FACULTY BOOKS

FACULTY BOOKS

CAMPUS

DAN ROCKMORE

Professor of Computational Science

What Are the Arts and Sciences? A Guide for the Curious

What do Dartmouth professors do all day? Twenty-seven of them answer that question in this accessible, entertaining collection of essays that cover a wide range of arts and sciences disciplines. “If you read this book, you realize that it's so important to know about history. It’s so important to know about biology. It’s so important to know about mathematics, and so on,” says Rockmore, who edited the collection. “The book doesn’t bludgeon you with that message. It’s not a polemic, but if you sample from this buffet of ideas, it will feed your curiosity about the liberal arts.” The collection will be distributed to all students entering Dartmouth later this year.

Dartmouth College Press (June 2017), 376 pp, $22

JANICE M. MCCABE

Professor of Sociology

Connecting in College: How Friendship Networks Matter for Academic and Social Success

Your friends matter. Especially if you want to do well in college. McCabe, who has studied the relationship between social networks and academic success by interviewing students since 2004, reveals how they make friends, what sort of friendship networks are most common and how they influence us, for better or worse. She describes three key types of networks (tight-knitters, compartmentalizers and samplers) and offers insight into how college friendships influence early adulthood. Reviewers have praised McCabe’s research, calling it “rich, thoughtful and long overdue.”

University of Chicago Press (November 2016), 216 pp, $30

MISAGH PARSA

Professor of Sociology

Democracy in Iran: Why It Failed and How It Might Succeed

So much for the promising Green Movement of 2009 Iran. As Parsa analyzes the push and pull of democracy and theocracy in the Middle Eastern country, he offers a grim take on the future of Iranian democracy:

Gradual reform isn’t likely, and the only means for democracy to emerge triumphant is another revolution. The Wall Street Journal calls Parsa’s work “mercifully free of most of the jargon that now cripples so much academic writing. While anyone curious about Iran will find it illuminating, for those working in government or the foreign-affairs community, it is mandatory reading.”

Harvard University Press (November 2016), 416 pp, $45