Columbia University Press: 2355 books
River Republic
The Fall and Rise of America's Rivers
Language: English
Release Date: August 7, 2012
Daniel McCool not only chronicles the history of water development agencies in America and the way in which special interests have abused rather than preserved the country's rivers, he also narrates the second, brighter act in this ongoing story: the surging, grassroots movement to bring these rivers...
Dispossession and the Environment
Rhetoric and Inequality in Papua New Guinea
Language: English
Release Date: October 11, 2016
When journalists, developers, surf tourists, and conservation NGOs cast Papua New Guineans as living in a prior nature and prior culture, they devalue their knowledge and practice, facilitating their dispossession. Paige West's searing study reveals how a range of actors produce and reinforce inequalities...
by Timothy Allen, Joseph Tainter, Thomas Hoekstra
Language: English
Release Date: February 19, 2003
Language: English
Release Date: February 19, 2003
While environmentalists insist that lower rates of consumption of natural resources are essential for a sustainable future, many economists dismiss the notion that resource limits act to constrain modern, creative societies. The conflict between these views tinges political debate at all levels and...
The Ecosystem Approach
Complexity, Uncertainty, and Managing for Sustainability
Language: English
Release Date: August 11, 2008
Is sustainable development a workable solution for today's environmental problems? Is it scientifically defensible? Best known for applying ecological theory to the engineering problems of everyday life, the late scholar James J. Kay was a leader in the study of social and ecological complexity and...
Uncertainty, Expectations, and Financial Instability
Reviving Allais's Lost Theory of Psychological Time
Language: English
Release Date: November 18, 2014
Eric Barthalon applies the neglected theory of psychological time and memory decay of Nobel Prize–winning economist Maurice Allais (1911–2010) to model investors' psychology in the present context of recurrent financial crises. Shaped by the behavior of the demand for money during episodes of...
Solving Problems with Design Thinking
Ten Stories of What Works
Language: English
Release Date: September 3, 2013
Design-oriented firms such as Apple and IDEO have demonstrated how design thinking can affect business results. However, most managers lack a sense of how to use this new approach for issues other than product development and sales growth. Solving Problems with Design Thinking details ten real-world...
Audience Evolution
New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences
Language: English
Release Date: November 26, 2010
Today's consumers have unprecedented choice in terms of the technologies and platforms that access, produce, and distribute media content. The development and overlap of television, the internet, and other media technologies is fragmenting and empowering media audiences more than ever. Building on...
Mahatma Gandhi
Nonviolent Power in Action
Language: English
Release Date: February 21, 2012
Dennis Dalton's classic account of Gandhi's political and intellectual development focuses on the leader's two signal triumphs: the civil disobedience movement (or salt satyagraha) of 1930 and the Calcutta fast of 1947. Dalton clearly demonstrates how Gandhi's lifelong career in national politics...
Active Social Capital
Tracing the Roots of Development and Democracy
Language: English
Release Date: July 31, 2002
The idea of social capital allows scholars to assess the quality of relationships among people within a particular community and show how that quality affects the ability to achieve shared goals. With evidence collected from sixty-nine villages in India, Krishna investigates what social capital is,...
Nagarjuna in Context
Mahayana Buddhism and Early Indian Culture
Language: English
Release Date: May 11, 2005
Joseph Walser provides the first examination of Nagarjuna's life and writings in the context of the religious and monastic debates of the second century CE. Walser explores how Nagarjuna secured the canonical authority of Mahayana teachings and considers his use of rhetoric to ensure the transmission...
by Eric Maskin, Amartya Sen
Language: English
Release Date: July 22, 2014
Language: English
Release Date: July 22, 2014
Kenneth J. Arrow's pathbreaking "impossibility theorem" was a watershed innovation in the history of welfare economics, voting theory, and collective choice, demonstrating that there is no voting rule that satisfies the four desirable axioms of decisiveness, consensus, nondictatorship, and...
NGOs as Newsmakers
The Changing Landscape of International News
Language: English
Release Date: May 15, 2018
As traditional news outlets’ international coverage has waned, several prominent nongovernmental organizations have taken on a growing number of seemingly journalistic functions. Groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Médecins Sans Frontières send reporters to gather information...
The Power of the Internet in China
Citizen Activism Online
Language: English
Release Date: June 26, 2009
Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has revolutionized popular expression in China, enabling users to organize, protest, and influence public opinion in unprecedented ways. Guobin Yang's pioneering study maps an innovative range of contentious forms and practices linked to Chinese cyberspace, delineating...
Contesting Cyberspace in China
Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience
Language: English
Release Date: April 10, 2018
The Internet was supposed to be an antidote to authoritarianism. It can enable citizens to express themselves freely and organize outside state control. Yet while online activity has helped challenge authoritarian rule in some cases, other regimes have endured: no movement comparable to the Arab Spring...