Bookshelf

Recent Faculty Books and Productions

The research of this School appears principally in the form of books, and music and theater productions. These gems of the School provide new knowledge and analysis, innovation and insight, guidance for policy, and nourishment for lives.

Take a look!

Richard Locke
The Promise and Limits of Private Power: Promoting Labor Standards in a Global Economy
Cambridge University Press, 2013

This book examines and evaluates various private initiatives to enforce fair labor standards within global supply chains. Using unique data from several major global brands, including NIKE, HP, and the International Labor Organization's Factory Improvement Programme in Vietnam, this book examines both the promise and the limitations of different approaches to actually improve working conditions, wages, and working hours for the millions of workers employed in today's global supply chains. Through a careful, empirically grounded analysis of these programs, this book illustrates the mix of private and public regulation needed to address these complex issues in a global economy.

Richard M. Locke is Department Head and Class of 1922 Professor of Management and Political Science.

Paul Osterman
Economy in Society: Essays in Honor of Michael J. Piore
MIT Press, 2012

In Economy in Society, five prominent social scientists honor Michael J. Piore in original essays that explore key topics in Piore’s work and make significant independent contributions in their own right. Piore is distinctive for his original research that explores the interaction of social, political, and economic considerations in the labor market and in the economic development of nations and regions. The essays in this volume reflect this rigorous interdisciplinary approach to important social and economic questions.

Michael Piore is Professor of Political Science.

Charles Stewart III,
with Jeffery A. Jenkins

Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government
Princeton University Press, 2012

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the most powerful partisan figure in the contemporary U.S. Congress. How this came to be, and how the majority party in the House has made control of the speakership a routine matter, is far from straightforward. Fighting for the Speakership provides a comprehensive history of how Speakers have been elected in the U.S. House since 1789, arguing that the organizational politics of these elections were critical to the construction of mass political parties in America and laid the groundwork for the role they play in setting the agenda of Congress today.

Charles Stewart III is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science.

Fotini Christia
Alliance Formation in Civil Wars
Cambridge University Press, 2012

Some of the most brutal and long-lasting civil wars of our time – those in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Lebanon, and Iraq, among others – involve the rapid formation and disintegration of alliances among warring groups, as well as fractionalization within them. Looking closely at the civil wars in Afghanistan and Bosnia and testing against the broader universe of fifty-three cases of multiparty civil wars, Fotini Christia finds that the relative power distribution between and within various warring groups is the primary driving force behind alliance formation, alliance changes, group splits, and internal group takeovers.

Fotini Christia is Associate Professor of Political Science.

Melissa Nobles,
with Jun-Hyeok Kwak
Inherited Responsibility and Historical Reconciliation in East Asia
Routledge Press, 2013

This book examines the challenges of historical reconciliation in East Asia, and, in doing so, calls for a reimagining of how we understand both historical identity and responsibility. It suggests that by adopting a 'forward-looking' approach that eschews obsession with the past, in favor of a reflective and deliberative engagement with history, real progress can be made towards peaceful coexistence in East Asia.

Melissa Nobles is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science.

Richard J. Samuels
3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan
Cornell University Press, 2013

In 3.11, Richard Samuels offers the first broad scholarly assessment of the disaster's impact on Japan’s government and society. Samuels explores Japan’s post-earthquake actions in three key sectors: national security, energy policy, and local governance.

Richard J. Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Science, Director of the Center for International Studies, and Director of the MIT-Japan Program.

Sandy Alexandre
The Properties of Violence: Claims to Ownership in Representations of Lynching
University Press of Mississippi, 2012

In her first book, Alexandre explores the multiple meanings of "property," showing through examination of visual and textual narratives how and why the notion of property, in the context of America's lynching history, needs to extend beyond ownership in land. For example, in one chapter on Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) she considers the implications of seeing lynching iconography itself as a (gendered) form of owned property.

Sandy Alexandre is Associate Professor of Literature

Arthur Bahr
Fragments and Assemblages: Forming Compilations of Medieval London
The University of Chicago Press, 2013

Using compilations from fourteenth-century London as case studies, Fragments and Assemblages argues that we can productively bring comparable interpretive strategies to bear on the formal characteristics of both physical manuscripts and literary works. At the intersection of material history and aesthetic theory, this form of manuscript study offers insights both on the literary culture of the past and on how the past continues to mean in the present.

