This refreshing look at biology and the principles of Darwinian evolution in light of information has implications for computational research on alien forms of life, including artificial intelligence.
—J-B. Leca, University of Lethbridge
Adami, Christoph. The evolution of biological information: how evolution creates complexity, from viruses to brains. Princeton, 2023. 584p bibl index ISBN 9780691241166, $150.00; ISBN 9780691241142 pbk, $75.00; ISBN 9780691241159 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Information permeates every level of life, including molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, systems, living organisms, and societies. Yet, textbooks on biological evolution don’t typically address the foundational and ubiquitous role of information. Using theoretical, observational, and experimental evidence, Adami (Michigan State Univ.) explains how information emerges and is stored, copied, altered, and used to communicate, cooperate, and make adaptive predictions about future states and changing environments. He strives to demonstrate that information theory can provide valid qualitative and quantitative measures of biocomplexity in the structure and functioning of genes, proteins, viruses, bacteria, brains, and measures of digital complexity in simulated agents and sentient machines. As a result, the capacity for information processing also evolves. This refreshing look at biology and the principles of Darwinian evolution in light of information has implications for computational research on alien forms of life, including artificial intelligence. Adami’s approach is original, logical, clear, thorough, and convincing. Such a powerful and well-referenced argument could have been strengthened by a discussion of the parallels between the mechanisms and evolution of biological units of information (e.g., genes) and cultural units of information (e.g., memes). Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. —J-B. Leca, University of Lethbridge
Intended primarily for non-practitioners, this text will be appreciated by anyone interested in brewing science and by beer lovers everywhere.
—C. P. Vesei, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Bamforth, Charles W. Beer: tap into the art and science of brewing. 4th ed. Oxford, 2023 (c2024). 328p bibl index ISBN 9780199996742, $29.95.
This latest edition of Beer is a welcome update to earlier editions of the book (first ed., CH, Oct’98, 36-0976; second ed., CH, Sep’03, 41-0326). It includes newer data on the brewing industry and global beer production, filling in a 13-year gap from the publication of the third edition (2009) to the post-COVID era. This volume also discusses newer beer styles, tastes, and trends that have emerged from the craft brewing movement as it has matured since then. Bamforth (emer., Univ. of California, Davis) excels at providing a detailed overview of the science and art of brewing primarily at the commercial level. Several chapters provide granular depth about the key ingredients in beer and brewing techniques in very accessible yet appropriately technical prose. Additional chapters describe the history of beer, beer styles, and the physiological effects related to its consumption. The volume concludes with a discussion of the environmental impact of brewing along with predicted future trends in beer making. A few photographs appear throughout the book, which includes a handy glossary and index. Intended primarily for non-practitioners, this text will be appreciated by anyone interested in brewing science and by beer lovers everywhere. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. —C. P. Vesei, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
While Becker’s finished works and the published works of many other economists also cover these topics, this book’s unique contribution is revealing Becker’s thought process through his still-in-progress writings.
—G. Wood, Virginia Wesleyan University
Becker, Gary S. The economic approach: unpublished writings of Gary S. Becker, ed. by Julio J. Elias, Casey B. Mulligan, and Kevin M. Murphy. Chicago, 2023. 184p bibl index ISBN 9780226827209, $45.00; ISBN 9780226827216 ebook, contact publisher for price.
The Economic Approach is a fascinating collection of Gary S. Becker’s unpublished works with additional, insightful commentary on both his life and the works contained in this book. Each chapter features formal applications of the tools of economics, but can also be read by a layman thanks to the common-sense arguments that attend the mathematical models Becker used. As such, The Economic Approach succeeds in giving readers at different educational levels in economics an understanding of how economics can be used as a method of inquiry into all kinds of human behavior. Examples include an economic analysis of a parent’s decision to invest in their child’s education versus investing in their own retirement, an economic analysis of military training, and an economic analysis of power as a form of compensation in the workplace. While Becker’s finished works and the published works of many other economists also cover these topics, this book’s unique contribution is revealing Becker’s thought process through his still-in-progress writings. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty; professionals. —G. Wood, Virginia Wesleyan University
Taken together, this voluminous collection is the most comprehensive and well-executed research on Black women’s public health to date.
—L. T. Grover, Southern University and A&M College
Black women’s reproductive health and sexuality: a holistic public health approach, ed. by Regina Moss Davis. APHA, 2023. 444p bibl index ISBN 9780875533407 pbk, $75.00; ISBN 9780875533414 ebook, contact publisher for price.
