NOTABLE BOOKS
1935 »
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The Columbia Encyclopedia is a reference tool that uniquely combines brevity with quality. First published in 1935, the Encyclopedia is a concise, curated source of knowledge that still resonates today.
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A N N T H O R N TO N Vice provost and university librarian
1952 »
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Salo Baron’s magisterial control of primary materials in multiple languages stands as a breathtaking model for a universal history of the Jewish people. A Social and Religious History of the Jews pivoted the writing of Jewish history away from the tearful model of earlier generations; it provides a touchstone for the spirit of Jewish history until this day.
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E L I S H E VA C A R L E B A C H Salo Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society and director, Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies
1959 »
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Man, the State, and War fundamentally redefined the intellectual underpinnings of realism as the stilldominant approach to understanding international politics. Waltz reshaped earlier ideas that jumbled together philosophical notions about human nature with folk wisdom about power politics, replacing them with a more rigorous statement about the implications of international anarchy for the endemic danger of war. After this book, all the rest is commentary. JAC K S N Y D E R
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Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations
1961 »
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Led from inception to completion by Harold C. Syrett, the Hamilton papers project is a monument of historical scholarship. Providing teachers as well as researchers with authoritative texts of Hamilton’s far-sighted work is a great and permanent public service.
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ANDREW DELBANCO Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies
1964 »
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From its first appearance, Sources of Chinese Tradition transformed education in Chinese studies in this country by making large numbers of classical and modern Chinese texts accessible to readers not trained in Chinese and to their teachers. In its successive editions it has remained a curricular mainstay throughout the English-reading world and will remain so into the future. Sources is a monument to Wm. Theodore de Bary’s lifelong belief in the possibility of a common curriculum for global citizens.
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ROBERT HYMES Carpentier Professor of Chinese History
1972 »
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Since its first publication in 1972, Alfred and Goldie Kadushin’s The Social Work Interview has stood as the definitive manual for conducting effective and sensitive client interviews. Few writers could have so gracefully merged the scholarship of the academy and the wisdom of practitioners, and only one press could have supported such an effort. IRWIN GARFINKEL Mitchell I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems, School of Social Work
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1977 »
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The Anarchical Society is one of the few books that is as relevant today as when first published. The reason is that Bull tackled the essential questions of world politics with breadth of knowledge, acuity of thinking, and imaginativeness of conception. No one has done a better job than Bull in elucidating the seemingly paradoxical features of the international realm as a society, albeit not a well-integrated one, and simultaneously lacking overarching sovereignty. ROBERT JERVIS Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs
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1981 »
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Learning to Labor is the finest ethnography of schooling ever produced. Its insights into the intersections of class and masculinity remain relevant more than forty years later. Willis’s work is a model of how careful, creative, empirical work can generate a sharp theoretical understanding of how and why people live their lives in the ways they do.
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SHAMUS KHAN Professor of sociology
1984 »
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Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror, which theorizes the notion of the ‘abject’ in a series of blisteringly insightful analyses, is as relevant, as necessary, and as courageous today as it seemed in 1984. Powers of Horror has powers: to strip away defenses, to unsettle every border, and, by bringing us face to face with the profound ambiguity of the abject, to uncover ‘the foul lining of society.’ PETER CONNOR Professor of French, Barnard
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1985 »
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Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Between Men, one of the twentieth century’s landmark works of literary criticism, remains to this day one of the most generative syntheses of feminist and anti-homophobic thought ever produced. Stylish and impassioned, trenchant and expansive, as relevant now as when it was first published, this is a book to read and read again. SHARON MARCUS Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature
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1987 »
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‘My juvenilia,’ is how Judith Butler thinks of it, but Butler’s first book is much more than a document testifying to the beginnings of a stellar career. With two words (and one name)—subject, desire, Hegel—the book establishes crucial vectors that have guided Butler’s reflections, that orient and return her writing to a reading of these terms and to the readers of these terms (Foucault, of course, but also Deleuze and Derrida, Freud and Lacan). Subjects of Desire invites us to recall that Butler is perhaps first of all an acute and remarkable reader of philosophical texts.
