ScholarVox Université de Bordeaux : New Books : Princeton University Press <![CDATA[ Britain's Day-flying Moths : A Field Guide to the Day-flying Moths of Great Britain and Ireland, Fully Revised and Updated Edition Ed. 2 ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

A carefully designed and beautifully illustrated photographic guide to the moths you are most likely to see during the day

This concise photographic field guide helps you to identify the day-flying moths most likely to be seen in Great Britain and Ireland. It combines stunning photographs, clear and authoritative text and an easy-to-use design to increase your knowledge and enjoyment of these intriguing and often colourful insects. Like butterflies, some moths fly regularly in sunshine, whereas others that usually fly at night are readily disturbed from their resting places during the day. This guide describes all of these species and features at least one photograph of each in its natural, resting pose. A brief description of each moth covers the key identification features and when and where to look for it, and includes information on its status, life history, special features and caterpillar food plants. Other sections explain how to distinguish moths from butterflies, and also provide essential information on biology, classification, habitats, gardening for moths, conservation and legislation and recording and monitoring.

  • Individual accounts for 158 species and photos of 28 others
  • More than 320 stunning photos, with every moth shown as you see it
  • Beautifully designed, easy to use and clearly written


<![CDATA[ Euler's Gem : The Polyhedron Formula and the Birth of Topology ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

How a simple equation reshaped mathematics

Leonhard Euler's polyhedron formula describes the structure of many objects?from soccer balls and gemstones to Buckminster Fuller's buildings and giant all-carbon molecules. Yet Euler's theorem is so simple it can be explained to a child. From ancient Greek geometry to today's cutting-edge research, Euler's Gem celebrates the discovery of Euler's beloved polyhedron formula and its far-reaching impact on topology, the study of shapes. Using wonderful examples and numerous illustrations, David Richeson presents this mathematical idea's many elegant and unexpected applications, such as showing why there is always some windless spot on earth, how to measure the acreage of a tree farm by counting trees, and how many crayons are needed to color any map. Filled with a who's who of brilliant mathematicians who questioned, refined, and contributed to a remarkable theorem's development, Euler's Gem will fascinate every mathematics enthusiast. This paperback edition contains a new preface by the author.

<![CDATA[ Globalizing Capital : A History of the International Monetary System Ed. 3 ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

Essential reading for understanding the international economy?now thoroughly updated

Lucid, accessible, and provocative, and now thoroughly updated to cover recent events that have shaken the global economy, Globalizing Capital is an indispensable account of the past 150 years of international monetary and financial history?from the classical gold standard to today's post?Bretton Woods "nonsystem." Bringing the story up to the present, this third edition covers the global financial crisis, the Greek bailout, the Euro crisis, the rise of China as a global monetary power, the renewed controversy over the international role of the U.S. dollar, and the currency war. Concise and nontechnical, and with a proven appeal to general readers, students, and specialists alike, Globalizing Capital is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand where the international economy has been?and where it may be going.

<![CDATA[ Adaptive Markets : Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

A new, evolutionary explanation of markets and investor behavior


<![CDATA[ String Theory in a Nutshell Ed. 2 ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

The essential introduction to modern string theory?now fully expanded and revised

String Theory in a Nutshell is the definitive introduction to modern string theory. Written by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, this concise and accessible book starts with basic definitions and guides readers from classic topics to the most exciting frontiers of research today. It covers perturbative string theory, the unity of string interactions, black holes and their microscopic entropy, the AdS/CFT correspondence and its applications, matrix model tools for string theory, and more. It also includes 600 exercises and serves as a self-contained guide to the literature.

This fully updated edition features an entirely new chapter on flux compactifications in string theory, and the chapter on AdS/CFT has been substantially expanded by adding many applications to diverse topics. In addition, the discussion of conformal field theory has been extensively revised to make it more student-friendly.