The contributors to this edited volume have created a veritable bible on Black women’s reproductive health. Beginning with a historical framework, each chapter discusses the origins and implications of the impacts of race, geographic region, historical context, and public health implications of the effects of intersectionality on Black women’s sexual health. While this compendium of essays claims not to be an exhaustive review, it does come close, based on all the extant information regarding this topic. Divided into four sections, this collection of 31 chapters begins with reimagining how scholars and practitioners research Black women’s sexuality and reproductive health before addressing the myths and falsehoods that society holds, and that the mainstream media promotes, about this topic. From there the sections turn to activism and then finally to centering holistic ways of knowing and caring for Black women’s bodies, souls, and overall sexual and reproductive well-being. Taken together, this voluminous collection is the most comprehensive and well-executed research on Black women’s public health to date. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. —L. T. Grover, Southern University and A&M College
The book draws deeply on a wide diversity of works without requiring a deep working knowledge of most of them to form a cogent argument that reports and interprets without passing judgment.
—P. L. Kantor, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy
Casetti, Francesco. Screening fears: on protective media. Zone Books, 2023. 272p bibl index ISBN 9781942130871, $29.95; ISBN 9781942130888 ebook, $29.95.
In Screening Fears, Casetti (film and media studies, Yale) provides a history of projected media, from 18th- century phantasmagoria to the modern cell phone. Starting with the concept of individuals immersing themselves in a media bubble with modern day mobile devices, Casetti traces a history that shows that this bubble is not a new thing but is complicit in the very nature of all projected media, and to a lesser extent any media. Casetti has called this the projection/protection complex. Projected media place people in a protective bubble—bubbles ranging from air-conditioned theaters to home living rooms to headphones and devices held close—and in this secure and isolated environment present them with interpretations of the real world. When functioning correctly, this environment allows people to learn and grow with the security of real dangers kept at a distance; but such an environment can also lead to the dysfunction of siloing with safe interpretations of reality that do not threaten people’s world views. The book draws deeply on a wide diversity of works without requiring a deep working knowledge of most of them to form a cogent argument that reports and interprets without passing judgment. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. —P. L. Kantor, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy
It is an essential text for undergraduate and graduate courses on food history, transnationalism, and migration.
—E. K. Jackson, Colorado Mesa University
Food mobilities: making world cuisines, ed. by Daniel E. Bender and Simone Cinotto. Toronto, 2023. 352p bibl index ISBN 9781487509026, $80.00; ISBN 9781487526498 pbk, $24.95; ISBN 9781487539535 ebook, $24.95.
Food Mobilities takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of global food cultures and the methods by which different mobilities have propelled foods across borders and cultures. The volume begins by framing Sidney Mintz’s seminal Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1985)—which details the ripple effect of sugar as a commodity in the 16th century on the prevalence of slavery—as a methodological entrance into the connection between food and mobility. The uniqueness of this anthology is its interconnected focus on migration patterns, food systems, the structures that affect mobility, and the processes of globalization in the modern era. Each chapter, written by renowned scholars including Hasia Diner, Donna Gabaccia, and Jeffrey M. Pilcher, frames interconnected themes of food mobility in historical perspective, in its relation to the body, and through the lenses of settler colonialism, biodiversity, labor, and gender. Food Mobilities brings the study of food history and migration studies into contemporary focus by addressing the effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic on food movement, consumption, and ideology. It is an essential text for undergraduate and graduate courses on food history, transnationalism, and migration. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. —E. K. Jackson, Colorado Mesa University
Garrison mixes memory studies with psychology in an unprecedented way to focus on ‘pleasure and bliss’ (p. 18) enacted in Shakespeare’s language.
—N. Birns, New York University
Garrison, John S. The pleasures of memory in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Oxford, 2024. 208p bibl index ISBN 9780198857716, $85.00; ISBN 9780192599490 ebook, contact publisher for price.
In the late-20th century books on Shakespeare’s Sonnets were few but epochal. Among them are works by Murray Krieger, Stephen Booth, Joseph Pequigney, and Helen Vendler. Garrison (Grinnell College) has produced a book that can stand with works by these earlier scholars. Garrison mixes memory studies with psychology in an unprecedented way to focus on “pleasure and bliss” (p. 18) enacted in Shakespeare’s language. Shakespeare’s erotic, linguistic ecstasy is both performative and “encourage[s] the reader to imbricate the poems within their own personal memories” (p. 40). Yet just as language can be a way to express sexual feeling, so can the body be a tool for memory keeping and “memory making” (p. 108). Using examples from across the swath of the Sonnets, Garrison shows how the poems are more about the speaker’s experience than the beloved as such. The experience may be real, but the purpose of the poems is literary and they are addressed to the reader. Garrison leavens any potential utopianism with his final chapter, on memory, disease, and love. Using examples from the eras of AIDS and COVID, he explores how the memory of loss can be a tool to shape the future” (p. 277). Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. —N. Birns, New York University
One might have to be a member of Dionysus’s cult to catch the full ekstasis of Hennefeld’s work, but it is worth the labor to celebrate Hennefeld’s own hilarity.
