Yale Press Log

Israel's Independence and Churchill's Zionism

As Israel, and its millions of supporters world-wide, celebrate its 60th birthday, few realize the important role that Winston Churchill played in the establishment of the State of Israel and the shaping of the modern Middle East.

Michael Makovsky’s groundbreaking Churchill’s Promised Land, brings this and much more to light in his careful and nuanced examination of Churchill’s complex relationship with Zionism.

In exploring Churchill’s evolving and ultimately romantic interest in Zionism, Makovsky offers a fresh, more complete and revealing understanding of this great statesman’s worldview. 

Churchill’s Promised Land won the National Jewish Book Award for History (2007) and was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature (2008).

Read an excerpt, or view the table of contents. Click here to listen to an interview with Michael Makovsky on the Yale Press Podcast.

Morris's 1948 is a critics' favorite

Under the spotlight of the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence, Benny Morris's recent book, 1948, is a praised as a shining example.

Last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review features David Margolick's review, saying: "Morris relates the story of his new book soberly and somberly, evenhandedly and exhaustively."

The May 5th issue of The New Yorker hit newsstands on Monday with a feature piece by David Remnick. This piece on Israeli history centers around Morris and the publication of 1948, calling it "a commanding, superbly documented, and fair-minded study of the events that, in the wake of the Holocaust, gave a sovereign home to one people and dispossessed another."

Last Monday, David Holahan reviewed the book for the Hartford Courant. 1948, he said, is "a richly detailed and thoroughly researched primer.... A compelling 'aha' book, 1948 brings order to complex, little-understood subjects." He went on to compliment Morris on his "vivid narrative prose and masterly analysis."

Canada's National Post began running excerpts from 1948 on May 5, and will run a total of 5 installments. Read the second and third installments.

May Day and National Hamburger Month

In honor of May Day, Slate ran an article on the best recent books about Communism. After reviewing some basics like the Communist Manifesto, they recommend the Annals of Communism series:

...Once you've got the surveys under your belt, you can turn to Yale University Press' Annals of Communism series, a unique publishing venture designed to make use of Soviet archives. Whether you want Andrei Sakharov's personal files, Stalin's correspondence with Molotov, or documents explaining the Katyn massacre, they're all available in beautifully edited and annotated translations. Don't miss John Haynes and Harvey Klehr's history of the American Communist Party (also a Yale book, also based on Soviet archives), either.

Read the entire article here.

May 1 is also the beginning of National Hamburger Month. Hamburger expert and Yale Press author Josh Ozersky reviewed New York's best burgers for the Daily News. Here is what the Daily News had to say in return about Ozersky and his new book, The Hamburger: A History:

If the city has a professor of patties, it's probably Josh Ozersky, the online food editor for New York magazine.

Not only does he test out several specimens a week, but he has just written a sexy little volume on the history of the patty from its 18th-century beginnings to its postwar boom thanks to White Castle.

Read the entire article here.

Yale Press authors on nuclear war and black holes

Foreign Affairs, published by the Council of Foreign Relations, asked Lawrence Freedman to choose his five favorite books of the past year about military, science, and technology. He chose Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War, by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez as one of the year's best books. Read the entire list here.

This groundbreaking history shatters many assumptions about the Six-Day War of 1967. New research in Soviet archives and testimonies from participants in the Israeli/Egyptian conflict reveal the extent of the Kremlin’s involvement, plans for the use of nuclear weapons in the Mid-East, and willingness to precipitate a global crisis.

Click here to listen to an interview with Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez on the Yale Press Podcast.

And Fred R. Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, corrected the Times on the history of the term "black hole." Read his explanation on the Times Online.

Click here to listen to an interview with Fred Shapiro on the Yale Press Podcast.

This week is...

National Library Week! In honor of the bibliofest, here are some Yale Press titles about libraries, perfect for your own library.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

USA Today says that this book is "for readers who take books seriously." They found it to be a "rewarding" read. Read the entire review here.

Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire, in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. “Libraries,” he says, “have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their labyrinthine logic.” In this personal, deliberately unsystematic, and wide-ranging book, he offers a captivating meditation on the meaning of libraries.

Libraries in the Ancient World, by Lionel Casson

This delightful book tells the story of ancient libraries from their very beginnings, when “books” were clay tablets and writing was a new phenomenon. Renowned classicist Lionel Casson takes us on a lively tour from the royal libraries of the ancient Near East, through the private and public libraries of Greece and Rome, down to the first Christian monastic libraries. Casson explains what books were acquired and how, who read them, how they were organized, and more.

