July 24, 2009

"At the moment there are few grounds for optimism." — Farzana Shaikh on Pakistan

“Pakistan differs from other countries in that its ideological confusion has bred dangerous consequences that go well beyond the frontier of the state. Until the country clarifies its relationship with Islam, it cannot be expected to do more in the...

July 23, 2009

More perspectives on the health care crisis

What do social scientists have to contribute to the continuing debate about the health care crisis? In Health at Risk: America’s Ailing Health System—And How to Heal It, edited by Jacob Hacker, sociologists, economists, political scientists, and legal scholars examine...

July 22, 2009

Houston Baker on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates

The following post is by Houston Baker, Distinguished University Professor at Vanderbilt University and the author of many books, most recently Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era. The surreal arrest of Professor Henry...

July 21, 2009

Walter Cronkite and Fred Friendly — a post by Ralph Engelman

The following is a post by Ralph Engelman, author of Friendlyvision: Fred Friendly and the Rise and Fall of Television Journalism. Walter Cronkite’s recent death prompted thoughts about the complex relationship between the great anchor and Fred Friendly. The mixed...

July 20, 2009

Portraits from the Cambodian genocide — Peter Maguire

The current legal proceedings against Khmer Rouge leaders is once again bringing to light the regime’s horrible atrocities. One of the most powerful archives from the Cambodian genocide are the photographs from the Tuol Sleng Prison. In an essay on...

July 20, 2009

Stephen Burt's advice to authors

Of course we’re very fortunate to have wonderful authors to work with at Columbia University Press but that might not be the case for all publishers. Over at his always-interesting blog Close Calls with Nonsense, poet and critic Stephen Burt,...

July 17, 2009

The People's Daily Online on How East Asians View Democracy

Needless to say, it’s not every day that one of our books gets mentioned in The People’s Daily, published by the government of China, so we thought their article Social stability spells well-being for commonality, was worth mentioning. The article...

July 17, 2009

Summer reading recommendations from PRI’s The World

Looking for a good summer novel that goes beyond your conventional beach reading? Well, Bill Marx from PRI’s The World offers four recommendations of fiction in translation. The list includes The Halfway House, by Guillermo Rosales, In the United States...

July 16, 2009

On Russia with an open mind — Stephen Cohen

In a wide-ranging essay on thew Web site Rorotoko, Stephen Cohen discusses his recently published work Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War. While Cohen has been called upon in recent days to discuss Obama...

July 15, 2009

Kim Yong describes his time in a North Korean labor camp

Kim Yong, author of the just published, Long Road Home, was recently interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Company about his time spent as a prisoner at the infamous North Korean labor camp 14 and the atrocities he witnessed there. Listen...

July 14, 2009

James Millward tells us what's been happening in Xinjiang

Recently BBC Radio interviewed James Millward, author of Eurasian Crossroads, on the ongoing situation in Xinjiang, China. Xinjiang province in China is home to a large Uighur minority population – ethnic Turkic Muslims – who the government says are radical...

July 10, 2009

Interview with John Balcom, Translator of "There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night"

We had meant to post this earlier but PRI’s The World recently interview John Balcom, the translator of the just-published There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night by Chinese writer Cao Naiqian. You can...