Tag archieven: Columbia University Press

Biografie, India, Indiase geschiedenis

Manu Bhagavan – The Remarkable Madame Pandit

Manu Bhagavan The Remarkable Madame Pandit review, recensie en informatie biografie van  Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, de politica en diplomate uit India. Op 30 september 2025 verschijnt bij Columbia University Press de biografie van Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, geschreven door Manu Bhagavan. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Manu Bhagavan The Remarkable Madame Pandit review en recensie

  • “With this illuminating biography, Manu Bhagavan restores Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit to the pantheon of extraordinary individuals who created a modern India according to their noble vision of international human rights. Written in lucid prose with a scholar’s unflinching eye, this is a deeply affectionate portrait of a complex woman, and a masterful recreation of a thrilling period in history.” (Kiran Desai)
  • “Sidelined by the “great men” school of history writing, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit is brought to life in this vividly written and painstakingly researched biography. You’ll find yourself eagerly turning the pages to learn what happens next in a story you thought you already knew.” (Daisy Rockwell)

Manu Bhagavan The Remarkable Madame Pandit

The Remarkable Madame Pandit

Champion of India, Citizen of the World

  • Auteur: Manu Bhagavan (India, Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: biografie, Indiase geschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Columbia University Press
  • Verschijnt: 30 september 2025
  • Omvang: 584 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 40,00 / $ 160,00 / $ 40,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Libris

Flaptekst van de biografie van Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit de politica uit India

A pioneering politician and diplomat, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900–1990) was an Indian icon, admired worldwide for her brilliance and glamour. Eleanor Roosevelt called her “the most remarkable woman” she had ever met. Madame Pandit, as she was widely known, moved in elite global circles even as she worked to improve the lives of millions. She traded quips with Winston Churchill, worked alongside Albert Einstein, and was detained for the attempted assassination of Benito Mussolini. She even came out of retirement to campaign against her own niece, Indira Gandhi, to stop an authoritarian takeover and save Indian democracy.

The Remarkable Madame Pandit is the definitive biography of India’s greatest modern diplomat. Manu Bhagavan chronicles Pandit’s life and times, from her upbringing in an illustrious family to her role in her country’s fight for independence and through her globe-trotting career bridging East and West. Pandit was India’s first woman cabinet minister, an ambassador to the United States and the Soviet Union, and the first woman elected president of the UN General Assembly. Her influence extended well beyond these formal roles: she became one of the most prominent international voices for peace while paving the way for women in many fields. Based on eight years of research using material in five languages from seven countries, this book tells Madame Pandit’s gripping story in full—and in so doing, retells the history of India and the world in the twentieth century.

Manu Bhagavan was born in 1970. He is an Indian-American professor of history, human rights, and public policy at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is also a senior fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. Bhagavan is the author or editor of several books, including The Peacemakers: India and the Quest for One World (2012) and India and the Cold War (2019).

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Dieren, Dinosaurus, Paleontologie

Dean R. Lomax – The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs

Dean R. Lomax The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs review, recensie en informatie boek over het ontdekken van het echte gedrag van prehistorische dieren. Op 23 september 2025 verschijnt bij Columbia University Press het boek van de Britse paleontoloog Dean R. Lomax over het gedrag van dinosaurussen. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Dean R. Lomax The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs review en recensie

  • “Lomax uses scientific research and personal experiences to
    guide readers through the process of discovering details of longextinct animals’ lives. The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs takes complex paleontological ideas and explains them in an approachable and easyto-understand way.” (Kallie Moore, cohost of PBS Eons)
  • “Dean R. Lomax has written a fantastic book that is as educational as it is entertaining. Technically engrossing, scientifically accurate, but not intimidating. It’s loaded with information, with some great paleo anecdotes and scientific humor peppered throughout. It’s one of the most fun nonfiction dinosaur books I’ve read. The artwork by Bob Nicholls and photos and diagrams are all really well done and informative.” (Slash, Guns N’ Roses)
  • “Lomax describes some remarkable fossils that record the intimate lives of ancient organisms, from reproduction and birth to feeding, locomotion, and illnesses. There are dinosaurs here, but also fossil reptiles, mammals, fishes, ammonites, and others. Lomax shows you the fossils, uncovering the discoveries and the discoverers, while Bob Nicholls provides stunning artwork to reveal some of the amazing lives of our ancestors.” (Michael Benton, professor of vertebrate paleontology, University of Bristol)