Speth brings together governors to fight climate change

U.S. Governors and top environmental officials will meet tomorrow here at Yale University to exchange ideas on how states and the federal government can combat global warming and develop a strategy for future action.

The gathering, organized in part by Yale Press author Gus Speth, will also celebrate the centennial of President Theodore Roosevelt’s landmark 1908 Conference of Governors, which launched the modern conservation movement, planted the seed for the National Parks System, and inspired significant state efforts to protect land.

Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and author of The Bridge at the Edge of the World, Speth collaborated with other Yale organizations and state officials to commemorate that landmark 1908 conference. Last night at 8pm, Speth introduced keynote speakers Theodore Roosevelt IV and Gifford Pinchot III, the descendants of the original organizers of that 1908 conference.

The author of Red Sky at Morning would be the first to agree that we are in deep environmental trouble, but he offers hope that there is still time to avert global catastrophe. Gus Speth explores a wide variety of promising and even radical ideas for transforming modern capitalism so as to protect and restore the natural world.

For more information on this conference, click here. To keep on top of more of Speth's events, visit the author's website Bridge At the Edge of the World.com.

Click here to listen to an interview with Gus Speth on the Yale Press Podcast.

Yale Press unveils new website for Centennial

In celebration of the Yale University Press Centennial (1908-2008), we are proud to launch our brand new Centennial website.

Visit here to find a message from Yale Press Director John Donatich; a brief history of the Press's first 100 years; highlights from the Press’s bestselling, prize-winning, and seminal works; news about upcoming celebrations, exhibitions and media events; and more.

Books on the beauty of nature and the nature of humanity

Two reviews of Yale Press titles appeared in the April 17th edition of the New York Review of Books.

Andrew Butterfield reviewed Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions, edited by Pierre Rosenberg and Keith Christiansen. Butterfield praises the "ravishingly beautiful exhibition, ... one that attempts to renew our understanding of the artist." He particularly admires the essay by Willibald Sauerländer, calling it "brilliant." Read the entire review here.

This beautiful catalogue presents the first in-depth examination of Poussin’s landscapes. Featured here are more than 40 paintings, ranging from the artist’s early Venetian-inspired pastorals to his grandly structured and austere works, designed as metaphors or allegories for the processes of nature. Also included are approximately 60 drawings and essays by internationally renowned scholars who examine the painter’s visual, literary, and philosophical influences as well as his relationships with his patrons and his place in the art-historical canon.

Hartford Courant profiles Brent and YUP's digital Stalin archive

The Hartford Courant profiled Jonathan Brent, editorial director of Yale Press' Annals of Communism Project, and interviewed him about the Press's $1.3 million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to develop a digital documentary edition of Stalin's Personal Archive.

After sharing a story of Stalin's correspondences with director Sergei Eisenstein and novelist Upton Sinclair, the Courant said, "It is documents like the dispatch to Sinclair that distinguish Yale's Stalin archive." Read the entire article here.

The article in the Courant was picked up by the History News Network, as well as by RussiaTrek and cafe historia, who said, "This is surely what the web was designed to do. If only other institutions would follow suit."

The digitization of Stalin's Personal Archive is a new initiative of Yale University Press' acclaimed Annals of Communism series, begun in 1992.  The digitized documents from this archive will become the basis for future scholarly research, while expediting traditional book publications on topics of great importance in understanding Soviet and twentieth-century world history.

Heckscher's Creating Central Park discusses the creation of recreation

The New York Sun and the New York Observer, both running pieces on Creating Central Park by
Morrison H. Heckscher, have decided to emphasize different parts of the story: one real estate, the other art.

The Real Estate section of the New York Observer contained a Q&A with Heckscher about the book.  Heckscher begins, "I would like to start by saying that the whole issue of the park has to do with open space in Manhattan. Central Park is, shall we say, the conclusion of 50 years of political machinations of how to provide, for the city and Manhattan, open space mostly for health reasons—for air and space for the health of the public, and recreation." Read the entire interview here.

And the New York Sun ran a piece, "Creating Central Park," in their Arts section, with Heckscher discussing the great minds behind the creation of Central Park.

The year 2008 marks the 150th anniversary of the design of Central Park, the first and arguably the most famous of America’s urban landscape parks. In October 1857 the new park’s board of commissioners announced a public design competition, and the following April the imaginative yet practicable “Greensward” plan submitted by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted was selected.