—T. Lindvall, Virginia Wesleyan University
Hennefeld, Maggie. Death by laughter: female hysteria and early cinema. Columbia, 2024. 368p bibl ISBN 9780231213295, $140.00; ISBN 9780231213295 pbk, $35.00; ISBN 9780231559812 ebook, $34.99.
If only Borat had interviewed Hennefeld (cultural studies and comparative literature, Univ. of Minnesota) rather than those humorless feminists, feisty outbursts of female jouissance would be viewed in a radically different light. Hennefeld’s carnivalesque Death by Laughter: Female Hysteria and Silent Cinema explodes with insightful juxtapositions and contagious cachinnations. Hennefeld begins by burying 19th-century women killed by laughter; then covers the fascinating etymological evolution of female hysteria, culminating in the therapeutic mirror and Laughing Gas (1914) of silent cinema. Both brilliant and hilarious, Death by Laughter frequently detours into polemics to challenge moral repression as the author preaches to her own bacchanalian choir with such obtuse jargon as “sentimental biopolitics and Lamarckian irrepressibility.” This reviewer enjoyed Hennefeld’s work immensely, but had to labor to decipher her arcane constellation of rag-picked allusions of corsets, toothed-vaginas, and Medusanal hallucinations. One might have to be a member of Dionysus’s cult to catch the full ekstasis of Hennefeld’s work, but it is worth the labor to celebrate Hennefeld’s own hilarity. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers. faculty. —T. Lindvall, Virginia Wesleyan University
It is compelling enough for any audience, and excellent for data scientists and medical or informatics students.
—K. O’Grady, University of San Diego
Hoeyer, Klaus. Data paradoxes: the politics of intensified data sourcing in contemporary healthcare. MIT, 2023. 312p bibl index ISBN 9780262545419 pbk, $50.00; ISBN 9780262374163 ebook, contact publisher for price.
This volume is part of the “Infrastructure” series from MIT Press. As a healthcare data scholar participating in a larger infrastructure study, Hoeyer (Univ. of Copenhagen, Denmark) shares the unexpected paradoxes he consistently encountered in studying Denmark’s heavily data-driven health-care system. Explaining Denmark as a world leader in digitized health-care infrastructures, he succinctly, entertainingly, and a tad philosophically reports the complex paradoxes built into collecting and using health-care data. He shows that data can simultaneously help and harm, inform and misinform, save or waste time and money. The author coins his own terms with brilliant pedagogical clarity, defining “intensified data sourcing,” “the ontological multiplicity of data,” “data wisdom,” “data gospel,” “data pandemic,” and “data-political dynamics.” He cleverly compares health-care data to drugs, offering the perfect analogy for something that greatly benefits and also greatly damages society simultaneously. Hoeyer concludes with Denmark’s COVID-19 experience as a case study of a health-care data paradox. The book is exhaustively referenced, concluding with a notes section arranged by chapter, 52 pages of references, and a 12-page index. It is compelling enough for any audience, and excellent for data scientists and medical or informatics students. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals. —K. O’Grady, University of San Diego
Rose’s lax but effective and engaging writing style provides readers with a comfortable, easy-to-follow reading experience.
—G. Nicolosi, Missouri S&T
Rose, Robert. Content marketing strategy: how to harness the power of your brand’s voice. Kogan Page, 2023. 224p bibl index ISBN 9781398611528, $131.00; ISBN 9781398611504 pbk, $34.99; ISBN 9781398611511 ebook, $34.99.
Content Marketing Strategy is a wonderful contribution to marketing as a field of study and practice. Though one might wonder what more can be added to the extensive literature on marketing strategy, the need for a content management framework has never been more evident. Rose (independent practitioner) observes that brands have saturated physical and digital landscapes with content of varying formats. Additionally, the evolution of algorithm-driven technology and social media has transformed consumer engagement, highlighting the need for crafted content marketing strategies. To illustrate his purpose, Rose pinpoints numerous examples of companies with excellent content management. He ultimately presents a strategic process detailing clear, actionable steps to foster business growth and success. Rose’s lax but effective and engaging writing style provides readers with a comfortable, easy-to-follow reading experience. Even those without much exposure to marketing in general will quickly be able to understand the book’s themes and ideas. As such, Content Marketing Strategy would be a good choice for those studying or interested in working in marketing. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. —G. Nicolosi, Missouri S&T