  • The essential one-volume reference for students and researchers in theoretical high-energy physics
  • Now fully expanded and revised
  • Provides expanded coverage of AdS/CFT and its applications, namely the holographic renormalization group, holographic theories for Yang-Mills and QCD, nonequilibrium thermal physics, finite density physics, and entanglement entropy
  • Ideal for mathematicians and physicists specializing in theoretical cosmology, QCD, and novel approaches to condensed matter systems
  • An online illustration package is available to professors

<![CDATA[ Straight Talk on Trade : Ideas for a Sane World Economy ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

An honest discussion of free trade and how nations can sensibly chart a path forward in today's global economy


Rodrik takes globalization's cheerleaders to task, not for emphasizing economics over other values, but for practicing bad economics and ignoring the discipline's own nuances that should have called for caution. He makes a case for a pluralist world economy where nation-states retain sufficient autonomy to fashion their own social contracts and develop economic strategies tailored to their needs. Rather than calling for closed borders or defending protectionists, Rodrik shows how we can restore a sensible balance between national and global governance. Ranging over the recent experiences of advanced countries, the eurozone, and developing nations, Rodrik charts a way forward with new ideas about how to reconcile today's inequitable economic and technological trends with liberal democracy and social inclusion.


<![CDATA[ Pricing Lives : Guideposts for a Safer Society ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

How society's undervaluing of life puts all of us at risk?and the groundbreaking economic measure that can fix it

Like it or not, sometimes we need to put a monetary value on people's lives. In the past, government agencies used the financial "cost of death" to monetize the mortality risks of regulatory policies, but this method vastly undervalued life. Pricing Lives tells the story of how the government came to adopt an altogether different approach--the value of a statistical life, or VSL?and persuasively shows how its more widespread use could create a safer and more equitable society for everyone.

In the 1980s, W. Kip Viscusi used the method to demonstrate that the benefits of requiring businesses to label hazardous chemicals immensely outweighed the costs. VSL is the risk-reward trade-off that people make about their health when considering risky job choices. With it, Viscusi calculated how much more money workers would demand to take on hazardous jobs, boosting calculated benefits by an order of magnitude. His current estimate of the value of a statistical life is $10 million. In this book, Viscusi provides a comprehensive look at all aspects of economic and policy efforts to price lives, including controversial topics such as whether older people's lives are worth less and richer people's lives are worth more. He explains why corporations need to abandon the misguided cost-of-death approach, how the courts can profit from increased application of VSL in assessing liability and setting damages, and how other countries consistently undervalue risks to life.

Pricing Lives proposes sensible economic guideposts to foster more protective policies and greater levels of safety in the United States and throughout the world.

<![CDATA[ The Copyright Wars : Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

Today's copyright wars can seem unprecedented. Sparked by the digital revolution that has made copyright?and its violation?a part of everyday life, fights over intellectual property have pitted creators, Hollywood, and governments against consumers, pirates, Silicon Valley, and open-access advocates. But while the digital generation can be forgiven for thinking the dispute between, for example, the publishing industry and Google is completely new, the copyright wars in fact stretch back three centuries?and their history is essential to understanding today's battles. The Copyright Wars?the first major trans-Atlantic history of copyright from its origins to today?tells this important story.

Peter Baldwin explains why the copyright wars have always been driven by a fundamental tension. Should copyright assure authors and rights holders lasting claims, much like conventional property rights, as in Continental Europe? Or should copyright be primarily concerned with giving consumers cheap and easy access to a shared culture, as in Britain and America? The Copyright Wars describes how the Continental approach triumphed, dramatically increasing the claims of rights holders. The book also tells the widely forgotten story of how America went from being a leading copyright opponent and pirate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to become the world's intellectual property policeman in the late twentieth. As it became a net cultural exporter and its content industries saw their advantage in the Continental ideology of strong authors' rights, the United States reversed position on copyright, weakening its commitment to the ideal of universal enlightenment?a history that reveals that today's open-access advocates are heirs of a venerable American tradition.

