October 10, 2008

Somalia and Piracy

In a recent post on Comment is Free, part of the Guardian’s excellent Web site, Jeremy Sare discusses the continuing chaos in Somalia. He argues that the recent incidents of piracy off Somalia’s coast is yet another reminder of the...

October 9, 2008

“The Change Paragraph”: A Post by Beth Loffreda

The following is a post by Beth Loffreda, author of Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder. You can also read Loffreda’s recent post: The Tenth Anniversary of the Death of Matt Shepard. A few...

October 8, 2008

Obituary for Masuda Sayo

The following is a post from G. G. Rowley, translator of Sayo Masuda’s Autobiography of a Geisha. Masuda Sayo died on 26 June 2008, a few months short of her eighty-third birthday. Her end was blessedly swift: she was admitted...

October 7, 2008

CUP Authors Weigh in on the Economy and Sarah Palin

Like much of the country, Columbia University Press authors are thinking about and writing about the downturn in the U.S. economy and the presidential election. In his article Reversal of Fortune, appearing in the November issue of Vanity Fair, Joseph...

October 6, 2008

Scientists Standing Up for Good Science

The discussion of Paul Offit’s Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure continues at the Scienceblogs Book Club. In his last post, Paul Offit answered some of the questions that have been brought up...

October 6, 2008

October Author Events

From California to New York City and from the future of geopolitics to hogs and hominy, there is a plethora of Columbia University Press author events this month. Authors discussing their books this month include Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, Frederick Douglass Opie,...

October 3, 2008

Good Format, Bad Format: A Post by Alan Schroeder, author of Presidential Debates

The following is a post by Alan Schroeder, author of Presidential Debates: Fifty-Years of High Risk TV. You can also read Alan Schroeder’s other posts on the 2008 debates. What a difference a format makes. In the first Obama-McCain debate...

October 3, 2008

Interview with Loren Ghiglione, author of CBS's Don Hollenbeck

The following is an interview with Loren Ghiglione, author of CBS’s Don Hollenbeck: An Honest Reporter in the Age of McCarthyism: Q:  Why should we care about a journalist who killed himself more than a half-century ago? Loren Ghiglione:  His...

October 2, 2008

Autism's False Prophets on the ScienceBlogs Book Club

“A couple of bloggers praised [Autism’s False Prophets] for its tone, that I never appeared to get angry at the false prophets described in the book. The reason for that is that I’m not the father of a child with...

October 1, 2008

Lionel Trilling's Annus Mirabilis

In a recent Newsweek article, Jeremy McCarter describes 2008 as an annus mirabilis for literary critic, frustrated novelist, and former Columbia professor Lionel Trilling. Three books by Trilling were published or reprinted this year, including the never-before-published novel, The Journey...

September 30, 2008

The Tenth Anniversary of the Death of Matt Shepard: A Post by Beth Loffreda

The following post is by Beth Loffreda, author of Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder. Loffreda is also director of the MFA Program and associate professor of English at the University of Wyoming. Last...

September 29, 2008

Top Economists Examine the Crises in the Financial and Real Estate Markets

Some economists saw the dangers of the housing bubble before the recent collapse. In his piece from The Economists’ Voice: Top Economists Take on Today’s Problems, published earlier this year, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy...