Anthem Library of the Month | DON L. LOVE LIBRARY

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© 2012 Sampson Construction

The Don L. Love Library at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln houses one of the largest collections of books in the Great Plains area of the United States, including an impressive selection of books in the sciences, humanities, and other areas, as well as the largest collection of books on film and media in the Midwest. With more than 2,300,000 volumes in Love’s collection, and more than 500,000 patrons annually, Love Library offers media in a wide variety of formats, and has a wireless network that provides users with access to the Internet via personal laptop computers.

Love’s collection includes volumes on art, business, education, geography, history, journalism, language, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion and sociology, among numerous other disciplines, and provides an invaluable collection for the both researchers and students, all meticulously organized and catalogued. Thus, Love Library is of the great libraries of the United States, and one of the finest research libraries available to the public, which prides itself on a vast collection of books, the use of cutting edge technology, and a dedicated staff.

—Wheeler Winston Dixon, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA; Co-Series Editor of New Perspectives on World Cinema

Interview with Michael Bhaskar, author of “The Content Machine: Towards a Theory of Publishing from the Printing Press to the Digital Network”

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9780857281111The following is an interview with Michael Bhaskar, author of The Content Machine: Towards a Theory of Publishing from the Printing Press to the Digital Network

This book is a ground-breaking study that demonstrates how publishing can survive and thrive in the digital age.

Q: As the title of your book suggests, you are in favour of finding a ‘Theory of Publishing’. Why do you think a theory of publishing is necessary and why do we need it now?

Michael Bhaskar: Despite employing millions of people around the world, it’s not clear what publishing actually is or means. When you look at the different kinds of publishing, different definitions, different histories, it doesn’t add up. It conflicts. So we need a better explanation, especially in today’s world, when anyone can be a publisher. What makes you a publisher in the first place? Also, there is plenty of literary, communications and media theory, but no publishing theory. Again, that doesn’t make sense as publishing is a critical part of literature, communication and media.

Q: ‘[P]ublishing is in crisis’. In your opinion, what is the greatest threat to the publishing industry as it exists today?

MB: The biggest threat to publishing is disintermediation – the cutting of publishers out of the value chain. This threat has been made much more serious by the Internet. It’s the nature of the network that many of the structural features of a publisher can be bypassed. We need to reinvent, and better understand the role if publishers are going to have a future. Publishing itself won’t go away; publishing is an essential activity in society. Publishers as they exist today, however, might.

Q: It has been mentioned again and again that the publishing industry is old-fashioned and therefore lagging behind in the modern world. In what way do you think it is necessary for publishing industry to adapt to a more modern standard?

Firstly, I think this is a myth. When you examine contemporary publishers they are much more sophisticated than people often give them credit for. When you look at publishers historically, they have actually been on the cutting edge of a host of developments, from advanced technology to new business practices. Publishers have lead the way for hundreds of years. That said, the nature of the digital challenge and disintermediation in particular, does mean there have to be huge changes.

The main thing is recognising that the core of what a publisher does has evolved. It used to be about making content available. Now it is about making markets and audiences for that content. In both cases I argue publishing is about amplification. It’s just that amplification means something different in the context of abundance created by the Internet. Marketing is the first thing. The next thing I would say is that publishers need more direct relationships, a ‘lean’ methodology that builds learning into their workflows and a greater range of products.

Q: Why would you recommend students read your book and how do they gain most from doing so?

My book aims to fuse the practical and the theoretical, the historical with the future oriented. Most books on publishing shy away from the big, deep questions. In today’s world, because of publishing’s great existential challenge, that no longer works. We all – students, academics, practitioners – have to get a better handle on the nature of publishing to ensure it stays vibrant, diverse and high quality. It’s an immense challenge and one the book, I hope, helps with in a way no one else has tried.

Find out more about the book and the author on our website:
http://www.anthempress.com/the-content-machine

You can follow Michael on Twitter @michaelbhaskar
www.michaelbhaskar.com/

Anthem EnviroExperts Review | February 2014 Issue

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New issue of Anthem EnviroExperts Review published!
Read the latest reviews here: www.anthemenviroexperts.com

The Bet: Paul Erlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth’s Future, by Paul Sabin, Yale University Press, 2013, 320 pp.

Reviewed by Peter R. Mulvihill, University of York

This book explores the history and development of opposing ideologies and perspectives that shape political discourse about the environment.

What are the prospects of informed and nuanced debate on global environmental issues and climate change? If Paul Sabin’s new book is any indication, we have a long way to go before we can reasonably expect edifying debate to take place. The Bet is an exploration of the ideological and political gulf that continues to separate ‘pessimists’ who believe in resource limits and ‘optimists’ who contend that environmental concerns are exaggerated and can be overcome by technology and ingenuity.

