Published this week

? = Review forthcoming

ARTS AND DESIGN

- A Chord in Time: The Evolution of the Augmented Sixth from Monteverdi to Mahler

By Mark Ellis, theory, analysis and musicology tutor, University of Huddersfield. Ashgate, £60.00. ISBN 9780754663850

Ellis presents a series of musical examples illustrating the sixth sonority and its changing contexts, offering readers a chronological framework to allow for additional stylistic and harmonic analysis.

- New Perspectives on Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Edited by Shirley Thompson, senior lecturer in academic studies, Birmingham Conservatoire at Birmingham City University. Ashgate, £65.00. ISBN 9780754665793

This volume examines facets of the French composer's compositional language and process. Looking at aspects of his performance practice and notation, and the contexts within which he worked, contributors seek to offer an understanding of the sources of his inspiration and to detail the nature of his legacy.

- The New Guitarscape in Critical Theory, Cultural Practice and Musical Performance

By Kevin Dawe, senior lecturer, School of Music, University of Leeds. Ashgate, £55.00. ISBN 9780754667759

Dawe seeks to reassess guitar studies in light of recent musical, social, cultural and technological developments. He argues that the guitar is part of the technology of globalisation in a wide range of cultural interactions and political exchanges around the world.

EDUCATION

- Globalization and the Transformation of Russian and Eurasian Higher Education

By Mark Johnson, associate professor of history, Colorado College. Palgrave Macmillan, £42.50. ISBN 9781403968364

Johnson aims at a comprehensive analysis of the dramatic changes that transformed higher education systems in Russia and Eurasia after the demise of the Soviet Union.

LITERATURE

- J.M. Coetzee's Austerities

Edited by Graham Bradshaw, honorary professor of English and fine arts, University of Queensland, and Michael Neill, emeritus professor of English, University of Auckland. Ashgate, £55.00. ISBN 9780754668039

Examining Coetzee's novels from Dusklands to Diary of a Bad Year, this volume explores the relationship between his books and essays on linguistics, focusing on his recent fictional experiments to provide a linguistic reassessment of the author's body of work.

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION STUDIES

- ? Play it Again: Cover Songs in Popular Music

Edited by George Plasketes, professor of radio, television, film and popular culture, Auburn University. Ashgate, £50.00. ISBN 9780754668091

This collection of essays attempts to reveal the correlation found in various aspects of media culture, examining how music artists are increasingly revisiting and reinterpreting a diverse range of styles, periods and genres.

- As Heard on TV: Popular Music in Advertising

By Bethany Klein, lecturer in media industries, University of Leeds. Ashgate, £16.99. ISBN 9781409407645

Klein's examination of the increased use of popular music within television advertising considers the effects of industrial changes on the industry and explores the key issues and debates surrounding media alliances.

HISTORY

- History at the End of the World?

Edited by Mark Levene, reader in comparative history, University of Southampton, Rob Johnson, lecturer in the history of war, All Souls College, Oxford, and Penny Roberts, associate professor in history, University of Warwick. Humanities-Ebooks, £17.95. ISBN 9781847601674

Featuring contributions from academic activists and independent researchers from a number of fields, this volume argues that humanity's recent history needs to be looked at when examining the causes of climate change, which they argue is an area that cannot be explained by science alone.

- Civic Rites: Democracy and Religion in Ancient Athens

By Nancy Evans, associate professor of Classics, Wheaton College, Massachusetts. University of California Press, £41.95 and £16.95. ISBN 97805202620 and 2034

This exploration of the religious origins of Western democracy looks at the government of Athens in the 5th century BC in the context of ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. It draws on history, politics and religion in offering accounts of democracy's first leaders and critics.

MEDICINE

- Medicine in China: A History of Ideas

By Paul U. Unschuld, director, Horst-Goertz Endowment Institute for the Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences, Charite-Medical University Berlin. University of California Press, £20.95. ISBN 9780520266131

Unschuld traces the history of documented healthcare in China from its earliest extant records to present developments. This latest edition has been updated with a new preface detailing the ideological intersections between Chinese and European medicines in the past 25 years.

- Liberalizing, Feminizing and Popularizing Health Communications in Asia

Edited by Liew Kai Khiun, postdoctoral researcher, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Ashgate, £55.00. ISBN 9780754678397

This text draws on examples from the popular media to observe developments within health communications in Asia and the extent to which it has given the public a greater degree of access to information and more choice.

- Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox

By Gareth Williams, professor of medicine, University of Bristol. Palgrave Macmillan, £18.99. ISBN 97802304716

Williams draws on the personal experiences of historical figures to provide an account of humankind's battle against smallpox, the only disease to be successfully eradicated from our planet.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

- Unlearning the Colonial Cultures of Planning

By Libby Porter, lecturer in spatial planning, University of Glasgow. Ashgate, £55.00. ISBN 9780754649885

Porter argues that state-based planning has been integral to projects concerned with colonialisation, demonstrating how the colonial roots of planning have endured over time and have continued to shape land-use contests between indigenous people and planning systems in contemporary society.

- Culture and the Middle Classes

By Simon Stewart, senior lecturer in sociology, University of Portsmouth. Ashgate, £55.00. ISBN 9780754675334

Highlighting the extent to which social groups utilise various assets at their disposal to maintain the legitimacy of their cultural practices, Stewart explores the continuing relationship between class and taste.

- Doing Family Photography: The Domestic, the Public and the Politics of Sentiment

By Gillian Rose, professor of cultural geography, The Open University. Ashgate, £50.00. ISBN 9780754677321

Rose seeks to offer further understanding into domestic family photographs and their public display by looking at recent studies in the fields of material culture studies, geography and anthropology.

- ? The Secret World of Doing Nothing

By Billy Ehn, professor in the department of culture and media studies, Umea University, and Orvar Lofgren, professor of ethnology, University of Lund. University of California Press, £37.95 and £14.95. ISBN 9780520262614 and 2638

Sifting through examples drawn from literature, published ethnographies and first-hand research, the authors investigate unobserved moments in day-to-day life, such as waiting for a bus, to suggest that these activities are full of significance.

- Crime in Japan

By Dag Leonardsen, professor of sociology, Lillehammer University College, Norway. Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00. ISBN 9780230235540

Utilising available data, Leonardsen examines criminal justice in Japan to consider whether the country is facing social malaise or if its popular media are creating a moral panic.