What We Are Reading Today: The Google Story

What We Are Reading Today: The Google Story
Short Url
Updated 21 September 2023
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: The Google Story

What We Are Reading Today: The Google Story

Authors: David A. Vise and Mark Malseed

 

Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, in their own words, “change the world” through a powerful search engine that would organize every bit of information on the internet for free.

“The Google Story” takes you deep inside the company’s wild ride from an idea that struggled for funding in 1998 to a firm that rakes in billions in profits, making Brin and Page the wealthiest young men in America, says a review published on goodreads.com.


What We Are Reading Today: Tales Things Tell

What We Are Reading Today: Tales Things Tell
Updated 30 November 2023
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: Tales Things Tell

What We Are Reading Today: Tales Things Tell

Authors: Finbarr Barry Flood & Beate Fricke

“Tales Things Tell” offers new perspectives on histories of connectivity between Africa, Asia, and Europe in the period before the Mongol conquests of the 13th century. 

Reflected in objects and materials whose circulation and reception defined aesthetic, economic, and technological networks that existed outside established political and sectarian boundaries, many of these histories are not documented in the written sources on which historians usually rely. 

“Tales Things Tell” charts bold new directions in art history, making a compelling case for the archival value of mobile artifacts and images in reconstructing the past.

In this illustrated book, Finbarr Barry Flood and Beate Fricke present six illuminating case studies from the 6th to the 13th centuries to show how portable objects mediated the mobility of concepts, iconographies, and techniques.

The case studies range from metalwork to stone reliefs, manuscript paintings, and objects using natural materials such as coconut and rock crystal. 


What We Are Reading Today: Changing the Game

What We Are Reading Today: Changing the Game
Updated 29 November 2023
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: Changing the Game

What We Are Reading Today: Changing the Game

Author: Nancy Weiss Malkiel

As provost and then president of Princeton University, William G. Bowen (1933–2016) took on the biggest and most complex challenges confronting higher education: cost disease, inclusion, affirmative action, college access, and college completion. Later, as president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, he took his vision for higher education—and the strategies for accomplishing that vision—to a larger arena. 

In “Changing the Game,” drawing on deep archival research and hundreds of interviews, Nancy Weiss Malkiel argues that Bowen was the most consequential higher education leader of his generation.


Review: ‘The House of the Coptic Woman’ is intelligent, complex and rich 

Review: ‘The House of the Coptic Woman’ is intelligent, complex and rich 
Updated 29 November 2023
Follow

Review: ‘The House of the Coptic Woman’ is intelligent, complex and rich 

Review: ‘The House of the Coptic Woman’ is intelligent, complex and rich 

CHICAGO: In rural Upper Egypt, public prosecutor Nader Fayez Kamal arrives in the village of Tayea, where tension is high between Coptic and Muslim communities in award-winning novelist and legal scholar Ashraf El-Ashmawi’s novel, “The House of the Coptic Woman.” Beginning a new job as a deputy public prosecutor on the outskirts of town, Nader must navigate a tricky post with complicated relationships between people and the land they live on. Translated into English by Peter Daniel, Nader finds life away from Cairo more complex than he had hoped for, but faces it with a strong legal mind and a penchant for solving mysteries. 

On the night Nader arrives at the rest house to begin his new job, he meets a caretaker named Ramses who tells him that the lodge was originally built by a British irrigation engineer who was in charge of northern Upper Egypt before he was murdered in the 1940s. From that event, history changed the face of the village which by 1952, after the Egyptian revolution, changes its name to Tayea after the mayor. With a history of religious tension, Nader isn’t prepared for what’s about to happen. Coinciding with his arrival is the appearance of a young woman named Hoda who appears in the middle of the night with a secret that will change her life and that of those around her.  

With an atmosphere that is foreboding, El-Ashmawi’s incredible storytelling sets the mood as the novel shifts between Nader and Hoda. Between the divisive village life, arson attacks, murders that are never solved, and mysterious land acquisitions and sales, Nader and Hoda are thrown into a world where they are forced to tread carefully. Nader has a knack for stepping on toes but has to learn the hard way that the path to justice and peace can be messy.   

Setting a tone that is intelligent, complex, deceptive, and rich, El-Ashmawi’s novel encompasses sectarian strife and a debate about justice. There are laws that penalize for small offences and others in which the punishment is far less than the offense. In a place where justice is more concerned with politics, the protagonists will find themselves facing decisions that could alter their lives forever. 


What We Are Reading Today: How We Age

What We Are Reading Today: How We Age
Updated 29 November 2023
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: How We Age

What We Are Reading Today: How We Age

Author: Coleen T. Murphy

All of us would like to live longer, or to slow the debilitating effects of age.

In “How We Age,” Coleen Murphy shows how recent research on longevity and aging may be bringing us closer to this goal.

Murphy, a leading scholar of aging, explains that the study of model systems, particularly simple invertebrate animals, combined with breakthroughs in genomic methods, have allowed scientists to probe the molecular mechanisms of longevity and aging.


What We Are Reading Today: Argentine Democracy

What We Are Reading Today: Argentine Democracy
Updated 27 November 2023
Follow

What We Are Reading Today: Argentine Democracy

What We Are Reading Today: Argentine Democracy

Author: Steven Levitsky

During the 1990s Argentina was the only country in Latin America to combine radical economic reform and full democracy. 

In 2001, however, the country fell into a deep political and economic crisis and was widely seen as a basket case. 

This book explores both developments, examining the links between the real and apparent successes of the 1990s and the 2001 collapse. 

Beyond its empirical analysis, the book contributes to several theoretical debates in comparative politics. Contemporary studies of political institutions focus almost exclusively on institutional design, neglecting issues of enforcement and stability.