http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification 720 https://escholarship.org/uc/uc_libraries_oabooks_monographs_oup/rss Recent eScholarship items from UC Libraries-Supported Open Access Monographs from Oxford University Press Sat, 5 Sep 2026 19:54:12 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8n14f2rj <p>This book argues that major patterns of variation across languages are structured by general principles of efficiency in language use and communication. Evidence for these comes from languages permitting structural choices from which selections are made in performance, e.g. between competing word orders and between relative clauses with a resumptive pronoun versus a gap. The preferences and patterns of performance within languages are reflected in the fixed conventions and variation patterns across grammars, leading to a ‘‘Performance–Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis.’’ The general theory that is laid out in Hawkins’s Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars (OUP) is extended and updated. New areas of grammar and of performance are discussed, new research findings are incorporated that test Hawkins’s earlier predictions, and new advances in the contributing fields of language processing, linguistic theory, historical linguistics, and typology are addressed. This efficiency approach... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8n14f2rj Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Hawkins, John A https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9bk8k9gk <p>Migration is a dramatic behaviour distinct from other movements. It is an important component of life histories of biodiverse organisms including terrestrial and marine vertebrates, insects, many invertebrates, and the propagules of some plants. This sequel discusses migration across a wide range of groups and species drawing comparisons to illuminate migratory life cycles and their evolution. It takes an integrative approach to migration as a physiological and behavioural phenomenon with important ecological consequences. Part I defines migration in relation to other movements, provides examples, and includes an updated chapter on recent results from newly developed electronic tracking and other methods. Part II surveys proximate mechanisms including physiology, morphology, constraints, the use of winds and currents, and new discoveries regarding the ability to orient and navigate. Part III on the evolution of migratory life histories is the longest section of the book. It... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9bk8k9gk Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Dingle, Hugh https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9px4j6kw <p>This book examines the 20-year aftermath of the 1989 assaults on established, state-sponsored socialism in the former Soviet bloc and in China. It brings together prominent experts on Eastern Europe and China to examine the respective trajectories of political, economic and social transformations that unfolded in these two areas, while also comparing the changes that ensued within the two regions. The volume features paired comparisons, with one chapter on the countries from the former Soviet bloc and one on China for each of the following themes: the reinstitutionalization of politics, the recasting of state-society relations, the reform of economic systems, changes in economic behavior, and transformations of social institutions. Even if they differ in their specific substantive focus and in their disciplinary grounding, the chapters share a concern with the fate of the state in postsocialism. They elaborate on topics such as the transformations of the old socialist state... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9px4j6kw Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8rx981q0 <p>Drawing lessons from the intersection of literature, photography, cinema, television, dance-drama, and ethnography, this book presents a unique analysis of Indian activist thought spread over two centuries. It discusses two presuppositions of liberal individualism: personal autonomy and ethical autonomy. Besides, it argues that the ‘individual’ has been creatively indigenized in modern non-Western cultures: thinkers attentive to gender in postcolonial cultures embrace selected ethical premises of the Enlightenment and its human rights discourse while they refuse possessive individualism. Debating influential schools of postcolonial and transnational studies, the chapter provides radical argument through a rich tapestry of gender portrayals drawn from two moments of modern Indian thought: the rise of humanism in the colony and the growth of new individualism in contemporary liberalized India. From autobiographical texts by nineteenth century Bengali prostitutes, point-of-view... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8rx981q0 Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 De, Esha Niyogi https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7k74t0s3 <p>This book presents a roadmap for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century. It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also be an organ of plasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hardwired components frozen in the evolutionary past, this book presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions and evolutionary histories that shape how they develop, what information they use, and what they do with it. The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be adaptively plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using the rich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7k74t0s3 Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Brodbeck, David https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7d5678ps <p>This book provides an introduction to the field-theoretic methods and computer simulation techniques used in the design of structured polymeric fluids for a wide variety of applications. By such methods, the principles that dictate equilibrium self-assembly in systems ranging from block and graft copolymers, to polyelectrolytes, liquid crystalline polymers, and polymer nanocomposites can be established. Building on an introductory discussion of single-polymer statistical mechanics, the book provides a detailed treatment of analytical and numerical techniques for addressing the statistical properties of polymers subjected to spatially-varying potential fields. This problem is shown to be central to the field-theoretic description of interacting polymeric fluids, and models for a number of important polymer systems are elaborated. Self-consistent field theory is treated in detail, which is a collection of analytical and numerical techniques for obtaining solutions of polymer... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7d5678ps Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Fredrickson, Glenn https://escholarship.org/uc/item/72w2g65n <p>This book covers the essential elements of engineering mechanics for mechanical elements in tension-compression, torsion, and bending. Its approach emphasizes a fundamental bottom-up approach to the subject for a concise and uncluttered presentation. Each problem class is firmly rooted in its underlying kinematic assumption, and the concepts of equilibrium and material response are carefully separated. The technical theory is connected to the three-dimensional theory with a careful emphasis on kinematic assumptions and the selected use of material models for plastic response, as well as composite or inhomogeneous material distributions. Buckling phenomena and the principles of stationary potential energy and stationary complementary potential energy are covered in detail for both exact as well as approximate solutions. The principles of virtual work – virtual displacements and virtual forces – are treated, and their relation to potential energy methods as well as the basic... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/72w2g65n Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Govindjee, Sanjay https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6nq5r1gz <p>Seemingly every day society faces a new ethical challenge raised by a scientific innovation. Human genetic engineering, stem cell research, face transplantation, synthetic biology – all were science fiction only a few decades ago, but are now all are reality. How do we as a society decide whether these technologies are ethical? For decades professional bioethicists have served as a mediator between a busy public and decision-makers, helping people understand their own ethical concerns, framing arguments, discrediting illogical claims and lifting up promising ones. These bioethicists operate in multiple venues such as hospital decision-making, institutions that conduct research on humans, and recommending ethical policy to the government. While functioning quite well for many years, the bioethics profession is in crisis. Policy-makers are less inclined to take the advice of bioethics professionals, with many observers saying that bioethics debates have simply become partisan... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6nq5r1gz Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Evans, John H https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5wb930nx <p>How can “Speaking Rights to Power” construct political will to respond to human rights abuse worldwide? Examining dozens of cases of human rights campaigns, this book shows how communication politics build recognition, solidarity, and social change. The book presents an innovative analysis of the politics of persuasion, based in the strategic use of voice, framing, media, protest performance, and audience bridging. Building on twenty years of research on five continents, this comprehensive study ranges from Aung San Suu Kyi to Anna Hazare, from Congo to Colombia, from Arab Spring to Pussy Riot. It includes both well-chronicled campaigns like the struggle to end violence against women, as well as lesser-known efforts, such as interethnic human rights alliances in the United States. Cases of relative success are carefully compared with unavailing struggles. The author's analysis is grounded in the concrete practice of human rights campaigns and derives testable strategic guidance... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5wb930nx Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Brysk, Alison https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5rv7b17h <p>Forty years ago, managerialism dominated corporate governance. In both theory and practice, a team of senior managers ran the corporation with little or no interference from other stakeholders. Boards of directors were little more than rubber stamps. Today, corporate governance looks very different. In particular, several trends have coalesced to encourage more active and effective board oversight. Much director compensation is now paid in stock, for example, which helps align director and shareholder interests. Courts have made clear that effective board processes and oversight are essential if board decisions are to receive the deference traditionally accorded to them under the business judgment rule, especially insofar as structural decisions are concerned (such as those relating to management buy-outs). Third, director conduct is constrained by an active market for corporate control, ever-rising rates of shareholder litigation, and, some say, activist shareholders. As a... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5rv7b17h Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Bainbridge, Stephen https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5r80h5td <p>This book uses documents that allow an intimate look at two crises that wracked and ultimately destroyed the convent of La Purísima Concepción in San Miguel el Grande, New Spain (Mexico). At the heart of each rebellion was an attempt by some nuns to impose a regimen of strict observance of their vows on the others, and the resistance mounted by those who had a different view of the convent and their own role in it. Would the community adopt as austere a lifestyle as they could endure, doing manual labor, suffering hunger and physical discomfort, deprived of the society of family and friends? Or would these women be allowed to lead comfortable and private lives when not at prayer? Drawing on an abundance of sources, including numerous letters written by the bishop and local vicar as well as nuns of both factions, this book gives us not just the voices but the personalities of the nuns and other actors.</p><p> <em>This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5r80h5td Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Chowning, Margaret https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5557j1g2 <p>This book presents the most comprehensive study yet of a problem that has puzzled physicists and philosophers since the 1930s. The standard theory of quantum mechanics is in one sense the most successful physical theory ever, predicting the behaviour of the basic constituents of all physical things; no other theory has ever made such accurate empirical predictions. However, if one tries to understand the theory as providing a complete and accurate framework for the description of the behaviour of all physical interactions, it becomes evident that the theory is ambiguous, or even logically inconsistent. The most notable attempt to formulate the theory so as to deal with this problem, the quantum measurement problem, was initiated by Hugh Everett III in the 1950s. This book gives a careful and challenging examination and evaluation of the work of Everett and those who have followed him. The informal approach, minimizing technicality, makes the book accessible and illuminating... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5557j1g2 Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Barrett, Jeffrey A https://escholarship.org/uc/item/53j5p0pb <p>This book offers a new approach to longstanding philosophical puzzles about what colors are and how they fit into the natural world. The author argues for a role-functionalist treatment of color — a view according to which colors are identical to certain functional roles involving perceptual effects on subjects. The author first argues (on broadly empirical grounds) for the more general relationalist view that colors are constituted in terms of relations between objects, perceivers, and viewing conditions. He responds to semantic, ontological, and phenomenological objections against this thesis, and argues that relationalism offers the best hope of respecting both empirical results and ordinary belief about color. He then defends the more specific role-functionalist account by contending that the latter is the most plausible form of color relationalism.</p><p> <em>This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the University of California... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/53j5p0pb Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cohen, Jonathan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3rq4m6hx <p>Most Americans are insulated from the poor; it is hard to imagine the challenges of poverty, the daily fears of crime and victimization, the frustration of not being able to provide for a child. Instead, we are often exposed to the rhetoric and hyperbole about the excesses of the American welfare system. These messages color our perception of the welfare problem in the United States and they close the American mind to a full understanding of the complexity of family poverty. But who are these poor families? What do we know about how they arrived in such desperate straits? Is poverty their fate for a lifetime or for only a brief period? Faces of Poverty answers these questions as it dispels the misconceptions and myths about welfare and the welfare population that have clouded the true picture of poverty in America. Over the course of a year, the author spent numerous hours as a participant-observer with five women and their families, documenting their daily activities, thoughts,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3rq4m6hx Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Berrick, Jill Duerr https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1xv856gf <p>This book presents a roadmap for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century. It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also be an organ of plasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hardwired components frozen in the evolutionary past, this book presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions and evolutionary histories that shape how they develop, what information they use, and what they do with it. The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be adaptively plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using the rich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1xv856gf Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Barrett, H. Clark https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1x14f1d3 <p>The European Union's (EU) market integration project has dramatically altered economic activity around Europe. This book presents evidence on how trade has increased, jobs have been created, and European business has been reorganized. The changes in the economy have been accompanied by dramatic changes in how people from different societies interact. This book argues that these changes have produced a truly transnational European society. The book explores the nature of that society and its relationship to the creation of a European identity, popular culture, and politics. Much of the current political conflict around Europe can be attributed to who is and who is not involved in European society. Business owners, managers, professionals, white-collar workers, the educated, and the young have all benefited from European economic integration, specifically by interacting more and more with their counterparts in other societies. They tend to think of themselves as Europeans. Older,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1x14f1d3 Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Fligstein, Neil https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jw7s62s <p>Since the late 19th century, Jews and Arabs have been locked in an intractable battle for national recognition in a land of tremendous historical and geopolitical significance. While historians and political scientists have long analyzed the dynamics of this bitter conflict, rarely has an archaeology of the mind of those who reside within the matrix of conflict been attempted. This book not only offers a psychological analysis of the consequences of conflict for the psyche, it develops an innovative, compelling, and cross-disciplinary argument about the mutual constitution of culture and mind through the process of life-story construction. But the book pushes boundaries further through an analysis of two peace education programs designed to fundamentally alter the nature of young Israeli and Palestinian life stories. This book argues that these popular interventions, rooted in the idea of prejudice reduction through contact and the cultivation of “cosmopolitan” identities,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jw7s62s Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Hammack, Phillip L https://escholarship.org/uc/item/17c6k4bm <p>The impact of antitrust law on sports is in the news all the time, especially when there is labor conflict between players and owners, or when a team wants to move to a new city. And if the majority of Americans have only the vaguest sense of what antitrust law is, most know one thing about it—that baseball is exempt. This book illuminates the series of court rulings that resulted in one of the most curious features of our legal system: baseball's exemption from antitrust law. The book provides a history of the game as seen through the prism of an extraordinary series of courtroom battles, ranging from 1890 to the present. The book looks at such pivotal cases as the 1922 Supreme Court case which held that federal antitrust laws did not apply to baseball; the 1972 Flood v. Kuhn decision that declared that baseball is exempt even from state antitrust laws; and several cases from the 1950s, one involving boxing and the other football, that made clear that the exemption is only... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/17c6k4bm Wed, 1 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Banner, Stuart