This book tells the fascinating story of how an extraordinary work of public art emerged from the crucible of New York City politics. From William Cullen Bryant’s 1844 editorial calling for “a pleasure ground of shade and recreation” to the completion of construction in 1870, the history of Central Park is an urban epic––a tale not only of animosity, political intrigue, and desire but also of idealism, sacrifice, and genius.

NYT on professions and recessions: Sennett and Fraser

Writing for the New York Times Book Review, Lewis Hyde reviewed The Craftsman by Richard Sennett. He explains the book's ideas, saying that he enjoyed "the companionship of its inquiring intelligence." Hyde goes on to tell the readers, "There is much to learn here." Read the entire review here.

Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than "skilled manual labor," Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman's work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world.

Click here to listen to an interview with Richard Sennett on the Yale Press Podcast. View the table of contents, or read an excerpt from The Craftsman.

In an article on Wall Street-bound graduates and their nervousness about the recession, Louise Story of the New York Times asked Yale Press author Steve Fraser. Fraser, author of Wall Street: America's Dream Palace, also teaches an undergraduate seminar on Wall Street at the University of Pennsylvania.

In the beginning of the semester, Mr. Fraser noticed that students seemed to think the housing crisis was unrelated to their goals in finance and was caused mostly by irresponsible borrowers. But after the collapse of Bear Sterns, he said, they had "a great deal more sympathy for people who have already been affected by this crisis.

"There’s a sense in the class now that things are more worrying, that this may affect them."

Read the entire New York Times article here. Click here to listen to an interview with Fraser on the Yale Press Podcast.

Shapiro blegs for the Freakonomics blog

Stephen J. Dubner of the New York Times' Freakonomics blog invited "blegs" from the readers--or, "questions that the Freakonomics readership could collectively answer well." The inaugural bleg--did Clint Eastwood's ever say "Read my lips"--was answered with the help of Yale Press' own Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the "wonderful" Yale Book of Quotations. Shapiro began by explaining the methodology of his work.

“Quotations research” is probably a new concept to most readers, but I have become one of the few people in the world who conducts extensive research about famous quotations. Even standard quotation books like Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations are based on surprisingly minimal research, but I set out eight years ago to create a new quotation book that would use state-of-the-art research methods — as well as extensive networking — to track down the accurate origins of well-known quotes.

Check back on the Freakonomics blog every Thursday to see Shapiro's future blegs.

This reader-friendly quotation book is unique in its focus on modern and American quotations.  It is also the first to use state-of-the-art research methods to capture famous quotations and to trace sources of quotations to their true origins.  It contains more than 12,000 entries not only from literary and historical sources but also from popular culture, sports, computers, politics, law, and the social sciences. With fascinating annotations, extensive cross-references, and a large keyword index, the book is a curious reader's delight.

Read the rest of the blog post, including a lively conversation in the comments section.

Yale Press Podcast, Episode 14

Episode 14 of the Yale Press Podcast is now available.
Download Episode 14

In Episode 14, Chris Gondek speaks with (1) Steve Fraser, about how Americans have perceived Wall Street and its more well known investors throughout its history, and with (2) Jay Parini, about the importance of poetry for both individuals and for cultures.

Download it for free here, on iTunes, and everywhere else that podcasts can be found.

Comments are welcome.

In Episode 14, Chris Gondek speaks with (1) Steve Fraser, about how Americans have perceived Wall Street and its more well known investors throughout its history, and with (2) Jay Parini, about the importance of poetry for both individuals and for cultures.

Download it for free here, on iTunes, and everywhere else that podcasts can be found.

Comments are welcome.

Remembering Dith Pran

Dith Pran, author of Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors, passed away on Sunday in New Brunswick, N.J, as reported in the New York Times. He was a photojournalist for the New York Times and founder of the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project.

This extraordinary book contains eyewitness accounts of life in Cambodia during Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979, accounts written by survivors who were children at the time. The book has been put together by Pran, whose own experiences in Cambodia were so graphically portrayed in the film The Killing Fields.

The testimonies related here bear poignant witness to the slaughter the Khmer Rouge inflicted on the Cambodian people. The contributors—most of them now in the United States and pictured in photographs that accompany their stories—report on life in Democratic Kampuchea as seen through children's eyes. They speak of their bewilderment and pain as Khmer Rouge cadres tore their families apart, subjected them to harsh brainwashing, drove them from their homes to work in forced-labor camps, and executed captives in front of them. Their stories tell of suffering and the loss of innocence, the struggle to survive against all odds, and the ultimate triumph of the human spirit.

