Published this week

? = Review forthcoming

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

- Animal Experimentation: A Guide to the Issues

By Vaughan Monamy, senior lecturer in environmental science and environmental ethics, Australian Catholic University. Cambridge University Press, £45.00 and £16.99. ISBN 9780521878791 and 703482

Monamy highlights the future responsibilities of those working with animals, offering practical advice on experimental design, literature search, consultation with colleagues and the importance of searching for alternatives.

- ?Why Evolution is True

By Jerry A. Coyne, professor of biology, University of Chicago. Oxford University Press, £14.99. ISBN 9780199230846

Coyne's book focuses on the hard evidence that proves evolution by natural selection to be a fact and weaves together and explains the latest discoveries and ideas from many disparate areas of modern science.

- Freaks of Nature

By Mark S. Blumberg, professor of psychology, University of Iowa. Oxford University Press, £12.99. ISBN 9780199213054

Blumberg looks at freak bodily anomalies in both humans and other animals to reveal how such deformities provide valuable windows on the intimate connections between genetics, evolution, development and the environment.

- Built By Animals: The Natural History of Animal Architecture

By Mike Hansell, honorary senior research fellow in animal architecture, University of Glasgow. Oxford University Press, £8.99. ISBN 9780199205578

Hansell reveals the biology behind animal architecture - from vast termite mounds to elaborate birds' nests, delicate shells and deadly spiders' traps - showing how small brains have evolved to produce complex and beautiful structures.

ECONOMICS

- ?The Romantic Economist: Imagination in Economics

By Richard Bronk, visiting fellow in European political economy, London School of Economics. Cambridge University Press, £45.00 and £17.99. ISBN 9780521513845 and 735155

Bronk argues that economists can best model and explain the creative and social aspects of markets by using new structuring assumptions and metaphors derived from the poetry and philosophy of the Romantics.

FILM STUDIES

- Pierre Batcheff and Stardom in 1920s French Cinema

By Phil Powrie, dean of research for the faculty of humanities and the social sciences, Newcastle University, and Eric Rebillard, professor of history and classics, Cornell University. Edinburgh University Press, £70.00. ISBN 9780748621972

This study places Batcheff in the context of 1920s popular cinema, with specific reference to male stars of the period, analysing the tensions he exemplifies between the popular and the intellectual during the 1920s, as cinema was torn between commercialism and art.

GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

- Estuaries: Dynamics, Mixing, Sedimentation and Morphology

By David Prandle, visiting professor of oceanography, University of Liverpool. Cambridge University Press, £65.00. ISBN 9780521888868

This volume provides researchers, students, practising engineers and managers access to knowledge, practical formulae and new hypotheses for the dynamics, mixing, sediment regimes and morphological evolution of estuaries.

HISTORY

- A History of Modern Burma

By Michael W. Charney, senior lecturer in history, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Cambridge University Press, £40.00 and £14.99. ISBN 9780521852111 and 1617581

Charney traces the highs and lows of Burma's history from its colonial past to the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, exploring key themes such as the political division between lowland and highland Burma and monastic opposition to state control.

- A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1400-1700

By Jacqueline Broad, honorary research associate in philosophy, Monash University, and Karen Green, associate professor in philosophy, Monash University. Cambridge University Press, £55.00. ISBN 9780521888172

This book surveys the history of women's political thought in Europe from the late medieval period to the early modern era, examining, among other things, concepts of liberty, toleration, sociability, equality and self-preservation.

- The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson

Edited by Frank Shuffelton, professor of English, University of Rochester. Cambridge University Press, £45.00 and £15.99. ISBN 9780521867313 and 686976

This companion forms an introduction to the life and work of the third US President. Essays explore Jefferson's political thought, policies towards Native Americans, attitude to race and slavery, as well as his interests in science, architecture, religion and education.

- From Caledonia to Pictland, Scotland to 795

By James E. Fraser, lecturer in early Scottish history and culture, University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press, £70.00 and £19.99. ISBN 9780748612314 and 2321

Fraser charts the complex and shadowy processes that saw the Picts, Northumbrians, North Britons and Gaels of early Scottish history become established in the country, the achievements of their foremost political figures and their ongoing links with the world around them.

- From Colony to Superpower

By George C. Herring, alumni professor of history, University of Kentucky. Oxford University Press, £18.99. ISBN 9780195078220

Herring provides a sweeping account of US foreign relations and diplomacy, telling a story of stunning successes and sometimes tragic failures and illuminating the central importance of foreign relations to the existence and survival of the nation.

- Roosevelt and Franco during the Second World War

By Joan Maria Thomas, professor of contemporary history, Universidad Rovira i Virgili. Palgrave Macmillan, £47.50. ISBN 9780230604506

This book examines the internal controversies of the Roosevelt Administration in connection with Spain during the Second World War, the role of the President in these controversies and the foundations of the policy that was followed from the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War until the launch of Operation Torch in 1942.

LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

- First Language Acquisition

By Eve V. Clark, Richard W. Lyman professor of humanities, Stanford University. Cambridge University Press, £70.00 and £23.99. ISBN 9780521514132 and 732932

Integrating data with coverage of current theories and debates, Clark presents different perspectives in a clear way, focusing on children's acquisition of a first language, the stages of development they go through and how they use language as they learn.