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G I L A N I DJA R Professor of religion
1988 »
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This is the book that sparked the creation of a new feminist history. Scott insists on a radical intervention in theories of knowledge and meaning if we are to understand relationships of gender and power. More than thirty years after their original publication, these classic essays remain as significant and inspiring as ever.
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ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS R. Gordon Hoxie Professor Emerita of American History
1990 »
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The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity remains a foundational and exemplary scholarly exploration of the ascetic impulse in early Christian history. The book bears the stamp of Brown’s wit, historical empathy, and signature style as he revivifies the personalities and perspectives of ancient women and men who devoted themselves to the radical practice of renunciation as the best means by which they could embody their devotion to God. ELIZABETH CASTELLI Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Religion
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1993 »
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How can a society with diverse points of view give legitimacy to a state with coercive powers to implement the same laws for all? How might we seek justice, legitimacy, and stability in concert at once? These are the complex yet fundamental questions that this classic work struggles to answer with an account that is politically rather than metaphysically grounded. It is a noble struggle by the most important political philosopher in the English-speaking world in the last half century. A K E E L B I LG R A M I Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy
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1993 »
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The Field of Cultural Production gathers Pierre Bourdieu’s most important essays on art, literature, and culture, written at the height of his intellectual power. Since its publication, twenty-five years ago, it has done more to define the sociology of culture than any other text. If you’re picking up Bourdieu for the first time, this is where you start. If you’ve read Bourdieu on countless occasions, this is where you return for new insights. SHAMUS KHAN Professor of sociology
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1995 »
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Few historians have expanded, as much as Caroline Walker Bynum has, the landscape in which we locate the body. More than the soul, it is the body that she finds across a thousand-year Christian tradition, surveying a plethora of sources, arguments, reflections, and resurrections. A truly groundbreaking book that has changed the practice of history and truly transformed the meaning of the word “medieval.” Bynum’s work is as magisterial concerning the past as when it engages our present predicaments.
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G I L A N I DJA R Professor of religion
1996 »
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This insightful book brings great analytical power and historical depth to a contested subject. It unearths the deep links between corporations and defense. It exposes the shallowness and deceit in many liberal orthodoxies as well as humanitarian interventions. It demonstrates the nature of the U.S. and Israeli cynicism that underlies the so-called peace process in the Middle East. And it reveals the continuities in the relations of power between the old world order and the new. Indispensable reading for understanding the world that we inhabit and that we have made.
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A K E E L B I LG R A M I Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy
1996 »
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Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari explain why the question, ‘What is philosophy?’ can only be posed as the last stage of the enterprise of philosophizing. Yet the response here is that what the pursuit discovers at the end is nothing autumnal. What it finds is its spring, its youth, and the joy of beginning: they call it ‘creation.’
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S O U L E Y M A N E B AC H I R D I AG N E Professor of philosophy
1996 »
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Building and expanding on the territory of the historian in many directions and areas opened up by the Ecole des Annales tradition, Realms of Memory radically shifted understanding the history of France, the discipline of history, and the unsettled production of a singular universal (of the republic and the nation). Bold and provocative, the volumes are a lightning rod for controversies centering on collective identity, nation, and citizenship, as well as memory and historical processes.
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MAMADOU DIOUF Leitner Family Professor of African Studies, director, Institute for African Studies
1998 »
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Bruce Hoffman was one of the best analysts of terrorism long before September 11. This classic work capitalizes on his whole career and should be required reading for any who aim to be serious students of the problem.
