In recent decades game theory-the mathematics of rational decision-making by interacting individuals-has assumed a central place in our understanding of capitalist markets, the evolution of social behavior in animals, and even the ethics of altruism and fairness in human beings. With game theory's ubiquity, however, has come a great deal of misunderstanding. Critics of the contemporary social sciences view it as part of an unwelcome trend toward the marginalization of historicist and interpretive styles of inquiry, and many accuse its proponents of presenting a thin and empirically dubious view of human choice.?The World the Game Theorists Made seeks to explain the ascendency of game theory, focusing on the poorly understood period between the publication of John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern's seminal Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944 and the theory's revival in economics in the 1980s. Drawing on a diverse collection of institutional archives, personal correspondence and papers, and interviews, Paul Erickson shows how game theory offered social scientists, biologists, military strategists, and others a common, flexible language that could facilitate wide-ranging thought and debate on some of the most critical issues of the day.

George Herbert Mead is a foundational figure in sociology, best known for his book Mind, Self, and Society, which was put together after his death from course notes taken by stenographers and students and from unpublished manu*s. Mead, however, never taught a course primarily housed in a sociology department, and he wrote about a wide variety of topics far outside of the concerns for which he is predominantly remembered-including experimental and comparative psychology, the history of science, and relativity theory.In short, he is known in a discipline in which he did not teach for a book he did not write.In Becoming Mead, Daniel R. Huebner traces the ways in which knowledge has been produced by and about the famed American philosopher. Instead of treating Mead's problematic reputation as a separate topic of study from his intellectual biography, Huebner considers both biography and reputation as social processes of knowledge production. He uses Mead as a case study and provides fresh new answers to critical questions in the social sciences, such as how authors come to be considered canonical in particular disciplines, how academics understand and use others' works in their research, and how claims to authority and knowledge are made in scholarship. Becoming Mead provides a novel take on the history of sociology, placing it in critical dialogue with cultural sociology and the sociology of knowledge and intellectuals.

For fans of The Hunger Games, Battlestar Galactica, and Blade Runner comes the Partials Sequence, a fast-paced, action-packed, and riveting sci-fi teen series, by acclaimed author Dan Wells. This collection contains all four books in the series.Partials: Humanity is all but extinguished after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island. But sixteen-year-old Kira is determined to find a solution. As she tries desperately to save what is left of her race, she discovers that that the survival of both humans and Partials rests in her attempts to answer questions about the war's origin that she never knew to ask.Isolation: This digital novella takes us back to the front lines of this war, a time when mankind's ambition far outstripped its foresight. Heron, a newly trained Partial soldier who specializes in infiltration, is sent on a mission deep behind enemy lines. What she discovers there has far-reaching implications—not only for the Isolation War, but for Partials and humans alike long after this war is over.Fragments: After discovering the cure for RM, Kira Walker sets off on a terrifying journey into the ruins of postapocalyptic America and the darkest desires of her heart in order to uncover the means—and a reason—for humanity's survival.Ruins: Kira, Samm, and Marcus fight to prevent a final war between Partials and humans in the gripping final installment in the Partials Sequence. There is no avoiding it—the war to decide the fate of both humans and Partials is at hand. Both sides hold in their possession a weapon that could destroy the other, and Kira Walker has precious little time to prevent that from happening. She has one chance to save both species and the world with them, but it will only come at great personal cost.

In 1915, western farmers mounted one of the most significant challenges to party politics America has seen: the Nonpartisan League, which sought to empower citizens and restrain corporate influence. Before its collapse in the 1920s, the League counted over 250,000 paying members, spread to thirteen states and two Canadian provinces, controlled North Dakota's state government, and birthed new farmer-labor alliances. Yet today it is all but forgotten, neglected even by scholars.Michael J. Lansing aims to change that. Insurgent Democracy offers a new look at the Nonpartisan League and a new way to understand its rise and fall in the United States and Canada. Lansing argues that, rather than a spasm of populist rage that inevitably burned itself out, the story of the League is in fact an instructive example of how popular movements can create lasting change. Depicting the League as a transnational response to economic inequity, Lansing not only resurrects its story of citizen activism, but also allows us to see its potential to inform contemporary movements.

As with any enterprise involving violence and lots of money, running a plantation in early British America was a serious and brutal enterprise. Beyond resources and weapons, a plantation required a significant force of cruel and rapacious men-men who, as Trevor Burnard sees it, lacked any better options for making money. In the contentious Planters, Merchants, and Slaves, Burnard argues that white men did not choose to develop and maintain the plantation system out of virulent racism or sadism, but rather out of economic logic because-to speak bluntly-it worked.These economically successful and ethically monstrous plantations required racial divisions to exist, but their successes were always measured in gold, rather than skin or blood. Burnard argues that the best example of plantations functioning as intended is not those found in the fractious and poor North American colonies, but those in their booming and integrated commercial hub, Jamaica. Sure to be controversial, this book is a major intervention in the scholarship on slavery, economic development, and political power in early British America, mounting a powerful and original argument that boldly challenges historical orthodoxy.

At the close of the Second World War, modernist poets found themselves in an increasingly scientific world, where natural and social sciences claimed exclusive rights to knowledge of both matter and mind. Following the overthrow of the Newtonian worldview and the recent, shocking displays of the power of the atom, physics led the way, with other disciplines often turning to the methods and discoveries of physics for inspiration.?In Physics Envy, Peter Middleton examines the influence of science, particularly physics, on American poetry since World War II. He focuses on such diverse poets as Charles Olson, Muriel Rukeyser, Amiri Baraka, and Rae Armantrout, among others, revealing how the methods and language of contemporary natural and social sciences-and even the discourse of the leading popular science magazine Scientific American-shaped their work. The relationship, at times, extended in the other direction as well: leading physicists such as Robert Oppenheimer, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrdinger were interested in whether poetry might help them explain the strangeness of the new, quantum world. Physics Envy is a history of science and poetry that shows how ultimately each serves to illuminate the other in its quest for the true nature of things.

For decades, James Joyce's modernism has overshadowed his Irishness, as his self-imposed exile and association with the high modernism of Europe's urban centers has led critics to see him almost exclusively as a cosmopolitan figure.In Joyce's Ghosts, Luke Gibbons mounts a powerful argument that this view is mistaken: Joyce's Irishness is intrinsic to his modernism, informing his most distinctive literary experiments. Ireland, Gibbons shows, is not just a source of subject matter or content for Joyce, but of form itself. Joyce's stylistic innovations can be traced at least as much to the tragedies of Irish history as to the shock of European modernity, as he explores the incomplete project of inner life under colonialism. Joyce's language, Gibbons reveals, is haunted by ghosts, less concerned with the stream of consciousness than with a vernacular interior dialogue, the "e;shout in the street,"e; that gives room to outside voices and shadowy presences, the disruptions of a late colonial?culture in crisis.Showing us how memory under modernism breaks free of the nightmare of history, and how in doing so it gives birth to new forms, Gibbons forces us to think anew about Joyce's achievement and its foundations.

The history of slavery in early America is a history of suicide. On ships crossing the Atlantic, enslaved men and women refused to eat or leaped into the ocean. They strangled or hanged themselves. They tore open their own throats. In America, they jumped into rivers or out of windows, or even ran into burning buildings. Faced with the reality of enslavement, countless Africans chose death instead.In The Power to Die, Terri L. Snyder excavates the history of slave suicide, returning it to its central place in early American history. How did people-traders, plantation owners, and, most importantly, enslaved men and women themselves-view and understand these deaths, and how did they affect understandings of the institution of slavery then and nowSnyder draws on ships' logs, surgeons' journals, judicial and legislative records, newspaper accounts, abolitionist propaganda and slave narratives, and many other sources to build a grim picture of slavery's toll and detail the ways in which suicide exposed the contradictions of slavery, serving as a powerful indictment that resonated throughout the Anglo-Atlantic world and continues to speak to historians today.

In this beautifully conceived book, Ayesha Ramachandran reconstructs the imaginative struggles of early modern artists, philosophers, and writers to make sense of something that we take for granted: the world, imagined as a whole. Once a new, exciting, and frightening concept, "e;the world"e; was transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But how could one envision something that no one had ever seen in its totalityThe Worldmakers moves beyond histories of globalization to explore how "e;the world"e; itself-variously understood as an object of inquiry, a comprehensive category, and a system of order-was self-consciously shaped by human agents. Gathering an international cast of characters, from Dutch cartographers and French philosophers to Portuguese and English poets, Ramachandran describes a history of firsts: the first world atlas, the first global epic, the first modern attempt to develop a systematic natural philosophy-all part of an effort by early modern thinkers to capture "e;the world"e; on the page.

What species occur where, and why, and why some places harbor more species than others are basic questions for ecologists. Some species simply live in different places: fish live underwater; birds do not. Adaptations follow: most fish have gills; birds have lungs. But as Patterns in Nature reveals, not all patterns are so trivial.Travel from island to island and the species change. Travel along any gradient-up a mountain, from forest into desert, from low tide to high tide on a shoreline -and again the species change, sometimes abruptly. What explains the patterns of these distributionsSome patterns might be as random as a coin toss. But as with a coin toss, can ecologists differentiate associations caused by a multiplicity of complex, idiosyncratic factors from those structured by some unidentified but simple mechanismsCan simple mechanisms that structure communities be inferred from observations of which species associations naturally occurFor decades, community ecologists have debated about whether the patterns are random or show the geographically pervasive effect of competition between species. Bringing this vigorous debate up to date, this book undertakes the identification and interpretation of nature's large-scale patterns of species co-occurrence to offer insight into how nature truly works.Patterns in Nature explains the computing and conceptual advances that allow us to explore these issues. It forces us to reexamine assumptions about species distribution patterns and will be of vital importance to ecologists and conservationists alike.

During the Great Recession, the housing bubble took much of the blame for bringing the American economy to its knees, but commercial real estate also experienced its own boom-and-bust in the same time period. In Chicago, for example, law firms and corporate headquarters abandoned their historic downtown office buildings for the millions of brand-new square feet that were built elsewhere in the central business district. What causes construction booms like this, and why do they so often leave a glut of vacant space and economic distress in their wake?In From Boom to Bubble, Rachel Weber debunks the idea that booms occur only when cities are growing and innovating. Instead, she argues, even in cities experiencing employment and population decline, developers rush to erect new office towers and apartment buildings when they have financial incentives to do so. Focusing on the main causes of overbuilding during the early 2000s, Weber documents the case of Chicago's "e;Millennial Boom,"e; showing that the Loop's expansion was a response to global and local pressures to produce new assets. An influx of cheap cash, made available through the use of complex financial instruments, helped transform what started as a boom grounded in modest occupant demand into a speculative bubble, where pricing and supply had only tenuous connections to the market. Innovative and compelling, From Boom to Bubble is an unprecedented historical, sociological, and geographic look at how property markets change and fail-and how that affects cities.

In the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, residents of the city's iconic Mission District bucked the city-wide development plan, defiantly announcing that in their neighborhood, they would be calling the shots. Ever since, the Mission has become known as a city within a city, and a place where residents have, over the last century, organized and reorganized themselves to make the neighborhood in their own image.In Making the Mission, Ocean Howell tells the story of how residents of the Mission District organized to claim the right to plan their own neighborhood and how they mobilized a politics of place and ethnicity to create a strong, often racialized identity-a pattern that would repeat itself again and again throughout the twentieth century. Surveying the perspectives of formal and informal groups, city officials and district residents, local and federal agencies, Howell articulates how these actors worked with and against one another to establish the very ideas of the public and the public interest, as well as to negotiate and renegotiate what the neighborhood wanted. In the process, he shows that national narratives about how cities grow and change are fundamentally insufficient; everything is always shaped by local actors and concerns.

How did flying birds evolve from running dinosaurs, terrestrial trotting tetrapods evolve from swimming fish, and whales return to swim in the seaThese are some of the great transformations in the 500-million-year history of vertebrate life. And with the aid of new techniques and approaches across a range of fields-work spanning multiple levels of biological organization from DNA sequences to organs and the physiology and ecology of whole organisms-we are now beginning to unravel the confounding evolutionary mysteries contained in the structure, genes, and fossil record of every living species.This book gathers a diverse team of renowned scientists to capture the excitement of these new discoveries in a collection that is both accessible to students and an important contribution to the future of its field. Marshaling a range of disciplines-from paleobiology to phylogenetics, developmental biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology-the contributors attack particular transformations in the head and neck, trunk, appendages such as fins and limbs, and the whole body, as well as offer synthetic perspectives. Illustrated throughout, Great Transformations in Vertebrate Evolution not only reveals the true origins of whales with legs, fish with elbows, wrists, and necks, and feathered dinosaurs, but also the relevance to our lives today of these extraordinary narratives of change.

Available together for the first time—all three books in the #1?New York Times?bestselling Divergent trilogy, plus the companion volume told from the perspective of the immensely popular character Tobias. Perfect for established fans who want to own the full Divergent library or readers new to the series, this ebook bundle includes?Divergent,?Insurgent,?Allegiant, and?Four: A Divergent Collection.Divergent: One choice can transform you. Veronica Roth's #1?New York Times?bestselling debut is a gripping dystopian tale of electrifying choices, powerful consequences, unexpected romance, and a deeply flawed "perfect society."Insurgent: One choice can destroy you. Veronica Roth's second #1?New York Times?bestseller continues the dystopian thrill ride. As war surges in the factions all around her, Tris attempts to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.Allegiant: The explosive conclusion to Veronica Roth's #1?New York Times?bestselling Divergent trilogy reveals the secrets of the dystopian world that has captivated millions of readers.Four: A Divergent Collection: A companion volume to the worldwide bestselling Divergent series, told from the perspective of Tobias. The four pieces included—"The Transfer," "The Initiate," "The Son," and "The Traitor"—plus three additional exclusive scenes, give readers a fascinating glimpse into the history and heart of Tobias, and set the stage for the epic saga of the Divergent trilogy.

The University of Arkansas Press edition of the Selected Fiction of William Gilmore Simms has as its aim to publish the major novels and short fiction in reliable texts, together with scholarly introductions, annotations, and other matter useful to scholars, critics, and teachers of Simms's work. The edition includes novels in the Border Romances series and the Revolutionary War series, together with writings that treat warfare with Native Americans and selections from Simms's short fiction. The scope of these writings is wide, capturing the American frontier in its westward advance across the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River during the early and mid-nineteenth century.

In a city that runs on a dwindling supply of magic, a young boy is drawn into a life of wizardry and adventure. Author Sarah Prineas works her own spells as she transports us to an extraordinary world where cities are run on living magic and even a thief can become a wizard's apprentice. Diana Wynne Jones, author of Howl's Moving Castle, praised this middle grade fantasy series filled with magic and wonder, saying of the first, "I couldn't put it down. Wonderful, exciting stuff." This collection contains all four novels in the series, plus the digital original novella The Magic Thief: A Proper Wizard.The Magic Thief: Conn should have dropped dead the day he picked Nevery's pocket and touched the wizard's locus magicalicus, a stone used to focus magic and work spells. But for some reason he did not. Nevery finds that interesting, and he takes Conn as his apprentice on the provision that the boy find a locus stone of his own. But Conn has little time to search for his stone between wizard lessons and helping Nevery discover who—or what—is stealing the city of Wellmet's magic.The Magic Thief: Lost: Conn may only be a wizard's apprentice, but even he knows it's dangerous to play with fire . . . especially around magic. But Conn is drawn to the murmurs he hears every time he sets off an explosion—something is trying to talk to him, to warn him. When none of the wizards listen, Conn takes matters into his own hands. His quest to protect everything he loves brings him face-to-face with a powerful sorcerer-king and a treachery beyond even his vivid imagination.The Magic Thief: Found: Sneaking out of prison isn't easy, unless you are a thief, or a wizard. Luckily, Conn is both! Trouble is, once he's out, where does he goHis home is a pile of rubble since he blew it up doing magic. His master, the wizard Nevery, is not happy with him. Worst of all, Conn's been exiled, and staying in the city will mean his death.The Magic Thief: A Proper Wizard: When Verent, a young apprentice from neighboring Danivelle, comes to Wellmet to ask for Conn's help with his city's magical problems, he is less than impressed with Conn. Will Verent be able to overcome his misgivings about Conn in order to help his townAnd with Conn's help, will Verent become a proper wizard?The Magic Thief: Home: Duchess Rowan has promoted Conn to ducal magister, but the other wizards see him only as a thief. But something sinister is brewing, as magicians' locus stones are being stolen and magical spells are going awry. As Conn faces old enemies and powerful magical forces, is he strong enough to save the city he calls home?