Click here to read the entire New York Times obituary.

NY Sun: Yale Press books explain and enchant

Writing for the New York Sun, John Merriman reviewed Philip Dwyer's Napoleon: The Path to Power, finding it "an excellent history and a very good read." He says that many sections were not only "compelling," but also finds them pertinent to current militaristic and political events. Read the entire review here.

A groundbreaking biography focusing on the young Napoleon and his improbable rise to power. Debunking many of the myths that Napoleon himself promulgated as an early manipulator of the media, Dwyer's book sheds new light on Napoleon's inner life and character, and on the twisting path that led from his boyhood in Corsica to the coup that gave him leadership of France at the age of thirty.

Elsewhere in the NY Sun, Eric Ormsby reviewed The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel, in which "the well-known historian of books and reading lovingly explores the nooks and crannies of this enchanted domain." Ormsby later states that "there seems to be nothing Mr. Manguel has not read," although he is "never narrowly bookish." Read the entire review here.

Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire, in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. "Libraries," he says, "have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I've been seduced by their labyrinthine logic." In this personal, deliberately unsystematic, and wide-ranging book, he offers a captivating meditation on the meaning of libraries.

Two Yale Press authors to talk on NPR today

Tune your dials to NPR from 11-noon EST today and you're bound to hear one of our Yale Press authors share their expertise.

James Gustave Speth, author of The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, will talk to Diane Rehm about the effect of American-style consumer capitalism upon the environment. To learn more about his appearance on The Diane Rehm Show, click here.

The author of Red Sky at Morning would be the first to agree that we are in deep environmental trouble, but he offers hope that there is still time to avert global catastrophe. Gus Speth explores a wide variety of promising and even radical ideas for transforming modern capitalism so as to protect and restore the natural world.

Or you can hear Josh Ozersky, author of The Hamburger: A History and online food editor for New York Magazine. Ozersky will discuss the juicy story of America's favorite sandwich live on WBUR's On Point. For more information, click here.

A lively and entertaining history of the hamburger and why it is no mere sandwich in America, but an icon. Josh Ozersky uncovers an array of facts and stories about the hamburger’s evolution and chronicles how the burger has reflected—and even shaped—American business and culture.

Technology's future and past: The Internet and The Railway

The Technology Liberation Front's Adam Thierer reviewed Jonathan Zittrain's The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It. Finding the book interesting, he recommended--and later, implored--his readers to pick up a copy. Zittrain's provocative ideas about "generative" and "sterile" appliances inspire Thierer's extensive response and the comments that follow. "It’s an important and enlightening book about one possible vision of the Net’s future," Thierer says. Read the entire review here.

North Korean radios that are altered to receive only the official stations. Cars that listen in on their owners’ conversations. Digital video recorders ordered to self-destruct in viewers’ homes thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. Jonathan Zittrain’s extraordinary book pieces together the engine that has catapulted the Internet ecosystem into the prominence it has today—and explains that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of consumers, the Internet is on a path to a lockdown, a closing off of opportunities and innovation.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City infoZine News previewed the "major international exhibition" at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, "Art in the Age of Steam: Europe, America and the Railway, 1830-1960." They said, "'Art in the Age of Steam' is the most wide-ranging exhibition ever assembled of American and European works of art responding to the drama of the railroad.... [It] will capture the excitement and range of emotions that steam-powered trains elicited as railroads reshaped culture around the world." Yale University Press is publishing The Railway: Art in the Age of Steam, the catalog for the exhibition; the infoZine staff said that the catalog "is directed at both art lovers and railroad enthusiasts." The catalog will be available next month.

Through vivid illustrations and engaging texts, The Railway: Art in the Age of Steam captures both the fear and excitement of early train travel as it probes the artistic response to steam locomotion within its social setting. Featuring paintings, photography, prints, and posters, the book includes numerous masterpieces by 19th- and 20th-century artists, including J. M. W. Turner, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Charles Sheeler, and Edward Hopper.

Copquin explains "Queensites" for New York Times

"Why isn’t there a word to describe Queens residents?" was the question for FYI's Michael Pollak of the New York Times. He, in turn, went right to the authority on Queens, Claudia Gryvatz Copquin, author of recently released The Neighborhoods of Queens. Here's the full answer given by Pollak and Copquin:

A. Well, there is one, as awkward as it may sound: Queensites. Though rarely spoken, it shows up in Queens newspapers from time to time, said Claudia Gryvatz Copquin, author of a new book, “The Neighborhoods of Queens” (Yale University Press).

