James, Harold | 2023 | Yale University Press | 9780300263398
Subject: Economics
Source: Financial Times
Review: James categorises good crises from bad ones. The former lead to greater expansion of free trade and capital, while the latter results in a less open world. He provides a neat analysis of how different types of shock drive different responses. Crashes driven by a supply shock, like the 1970s oil price hikes, tend to lead to greater globalisation, as businesses and nations react to raise supply, wri...Read More
Seven Crashes The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization
James categorises good crises from bad ones. The former lead to greater expansion of free trade and capital, while the latter results in a less open world. He provides a neat analysis of how different types of shock drive different responses. Crashes driven by a supply shock, like the 1970s oil price hikes, tend to lead to greater globalisation, as businesses and nations react to raise supply, writes James. In contrast, demand-driven crashes such as the 2008 financial crisis result in a contraction of global markets. An important historic account to help us better understand the trajectory of the world economy.
Prasad, Aarathi | 2023 | Jonathan Ball Publishers | 9780008451851
Subject: History
Source:
Review: A childhood obsession motivates this appealing history of silk and its science by biologist Aarathi Prasad. She watched south Indian hand-loom weavers turn threads into fabrics worn by her mother and aunts. At home, she saw caterpillars frantically weaving silk cradles and vanishing from view. Drawing on accounts by scientists, she follows three metamorphoses: caterpillar to moth; cocoon to commod...Read More
Silk : A History in Three Metamorphoses
A childhood obsession motivates this appealing history of silk and its science by biologist Aarathi Prasad. She watched south Indian hand-loom weavers turn threads into fabrics worn by her mother and aunts. At home, she saw caterpillars frantically weaving silk cradles and vanishing from view. Drawing on accounts by scientists, she follows three metamorphoses: caterpillar to moth; cocoon to commodity; and ?simple protein chains to threads with very extraordinary capabilities?, such as the capacity to help rebuild a cornea.
Review: In Sovereign Funds, nZongyuan Zoe Liu, a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, takes up a particular aspect of China's economic statecraft, showing how it employs its financial resources to promote its interests abroad. Notably, China uses its pile of foreign-exchange reserves to capitalize state-owned foreign-investment funds. There's a convention, known as the Santiago Principles, that com...Read More
Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions
In Sovereign Funds, nZongyuan Zoe Liu, a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, takes up a particular aspect of China's economic statecraft, showing how it employs its financial resources to promote its interests abroad. Notably, China uses its pile of foreign-exchange reserves to capitalize state-owned foreign-investment funds. There's a convention, known as the Santiago Principles, that commits sovereign wealth funds, such as those operated by oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, to providing transparency and act as good global citizens. The Chinese Investment Corp., according to Ms. Liu, leaped at the opportunity to demonstrate that its investment decisions were not driven by geopolitical interests and signed the Santiago Principles. In fact, China's commitment to them has been tenuous. In 2008, a loan to Costa Rica made by one of China's foreign-investment funds was contingent on the Central American republic ending its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. As for transparency, FBI director Christopher Wray recently accused China of using elaborate shell games. to conceal its influence from Western companies.
Moorhead, Joanna | 2023 | Princeton University Press | 9780691254487
Subject: Biography
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Review: To Macaulay's roll of artists, she might, with only slight modification, have added the British-born Surrealist Leonora Carrington, whose landscapes veil, just, the darker corners of her life and times.Read More
Surreal Spaces: The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington
To Macaulay's roll of artists, she might, with only slight modification, have added the British-born Surrealist Leonora Carrington, whose landscapes veil, just, the darker corners of her life and times.
