New and Notable


  • Allawi's "The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace"

  • Dwyer's "Napoleon: The Path to Power"

  • Sennett's "The Craftsman"

  • Shimba's "A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Japan and North-East Asia"

  • Speth's "The Bridge at the Edge of the World"

  • Thaler and Sunstein's "Nudge"

  • Tedeschi and Dahm's "Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light"

  • Zittrain's "The The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It"

New York Magazine calls Superheroes a "genuinely cool book"

Superheroes_big_2 New York Magazine got their hands on an advance copy of Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy by Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton. They decided to do an early preview of the exhibition, which premiered at the Met this past Wednesday.

New York Magazine called Superheroes a "genuinely cool book," and found it an eye-opening companion to the opening gala gossip: "For all the jokes one can make about the gala's red carpet being graced with celebrities awkwardly decked out in Catwoman leather or Captain America capes (per hostess Anna Wintour's request that attendees take the theme seriously), a look at what's actually being shown at the exhibit is rather illuminating." Read the entire preview here.

And the blog mblankier.com reviewed Superheroes, noting the "very provocative and interesting parallel" between superheroes and fashion. "All the essays, costumes, and clothing in the book," the blogger writes, "are really fantastic and really inspiring." Read the full review here.

9780300136708 Featuring designers including John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Jean Paul Gaultier, and many more, this innovative book examines how the style of superheroes’ dress has influenced street wear and high fashion.

Stall Points is a "must-read" according to big name corporations

Bookcover

IBM Corporation. The Clorox Company. Charles Schwab Corporation. Reliance Industries. JPMorgan Chase.

What do all of these successful corporations all have in common? They--and many others--all have executives who read and praised Matthew S. Olson and Derek van Bever's Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing--Yours Doesn't Have To.

Clayton M. Christensen, professor at the Harvard Business School says, “Stall Points is grounded in competent and compelling research.  There is no fluff here.  It is a cogent, practical guide to the most pressing problem today’s managers face: How to sustain growth.” Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer for Facebook says, "This book should be required reading for leadership teams that want to stay relevant to their customers over the long run." You can see what more top execs have to say about the book here.

After the jump, read more about Stall Points, and learn how your company can sustain growth.

Continue reading "Stall Points is a "must-read" according to big name corporations" »

Morris's 1948 is a critics' favorite

9780300126969 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.

Solove interview on NYT Freakonomics blog

9780300124989_2 Annika Mengisen of the New York Times' Freakonomics blog sat down with another Yale Press author, Daniel Solove. They talked about Solove's new book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, and why even those with "virtually no online footprint" should be concerned about their internet reputation. Read the entire interview here.

Other bloggers have picked up this interview. The Tree of Knowledge said that internet reputation is "going to be an interesting area in coming years." And at the Nudges blog, authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein emphasized Solove's point about nudges and choice architecture in social networking sites. Thaler and Sunstein themselves have written about this issue in their book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

Click here to listen to another interview with Solove on the Yale Press Podcast. Visit Solove's website or read his blog Concurring Opinions. And click here to see Daniel Solove discuss his book as part of Google's Authors@Google speaker series.

May Day and National Hamburger Month

120aoc_2_3 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.

9780300117585 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 wraps up Nat'l Poetry Month with awards and readings

9780300125511At their annual awards ceremony last night, The Publishing Triangle announced Janet Malcolm, author of the critically acclaimed Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, as winner of the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction. View the complete list of award winners here.

This remarkable work of literary biography and investigative journalism, turns on the mysterious survival of Stein and Toklas, as Jewish lesbians in Occupied France. Also a fascinating illumination of the world of Stein scholarship, and a stunningly perceptive work of criticism.

120younger_poets For those poety lovers in the New Haven area, the five most recent winners of the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets competition will read from their work on Friday, May 2nd.  Free and open to the public, the event will take place at the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall Street, Room 208, at 4:00 p.m.

Awarded since 1919, the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize celebrates the most prominent new American poets by bringing the work of previously unpublished artists to the attention of the larger public.  Previous winners of the prize include such talents as Adrienne Rich, John Ashberry, and Robert Hass.  It is the longest-running poetry prize in the United States. More information on the event after the jump.

