This week's "New Book of the Week" is meeting readers again. In this column, we will not only list good books to write a recommendation, but we will also give our own opinions on books that readers are concerned about or have just published, as far as possible within the scope of our own reading efficiency. If the content of a new book is very exciting, we will spare no effort to recommend it, and if the content of a book does not match its attention, we will also express our opinions unreservedly in the reference opinion. In order to more intuitively see our attitude towards a book, we will also add a "recommendation index", similar to the Douban score.
Of course, the judgment of any reading is personal, and our opinions may not be correct, and may even be biased, but they must be sincere. We're just providing a reference and hope to provide readers with a guide to reading (after all, this may also risk offending the publisher). If you have a new book that you are more hesitant about and want to know our attitude, please leave a comment in the comment area, and we will give our opinions as soon as possible.
Hot
Feminism from Scratch
Author: [Sun] Chikiko Ueno / [Sun] Eiko Tafusa
Translator: Lu Lingzhi
Version: Lucida | Beijing United Publishing Company
September 2021
Referral Index: ★★★★★
Recommended by: Qingqingzi
In the past few years, when people have mentioned feminism or discussed gender issues, Chizuru Ueno has been a name that cannot be bypassed. Even if you haven't read Misogyny, Patriarchy and Capitalism, you've seen her speech at the 2019 University of Tokyo Freshman Commencement Ceremony, such as the sentence that has been widely circulated on social media – "Feminism is by no means the idea of the weak trying to become strong, feminism is the idea that the weak can also be respected." ”
Feminism from Scratch is Chizuru Ueno's first feminist popular science book. Looking at the title, I also know that this is an introductory book on feminism for all. In addition to Chizuru Ueno, the author also has a manga artist Nagako Tabana who "doesn't know much about feminism". The two asked each other questions and answered questions about their respective experiences, Nagako Taba was frank and sincere, Chizuru Ueno was humorous and spicy, and a chat connected the feminist perspective, and also told the long-term confusion hidden in women's growth and life, such as:
"When a daughter and her mother argue fiercely, why does the father turn into a stone statue?"
"Who is to blame for the separation between working women and housewives?"
"Where do feminist unpopular, obnoxious labels come from?"
"What is uncle thinking?"
……
Reading this, it is not difficult for everyone to find that this book is not difficult and not too "ism". In my opinion, what it explores and presents is a feminist theory that has been born and developed in experience and practice, which is also expressed by Chizuru Ueno in the book, "If you don't turn feelings into words, you can't become experience."
In addition, for readers who love Ueno Chizuru, the book also reveals a lot of "gossip" information about her, such as why Ueno Chizuru became a feminist? A private interpretation that does not spoil is that learning feminism does mean constantly fighting the "good women" who are constantly working hard in their hearts.
economy
When The Economy Meets the Law
Author: Qiu Pengsheng
Edition: Zhejiang University Press | Kaijinkan
Recommendation Index: ★★★★ ☆
Recommended by: Luo Dong
The huge economic gap between modern China and Europe is one of the most classic topics in economic history. For a long time, this question was mostly mentioned as "why is China lagging behind in modern times", and its basic logic was to assume that Europe, especially the United Kingdom, was the standard for modern economic growth, and compared China to summarize the reasons for China's backwardness. At the end of the last century, there began to be some reflection in the academic circles, believing that the method of studying "why China lagged behind in modern times" was a kind of "Western-centrism" or "Eurocentrism". Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence was an early attempt to break through the "Eurocentrism" of economic history. Since then, more and more scholars have rethought that on the eve of the modern era, the economies of China and Europe are not much different, except for Europe's success, not China's backwardness. In other words, it was Europe's success, not China's backwardness, that led to the emergence of the "Great Divergence." The Chinese translation of The Great Divergence entered China in 2004. In this year, the mainland and Taiwan published simplified and traditional versions respectively.
Qiu Pengsheng, author of When The Economy Meets the Law: The Evolution of the Market in Ming and Qing Dynasties, who participated in the translation of the traditional version of The Great Divergence, agreed with some of Peng Mulan's basic views, the most important of which was to advocate getting rid of the "Eurocentrism". Because he also specializes in the study of legal history, he has always understood the development of the Ming and Qing markets from a legal point of view. In 2017, he published When Law Meets Economy: Business Law in Ming and Qing China, and now that the book is published, it's confusing to look at the title alone. At first glance, "When the Economy Meets the Law" and "When the Law Meets the Economy" seem to be the same book, but it is indeed two books, but it is like a kind of word game. This, of course, is a misunderstanding. We know that marketing activities are based on laws, and businessmen and others involved in market transactions need mutually agreed legal rules to establish contracts, confirm property rights and property rights, and solve disputes in the event of disputes. The question answered by Qiu Pengsheng's previous book was that in Chinese society during the Ming and Qing dynasties, although there were no commercial laws like the One in Britain, in fact there were no laws at work, but some were state laws, some were civil laws, and some were customary laws. In this new book, Qiu Pengsheng changed the position of "economy" and "law", and the focus actually shifted from law to market.
