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Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste
Pierre Bourdieu
Harvard University Press, 2007
A Must Read!
This is a fantastic explication of how social class prearranges our tastes and interests. I disagree with the reader who thinks that it is not applicable to American society--to the contrary. It is true that American culture is not so obviously stratified in the ...
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What the Best College Teachers Do
Ken Bain
Harvard University Press, 2004
An Amazing Book
This book is excellent for all teachers, in grades K-12, not just college teachers. It gets at the essential elements of great teaching and teachers. I have given it to many of the teachers at my school.
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Leadership Without Easy Answers
Ronald Heifetz
Harvard University Press, 1998
Classic leadership text
Heifetz' definition of leadership revolves around the concept of influence rather than subordination or coercion. Using contrast to sharpen his own definition of leadership, he wrote that there is an important difference between imagining that a leader influences a ...
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How Judges Think
Richard A. Posner
Harvard University Press, 2008
Brlliant and fun analysis of how judges actually decide cases
This man is *cold*. Fortunately for the reader, it is this icy wit that makes reading Posner's books such a joy. Watch how he rips into inconsistencies:
'In discussing a case that invalidated the exclusion of homosexuals from the military, Beatty approvingly remarks ...
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Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes
L. S. Vygotsky
Harvard University Press, 1978
Socio-historical psychology
This is one of the earliest and still one of the best introductions to socio-historical psychology, the study of how individual human intelligence develops in interaction with people and the environment. In concert with many contemporary approaches in cognitive ...
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In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
Carol Gilligan
Harvard University Press, 1993
"I get it"
I actually am still reading this book because I am taking my time digesting it all. It's really giving me insight on how women's thoughts and opinions have been influenced from birth. It's helping me validate my own feelings and opinions.
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Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us
Daniel Koretz
Harvard University Press, 2008
An Entertaining Book about Educational Testing - Now That's an Accomplishment!
What will surprise you about this book is that it is fun to read! Koretz is a leader in the field of educational measurement, so it is no surprise that his book is both informative and useful. He presents an enormous amount of information - from the history of ...
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The Return of Martin Guerre
Natalie Zemon Davis
Harvard University Press, 1984
Great "Micro- History," a new genre in history
At first, Natalie Davis collaborated with the director Daniel Vigne on his film, but she became dissatisfied by how many elements of the story never made it into the movie. Her book adds specific details she thought central to the story; such as, the Guerre's Basque ...
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After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC
Steven Mithen
Harvard University Press, 2006
Very Good ; 4.5 stars
The subtitle of this book is slightly misleading. What Mithen describes is not so much a single history as a series of regional histories. Mithen begins with a reconstruction, to the extent permitted by the archaeological evidence, of human hunter-gatherer life at ...
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The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone
Kenneth W. Ford
Harvard University Press, 2005
One of the best
This book is obviously targeted at the layman -- it's not a textbook. It makes very few assumptions about the reader's background -- but from a practical perspective, a reader with some appreciation for basic physics will get more from the book. What amazes me is ...
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Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman
Marjorie Shostak
Harvard University Press, 2000
Dense, informitive, sad, and often moving
Majorie Shostak's account of her anthropology trip to Africa's Kalahari Desert examining the rituals, lifestyles and existence of the !Kung tribe is not to be read like an expanded version of a National Geographic article. It is written with academic rigor and precise ...
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We Have Never Been Modern
Bruno Latour
Harvard University Press, 2008
a great, new work; serious social theory for scientists too
For this reader, Bruno Latour's book is one of the most ambitious, original, and important reformulations of social theory since 1989. It is getting lots of attention among scholars, and deserves a wider public. The press reviews here don't do this book justice. ...
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Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict
Roger B. Myerson
Harvard University Press, 1997
Masterpiece
This book is a masterpiece: it goes from the simple and straightforward (with examples of sequential equilibria) to technical and challenging material (such as the Mertens-Zamir type space). I own Fudenberg-Tirole and Osborne-Rubinstein, but it is Myerson that gets ...
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American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy
Andrew J. Bacevich
Harvard University Press, 2004
excellent study of US position in the world.
This is one the better books of analysis done on America's place in the world. Its an honest attempt to put down on paper the realities of America's interactions with the world rather than the idealisms that many authors (especially neoconservative ones) present.
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The Strategy of Conflict
Thomas C. Schelling
Harvard University Press, 2007
Everyone should read this book
"The Strategy of Conflict" changed the development of game theory in several ways, but none was more important than Schelling's focus on real life examples, situations or games that are relevant to what we encounter in our daily lives. Before Schelling, game theory ...
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