Compelling and wide-ranging, The Copyright Wars is indispensable for understanding a crucial economic, cultural, and political conflict that has reignited in our own time.

<![CDATA[ The Scientist's Guide to Writing : How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

The ability to write clearly is critical to any scientific career. The Scientist's Guide to Writing provides practical advice to help scientists become more effective writers so that their ideas have the greatest possible impact.

Drawing on his own experience as a scientist, graduate adviser, and editor, Stephen Heard emphasizes that the goal of all scientific writing should be absolute clarity; that good writing takes deliberate practice; and that what many scientists need are not long lists of prescriptive rules but rather direct engagement with their behaviors and attitudes when they write. He combines advice on such topics as how to generate and maintain writing momentum with practical tips on structuring a scientific paper, revising a first draft, handling citations, responding to peer reviews, managing coauthorships, and more.

In an accessible, informal tone, The Scientist's Guide to Writing explains essential techniques that students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career scientists need to write more clearly, efficiently, and easily.

  • Emphasizes writing as a process, not just a product
  • Encourages habits that improve motivation and productivity
  • Explains the structure of the scientific paper and the function of each part
  • Provides detailed guidance on submission, review, revision, and publication
  • Addresses issues related to coauthorship, English as a second language, and more


<![CDATA[ Benford's Law : Theory and Applications ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

Benford's law states that the leading digits of many data sets are not uniformly distributed from one through nine, but rather exhibit a profound bias. This bias is evident in everything from electricity bills and street addresses to stock prices, population numbers, mortality rates, and the lengths of rivers. Here, Steven Miller brings together many of the world's leading experts on Benford's law to demonstrate the many useful techniques that arise from the law, show how truly multidisciplinary it is, and encourage collaboration.

Beginning with the general theory, the contributors explain the prevalence of the bias, highlighting explanations for when systems should and should not follow Benford's law and how quickly such behavior sets in. They go on to discuss important applications in disciplines ranging from accounting and economics to psychology and the natural sciences. The contributors describe how Benford's law has been successfully used to expose fraud in elections, medical tests, tax filings, and financial reports. Additionally, numerous problems, background materials, and technical details are available online to help instructors create courses around the book.

Emphasizing common challenges and techniques across the disciplines, this accessible book shows how Benford's law can serve as a productive meeting ground for researchers and practitioners in diverse fields.

<![CDATA[ Success through Failure : The Paradox of Design ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press




<![CDATA[ The Transformation of the World : A Global History of the Nineteenth Century ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press



<![CDATA[ Mathematical Methods for Geophysics and Space Physics ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

Graduate students in the natural sciences?including not only geophysics and space physics but also atmospheric and planetary physics, ocean sciences, and astronomy?need a broad-based mathematical toolbox to facilitate their research. In addition, they need to survey a wider array of mathematical methods that, while outside their particular areas of expertise, are important in related ones. While it is unrealistic to expect them to develop an encyclopedic knowledge of all the methods that are out there, they need to know how and where to obtain reliable and effective insights into these broader areas. Here at last is a graduate textbook that provides these students with the mathematical skills they need to succeed in today's highly interdisciplinary research environment.



  • Provides an authoritative and accessible introduction to the subject


  • Features numerous exercises throughout

  • Ideal for students and researchers alike

  • An online illustration package is available to professors


<![CDATA[ The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthus : Rereading the Principle of Population ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthus is a sweeping global and intellectual history that radically recasts our understanding of Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, the most famous book on population ever written or ever likely to be. Malthus's Essay is also persistently misunderstood. First published anonymously in 1798, the Essay systematically argues that population growth tends to outpace its means of subsistence unless kept in check by factors such as disease, famine, or war, or else by lowering the birth rate through such means as sexual abstinence.

