Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast

Erich Fromm, one of the most widely known psychoanalysts of the previous century, was involved in the exploration of spirituality throughout his life. His landmark book The Art of Loving, which sold more than six million copies worldwide, is seen as a popular handbook on how to relate to others and how to overcome the narcissism ingrained in every human being. In his book The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet (Columbia University Press, 2013), Harvard professor Lawrence J. Friedman explores the life of this towering figure of psychoanalytic thought, and his position in the humanistic movement, which he belonged to. He gives an overview of the religious thought Fromm was inspired by, from Judaism to the Old Testament to Buddhist philosophy. Fromm’s credo was that true spirituality is expressed in how we relate to others, and how to bring joy and peace to the global community. His plea that love will be the vehicle to realize one’s true purpose was the central message of his view on spirituality.

Philip Kretsedemas is the author of The Immigration Crucible: Transforming Race, Nation, and the Limits of the Law (Columbia UP 2012). He is associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The book begins with a discussion of the conventional explanations, justifications, and advocacy for and against immigration. That background frames the current debate now occurring at the federal level on immigration reform. The book addresses that larger context but focuses a lot on the increasingly important role played by local lawmakers and local enforcement. Arizona 1070 is one example of this. Kretsedemas analyzes this shift to local enforcement and what its implications are for immigrants living in a patchwork of immigration laws and enforcement practices. Toward the end of the book, Kretsedemas tries to reconcile what the country can do to move forward. He suggests whiteness and race has been closely intermingled with national identity.

“If animals have suffered marginalization throughout the history of Western thought, then non-human, non-animal living beings, such as plants, have populated the margin of the margin”, a “zone of absolute obscurity” in which their mode of existence from a philosophical perspective is not even question-worthy. So writes Michael Marder, Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country in the Basque autonomous region of Spain, in his new book, Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life (Columbia University Press, 2013). The metaphor of “ground-breaking” has never been so apt. Contrasting his view with the Aristotelean perspective in which plants are basically defective animals, Marder initiates inquiry into the nature of vegetal life on its own terms, and into how human life currently encounters, and how it should encounter, this radically foreign mode of existence. Marder’s goal is nothing less than a sort of Nietzschean “revaluation of values” when it comes to vegetal life.

I have read quite a few books on terrorism but always from an English language perspective. This has meant that I was missing the alternative stories from other nations. Guido Steinberg has done me a favour by publishing his German study in English. German Jihad: On the Internationalisation of Islamist Terrorism (Columbia UP, 2013)provides an excellent, detailed analysis of the recent history of the growth of Jihad inspired terrorism by German residents of both European and Asian heritage. He begins the book with one of the best explanations of the near enemy (apostate Islamic governments) and the far enemy (Western nations who are seen as supporting the near enemy), that I have read. He then explains the importance of the demographics of migration to Germany and its role in the Jihadist movement. Germany has a largely Turkish migrant population. As such they did not have the same influences or inspirations as Jihadists from an Arabic background. Importantly, they also did not have the same network of connections which allowed them to easily join international organisations such as Al Qaeda. These circumstances led to a particular series of connections and a lack of awareness by local law enforcement of the growing threat of terrorist activity. Guido gives us a professional and thorough analysis of this history and has sufficient detail to keep a research student engrossed for weeks. I highly recommend the book.

Anyone who studies police corruption will be aware of the Knapp Commission that examined allegations of police corruption in New York City in the 1970s. Not only was this famous because of the movie Serpico, but also most of the terminology used in corruption studies of police came from the report of the commission. Michael F. Armstrong was the chief counsel to the commission and this book is a history of the formation and operation of the inquiry. Holding a major commission of inquiry is not something that is done routinely. In his own words, Armstrong says they “fumbled” along working out how one discovers, let alone investigates corrupt police.They Wished they were Honest: The Knapp Commission and New York City Police Corruption (Columbia Press, 2012)reads like an extended episode of The Wire, combining political elements with investigative planning and transcripts of surveillance recordings of bribe negotiations. It is very revealing of the nature of corruption that existed at the time. The book follows some key from Xavier Hollander, the Happy Hooker, through small time corrupt officers (grass eaters) through to hardcore predatory corrupt police (meat eaters). Not only does Armstrong provide an entertaining history of the inquiry but he reveals the full gamut of social forces that make such inquiries difficult to implement successfully. Police corruption is an essential factor in any form of large scale illicit activity, be it prostitution, gambling or drugs. Police have a service to sell, namely protection, and there are many illegal operators who are willing to pay for it to ensure their business runs without interruption. While the Knapp Commission happened 40 years ago, the corruption still exists at varying levels in all communities. Armstrong’s book helps us understand how and why it happens and, especially, how difficult it can be to stop.

