UDM Libraries Book of the Week

China’s Rise: challenges and opportunities

by C. Fred Bergsten, Charles Freeman, Nicholas R. Lardy and  Derek J. Mitchell

The global economic crisis has made clear China’s importance and expanding role on the world stage. The bestselling book, China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities explains actions both China and the United States can take that will not only maximize the opportunities for China’s constructive integration into the international community, but also help form a domestic consensus that will provide a stable foundation for such policies. This book is unique in its analysis of the authoritative data on China’s economy, foreign and domestic policy, and national security. China is confronting domestic challenges that are in many ways side effects of its economic successes, while simultaneously trying to take advantage of the foreign policy benefits of those same successes.

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Number story:  from counting to cryptography

by Peter M. Higgins

Peter Higgins distills centuries of work into one delightful narrative that celebrates the mystery of numbers and explains how different kinds of numbers arose and why they are useful. Full of historical snippets and interesting examples, the book ranges from simple number puzzles and magic tricks, to showing how ideas about numbers relate to real-world problems, such as: How are our bank account details kept secure when shopping over the internet? What are the chances of winning at Russian roulette; or of being dealt a flush in a poker hand?

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Building a century of progress: the architecture of Chicago’s 1933-34 World’s Fair

by Lisa D. Schrenk

In the richly illustrated Building a Century of Progress, Lisa D. Schrenk explores the pivotal role of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair in modern American architecture. She recounts how the exposition’s architectural commission promoted a broad definition of modern architecture, not relying on purely aesthetic characteristics but instead focusing on new design solutions. The fair’s pavilions incorporated recently introduced building materials such as masonite and gypsum board; structural innovations (for example, the first thin-shell concrete roof and the first suspended roof structures built in the United States); and new construction processes, most notably the use of prefabrication.

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by Wendy Doniger

The Hindus brings a fascinating multiplicity of actors and stories to the stage to show how brilliant and creative thinkers—many of them far removed from Brahmin authors of Sanskrit texts—have kept Hinduism alive in ways that other scholars have not fully explored. In this unique and authoritative account, debates about Hindu traditions become platforms from which to consider the ironies, and overlooked epiphanies, of history.

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