The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

October’s book of the month was selected by Jo Gardner, Bodleian Social Science Librarian and Subject Consultant for Politics and International Relations.

Revolutionary World: Global upheaval in the modern age

Edited by David Motadel

Cambridge University Press, 2021

Available as an eBook or a hard copy can be found in the SSL at HM876.REV 2021

Why was it chosen?

It was chosen because it has been described as an exceptionally useful collection for those teaching and researching revolutions, revolutionary politics and global history,

Book Overview

The editor of this book brings together contributors to explore ten revolutions across time and space through a transnational, territorialised lens, from the Atlantic Revolutions to the Arab Spring. Bringing together a group of distinguished historians, Revolutionary World shows that the major revolutions of the modern age, which are often studied as isolated events, were almost never contained within state borders and were usually part of broader revolutionary moments.

Reviews

“With the chapters providing ideal entrances into their respective revolutions, this exceptionally useful collection will prove valuable to those teaching and researching revolutions, revolutionary politics and global history”
Thomas Furse, City, University of London

“A remarkable attempt to globalise the history of revolution. By illuminating international connections, the authors also rescue many movements from the retrospective nationalisation of history.’
Timothy Garton Ash, author of The Magic Lantern:The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague

This rich collection illuminatingly surveys the world of revolutions from the late eighteenth century to the Arab Spring. It should set the global history of revolutions on a new path by raising as many fertile questions as it answers: a major achievement.’
David Armitage, author of Civil Wars: A History in Ideas

How can I access it?

This title is available in hard copy at the SSL at shelfmark HM876.REV 2021 to consult in the library. It is also available on SOLO for Oxford University staff and students to access remotely using your SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

September’s book of the month was selected by Andy Kernot, Subject Consultant for Geography, Social Policy & Intervention, Public Policy, and Internet Studies.

Prisoner of Geography: Ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics

Tim Marshall

Elliott and Thompson Limited, 2016

Available as an eBook or a hard copy can be found in the SSL at JC319.MAR 2016

Why was it chosen?

All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Yes, to follow world events you need to understand people, ideas and movements – but if you don’t know geography, you’ll never have the full picture.

If you’ve ever wondered why Putin is so obsessed with Crimea, why the USA was destined to become a global superpower, or why China’s power base continues to expand ever outwards, the answers are all here. It’s time to put the ‘geo’ back into geopolitics.

Book Overview

In ten chapters (covering Russia; China; the USA; Latin America; the Middle East; Africa; India and Pakistan; Europe; Japan and Korea; and the Arctic), using maps, essays and occasionally the personal experiences of the widely travelled author, Prisoners of Geography looks at the past, present and future to offer an essential insight into one of the major factors that determines world history.

Reviews

“Quite simply, one of the best books about geopolitics you could imagine: reading it is like having a light shone on your understanding… Marshall is clear-headed, lucid and possessed of an almost uncanny ability to make the broad picture accessible and coherent … the book is, in a way which astonished me, given the complexities of the subject, unputdownable… I can’t think of another book that explains the world situation so well.”

Nicholas Lezard, Evening Standard

“Compels a fresh way of looking at maps – not just as objects for orientation or works of art, but as guideposts to the often thorny relations between nations”

The New York Times

“a timely reminder that despite technological advances, geography is always there, often forcing the hand of world leaders.” 

Mark Cooper-Jones, Geographical

How can I access it?

This title is available in hard copy at the SSL at shelfmark JC319.MAR 2016 to consult in the library. It is also available on SOLO for Oxford University staff and students to access remotely using your SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

August’s book of the month was selected by Sarah Rhodes, Subject Consultant for International Development, Forced Migration, and African & Commonwealth Studies Subject Consultant.

No Go World: How fear is redrawing our maps and infecting our politics

Andersson, Ruben

University of California Press, 2019

Available as an eBook or a hard copy can be found in the SSL at JA76.AND 2019

Why was it chosen?

It was chosen as it explores ‘how risk, danger and fear are ‘remapping’ the world with dire ethical and practical consequences’ (Journal of Refugee Studies).