The L.A. Candy trilogy is a fast-paced, fun, and realistic depiction of coming of age in Hollywood while starring in a reality TV show—written by a star who's experienced it all firsthand: Lauren Conrad, of MTV's #1 show The Hills. This #1 New York Times bestselling series provides a scandalous peek into the life of new reality celebrity Jane Roberts while dishing Hollywood gossip and drama at every turn.Includes:L.A. Candy Sweet Little Lies: An L.A. Candy Novel Sugar and Spice: An L.A. Candy Novel

The Art of Monsters, Inc. opens the door into Pixar's colorful archives of concept art and to the endearing story of Monsters, Inc. Since the very first bedtime, children around the world have known that once their parents tuck them into bed and shut off the light, monsters lie waiting behind closet doors, ready to emerge. But what they don't realize is that these monsters scare children because they have to. It's their job. This superb film from Pixar Studios, the people who brought you Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Toy Story 2, reveals the truth about monsters with the brilliant techniques that have earned them their reputation as a ground-breaking animation studio. This incredible body of artwork was commissioned from the top artists, illustrators, and animators in the industry and from it the ultimate visual approach of the film was defined. From sketches scribbled on napkins and quickly inked marker drawings, to finished oil paintings and fabulous pastel color scripts, this behind-the-scenes artwork reveals the elaborate creative process behind a blockbuster film.

Walt Disney Animation Studios' Big Hero 6 is the story of Hiro Hamada, a brilliant robotics prodigy who must foil a criminal plot that threatens to destroy the fast-paced, high-tech city of San Fransokyo. This new title in our popular The Art of series, published to coincide with the movie's U.S. release, features concept art from the film's creation—including sketches, storyboards, maquette sculpts, colorscripts, and much more—illuminated by quotes and interviews with the film's creators. Fans will love the behind-the-scenes insights into Disney's newest action comedy adventure.Copyright ?2014 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

From an adventurous balloon ride above the clouds to a monster-filled metropolis, Academy Award(R)-winning director Pete Docter ("e;Monsters, Inc.,"e; "e;Up"e;) has taken audiences to unique and imaginative places. In Disney*;Pixar's original movie "e; Inside Out,"e; he will take us to the most extraordinary location of allinside the mind.Growing up can be a bumpy road, and it's no exception for Riley, who is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness. The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley's mind, where they help advise her through everyday life. As Riley and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco, turmoil ensues in Headquarters. Although Joy, Riley's main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.In this groundbreaking and illuminating film, Pixar Animation Studios examines the extraordinary depths of the mind and the powers of emotion and imagination. The Art of Inside Out provides an exclusive look into the artistic exploration that went into the making of this vibrant film. Featuring concept artincluding sketches, collages, color scripts, and much moreand opening with a foreword by actress Amy Poehler and introduction by the film's writer and director Pete Docter, this is the ultimate behind-the-scenes experience of the making of this landmark film.Copyright 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. and Pixar. All rights reserved.

From Pixar Animation Studios, the Academy Awardwinning studio that brought us such blockbusters as Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo, comes The Incredibles, a hilarious, action-packed story of a family of superheroes living an underground suburban existence. The sleekly designed settings and characters were conceptualized and developed by writer/director Brad Bird and Pixar's creative team of artists, illustrators, and designers, resulting in a celluloid sensation rich with detail. The Art of The Incredibles celebrates their talent, featuring concept and character sketches, storyboards, and lighting studies, and invites readers into the elaborate creative process of animation through interviews with all the key players at Pixar.