Yale Press Log

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.

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.

David Noel Freedman: May 12, 1922 - April 8, 2008

We are sad to report that David Noel Freedman, eminent biblical scholar and General Editor of the Anchor Bible for fifty years, died on April 8. His family plans to hold a memorial celebration in San Diego at a later date and has suggested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to the Society of Biblical Literature for a scholarship in his name.

Condolences may be sent to the family at 39 Meadow Glen, Petaluma, CA 94952.

William Propp wrote this obituary for the Society of Biblical Literature:

      On April 8, 2008, former SBL President (1975-76) David Noel Freedman, Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of California, San Diego, died at the home of his son David and daughter-in-law Genevieve in Petaluma, California.  He was 85 years old. 

      Freedman was born Noel Freedman on May 12, 1922, in New York city, to Beatrice and David Freedman.  He deeply admired his immigrant father, a successful playwright and shtik writer for the likes of Eddie Cantor and Buster Keaton.  The over-worked Freedman senior died in 1936 at age 38, and his son adopted a new first name in his honor.  In his 70s and 80s, David Noel Freedman tried to bring back his father’s memory in another way, reissuing some of his works in print and arranging for a staging of his father’s first hit, Mendel, Inc.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Who was the real Fidel Castro?

In the wake of his resignation, many are asking who Fidel Castro really was, and what really happened in Cuba during his tenure as President. The answer to these questions--and more--can be found in two Yale Press titles, both available in paperback.

The Real Fidel Castro by Leycester Coltman

Published on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, this timely book, the most intimate and dispassionate biography of Fidel Castro to date, offers a fresh assessment of the revolutionary leader. Written by the British ambassador to Cuba in the early 1990s, it chronicles the events of Castro’s extraordinary life and explores the contradiction between the private character and the public reputation.

Cuba: A New History by Richard Gott

In this acute and profoundly engaged exploration of Cuban history, British journalist Richard Gott illuminates the island’s entire revolutionary past, from pre-Columbian times to the present. He emphasizes little-known aspects of Cuba’s early centuries and provides an extraordinary account of Castro’s regime, its lonely survival in the post-Soviet years, and its expected future. View the table of contents by clicking here.

Scott Shane shows bloggers the truth about entrepreneurship

"Do you understand the reality of entrepreneurship or do you believe the myths?"

That question has piqued the interest of many news aggregates and bloggers, who took this quiz to find out where they stand. The quiz was designed by author Scott A. Shane, whose new book, The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By, answers many of those questions in the quiz.

All over the web, bloggers who took the quiz are posting their thoughts--and their scores. Among those bloggers is Guy Kawasaki, a "managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, ... a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine," and a former "Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc." Kawasaki scored "a whopping 40%" on Shane's quiz, and a few days later Shane wrote a guest post for his blog, How to Change the World.

Jeremy Hanks of Adventures in Entrepreneurship bought the book after getting only a 45%. Small Business Trends took the quiz, and then posted that they want to get Shane for an interview. Startup Addict Musings also took the quiz and posted about it. The quiz has also been seeded on Newsvine, and picked up by web aggregates like Small Business Brief, Small Business Radar, MyBlogLog, and Blog Catalog. Buzzoodle listed four reasons why it's generating so much buzz, including the fact that "Guy Kawasaki was impressed." See below for a list of more blogs that picked up on the buzz around Scott Shane.

The Illusions of Entrepreneurship shows that the reality of entrepreneurship is decidedly different from the myths that have come to surround it. Scott Shane, a leading expert in entrepreneurial activity in the United States and other countries, draws on the data from extensive research to provide accurate, useful information about who becomes an entrepreneur and why, how businesses are started, which factors lead to success, and which predict a likely failure.

Scott A. Shane is A. Malachi Mixon III Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. He is the author or editor of eleven books and more than sixty scholarly articles on entrepreneurship and innovation management. He lives in Shaker Heights, OH.

Choice annual list includes 26 Yale Press books

A publication of the Association of College & Research Libraries, Choice, recently announced its list of the Outstanding Academic Titles of 2007. This list, released on January 1, "reflects the best titles reviewed by Choice in 2007 and brings with it the extraordinary recognition of the academic library community." Yale University Press appears on this prestigious list 26 times among the 646 titles in 54 disciplines and subsections. Here is a list of the titles chosen from Yale Press:

John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty, by Arthur H. Cash

Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting, by David Alan Brown and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden

Britannia and Muscovy: English Silver at the Court of the Tsars, by Natalya Abramova and Irina Zagarodnaya

On Political Equality, by Robert A. Dahl

Art in the Making: Rembrandt, by David Bomford, Jo Kirby, Ashok Roy, Axel Rüger, and Raymond White

Caesar: Life of a Colossus, by Adrian Goldsworthy

The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible, by Allen Dwight Callahan

The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. by Fred R. Shapiro

Digital Content Management: Yale University Press Selects Ingram's CoreSource To Manage, Sell, And Market Its Digital Content

Yale University Press has selected Ingram Digital Group to assist in the development and deployment of Yale University Press’s digital publishing strategy to make the Press’s titles more widely available.

