Published this week

BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT STUDIES

- The Future of Decision Making: How Revolutionary Software Can Improve the Ability to Decide

By Roger C. Schank, executive director and founder, Engines for Education Inc; Dimitris Lyras, founder, Ulysses-Systems; and Elliot Soloway, Arthur F. Thurnau professor, University of Michigan. Palgrave Macmillan, £37.50. ISBN 9780230103658

The authors seek to provide an explanation of the new science of decision making, offering examples and advice aimed at enabling readers to use advanced software in making key business decisions.

EDUCATION

- Asian Women in Higher Education: Shared Communities

By Kalwant Bhopal, reader in education, University of Southampton. Trentham Books, £20.99. ISBN 9781858564692

Shedding light on the experiences of young Asian women in higher education in the UK, Bhopal looks at the strategies they adopt to build support networks that help them to succeed within an unfamiliar setting. She also considers how their growing numbers in the sector reflects widespread changes in the attitudes and cultural expectations of their various communities.

GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

- Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource

By Peter Rogers, professor of environmental engineering, Harvard University; and Susan Leal, fellow, Advanced Leadership Initiative, Harvard University. Palgrave Macmillan, £16.99. ISBN 9780230615649

Combining work from the areas of science, politics, economics and human foibles, this text seeks to provide a comprehensive look at the water crisis affecting our planet. Focusing on potential solutions, it considers political leadership, policy action and the technological tools required to sustain water supplies.

HISTORY

- Prophets of the Past: Interpreters of Jewish History

By Michael Brenner, professor of Jewish history and culture, University of Munich. Translated by Steven Rendall. Princeton University Press, £.95. ISBN 9780691139289

Brenner offers an in-depth examination of the ways that modern Jewish historians have interpreted Jewish history. Tracing master narratives from the beginnings of the scholarly study of Jews and Judaism in 19th-century Germany, he argues that no other national or religious group has used its shared history for ideological and political purposes to such a great extent.

- Cultures of Care in Irish Medical History, 1750-1970

Edited by Catherine Cox, director, Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University College Dublin; and Maria Luddy, professor of modern Irish history, University of Warwick. Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00. ISBN 9780230535862

Looking at the practices and cultures of medical care in Ireland from the 18th to the 20th centuries, this collection examines health in the country through the prisms of state provision, professionalisation and the experiences of health and illness.

- Rammohun Roy and the Making of Victorian Britain

By Lynn Zastoupil, professor of history, Rhodes College, Memphis. Palgrave Macmillan, £52.00. ISBN 9780230616806

Zastoupil investigates Roy as a transnational celebrity and examines the role of religious heterodoxy in transforming a colonial outsider into an imagined member of the emerging Victorian social order. She draws on his fame to shed fresh light on 19th-century British reformers, including advocates of press freedom, early feminists, free-trade imperialists and constitutional reformers.

- Fleeting Cities: Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siecle Europe

By Alexander C.T. Geppert, Emmy Noether Research Group director, Free University of Berlin. Palgrave Macmillan, £65.00. ISBN 9780230221642

This work considers how modernity was created, displayed, consumed and disputed within the European metropolis. Focusing on five expositions, Geppert examines their aims and aspirations, evolving forms and execution, and the public debates they engendered.

LAW

- Ethics, Law and Military Operations

Edited by David Whetham, senior lecturer in defence studies, King's College London. Palgrave Macmillan, £65.00 and £23.99. ISBN 9780230221703 and 1710

Whetham provides one of the first texts to examine the ethical and legal considerations of contemporary military conflict. Adopting a practical approach, he explores the ways legal and normative issues affect the entire spectrum of military operations, including high-intensity conflict, peacekeeping activities and the provision of humanitarian aid.

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

- Naturalism and Normativity

Edited by Mario De Caro, associate professor of moral philosophy, University of Rome III; and David Macarthur, senior lecturer in philosophy, University of Sydney. Columbia University Press, £62.00 and £20.50. ISBN 9780231134668 and 4675

This text explores options for understanding normativity in the space between scientific naturalism and Platonic supernaturalism. The contributors consider the relationship between the scientific worldview and our experience of norms and values, and our movements in the space of reason.

- Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology

Edited by Michael Krausz, Milton C. Nahm professor of philosophy, Bryn Mawr College. Columbia University Press, £68.50 and £22.50. ISBN 9780231144100 and 4117

This collection seeks to capture the significance and range of relativistic doctrines, reviewing their virtues and vices while reflecting on a spectrum of attitudes. Incorporating classic and new essays, it is intended as a resource for students, scholars and researchers in the field.

PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

- Exoplanet Atmospheres: Physical Processes

By Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Princeton University Press, £62.00 and £30.95. ISBN 9780691119144 and 146454

Seager provides the first textbook to consider the basic physical processes of extrasolar planets. Examining issues such as radiative transfer, molecular absorption and chemical processes common to all planetary atmospheres, she also looks at the transit, eclipse and thermal phase variation observations that are unique to exoplanets.

POLITICS

- Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India

By Devesh Kapur, associate professor of political science, University of Pennsylvania. Princeton University Press, £24.95. ISBN 9780691125381

By examining the economic, social and political effects of emigration, Kapur seeks to provide a framework for understanding the repercussions of migration for countries that migrants leave behind. He argues that while international migration is a cause and consequence of globalisation, its effects on countries of origin depend largely on internal factors.

- The Politics of the Veil

By Joan Wallach Scott, Harold F. Linder professor in the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study. Princeton University Press, £19.95 and £12.50. ISBN 9780691125435 and 47987

Arguing that the French government's ban on religious symbols in schools is synonymous with the nation's failure to integrate former colonial subjects as full citizens, Scott maintains that the law exacerbates rather than reconciles religious and ethnic differences, and she examines the long history of racism behind the law.

- Gender Politics and Mass Dictatorship: Global Perspectives

Edited by Jie-Hyun Lim, director, Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture, Hanyang University; and Karen Petrone, associate professor of history, University of Kentucky. Palgrave Macmillan, £55.00. ISBN 9780230242043

This text concentrates on the gender politics deployed by dictatorial regimes such as Nazi Germany, the Stalinist Soviet Union and Maoist China. The essays featured seek to demonstrate the twisted paths of citizens' lives in these societies as they veered between self-mobilisation and self-empowerment.