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Explore a selection of publications by alumni and academics, and books with a link to the University or Cambridge

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Let There Be Life. An Intimate Portrait of Robert Edwards

Let There Be Life. An Intimate Portrait of Robert Edwards

Roger Gosden (Darwin 1970)

 The authorized biography of IVF pioneer Robert Edwards is a compelling account of how he led a medical and social revolution by making babies in ‘test-tubes’. Prevailing against opposition when human embryology was new and sacrosanct territory, he was the champion of women and men with infertility, and now millions owe their existence to assisted reproductive technologies. An improbable hero of science, he was a coal miner’s son and a gritty Yorkshireman who rode a roller-coaster of endeavour to a breakthrough for which he was rewarded with a Nobel Prize and knighthood.

Imagined Futures

Imagined Futures

Max Saunders (Queens' 1976)

This study provides the first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series of 110 books, published by Kegan Paul Trench and Trübner (and E. P. Dutton in the USA) from 1923 to 1931, in which writers chose a topic, described its present, and predicted its future. Contributors included J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh McDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, André Maurois, and many others.

The Impact of Jesus in First-Century Palestine. Textual and Archaeological Evidence for Long-standing Discontent

The Impact of Jesus in First-Century Palestine. Textual and Archaeological Evidence for Long-standing Discontent

Rosemary-Margaret Luff (Lucy Cavendish 1972)

Although the archaeological evidence indicates a prosperous and thriving Galilee in the early first century CE, the Gospel texts suggest a society under stress, where the rich were flourishing at the expense of the poor. In this multi-disciplinary study, Rosemary Margaret Luff contributes to current debates concerning the pressures on early first-century Palestinian Jews, particularly with reference to socio-economic and religious issues.

Public Perception of International Crises: Identity, Ontological Security and Self-Affirmation

Public Perception of International Crises: Identity, Ontological Security and Self-Affirmation

Dmitry Chernobrov (Girton 2009)

How do people make sense of distant, but disturbing international events? Why are some representations more appealing than others? What do they mean for the perceiver’s own sense of self? Going beyond conventional analysis of political imagining and perception at the level of accuracy, this book reveals how self-conceptions are unconsciously, but centrally present in judgments and representations of international others.

Amateur Musical Societies and Sports Clubs in Provincial France, 1848-1914

Amateur Musical Societies and Sports Clubs in Provincial France, 1848-1914

Alan Baker, Life Fellow of Emmanuel College Cambridge, Iain Black, Senior Tutor of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and Robin Butlin, Emeritus Professor of Geography and Visiting Research Fellow, University of Leeds

This book explores leisure-related voluntary associations in France during the nineteenth century as practical expressions of the Revolutionary concept of fraternité. Using a mass of unpublished and hitherto unused sources in provincial and national archives, it analyses the history, geography and cultural significance of amateur musical societies and sports clubs in eleven departments of France between 1848 and 1914. Original research is set within the context of published historical studies of sociability in France as a whole.

Anarchy or Establishment

Anarchy or Establishment

Henry Thwaites

Lawrence Alderson has devoted much of his life to saving endangered breeds and maintaining biodiversity and was awarded the CBE for services to conservation. He matriculated in 1959 and lectured for four years after post-graduate studies before establishing an international consultancy for business management and animal breeding. In the latter capacity he has had a profound impact on global policies for genetic conservation and global warming. He was founder of Rare Breeds International and RBST and is a leading world authority on saving endangered breeds from extinction.

130 Years of Historical Geography at Cambridge 1888-2018

130 Years of Historical Geography at Cambridge 1888-2018

Alan Baker, Life Fellow of Emmanuel College Cambridge, Iain Black, Senior Tutor of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and Robin Butlin, Emeritus Professor of Geography and Visiting Research Fellow, University of Leeds

This book, published on 1 July 2019, is the outcome of an investigation of the changing character of historical geography as conceived, taught at, researched at, and disseminated from, one institution - the Department of Geography of the University of Cambridge - from the late-nineteenth  century. An explanatory history is given of historical geography within a major department of an ancient English university, but viewed within broader geographical and historical contexts.

The Bad Trip: Dark Omens, New Worlds and the End of the Sixties

The Bad Trip: Dark Omens, New Worlds and the End of the Sixties

James Riley - Faculty of English

The Sixties, for many, was a time of new ideas, freedom, and renewed hope – from the civil rights movement to Woodstock. But towards the end of 1969 and the start of the 1970s, everything seemed to implode. The Manson murders, the tragic events of the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont and the appearance of the Zodiac Killer all called a halt to the progress of a glorious decade. At the end of the Sixties, the hippie dream died – or so the story goes.

How to have a mindful pregnancy

How to have a mindful pregnancy

Mark Pallis (Hughes Hall 2001) and Sian Warriner

How to have a Mindful Pregnancy is perfect for mothers-to-be and their partners. Whether you are new to mindfulness or practice regularly, whether you are rushed off your feet or have spare time, these 30 tried and tested exercises will help you easily and gently bring the benefits of mindfulness to your life, helping you feel more connected to your body and your baby.

Unravelling the Double Helix: the lost heroes of DNA

Unravelling the Double Helix: the lost heroes of DNA

Gareth Williams (Clare 1971)

NA. The double helix; the blueprint of life; and, during the early 1950s, a baffling enigma that could win a Nobel Prize. Everyone knows that James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix. In fact, they clicked into place the last piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle that other researchers had assembled over decades. Researchers like Maurice Wilkins (the ‘Third Man of DNA’) and Rosalind Franklin, famously demonised by Watson. Not forgetting the ‘lost heroes’ who fought to prove that DNA is the stuff of genes, only to be airbrushed out of history.