- Discourse and Struggle in Minority Language Policy Formation

By Jean-Bernard Adrey, European workplace learning programmes manager, Coventry University. Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00. ISBN 9780230537347

Adrey presents a new approach to the study of language policy by focusing on language policy formation and implementation as a dynamic, conflict-laden process rather than as a product, examinable post hoc from existing language legislation.

LITERATURE

- The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of World War II

Edited by Marina MacKay, associate professor in English, Washington University in St Louis. Cambridge University Press, £45.00 and £17.99. ISBN 9780521887557 and 715416

This companion provides an overview of the international literatures of the war: both those works that recorded or reflected experiences of the war as it happened, and those that tried to make sense of it afterwards.

- The Persistence of Modernism: Loss and Mourning in the Twentieth Century

By Madelyn Detloff, associate professor of English and women's studies, Miami University. Cambridge University Press, £50.00. ISBN 9780521896429

Detloff argues for modernism's relevance to our own age, a time of escalating loss, retribution and desire, extending her conceptualisation to include current writers such as Pat Barker and Hanif Kureishi who have taken up the modernist thread in their own work.

PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

- The Kerr Spacetime: Rotating Black Holes in General Relativity

Edited by David L. Wiltshire, senior lecturer in physics, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, Matt Visser, professor of mathematics, Victoria University of Wellington and Susan M. Scott, assistant professor of physics, Australian National University. Cambridge University Press, £60.00. ISBN 9780521885126

This comprehensive overview covers all aspects of rotating black holes, from mathematical relativity to astrophysical applications, observations and current theoretical frontiers.

- Antimatter

By Frank Close, professor of physics and fellow, Exeter College, University of Oxford. Oxford University Press, £9.99. ISBN 9780199550166

Close explains the science behind one of physics' most extraordinary discoveries, showing how, through understanding antimatter, we can shed light on some of the deepest mysteries of the universe.

POLITICS

- The Environment and International Relations

By Kate O'Neill, associate professor in political science, University of California, Berkeley. Cambridge University Press, £45.00 and £15.99. ISBN 9780521842167 and 603126

O'Neill develops a historical and analytical framework for understanding global environmental issues, and identifies the main actors and their roles, allowing students to grasp the core theories and facts about global environmental governance.

- The Politics of Spain

By Richard Gunther, professor of political science, Ohio State University, and Jose Ramon Montero, professor of political science, Autonomous University of Madrid. Cambridge University Press, £45.00 and £15.99. ISBN 9780521843331 and 604000

This textbook examines the causes and conditions that explain modern Spain's political development, and analyses the basic characteristics of Spanish democracy today - its core political institutions, its political parties and party systems, and its patterns of electoral behaviour.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

- Society and Discourse: How Social Contexts Influence Text and Talk

By Teun A. Van Dijk, professor of discourse studies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Cambridge University Press, £55.00. ISBN 9780521516907

Van Dijk presents a new theory of context that explains how text and talk are adapted to their social environment, arguing that instead of a direct relationship being established between society and discourse, influence is indirect and depends on how language users themselves define the communicative situation.

- Restructuring Welfare Organizations in Europe

By Paola Mattei, research fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, University of Mannheim. Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00. ISBN 9780230217324

Focusing on the new institutional governance affecting health care and state education in the new millennium, Mattei offers a compelling analysis of the pressures from within public organisations providing welfare services.

- Childcare Today

By Penelope Leach, director of the study of families, children and childcare, Birkbeck, University of London. Polity, £14.99. ISBN 9780745647005

Leach offers an evaluation of the issues surrounding childcare, considering the viewpoints of politicians, parents and children themselves, and summarising what international research can tell us about the effects of different kinds of care on families and children.

Biological science

Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History

By David E. Fastovsky, professor of geosciences, University of Rhode Island, and David B. Weishampel, professor in the department of cell biology and anatomy, The Johns Hopkins University

Cambridge University Press, £70.00 and £35.00

ISBN 9780521889964 and 719025

This book is a general introduction to the subject for non-specialists, designed to excite readers about science by using the ever-popular subject of dinosaurs to illustrate and discuss geology, natural history and evolution.

Languages and linguistics

Key Ideas in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language

Edited by Siobhan Chapman, senior lecturer in English language, University of Liverpool

Edinburgh University Press, £60.00 and £18.99

ISBN 9780748626182 and 6199

This is a single-volume reference work offering an overview of 80 key ideas about language that have been developed in linguistics and in the philosophy of language.

Language, Meaning and the Law

By Chris Hutton, senior lecturer in linguistics, University of Hong Kong

Edinburgh University Press, £60.00 and £19.99

ISBN 9780748633500 and 3517

Hutton argues that theoretical issues of concern to linguists, philosophers, literary theorists and others are illuminated by the demands of the legal context, since law is driven by the need for practical solutions and for determinate outcomes based on explicit reasoning.

Physics and astronomy

A First Course in String Theory

By Barton Zwiebach, professor of physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge University Press, £40.00

ISBN 9780521880329

Including completely new chapters on AdS/CFT correspondence and strong interactions, and an introduction to superstrings, this is a self-contained explanation of string theory at a level that aims to be understandable to undergraduates.