Under the agreement, Yale University Press will use CoreSource – Ingram’s suite of asset management and search-and-discover services – to convert, protect, manage, and monetize the Press’s digital assets, whether they be sold or marketed as print books or eBooks. This is estimated to involve more than 3,000 documents and other digital assets that are owned by Yale University Press.

CoreSource’s Search and Discover Services will enable Yale University Press to market its content much more broadly, including these new ways:

• The Ingram powered “Widget” gives readers an easy way to showcase book titles on their own blogs and social networking sites.
• The Ingram Digital website user interface will enable a full-text search across all of Yale University Press’s library of digital assets available for promotion across a vast array of business partners including third-party resellers and content specific websites.
• Ingram Digital’s collaboration with Microsoft’s Live Search Books program will enable Yale University Press to digitize more of their books, make them discoverable through Live Search Books, and monetize them through Ingram Digital’s eBook sales channels and Lightning Source’s print on demand sales channels.

“Yale University Press is committed to making the best scholarship available to the widest possible audience,” said Daniel Lee, Manager of Digital Publishing at Yale University Press. “Ingram’s breadth of solutions and long history in service to the publishing industry made Ingram Digital the logical partner to assist us in developing a digital strategy that creates the widest set of opportunities for distributing our content.”

Today’s release announces that Ingram will manage the syndication of content to all Yale University Press business partners, repurpose content for partner specific needs, and provide scanning and file conversion services when necessary.

The CoreSource Asset Management Suite will be the central location for all of Yale University Press's digital content. Yale University Press employees, in all offices, will be able to access content on an as-needed basis with the confidence that they are always working with the latest version of a given resource. Content can then be delivered to business partners in the proper format with the right metadata. Mr.Lee noted that simplifying and automating these processes will create efficiencies for Yale University Press and its partners.

In addition, Yale University Press has signed an agreement with MyiLibrary, the aggregated eBook platform of Ingram Digital Group. Yale University Press plans to make its frontlist books as well as active backlist titles available through MyiLibrary.

“We are excited to be working with Yale University Press, which is a publisher with a rich heritage in academic publishing and the leadership to engage the brave new world of the digital environment,” said James Gray, President and CEO of Ingram Digital Group.

“By working with Ingram Digital, Yale University Press’s content also becomes immediately available to the various physical and digital sales channels provided by all the Ingram companies,” Mr. Gray added.

For example, once a Yale University Press document is scanned it can be printed by Ingram’s Lightning Source Inc. with its print on demand capabilities and available for sale through traditional book channels serviced by Ingram Book Group. In addition, Yale University Press titles will be transformed into eBooks for delivery through Ingram Digital’s downloadable eBook solution and available for institutional sales through MyiLibrary.

About Yale University Press
Founded in 1908, Yale University Press is one of the largest and most distinguished American university presses. It publishes over 320 books a year in a wide range of disciplines including history, American Studies, literature, art and architecture, languages, philosophy, politics, religion, reference, music and the sciences.

About Ingram Digital Group
Ingram Digital Group is an operating division of Ingram Industries Inc. and provides publishers and other content owners with a comprehensive offering of digital content accession, storage, management and distribution services. Ingram Digital Group along with its group companies of MyiLibrary and VitalSource Technologies provides a full-service array of digital solutions and support. The Ingram companies - including Ingram Digital, Ingram Book Group and Lightning Source Inc. - provide a broad range of physical and digital services to the industry. For more information, visit www.ingramdigital.com

Fred Shapiro names year's top 10 quotes

As 2008 approaches, Fred R. Shapiro, the editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, looked back on all of the quotes, soundbytes, and catchphrases that made an impact in 2007. Now, Shapiro has prepared a top ten list of the most memorable quotes, Reuters reports.

Shapiro's number one for 2007 was "Don't tase me, bro!" from University of Florida student Andrew Meyer. According to Reuters, Shapiro sees this quote as "a symbol of pop culture success. Within two days it was one of the most popular phrases on Google and one of the most viewed videos. It also showed up on ringtones and T-shirts."