The lack of a common identifying word may be related to the borough’s fragmented nature, Ms. Copquin said in an e-mail message. “Residents of Queens identify more with their particular neighborhoods than with the borough itself,” she said.

For example, she said, many residents use their neighborhoods in their mailing addresses: Instead of Queens, their mail is sent to Long Island City, Jamaica, Flushing and so forth.

To read the other questions for FYI, click here. And for more information about Queens, check out the The Neighborhoods of Queens.

View the table of contents, or read an excerpt.

Sennett's The Craftsman in print, blogs, and air waves

In addition to the blogs Hand Made Theory, Zeigarnika, and Greenjeans Blog that feature Richard Sennett's The Craftsman, guardian.co.uk has two reviews and an article by Sennett himself.

The review that appeared in the Observer on February 17 says, "As in his previous books, Sennett ranges fluently across philosophy, literature, art, music and technology." Meanwhile, the reviewer from the Guardian says, "Richard Sennett is a prime observer of society, an American, a pragmatist who takes the nitty gritty of daily life and turns it into a disquisition on morality.... He is an enchanting writer with important things to say." For a taste of what he has to say, check out his article, "Labours of Love," which appeared last month in the Guardian.

Sennett was also invited as a guest on The Diane Rehm Show, where he talked about everyone's potential to be a craftsman. Listen to the show in Real Audio format here, or in Windows Media format here. If you want to hear more from Sennett, click here to listen to an interview with him on the Yale Press Podcast.

Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than "skilled manual labor," Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman’s work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world.

View the table of contents, or read an excerpt from the book.

Jeal wins NBCC award for Biography!

The National Book Critics Circle awarded Tim Jeal first place in the category of Biography for Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer. The NBCC blog Critical Mass liveblogged the award ceremony:

7:06 p.m.: Art Winslow announces the winner for Biography. It's...

TIM JEAL, FOR STANLEY: THE IMPOSSIBLE LIFE OF AFRICA'S GREATEST EXPLORER!

7:10 p.m.: Tim Jeal takes the mike, and is "deeply grateful" to his wife for putting up with him. Says "gobsmacked," which is the best reason for putting anyone from the UK near a mike.

Read more about the award here.

Jeal's been having a great week. Last Thursday he was named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the category of Biography. The winner of that award will be announced in late April at the LA Times Festival of Books.

Tim Jeal is the author of two previous biographies, Livingstone and Baden-Powell: Founder of the Boy Scouts, both published by Yale University Press and both chosen as Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The New Republic on Obama's economic guru and Gordin's yikhes

In the March 12th issue of The New Republic, Noam Scheiber writes of the effect of Richard Thaler's economic theories on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Scheiber writes, "Thaler is revered by the leading wonks on Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Though he has no formal role, Thaler presides as a kind of in-house intellectual guru, consulting regularly with Obama's top economic adviser." Thaler and Cass Sunstein recently wrote Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Read more about Thaler's influence on Obama here.

Elsewhere in that same issue of The New Republic, Stephen Greenblatt discusses the yikhes--"status or honor" in Yiddish--of playwright Jacob Gordin. Greenblatt positively reviews The Jewish King Lear: A Comedy in America, saying that "the late Ruth Gay's fine and lively translation of Gordin's most famous play, along with the richly informative accompanying biographical and interpretative essays by Gay and Sophie Glazer, enable readers without Yiddish to understand what stirred Gordin's original audience so deeply." Read the entire review here.

The New Republic also extensively reviewed The Origins of Reasonable Doubt: Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial by James Q. Whitman for their February 27th issue. TNR subscribers can read that review here.

Yale Press's centennial coverage begins

Nick Basbanes, author of the forthcoming A World of Letters: Yale University Press, 1908-2008, wrote a brief article for the Los Angeles Times, covering a handful of accomplishments and distinctions that the Press has achieved over the past century.

Additionally, Monday’s edition of the Yale Daily News contained an article about Yale University Press’s centennial and our continued success over the years. The writer echoed Basbanes’ praise for us as "the outstanding university press in the United States."

The article begins, "The idea for a printing press based in New Haven dates all the way back to a 1753 letter written by Benjamin Franklin. In July of 1908, plans were finally codified for a small, privately owned publishing firm — the Yale University Press. And now, 100 years later, the Press is one of the most successful academic publishing houses in the United States."

Read the entire Yale Daily News article here.

