April 5, 2010

Jacob Hacker on health care reform

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Web site has an interview with Jacob Hacker, editor of Health at Risk: America’s Ailing Health System—and How to Heal It about the passage of the health care bill. Hacker, who is considered to...

April 2, 2010

Edward Hess talks about Smart Growth on Business Insider, Part 2

In the first part of his interview with Business Insider , Edward Hess the author of Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Business by Managing Risks, questioned the conventional view that growth is necessarily good for business. In the second half...

April 1, 2010

Jonathan Gottschall on science, evolution, and the next big thing in English

An article in today’s New York Times looks at the ways in which literary scholars are drawing on science to understand individual texts as well as to understand such questions as “Why do we read fiction? Why do we care...

March 31, 2010

Amy Allen on New Directions in Critical Theory series

Critical theory has emerged again as a vital component of understanding the contemporary epoch in relation to the past, the future, and perhaps most importantly, to the present. Columbia University Press’s New Directions in Critical Theory series highlights the integral...

March 30, 2010

Sylvia Beach Interview

Greta Schiller’s 1995 documentary Paris was a Woman , explores the vital role that women played in the artistic and intellectual life in inter-war Paris. The film includes archival footage and interviews with many of the leading figures, including none...

March 29, 2010

Kenneth Posner on Hunting for the next "Black Swan"

The Black Swan Theory is used to explain hard-to-predict, rare events, but how should investors cope, react, and even try to anticipate such events? In an op-ed in Institutional Investor, Ken Posner, author of Stalking the Black Swan: Research and...

March 26, 2010

Edward Hess talks to Business Insider about Smart Growth

In an interview with Business Insider (see below), Edward Hess, author of Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Business by Managing Risks, challenges Wall Street’s accepted wisdom about growth. Hess argues that growth is not always good; bigger is not always...

March 25, 2010

Interview with Donna V. Jones author of The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy

The following is an interview with Donna V. Jones, the author of The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy: Négritude, Vitalism, and Modernity Q: The title of the book is The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy: Négritude, Vitalism, and Modernity. What...

March 24, 2010

Jonathan Holslag on Chindia

In an interview with Time, Jonathan Holslag, author of China and India: Prospects for Peace discusses some of the existing and potential tensions conflicts that might develop between the two countries. Holslag argues that increased competition between the nations might...

March 23, 2010

Paul Offit: Autism's False Prophets now available in paperback

Paul Offit’s best-selling Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure is now available in paperback with a new preface. While the hardcover was first published in 2008 events have kept the book in the...

March 22, 2010

Roger Hardy on Islamism and why the West gets it wrong

In a recent editorial in the Guardian, Roger Hardy, author of The Muslim Revolt: A Journey Through Political Islam, argues that the West has simplified and misunderstood the nature and motivations of Islamism. Hardy’s editorial and book are based on...

March 19, 2010

Ronald Reagan and General Electric — Thomas Evans

General Electric is currently sponsoring the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration. Regan’s relationship with GE is the subject of Thomas Evans’s recent book The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism,...