Challenging the widely held notion that Malthus's Essay was a product of the British and European context in which it was written, Alison Bashford and Joyce Chaplin demonstrate that it was the new world, as well as the old, that fundamentally shaped Malthus's ideas. They explore what the Atlantic and Pacific new worlds?from the Americas and the Caribbean to New Zealand and Tahiti?meant to Malthus, and how he treated them in his Essay. Bashford and Chaplin reveal how Malthus, long vilified as the scourge of the English poor, drew from his principle of population to conclude that the extermination of native populations by European settlers was unjust.

Elegantly written and forcefully argued, The New Worlds of Thomas Robert Malthus relocates Malthus's Essay from the British economic and social context that has dominated its reputation to the colonial and global history that inspired its genesis.

<![CDATA[ The Power of Networks : Six Principles That Connect Our Lives ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

What makes WiFi faster at home than at a coffee shop? How does Google order search results? Why do Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube use fundamentally different rating and recommendation methods?and why does it matter? Is it really true that everyone on Facebook is connected in six steps or less? And how do cat videos?or anything else?go viral? The Power of Networks answers questions like these for the first time in a way that all of us can understand and use, whether at home, the office, or school. Using simple language, analogies, stories, hundreds of illustrations, and no more math than simple addition and multiplication, Christopher Brinton and Mung Chiang provide a smart but accessible introduction to the handful of big ideas that drive the technical and social networks we use every day?from cellular phone networks and cloud computing to the Internet and social media platforms.

The Power of Networks unifies these ideas through six fundamental principles of networking, which explain the difficulties in sharing network resources efficiently, how crowds can be wise or not so wise depending on the nature of their connections, how there are many building-blocks of layers in a network, and more. Understanding these simple ideas unlocks the workings of everything from the connections we make on Facebook to the technology that runs such platforms. Along the way, the authors also talk with and share the special insights of renowned experts such as Google's Eric Schmidt, former Verizon Wireless CEO Dennis Strigl, and "fathers of the Internet" Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.

Networks are everywhere. The Power of Networks shows how they work?and what understanding them can do for you.

<![CDATA[ The Moral Economists : R. H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson, and the Critique of Capitalism ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

A fresh look at how three important twentieth-century British thinkers viewed capitalism through a moral rather than material lens

What's wrong with capitalism? Answers to that question today focus on material inequality. Led by economists and conducted in utilitarian terms, the critique of capitalism in the twenty-first century is primarily concerned with disparities in income and wealth. It was not always so. The Moral Economists reconstructs another critical tradition, developed across the twentieth century in Britain, in which material deprivation was less important than moral or spiritual desolation.

Tim Rogan focuses on three of the twentieth century's most influential critics of capitalism?R. H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, and E. P. Thompson. Making arguments about the relationships between economics and ethics in modernity, their works commanded wide readerships, shaped research agendas, and influenced public opinion. Rejecting the social philosophy of laissez-faire but fearing authoritarianism, these writers sought out forms of social solidarity closer than individualism admitted but freer than collectivism allowed. They discovered such solidarities while teaching economics, history, and literature to workers in the north of England and elsewhere. They wrote histories of capitalism to make these solidarities articulate. They used makeshift languages of ?tradition? and ?custom? to describe them until Thompson patented the idea of the ?moral economy.? Their program began as a way of theorizing everything economics left out, but in challenging utilitarian orthodoxy in economics from the outside, they anticipated the work of later innovators inside economics.


<![CDATA[ Maxwell's Demon : Entropy, Information, Computing ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

About 120 years ago, James Clerk Maxwell introduced his now legendary hypothetical "demon" as a challenge to the integrity of the second law of thermodynamics. Fascination with the demon persisted throughout the development of statistical and quantum physics, information theory, and computer science--and linkages have been established between Maxwell's demon and each of these disciplines. The demon's seductive quality makes it appealing to physical scientists, engineers, computer scientists, biologists, psychologists, and historians and philosophers of science. Until now its important source material has been scattered throughout diverse journals.