Arthur Bahr is Associate Professor of Literature

Ian Condry
The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan's Media Success Story
Duke University Press, 2013

In The Soul of Anime, Ian Condry explores the emergence of anime, Japanese animated film and television, as a global cultural phenomenon. Drawing on ethnographic research, including interviews with artists at some of Tokyo's leading animation studios—such as Madhouse, Gonzo, Aniplex, and Studio Ghibli—Condry discusses how anime's fictional characters and worlds become platforms for collaborative creativity. He argues that the global success of Japanese animation has grown out of a collective social energy that operates across industries—including those that produce film, television, manga (comic books), and toys and other licensed merchandise—and connects fans to the creators of anime. For Condry, this collective social energy is the soul of anime.

Ian Condry is Associate Professor of Comparative Media Studies, and head of the Foreign Languages and Literatures Section.

Christine J. Walley
Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial Chicago
University of Chicago Press, 2013

In 1980, Christine Walley’s world was turned upside down when the steel mill in Southeast Chicago where her father worked closed abruptly. In the ensuing years, thousands of other area residents would also lose their jobs in the mills—one example of the vast deindustrialization occurring across the U.S. The disruption propelled Walley into a career as a cultural anthropologist. In Exit Zero, she brings her anthropological perspective home, examining the human cost of deindustrialization.

Christine J. Walley is Associate Professor of Anthropology.

Nick Montfort,
with Patsy Baudoin, John Bell, Ian Bogost, Jeremy Douglass, Mark C. Marino, Michael Mateas, Casey Reas, Mark Sample, and Noah Vawter

10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
MIT Press, 2012

This collaboratively written book takes a single line of code—the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title—and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture. The authors treat code not as merely functional but as a text—in the case of 10 PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources—that yields a story about its making, its purpose, its assumptions, and more.

Nick Montfort is Associate Professor for Digital Writing, in the Comparative Media Studies/Writing program.

Natasha Dow Schüll
Addiction by Design: Gambling in Las Vegas
Princeton University Press, 2012

Drawing on 15 years of field research among slot machine gamblers and the designers of the devices they play, anthropologist Schüll explores the relationship between technology design and the experience of addiction. She shows how electronic gambling games are designed to pull players into a trancelike state called the "machine zone"—a state in which the aim is not to win but simply to keep playing. Schüll’s study illuminates the broader social and cultural effects of the intensifying traffic between people and technology in everyday life.

Schull discusses her research on "60 Minutes"

Natasha Dow Schüll is Associate Professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society.

Nazli Choucri
Cyberpolitics in International Relations
MIT Press, 2012

Until recently, the political impact of cyberspace was thought to be a matter of low politics--background conditions and routine processes and decisions. Now, however, experts have begun to recognize its effect on high politics—national security, core institutions, and critical decision processes. In this book, Nazli Choucri investigates the implications of this new cyberpolitical reality for international relations theory, policy, and practice.

Nazli Choucri is Professor of Political Science at MIT, Associate Director of MIT’s Technology and Development Program, and Director of GSSD (Global System for Sustainable Development).

Heather Paxson
The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America
University of California, 2012

An anthropological study of American artisanal cheese and the people who make it. Cheese is alive, and alive with meaning. This study tells the story of how craftwork has become a new source of cultural and economic value for producers as well as consumers. By exploring the life of cheese, Paxson helps rethink the politics of food, land, and labor today.

Junot Díaz
This Is How You Lose Her
Penguin Group, 2012

New novel from the Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Junot Díaz is Rudge (1948) and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at MIT.

Sally Haslanger
Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique
Oxford University Press, 2012

Sally Haslanger is Professor of Philosophy.

Yanni Loukissas
Co-Designers: Cultures of Computer Simulation in Architecture
Routledge, 2012

Yanni Loukissas is Postdoctoral Associate in Science, Technology, and Society.

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Why Nations Fail
Random House, 2012

Daron Acemoglu is the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Economics

It is among the most significant questions in history: Why do some nations, become wealthy and powerful, while others remain mired in poverty? In an acclaimed, highly readable new book, economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson assert that above all else, political institutions—not culture, georgraphy, or natural resources—determine the wealth of nations. Info, videos, reviews

Alan Lightman
Mr. g
Pantheon, 2012

"With echoes of Calvino and Saramago, Mr. g celebrates the tragic and joyous nature of existence on the grandest possible scale."

Alan Lightman is Adjunct Professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, and an active research scientist in astronomy and physics for two decades. Lightman’s earlier novels include Einstein’s Dreams, an international best seller; Good Benito; and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award; and Reunion.
Reviews | Interview in The Atlantic

Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse
Between Page and Screen
Siglio Press, 2012

Amaranth Borsuk was Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, WHS, and CMS for 2010-2012.

Amaranth Borsuk
Handiwork
Slope Editions, 2012

Amaranth Borsuk is Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, WHS, and CMS.

