Published this week

Anthropology

• At Home in the Chinese Diaspora: Memories, Identities and Belongings
By Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce, associate professor, head of the department of sociology and honorary academic director of the Centre for Anthropological Research, University of Hong Kong, and Andrew P. Davidson, senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of New South Wales Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00 ISBN 9780230506985
A collection of essays focusing on the political, cultural and media impact that Chinese emigrants have on their adopted communities and how they adapt to their surroundings.

Art

• Art and Life in Aestheticism: De-humanizing and Re-humanizing Art, the Artist and the Artistic Receptor
Edited by Kelly Comfort, assistant professor, School of Modern Languages, Georgia Institute of Technology Palgrave Macmillan, £45.00 ISBN 9780230551169
This collection of essays examines the theme of art for art’s sake in the 19th and 20th centuries. The text uses a transnational, comparative standpoint to present a variety of views.

• Dominican Women and Renaissance Art: The Convent of San Domenico of Pisa
Edited by Ann Roberts, professor of art history, Lake Forest College Ashgate, £60.00 ISBN 9780754655305 Roberts identifies and examines 30 pieces of art commissioned for and made by nuns in the convent of San Domenico of Pisa in the 15th century, including some that are published here for the first time.

Biography

• Franco Modigliani: A Mind That Never Rests
By Michael Szenberg, distinguished professor of economics at Pace University, and Lall Ramrattan, instructor at the University of California, Berkeley Palgrave Macmillan, £60.00 ISBN 9780230007895
A biography not only of Modigliani’s life but also of his theories, arranged chronologically.

Biological science

• What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous
By George O. Poinar, research fellow at Oregonsand Roberta Poinar Princeton University Press, £17.95 ISBN 9780691124315
While not as menacing as Tyrannosaurus rex, insects in the Cretaceous dominated the planet. The authors aim to bring the age to life and explain insects’ role in the life and death of the dinosaurs.

Cultural and media studies

• The Politics of Media Policy
By Des Freedman, senior lecturer in communications and cultural studies, Goldsmiths, University of London Polity, £55.00 and £16.99 ISBN 9780745628417 and 8424
A critical perspective on the dynamics of media policy in the US and UK, and a guide to some of the major points of debate in the media today, including ownership, content and copyright.

• Television in the Multichannel Age: A Brief History of Cable Television
By Megan Mullen, associate professor of communication and co-director of the humanities programme, University of Wisconsin, Parkside Blackwell, £45.00 and £19.99 ISBN 9781405149693 and 9709
Mullen aims to provide a multidisciplinary approach to the history of multichannel television in all its forms, from cable to direct-to-home satellite and beyond, as well as the politics of today’s television landscape.

• Eric Rohmer: Film as Theology
By Keith Tester, professor of cultural sociology, University of Portsmouth Palgrave Macmillan, £45.00 ISBN 9781403996596
A theological look at one of modern France’s most eminent critics, writers and directors. Arguing that Rohmer’s films are not as straightforward as they first appear, Tester uses them as an example of theological issues in contemporary culture.

Economics

• The Assets Agenda: Principles and Policy
By Rajiv Prabhakar, Economic and Social Research Council fellow at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences, London School of Economics Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00 ISBN 9780230522190
Taking an international perspective, this study combines a clear theoretical approach with new research into specific asset-based policies and their public perception.

Engineering

• Aircraft Propulsion and Gas Turbine Engines
By Ahmed F. El-Sayed, professor of mechanical power and aerospace, Zagazig University, Egypt Taylor and Francis, £49.99 ISBN 9780849391965
This book covers the evolution of aircraft from simple piston engines to jet engines. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular engine type, illustrated with case studies.

Film

• More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts
By James Naremore, emeritus chancellors’ professor of communication and culture, English and comparative literature, Indiana University University of California Press, £14.95 ISBN 9780520254022
In this revised edition, Naremore aims to take film noir beyond its reputation as melodrama. He does so by presenting it as a critical term, as a symptom of Hollywood censorship and politics, as a market strategy, and as an idea that circulates through all media.

Finance

• Practical Financial Optimization: Decision Making for Financial Engineers
By Stavros A. Zenios, professor of business and public administration, University of Cyprus Blackwell, £34.99 ISBN 9781405132008
Zenios offers a guide to optimisation techniques in financial decision-making, aiming to illuminate the relationship between theory and practice.

