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ART AND DESIGN

The Politics of the Piazza: The History and Meaning of the Italian Square

By Eamonn Canniffe, principal lecturer in architecture, Manchester Metropolitan University

Ashgate, £40.00

ISBN 9780754647164

Through a detailed and illustrated study of the principal spaces of Italian cities, this book explores the relationship between political systems and their methods of representation in architecture.

The Pygmalion Effect: From Ovid to Hitchcock

By Victor I. Stoichita, professor of the history of modern and contemporary art, University of Fribourg

University of Chicago Press, £23.50

ISBN 9780226775210

Victor I. Stoichita traces the reverberations of Ovid's founding myth from ancient times through the advent of cinema. He locates echoes of this famous erotic fable in everything from the legendary incarnations of Helen of Troy to Surrealist paintings to photographs of both sculpture and people artfully posed to simulate statues.

The Virtual Tourist in Renaissance Rome: Printing and Collecting the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae

Edited by Rebecca Zorach, associate professor in the department of art history, University of Chicago

University of Chicago Press, £13.00

ISBN 9780943056371

This book traces the journey of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae from their creators and publishers to pilgrims, collectors, antiquarians and dealers who, over several centuries, revisited and reinvented the Renaissance image of Rome.

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Skin: A Natural History

By Nina G. Jablonski, professor and head of the anthropology department, Pennsylvania State University

University of California Press, £9.95

ISBN 9780520256248

This synthetic overview aims to be a complete guidebook to the pliable covering that makes us who we are, celebrating the evolution of three unique attributes of human skin: its naked sweatiness, its distinctive sepia rainbow of colours and its remarkable range of decorations.

Exploring Animal Social Networks

By Darren P. Croft, lecturer in animal behaviour, Bangor University, and Richard James, senior lecturer in physics, University of Bath

Princeton University Press, £44.95

ISBN 97806911514

This book offers a practical guide for researchers, undergraduates, and graduate students in ecology, evolutionary biology, animal behaviour and zoology, to enable researchers to probe animal social structure at all levels, from the individual to the population.

BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

Leading Strategic Change: Bridging Theory and Practice

By Eric Flamholtz, professor of human resource management and organisational behaviour, University of California, Los Angeles

Cambridge University Press, £25.00

ISBN 9780521849470

This books aims to demonstrate that the key to long-term organisational success is the ability to adapt to and manage different types of change, combining theoretical and practical models of organisational change, together with a new theory of leadership, to build a framework for understanding, planning and leading change.

ECONOMICS

Delivering a Low Carbon Electricity System: Technologies, Economics and Policy

By Michael Grubb, professor of economics; Tooraj Jamasb, senior research associate in economics; and Michael G. Pollitt, assistant director of the Economic and Social Research Council Electricity Policy Research Group, reader in business economics and director of studies in management and economics; all at the University of Cambridge

Cambridge University Press, £60.00

ISBN 9780521888844

Written by a team of academics and industry experts, this book analyses the social, technological, economic and political issues that affect the attempt to create a low-carbon electricity sector and assesses the main instruments for achieving this aim.

EDUCATION

Racing Odysseus: A College President Becomes a Freshman Again

By Roger H. Martin, emeritus professor of history, Randolph-Macon College

University of California Press, £14.95

ISBN 9780520255418

After surviving a cancer scare, Roger H. Martin re-enrolled as a college freshman. Weaving together the themes of the great works that he reads with events that transpire on the water, in the coffee shop and in the classroom, Martin finds that a liberal arts education may be more vital today than ever before.

HISTORY

Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line

By Michael Szonyi, John L. Loeb associate professor of the humanities, Harvard University

Cambridge University Press, £45.00 and £17.99

ISBN 9780521898133 and 726405

This is an account of a dramatic episode in the Cold War played out between America, the USSR and China on the island of Quemoy and its reverberations through the 20th century.

'The Contending Kingdoms': France and England 1420-1700

Edited by Glenn Richardson, senior lecturer and director of the history programme, St Mary's University College

Ashgate, £55.00

ISBN 9780754657897

A collection of essays that explores the Anglo-French diplomatic, cultural and dynastic relations in the early modern period, showing just how close early modern England's connections with France were, even at times of crisis.

Island World: A History of Hawai'i and the United States

By Gary Y. Okihiro, professor of international and public affairs, Columbia University

University of California Press, £16.95

ISBN 9780520252998

Mixing geology, folklore, music, culture and history, Gary Y. Okihiro overturns the customary narrative in which the US dominates Hawaii. He talks of Hawaiians fighting in the Civil War and points to the islands' impact on 20th-century American culture: from surfboards, sports and films to art and racial perspectives.