Mark Harvey
Evocations
Leo Records, 2012
Performed by The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra

Mark Harvey is Lecturer of Music.

Robert Kanigel
On An Irish Island
Knopf, 2012

Robert Kangiel is Professor of Science Writing.

On an Irish Island is a love letter to a vanished way of life, in which Kanigel, the highly praised author of The Man Who Knew Infinity, tells the story of the Great Blasket, a wild, beautiful island off the west coast of Ireland, renowned during the early 20th century for the rich communal life of its residents and the unadulterated Irish they spoke. With the Irish language vanishing elsewhere, the island became a magnet for scholars and writers during the Gaelic renaissance.

Samuel Jay Keyser
I Married a Travel Junkie
GemmaMedia Books, 2012

Samuel Jay Keyser is de Florez Professor Emeritus and Special Assistant to the Chancellor.

Bruno Perreau
Penser l'adoption. La gouvernance pastorale du genre
(Rethinking Adoption. The Pastoral Governance of Gender)
Presses Universitaires de France, 2012

Bruno Perreau is Assistant Professor of French Studies.

Robert Stalnaker
Mere Possibilities: Metaphysical Foundations of Modal Semantics
Princeton University Press, 2012

Robert Stalnaker is Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy.

Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy book cover

Robert Townsend
with Xavier Gines, James Vickrey, and Lev Menand
"Micro-insurance: A Case Study of the Indian Rainfall Insurance Market," in The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy; Chetan Ghate (ed.)

Robert Townsend is Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics.

2011

Philip N. Alexander
A Widening Sphere: Evolving Cultures at MIT
MIT Press, 2011

Philip N. Alexander is Research Associate in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies.

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
Public Affairs, 2011

Abhijit Banerjee is Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics.
Esther Duflo is Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics.

Edward C. Barrett
Down New Utrecht Avenue
Press Wafer, 2011

Edward Barrett is Senior Lecturer in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies.

Andrea Louise Campbell and Kimberly J. Morgan
The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, and the Governance of Social Policy
Oxford University Press, 2011

Andrea Louise Campbell is Associate Professor of Political Science.

Howard Eiland
Editor, Early Writings (1910-1917) Walter Benjamin
Belknap Press, Harvard U.P., 2011

Howard Eiland is Lecturer in Literature.

Jonathan Gruber
Illustrated by Nathan Schreiber
Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It's Necessary, How It Works
Hill and Wang, 2011

Jonathan Gruber is Professor of Economics.

Jeanne Guillemin
American Anthrax: Fear, Crime, and the
Investigation of the Nation's Deadliest Bioterror Attack
Macmillan, 2011

Jeanne Guillemin is Research Affiliate in the Center for International Studies.

Laura Harrington
Alice Bliss
Penguin, 2011

Laura Harrington is Lecturer of Theater Arts.

Frederick Harris Jr.
Seeking the Infinite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski
createspace, 2011

Review in Bruckner Journal

Frederick Harris Jr. is Director of the MIT Wind and Festival Jazz ensembles and Lecturer in Music.

Mark Harvey
The Golden West
Film Score and Performance
National Film Preservation Foundation, 2011

Mark Harvey is Lecturer in Music.

Graham M. Jones
Trade of the Tricks: Inside the Magician's Craft
University of California Press, 2011

Graham M. Jones is Assistant Professor of Anthropology.

David Kaiser
How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival
W. W. Norton, 2011

David Kaiser is Professor of Science, Technology, and Society.

Arthur Kaledin
Tocqueville and His America: A Darker Horizon
Yale University Press, 2011

Arthur Kaledin is Professor of History Emeritus.

Samuel Jay Keyser
Mens et Mania: The MIT Nobody Knows
The MIT Press, 2011

Samuel Jay Keyser is Professor Emeritus in Linguistics, and continues to serve the Institute as Special Assistant to the Chancellor.

Ina Lipkowitz
Words to Eat By: Five Foods and the Culinary History of the English Language
St. Martin's Press, 2011

Ina Lipkowitz is Lecturer in Literature.

Keeril Makan
Target
Starkland, 2011

Keeril Makan is Lister Brothers Career Development Associate Professor of Music.

Martin M. Marks
Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938, DVD set
National Film Preservation Foundation, 2011

Martin M. Marks is Senior Lecturer in Music.

Western Intervention in the Balkans book cover

Roger D. Petersen
Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict
Cambridge University Press, 2011

Roger D. Petersen is Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science.

Shankar Raman
Renaissance Literature and Postcolonial Studies
Edinburgh University Press, 2011

Shankar Raman is Associate Professor of Literature.

Irving Singer
Modes of Creativity
MIT Press, 2011

Irving Singer is Professor of Philosophy.

