Cambridge U. Pr.
The economic geography of innovation.
Economics, business, geography, and urban planning are among the perspectives to discussions of concepts and measurements in innovation, institutional and spatial aspects of information and knowledge flows, and institutions and innovation systems. Specific topics include measuring the clustering and dispersion of innovation, how important geography is to tacit knowledge in production systems, and biotechnology in the US capitol region. The papers seem to be from a seminary held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at an undisclosed date. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The economy of the earth; philosophy, law, and the environment, 2d ed.
Updating the 1988 edition, Sagoff (philosophy and public policy, U. of Maryland) cogently argues that the environmental movement will become extinct unless environmentalists realize that their base is not exclusively a liberal or left-wing one. Based on a course he teaches on environmental ethics, the author traces how environmentalism is deeply rooted in American historical, aesthetic, religious, and ethical values. From personal and scholarly perspectives, he discusses how consumer preference factors influence the economic value of property. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Economic principles of law.
Valjanovski, who has credentials in every port in the world, introduces the economics of law to law students and other non-economists. It is neither a legal nor an economics text, he warns, but a survey of how economics has been used to examine law generally and particularly common law regarding property, contract, tort, and crime. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The fall of Napoleon; v.1: The Allied invasion of France, 1813-1814.
Though many books have been written about Napoleon, and many military histories describe the War of 1812, to date no major study has been written on the Allied invasion that brought Napoleon down. The result of six years of research, this work admirably fills the gap with a scholarly and exhaustive treatment (the history will fill two volumes, of which this is the first). The author describes the mutual interactions of politics, military strategy, and diplomacy, and the immensely complex events of the invasion in a detailed chronological narrative; he also incorporates old-style military history, focusing on the thoughts, plans, and hopes of the generals and the consequences of their decisions. A specialist in Napoleonic military history, Leggiere is affiliated with Louisiana State University and also teaches strategy and policy at the US Naval War College. Included are numerous maps, b&w portraits of the key players, and a rich selection of primary sources. A must-have addition to the myriad napoleonic collections and the many war & war-fighting libraries. The publisher does not indicate the projected date of publication for Volume 2. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Introduction to Bayesian econometrics.
Greenburg (emeritus economics, Washington U., St. Louis, Missouri) presents a textbook introducing Bayesian statistics and econometrics to be used as a supplement in a frequentist course or as a core text in a course supplemented by readings in the current literature. Students are expected to have had some exposure to standard probability theory and statistics, though the text relies heavily on simulation techniques. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Media argumentation; dialectic, persuasion, and rhetoric.
Walton (philosophy, U. of Winnipeg, Canada) has written extensively on argumentation, logic, and artificial intelligence and has received recognition for his contributions to research on fallacies and informal logic. Here he brings the depths of his scholarly thinking to various facets of mass media, in particular the arguments used widely to persuade the public that something is true. He looks closely at propaganda, appeals to fear and pity, political discourse, arguments based on popular opinion, and public opinion polling, analyzing numerous cases to demonstrate the components of persuasion. Following a detailed discussion of how logic, rhetoric, and dialectic have been used and understood, the text delves into examples of argumentation in popular media that include television, blogs, and the Internet. Recent artificial intelligence and computing approaches to communication enrich Walton's model, which will be of interest to a diverse audience. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