Dean R. Lomax The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs

The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs

Unearthing the Real Behaviors of Prehistoric Animals

  • Auteur: Dean R. Lomax (Engeland)
  • Illustraties: Bob Nicholls
  • Soort boek: dinosaurus boek
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Columbia University Press
  • Verschijnt: 23 september 2025
  • Omvang: 312 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 38.95
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over het geheime leven van dinosaurussen

Buried within a lost world, astonishing evidence reveals the behavior of extinct animals, giving us a glimpse at both everyday and epic events. If we look at these discoveries carefully, the untold stories of these magnificent creatures come into view, breathing new life into the prehistoric past.

The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs tells the remarkable tales of ancient animals through some of the most distinctive and unusual fossils ever found, offering an intimate, behind-the-scenes look into the story of life in deep time. Venturing hundreds of millions of years into the past, Dean R. Lomax takes us on a journey through the grand cycle of life, infused with anecdotes from his own adventures and sprinkled with a touch of dinosaur humor.

These fossils tell real-world stories of prehistoric parenting, the quest for survival, and the endless struggle between predator and prey. Unbelievable moments are captured: saber-toothed cats clashing, mega-millipedes mating, dinosaurs swimming. From ammonite eggs to mosasaur mealtimes, and from a pregnant ichthyosaur that chowed down on a bird to the mammal that took down a dinosaur, these behaviors challenge what we thought we knew about the prehistoric world.

This book looks into the private moments of long-extinct creatures as never before, letting us see them not just as fossils in a museum but as living, breathing animals with personalities and emotions. Vivid illustrations by Bob Nicholls bring these incredible stories to life in full color.

Dean R. Lomax is an internationally recognized paleontologist, author, television presenter, and science communicator. A leading authority on ichthyosaurs, he is an honorary research fellow at the University of Manchester and an 1851 Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. He is the author of more than ten books.

Bob Nicholls is a world-renowned natural history artist who specializes in the reconstruction of prehistoric animals, plants, and environments. His illustrations and models have been published in more than forty books and exhibited in museums, universities, and visitor attractions around the world.

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Geologieboek, Wetenschap

Simon Lamb – The Oldest Rocks on Earth

Simon Lamb The Oldest Rocks on Earth review, recensie en informatie boek over een zoektocht naar de oorsprong van onze wereld. Op 29 december 2025 verschijnt bij Columbia University Press het boek van Simon Lamb, de adjunct professor of geophysics aan de Victoria University of Wellington in Nieuw-Zeeland. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Simon Lamb The Oldest Rocks on Earth review en recensie

  • “An entertaining and instructional overview of geology and paleontology with a specific focus on the origin of planet Earth and its first steps in Earth’s history. The Oldest Rocks on Earth provides a glimpse into how scientists work to unravel Earth’s oldest history.” (Dr. Nora Noffke, Professor for Sedimentology, Old Dominion University)
  • “An exceptionally clever narrative as Lamb intertwines deep thinking about geology with his own experiences as a young graduate student working in remote Africa. He breathes new life into earth sciences throughout the book, connecting the mysteries of early Earth with present-day issues of climate change and human evolution.” (Tim Stern, Fellow of the American Geophysical Union)

Simon Lamb The Oldest Rocks on Earth

The Oldest Rocks on Earth

A Search for the Origins of Our World

  • Auteur: Simon Lamb (Nieuw-Zeeland)
  • Soort boek: geologisch boek
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Columbia University Press
  • Verschijn: 29 december 2025
  • Omvang; 336 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 30,00 / $ 120,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol

Flaptekst van het boek over het oudste gesteente op aarde

Earth has existed for an immense period of time—an almost unimaginable 4.6 billion years. If we ventured far enough into the past, would we reach a time when our planet was fundamentally different? Did it always have landscapes like those we see today, sculpted by wind, rain, and the forces of plate tectonics? When did Earth turn into the distinctive “blue planet” where life could emerge and evolve?

Geologist Simon Lamb shows that the key to answering these questions lies in ancient rocks from the days when the planet was young. His research in remote southern Africa looks at some of the oldest known rocks—some more than 3.5 billion years old—which have survived unfathomable spans of geological time. He takes readers on a journey of scientific discovery, walking—and sometimes diving—through landscapes from the time of the earliest known forms of life. Lamb unearths a violent world of natural disasters and climate change in the deep ocean, along ancient shorelines, and amid rising mountains. In so doing, he shows how geologists work and think, and how they read rocks and decipher what they tell us of the past. Finding the foundations of our world, The Oldest Rocks on Earth sheds light on why Earth is the only planet known to harbor life and what this might tell us about our future.

Simon Lamb is adjunct professor of geophysics at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He is the author ofDevil in the Mountain: A Search for the Origin of the Andes (2004) and coauthor of Earth Story: The Forces That Have Shaped Our Planet (1998). Lamb has been a consultant, producer, or director of a number of BBC science documentaries.

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Bomen, Geschiedenisboeken

Russell Fielding – Breadfruit

Russell Fielding Breadfruit review, recensie en informatie boek over de drie wereldwijde reizen van een overvloedige broodboom en broodvrucht. Op 11 november 2025 verschijnt bij Columbia University Press het boek van Russell Fielding, de associate professor van het HTC Honors College bij de Coastal Carolina University. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Russell Fielding Breadfruit review en recensie

  • “Russell Fielding is prophetic in identifying breadfruit’s potential for improving food security for our world. Here on the small Pacific Island of Guam, we have embraced these strategies on breadfruit in our struggle for greater self-sufficiency.” (Robert Bevacqua, University of Guam)
  • “A fascinating exploration of the intersections among natural and cultural history. Breadfruit’s nourishing, troubled, and inspiring histories and futures are brought to vivid life in these pages. Through engaging and deeply researched stories and site visits, Fielding reveals the life-giving relationships among people and plants.” (David George Haskell, biologist and author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen)

Russell Fielding Breadfruit

Breadfruit

Three Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree

  • Auteur: Russell Fielding (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenis van de broodvrucht
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Columbia University Press
  • Omvang: 305 pagina’s
  • Verschijnt: 11 november 2025
  • Uitgave: paperback / gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 28,00 / $ 115,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over de geschiedenis van het wereldwijde succes van broodvrucht

Breadfruit trees are staples of the tropics, bearing cantaloupe-sized green-skinned fruits whose taste and texture resemble potatoes. More than three thousand years ago, breadfruit fueled the Pacific voyages of discovery that settled islands throughout Oceania. In the late eighteenth century, the British expedition that ended with the mutiny on the Bounty aimed, but failed, to introduce breadfruit to the West Indies as food for enslaved African laborers on sugar plantations. A later voyage resulted in the fruit’s widespread distribution and complicated role within modern Caribbean food cultures. In recent years, breadfruit has been touted as a tool for sustainable development and as a “superfood” with both health benefits and culinary versatility.

Russell Fielding tells these stories and many others, exploring breadfruit’s fascinating global history and varied present-day uses. Bringing together extensive research and vivid travelogues, including learning directly from local agriculturists, chefs, scientists, and holders of traditional knowledge, he provides an immersive narrative of breadfruit’s contributions. Fielding argues that breadfruit’s history comprises two journeys: first, from its origins in Southeast Asia across the Pacific; and second, its transplantation to the Caribbean. Today, a third journey is taking place, one that is spreading breadfruit throughout the world.

Engagingly written and compellingly argued, this book draws timely lessons from breadfruit’s past to forecast its future potential.

Russell Fielding is an associate professor in the HTC Honors College at Coastal Carolina University. He is a geographer who studies sustainable food systems in the world’s coastal and island settings. Fielding is the author of The Wake of the Whale: Hunter Societies in the Caribbean and North Atlantic (2018).

