Published this week

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ARCHAEOLOGY

- Rome and Environs: An Archaeological Guide

By Filippo Coarelli, professor of Greek and Roman antiquities, University of Perugia, translated by James J. Clauss, adjunct professor of comparative literature and Near Eastern languages and civilisations, and director of the honours programme, University of Washington, and Daniel P. Harmon, professor emeritus of classics, University of Washington. University of California Press, £40.95 and £14.95. ISBN 9780520079601 and 9618

Organised using walking tours and providing maps, drawings and plans, this book covers all the city's ancient sites and major monuments outside Rome proper.

CULTURAL STUDIES

- The Realities of Witchcraft and Popular Magic in Early Modern Europe: Culture, Cognition and Everyday Life

By Edward Bever, assistant professor of history, State University of New York, Old Westbury. Palgrave, £60.00. ISBN 9781403997814

This book explores the elements of reality in early modern witchcraft and popular magic through a study of actual cases and interdisciplinary investigations of psychological influences on health, subliminal communication, perception and cognition, and transcultural aspects of shamanism.

ECONOMICS

- Games in Economic Development

By Bruce Wydick, professor of economics, University of San Francisco. Cambridge University Press, £45.00. ISBN 9780521867580

Wydick examines the roots of poverty and prosperity through the lens of elementary game theory, illustrating how patterns of human interaction can lead to vicious cycles of poverty as well as virtuous cycles of prosperity.

- The Capability Approach: Concepts, Measures and Applications

Edited by Flavio Comim, director of the Capability and Sustainability Centre, University of Cambridge, Mozaffar Qizilbash, professor of economics, University of York, and Sabina Alkire, director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford. Cambridge University Press, £65.00. ISBN 9780521862875

This book boasts a cross-disciplinary appeal to development economists and philosophers, discussing measurement and application of the complex philosophical arguments in real development contexts.

ENGINEERING

- Nonlinear Vibrations and Stability of Shells and Plates

By Marco Amabili, professor in the department of industrial engineering, University of Parma. Cambridge University Press, £65.00. ISBN 9780521883290

This text explores theoretical and experimental aspects of nonlinear vibrations and stability of shells and plates. It is aimed at students, instructors and professionals.

- Mass and Heat Transfer: Analysis of Mass Contactors and Heat Exchanges

By T. W. Fraser Russell, Allan P. Colburn professor of chemical engineering, Anne S. Robinson, associate professor of chemical engineering, and Norman J. Wagner, Alvin B. and Julia O. Stiles professor and head of the department of chemical engineering, all at the University of Delaware. Cambridge University Press, £40.00. ISBN 9780521886703

This new approach is a combined presentation of heat and mass transfer, keeping mathematical analysis to a minimum, emphasising the similarities between mass and heat transfer at the equipment and transport phenomena scales.

GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

- Chemical Oceanography and the Marine Carbon Cycle

By Steven R. Emerson, professor of oceanography, University of Washington, and John I. Hedges, professor of oceanography, University of Washington, until his death in 2002. Cambridge University Press, £45.00. ISBN 9780521833134

This offers a background in chemical oceanography and a description of how chemical elements in seawater and ocean sediments are used as tracers of physical, biological, chemical and geological processes in the ocean.

- London in Early Modern English Drama: Representing the Built Environment

By Darryll Grantley, lecturer in drama and theatre studies, University of Kent. Palgrave, £45.00. ISBN 9780230554290

This examines the early modern stage's representation of London's built environment and material geography during the 16th and 17th centuries, and suggests that the theatre significantly inculcates in Londoners a sense of their unique urban culture.

LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

- Meaning in Context: Implementing Intelligent Applications of Language Studies

Edited by Jonathan J. Webster, head of the department of Chinese, translation and linguistics, City University of Hong Kong. Continuum, £75.00. ISBN 9780826497352

Some of the biggest names in systemic functional linguistics show how the theory can be applied to language studies "intelligently" to arrive at a better understanding of how meaning is constructed in language.

- Marking Past Tense in Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical Model

By Rafael Salaberry, professor of Spanish linguistics and second language acquisition, University of Texas at Austin. Continuum, £75.00. ISBN 9781847062383

Salaberry analyses the difficulties native speakers of English face in learning Romance languages, and in so doing proposes a model of the acquisition of tense-aspect marking.

