Amherst Reads All Books

From the publisher: 

From a multidisciplinary perspective grounded in psychoanalysis, this book explores the manifestations of mind that distinguish humans from other species, culture, civilization, and destructiveness.

Psychoanalysis was created by Freud in an effort to understand neurosis and psychosis, the names he gave to individual human destructiveness. His understanding was limited and incorrect because the science of evolution and the disciplines of sociology and cultural anthropology were in their infancy when he formulated his ideas. He did not comprehend that destructiveness is qualitatively different in humans than in other species and he ignored the problem of how biological instincts become mental processes. These limitations left psychoanalysis with one of its most perplexing unsolved problems, the mysterious leap from mind to body. This book explains how neoteny, the prolonged period of postnatal immaturity that distinguishes humans from other animals, requires and enables complex learning from caregivers. It is the knowledge acquired from this learning and its intergenerational transmission that links the biological theory of evolution with the psychosocial theory of psychoanalysis and explains how the human species is unique.

This book will be of interest to those who want to learn about how integrating the findings of evolutionary science, primatology, sociology, and cultural anthroplogy with the theory of psychoanalysis expands our understanding of what makes humans unique and its implications for the future of our species, and how it empowers us to influence the destiny of humankind. 

From the publisher:

Through an integrated multi-disciplinary theory, Michael Robbins proposes that the human mind consists of two mental structures: the one we share with other animate creatures and a capacity for reflective representational thought which is unique.

As an alternative to Freud’s model of the human mind as structured by the id, ego, and superego, this book contends that the prolonged period of post-natal immaturity – otherwise known as neoteny – which is specific to humans, gives rise to reflective representational thought that in turn allows for the acquisition of complex knowledge. Robbins examines how Freud’s conception of the human mind was limited by his ignorance of the related disciplines of sociology, primatology, cultural anthropology, and most notably evolution, which were then in their infancy, to explore the implications of the non-unitary nature of the human mind for us as individuals, as a society, and for our future as a species.

Drawing on a broad range of influences from psychoanalysis to anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, and politics, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of these disciplines alike.

From the publisher:

In the course of my long professional career as a psychoanalyst I have written about how mind works, about personality and self-development, dreaming, language, culture, destructiveness, psychosis and more. I have never thought of myself as a poet. Over the past half-century, emotions surrounding particular experiences have moved me to write poems. Recently I realized that I had accumulated 26 of them. They describe aspects of my journey through life. To my pleasant surprise, IPbooks has agreed to help me offer them to you.

From the publisher: 

Drinking yerba mate is a daily, communal ritual that has brought together South Americans for some five centuries. In lively prose and with vivid illustrations, Rebekah E. Pite explores how this Indigenous infusion, made from the naturally caffeinated leaves of a local holly tree, became one of the most distinctive and widely consumed beverages in the region.

Latin American food and commodity studies have focused on consumption in the global north, but Pite tells the story of yerba mate in South America, illuminating dynamic and exploitative circuits of production, promotion, and consumption. Ideas about who should harvest and serve yerba mate, along with visions of the archetypical mate drinker, persisted and were transformed alongside the shifting politics of class, race, and gender.

This global history takes us from the colonial Río de la Plata to the top yerba-consuming and producing nations of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with excursions to Chile, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, where yerba mate is now sold as a "superfood." For readers eager to understand South America and its unique drink, Sharing Yerba Mate is an essential text that delves into an everyday ritual to expose systems of power and the taste of belonging.

About the author:

Rebekah Pite '95 is a historian, writer, and food scholar. She’s the author of numerous articles and three books, most recently, Sharing Yerba Mate. Her first two books focus on the fascinating story of Argentina’s most important culinary legend. Creating a Common Table in Twentieth-Century Argentina: Doña Petrona, Women, and Food (UNC Press, 2013) won the Gourmand and Chile-Río de la Plata LASA prize. Three years later she published a deeply revised version directed to an Argentine audience called La mesa está servida. Doña Petrona C. de Gandulfo y la domesticidad del Siglo XX (Edhasa, 2016).  She is currently a professor and the head of the History department at Lafayette College.

From the publisher:

Education Lead(her)ship exposes the systemic obstacles that impede the professional advancement of women in K–12 education and offers readers the tools to recognize and combat these inequities. In this rousing work, educational leadership scholars Jennie Weiner '00 and Monica Higgins investigate patterns of gender bias in the profession, prompted by the observation that, although the great majority of classroom educators are women, disproportionately few women inhabit leadership positions such as principal, superintendent, or school administrator.

Through candid interviews with more than 200 women educational leaders, Weiner and Higgins pinpoint implicit and explicit means of repression and highlight the resources that these leaders have marshaled to punch through systemic barriers. The interviewees recount the many forms of sexism and racism they have confronted in the workplace, including microaggressions, stereotypes about women's work, and the expectation of uncompensated emotional labor.  