Robbie: The Life of Sir Robert Jennings

Robbie: The Life of Sir Robert Jennings

Christine Jennings

Robbie Jennings came from Idle, an industrial village in Yorkshire; but he was never an idle man.  His career was a ‘story of the unforeseeable, even improbable, advance to high position and worldwide reputation of a straightforward man of simple origins’ (from his entry in the ODNB by Sir Franklin Berman). Robbie achieved this eminence through academic success, experience abroad, service in military intelligence, years of teaching at Cambridge and the Inns of Court, and as counsel in major international border disputes.

Understand, Manage, and Prevent Algorithmic Bias: A Guide for Business Users and Data Scientists

Prevent Algorithmic Bias: A Guide for Business Users and Data Scientists

Tobias Baer (Wolfson 2015)

Drawing on his background in both psychology and data science, Tobias argues that there are 6 major sources of algorithmic bias (ranging from statistical artifacts and at least 6 distinct types of data issues to human biases of data scientists, users, as well as society at large) and that both data scientists and business users of algorithms (including managers and government agencies) can and need to contribute to fighting algorithmic bias.

It Keeps Me Seeking: The Invitation from Science, Philosophy and Religion

It Keeps Me Seeking: The Invitation from Science, Philosophy and Religion

Andrew Briggs (Queens' 1973)

Here is a fresh look at how science contributes to the bigger picture of human flourishing, through a collage of science and philosophy, richly illustrated by the authors' own experience and personal reflection. They survey the territory of fundamental physics, machine learning, philosophy of human identity, evolutionary biology, miracles, arguments from design, naturalism, the history of ideas, and more. The natural world can be appreciated not only for itself, but also as an eloquent gesture, a narrative and a pointer beyond itself.

The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions

The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions

Andrew Briggs (Queens' 1973)

When young children first begin to ask 'why?' they embark on a journey with no final destination. The need to make sense of the world as a whole is an ultimate curiosity that lies at the root of all human religions. It has, in many cultures, shaped and motivated a more down to earth scientific interest in the physical world, which could therefore be described as penultimate curiosity.

LIfe and Love in Nazi Prague: Letters from an Occupied City

LIfe and Love in Nazi Prague: Letters from an Occupied City

Marie Bader (1886-1942), edited by Kate Ottevanger and Jan Lánícek

Prague, 1940-1942. The Nazi-occupied city is locked in a reign of terror under Reinhard Heydrich. The Jewish community experience increasing levels of persecution, as rumours start to swirl of deportation and an unknown, but widely feared, fate. Amidst the chaos and devastation, Marie Bader, a widow age 56, has found love again with a widower, her cousin Ernst Löwy. Ernst has fled to Greece and the two correspond in a series of deeply heartfelt letters which provide a unique perspective on this period of heightening tension and anguish for the Jewish community.

A Doctor's Lucky Life

A Doctor's Lucky Life

Peter Emerson (Clare 1941)

Peppered with memories of patients with remarkable problems, this is the story of a doctor’s journey through decades of healthcare from medical school in war-torn London and qualifying to be a happy junior doctor in 1947. Laced with a blend of healthy cynicism and joie de vivre he describes his subsequent career treating and researching old and new diseases, with appointments in high places providing first-hand insights into the great strengths and occasional weaknesses of the colleagues with whom he worked.

A Proposition for a Multilateral Carbon Tax Treaty

A Proposition for a Multilateral Carbon Tax Treaty

Tatiana Falcao (Darwin 2007)

This book proposes a multilateral framework through which countries may tax mineral resources (oil, gas and coal) and capture the full polluting potential of those energy resources through the tax. The framework is designed so that the tax is only levied once through the mineral resources’ production chain. A compensation mechanism is proposed to account for non-combusted carbon by-products.

The book thus addresses the following issues:

• which type of tax is the most appropriate to capture oil, gas and coal’s polluting ability;

Whistleblowing: Toward a new theory

Whistleblowing: Toward a new theory

Kate Kenny (Darwin 2003)

Despite their substantial contribution to society, whistleblowers are considered martyrs more than heroes. When people expose serious wrongdoing in their organizations, they are often punished or ignored. Many end up isolated by colleagues, their professional careers destroyed. The financial industry, rife with scandals, is the focus of Kate Kenny’s penetrating global study.

Time and the Generations

Time and the Generations

Partha Dasgupta (John's 1962)

How should we evaluate the ethics of procreation, especially the environmental consequences of reproductive decisions on future generations, in a resource-constrained world? While demographers, moral philosophers, and environmental scientists have separately discussed the implications of population size for sustainability, no one has attempted to synthesize the concerns and values of these approaches.

A Book of Secrets

A Book of Secrets

Kate Morrison (Murray Edwards 1998)

A Book of Secrets tells the story of a West African girl hunting for her lost brother through an Elizabethan underworld of spies, plots and secret Catholic printing presses. Susan Charlewood is taken from Ghana (then known as Guinea) as a baby. Brought to England, she grows up as maidservant in a wealthy Catholic household. Living under a Protestant Queen in late 16th Century England, the family risk imprisonment or death unless they keep their faith hidden. When her mistress dies Susan is married off to a London printer who is deeply involved in the Catholic resistance.

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