Published this week

? = Review forthcoming

EDUCATION

- Higher Education in Asia/Pacific: Quality and the Public Good

Edited by Terance W. Bigalke, director of education, East-West Centre in Honolulu, and Deane E. Neubauer, emeritus professor of political science, University of Hawaii, Manoa. Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00. ISBN 9780230613232

Expansion and privatisation have led to concerns about the quality of education throughout the Asia/Pacific region. This work offers a framework to examine the challenges.

- Introducing Science Communication: A Practical Guide

Edited by Mark L. Brake, professor of science communication, University of Glamorgan, and Emma Weitkamp, senior lecturer in science communication, University of the West of England. Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00 and £19.99. ISBN 9780230573857 and 3864

From climate change to stem-cell research, the contributors to this volume aim to demonstrate how to communicate complex scientific issues to the public.

FILM STUDIES

- Scotland: Global Cinema

By David Martin-Jones, senior lecturer in film studies, University of St Andrews. Edinburgh University Press, £60.00. ISBN 9780748633913

Martin-Jones explores the cinematic fantasies of Scotland created by contemporary film-makers from around the world.

HISTORY

- ? Femininity, Mathematics and Science, c. 1880-1914

By Claire G. Jones, associate lecturer in history, University of Liverpool. Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00. ISBN 9780230555211

Through the prism of gender, Jones explores the contrasting cultures and practices of mathematics and science and their impact on women. She also examines 19th-century ideas about women's intellect, femininity and masculinity.

- Globalizing Ideal Beauty: How Female Copywriters of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency Redefined Beauty for the Twentieth Century

By Denise H. Sutton, former professor of advertising and gender, New School. Palgrave Macmillan, £57.50. ISBN 9780230611740

This tells how campaigns created by a group of female copywriters in the 1920s spread an American notion of feminine appeal across the globe.

LITERATURE

- Identity and Cultural Memory in the Fiction of A.S. Byatt: Knitting the Net of Culture

By Lena Steveker, lecturer in British literary and cultural studies, Saarland University. Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00. ISBN 9780230575332

Steveker analyses the negotiations of individual identity, cultural memory and literature that inform A.S. Byatt's novels.

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

- ? Wittgenstein and Political Theory: The View from Somewhere

By Christopher C. Robinson, assistant professor of liberal arts and science and technology studies, Clarkson University. Edinburgh University Press, £60.00. ISBN 9780748639144

Robinson argues that Wittgenstein offers those theorising political life today a compass and an array of useful conceptual and critical tools.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

- Homosexuality and Manliness in Postwar Japan

By Jonathan D. Mackintosh, lecturer in Japanese cultural studies, Birkbeck, University of London. Taylor and Francis, £75.00. ISBN 9780415421867

Mackintosh details the formative years of the "homo magazine" genre in the 1970s, explores its evolution and analyses issues such as homophobia, gay liberation and manly identity.

- Greed

Edited by Alexis Brassey, PhD candidate in psychology, University of London, and Stephen Barber, senior research fellow, Global Policy Institute, London Metropolitan University. Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00. ISBN 9780230201484

The contributors redefine greed as a subject that can be seen both as a disease at the heart of society and as a motivating force behind humanity's progress.