Costa, Ken | 2023 | Bloomsbury Publishing India | 9781399407632
Subject: Economics
Source: Financial Times
Review: In his new book, The 100 Trillion Dollar Wealth Transfer, Costa looksnat the risks to the liberal capitalist system from concentrating moneynand power in the hands of a new generation with an agenda to saventhe planet from the climate crisis and make the system more fair FT Wealth Business booksnThe transfer of wealth from boomersto zennials willreshapenthe global economynFinancier Ken Costa argue...Read More
The 100 Trillion Dollar Wealth Transfer: How the Handover from Boomers to Gen Z Will Revolutionize Capitalism
In his new book, The 100 Trillion Dollar Wealth Transfer, Costa looksnat the risks to the liberal capitalist system from concentrating moneynand power in the hands of a new generation with an agenda to saventhe planet from the climate crisis and make the system more fair FT Wealth Business booksnThe transfer of wealth from boomersto zennials willreshapenthe global economynFinancier Ken Costa argues the millennials and Gen-Z generations arenunsuited to managing capital because of their left-wing viewsn The key message is the polarisation between the generations that hasngone on in the last few years will destroy capitalism and the marketneconomy , the 73-year-old South African told the Financial Times.
Tulchinsky, Igor | 2023 | The MIT Press | 9780262047739
Subject: Science and Technology
Source: Financial Times
Review: The authors continue with a thrilling dive into the many ways algorithms are doing so: from the development of autonomous robots and large language models, to accurate predictions of voting patterns; from improved cancer treatments to ever more lethal smart weapons. Each development mitigates against some risks, while creating new ones, making risk the shadow of ever more accurate knowledge about ...Read More
The Age of Prediction: Algorithms, AI, and the Shifting Shadows of Risk
The authors continue with a thrilling dive into the many ways algorithms are doing so: from the development of autonomous robots and large language models, to accurate predictions of voting patterns; from improved cancer treatments to ever more lethal smart weapons. Each development mitigates against some risks, while creating new ones, making risk the shadow of ever more accurate knowledge about the future.
Hertmans, Stefan | 2023 | Pantheon Books | 9780593316467
Subject: Literature
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Review: For years, Mientje Verhulst regarded her husband as a man of mystery. In 1938, her neighbor in Ghent, Belgium, informed her that two nights a week Willem was screening movies in a private cinema for an audience of Germanic nationalists. When Mientje pressed him on it, he told her it was work-related and that she should mind her own business. In 1940, soon after the Germans occupied the city, Mient...Read More
The Ascent: A House Can Have Many Secrets
For years, Mientje Verhulst regarded her husband as a man of mystery. In 1938, her neighbor in Ghent, Belgium, informed her that two nights a week Willem was screening movies in a private cinema for an audience of Germanic nationalists. When Mientje pressed him on it, he told her it was work-related and that she should mind her own business. In 1940, soon after the Germans occupied the city, Mientje learned Willem was earning a significantly higher salary. He went on business trips to Germany and entertained German officers. One day, a crate addressed to her husband arrived at home, containing a plaster-of-Paris bust of the Farer. It shocked Mientje but also dispelled any remaining doubt she had about who Willem was and where his allegiance lay.
Norberg, Johan | 2023 | Atlantic Books | 9781838957896
Subject: Economics
Source: Financial Times
Review: Central to capitalism, according to Norberg, is its Socratic wisdom or the notion that marketsn do not presume to know what is best, compared to say an all-powerful government choosing what to produce. In this way, the freedom of buyers to choose products across a competitive market allocates resources more effectively, while profit motivates continual innovation. But Norberg is'not solely focused...Read More
The Capitalist Manifesto: Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World
Central to capitalism, according to Norberg, is its Socratic wisdom or the notion that marketsn do not presume to know what is best, compared to say an all-powerful government choosing what to produce. In this way, the freedom of buyers to choose products across a competitive market allocates resources more effectively, while profit motivates continual innovation. But Norberg is'not solely focused on growth, he articulates how free markets can be a powerful force for justicenand anti-discrimination too.nMany of the ills of capitalism, he argues, are due to market distortions introduced by regulation, like immigration restrictions, subsidies and tariffs. Sure, capitalism is certainly not flawless, but as rhetoric over introducing trade barriers, reshoring, and technology restrictions grows ever louder, Norberg's latest book is a timely reminder of the benefits of free and open trade.