Even if we change the question of the classic question from "Why did China lag behind in modern times" to "Why did Europe succeed in modern times" or "Why did China not succeed in modern times", we may not be completely out of "Eurocentrism". It is precisely because of this that we are still asking why Chinese society did not have the conditions for successfully forming the needs of a modern economy like britain at that time, such as economic organization (such as enterprises, industry organizations, etc.), economic laws (such as laws to protect private property), and cultural concepts (such as recognition of private interests and profits). Qiu Pengsheng believes that China in the Ming and Qing dynasties did not appear, nor did it appear less, but only did not appear in the form and scale we think. By analyzing economic organizations such as suzhou merchant associations, Suzhou and Songjiang cotton fabric processing industries, Yunnan copper mining and Chongqing shipping industry, and supplemented by analyzing the debt litigation in them, he refuted the view that China's economy was not developing at that time. It can be seen that he is actually viewing market development as a process, which is very different from the practice of viewing market development as a result, that is, thinking that the time and place are favorable, the conditions are available, and the modern market form is about to emerge. From this point of view, his reference to "market evolution" (also reflected in the subtitle) can also be said to be a kind of market process theory. His analysis and writing in the book shows that the development of China's traditional market was not only stereotyped in the Ming and Qing dynasties, but even at the most demanding and conservative moral level, it also changed people's pursuit of profits, merchants accumulated wealth, and even had an impact on the legal system.
educate
Reimagining the University
Author: [Beauty] David Staley
Translator: Xu Zongling/Lin Danming/Gao Jian
Edition: Life, Reading, New Knowledge Triptych Bookstore
August 2021
Recommended by: Shen Chan
For students, higher education means more gold-rich diplomas, more competitive skills and a more pure academic place. However, digitalization in the 21st century has impacted the status of universities, and Internet education has made knowledge and skills no longer confined to university classrooms. On the other hand, the sensational news from the glory of the whole village to the sale of pork by Peking University graduates has caused the whole society to reflect on the "inflation" of the university diploma. There have been many essays in recent years that have tried to answer the question, will universities continue to exist in their current form?
Reimagining the University goes a step further, exploring with ample imagination what forms universities can take in the future to subvert the existing form of universities. The author, David Stirley, dean of the Institute of Humanities at Ohio State University, invited a group of designers, historians, and educational researchers to expand this imagination. In the end, they proposed ten university forms according to the different classifications of organization, academic system, technology and attributes, namely platform university, micro-college, humanities think tank, travel university, liberal arts university, interface university, human body university, advanced game research institute, polytechnic university and future university.
These ten university forms seem to fully take into account the development of existing university innovation and technology, and also try to think about the countermeasures for the university crisis proposed in other works, such as the platform university expanding the moOC education form, the interface university is to combine human-machine artificial intelligence development trend as one of the development directions of higher education, and the liberal arts university tries to restore the seven liberal arts skills of the medieval university. Although each of them is eliminating the shortcomings of today's universities, it is actually difficult to achieve.
As the author puts it, the need for "deviant" universities seems to be minimal. Higher education is more keen to benchmark other universities and emulate their peers, and everyone looks alike. So innovation, while imminent, may seem unrealistic. But it is this beautiful vision that reminds us once again of the role of the university, which should not only provide students with an optional "skills" catalog, but treat students as human beings who pursue truth and thus themselves.
Knowledge
"Seeing Life"
Author: [U.S.] Bruce Grayson
Translator: Yang Qingbo/Jiang Li
Edition: CITIC Publishing Group
Recommended by: Anya
In the 1970s, Bill, a 23-year-old U.S. Air Force crash rescue firefighter, was unconscious by the impact of a second explosion while participating in a rescue, and then he experienced a rather complex near-death experience. But after Bill recovered, he tried to share his experience with the doctors, but was placed to undergo psychiatric treatment.
What does life look like after death? Most near-death experiencers believe that people continue to exist in some form after death. In the eyes of some, near-death experiences may be some kind of mental illness, the illusion of the experiencer, or some kind of event that is close to the occult or religious. How should we understand a near-death experience when it may be interpreted in more than one way? Is this the result of physiological changes within the brain, or is it the experience of irrational thinking? In fact, many people have heard stories of near-death experiences similar to those in the book, which may come from relatives around them or from friends. But for these near-death experiences, the medical community often chooses to ignore them.
Fifty years ago, psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Grayson discovered by chance that a patient had a near-death experience—she "saw" a stain on Grayson's tie in another room while she was unconscious. To that end, Grayson spent decades researching and documenting it, and he wrote it into the book Seeing Life: A Doctor's Near-Death Experience Research Report. As a practicing therapist and psychiatrist, Grayson's research helps people understand their own unusual experiences. At the same time, awareness of near-death experiences is also beginning to influence medical practice. Grayson believes that a near-death experience is a common experience that can happen to anyone, and it is also a normal experience that happens to people in special situations. In his view, near-death experiences are not about death, but about transformation, about how to start over, about injecting new goals into our lives. From this perspective, his research may change our perception of the world, and thus our understanding of life and death.
Author | Editorial Board of Book Review Weekly
Edit | Li Yongbo; Qing Qingzi
Proofreading | Wang Xin