March 6, 2008

Winning the Battle Losing the War: A NYT Op-ed from James Willbanks

James Willbanks’s op-ed “Winning the Battle, Losing the War” appeared in yesterday’s New York Times. James Willbanks is the author of The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. In the piece, Willbanks looks at how the Tet Offensive, while considered a...

March 5, 2008

The Power of the Consumer

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the tax rebate President Bush just signed into law. As a single taxpaying citizen I’m entitled to receive up to $600 for my rebate check. The rebates are intended to stimulate the U.S....

March 4, 2008

Film and Philly: The Society for Cinema & Media Studies Conference

For some people six things come to mind when they think about Philadelphia and film: Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V, and the mose recent Rocky Balboa. However, beginning on Thursday, The Society for Cinema & Media...

March 3, 2008

Books for National Women’s History Month

Today, I’d like to bring your attention to the fact that March is National Women’s History Month. In honor of the strong contributions women have made to American history, I bring you several distinguished titles from our list in women’s...

February 29, 2008

Humanity’s Growing Pains: A Post by Walter Dodds

Walter Dodds is a professor of biology at Kansas State and the author of Humanity’s Footprint: Momentum, Impact, and Our Global Environment. Humanity is entering adolescence. For most of our history, the world has had unlimited capacity to take care...

February 28, 2008

Letter from Jim Jordan about Gutenberg-e

The recent Chronicle of Higher Education article about Gutenberg-e got a number of facts wrong, which is not surprising given the fact that Columbia University Press was not contacted before the article was published. First, it is wrong in fact...

February 27, 2008

I Love Dollars: Finalist for the Kiriyama Prize

I Love Dollars: And Other Stories of China by Zhu Wen and translated by Julia Lovell was selected as a finalist for The Kiriyama Prize in the fiction category. The other finalists are Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (The Dial...

February 26, 2008

Black History Month: The Education of Booker T. Washington

Continuing our series of postings on Black History Month, we turn to Michael West’s The Education of Booker T. Washington: American Democracy and the Idea of Race Relations. In the book, West explores the power and influence of Washington’s ideas...

February 25, 2008

Evolution and the Blogosphere

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald Prothero continues to receive enthusiastic reviews from a variety of excellent science-related blogs. Most recently, the blog Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) wrote of the book, “Beautifully written...

February 22, 2008

Oscar Reading to Win That Pool

Whether you are watching the Academy Award nominated movies for fun, for money, or for professional reasons, it’s always good to do a little research on the categories that films are nominated in. To that end, we present our highly...

February 21, 2008

Interview with Marda Dunsky, author of Pens and Swords

In this interview with the Press, Marda Dunsky talks about her new book Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and discusses some of the failures by the media and what can be done to...

February 20, 2008

Herve This Helps Clean Your Silverware

Courtesy of the Web site Delicious Days, Hervé This’s scientific knowledge is put into use to help you around the kitchen. Drawing on a chapter from Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking, “Delicious Days” shows how in just four...