Shapiro's list was also featured on NBC's TODAY show. On Meyer's quote, Shapiro told MSNBC, "It's not Shakespeare, but there is a kind of folk eloquence in that. It wouldn't be a quote if he didn't say 'bro'.... That had just the right rhythm to make it memorable."

To read Reuter's article on the entire list, click here. To see TODAY's segment on it, launch the video found here.

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 an excerpt from the book, or listen to an interview with Fred Shapiro on the Yale Press Podcast.

"Your Uncle Sammy will love" Election 2008: A Voter's Guide

Thanks to The New Republic staff blogs The Stump and The Plank for sending their readers a heads-up on Election 2008: A Voter's Guide. This book, written by Franklin Foer and the Editors of The New Republic, is part of Yale's A New Republic Book series. Here's what the editors said about it:

We've anthologized our profiles of the presidential contenders just in time for Channukah...well, Christmas. Our election guide, published by Yale University Press, collects some of our classics into one pleasurable volume: Mike Crowley on Hillary and the War; Ryan Lizza on Bill Richardson and Barack Obama; Michelle Cottle on Fred Thompson; Jason Zengerle on John Edwards; Tom Edsall on Rudy. It has new essays by John B. Judis and Franklin Foer. Stick it by the john for perusing. Stuff it in stocking. Your Uncle Sammy will love it!

Featuring the writers and editors of THE NEW REPUBLIC, this handbook for the 2008 presidential election contains information every citizen needs as we head into the primaries. THE NEW REPUBLIC'S Election 2008: A Voter's Guide includes deeply reported, psychologically rich profiles of the candidates and a compendium of facts and figures about the hopefuls. Marked throughout by the irreverent wit, style, and intelligence of THE NEW REPUBLIC, this will be the indispensable guide to the 2008 election season.

Read an excerpt from the book, or view the table of contents.

New York Daily News calls Copquin's new book the "bible" of Queens

Claudia Gryvatz Copquin's newly released The Neighborhoods of Queens is receiving lots of positive attention this week.

The New York Daily News ran an article on the book's release, saying "Look out, Queens, because your bible is coming. A 265-page book with intricate maps, historic photos and fascinating tidbits about the nation's most diverse county is already racking up requests on Amazon.com."

The New York Post calls the book "excellent" and the New York Observer says it's "one of those books where you can open it to any page and find something interesting."

YUP authors across America

From San Francisco to Washington D.C., Yale University Press authors are speaking across the country.

According to the Washington Post Literary Calendar, Daniel J. Solove will appear tonight at 6:30 P.M. at the Borders Books in downtown Washington D.C. He's going to discuss and sign copies of his new book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet. For more information, call 202-466-4999, or click here.

Daniel J. Solove is associate professor, George Washington University Law School, and an internationally known expert in privacy law. He is frequently interviewed and featured in media broadcasts and articles, and he is the author of The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age. He lives in Washington, D.C., and blogs at the popular law blog http://www.concurringopinions.com.

Also in Washington D.C., Politics and Prose will host Janet Malcolm, author of Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice tomorrow at 7 P.M. For more information on this free event, click here.

Janet Malcolm is the author of The Journalist and the Murderer, The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, and Reading Chekhov, among other books. She writes for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books and lives in New York City.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States, will be speaking to the World Affairs Council of Northern California. Tomorrow at 6 P.M., he will discuss the relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States. Registering online in advance is recommended to assure seating. For more information, or to register online, click here.

Later this week, Parsi will be the keynote speaker at the annual dinner for the North Suburban Peace Initiative in Evanston, IL. The dinner will be on Saturday, November 10th, from 6 to 9 P.M. Reservations can be made today online. For more information, click here.

Trita Parsi is president, National Iranian American Council, and adjunct professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University SAIS. He writes frequently about the Middle East and has appeared on BBC World News, PBS News Hour, CNN, and other news programs. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Yale University Press Partners with NetLibrary, OCLC -- Adds Digital Content

Published on BookStandard.com and InfoToday.com:

Yale University Press is now adding digital content to NetLibrary (www.oclc.org), OCLC’s platform for econtent to libraries worldwide. Among notable titles in the Yale collection are Ali Allawi’s The Occupation of Iraq, E. H. Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the Annotated Shakespeare, the Lamar Series in Western History, Yale University Press Health and Wellness series, and others.

More than 400 Yale University Press titles are currently available through NetLibrary, and another 2000-plus titles will be added after the backlist is digitized.