Continue reading "Yale Press wraps up Nat'l Poetry Month with awards and readings" »

Thaler and Sunstein, nudging across America

9780300122237 Yale Press authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein have received a lot of press and praise for their newest book, Nudge. For those of you who want to hear what the authors themselves have to say, here are some opportunities:

  • PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley will have Thaler on air for tonight's show (Friday 4/25). Click here to check your local listings, or here for more information on the program.
  • On May 1 in Washington D.C., the CATO Institute will host a talk for Thaler, Sunstein, and a commentator at 12:00 PM.
  • On May 16, Thaler and Sunstein will come to Chicago for the GSB Management Conference at the University of Chicago. They will be speaking at 1:00 PM.
  • At the Google offices in San Francisco, Thaler and Sunstein will be giving a talk about their book at 1:00 PM on May 29.
  • Thaler will be in Miami on June 8th to give a talk about Nudge.
  • Sunstein will return to Washington D.C. on June 27th at 7 PM to discuss the book at the bookstore Politics & Prose.

If you just can't wait until Thaler and Sunstein come to town, then listen to Cass Sunstein discuss libertarian paternalism on the Glenn and Helen Show, a podcast broadcast through Politics Central via PajamasMedia.

You can also check out their website, www.nudges.org, for news, announcements and to send your own nudge suggestions to the authors.

Zittrain causes web-wide discussion

9780300124873 Jonathan Zittrain, author of The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It, has sparked a web-wide debate with his ideas. Here is some of the news Zittrain is getting, in addition to those mentioned in the last post:

Additionally, after the jump is a YouTube video Zittrain's talk at the Tribeca Grand in NYC in preview of his book.

Visit the author's website at www.jz.org. Read and comment on the entire book online at Yale Books Unbound.

Continue reading "Zittrain causes web-wide discussion" »

Yale Press unveils new website for Centennial

Centenniallogo_3 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.

Zittrain's internet popularity cannot be stopped

Network World featured Yale Press author and "bona fide member of the digiterati" Jonathan Zittrain in a review titled "How the iPhone is killing the 'Net." This review of Zittrain's new book, The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It, has quickly made its way across the web. Macworld reprinted the article, and from there it was dugg and is being picked up by bloggers at Alejandro@Oxford, The iPhone Low Down, Steve's Unofficial Blog, and elsewhere.

Additionally, StopBadware.org blogged on an interview with Zittrain that appeared in the Management section of Computerworld.

9780300124873North 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. 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.

Visit the author's website at www.jz.org. Read and comment on the entire book online at Yale Books Unbound.

Yale Press continues Nat'l Poetry Month celebration

9780300134308 Fady Joudah, author of The Earth in the Attic, was featured on Tuesday by the online anthology of contemporary poetry, Poetry Daily. The site also shared two of Joudah's poems, "Atlas" and "The Tea and Sage Poem."Those poems, both from The Earth in the Attic, can be read here. Also, you can click here to listen to Fady Joudah read "In the Calm" from his poem, "Pulse."

Fady Joudah is a Palestinian-American medical doctor and a field member of Doctors Without Borders since 2001. He lives in Houston, TX. He is also the translator of Mahmoud Darwish’s recent poetry The Butterfly’s Burden.

9780300089226As part of their celebration of National Poetry Month, CBC Radio's Writers & Company invited Yale Press author John Felstiner to talk on Monday about his book Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew. Click here to hear that interview in RealAudio format--and to hear Celan himself read from his most famous work, Deathfuge.

This book is the first critical biography of Paul Celan, a German-speaking East European Jew who was Europe’s most compelling postwar poet. It tells the story of Celan’s life, offers new translations of his poems, and illuminates the connection between Celan’s lived experience and his poetry.

Felstiner's biography has received many accolades: nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; chosen as a best book of 1995 by Choice magazine, Village Voice, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Philadelphia Inquirer; and winner of the 1997 University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin.

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."

120aoc_2_3 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.

Parsi on Huffington Post: Breaking the US-Iran Stalemate

9780300120578_2 Writing on The Huffington Post, Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States and president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), discusses the upcoming NIAC conference, "Breaking the US-Iran Stalemate: Reassessing the Nuclear Strategy in the Wake of the Majles Elections." Parsi begins:

When it comes to Iran, President Bush has all but banged the drums of war. In fact, when faced with the question of Iran's nuclear file, it's been talk of sanctions or war, but nothing else -- even though sanctions have gotten us nowhere.

On April 8, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) will host foreign policy A-listers, Congressional members and staff, key academics and accredited media to discuss another option on Capitol Hill: a multinational enrichment facility inside Iran, coupled with direct and comprehensive talks with Tehran.

Read the entire article here. For more information on the conference, including a schedule and making reservations, click here.