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RICHARD BETTS Leo A. Shifrin Professor of War and Peace Studies and Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies
1998 »
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Yoshida Kenkō wrote the fragments that became Essays in Idleness in the fourteenth century, and the volume quickly became one of the central texts of the Japanese tradition. In particular, Kenkō’s observations on the relationship between ephemerality and beauty had a profound influence on a development of Japanese art. Donald Keene’s timeless translation captures the charm of Kenkō’s voice, which continues to delight readers to this day. B E R N A R D FA U R E Kao Professor of Japanese Religion
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2004 »
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Edward Said’s eloquent call for an invigorated humanism has never been more relevant. Rejecting elite notions that view humanism as an affirmation of traditional values, he instead likens humanism’s tools to a ‘technique of trouble,’ unsettling established ideas and opposing orthodoxies that stifle critical understanding. Said’s passionate appeal to humanism’s special place in modernity is grounded in its inclusiveness—its values of participatory citizenship clearly at variance with discrimination and exclusivity as markers of cultural capital.
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G A U R I V I S WA N AT H A N Class of 1933 Professor in the Humanities
2007 »
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Don Prothero’s Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters is a terrific blend of rigorous science and clear and compelling writing. Aiming his text squarely at the ‘fake news’ of creationism, Prothero delivers a ringing account of how the fossil record sharpens our understanding of the evolutionary process. Prothero’s presentation of the fossil record is compelling and should be required reading for all with an interest in the history of life and what it tells us of the basic workings of the evolutionary process.
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NILES ELDREDGE Curator emeritus, American Museum of Natural History
2011 »
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The Most Important Thing is one of the most important books on investing ever written. Produced by a leading investor who has succeeded across the full range of modern investing environments, it highlights the critical importance of temperate and intellectual distance in navigating the shifting tides of financial markets. At the same time it is rich in high-quality analysis of particular investing situations. B R U C E G R E E N WA L D Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management
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2014 »
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If one’s attention is on the economic long run and the processes involved in economic change, innovation and learning quickly can be seen as occupying the center of the stage. Unfortunately, for the last half century, the bulk of the attention in microeconomic theorizing has been on economic statics, which is blind to these variables. This book is a welcome exception. RICHARD NELSON
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Emeritus George Blumenthal Professor of International and Public Affairs, Business, and Law
2014 »
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Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway puncture complacency about the impact of climate change by offering their readers an all-too-possible scenario for our future. They remind us of our everyday reluctance to guard against the many ways in which our lives can fall apart—and thereby call us to action before it is too late.
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P H I L I P K I TC H E R John Dewey Professor of Philosophy
2015 »
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This text is an important work of interdisciplinary scholarship and advocacy and is a vital read for anyone interested in sustainable development issues. As all of Sachs’s books, it is the work of a master communicator. The Age of Sustainable Development expertly synthesizes an emerging literature about sustainability and provides a vision grounded in the natural and social sciences, economics, and policy. Sachs provides a compelling and holistic framework for tackling some of the world’s most complicated problems.