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Dieren, Paleontologie, Prehistorie

Jodi Summers – We Dig Ammonites

Jodi Summers We Dig Ammonites review, recensie en informatie boek over de feiten, folklore en geschiedenis van ammonieten. Op 11 november 2025 verschijnt bij Columbia University Press het boek van Jodi Summers de medewerker en veldonderzoeker in paleontologie van het American Museum of Natural History. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Jodi Summers We Dig Ammonites review en recensie

  • “There is so much information in Jodi Summers’s amazingly comprehensive look at ammonites—from their history and biology to the specifics of collecting in fossil localities all over the globe. Just the photos alone are enough to make an ammonite-ophile out of any reader!” (Karol McQueary, Southern Californian Paleontologist Society)

Jodi Summers We Dig Ammonites

We Dig Ammonites

Fact, Folklore, and History

  • Auteur: Jodi Summers (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: paleontologie boek
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Columbia University Press
  • Verschijnt: 11 november 2025
  • Omvang: 320 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 59.95
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon

Flaptekst van het boek over ammonieten van Jodi Summers

Ammonites swam in Earth’s ancient seas for nearly 400 million years. These prolific cephalopods diversified into more than 10,000 species before meeting their demise during the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Today, these spiral-shelled invertebrates are among the most abundant fossils in the geologic record, found from snowcapped Himalayan peaks to parched South American arroyos. People around the world have long been drawn to the mystery and beauty of ammonite fossils. These preternaturally preserved creatures have inspired age-old myths and legends, and studying their secrets has spurred crucial scientific discoveries.

Jodi Summers—an accomplished journalist and passionate fossil collector—guides readers through the entire arc of ammonite history. She explores the evolution, proliferation, extinction, and fossilization of these captivating cephalopods, situating the story in the progression of deep time. Summers also prospects prime fossil-hunting locations, sharing tips, export legalities, and inside scoops for enthusiasts and collectors in search of notable specimens. She takes us along on her globe-spanning journeys: from the desert to the seashore, up mountains and down canyons, to the backrooms of natural history institutions and the floors of fossil shows.

We Dig Ammonites features hundreds of lavish color photographs of rare specimens that showcase the splendor of these magnificent molluscs. This book is an ode to one of the world’s most compelling fossils and an invitation to catch a glimpse of vanished epochs.

Jodi Summers is a field associate in paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. She was an editor for several rock music magazines and has written three books on the music industry as well as several blogs on historic landmarks and other properties. Her ammonite collection includes more than a thousand specimens.

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Amerikaanse geschiedenis, Psychiatrie, Slavernij

Diana Martha Louis – Colored Insane

Diana Martha Louis Colored Insane review, recensie en informatie boek over Slavernij, opvang en psychische aandoeningen in de negentiende eeuw. Op 28 oktober 2025 verschijnt bij Columbia University Press het boek van Diana Martha Louis, de assistent hoogleraar vrouwen- en genderstudies aan de Universiteit van Michigan. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Diana Martha Louis Colored Insane review en recensie

  • “Bringing together an impressive array of primary sources ranging from medical case studies and asylum records to literary fiction and nonfiction, Colored Insane offers a unique narrative that centers the perspectives of marginalized patients that have largely been absent from the established discourse on asylums.” (Michael Ra-shon Hall, author of Freedom Beyond Confinement)
  • “I couldn’t stop reading this book. Writing in a thrilling voice and centering Black knowledge-makers, Diana Louis uncovers countless surprises as she explores histories of Black mental disability. Her archival research and astute analysis respond to critical questions about “mental illness” and “disability” in the context of enslavement, freedom, and human experience itself. Colored Insane is necessary reading for anyone teaching, writing, and thinking about disability and Black histories.” (Margaret Price, author of Crip Spacetime)

Diana Martha Louis Colored Insane

Colored Insane

Slavery, Asylums, and Mental Illness in the Nineteenth Century

  • Auteur: Diana Martha Louis (Verenigde Staten0
  • Soort boek: geschiedenisboek
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Columbia University Press
  • Verschijnt:28 oktober 2025
  • Omvang: 320 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 35,00 / € 140,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over slavernij, opvang en psychische aandoeningen in de 19de eeuw

The nineteenth century in the United States witnessed the end of slavery and the expansion of another form of confinement: the asylum. How did enslaved and free Black people encounter psychiatric institutions? How were notions of mental disability used to reinforce slavery and Jim Crow? And how did Black people express alternative ideas about individual and communal mental health?