Yale Press Podcast, Episode 14

Yale Press Podcast

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.

Speth appears on radio with high frequency

9780300136111 Radio stations across the country are interviewing James Gustave Speth about his new book The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability.

On Monday morning, Speth could be heard on Focus 580 with David Inge (WILL Illinois Public Radio). Hear that interview in RealAudio format here, or in MP3 here.

Monday evening, Speth appeared on At Issue with Ben Merens (Wisconsin Public Radio). That interview can be found here in RealAudio format.

Speth's upcoming radio appearances stretch from coast to coast. See the list after the jump.

Continue reading "Speth appears on radio with high frequency" »

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.

9780300136111James 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.

9780300117585Or 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.

Nudging Against Global Warming

In his Findings column for the New York Times, John Tierney wonders why Americans aren't changing their lives in reaction to climate change. "We need the right nudge," Tierney says, referring to the recent release from Yale Press authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

9780300122237 Taking a cue from Thaler and Sunstein, Tierney suggests a piece of jewelry that measures the wearer's carbon footprint and displays it to the world on a scale from red to green. Writing a blog post for TierneyLab, Tierney nudged his readers to help him out with this project: "Do you have a better name, or a better nudge of kind? The best suggestion will be rewarded with a copy of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago." Click here to read the entire post or enter the contest.

For more information about nudges, check out Nudge or the website for the book, www.nudges.org, with news, reviews, a blog and even a glossary.

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.

41uxhnydz3l_aa240__2Defining 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.

"Resurrection is often misunderstood", says New York Times

Just in time for Easter, the New York Times reviewed a selection of books about the Resurrection. These books correct some common myths among Jews and Christians. The New York Times reports, "The very idea of resurrection is widely and badly misunderstood." To correct these errors, the New York Times suggests Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews, by Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson.

9780300122770 This book, written for religious and nonreligious people alike in clear and accessible language, explores a teaching central to both Jewish and Christian traditions: the teaching that at the end of time God will cause the dead to live again. Although this expectation, known as the resurrection of the dead, is widely understood to have been a part of Christianity from its beginnings nearly two thousand years ago, many people are surprised to learn that the Jews believed in resurrection long before the emergence of Christianity. In this sensitively written and historically accurate book, religious scholars Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson aim to clarify confusion and dispel misconceptions about Judaism, Jesus, and Christian origins.

The New York Times said that Levenson continues the ideas he began in Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life. The Jewish Book Council awarded this book the 2006 National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship, and the Biblical Archaeology Society named it the 2007 Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible.

9780300136357 This provocative volume explores the origins of the Jewish doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Jon D. Levenson argues that, contrary to a very widespread misconception, the ancient rabbis were keenly committed to the belief that at the end of time, God would restore the deserving dead to life. In fact, Levenson points out, the rabbis saw the Hebrew Bible itself as committed to that idea.

Read the entire New York Times article here.

Yale Press Podcast, Episode 13

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Episode 13 of the Yale Press Podcast is now available.
Download Episode 13

In Episode 13, Chris Gondek speaks with (1) Richard Sennett, winner of the 2006 Hegel Prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities and social sciences, about the art of craftsmanship; and (2) Gus Speth, dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale, about how the free market system will need to adjust in the face of serious environmental changes.

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

Comments are welcome.

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

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

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.

Solove C-SPAN Interview on YouTube

Daniel Solove, author of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, was recently interviewed by C-SPAN for their weekly series, "The Communicators." C-SPAN has now made the entire interview available on YouTube.

"The Communicators" is C-SPAN's weekly series that examines the people and events currently shaping telecommunications policy. Topics of the Solove interview included the use of the Internet as a tool for gossip and slander and the privacy issues raised by posting private information about others on chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs.

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.

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

Joudah wins 2007 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition

9780300134308 Fady Joudah’s Earth in the Attic is winner of the 2007 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition and judge Louise Glück's fifth selection for the series.

Judge Glück describes the poet in her Foreword as "that strange animal, the lyric poet in whom circumstance and profession. . . have compelled obsession with large social contexts and grave national dilemmas." She finds in his poetry an incantatory quality and concludes, "These are small poems, many of them, but the grandeur of conception is inescapable. The Earth in the Attic is varied, coherent, fierce, tender; impossible to put down, impossible to forget."

Read an excerpt, or listen to Joudah read "In the Calm" from his poem, "Pulse."