Trethewey, Laura | 2023 | HarperCollins | 9780063099951
Subject: Science and Technology
Source: Strategy + Business
Review: Sonar (sonic navigation and ranging) an instrument invented at the beginning of the 20th century and since perfected is central to this story. It is regularly employed aboard small fishing boats and large research vessels alike, where it uses sound to image the hidden relief of the seafloor. But The Deepest Map is more focused on the unsung heroes of ocean mapping than on technological innovation....Read More
The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World's Oceans
Sonar (sonic navigation and ranging) an instrument invented at the beginning of the 20th century and since perfected is central to this story. It is regularly employed aboard small fishing boats and large research vessels alike, where it uses sound to image the hidden relief of the seafloor. But The Deepest Map is more focused on the unsung heroes of ocean mapping than on technological innovation. These individuals spend months, years, and even decades at sea and in their offices facilitating the acquisition of the myriad datapoints that are transformed into the seabed map.
Edwards, Richard | 2023 | Bison Books | 9781496230843
Subject: History
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Review: In 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, Congress enacted one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation in American history. The Homestead Act's sponsor, Rep. Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania, declared soaringly that the act would reward the soldier now in the field fighting the battles of constitutional free government as well as the soldiers of peace that grand army of the sons of toilwhose batt...Read More
The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America's Great Migration
In 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, Congress enacted one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation in American history. The Homestead Act's sponsor, Rep. Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania, declared soaringly that the act would reward the soldier now in the field fighting the battles of constitutional free government as well as the soldiers of peace that grand army of the sons of toilwhose battlefields were the prairies and wilderness of the frontier. The act offered 160 acres of federal land to any citizen who would build a home on it and farm it for at least five years.
Ireland, Tom | 2023 | W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324050834
Subject: Science and Technology
Source: Strategy + Business
Review: In his Nobel Lecture delivered on 11 December 1945, Alexander Fleming recounted how his pursuit of a chance observation of a mold contaminating a culture plate led eventually to the industrial production of penicillin, the first-ever antibiotic (1). While anticipating the remarkable impact the drug would have on global health, Fleming also made a prescient warning: If used negligently, resistance ...Read More
The Good Virus: The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage
In his Nobel Lecture delivered on 11 December 1945, Alexander Fleming recounted how his pursuit of a chance observation of a mold contaminating a culture plate led eventually to the industrial production of penicillin, the first-ever antibiotic (1). While anticipating the remarkable impact the drug would have on global health, Fleming also made a prescient warning: If used negligently, resistance to penicillin would inevitably change the nature of the microbe, resulting in treatment failure.
Gunnar Broberg | 2023 | Princeton University Press | 9780691213422
Subject: Science and Technology
Source: Strategy + Business
Review: In 1741, the famed father of taxonomy Carl Linnaeus experienced a setback that will be familiar to many modern scientists: He had a paper rejected. His account of his travels to the Swedish island of Gotland was denied publication due to its being most carelessly written and covered in corrective ink marks, with no mention of the quality of the narrative itself. This anecdote, recounted in chapter...Read More
The Man Who Organized Nature: The Life of Linnaeus
In 1741, the famed father of taxonomy Carl Linnaeus experienced a setback that will be familiar to many modern scientists: He had a paper rejected. His account of his travels to the Swedish island of Gotland was denied publication due to its being most carelessly written and covered in corrective ink marks, with no mention of the quality of the narrative itself. This anecdote, recounted in chapter 12 of historian Gunnar Bromberg's biography of the Swedish botanist, The Man Who Organized Nature, is an apt metaphor for the book itself, which is rife with convoluted writing that at times masks the text's otherwise rich illumination of the life of one of history's most influential scientists.
Review: When George Eliot agreed (reluctantly, by all accounts) to have her portrait made in 1865, she surely never imagined that her face would be forever linked with her published works. Yet today when we think of the author of Middlemarch (1871), we immediately picture the somewhat mournful countenance that Frederic Burton captured and that subsequently graced numerous editions of her novels. Like the ...Read More
The Marriage Question: George Eliot's Double Life
When George Eliot agreed (reluctantly, by all accounts) to have her portrait made in 1865, she surely never imagined that her face would be forever linked with her published works. Yet today when we think of the author of Middlemarch (1871), we immediately picture the somewhat mournful countenance that Frederic Burton captured and that subsequently graced numerous editions of her novels. Like the famous daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson, the Eliot image is both familiar and elusive. There is the slight tilt of the head, which recalls countless depictions of the Madonna, but also the wry smile that dispels any whiff of sanctity. For Eliot's gaze is fixed not on the heavens above but on the specimens of humanity before her. Steady-eyed she regards us, as though recognizing each one of our follies and frailties.
