"The Ogallala aquifer, one of the earth’s largest, extends from South Dakota to Texas and, today, supports one-sixth of the world’s grain production, even as it is quickly being drained to the point of collapse. Lucas Bessire’s Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains, which was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award, is a story about the politics and livelihoods that have sustained this extraction."
Yve-Alain Bois, Professor in the School of Historical Studies, has completed volume two of his catalogue raisonné of American painter Ellsworth Kelly. Working with the artist’s estate, Bois has produced a thorough catalogue of the artist’s paintings, sculptures, and reliefs between the years 1954 and 1958, including high-quality reproductions of the art, history of ownership and exhibition, and bibliographic notes.
Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America, by Social Science Member Keisha N. Blain will be published by Beacon Press on October 5, 2021. The book explores Hamer's ideas and political strategies, highlighting their relevance for tackling modern social issues including voter suppression, police violence, and economic inequality.
"Can we imagine, as Samuel Moyn puts it in 'Humane,' his smart and provocative new book, 'a future of war beyond killing'? It sounds like a worthy goal. Why wouldn’t less killing be anything but better?"
Read book critic Jennifer Szalai's review at the New York Times.
Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, brings the policing crisis into stunning focus in his new book Death of a Traveller: A Counter Investigation, recently translated from French by Rachel Gomme.
Death of a Traveller: A Counter Investigation by Didier
Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social
Science, was published on July 6, 2021, by Polity:
“It is a simple story. A 37-year-old man belonging to the
Traveller community...
Discover the life and legacy of the twentieth century's foremost
mathematical logician in Journey to the Edge of Reason:
The Life of Kurt
Gödel, the new biography by Stephen
Budiansky.
Billed as "the first major biography written for a
general...
The New Yorker has featured Democracy and
Truth, by Sophia
Rosenfeld, Member (2014–15) in the School of Social Science,
among its "Briefly Noted" book reviews for the week of May 27.
The New Yorker calls Rosenfeld's book "incisive,"
writing:
