The World According to Physics by Jim Al Khalili shortlisted for 2020 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize
Watch the Trailer for Sean B. Carroll’s new book.
Translation Month at Columbia University Press
The Bloody Flag: Mutiny in the Age of Atlantic Revolution
Mutiny tore like wildfire through the wooden warships of the age of revolution. While commoners across Europe laid siege to the nobility and enslaved workers put the torch to plantation islands, out on the oceans, naval seamen by the tens of thousands turned their guns on the quarterdeck and overthrew the absolute rule of captains. By the early 1800s, anywhere between one-third and one-half of all naval seamen serving in the North Atlantic had participated in at least one mutiny, many of them in several, and some even on ships in different navies. In The Bloody Flag, historian Niklas Frykman explores in vivid prose how a decade of violent conflict onboard gave birth to a distinct form of radical politics that brought together the egalitarian culture of North Atlantic maritime communities with the revolutionary era’s constitutional republicanism. The attempt to build a radical maritime republic failed, but the red flag that flew from the masts of mutinous ships survived to become the most enduring global symbol of class struggle, economic justice, and republican liberty to this day.
The Decisive Network – How the Popular Fascination with Photography Helped Launch the Mythic Magnum Photo Agency
Since its founding in 1947, the legendary Magnum Photos agency has been telling its own story about photographers who were witnesses to history and artists on the hunt for decisive moments. Based on unprecedented archival research, The Decisive Network unravels Magnum’s mythologies to offer a new history of what it meant to shoot, edit, and sell news images after World War II. Read more about the book on the UC Press Blog.
Hitler’s Northern Utopia reviewed in the Washington Post
Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway by Despina Stratigakos tells the fascinating untold story of how Nazi architects and planners envisioned and began to build a model “Aryan” society in Norway during World War II
The book has just been reviewed in the Washington Post.
Britain’s Birds – Second Edition. Review in Bird Guides
A bestselling guide since it was first published, Britain’s Birds has quickly established itself as the go-to photographic identification guide to the birds of Great Britain and Ireland—the most comprehensive, up-to-date, practical and user-friendly book of its kind. Acclaimed by birdwatchers of all kinds, from the beginner to the most experienced, the guide has now been thoroughly revised and updated to make it even better than before. Combining the finest of identification guide content and presentation, this eagerly awaited second edition preserves the best of the first edition while covering twelve newly recorded species and offering a host of improvements that make identification easier.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691199795/britains-birds
Rethinking Readiness
“This timely book both looks ahead to the mega-disasters on the horizon—disasters that tank economies, shred infrastructure, and take lives—and outlines how communities can start preparing now. It is an essential guide for policy makers and concerned citizens alike who want to build a better future.”
~Alice C. Hill, former senior director of resilience policy on the National Security Council
Read an article by the author on the Columbia University Press Blog:
A Brief History of Fascist Lies
In this short book, world-renowned historian Federico Finchelstein explains why fascists regarded simple and often hateful lies as truth, and why so many of their followers believed the falsehoods. Throughout the history of the twentieth century, many supporters of fascist ideologies regarded political lies as truth incarnated in their leader. This history continues in the present, when lies again seem to increasingly replace empirical truth, and has a long political and intellectual lineage that we cannot ignore.
Booksmith and UC Press present a 6-part series of virtual events focused on urgent societal issues, broadcasting every Monday at 11am PST. This second event in the series features Federico Finchelstein discussing his book A Brief History of Fascist Lies. It’s on August 10th at 11am San Francisco time (7pm UK time).
This is a free event, but RSVP is required. RSVP here.
https://www.booksmith.com/event/virtual-federico-finchelstein-brief-history-fascist-lies
Making All Black Lives Matter
The breadth and impact of Black Lives Matter in the United States has been extraordinary. Between 2012 and 2016, thousands of people marched, rallied, held vigils, and engaged in direct actions to protest and draw attention to state and vigilante violence against Black people. What began as outrage over the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and the exoneration of his killer, and accelerated during the Ferguson uprising of 2014, has evolved into a resurgent Black Freedom Movement, which includes a network of more than fifty organizations working together under the rubric of the Movement for Black Lives coalition. Employing a range of creative tactics and embracing group-centered leadership models, these visionary young organizers, many of them women, and many of them queer, are not only calling for an end to police violence, but demanding racial justice, gender justice, and systemic change.
