MAKESHIFT METROPOLIS: Ideas About Cities By Witold Rybczynski, faculty (Scribner, 2010. $24.) Rybczynski, the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at Penn, examines the gradual evolution of urban planning as well as the current “age of the market,” during which entrepreneurial developers have reformed the image of the contemporary city. BUY THIS BOOK
SCIENCE, CULTURE, AND FREE SPIRITS: A Study of Nietzsche’s Human, All-Too-Human By Jonathan R. Cohen Gr’91 (Humanity Books, 2010. $36.95.) Nietzsche’s 1878 work has been neglected by some scholars, but Cohen—professor of philosophy at the University of Maine-Farmington—argues that Human, All-Too-Human should be seen as a watershed in his philosophical development, the work in which he “becomes who he is.” Cohen examines that book’s criticisms of Schopenhauer and Wagner (whereby Nietzsche broke free from those earlier allegiances), and shows how it established the framework of his later philosophy. BUY THIS BOOK
THE GEOMETRY OF STRATEGY: Concepts for Strategic Management By Robert W. Keidel WG’66 GrW’79 (Routledge, 2010. $35.99.) As he delineates the process of strategic planning and strategic thinking, Keidel—a former fellow at Wharton and principal of Robert Keidel Associates, a Philadelphia-based consulting firm—illustrates the application of simple geometric forms to that process. He also includes examples from his own consulting career. BUY THIS BOOK
THE CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: Which Way Now? By Daniel D. Perlmutter, faculty, and Robert L. Rothstein (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. $39.95.) Perlmutter—professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Penn—and Rothstein address both the technical aspects and policy perspectives of the growing crisis of climate. Drawing on Perlmutter’s extensive research, they also discuss the need to set priorities in the fight against climate change.BUY THIS BOOK
THE PATIENT IN THE WHITE COAT: My Odyssey from Health to Illness and Back By Rosalind Kaplan M’87 (Kaplan Publishing, 2010. $25.99.) An accidental stick from a needle infected with hepatitis C transformed Rosalind Kaplan from successful, healthy physician to debilitated, chronically ill patient. Kaplan, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Temple University Hospital, chronicles the experimental treatments, the difficulties of raising a newly formed family, and the hardship of maintaining her career throughout a period of illness. BUY THIS BOOK
CONFEDERATE RECKONING: Power and Politics in the Civil War South By Stephanie McCurry, faculty (Harvard University Press, 2010. $35.00.) Even as they fought against the Northern armies, the Confederate states faced an intense political battle that divided their own people. McCurry, professor of history at Penn, recounts how the Confederacy began to crumble from within as the disenfranchised majority—women and slaves—increasingly resisted its policies and, in the case of slaves, fled to the Union side. BUY THIS BOOK
