Essential Reads from Combined Academic Publishers Spring/Summer 2021 Averting Catastrophe
Creator Culture
Explores how governments ought to make decisions in times of imminent disaster. Argues that using the “maximin rule,” which calls for choosing the approach that eliminates the worst of the worst-case scenarios, may be necessary when public officials lack important information, and when the worst-case scenario is too disastrous to contemplate.
There is a new class of cultural producers— YouTube vloggers, Instagram influencers, TikTokers and more —who are part of a rapidly emerging industry of monetized “user-generated” content. Defines this new field of study and the emergence of creator culture.
Decision Theory for COVID-19, Climate Change, and Potential Disasters of All Kinds Cass R. Sunstein
An important and timely insight into decision making in crisis situations, required reading at a time when decision making has been so scrutinised and hotly debated. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS April 2021 | 176pp | 9781479808489 | £14.99 | HB
An Introduction to Global Social Media Entertainment Edited by Stuart Cunningham & David Craig
The ways artists reach their audiences and earn a living are changing and the number of people exploring these new routes to market has grown significantly over this past year. The trends and platforms outlined are here to stay and this is essential reading for anyone working in the arts today. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS June 2021 | 1 b&w illus. | 336pp | 9781479817979 | £26.99 | PB
Design, Control, Predict
Identity Capitalists
Technology has fundamentally transformed urban life. But today’s “smart” cities look little like what experts had predicted. Aaron Shapiro shows us the true face of the revolution in urban technology, taking the reader on a tour of today’s smart city.
In Identity Capitalists, legal scholar Nancy Leong reveals how powerful people and institutions use diversity to their own advantage and how the rest of us can respond—and do better.
Logistical Governance in the Smart City Aaron Shapiro
An essential exploration of the potential pitfalls of using data-driven technologies to govern urban life. Indispensable reading at a time when powerful advocates see these technologies as infallible answers to all our problems. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS December 2020 | 15 b&w illus. | 344pp | 9781517908270 | £20.99 | PB
The Powerful Insiders Who Exploit Diversity to Maintain Inequality Nancy Leong
With practical tools to help recognise and respond to those who exploit diversity and the raised public interest in it, we think this is an eye-opening and essential read, especially in light of, for example, the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as issues of performative allyship. STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS February 2021 | 240pp | 9781503610132 | £20.99 |HB
Management as a Calling
Reproducing Racism
Leading Business, Serving Society Andrew J. Hoffman
How Everyday Choices Lock In White Advantage Daria Roithmayr
Business leaders have tremendous power to influence our society, how it operates, whether it is fair, and the extent to which it impacts the environment. This book challenges future business leaders to consider their career differently—as a calling that is in service to society. If we are to ‘build back better’ postpandemic, it is crucial that business leaders recognise their responsibility - and the power they possess - to improve society and the world we live in. Hoffman’s book is a timely challenge to the business leaders of today and the business schools that provide the executives of tomorrow, to use their influence and market dynamics, to create something more than just profit or shareholder value. STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS March 2021 | 192pp | 9781503628779 | £17.99 | HB
This book is designed to change the way we think about racial inequality. Legal scholar Daria Roithmayr provocatively argues that racial inequality lives on because white advantage functions as a powerful selfreinforcing monopoly, reproducing itself automatically from generation to generation even in the absence of intentional discrimination. Racial inequality continues to be one of the most discussed issues of our day, this book explores the structural issues why this inequality is still a contemporary issue. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS March 2021 | 256pp | 9781479811090 | £10.99 |PB
The Actual True Story of Ahmed and Zarga
The Huawei Model
The Rise of China's Technology Giant Yun Wen
Mohamedou Ould Slahi & Larry Siems
In 2019, the United States' trade war with China expanded to blacklist the Chinese tech titan Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Yun Wen uses the Huawei story as a microcosm to understand China's evolving digital economy and the global rise of the nation's corporate power.
This stirring, poetic tale features a Bedouin man whose irrepressible love for his family, his camels, and his way of life fuels both his harrowing journey into the Sahara Desert to find a lost camel and his struggle to preserve a culture on the brink of profound change. This novel will draw you into a special world and place. We enjoyed the sense of life stripped back to essentials, the rituals of life for the desert dwelling Bedouin, the spiritual element and the wisdom imparted in the tradition of the best fables. The adventures Ahmed has, mixed with the dreams and reflections on what he has learnt from his grandmother, make for a wonderful blend of storytelling.
We were interested to learn how the influence of tech manufacturers has grown to the point that they now offer tools so strong that countries have decided to ban them. Huawei’s case is fascinating both because of the rapid growth of the company and because of the political issues behind it.
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
February 2021 | 176pp | 9780821424384 | £14.99 | PB
November 2020 | 256pp | 9780252085338 | £18.99 | PB
The Migrant Diaries
Trans Medicine
Lynne Jones
The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender Stef M. Shuster
Combines direct testimony from children with a blazingly frank eyewitness account of providing mental health support on the front line of the migrant crisis across Europe and Central America in the past five years. Her diaries document how a compassionate welcome shifted to indifference and hostility toward those seeking refuge from war, disaster, and poverty in the richest countries in the world. This is essential reading to understand the events of the global migrant crisis, the people involved and, crucially, to think about how we can help.
Surfacing in the mid-twentieth century, yet shrouded in social stigma, transgender medicine is now a rapidly growing medical field. In Trans Medicine, stef shuster makes an important intervention in how we understand the development of this field and how it is being used to “treat” gender identity today. As debate around transgender rights in the UK becomes increasingly toxic, the informed, scholarly work of books like this are needed more than ever.
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
April 2021 | 40 b&w images 12 b&w maps | 430pp | 9780823296989 | £14.99 | PB
June 2021 | 224pp | 9781479899371 | £20.99 | PB
Virulent Zones
Animal Disease and Global Health at China's Pandemic Epicenter Lyle Fearnley Situates the production of ecological facts about the likely epicenter of viral pandemics inside the shifting cultural landscapes of agrarian change and the geopolitics of global health. We chose this book, researched and written before the Covid-19 pandemic, as it promises to be an important work exploring the broader context of virus ecologies beyond the current crisis. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS October 2020 | 22 illus. | 288pp | 9781478011057 | £20.99 | PB
Watershed
Attending to Body and Earth in Distress Ranae Lenor Hanson A personal health crisis, stories from environmental refugees, and our climate in danger prompt a meditation on intimate connections between the health of the body and the health of the ecosystem. We love how this book approaches the perennial discussion about the health of our planet. By illustrating the links between our own bodily health and that of the planet's, this makes not only a unique contribution to the discussion but challenges us to engage with it in an immediate and embodied way. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS May 2021 | 200pp | 9781517910976 | £14.99 | PB
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