FACULTY BOOKS

FACULTY BOOKS

notebook

CAMPUS

DAVID G. BLANCHFLOWER

Economics Professor

Not Working

A former member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee writes that low U.S. unemployment figures paint a false picture.

By practicing what he calls the “economics of walking about,” Blanchflower shows that many people are underemployed and have given up on finding a good job and that the economic recovery has failed to recoup losses caused by the crash of 2008.

Princeton University Press (June 2019), 424 pp„ $30

JAMES E. DOBSON

English Lecturer

Critical Digital Humanities

Humanities scholars increasingly use computers to analyze texts.

Some have gone so far as to say traditional literary analysis is obsolete. Literary theorist Dobson, an expert on intellectual history and U.S. autobiographies, contends that these two means of evaluation can co-exist, and he warns that scholars ought not give too much deference to data mining and algorithmic tools. “Dobson explains how humanistic critical theory and computational science might be considered complementary rather than antagonistic modes of inquiry,” notes Dartmouth English professor Don Pease, author of The New American Exceptionalism.

University of Illinois Press (March 2019), 196 pp„ $25

JEFFREY A. FRIEDMAN

Government Professor

War and Chance

Friedman’s research focuses on how risk affects national security decisions. Here he offers ways in which foreign policy analysts can better assess uncertainty in international affairs to make sound choices. Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar ’69 calls the book “an invaluable guide to thinking about the unknown.”

Oxford University Press (May 2019), 240 pp„$35

RUSSELL MUIRHEAD

Government Professor

A Lot of People Are Saying

Think conspiracy theory—without any theory. Muirhead and his coauthor identify and examine a “new conspiracism,” in which truth, evidence, sources, and dot-connecting don’t even remotely underlie the claims of government leaders. They argue that this not only threatens our ability to reason, compromise, or even disagree, it undermines democracy.

Princeton University Press (April 2019), 232 pp„ $27