Abert's Mozart tops WSJ list

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, music critic James Penrose listed the five best books to "sound the depths of composers' lives." The number one book on that list is Hermann Abert's W.A. Mozart. Here's what Penrose had to say about the book:

Modern Mozart scholarship is indebted to Hermann Abert's groundbreaking biography, and little wonder. When it appeared in German almost 90 years ago, this engaging work was the last word on Mozart's life (1756-91) and music, offering penetrating analysis and wonderful accounts of his travails and triumphs and of his operas, concertos, church music and symphonies. But until last year, the book had never been translated into English. Stewart Spencer admirably executed the task for Yale University Press, and editor Cliff Eisen, a distinguished Mozart scholar, updated the text with scrupulous and marvelously perceptive annotations. Abert's study is a model of musical biography.

Penrose is not alone in his praise for W.A. Mozart. H.C. Robbins Landon calls it "indispensable. There is no doubt that Abert’s biography of Mozart is the most distinguished and best informed ever written, and it is incomprehensible that it has never been translated into English." Laurence Dreyfus of Magdalen College, Oxford agrees, finding W.A. Mozart to be "a very useful book. Nothing else does the job."

Read from the rest of the WSJ list.

Allawi and McCarthy: two experts discuss their expertise

Ali A. Allawi, author of The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, spoke at Brown University last Wednesday as part of the Peter Green Lectures on the Modern Middle East. His talk at Brown was moved to a 675 seat lecture hall to accommodate demand. Read an article covering Allawi's lecture from the Providence Journal. The Occupation of Iraq is now available in paperback.

This is a comprehensive account of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, told for the first time by an Iraqi insider. Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Minister of Defense and Finance, writes from the perspective of both principal and observer, shedding new light on the story behind the invasion, the shambolic aftermath and attempts at stabilization, and why events have failed to unfold as planned.

Click here to listen to an interview with Ali A. Allawi on the Yale Press Podcast.

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On February 29, 2008, Yale Press author Tom McCarthy appeared on the Leonard Lopate Show (WNYC) to discuss his new book Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment. You can download the segment or listen with the embedded player below. For more information on the segment, or to hear the entire program, click here.

Spanning the automobile’s entire history, this book is the first to relate consumer behavior to the wider environmental impact of cars—from raw materials and manufacturing to use and disposal. It shows that America’s disappointing response to automobile-related environmental issues stems from the interplay of politics, economics, and desire.

Congratulations to three award-winning YUP titles

The announcement came out this week that three Yale Press titles won awards. Two of them, The Arts in Latin America and Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War, will share the Eleanor Tufts Book Award of the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies

The Arts in Latin America by Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt and Joseph Rishel was "selected for the strength of its scholarship, the breadth of its coverage, and the beauty of its presentation." This book is a magnificent survey of the rich and varied arts in Latin America from 1492 to the end of the colonial era.

Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War by Robin Adèle Greeley was chosen "for the quality of its scholarship, its excellent production as book, and its thoughtful consideration of an under-studied aspect of art history."

This book scrutinizes a wide range of artistic responses to the Spanish Civil War to illuminate the relation between art and politics during a period of social crisis. Through the works of Miró, Dalí, Caballero, Masson, and Picasso the author investigates how Surrealism served to bridge the divide between political thought and political act.

The third book to win an award is Angela Rosenthal's Angelica Kauffman. It won this year's book prize in the pre-1800 category from the Historians of British Art.

This major new study of one of the most internationally celebrated artists of the 18th century considers the artist’s pictorial strategies, significant contributions to portraiture, and role as a woman in shaping European visual culture.

Remembering William F. Buckley, Jr.

The New York Times reports, "William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn."

The "scourge of liberalism" may have become famous for criticizing Yale's academics, but Buckley lauded Yale University Press for the Annals of Communism series. Buckley helped raise money for the research, which he called "a historical juggernaut capable of refashioning the trendy history in which so many American scholars were once ensnared."

The Annals of Communism presents selected documents concerning the history of Soviet and international communism from Russian state and party archives. Virtually all the material contained in these archives has never before been available to Western or even Russian scholars. For more information, visit the series website here.

More of Buckley's writing can be found in Bright Pages: Yale Writers, 1701-2001, edited and with an introduction by J.D. McClatchy.

Inspiring teachers, colliding ideas, great literature--such college experiences can stamp a young writer for life. This dazzling book contains the work of dozens of writers whose education at Yale over the last three centuries exerted a powerful force on their writing lives. The galaxy of authors ranges from Noah Webster to Gloria Naylor, and a bounty of their sermons, poems, essays, passages from novels, and short stories fills these bright pages.