Diana Martha Louis explores Black experiences and views of mental disability in the nineteenth century, shedding light on the lives and struggles of the “colored insane.” She demonstrates how psychiatric discourses made Blacks “mad” both by inflicting real psychological harm within asylums, plantations, jails, and society writ large and by constructing mental disorders according to prevailing notions of race, class, gender, and sanity. Yet even as white medical professionals pathologized the enslaved as suffering from “drapetomania” (runaway slave syndrome), portrayed slavery as beneficial to Black mental health, or cast African-derived spiritual beliefs and practices as signs of madness, Black people developed their own complex perspectives on mental disability.

Louis considers the lives and writings of Black intellectuals and cultural figures including James McCune Smith, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Tubman, and Charles Chesnutt, as well as a group of Black women who were incarcerated in Georgia Lunatic Asylum, showing how mental disability was entangled with questions of freedom, spirituality, and self-determination. Combining literary and historical analysis, Colored Insane is a rich account of nineteenth-century Black Americans’ experiences of mental illness and wellness.

Diana Martha Louis is an assistant professor of women’s and gender studies and American culture at the University of Michigan.

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Taiwan, Taiwanese schrijver, Verhalen

Syaman Rapongan – Eyes of the Ocean

Syaman Rapongan Eyes of the Ocean review, recensie en informatie boek met verhalen van de schrijver uit Taiwan afkomstig uit de Tao bevolking. Op 5 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Columbia University Press het boek met verhalen van Syaman Rapongan, de Taiwanese schrijver afkomstig van het eiland Lan Yu, ook wel bekend als het eiland der orchideeën en dor de bewoners zelf Pongso no Tao genaamd. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Syaman Rapongan Eyes of the Ocean review en recensie

  • “His is a world of waves, fish, clouds, and wind; a world of legends, tales, and indigenous knowledge; a world of words, that somehow, impossibly, capture the beauty and wonder of our relationship with the sea. His books are a homecoming for the soul. And, in a world increasingly dominated by cell phones, texts, and tweets, we need Syaman Rapongan more than ever.” (Michael Berry)
  • “Syaman Rapongan is one of Taiwan’s most vital literary voices. In his Eyes of the Ocean, the sea is not just a setting but a living presence—a teacher, a memory, a worldview. Through it, he crafts an archipelagic vision that challenges colonial and continental notions of identity and belonging.” (Gwennaël Gaffric)

Syaman Rapongan Eyes of the Ocean

Eyes of the Ocean

  • Auteur: Syaman Rapongan (Taiwan)
  • Soort boek: verhalen van het eiland Lan Yu
  • Engelse vertaling: Darryl Sterk
  • Uitgever: Columbia University Press
  • Verschijnt: 5 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 272 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 28,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek van Syaman Rapongan de schrijver uit Taiwan

Syaman Rapongan—one of the Indigenous Tao people of Orchid Island near Taiwan—calls himself an “ocean writer.” His works blend Tao folklore and accounts of maritime life with keen critique of the social, psychological, and ecological harms of colonialism. Eyes of the Ocean is his literary autobiography, both a powerful story of survival in a settler state and a masterful portrait of the Indigenous artist as a young man.

In colloquial and vivid prose, Syaman Rapongan depicts Tao beliefs in ghosts, practices of exorcism, and the parallel worlds that exist alongside the human realm. He recounts his difficulties speaking Mandarin in school, his experiences of racial discrimination and exploitation in Taipei, and his decision to return to Orchid Island to rediscover his cultural heritage, as well as his travels to visit other Indigenous artists in places such as Greenland. Eyes of the Ocean also tells the story of Syaman Rapongan’s formation as a writer, a practitioner of a genre of his own creation: colonial ocean island literature.

Introducing English-language readers to one of the leading Indigenous writers in Taiwan, this book shares a profound and deeply humane vision of Oceanic art and identity.

Syaman Rapongan was born 31 October 1957 on the island Pongso no Tao in Taiwan. He is an acclaimed author who grew up on Pongso no Tao or Orchid Island. After spending more than a decade studying and working in Taiwan, he returned to his home in 1989, joining the local Indigenous social movement and protesting a nuclear waste facility, and turned to literature in the 1990s. He has also made documentary films, founded a workshop on oceanic ethnography, and crossed the Pacific Ocean in a canoe.

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