Arias, Alfonso Martinez | 2023 | Hachette Book | 9781541603271
Subject: Science and Technology
Source: Strategy + Business
Review: The Master Builder, by developmental biologist Alfonzo Martinez Arias, questions this gene-centric view and proposes an alternative, cell-centric take. Martinez Arias's perspective is that genes themselves do not determine cellular morphology, organization, or function. An organism, he maintains, is best viewed as a collection of cells that use genes to produce tools that determine the cellular be...Read More
The Master BuildernHow the New Science of the Cell Is Rewriting the Story of Life
The Master Builder, by developmental biologist Alfonzo Martinez Arias, questions this gene-centric view and proposes an alternative, cell-centric take. Martinez Arias's perspective is that genes themselves do not determine cellular morphology, organization, or function. An organism, he maintains, is best viewed as a collection of cells that use genes to produce tools that determine the cellular behaviors that generate a functioning organism. The repertoire of expressed genes limits cellular options by determining what tools and materials are available rather than serving as the blueprint for an organism. A compelling argument in favor of this perspective can be found in embryonic development, in which genomically identical cells do different things depending on their location and environment.
Review: Nazi racial policies after 1933 drove a wave of Jewish refugees westward to Britain and the United States. To measure their impact, look beyond the detonation at Los Alamos and imagine diplomacy without Henry Kissinger, computing without John von Neumann, or the theater without Tom Stoppard. In 1938, following Germany's annexation of Austria, 19-year-old Arthur George Weidenfeld escaped to London ...Read More
The Maverick: George Weidenfeld and the Golden Age of Publishing
Nazi racial policies after 1933 drove a wave of Jewish refugees westward to Britain and the United States. To measure their impact, look beyond the detonation at Los Alamos and imagine diplomacy without Henry Kissinger, computing without John von Neumann, or the theater without Tom Stoppard. In 1938, following Germany's annexation of Austria, 19-year-old Arthur George Weidenfeld escaped to London from Vienna. In London, Arthur became George. George became a much-married Lothario who modernized Britain's small but influential publishing sector, pursued the company and memoirs of the powerful, and, in 1976, became a life peer, Baron Weidenfeld of Chelsea.
Coates, John | 2023 | Columbia Global Reports | 9798987053546
Subject: Economics
Source: Financial Times
Review: A problem of twelve arises when a small number of institutions acquire the means to exert outsized influence over the politics and economy of a nation The Big Four index funds of Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and BlackRock control more than twenty percent of the votes of S&P 500 companies a concentration of power that's unprecedented in America. Then there's the rise of private equity funds su...Read More
The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything
A problem of twelve arises when a small number of institutions acquire the means to exert outsized influence over the politics and economy of a nation The Big Four index funds of Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and BlackRock control more than twenty percent of the votes of S&P 500 companies a concentration of power that's unprecedented in America. Then there's the rise of private equity funds such as the Big Four of Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle and KKR, which has amassed $2.7 trillion of assets, and are eroding the legitimacy and accountability of American capitalism, not by controlling public companies, but by taking them over entirely, and removing them from public discourse and public scrutiny What can be done to check this level of power Harvard law professor John Coates argues that only politics can fight the problem of twelve.
Review: In the past few years, Yasheng Huang has found himself becoming disenchanted as a scholar, tired of the shackles placed on him by academic journals. Their excessive specialization has led, he complains, to a suboptimal supply of big ideas. So he set out to liberate himself from refereed publications and write a sweeping and self-consciously ambitious book about his native China. The riveting resul...Read More
The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline
In the past few years, Yasheng Huang has found himself becoming disenchanted as a scholar, tired of the shackles placed on him by academic journals. Their excessive specialization has led, he complains, to a suboptimal supply of big ideas. So he set out to liberate himself from refereed publications and write a sweeping and self-consciously ambitious book about his native China. The riveting result is The Rise and Fall of the EAST, whose last word isn?t a reference to the Orient but is, instead, an acronym for Exams, Autocracy, Stability and Technology the interplay of which has shaped China for nearly 1,500 years.