This book brings under one cover twenty-five reprints, including seminal works by Maxwell and William Thomson; historical reviews by Martin Klein, Edward Daub, and Peter Heimann; information theoretic contributions by Leo Szilard, Leon Brillouin, Dennis Gabor, and Jerome Rothstein; and innovations by Rolf Landauer and Charles Bennett illustrating linkages with the limits of computation. An introductory chapter summarizes the demon's life, from Maxwell's illustration of the second law's statistical nature to the most recent "exorcism" of the demon based on a need periodically to erase its memory. An annotated chronological bibliography is included.

Originally published in 1990.


<![CDATA[ Bayesian Models : A Statistical Primer for Ecologists ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

Bayesian modeling has become an indispensable tool for ecological research because it is uniquely suited to deal with complexity in a statistically coherent way. This textbook provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the latest Bayesian methods?in language ecologists can understand. Unlike other books on the subject, this one emphasizes the principles behind the computations, giving ecologists a big-picture understanding of how to implement this powerful statistical approach.

Bayesian Models is an essential primer for non-statisticians. It begins with a definition of probability and develops a step-by-step sequence of connected ideas, including basic distribution theory, network diagrams, hierarchical models, Markov chain Monte Carlo, and inference from single and multiple models. This unique book places less emphasis on computer coding, favoring instead a concise presentation of the mathematical statistics needed to understand how and why Bayesian analysis works. It also explains how to write out properly formulated hierarchical Bayesian models and use them in computing, research papers, and proposals.

This primer enables ecologists to understand the statistical principles behind Bayesian modeling and apply them to research, teaching, policy, and management.

  • Presents the mathematical and statistical foundations of Bayesian modeling in language accessible to non-statisticians
  • Covers basic distribution theory, network diagrams, hierarchical models, Markov chain Monte Carlo, and more
  • Deemphasizes computer coding in favor of basic principles
  • Explains how to write out properly factored statistical expressions representing Bayesian models


<![CDATA[ The Semiclassical Way to Dynamics and Spectroscopy ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

A graduate-level text that examines the semiclassical approach to quantum mechanics

Physical systems have been traditionally described in terms of either classical or quantum mechanics. But in recent years, semiclassical methods have developed rapidly, providing deep physical insight and computational tools for quantum dynamics and spectroscopy. In this book, Eric Heller introduces and develops this subject, demonstrating its power with many examples.  

In the first half of the book, Heller covers relevant aspects of classical mechanics, building from them the semiclassical way through the semiclassical limit of the Feynman path integral. The second half of the book applies this approach to various kinds of spectroscopy, such as molecular spectroscopy and electron imaging and quantum dynamical systems with an emphasis on tunneling. Adopting a distinctly time-dependent viewpoint, Heller argues for semiclassical theories from experimental and theoretical vantage points valuable to research in physics and chemistry. Featuring more than two hundred figures, the book provides a geometric, phase-space, and coordinate-space pathway to greater understanding.

Filled with practical examples and applications, The Semiclassical Way to Dynamics and Spectroscopy is a comprehensive presentation of the tools necessary to successfully delve into this unique area of quantum mechanics.


  • A comprehensive approach for using classical mechanics to do quantum mechanics
  • More than two hundred figures to assist intuition
  • Emphasis on semiclassical Green function and wave packet perspective, as well as tunneling and spectroscopy
  • Chapters include quantum mechanics of classically chaotic systems, quantum scarring, and other modern dynamical topics


<![CDATA[ How the Internet Became Commercial : Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New Network ]]> Publisher : Princeton University Press

In less than a decade, the Internet went from being a series of loosely connected networks used by universities and the military to the powerful commercial engine it is today. This book describes how many of the key innovations that made this possible came from entrepreneurs and iconoclasts who were outside the mainstream?and how the commercialization of the Internet was by no means a foregone conclusion at its outset.