In this well written and expertly researched book, Sabin guides the reader through the history of polarized environmental debates in the United States, embodied in particular by two well known and prolific academics. In the green corner is Paul Erlich, author of The Population Bomb and other notable works. His chief opponent, Julian Simon, penned The Ultimate Resource and numerous other essays in response to what he dismissed as neo-Malthusian hysteria. Sabin offers an intimate history, probing the personalities and motivations of Erlich and Simon, and charts their respective career paths as they gathered influence and honed their debating strategies (and informed those of Carter, Reagan and many others in the political arena).

Erlich emerged first, and it might surprise today’s younger environmentalists to consider that he was famous enough to have been a guest on The Tonight Show in the 1970s more than twenty times. As Johnny Carson might have said, that is weird, wild stuff indeed. And, pardon the digression, but I would be willing to wager that this is the only book in existence with a bibliography that lists ‘Carson, Johnny’ followed by ‘Carson, Rachel’.

The Bet is part of a growing literature documenting and analyzing the history of the modern environmental movement. The Erlich/Simon conflict – as Sabin shows, they became bitter adversaries – is a useful vehicle to examine the underlying reasons for the ongoing lack of productive dialogue on sustainability and climate change. Popular images of the debates and the debaters remain largely stereotypical; any contest between perceived prophets of doom and dinosaurs is bound to be taken with a grain of salt. But it would be a mistake to assume that either side was posturing. It is striking to consider, as Sabin demonstrates, the mutual naivety of the foes. Simon could not grasp why the public seemed to be so interested what he viewed as unfounded and pessimistic prognostications of resource collapse, and Erlich, for his part, ‘…. could not fathom the possibility that fundamentally different values or ideologies might yield different conclusions.’ Needless to say, the reader will find little common ground or reconciliation in The Bet, but that is no doubt the point, and it raises important questions about the vagaries of scientific evidence, the mug’s game of prediction, the limits of debate and the dreariness of partisan environmental politics. If there is a silver lining to be found in this story, it may be the relative inexperience of the modern environmental movement and the possibility of future generation doing things differently.

Read more reviews here: www.anthemenviroexperts.com

Interested in submitting a review or a book to review?
Check out our submissions page here.

“The Entrepreneurial State” TED Talk and Highlights

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Check out the terrific TEDGlobal talk from Anthem author, Mariana Mazzucato, whose book, The Entrepreneurial State, has started a much needed discourse about the role of the state in innovation.


Financial Times named ‘The Entrepreneurial State’ one of the ‘2013 Books of the Year’, Huffington Post listed it as one of their ‘Favorite Books of 2013‘, Forbes recommended it in its 2013 ‘creative leaders’ list, and Mazzucato was named by New Republic as one of the ‘most important innovation thinkers‘.

‘[R]ead her book. It will challenge your thinking.’
—Forbes

‘Ms Mazzucato is right to argue that the state has played a central role in producing game-changing breakthroughs, and that its contribution to the success of technology-based businesses should not be underestimated.’
—The Economist

‘Conventional economics offers abstract models; conventional wisdom insists that the answer lies with private entrepreneurship. In this brilliant book, Mariana Mazzucato… argues that the former is useless and the latter incomplete.’
—The Financial Times

‘[A] meticulously argued treatise that shows how unwise our conventional wisdom has become.’
—Newsweek

‘[P]rovides a refreshing new take on rather stale debates on the economic role of government.’
—Globe and Mail

‘The state, [Mazzucato] argued, is a ‘market maker,’ whose ability to take bold, risky bets is critical for economies to grow at the global cutting edge.’
—The New York Times

‘This is a book whose time has come.’
—Professor Dani Rodrick, Harvard University

‘[A] well-researched and elegantly (even entertainingly) written knock-out to the belief [that] “the market knows best”.’  
—Professor Robert Wade, London School of Economics‘

[A]ims to get us to understand better the sources of entrepreneurship, and to reflect more positively on the role aggressive technology policies can play in getting our economies moving again.’  
—Professor Richard Nelson, Columbia University

‘[This book] has helped to persuade me to shift our approach in the UK.’
—David Willetts, UK Minister for universities and science

 

Read more about the book here: entrepreneurialstate.anthempressblog.com

Purchase your copy here: www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0857282522/w042-21

 

New Book Roundup: Featured Anthem Titles for February

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Here are a few of our featured titles released this February:

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Re-balancing China: Essays on the Global Financial Crisis, Industrial Policy and International Relations

By Peter Nolan

This book offers unique insight from a leading expert on the core issues affecting China’s political economy today.

