Book Giveaway, Economics, Finance, International Relations, Political Science, Sociology

This Week’s Book Giveaway

March 26, 2012 by

Kentucky vs. Louisville. Kansas vs. Ohio State. In honor of the Final Four, we have a March Madness-inspired giveaway for you:

Who’s #1?: The Science of Rating and Ranking
by Amy N. Langville & Carl D. Meyer

A website’s ranking on Google can spell the difference between success and failure for a new business. NCAA football ratings determine which schools get to play for the big money in postseason bowl games. Product ratings influence everything from the clothes we wear to the movies we select on Netflix. Ratings and rankings are everywhere, but how exactly do they work? Who’s #1? offers an engaging and accessible account of how scientific rating and ranking methods are created and applied to a variety of uses.

Amy Langville and Carl Meyer provide the first comprehensive overview of the mathematical algorithms and methods used to rate and rank sports teams, political candidates, products, Web pages, and more. In a series of interesting asides, Langville and Meyer provide fascinating insights into the ingenious contributions of many of the field’s pioneers. They survey and compare the different methods employed today, showing why their strengths and weaknesses depend on the underlying goal, and explaining why and when a given method should be considered. Langville and Meyer also describe what can and can’t be expected from the most widely used systems.

The science of rating and ranking touches virtually every facet of our lives, and now you don’t need to be an expert to understand how it really works. Who’s #1? is the definitive introduction to the subject. It features easy-to-understand examples and interesting trivia and historical facts, and much of the required mathematics is included.

“Langville and Meyer provide a rigorous yet lighthearted tour through the landscape of ratings methodologies. This is an enjoyable read that looks at ratings through the lens of sports, but also touches on how ratings affect our everyday lives through movies, Web search, online shopping, and other applications.”—Chris Volinsky, member of the winning Netflix Prize team

We invite you to read Chapter 1 here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9661.pdf

Don’t miss our March Mathness blog: http://blog.press.princeton.edu/march-mathness/

The random draw for this book with be Friday 3/30 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to “Like” us on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!

Filed Under: Applied Science and Engineering, Book Giveaway, March Mathness, Mathematics
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