Fady Joudah is a Palestinian-American medical doctor and a field member of Doctors Without Borders since 2001. He is also the translator of Mahmoud Darwish’s recent poetry The Butterfly’s Burden. He lives in Houston, TX.

120younger_poets The Yale Series of Younger Poets champions the most promising new American poets. Awarded since 1919, the Yale Younger Poets prize is the oldest annual literary award in the United States. Past winners include Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, William Meredith, W.S. Merwin, John Ashbery, John Hollander, James Tate, and Carolyn Forché.

Yale Press Podcast, Episode 12

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Episode 12 of the Yale Press Podcast is now available.
Download Episode 12

In Episode 12, Chris Gondek speaks with (1) Victoria Clark about Zionism and the American evangelical communtity and (2) Daniel J Solove about the permanent and global nature of the Internet is affecting people’s reputations.

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

Comments are welcome.

Solove's reputation as internet expert continues to grow

In the wake of recent news stories about internet privacy and cyber-vigilantes, Daniel Solove, author of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, has continued to share his expertise in a variety of articles and forums. Here is a brief list of some sites where Solove has appeared:

  • For their January 21 article "Keeping Teens Safe Online," ConsumerAffairs.com asks Solove about how teens view the Internet, and what parents can do.
  • The Washington Post posted the second-half of "Privacy, Free Speech and Anonymity on the Internet," the transcript of Solove's two-day online discussion, in which he answered questions from the public.
  • The Arizona Daily Star turned to Solove for their story on the rise of shame sites for bad tippers, aggressive drivers, adulterers, and more.
  • The San Francisco Chronicle profiled Joanne McNabb of the California state Internet Security Office, who, after reading "adviser" Daniel Solove's book, is changing California laws based upon his book's suggestions.
  • In TechNewsWorld's article on the increase in self-Googling, Solove explains the new definition of privacy.
  • In Newsweek's Periscope section, Daniel Solove is consulted for an article on college campus gossip sites.

9780300124989Today from 4:30 to 5:30, at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Solove will give the Distinguished Lecture in Law and Technology. This event is free and open to the public. If you can't make it, then you can instead catch the live webcast at http://law.case.edu/lectures. Click here for more information.

Read an excerpt from The Future of Reputation, or browse the table of contents, or visit Solove's website or blog.

The New Republic salutes Kitaj and Calder books as "remarkable"

Writing for The New Republic, Jed Perl lists "half a dozen remarkable books about the visual arts published during the year." Two of his six favorites were published by Yale University Press this past year: Second Diasporist Manifesto: A New Kind of Long Poem in 615 Free Verses by R. B. Kitaj, and Calder Jewelry edited by Alexander S. C. Rower and Holton Rower. "Each is a book," says Perl, "that I expect I'm going to be returning to in 2008--and in the years beyond."

9780300124569Perl calls Kitaj's Second Diasporist Manifesto "a wonderfully idiosyncratic book." He goes on to say that "the book is niftily laid out, with Kitaj's drawings and paintings reproduced in a black-and-white that suggests the brevity of tabloid imagery, and shots of red ink added to underscore the vehemence of Kitaj's drumroll pronouncements."

This book, a follow up to Kitaj’s influential First Diasporist Manifesto (1989), is a personal reflection on the Jewish Question in contemporary art as it is lived and painted and imagined by one of today's most innovative and controversial artists. In 615 distinct propositions that deliberately echo the Commandments of Jewish Law, Kitaj here channels his ideas for a new Diasporist art in a daring stream of consciousness. Including 41 images of the artist’s work chosen by him to accompany the text, this beautifully crafted volume is a unique and fascinating look into an artist’s unusual life and work.

9780300134285Calder Jewelry, says Perl, "adds yet another level of delightful complication to our understanding of an American artist whom too many people still take for granted." He calls the book an "opulent volume," and praises Maria Robledo's photographs, which "bring us very close to the jewelry, until we feel as if we are actually touching these miniaturized fantasies, taking them in our hands, trying them on."

Calder Jewelry features around 300 bracelets, brooches, necklaces, and rings, all of which are exquisitely reproduced in newly commissioned photographs. Also included are examples of Calder's inventory drawings; the boxes he made to store the jewelry; historic photographs of his jewelry worn by notable patrons, art collectors, and artists (for instance, Peggy Guggenheim and Georgia O’Keeffe); and a chronology. Essays by Mark Rosenthal and Jane Adlin discuss the relationship of these objects to the artist’s other endeavors and in relation to the history of jewelry.

Click here to read the rest of Perl's article.