Abha Sur
Dispersed Radiance: Caste, Gender, and Modern Science in India
South Asia Books, 2011

Abha Sur is Lecturer in Women's and Gender Studies.

Stephen Tapscott
Editor and Translator, Poems, by Georg Trakl
Field Poetry series, 2011

Stephen Tapscott is Professor of Literature.

John Tirman
The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars
Oxford University Press, 2011

John Tirman is Principal Research Scientist and Executive Director of the Center for International Studies.

Book Cover - Financial Systems in Developing Economies

Robert Townsend
Financial Systems in Developing Economies
Oxford University Press, 2011

Robert Townsend is Elizabeth & James Killian Professor of Economics.

Edward Baron Turk
French Theatre Today: The View from New York, Paris, and Avignon
University of Iowa Press, 2011

Edward Baron Turk is John E. Burchard Professor of the Humanities and Professor of French and Film Studies.

Sherry Turkle
Alone Together
Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Basic Books, 2011

Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology.

2010

David Kaiser
Editor, Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision
MIT Press, 2010

David Kaiser is Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society.

Pauline Maier
Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788
Simon & Schuster, 2010

Related story

Pauline Maier is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of American History.

John Dower
Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq
The New Press, 2010

John Dower is Professor Emeritus of History.

Peter Child
Pantomime: Chamber Music of Peter Child
Lorelt (LNT 131), 2010

Peter Child is Professor of Music.

Evelyn Fox Keller
The Mirage of a Space between Nature and Nurture
Duke University Press, 2010

Evelyn Fox Keller is Emerita Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science.

Esther Duflo
La Politique de l'autonomie (French)
Le Seuil, 2010

Esther Duflo is Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics.

A Reader in Medical Anthropology book cover

Michael M.J. Fischer
Editor, A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories and Emergent Realities
Byron Good, Sarah Willen, and Mary Jo DelVecchio Good (eds.)
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010

Michael M.J. Fischer is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies.

Bengt Holmström
Nordics in Global Crisis: Vulnerability and Resilience
Taloustieto Oy, 2010

Bengt Holmström is Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics.

Meg Jacobs and Julian E. Zelizer
Conservatives in Power: The Reagan Years, 1981-1989
Bedford / St. Martin's, 2010

Meg Jacobs is Associate Professor of History.

Erica Caple James
"The Political Economy of 'Trauma' in Haiti in the Democratic Era of Insecurity," in A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities; Byron J. Good, Michael M.J. Fischer, Sarah S. Willen, and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good (eds.)
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010

Erica Caple James is Associate Professor of Anthropology.

Erica Caple James
Democratic Insecurities: Violence, Trauma, and Intervention in Haiti
University of California Press, 2010

Erica Caple James is Associate Professor of Anthropology.

David Jones and Ian Whitmarsh
Editors, What's the Use of Race? Modern Governance and the Biology of Difference
MIT Press, 2010

David Jones is Associate Professor of the History and Culture of Science and Technology.

Robert Kanigel
Faux Real: Genuine Leather and 200 Years of Inspired Fakes
Paperback Edition, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010

Robert Kanigel is Professor of Science Writing.

Nick Montfort
Riddle & Bind
Spineless Books, 2010

Nick Montfort is Associate Professor of Digital Media.

Shankar Raman and Lowell Gallagher
Editors, Knowing Shakespeare: Senses, Embodiment and Cognition
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Shankar Raman is Associate Professor of Literature.

Norvin Richards
Uttering Trees
The MIT Press, 2010

Norvin Richards is Professor of Linguistics.

Harriet Ritvo
Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras: Essays on Animals and History
University of Virginia Press, 2010

Harriet Ritvo is Arthur J. Conner Professor of History.

Elena Ruehr
How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr
Cypress String Quartet, 2010

Elena Ruehr is Lecturer of Music and Theater Arts.

Edward Steinfeld
Playing Our Game: Why China's Rise Doesn't Threaten the West
Oxford University Press, 2010

Edward Steinfeld is Associate Professor of Political Science.

Committees in the U.S. Congress book cover

Charles Stewart and Garrison Nelson
Committees in the U.S. Congress, 1993-2010
CQ Press, 2010

Charles Stewart is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science.

Merritt Roe Smith, Leonard Rosenband, and Jeff Horn
Editors, Reconceptualizing the Industrial Revolution: A Global Perspective
MIT Press, 2010

Merritt Roe Smith is Cutten Professor of the History of Technology.

Stephen Yablo
Things: Papers on Objects, Events, and Properties
Oxford University Press, 2010

Stephen Yablo is Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy.