New Books Network

New Books in Science
Adrian Currie, “Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences” (MIT Press, 2018)
Adrian Currie
Rock, Bone, and Ruin:
An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences
MIT Press, 2018

New Books in ArchaeologyNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ScienceNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books in Science, Technology, and SocietyNew Books Network March 27, 2020 Lukas Rieppel

The “historical sciences”—geology, paleontology, and archaeology—have made extraordinary progress in advancing our understanding of the deep past. How has this been possible, given that the evidence they have to work with offers mere traces of the past? In Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist’s Guide to the Historical Sciences (MIT... Read More
Andrew Leigh, “Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Are Changing Our World” (Yale UP, 2018)
Andrew Leigh
Randomistas
How Radical Researchers Are Changing Our World
Yale University Press, 2018

New Books in EconomicsNew Books in Political ScienceNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in Public PolicyNew Books in ScienceNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books in Sociology March 26, 2020 Sidney Michelini

From the unending quest to turn metal into gold to the major discoveries that reveal how the universe works, experiments have always been a critical part of the hard sciences. In recent decades social scientists have started to catch up and the results are shifting the way we do nearly... Read More
Kareem Khalifa, “Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
Kareem Khalifa
Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge

Cambridge University Press, 2017

New Books in PhilosophyNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ScienceNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books Network March 10, 2020 Carrie Figdor

What is the relation between understanding and knowledge in science? Can we understand a scientific theory if it is false? Do we understand a scientific proposition we can’t elaborate or do anything with? In Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge (Cambridge University Press 2017), Kareem Khalifa argues for a revised version... Read More
Amy Shira Teitel, “Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight Before NASA” (Bloomsbury, 2016)
Amy Shira Teitel
Breaking the Chains of Gravity
The Story of Spaceflight Before NASA
Bloomsbury, 2018

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ScienceNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books in Science, Technology, and SocietyNew Books Network February 21, 2020 Michael F. Robinson

Amy Shira Teitel talks about Apollo and the community of people who are deeply attached to space history. Teitel is a spaceflight historian and the creator of the YouTube Channel, Vintage Space. She is also the author of Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight Before NASA (Bloomsbury, 2016) and... Read More
Travis Dumsday, “Dispositionalism and the Metaphysics of Science” (Cambridge UP, 2019)
Travis Dumsday
Dispositionalism and the Metaphysics of Science

Cambridge University Press, 2019

New Books in PhilosophyNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ScienceNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books Network February 10, 2020 Carrie Figdor

Dispositionalism is the view that there are irreducible causal powers in nature that explain why objects behave as they do. To say salt is soluble in water, for example, is to say that salt has the disposition to dissolve in water, and this disposition is understood as a real causal... Read More
Gil Eyal, “The Crisis of Expertise” (Polity, 2019)
Gil Eyal
The Crisis of Expertise

Polity, 2019

New Books in PoliticsNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ScienceNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books in Science, Technology, and SocietyNew Books in SociologyNew Books Network February 10, 2020 Patrick Sheehan

In recent political debates there has been a significant change in the valence of the word “experts” from a superlative to a near pejorative, typically accompanied by a recitation of experts’ many failures and misdeeds. In topics as varied as Brexit, climate change, and vaccinations there is a palpable mistrust... Read More
Michael F. Robinson, “The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture” (U Chicago Press, 2006)
Michael Robinson
The Coldest Crucible
Arctic Exploration and American Culture
University of Chicago Press, 2006

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in GeographyNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ScienceNew Books in Science & TechnologyNew Books in Science, Technology, and SocietyNew Books Network February 7, 2020 Michael F. Robinson

Radio host Kevin Fox interviews Michael F. Robinson about the history of American Arctic exploration, the subject of his book, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2006). The disappearance of the Franklin Expedition in 1845 turned the Arctic into an object of fascination. By the... Read More

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