Book Overview

War-torn deserts, jihadist killings, trucks weighted down with contraband and migrants—from the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands to the Sahara, images of danger depict a new world disorder on the global margins. With vivid detail, Ruben Andersson traverses this terrain to provide a startling new understanding of what is happening in remote “danger zones.” Instead of buying into apocalyptic visions, Andersson takes aim at how Western states and international organizations conduct military, aid, and border interventions in a dangerously myopic fashion, further disconnecting the world’s rich and poor. Using drones, proxy forces, border reinforcement, and outsourced aid, risk-obsessed powers are helping to remap the world into zones of insecurity and danger. The result is a vision of chaos crashing into fortified borders, with national and global politics riven by fear. Andersson contends that we must reconnect and snap out of this dangerous spiral, which affects us whether we live in Texas or Timbuktu. Only by developing a new cartography of hope can we move beyond the political geography of fear that haunts us.

Reviews

‘This beautifully written book takes us on a journey through the distanced interventions of the war on terror showing how, in these global times, efforts to push risk ever further away end up bringing it closer creating the basis for a no go world. Full of ideas and stories, and with hope as well as pessimism, it is the sort of book that needs to be read slowly.’

Mary Kaldor, Professor of Global Governance, London School of Economics

‘One of the best books available on what is commonly perceived in the West as the refugee crisis but is in fact a world rent by fear and conflict, with refugees as one symptom.’

Craig Calhoun, University Professor of Social Sciences, Arizona State University, and former Director of the London School of Economic

How can I access it?

This title is available in hard copy at the SSL at shelfmark JA76.AND 2019. If you’ve booked a study space in the library you can find it on our shelves, alternatively, if you can borrow books from our library, place a Click & Collect request for it. It is also available on SOLO for Oxford University staff and students to access remotely using your SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

June’s book of the month was selected by Jo Gardner, Bodleian Social Science Librarian and Subject Consultant for Politics and International Relations

The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy versus autocracy from the Ancient World to the U.S. and China

Kroenig, Matthew

Oxford University Press, 2020

Available as an eBook or a hard copy can be requested from the Bodleian Closed Stacks.

Why was it chosen?

It was chosen because it has been described as a ‘must-read’ for understanding the current international environment.

Book Overview

The author seeks to answer a question central to international politics: Why do great powers rise and fall? He offers a sweeping historical analysis of democratic and autocratic competitors from ancient Greece to the Cold War. He employs a unique framework to understand and analyse the state of today’s competition between the democratic United States and its autocratic competitors, Russia and China.

Reviews

“The breadth of Kroenig’s historical case studies and the parsimony of his analyses help this book stand out, making it a must-read for understanding the current international environment.”
J.R. Clardie, Northwest Nazarene University

“At a time when the global struggle between democracy and autocracy is reaching a critical new stage, this book promises to touch nerves and influence minds from Washington to Moscow to Beijing. Policy-relevant social science at its best!”
M. Steven Fish, Professor of Political Science at the University of California

“In this age of widespread pessimism about the future of democracy, this book makes a powerful argument: democracy is not only better for the people, but may have the edge against autocracies in the coming great power rivalry. It is an erudite, well-argued and uplifting book.”
Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

How can I access it?

This title is available as an eBook via SOLO. Oxford University staff and students can access eBooks remotely by logging into SOLO with their SSO. It is also available in hard copy in the Bodleian Closed Stacks and can be requested via Stack Request to consult in the library.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

May’s book of the month was selected by John Southall. Bodleian Data Librarian and Subject Consultant for Economics and Sociology.

The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

Murray, Douglas

Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019

Available as an eBook.

Why was it chosen?

It was chosen because of the way it seeks to interrogate the culture wars playing out in social media, universities and online.

Book Overview

We are living through a postmodern era in which the grand narratives of religion and ideology have collapsed. In their place have emerged a crusading desire to right perceived wrongs and a weaponization of identity, both accelerated by the new forms of social censorship and news media. Narrow sets of interests now dominate the agenda as societies becomes more and more tribal.

Readers cannot afford to ignore Murray’s masterfully argued and fiercely provocative book, in which he seeks to inject some perspective into the discussion around this generation’s most complicated issues. He ends with a call for free speech and shared common values.

Reviews

“… an incredibly refreshing read, raising questions that many are likely to have entertained for years but have not been confident in raising in the public forum.” James Tooley – Economic Affairs

“Whether one agrees with him or not, Douglas Murray is one of the most important public intellectuals today.” –  Bernard-Henri Lévy

How can I access it?