The history of modern China is bound up with that of student politics. In Behind the Gate: Inventing Students in Beijing (Columbia University Press, 2010), Fabio Lanza offers a masterfully researched, elegantly written, and thoughtful consideration of the emergence of “students” as a category in twentieth-century China. Urging us to...

Inderjeet Parmar‘s Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012) navigates the history of US foreign policymaking in the twentieth century. Parmar is President of the British International Studies Association and Professor in the Department of International Politics School of Social Sciences, City University London. His new book examines foreign policy making from the perspective of philanthropic foundations and the ways foundations sought to influence policy through the creation of foreign policy ideas and institutions. Parmar dissects the role foundations played in US foreign policy toward Indonesia, Chile, and elsewhere through institutions such as the Council of Foreign Relations and various University-based international relations programs. The book ends with an examination of the development of the “democratic peace” doctrine and post 9/11 foreign policy making.Foundations have increasingly moved to the center of political science research (see recent podcast with Sarah Reckhow). Dr. Parmar’s wide-ranging book follows in this approach and is a major contribution to scholarship on philanthropy and public policy making.

Chocolate fans out there may know all about the latest chocolate happenings, from Hershey’s “Air Delight,” a bar of aerated milk chocolate, to Cadbury’s new melt-resistant chocolate, which apparently remains solid even after three hours at 104 degrees. But unless you happen to be a chocoholic who follows the financial news, you may not have heard of “ChocFinger,” a British hedge fund manager named Anthony Ward. In 2010, Ward purchased 240,000 tons of chocolate–seven percent of the global production–and stashed it inside refrigerated warehouses throughout Europe. Ward has been accused by other investors of driving up the price of a commodity that had already seen two year’s worth of price increases. Their worries might be valid. ChocFinger is in a position to influence the market for some time to come: he can continue to store or sell all that chocolate, enough to make over five billion candy bars, until 2030.This is just one of the “secrets” Kara Newman reveals in The Secret Financial Life of Food: From Commodities Markets to Supermarkets (Columbia University Press, 2013), in which she examines how commodities markets influence what we eat and how much we pay for food. Newman brings a range of talents to her story. She’s a former vice president of strategic research at Thomson Reuters who’s versed in the world of finance. She’s also the Spirits Editor for Wine Enthusiast, writes the weekly “Spirited Traveler” column for Reuters, and has authored two books of cocktail recipes. She’s the sort of writer who can make the history of trading pork bellies or the volatility of global coffee production into a rich and lively read. Join us as Newman takes us into American’s culinary and financial history and gives us a glimpse into our global future.

On July 10, 1941, Poles in the town of Jedwabne together with some number of German functionaries herded nearly 500 Jews into a barn and burnt them alive. In 2000, the sociologist Jan Gross published a book about the subject that, very shortly thereafter, started a huge controversy about Polish participation in the Holocaust. In the furor that followed, many simply took it for granted that Gross’s interpretation of what happened–that radically anti-Semitic Poles murdered the Jews with little prompting from the Germans–was simply correct. But was it? This is the question Marek Jan Chodakiewicz tries to answer in The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After (Columbia University Press; East European Monographs, 2005). After an exhaustive and meticulous investigation of the sources (which are imperfect at best), Chodakiewicz concludes that we don’t and will never know exactly what happened on that horrible July day in Jedwabne, but it was certainly more complicated and mysterious than Gross imagines. Chodakiewicz puts the massacre in its wider context or, perhaps more accurately, contexts. These include: Jedwabne itself, Polish life there, Jewish life there, the interaction between the two communities in the town, the Soviet occupation, the coming of the Germans, German policies toward Poles and Jews, the Polish resistance, Polish anti-Semitism, Polish anti-Communism, and the intersection of the two (“Zydokomuna“). No punches are pulled: Chodakiewicz places much of the blame for the atrocity squarely on the Poles (or, rather, some faction of them) in Jedwabne. But he puts their actions–insofar as we can know them–into a much wider frame and therefore helps us understand why they did what they did.

Today we talked to Blake Mobley about his new book Terrorism and Counter-Intelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection (Columbia University Press, 2012). There have been many books examining the intelligence operations of counter-terrorist agencies. Also there are books about how terrorist groups operate. This is a book about how terrorist groups conduct intelligence, specifically counter-intelligence designed to protect themselves from the gaze of the government based counter-terrorist agencies. Blake presents us with a varying set of levels of counter-intelligence sophistication that these groups practice as well as the social, geographic and structural elements that affect the success of these practices. He demonstrates that both these tactics and elements are two edged swords; success in one aspect can create a weakness in another. Blake points out that this is good news for counter-terrorist agencies and recommends that they focus on these weaknesses of the terror groups as a means of disrupting their operations.