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COMPUTER SCIENCE

- Complexity: A Guided Tour

By Melanie Mitchell, professor of computer science, Portland State University. Oxford University Press, £14.99. ISBN 9780195124415

Mitchell offers a tour d'horizon of the sciences of complexity, which explore how large-scale complex, organised and adaptive behaviour can emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals.

FILM STUDIES

- Bakhtin and the Movies: New Ways of Understanding Hollywood Film

By Martin Flanagan, senior lecturer in film and media studies, University of Bolton. Palgrave Macmillan, £52.00. ISBN 9780230202962

Flanagan uses Bakhtin's notions of dialogism, chronotope and polyphony to address questions about film form and reception, focusing particularly on how cinematic narrative utilises time and space in its very construction.

GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

- Pineapple Culture: A History of the Tropical and Temperate Zones

By Gary Y. Okihiro, professor of international and public affairs, Columbia University. University of California Press, £14.95. ISBN 9780520255135

In detailing the history of the world's tropical and temperate zones through the pineapple's illustrative career, Okihiro aims to upend conventional ideas about history, space and time.

HISTORY

- Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement: Another Side of the Story

Edited by Robbie Lieberman, professor of history, Southern Illinois University, and Clarence Lang, assistant professor of history, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00. ISBN 9780230605244

This essay collection looks at the impact of anticommunism on black political culture during the early years of the Cold War, with focus on local and individual stories.

- Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora

By Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, assistant professor of history and American studies and ethnicity, University of California. University of California Press, £32.95 and £12.95. ISBN 9780520255326 and 5340

This multifaceted study of Syrian immigration to the US places Syrians, and Arabs more generally, at the centre of discussions about race and racial formation.

LITERATURE

- Retale Values

Edited by Stephen Wade, lecturer in the history of crime and law, University of Hull and the School of Continuing Education, University of Oxford. The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, £5.00. ISBN 97809559560

This publication features contributions from 14 inmates at HMP Morton Hall in Lincoln. Via poetry and short fiction, the contributors offer modern-day reworkings of fairytales and classic stories including Cinderella, Bluebeard and the Little Match Girl.

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

- Pontius Pilate, Anti-Semitism, and the Passion in Medieval Art

By Colum Hourihane, director, Index of Christian Art, Princeton University. Princeton University Press, £32.95. ISBN 9780691139562

Hourihane examines neglected and sometimes sympathetic portrayals of Pontius Pilate, and shows how negative characterisations of Pilate, which were developed for political and religious purposes, reveal the anti-Semitism of the medieval period.

POLITICS

- Europe: The Faltering Project

By Jurgen Habermas, permanent visiting professor of philosophy, Northwestern University. Polity, £50.00 and £15.99. ISBN 9780745646404 and 6497

Habermas advocates a policy of gradual integration for Europe in which key decisions about its future are put in the hands of its citizens, and also a "bipolar commonality" of the West in which a more unified Europe is able to work closely with the US.

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Film studies

100 Film Noirs

By Jim Hillier, visiting lecturer in film studies, University of Reading, and Alastair Phillips, associate professor of film studies, University of Warwick

Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00 and £12.99

ISBN 9781844572151 and 2168

This BFI Screen Guide provides an introduction to 100 key noir films, from Hollywood classics to more recent titles and examples from Europe, Japan, India and Mexico. The editorial overview surveys the genre and its key debates.

Politics

After 2015: International Development Policy at a Crossroads

By Andy Sumner, fellow, Vulnerability and Poverty Research Team, University of Sussex, and Meera Tiwari, head of international development studies, University of East London

Palgrave Macmillan, £60.00

ISBN 9781403987723

The Millennium Development Goals have played a major role in focusing policy since their original incarnation in the 1990s. This book discusses the world and development policy up to and beyond 2015.

Social sciences

A Passion for Cultural Studies

By Ben Highmore, reader in media and cultural studies, University of Sussex

Palgrave Macmillan, £45.00 and £14.99

ISBN 9781403997173 and 7180

Each chapter in this book takes examples from everyday life and uses them to explore core issues, from migration to mass media, in order to encourage all students of culture and media to become passionate about cultural studies.