This title is available as an eBook via SOLO. Oxford University staff and students can access eBooks remotely by logging into SOLO with their SSO. It is also available in hard copy on our shelves at shelfmark HD1216.MUR 2019.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

The postcolonial age of migration

Ranabir Samaddar

University of Routledge, 2020

Available as an eBook.

April’s book of the month was selected by Sarah Rhodes. Subject Consultant for International Development and Forced Migration.

Why was it chosen?

Topical and an important intervention in contemporary global migration and refugee studies, this title offers new sources, interpretations, and analyses in understanding postcolonial migration.

Book Overview

This book critically examines the question of migration that appears at the intersection of global neo-liberal transformation, postcolonial politics, and economy. It analyses the specific ways in which colonial relations are produced and reproduced in global migratory flows and their consequences for labour, human rights, and social justice. The book discusses issues such as trans-border flows among countries of the South; migratory movements of the internally displaced; growing statelessness leading to forced migration; border violence; refugees of partitions; customary and local practices of care and protection; population policies and migration management (both emigration and immigration); the protracted nature of displacement; labour flows and immigrant labour; and the relationships between globalisation, nationalism, citizenship, and migration in postcolonial regions.

It also traces colonial and postcolonial histories of migration and justice to bear on the present understanding of local experiences of migration as well as global social transformations while highlighting the limits of the fundamental tenets of humanitarianism (protection, assistance, security, responsibility), which impact the political and economic rights of vast sections of moving populations.

How can I access it?

This title is available as an eBook via SOLO. Oxford University staff and students can access eBooks remotely by logging into SOLO with their SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

The probiotic planet: using life to manage life

Jamie Lorimer

University of Minnesota Press, 2020

Available as an eBook.

March’s book of the month was selected by Andy Kernot. Subject Consultant for Geography, Social Policy, Internet Studies and Public Policy. 

Why was it chosen?

Most of us are familiar with probiotics added to milk or yogurt to improve gastrointestinal health. In fact, the term refers to any intervention in which life is used to manage life―from the microscopic, like consuming fermented food to improve gut health, to macro approaches such as biological pest control and natural flood management. In this ambitious and original work, Jamie Lorimer offers a sweeping overview of diverse probiotic approaches and an insightful critique of their promise and limitations.

Book Overview

During our current epoch—the Anthropocene—human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment, leading to the loss of ecological abundance, diversity, and functionality. Lorimer describes cases in which scientists and managers are working with biological processes to improve human, environmental, and even planetary health, pursuing strategies that stand in contrast to the “antibiotic approach”: Big Pharma, extreme hygiene, and industrial agriculture. The Probiotic Planet focuses on two forms of “rewilding” occurring on vastly different scales. The first is the use of keystone species like wolves and beavers as part of landscape restoration. The second is the introduction of hookworms into human hosts to treat autoimmune disorders. In both cases, the goal is to improve environmental health, whether the environment being managed is planetary or human. Lorimer argues that, all too often, such interventions are viewed in isolation, and he calls for a rethinking of artificial barriers between science and policy. He also describes the stark and unequal geographies of the use of probiotic approaches and examines why these patterns exist.

The author’s preface provides a thoughtful discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to the probiotic approach. Informed by deep engagement with microbiology, immunology, ecology, and conservation biology as well as food, agriculture, and waste management, The Probiotic Planet offers nothing less than a new paradigm for collaboration between the policy realm and the natural sciences.

Reviews

This brilliant book delivers an incisive reading of probiotic cultural practices today—taking in everything from home fermentation to permaculture to rewilding. Jamie Lorimer expertly shows us that social and scientific projects that aim at re-calibrating microbial, bodily, and ecological worlds are experiments in the politics of symbiosis. In our days of viral peril, The Probiotic Planet is a vital reminder of the multiple futures biology may yet prepare.

Stefan Helmreich, author of Sounding the Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond

Moving between human intestines and forests patches, The Probiotic Planet maps a diverse and emerging terrain of ecological experimentation, both formal and vernacular. A transdisciplinary analysis that brings detailed attention to scientific practices into dialogue with critical social theory, this book is also a bold and important experiment in its own right.

Heather Anne Swanson, director, Aarhus University Centre for Environmental Humanities

How can I access it?

This title is available as an eBook via SOLO. Oxford University staff and students can access eBooks remotely by logging into SOLO with their SSO.

