(J) = Review forthcoming

ANTHROPOLOGY

- Unstrange Minds: A Father Remaps the World of Autism

By Roy Richard Grinker, professor of anthropology, international affairs, and human sciences at the George Washington University. Icon Books, ?14.99. ISBN 9781840468939

As an anthropologist and father of an autistic daughter, Roy Richard Grinker was driven to learn more about the dramatic rise in autism. His journey takes him around the world to talk to parents, physicians, teachers, advocates and scientists.

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

- The Maillard Reaction: Recent Advances in Food and Biomedical Sciences

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Edited by Erwin Schleicher, lecturer in the department of internal medicine, University of Tubingen, Peter Schieberle, chair in food chemistry, Technical University of Munich, and Veronika Somoza, professor for food bioactivity, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Blackwell, ?80.00. ISBN 9781573317191

This volume draws on a wide range of interdisciplinary research to investigate the role of Maillard reactions in ageing and disease.

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ECONOMICS

- India: The Emerging Giant

By Arvind Panagariya, professor of economics and Jagdish Bhagwati professor of Indian political economy, Columbia University. Oxford University Press, ?21.99. ISBN 9780195315035

Arvind Panagariya analyses India's economy over the past 50 years, from a promising start in the 1950s to the near debacle of the 1970s and the phenomenal about-turn of the past two decades.

GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

- (J)Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition

By Robert Pogue Harrison, professor of Italian, Rosina Pierotti professor in Italian literature and chair in the department of French and Italian, Stanford University. University of Chicago Press, ?12.50. ISBN 9780226317892

This is an examination of the many ways gardens evoke the human condition, moving from the gardens of ancient philosophers to those of homeless people in modern-day New York.

LITERATURE

- Popular Children's Literature in Britain

Edited by Julia Briggs, professor of English literature, De Montfort University until her death in 2007, and M.O. Grenby, reader in children's literature, Newcastle University. Ashgate, ?55.00. ISBN 9781840142426

The editors assess the complex interplay of forces that have generated the popularity of children's books. Ranging from 18th-century chapbooks to the stories of Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, and from science texts to Harry Potter, these essays show how authorial talent operates within its cultural context to make a children's classic.

- Romantic Echoes in the Victorian Era

Edited by Andrew Radford, lecturer in English literature, University of Glasgow, and Mark Sandy, senior lecturer in English studies, Durham University. Ashgate, ?55.00. ISBN 9780754657880

This collection contributes to key critical dialogues about literary periodisation and adds to our understanding of how these contemporary debates stem from Romanticism's influence in the Victorian age.

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- Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing

By Nathalie Hester, University of Oregon. Ashgate, ?55.00. ISBN 9780754661948

Nathalie Hester aims to show that the specifically literary characteristics of Italian travel writing, including its humanism and Petrarchism, can be grasped in terms of the larger question of cultural identity of the peninsula.

- Reading Fictions, 1660-1740: Deception in English Literary and Political Culture

By Kate Loveman, lecturer in English, University of Leicester. Ashgate, ?50.00. ISBN 9780754662372

Kate Loveman explores how 17th- and 18th-century reading habits were applied to genres and helped shape them. Examining works by authors such as Defoe, Swift, Richardson and Fielding, she recovers a lost critical discourse through which authors and readers interrogated, mocked and elaborated fictions.

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION STUDIES

- (J)The Flash Press: Sporting Male Weeklies in 1840s New York

By Patricia Cline-Cohen, professor of history, University of California, Santa Barbara, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, professor of history, Loyola University Chicago, and Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Sydenham Clark Parsons professor of history, Smith College. University of Chicago Press, ?26.00 and ?10.50. ISBN 9780226112336 and 9780226112343

The authors offer an overview of this colourful reportage while examining 19th-century ideas of sexuality and freedom that mixed Tom Paine's republicanism with the Marquis de Sade's sexual ideology.

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MUSIC

- The Music of Hugh Wood

By Edward Venn, lecturer in music, University of Lancaster. Ashgate, ?60.00. ISBN 9780754650294

This is the first in-depth study of this well-known composer. Underpinned by an awareness of recent philosophical, theoretical and analytical concepts, Edward Venn highlights the technical basis of Wood's music and the expressive force of his work.

PHILOSOPHY

Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher

By Neil Gross, assistant professor of sociology, Harvard University. University of Chicago Press, ?17.00. ISBN 9780226309903

As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Neil Gross's work aims to give readers a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of 20th-century thought.

POLITICS

- Europe-Asia Interregional Relations: A Decade of ASEM

By Bart Gaens, senior researcher in politics, University of Helsinki. Ashgate, ?55.00. ISBN 9780754671428

This volume provides an in-depth evaluation of the Asia-Europe Meeting's first decade from a European perspective, including the achievements of the ASEM6 Summit and its implications for the future of the process.

- The Death of Social Democracy: Political Consequences in the 21st Century

By Ashley Lavelle, lecturer in the department of politics and public policy, Griffith University. Ashgate, ?55.00. ISBN 9780754670148

In an original argument about the decline of social democracy, Lavelle investigates how that decline has increased the popularity of minor parties and independents.

- Democratization in Taiwan: Challenges in Transformation

By Philip Paolino, associate professor, and James Meernik, professor in the department of political science, University of North Texas. Ashgate, ?55.00. ISBN 9780754671916

This volume examines political trust, ethnicity, democratic values and political institutions in Taiwan post-democratisation.

- Islam beyond Conflict: Indonesian Islam and Western Political Theory

Edited by Azyumardi Azra, professor of history and rector, State University of Islamic Studies, and Wayne Hudson, professor of philosophy and world history, Griffith University. Ashgate, ?55.00. ISBN 9780754670926

These essays explore how concepts from Western political theory are compatible with a liberal interpretation of Islamic universals and how such universals can form the basis for a contemporary approach to the protection of human rights and the articulation of a modern Islamic civil society.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

- The Power of the Stranger: Structures and Dynamics in Social Intervention - A Theoretical Framework

By Gert J.F. Leene, former lecturer in sociology of social work, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Theo N.M. Schuyt, professor of philanthropic studies at Vrije Universiteit. Ashgate, ?55.00. ISBN 9780754670629

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This book draws on 25 years of research to present a new theoretical framework for social intervention, making a case for recognition of the significance of strangers when improving social intervention.