‘Very few Western academics know China through its economy, history and culture as well as Peter Nolan. This is a remarkable book, breathtaking and original in its analysis of the transformations in China’s economy as it seeks to re-balance internally and with the rest of the world. No one has done this better in context and explained the tensions and conflicts within China and with its major trading partners and competitors. I could not put this book down.’ —Andrew Sheng, President of the Fung Global Institute, Hong Kong

 
9781783080175_1.jpgSophisticated Interdependence in Climate Policy: Federalism in the United States, Brazil, and Germany

By Vivian E. Thomson

This book offers a desperately needed framework for climate-change policy in the US, acknowledging the crucial role of coherent state–federal relations.

“Through elaborated interconnections and an in-depth view, Thomson provides unique insights, skillfully identifying common ground and pivotal factors to break today’s stalemates in multilateral environmental agreements. Readers, regardless of their political views, will find much to stimulate their thinking in this book.” —Oswaldo Lucon, Professor, University of São Paulo, and Climate Change Adviser, São Paulo State Government

 
9781783080366_1.jpgA History of Ireland, 1800 – 1922: Theatres of Disorder?

By Hilary Larkin

In this study, Ireland’s status as a theatre of disorder from 1800 to 1922 is investigated and re-assessed.

‘Hilary Larkin’s book is more than a history of Ireland under the Union. It is in many respects a history of the Union, and she ranges with confidence over cultural, social and political events in Britain as well as in Ireland. She adds her own judgements to her impressive familiarity with and synthesis of recent historiography.’ —Michael Laffan, University College Dublin School of History and Archives

See our exclusive interview with the author below on our blog!

 
9781783081110.jpg‘In the World of the Outcasts: Notes of a Former Penal Laborer’ (Volume I and Volume II)

By Pëtr Filippovich Iakubovich, Translated with an Introduction by Andrew A. Gentes

The first English-language translation of P. F. Iakubovich’s popular roman à clef about his exile and experiences as a Siberian penal laborer during the late nineteenth century.

An Excerpt from ‘Cinema at the Margins’ (Anthem New Perspectives on World Cinema)

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Cinema at the Margins is a collection of essays by Wheeler Winston Dixon. They provide a much-needed analysis of the forgotten films and filmmakers of the past that are being marginalized and pushed aside by the current loss of historical perspective in film. Find more information about the book here.

An excerpt from the introduction:

“Unlocking these phantom visions, then, and seeking the work that comes from the margins is the task that I have set for myself with these essays and interviews. My goal is to document the films that have moved me deeply and yet have been omitted from the dominant canon of film history. Film history is dynamic, not static, but values that we have inscribed in our hearts and minds – values that often have been passed on to us and which we have accepted without fully understanding – keep us from a deeper understanding of our cinematic heritage. No, everything must not go. Instead, as film archivists around the world are fond of saying, everything must be saved. Not all films will be, certainly, and many of the films described in this volume are phantoms already, but brought to light, these oft-obscured titles can teach us much about life as it really was during certain eras – life not as the dominant cinema wishes us to remember it, but rather, as it actually was.

Even as I write these words, the present is inexorably receding into the past. Film, by its very nature, is the sarcophagus of the eternal return of the past, resurrected with each new screening again and again on demand, but only if that demand exists. This is the realm of the cinema, which captures life or, in the words of Jean Cocteau, “photographs death at work” – a machinery of phantoms, dreams and desires in which constructed realities compete with each other for our collective attention. The world presented here is at once remote and omnipresent, tactile and elusive, present and inextricably linked to the past. And, yet, by the very act of discussing these films and their makers, we can bring them back to a sort of life and celebrate both their existence and their collective hold on our imaginations. The cinema is endless, boundless, too rich to be encompassed by any one history, or even any one set of histories. But, with this book, there is the hope that at least a part of that history is brought to light.”

Cinema at the Margins is part of Anthem’s New Perspectives on World Cinema series. This series publishes engagingly written, highly accessible, and extremely useful books for the educated reader and the student as well as the scholar. The goal of the series is not only to address subject areas in which adequate classroom texts are lacking, but also to open up additional avenues for film research, theoretical speculation and practical criticism.
We welcome submissions of proposals for challenging and original works that meet the criteria of this series. We make prompt editorial decisions. Our titles are published simultaneously in print and eBook editions and are subject to peer review by recognized authorities in the field. Should you wish to send in a proposal for a collection of essays, a single or multi-authored monograph, or a course reader, please contact us at: proposal@wpcpress.com