Two hardcopies are able available to consult in the SSL. One confined to the library and one that can be borrowed.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

Anti-System Politics: the crisis of market liberalism in rich democracies

Jonathan Hopkin

Oxford University Press, 2020

Available as an eBook.

February’s book of the month was selected by Jo Gardner, Bodleian Social Science Librarian and Subject Consultant for Politics and International Relations

Why was it chosen?

It was chosen because it has been described as a book deserving serious engagement and discussion by anyone interested in politics, philosophy and economics.

Book Overview

The author focuses on the political counter-movements that have arisen on the Left and the Right since the 2008 financial crisis, positioning these as forms of ‘anti-system politics’. He discusses anti-system politics within the larger history of the open antagonism between capitalism and democracy, and he concludes that the current free-market model cannot deliver prosperity and security. If this is to change, political authority must be asserted over the market.

Reviews

“Hopkin has produced one of the most compelling reads of 2020, a book deserving of serious engagement and discussion by anyone interested in politics, philosophy and economics.”
Scott Timcke, LSE Review of Books

“Jonathan Hopkin offers a well-researched book which identifies connections between the anti-system politics in the United States, Britain, Greece, Spain and Italy. He finds there is a clear divide in how Northern and Southern Europe express their forms of anti-system politics. But he demonstrates how they both have common threads which tie them into a common zeitgeist which has affected the Western political tradition. This is quite an accomplishment.”
Jonathan Hopkin, Democracy Paradox

How can I access it?

This title is available as an eBook via SOLO. Oxford University staff and students can access eBooks remotely by logging into SOLO with their SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

Narrative economics

Robert J. Shiller

Princeton University Press, 2020

Available as an eBook.

January’s book of the month was selected by John Southall, Bodleian Data Librarian and Subject Consultant for Economics and Sociology.

Why was it chosen?

It was chosen because of the way it shows how stories help drive economic events – and why financial panics can spread like epidemics.

Book Overview

Stories people tell – about financial confidence or panic, housing booms, or Bitcoin – can go viral and powerfully affect economies, but such narratives have traditionally been ignored in economics and finance because they seem anecdotal and unscientific. In this ground breaking book, Economist Robert Shiller explains why we should not ignore these stories at our peril—and how they can inform analysis and understanding.

Using a rich array of examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that influence individual and collective economic behaviour—what he calls “narrative economics”- may vastly improve our ability to predict, prepare for, and lessen the damage of financial crises and other major economic events.

Reviews

“… explores how the public’s subjective perceptions can shape economic trends… A sensible and welcome escape from the dead hand of mathematical models of economics.” – The Economist

“Shiller’s thorough discussion and many examples are certainly convincing as to the importance of narratives in individual economic decision-making and aggregate economic phenomena.” Sonia Jaffe, Science

How can I access it?

This title is available as an eBook via SOLO. Oxford University staff and students can access eBooks remotely by logging into SOLO with their SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration

Edited by Katharyne Mitchell et al.

Edward Elgar, 2019

Available as an eBook.

December’s book of the month was selected by Sarah Rhodes Subject Consultant for International Development, Forced Migration, African and Commonwealth Studies.  

Why was it chosen?

It was selected to tie in with International Migrants Day on 18th December 2020.

Book Overview

Border walls, shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, separated families at the border, island detention camps: migration is at the centre of contemporary political and academic debates. This ground-breaking Handbook offers an exciting and original analysis of critical research on themes such as these, drawing on cutting-edge theories from an interdisciplinary and international group of leading scholars. With a focus on spatial analysis and geographical context, this volume highlights a range of theoretical, methodological and regional approaches to migration research, while remaining attuned to the underlying politics that bring critical scholars together. Divided into six thematic sections, including new areas in critical migration research, the book covers the key questions galvanizing migration scholars today, such as issues surrounding refugees and border militarization. Each chapter explores new themes, expanding on core theories to convey fresh insight to contemporary research. A key resource for migration, refugee and border studies this Handbook provides an in-depth analysis of the topic, covering a vast array of research ideas with a specific focus on the geographical aspects of migration. Scholars working on migration, refugees, asylum, transnationalism, humanitarianism and borders will find this an invaluable read.

How can I access it?

This title is available as an eBook via SOLO. Oxford University staff and students can access eBooks remotely by logging into SOLO with their SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.