General science

• Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for New Audiences
By Bernard Lightman, professor of humanities, York University, Toronto University of Chicago Press, £23.50 ISBN 9780226481180
In the Victorian era, writers and journalists were relied on to provide information on the latest scientific endeavours in entertaining and understandable language. Lightman’s book looks at the role of 30 such writers in late 19th-century scientific debates.

• Designing Randomised Trials in Health, Education and the Social Sciences
By David J. Torgerson, director of the York Trials Unit, and Carole J. Torgerson, senior research fellow, Institute for Effective Education, University of York Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00 and £18.99 ISBN 9780230537354 and 7361
Randomised trials are fast becoming the norm in evidence-based research, and this book looks at the history behind randomised trials and a justifi­cation for their use before moving on to examples of best practice.

• Sex, Science and Profits
By Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham Random House, £20.00 ISBN 9780434008247
Kealey deals with history, science, economics, politics and philosophy and aims to answer that seldom-asked question “What is science?” by looking at science from its origins to its private versus public interests today.

• Computational Modeling for Homogeneous and Enzymatic Catalysis
By Keiji Morokuma, William H. Emerson professor of chemistry and director, and Djamaladdin G. Musaev, principal scientist and manager, the Emerson Center, Emory University Wiley, £100.00 ISBN 97835318438
Morokuma and Musaev’s book offers an extensive knowledge base with a broad scope for designing efficient catalysts, allowing readers to improve the performance of their own catalysts.

History

• Contributors to the Quarterly Review: A History 1809-25
By Jonathan Cutmore, former assistant professor, University of Toronto and Memorial University Pickering and Chatto, £60.00 ISBN 9781851969524
In a biographical look at one of the most successful literary and political reviews of the 19th century, Cutmore aims to test the truth of the claim that the early periodical of that time was the matrix for the democratisation of public writing and reading.

• Mussolini and the Rise of Fascism
By Donald Sassoon, professor of comparative European history at Queen Mary, University of London Harper Press, £14.99 ISBN 97800071924
By the time Mussolini brought Italy into the Second World War, he had been in power for 20 years. Sassoon looks at how Mussolini became Il Duce and argues that events could have taken a very different turn.

• British and American Letter Manuals 1680-1810
By Eve Tavor Bannet, professor of English and women’s studies and chair of English, University of Oklahoma Pickering and Chatto, £350.00 ISBN 9781851969180
From the end of the 17th to the beginning of the 19th century, letter manuals were the most popular form of conduct literature. This four-volume edition includes every noted letter manual written between 1680 and 1810.

• Ordinary Courage: The Revolutionary War Adventures of Joseph Plumb Martin
Edited by James Kirby Martin, distinguished university professor, University of Houston Blackwell, £19.99 ISBN 9781405177061
Martin has updated his edited version of one man’s memoirs of the American War of Independence, adding an expanded introduction, annotations and suggestions for further reading.

• Civil War and World War in Europe: Spain, Yugoslavia, and Greece, 1936-1949
By Philip Minehan, lecturer of history, Loyola Marymount University Palgrave Macmillan, £40.00 ISBN 9781403972163
A comparative history of the Spanish, Yugoslav and Greek civil wars from the standpoints of politics, socioeconomic structures and international conjunctures.

• Enlightenment, Governance and Reform in Spain and its Empire 1759-1808
By Gabriel B. Paquette, junior research fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00 ISBN 9781403985941
Paquette offers a new interpretation of political reform in Spain in the second half of the 18th century and examines the impact of reform on Spain’s colonies.

Literary studies

• New World Orders in Contemporary Children's Literature: Utopian Transformations
By Claire Bradford, professor of literature, Deakin University, Robyn McCallum, lecturer in English literature, Macquarie University, Kerry Mallan, professor in education, Queensland University of Technology, and John Stephens, professor in English, Macquarie University Palgrave Macmillan, £45.00 ISBN 9780230020054
The authors seek to show how texts for children and young people have responded to the cultural, economic and political movements of the past 15 years.

Music

• Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy
By Lucy Green, professor of music education, Institute of Education, University of London Ashgate, £45.00 ISBN 9780754662426
Informal learning can change the way students listen to and critically analyse music, far outweighing the negativity often associated with informal learning practices, Green argues.