About the author:

Dr. Jennie Miles Weiner is an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Connecticut and was a guest associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in fall 2020. She is affiliated with UConn’s Center for Education Policy Analysis, Research and Evaluation and previously served as the codirector of the school’s EdD program. Her scholarship focuses on issues of educational leadership and organizational change, including teacher leadership and capacity building the impact of gender and racial discrimination in educational leadership. She has recently appeared as an expert on issues of women, leadership, and care work for a variety of events and on media outlets, such as Good Morning America and NPR, as well as on a variety of podcasts and is the co-author of the new book Education Lead(her)ship: Advancing Women in K-12 Administration with Dr. Monica Higgins. She is also the co-author of The Strategy Playbook for Education Leaders with Dr. Isobel Stevenson. 

From a fierce and humorous new voice comes a relevant, insightful, and riveting collection of personal essays on the richness and resilience of black girl culture—for readers of Samantha Irby, Roxane Gay, Morgan Jerkins, and Lindy West. 

Shayla Lawson is major. You don’t know who she is. Yet. But that’s okay. She is on a mission to move black girls like herself from best supporting actress to a starring role in the major narrative. Whether she’s taking on workplace microaggressions or upending racist stereotypes about her home state of Kentucky, she looks for the side of the story that isn’t always told, the places where the voices of black girls haven’t been heard.

The essays in This is Major ask questions like: Why are black women invisible to AI? What is “black girl magic”? Or: Am I one viral tweet away from becoming Twitter famous? And: How much magic does it take to land a Tinder date?

With a unique mix of personal stories, pop culture observations, and insights into politics and history, Lawson sheds light on these questions, as well as the many ways black women and girls have influenced mainstream culture—from their style, to their language, and even their art—and how “major” they really are.

Timely, enlightening, and wickedly sharp, This Is Major places black women at the center—no longer silenced, no longer the minority.

From the publisher: ide away on a 'round-the-world adventure of a lifetime—with only a change of clothes and a pearl-handled revolver—in this trascendent novel inspired by the life of Annie Londonderry.

“Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”—Susan B. Anthony

Who was Annie Londonderry? She captured the popular imagination with her daring ‘round the world trip on two wheels. It was, declared The New York World in October of 1895, “the most extraordinary journey ever undertaken by a woman.”

But beyond the headlines, Londonderry was really Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, a young, Jewish mother of three small children, who climbed onto a 42-pound Columbia bicycle and pedaled away into history.

Reportedly set in motion by a wager between two wealthy Boston merchants, the bet required Annie not only to circle the earth by bicycle in 15 months, but to earn $5,000 en route, as well. This was no mere test of a woman’s physical endurance and mental fortitude; it was a test of a woman’s ability to fend for herself in the world.

Often attired in a man’s riding suit, Annie turned every Victorian notion of female propriety on its head. Not only did she abandon, temporarily, her role of wife and mother (scandalous in the 1890s), she earned her way selling photographs of herself, appearing as an attraction in stores, and by turning herself into a mobile billboard.

Zheutlin, a descendent of Annie, brilliantly probes the inner life and seeming boundless courage of this outlandish, brash, and charismatic woman. In a time when women could not vote and few worked outside the home, Annie was a master of public relations, a consummate self-promoter, and a skillful creator of her own myth. Yet, for more than a century her remarkable story was lost to history. In SPIN, this remarkable heroine and her marvelous, stranger-than-fiction story is vividly brought to life for a new generation.

From the publisher:

For the first time in league history, NBA coaches and general managers are just as likely to have played Division III basketball as they are to have played in the NBA. While the number of former D3 players working in the NBA is higher than ever, small college alums have served in leadership positions since the league’s founding. They shaped the NBA into what it is today, playing integral roles in the Lakers’ initial success in Los Angeles, the inception of several expansion franchises, the creation of the popular All-Star Weekend dunk contest, the globalization of the league, and more. The narrative is anchored by the story of Andrew Olson, Amherst Class of 2008, who is now a shooting coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

About the author:

Ben Kaplan '09 graduated from Amherst College in 2009, where he gained an intimate understanding of Division III athletics as both a member of the varsity basketball team and a student assistant in the sports information department. He is currently an analytics executive in the sports and entertainment business.

From the publisher:

The majority of commercial ventures might end in failure, but the world would be a poorer place without invention.

This is the story of 50 truly remarkable inventions, from personal helicopters to ‘swimming’ tanks; from flying aircraft carriers (that kept crashing) to a pedal-powered blimp you could barely steer; from an aerial rowing boat you couldn’t navigate to a portable nuclear weapon that killed the men who fired it… these inventions were not only misguided, but demonstrate their inventors’ remarkable gift for out-of-the-box thinking nobody ever asked for. Most importantly, every single one was built, field tested, and worked (more or less) as planned, even when their inventor died in the test phase.