LITERATURE

- Writers of the Reign of Henry II: Twelve Essays

Edited by Ruth Kennedy, senior lecturer in English, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Simon Meecham-Jones, research fellow in English, Swansea University. Palgrave, £40.00. ISBN 9781403966445

This collection of work studies the often-neglected writers of the second half of the 12th century in England, writing at a time when an English-speaking populace was ruled by a French-speaking aristocracy and administered by a Latin-speaking and writing clergy.

- Victorian Glassworlds

By Isobel Armstrong, emeritus professor of English, Birkbeck College, senior research fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London, and a fellow of the British Academy. Oxford University Press, £30.00. ISBN 9780199205202

Armstrong spans technology, industry, local history, architecture, literature, print culture, the visual arts, optics and philosophy with the aim of transforming understanding of the Victorian period.

- (J)Frankenstein's Science: Experimentation and Discovery in Romantic Culture, 1780-1830

Edited by Christa Knellwolf, adjunct associate professor of cultural history, Australian National University, and Jane Goodall, associate professor of drama, University of Western Sydney. Ashgate, £50.00. ISBN 9780754654476

This book aims to contextualise this widely taught novel in contemporary scientific and literary debates, providing new historical scholarship into areas of science and pseudo-science that generated fierce controversy in Mary Shelley's time.

- A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia: Ibn al-Mujawir's Tarikh al-Mustabsir

Edited by G. Rex Smith, emeritus professor of Arabic, University of Manchester. Ashgate, £50.00. ISBN 9780904180916

This is the first English translation of the Tarikh al-Mustabsir, written in the early quarter of the 13th century by Ibn al-Mujawir, a fascinating account of the western and southern areas of the Arabian Peninsula by a man from the east of the Islamic world.

MEDICINE

- ? Egyptian Mummies and Modern Science

Edited by Rosalie Ann David, professor of biomedical and forensic studies and Egyptology, University of Manchester. Cambridge University Press, £60.00. ISBN 9780521865791

This claims to be the first book to bring together research on the topic of Egyptian mummies and modern science, revealing new discoveries in disease identification and evolution, the use of drugs and the effectiveness of pharmaceutical treatments in Ancient Egypt.

- The Health Care Revolution: From Medical Monopoly to Market Competition

By Carl F. Ameringer, professor in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University. University of California Press, £29.99. ISBN 9780520254800

Ameringer lays out the key events that led up to the revolution that overthrew the medical monopoly, explores its broader social, political and economic contexts, examines the views of both its proponents and opponents and considers its current trajectory.

MUSIC

- Music and the Making of Middle-Class Culture: A Comparative History of Nineteenth-century Leipzig and Birmingham

By Antje Pieper, postgraduate member in the Centre for Contemporary Governance and Citizenship in the UK. Palgrave, £45.00. ISBN 9780230545137

This study explores the making of bourgeois cultural identity by analysing and comparing the ethos and organisation of Leipzig's Gewandhaus and Birmingham's Triennial Festival from the late 18th century to the outbreak of the Great War.

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

- The Evolution of the Private Language Argument

By Keld Stehr Nielsen, PhD candidate at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Copenhagen. Ashgate, £55.00. ISBN 9780754656296

Nielsen presents a continuous view of modern analytical philosophy by telling the in-depth history of this well-known philosophical argument, the evolution of Wittgenstein's thoughts and the influence on analytical philosophy of mind and language.

POLITICS

- Governing after Crisis: The Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning

Edited by Arjen Boin, director of the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute, Louisiana State University, Allan McConnell, senior lecturer in public policy, University of Sydney, and Paul 't Hart, professor of political science, Australian National University. Cambridge University Press, £45.00. ISBN 9780521885294

Drawing from a wide range of contemporary crises, including Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, the Madrid train bombings, the Walkerton water contamination and the Boxing Day Asian tsunami, this volume addresses the longer-term impact of crisis-induced politics.

- Towards a Deliberative and Associational Democracy

By Stephen Elstub, lecturer in politics, University of the West of Scotland. Edinburgh University Press, £55.00. ISBN 97807486394

Elstub looks at the problem of deliberative democracy and offers some suggestions, contributing to the development of the theory.

- Critique of Security

By Mark Neocleous, professor of politics, Brunel University. Edinburgh University Press, £60.00 and £19.99. ISBN 978074863329 and 3289

This book brings together a range of diverse discussions about security, examining the historical and political links between social security and national security.

