Check out these new books to keep you company on the long ride home for the holiday. These books should keep you entertained and sharp despite all the tryptophan.
A Certain Ambiguity by Suri,Gauruv and Bal, Hartosh Singh. Princeton University Press, 2007
QA99.S872007
“GOOD stories need rich characters that we care about, not mathematical theorems, however fascinating. So a work of fiction subtitled A mathematical novel makes you fear that it may only expose the tremendous difficulty of blending science and logic with the emotion and dramatic tension required of good literature. Fortunately, in this case that fear is misplaced, because A Certain Ambiguity succeeds both as a compelling novel and as an intellectual tour through some startling mathematical ideas.”-www.newscientist.com
Passions & Tempers: A History of the Humours. Arika, Noga. Ecco, 2007
QP90.5.A75 2007
“From Publishers Weekly
Leading medical minds were once convinced that health and sickness resulted from the interplay of the four “humors”: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, each associated with a certain personality trait (e.g., black bile signifies melancholic) and with one of the basic elements of the universe (e.g., yellow bile is linked to fire). The rational mindset naturally recoils at the crudity and superstition of this ancient medical framework, but independent historian Arikha’s pleasing historical survey usefully reminds us that our modern theories of the relationship between mind, mood and body rest on gains made by humoral analogy. To investigate the humors is to probe all of Western medicine, starting with the ancient physicians Hippocrates and Galen, the Persian Hunayn ibn-Is’haq, through the bloodlettings of the Middle Ages and Harvey’s experiments on blood, to Mesmer and Freud and beyond. If Arikha’s defense is occasionally a touch too fervent, her passion, intellectual energy and empathy are laudable . After all, says Arikha, neurotransmitters are today’s humors, and pharmaceutical companies are not all that different from the apothecaries of yore. This is a stimulating work that shows the Western mind nobly grappling with the inscrutable nature of the human body.”-Amazon.com
Of Victorians & Vegetarians: The Vegetarian Movement in Nineteenth Century Great Britain. Gregory, James. Tauris Academic Studies, 2007
TX392.G78 2007
“Nineteenth-century Britain was one of the birthplaces of modern vegetarianism in the West. In ‘Of Victorians and Vegetarians’ James Gregory explores the relationship between this newly organized movement and wider culture and society. It evolved with a myriad of meanings and voices: partly for propagandist reasons, but also because of the varied motivations and characteristis[sic] of vegetarians. Teetotallers, animal lovers, mystics, spiritualists and theosophists, as well as those who saw the diet as an effective and democratic medical treatment, all provided the constituents for a movement whose critics associated it with radicalism and faddism. Frequently counter-cultural, in its association with socialism and communitarianism throughout the period, vegetarianism also expressed in heightened form the already well-established values of self-help, philanthropy, thrift, Puritanism, domesticity and a belief in progress”-Amazon.com
Global Health Governance and the Fight against HIV/AIDS. Wolfgang, Hein; Bartsch, Sonja; Kohlmorgen, Lars. Palgrave McMillan, 2007
RA441.G5683 2007
“The devastating effects of HIV/AIDS have propelled a multiplicity of activities at global, national and local level. This book is based on in-depth studies of the major global institutions in health (WHO, UNAIDS, World Bank, WTO, Global Fund); the role of pharmaceutical corporations; the functions of NGOs; and the national responses to HIV/AIDS in Brazil and South Africa. The authors offer a unique political science perspective on this important issue and bring to light the relevance of their conclusions for other areas of health and global governance.” Amazon.com