• The Viola da Gamba Society Index of Manuscripts Containing Consort Music, Volume II
By Andrew Ashbee, Robert Thompson and Jonathan Wainwright, senior lecturer in Music, University of York Ashgate, £50.00 ISBN 9780754658665
This collection includes manuscripts associated with John Browne, Philip Falle, Sir Gabriel Roberts, John St Barbe of Broadlands, the Withy family of Worcester and Oxford and an anonymous late-17th century scribe.

Philosophy

• Turning on the Mind: French Philosophers on Television
By Tamara Chaplin, assistant professor of history, University of Illinois University of Chicago Press, £32.50 ISBN 9780226509907
Chaplin provides a passionate rebuttal of the commonly held idea that television is anti-intellectual by looking at more than 3,500 TV programmes that have aired in France on philosophy and its practitioners and how they have affected the struggle over French national identity.

• An Identity Theory of Truth
By Julian Dodd, lecturer in philosophy, University of Manchester Palgrave Macmillan, £16.99 ISBN 9780230573710
Dodd argues that correspondence theories of truth fail because of the relation that holds between a true thought and a fact is one of identity, not correspondence.

Psychology

• Theorising Desire: From Freud to Feminism to Film
By Kristyn Gorton, lecturer in the department of theatre, film and television, University of York Palgrave Macmillan, £45.00 ISBN 9781403989604
Looking at what desire does as opposed to what it is, Gorton examines the concept as it is theorised in psychoanalytic, feminist and film studies and presented in a diverse range of films and television programmes.

• The Social Cognitive Neuroscience of Organizations Edited
By Carl Senior, lecturer in psychology, School of Life and Health Sciences and Aston Business School, and Michael J. Butler, lecturer for the Work and Organisational Psychology Group, Aston University Blackwell, £65.00 ISBN 9781573316989
This volume brings together contributions from leading thinkers in both the social cognitive neurosciences and business to provide an introduction and overview of a social cognitive neuroscience of the business brain.

Sociology

• Nationalism, Social Theory and Durkheim
By James Dingley, former lecturer on political sociology and terrorism and political violence, University of Ulster Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00 ISBN 9781403996794
Sociology traditionally has not entered the fray when political problems are being discussed; Dingley hopes to change that. Here, he uses Durkheim, the founder of modern sociology, to explain how old sociological theories can still be relevant and helpful in contemporary conflicts.

• Class Formation, Civil Society and the State:?A Comparative Analysis of Russia, France, UK and the US
By Michael Burrage, former guest professor in sociology, London School of Economics Palgrave Macmillan, £65.00 ISBN 9781403945945
Rather than using a ranking system based on occupational prestige to explain social stratification through class, Burrage explains class formation through political events and decisions.

• Presbyterians in Ireland: Identity in the Twenty-First Century
By Sandra Baillie, research affiliate specialising in religion, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Queen’s University Belfast Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00 ISBN 9781403912442
Approaching the study as a Presbyterian, a sociologist and a feminist, Bailie addresses the politics and culture of contemporary Presbyterian life in Northern and Southern Ireland.

• Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion and Public Awareness
By Sarah E.H. Moore, research assistant in the department of sociology, University of Kent Palgrave Macmillan, £45.00 ISBN 9780230549210
Moore discusses the phenomenon of the “awareness” ribbon, weighing up the selfless and selfish aspects of a symbol that has gained a foothold in Western society.

Theatre and performance studies

• Political Theatre in Post-Thatcher Britain
By Amelia Kritzer, associate professor, department of theatre, University of St Thomas, Minnesota Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00 ISBN 9781403988294
Concentrating on the “in-yer-face” playwrights who came to prominence between 1995 and 2005, Kritzer examines the different audiences these plays brought in as well as their effect on the politics of the time.

Veterinary science

• Atlas of Small Animal Ultrasonography
By Dominique Penninck, professor of diagnostic imaging in the department of clinical sciences, Tufts University, and Marc-André d’Anjou, assistant professor of diagnostic imaging in the department of clinical sciences, Université de Montréal Blackwell, £99.50 ISBN 9780813828008
This overview of a clinical modality that is rapidly growing in popularity is aimed at professionals and students wanting a guide through some of the field’s most common contemporary practices.