- Democracy and the Political Unconscious

By Noelle McAfee, visiting professor of philosophy, George Mason University. Columbia University Press, £26.50. ISBN 9780231138802

Drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks and empirical observations, McAfee charts a course for democratic transformation.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

- Making a Non-White America: Californians Coloring outside Ethnic Line, 1925-1955

By Allison Varzally, assistant professor of history, California State University. University of California Press, £35.00 and £14.95. ISBN 9780520253445 and 3452

Varzally examines everyday interactions among Californian ethnic minorities who lived side by side, finding that in shared city spaces, these diverse groups mixed and mingled, expanding ethnic and racial categories in new directions.

Economics

How to Price: A Guide to Pricing Techniques and Yield Management

By Oz Shy, professor of industrial organisation and international trade, University of Haifa, and visiting professor in the department of economics, University of Michigan

Cambridge University Press, £45.00

ISBN 9780521887595

This book introduces the reader to a wide variety of research results on pricing techniques and combines economics of pricing with the business technique of yield management.

Languages and linguistics

Culturally Speaking, Second Edition: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory

Edited by Helen Spencer-Oatey, director of the Centre for English Language Teacher Education, University of Warwick

Continuum, £75.00 and £21.99

ISBN 9780826493095 and 3101

This is an updated second edition of an introduction to intercultural pragmatics for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Japanese Applied Linguistics: Discourse and Social Perspectives

By Junko Mori, associate professor of Japanese language and linguistics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Amy Snyder Ohta, associate professor of Japanese language and linguistics, University of Washington

Continuum, £75.00

ISBN 9780826489616

This book showcases recent developments in the field of Japanese applied linguistics, covering current issues and theoretical and methodological frameworks, many of which are of concern for Japanese specialists and applied linguists.

Medicine

Non-Medical Prescribing: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

By Eleanor Bradley, research development manager in the faculty of health, Staffordshire University, and Peter Nolan, professor in the faculty of health, Staffordshire University

Cambridge University Press, £24.99

ISBN 9780521706872

The book begins with a discussion of how prescribing practices have evolved and proceeds to outline how non-medical prescribing is now implemented from the perspectives of nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals.

Social sciences

African American Childhoods: Historical Perspectives from Slavery through the Civil Rights Movement

By Wilma King, Arvarh E. Strickland distinguished professor of African-American history, University of Missouri

Palgrave, £50.00

ISBN 9781403962508

This book seeks to fill a vacuum in the study of African-American children, and aims to recover the voices or experiences of these children, studying nuances in their lives based on their legal status, class standing and social development.

The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory

By Bryan S. Turner, professor in the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

Sage, £21.99

ISBN 9781412929875

Turner, one of the leading writers on the sociology of the body, provides a statement of work in a revised and updated edition.

Politics

American Government: Balancing Democracy and Rights

By Marc Landy, professor of political science, Boston College, and Sidney M. Milkis, White Burkett Miller professor and chair of the department of politics, University of Virginia

Cambridge University Press, £65.00

ISBN 97805218652

This book deals extensively with contemporary political developments in a manner that highlights the lessons of history, showing that crucial features of the American political system were established through decisions made under enormous pressure.

Citizenship in Contemporary Europe

By Michael Lister, lecturer in politics, University of Surrey, and Aimilia Pia, research fellow in the department of political science and international studies, University of Birmingham

Edinburgh University Press, £60.00 and £18.99

ISBN 9780748633425 and 3418

Uniting a broad theoretical approach to citizenship with a broad empirical scope, this text examines a range of theoretical perspectives on citizenship in order to analyse developments in the field.

Literature

Kingship and Love in Scottish Poetry, 1424–1540

By Joanna Martin, lecturer in Middle English, University of Nottingham

Ashgate, £50.00

ISBN 97807546630

The focus of this study is the use of amatory discourses in poetry of a political or advisory nature, offering new readings of the writings of both famous and less well-known figures in the Scottish literature of this period.

Geography and environmental studies

Understanding Environmental Issues

By Susan Buckingham, senior lecturer and director of the Centre for Human Geography, Brunel University, and Mike Turner, lecturer in human geography, Brunel University

Sage, £24.99

ISBN 9780761942368

The authors explain the science behind environmental problems, as well as the economic, political, social and cultural factors that produce and reproduce them.

Media and communication studies

Strategic Management in the Media: Theory to Practice

By Lucy Küng, assistant professor, Jönköping International Business School

Sage, £24.99

ISBN 9781412903134

With examples from all sectors of the industry including News Corporation, Endemol, BBC, Bertelsmann, CNN, MTV, Disney and Pixar, this book aims to provide an accessible introduction to strategy within a media management context.