Princeton Weekly Bulletin June 21, 1999

In print

   

Inflation Targeting: Lessons From the International Experience, by Ben Bernanke, Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Thomas Laubach, Frederic Mishkin and Adam Posen. (Princeton University Press, 1999)

"The book begins by explaining the unique features and advantages of inflation targeting. The authors argue that the simplicity and openness of inflation targeting make it far easier for the public to understand the intent and effects of monetary policy. This strategy also increases policymakers' accountability for inflation performance and can accommodate flexible, even 'discretionary,' monetary policy actions without sacrificing central banks' credibility. The authors examine how well variants of this approach have worked in nine countries: Germany and Switzerland New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Israel, Spain and Australia." (from the book cover)

    

Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound: An Introduction to Psychoacoustics, edited by Assistant Professor of Computer Science Perry Cook. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1999)

"How hearing works and how the brain processes sounds entering the ear to provide the listener with useful information are of great interest to psychologists, cognitive scientists, and musicians. while a number of books have concentrated on individual aspects of this field, known as psychoacoustics, there has been no comprehensive introductory coverage of the multiple topics encompassed under the term. Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound is the first book to provide that coverage The book begins with introductory chapters on the basic physiology and functions of the ear and auditory sections of the brain, then proceeds to discuss numerous topics associated with the study of psychoacoustics, including cognitive psychology and the physics of sound An accompanying audio CD includes many sound examples to help explicate the text." (from the MIT Press catalog)

   

Reason and Emotion, by Stuart Professor of Philosophy John Cooper. (Princeton University Press, 1999)

"The volume gives a systematic account of many of the most important issues and texts in ancient moral psychology and ethical theory, providing a unified and illuminating way of reflecting on the fields as they developed from Socrates and Plato through Aristotle to Epicurus and the Stoic philosophers Chrysippus and Posidonius and beyond. Together these papers illustrate brilliantly how, by studying the arguments of the Greek philosophers in their diverse theories about the best human life and its psychological underpinnings, we can expand our own moral understanding and imagination and enrich our own moral thought." (from the book cover)

    

The Leisure Ethic: Work and Play in American Literature, 1840-1940, by Assistant Professor of English William Gleason. (Stanford University Press, 1999)

"Richly grounded in social, political and economic history, this book demonstrates the ways that discussions of leisure engaged the most pressing issues of the age: immigration, women's rights, public health, race relations, mass culture, and perhaps most important, the nature and meaning of work itself. Where turn-of-the-century recreation reformers envisioned play as the revivifying alternative to modern labor's assault on the self, American writers from Henry David Thoreau to Zora Neale Hurston found that vision too deeply indebted to the very system it sought to repair. The fatal flaw of play theory, these writers insisted, was its commitment to an ideology of fair play and teamwork drawn not from the spirit of the playground but from the production- and profit-minded ethos of corporate capitalism." (from the book cover)

   

Sounds From the Free-thinking, by Princeton University Monk/Mingus Ensemble. (No Comment Studios, Belleville, NJ, 1998)

"The Princeton University Monk/Mingus Ensemble, dedicated to the performance of works from the rich repertoires of the free-thinking Thelonious Sphere Monk and Charles Mingus, is one of several outstanding groups that are part of Princeton's award-winning and critically acclaimed jazz program under the direction of Anthony D.J. Branker [lecturer in Music]." (from the CD cover)

        

Unstately Power: Volume I (1998), Local Causes of China's Economic Reforms; and Volume II (1999), Local Causes of China's Intellectual, Legal and Governmental Reforms by Professor of Politics and International Affairs Lynn White. (M.E. Sharpe Inc)

"China's dramatic reforms are usually said to have been caused by the policies of state leaders under Deng Xiaoping. This new study shows, however, that reforms began and are maintained by local networks. … Their initiatives, which can be documented in the early 1970s … took materials and markets away from state industries. This caused socialist control of input prices and commodity flows to collapse by the mid-1980s. As a result, shortages and inflation bedeviled the economy, the state ran deficits, management decentralized, local banks proliferated and immigration to cities soared. Volume II shows how social diversification during the economic boom has modified political norms and public practices … In comparing China's current situation to that of other countries and their revolutions, it is clear that China's reforms have followed a similar pattern; as the revolution's wave crests, the tide predictably changes and symbolic and police centralization ebb as local governance rises." (from the book cover)