Review: In 1884, as Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts prepared to attend the Republican National Convention, he sent a letter to Theodore Roosevelt of New York, who was also scheduled to be at the Chicago gathering. The two men had never formally met, but Lodge felt they had much in common. Neither was particularly well-known. The political experience of each at that point consisted mostly of brief stint...Read More
The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship that Changed American History
In 1884, as Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts prepared to attend the Republican National Convention, he sent a letter to Theodore Roosevelt of New York, who was also scheduled to be at the Chicago gathering. The two men had never formally met, but Lodge felt they had much in common. Neither was particularly well-known. The political experience of each at that point consisted mostly of brief stints in their respective state legislatures. Each harbored, however, overpowering political ambitions.
Martin, Piero | 2023 | Yale University Press | 9780300266276
Subject: Mathematics and Statistics
Source:
Review: The great civilizations of the ancient world could use precise measurements witness the Egyptian pyramids. But their units differed. Not until 1960 was the international system of measurement (SI) introduced, defining the metre, second, kilogram, ampere, kelvin and candela Then the mole in 1971. Each gets a chapter in this concise, anecdotal history by experimental physicist Piero Martin. He stres...Read More
The Seven Measures of the World
The great civilizations of the ancient world could use precise measurements witness the Egyptian pyramids. But their units differed. Not until 1960 was the international system of measurement (SI) introduced, defining the metre, second, kilogram, ampere, kelvin and candela Then the mole in 1971. Each gets a chapter in this concise, anecdotal history by experimental physicist Piero Martin. He stresses the subjective aspect of measurement, such as the idea that the quality of scientific publications matters more than their quantity.
Review: How do we experience democracy Sarukkai explores the conceptual basis of democracy in detail by analysing the myth of the people; the role of labour, science and technology, and religion in cultivating a democratic self; the role of trust and trusteeship, creating and experiencing a sense of the public, the relationship between the notion of truth and politics, the roles of self-rule and self-resp...Read More
The Social Life of Democracy
How do we experience democracy Sarukkai explores the conceptual basis of democracy in detail by analysing the myth of the people; the role of labour, science and technology, and religion in cultivating a democratic self; the role of trust and trusteeship, creating and experiencing a sense of the public, the relationship between the notion of truth and politics, the roles of self-rule and self-respect, and finally the idea of freedom in the context of democracy. In exploring the concept of democracy, sarukkai highlights different types of democracies. In all these types of democracies, without some idea of the people, there cannot be a democracy. But what is the meaning of the term the people if the autonomous individual is the foundational unit of democracy, then what is the meaning of the collective called the people is it the summation of individuals Are citizens the people does the we in the we, the people have within itself some notions of they and them sarukkai argues that democracy is based on specific cultural beliefs about many fundamental concepts, including those of individual, people, freedom, responsibility, governance and so on, and there cannot be one understanding of democracy. Concepts such as equality, oppression, rights, democracy, and justice, sarukkai explains, are filled with multiple meanings and multiple senses (p 12)
Any query related to reference service for your project/research like collecting data, acquiring research papers, research training, Inter Library Loan (ILL).
Any query related to remote access (off campus access), library database - software installation, technical problems of library computers and equipment.
The Vikram Sarabhai Library (VSL) is named after Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, world renowned physicist and founding Director of IIMA. It was set up in 1962 and is one of the best management libraries in Asia. The library is open 24x7. Our mission is to facilitate convenient and user friendly access to current, global and relevant information by identifying, acquiring, organizing and retrieving information in various formats (print & non print) to serve the information needs of the academic fraternity of IIMA to meet their teaching, research, consulting, training and learning requirements.
Useful Links
Contact Us
The Librarian
Vikram Sarabhai Library,
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad,
Vastrapur, Ahmedabad, Gujarat,
India - 380015