Mental Maps in the Era of Two World Wars

Edited by Steven Casey, senior lecturer in international history, London School of Economics and Jonathan Wright, professor of international relations, University of Oxford

Palgrave Macmillan, £50.00

ISBN 9780230007161

This collection explores the underlying political, cultural and social environments in which various leaders developed their world views and rose to power, looking at how their beliefs influenced their actions at the top.

Civil War and World War in Europe: Spain, Yugoslavia, and Greece, 1936-1949

By Philip Minehan, lecturer in history, Loyola Marymount University

Palgrave Macmillan, £40.00

ISBN 9781403972163

This is a comparative history of the Spanish, Yugoslav and Greek civil wars of 1936-49 from the standpoints of politics, socio-economics, national questions, international conjunctures and foreign interventions.

LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

Txting: the gr8 db8

By David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics, Bangor University

Oxford University Press, £9.99

ISBN 9780199544905

David Crystal takes a look at one of the fastest-changing areas of the English language - what it is, why it is used and how it is affecting literacy and society - and aims to discover whether "txtng" spells the end of literacy.

LITERATURE

Fitzgerald: The Lost Decade, Short Stories from Esquire, 1936-1941

Edited by James L. W. West III, Edwin Erle Sparks professor of English, Pennsylvania State University

Cambridge University Press, £55.00

ISBN 9780521885300

This volume provides restored texts based on Fitzgerald's surviving manuscripts, typescripts and proofs from 1936-41, recording editorial decisions and identifying people, places, literary works, historical events and references to Hollywood actors, directors and films.

Modernism, Race and Manifestos

By Laura Winkiel, assistant professor of English, Iowa State University

Cambridge University Press, £50.00

ISBN 9780521896184

This study reappraises the central role of manifestos in shaping the modernist movement by investigating 20th-century manifestos from Europe and the Black Atlantic, examining archival materials as well as canonical texts.

Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter

By Seth Lerer, Avalon Foundation professor in humanities and professor of English and comparative literature, Stanford University

University of Chicago Press, £15.50

ISBN 9780226473000

Seth Lerer explores the iconic books, ancient and contemporary, that have forged a lifelong love of literature in young readers in their formative years, looking at the changing environments of family life, schooling and scholarship, and publishing and politics.

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

Writing the History of the Mind: Philosophy and Science in France, 1900 to 1960s

By Cristina Chimisso, senior lecturer in European studies and philosophy, The Open University

Ashgate, £55.00

ISBN 9780754657057

Cristina Chimisso reconstructs the world of French intellectuals, presenting the key debates in the philosophy of mind of this time, and the social and institutional context in which these ideas were formulated.

POLITICS

Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink

By Tyler Colman, adjunct instructor in food and wine, New York University

University of California Press, £16.95

ISBN 9780520255210

This book exposes a little-known but influential aspect of the wine business: the politics behind it. Tyler Colman explains how politics affects what we can buy, how much it costs, how it tastes, what appears on labels and more.

Presidential Debates: Fifty Years of High-Risk TV

By Alan Schroeder, associate professor in the School of Journalism at Northeastern University

Columbia University Press, £44.00 and £14.50

ISBN 9780231141048 and 1055

This second edition now covers the 2000 Bush-Gore and 2004 Bush-Kerry debates, including innovations in format and press coverage, and adds new research on televised debates since 1960.

Political Manhood: Red Bloods, Mollycoddles, and the Politics of Progressive Era Reform

By Kevin P. Murphy, associate professor of history, University of Minnesota

Columbia University Press, £20.50

ISBN 9780231129961

Kevin P. Murphy shows how popular ideals of American masculinity coalesced around two distinct categories of "red blood" and "mollycoddle" described by Teddy Roosevelt in a 1907 lecture.

PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY

Counseling Psychology

Edited by Frederick T. L. Leong, professor of psychology, Michigan State University, and Mark M. Leach, associate professor of psychology, University of Southern Mississippi

Ashgate, £135.00

ISBN 9780754625445

This book introduces readers to counselling psychology by presenting its history, emphases, trends and relationships to other areas within psychology, followed by seminal articles that have significantly influenced counsellors and researchers.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Gun Crime

Edited by Rob Hornsby, senior lecturer in criminology, Northumbria University, and Dick Hobbs, professor of sociology, London School of Economics

Ashgate, £140.00

ISBN 9780754625858

Rob Hornsby and Dick Hobbs bring together a collection of texts drawn from disciplines that have contributed towards understanding the impact of gun crime in society.

There is No Such Thing as a Social Science: In Defence of Peter Winch

By Phil Hutchinson, senior lecturer in philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University, Rupert Read, reader in philosophy, University of East Anglia, and Wes Sharrock, professor of sociology, University of Manchester

Ashgate, £55.00

ISBN 9780754647768

Since Peter Winch's death in 1997 there has been a revival of interest in his work. This book contends that Winch has been misrepresented in both the recent literature and in critiques of his writing.