“It’s fitting that as we enter into our second century, we begin to establish partnerships that will help us fulfill our founding mission—to aid in the discovery and dissemination of knowledge—well into the future,” said John Donatich, director of Yale University Press. "With this in mind, we are very pleased to be working with NetLibrary and excited by the new opportunities that this relationship will afford."

"OCLC NetLibrary is pleased to be able to offer titles from Yale University Press, one of the most distinguished American university presses," said Chip Nilges, vice president of OCLC Business Development. "These titles represent works that promote a greater understanding of our world, and will be of great benefit to users of all libraries, and particularly academic institutions." Users now have access to more than 150,000 titles from 400-plus publishers in OCLC NetLibrary’s econtent platform offered through 15,000-plus libraries worldwide.

Read the entire The Book Standard article or Information Today, Inc. article.

Ben Kiernan speaking engagement Saturday

Ben Kiernan, author of the recently published book, Blood and Soil, will be speaking this Saturday at 2 pm at the Queens Public Library, Flushing Branch in New York. For more details and information on the event, click here. For a listing of all library events, visit QueensLibrary.org

For thirty years Ben Kiernan has been deeply involved in the study of genocide and crimes against humanity. He has played a key role in unearthing confidential documentation of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. His writings have transformed our understanding not only of twentieth-century Cambodia but also of the historical phenomenon of genocide. This new book—the first global history of genocide and extermination from ancient times—is among his most important achievements.

Blood and Soil examines outbreaks of mass violence from the classical era to the present, focusing on worldwide colonial exterminations and twentieth-century case studies including the Armenian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, Stalin’s mass murders, and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides. He identifies connections, patterns, and features that in nearly every case gave early warning of the catastrophe to come: racism or religious prejudice, territorial expansionism, and cults of antiquity and agrarianism. The ideologies that have motivated perpetrators of mass killings in the past persist in our new century, says Kiernan. He urges that we heed the rich historical evidence with its telltale signs for predicting and preventing future genocides.

August is...

August is...Learn Japanese Month!
Why not celebrate this observance by learning a new language?

Yale University Press Languages division offers books in a several languages, including Japanese.  For more information, visit Yale University Press's Languages homepage or browse the entire list of titles here.

One comprehensive title, Living Japanese: Diversity in Language and Lifestyles (Ikita Nihongo: samazama na kotoba, samazama na seikatsu) by Karen Collingan-Taylor, offers a companion DVD with spontaneous interviews on topics ranging from farming and architecture to traditions and music.

Living Japanese draws students into the lives of thirty-three Japanese from ages seven to seventy-five.  As students listen to diverse viewpoints on cultural and social issues, they will develop an extensive vocabulary and become accustomed to natural speech and linguistic differences.

The workbook contains a transcription of all interviews, a cultural introduction to each topic, a complete vocabulary list, and grammar explanations.  Furigana are provided in the transcriptions and notes to facilitate reading.  Discussion questions encourage students to research the topics further, to think about and discuss recurrent themes, to speak or write about the topic in terms of their own culture or experience, and to seek out the views of native speakers.

Click here for an excerpt from Living Japanese.

SNEAK PEEK: Daniel Solove's upcoming book -- The Future of Reputation

Daniel Solove's essay " 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy," recently published by the San Diego Law Review, is rippling through web discussions and blogs, with commenters citing excerpts of the article as "one of the best descriptions of the privacy problem" (Cochese Tonto @ Schneier on Security) and "Solove skillfully deconstructs the blithe 'nothing to hide' argument by identifying the flaws in its framing". (VortexDNA)

Read the essay abstract from SSRN.

On the heels these and other online discussions, Solove's upcoming book tackles additional internet privacy issues in The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, to be released this fall by Yale University Press.

This engrossing book explores the profound implications of personal information on the Internet, preserved forever even if it is false, biased, or humiliating. Brimming with examples of online gossip, slander, and rumor, the book discusses the tensions between privacy and free speech and proposes how to balance the two. What information about you is on the Internet?

Yale loves summer reading --new titles added to our Online Sale

We've just launched our Best of Summer Reading site at Yale University Press! Our new page features a host of titles perfect to slip right in your beach bag as you head out to enjoy the sun and surf.

Delve into Tennent H. Bagley's Spy Wars and uncover details from the CIA officer who handled the famous Nosenko case. If biographies are your interest, Wayne Franklin's recently released James Fenimore Cooper is the first to draw on complete family archives of this influential literary figure. Award-winning books round out the list, with Adrian Goldsworthy's