Full of surprises, this is a fun and fast-paced journey through the world of WETech that will make you shake your head in wonder. What in the world were they thinking?

About the author:

John J. Geoghegan' 79 has authored four non-fiction books, served as a Special Correspondent for the New York Times, worked for the Doubleday Publishing Group in New York City, been employed as an editor in the magazine and newspaper businesses, has published over a hundred magazine and newspaper articles, taught freelance writing at Fairfield University, and continues to teach at UC, Berkeley and the University of San Francisco.

From the publisher:

Life is comfortable for a prominent, if schlubby, developer at a New York City blockchain company. That is, until FBI Special Agent Diane Duménil seeks his help against a bewildering threat: The Delphians, worshippers of the god Apollo, have launched a rogue program on a blockchain. It’s offering a crypto bounty to assassinate a European archaeology professor.

The developer brushes off the danger until he learns the next target: Himself.

Mythical antiquity collides with a near-future cyberworld as The Oracle’s unassuming hero and his FBI partner race against time to dismantle the Delphians’ murderous blockchain software. Theirs is a whirlwind tale of oracles ancient and modern, vanished antiquities and conjured crypto billions, cybercriminals and digital idealists—narrated by a cynical hero normally more concerned with dark chocolate than the consequences of the technologies he’s pioneering. What happens when the crypto ideals of privacy and truth might cost human lives—especially your own?

About the author:

Ari Juels '91 is a faculty member at Cornell Tech and Cornell University. He is the author of well over one hundred widely cited and influential research publications, along with a previous techno-thriller, Tetraktys, published in 2010.

From Publishers Weekly:

Every day, 11-year-old aspiring naturalist Samantha Tabitha Smith visits the Field, an overrun patch of wilderness where nature flourishes. There she works on her journal, observing and studying the local flora and fauna. When she meets budding nature photographer Bram Layton, who’s a year ahead of her in school, she initially resents his presence in her space, but the two swiftly bond over their love of science and the Field, which they name Winghaven. To showcase Winghaven’s importance, they spend the summer studying the resident monarch butterflies and their relationship to the ecosystem. But when it looks as if they’ll lose their space to encroaching property developers, they must fight for what they love. In this gently passionate tribute to natural spaces, a children’s debut, Moreira adeptly brings the setting to life via detailed descriptions of wildlife and foliage alongside pen illustrations from Sammie’s journal. Grounding environmental awareness and deforestation worries with Sammie’s personal struggles surrounding dealing with bullies and managing her temper, Moreira delivers a fulfilling tale. Major characters cue as white. Notes for young naturalists conclude.

The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence is a work about Italian Jews, Christians, and the institutions and policies that organized their relationship. It sets the 1570 decision of the Medici government to ghettoize the Jews of Tuscany in the context of early modern statecraft and in the climate of the Catholic (or Counter-) Reformation. While readers have had access to studies of the ghettos of Rome and Venice, this is the first study of the Jews of Tuscany available in English, and the first and only study of the Florentine ghetto based on sustained archival research. The story of the forced ghettoization of Tuscan Jews allows the author to explore the "spatialization of power," the construction of Jewish community, and the reorganization of gender roles, leading to three broad arguments of great significance to readers interested in Italian history, Jewish history, urban history, and the history of women.

Traditionally, Aristotle is held to believe that philosophical contemplation is valuable for its own sake, but ultimately useless. In this volume, Matthew D. Walker offers a fresh, systematic account of Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good. The book situates Aristotle's views against the background of his wider philosophy, and examines the complete range of available textual evidence (including neglected passages from Aristotle's Protrepticus). On this basis, Walker argues that contemplation also benefits humans as perishable living organisms by actively guiding human life activity, including human self-maintenance. Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good thus cohere with his broader thinking about how living organisms live well. A novel exploration of Aristotle's views on theory and practice, this volume will interest scholars and students of both ancient Greek ethics and natural philosophy. It will also appeal to those working in other disciplines including classics, ethics, and political theory.

From the publisher: Exploring art made in Latin America during the 1930s and 1940s, Hemispheric Integration argues that Latin America’s position within a global economic order was crucial to how art from that region was produced, collected, and understood. Niko Vicario analyzes art’s relation to shifting trade patterns, geopolitical realignments, and industrialization to suggest that it was in this specific era that the category of Latin American art developed its current definition. Focusing on artworks by iconic Latin American modernists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros, Joaquín Torres-García, Cândido Portinari, and Mario Carreño, Vicario emphasizes the materiality and mobility of art and their connection to commerce, namely the exchange of raw materials for manufactured goods from Europe and the United States. An exceptional examination of transnational culture, this book provides a new model for the study of Latin American art.