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STEVEN COHEN Executive director, Earth Institute
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125 BOOKS FOR 125 YEARS
Franz Boas, Anthropology 1908 John Dewey, Ethics 1908 Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States 1908 George Edmund Haynes, The Negro at Work in New York City 1908 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science 1923–1958 (8 VOLU MES)
George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage
1927–1949
(49 VOLU MES)
Margaret Mead, An Inquiry Into the Question of Cultural Stability in Polynesia Jacques Barzun, The French Race: Theories of Its Origins and Their Social and Political Implications Prior to the Revolution Reinhold Niebuhr, The Contribution of Religion to Social Work Walt Whitman, I Sit and Look Out: Editorials, from the Brooklyn Daily Times The Columbia Encyclopedia ( F I RST EDI TI ON) Ruth Benedict, Zuni Mythology William Howard Taft, Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers, introduction by Nicholas Murray Butler Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Ralph Leslie Rusk Edith Granger, Granger's Index to Poetry and Recitations
1928 1932 1932 1932 1935 1935 1938 1939 1940
(3 RD E D IT ION )
Theos Bernard, Hatha Yoga, The Report of a Personal Experience Harrold C. Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 1865-1998 Jane Addams, Peace and Bread in Time of War, with a new introductory essay by John Dewey Donald Grout, A Short History of Opera Homer Ulrich, Chamber Music Lionel Trilling, Matthew Arnold ( 2ND EDI TI ON) Moses Hadas, A History of Greek Literature Béla Bartók, Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World James Bryant Conant, Modern Science and Modern Man
1944 1944 1945 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1951 1952 1952
Lewis Mumford, Art and Technics 1952 Alexander Pushkin, Boris Godunov, 1953 edited and translated by Philip Barbour Hector Berlioz, New Letters of Berlioz, 1830-1868, with introduction, 1954 notes, and English translation by Jacques Barzun Luigi Pirandello, Right You Are! 1954 Richard Hofstadter, Academic Freedom in the Age of the College 1955 William York Tindall, The Literary Symbol 1955 Ivan S. Turgenev, Rudin, edited by Galina Stilman 1955 Babette Deutsch, Poetry in Our Time 1956 Geoffrey Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of 1957 Shakespeare (VO LUME 1) Walter Friedlander, Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in 1957 Italian Painting M. H. Abrams, Literature and Belief 1958 John Herman Randall, Nature and Historical Experience 1958 Mark Van Doren, Don Quixote's Profession 1958 Joachim Wach, The Comparative Study of Religions 1958 Raymond Williams, Culture and Society, 1780-1950 1958 Wm. Theodore de Bary, Approaches to the Oriental Classics 1959 W. T. H. Jackson, The Literature of the Middle Ages 1960 Harry S. Truman, Truman Speaks 1960 Ernest Borek, The Atoms Within Us 1961 Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Letters to Mary, edited by Lewis Leary 1961 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Peace with Justice 1961 Donald Keene, The Major Plays of Chikamatsu 1961 Christopher Lasch, The American Liberals of the Russian Revolution 1962 Harold Courlander, Negro Folk Music, USA 1963 Derek J. de Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science 1963 Alfred J. Kahn, Planning Community Services for Children 1963 in Trouble, foreword by Eleanor Roosevelt Theodore C. Sorensen, Decision-Making in the White House, 1963 foreword by John F. Kennedy Paul Tillich, Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions 1963 Arthur Cronquist, The Natural Geography of Plants 1964
Burton Watson, translator, Chuang Tzu Northrop Frye, A Natural Perspective Joseph Leon Blau, Modern Varieties of Judaism David Lodge, Language of Fiction: Essays in Criticism and Verbal Analysis of the English Novel Henri Peyre, Jean-Paul Sartre Ulf Hannerz, Soulside: Inquiries Into Ghetto Culture and Community Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge Alice Rossi, The Feminist Papers: From Adams to Beauvoir William F. Sharpe, Introduction to Managerial Economics Tony Tripodi, Uses and Abuses of Social Research in Social Work Norbert Elias, What Is Sociology? Jacob Bronowski, Magic, Science, and Civilization Thomas Belmonte, The Broken Fountain Louis Henkin, How Nations Behave Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources Arthur Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher Niles Eldredge, Phylogenetic Patterns and the Evolutionary Process Thomas Dublin, Women at Work (2ND EDI TI ON) Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, foreword by Stephen Jay Gould Annemarie Schimmel, As Through a Veil Niklas Luhmann, The Differentiation of Society BjĂśrn KurtĂŠn, How to Deep-Freeze a Mammoth Nancy K. Miller, The Poetics of Gender Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia Jonathan Cole, Fair Science: Women in the Scientific Community Gerald Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics Michael de Certeau, The Writing of History Zelig Harris, Language and Information Richard D. Mohr, Gays/Justice: A Study of Ethics, Society, and Law James Schlesinger, America at Century's End Neil deGrasse Tyson, Merlin's Tour of the Universe Theodor W. Adorno, Notes to Literature Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, VOLUME 1
1964 1965 1966 1966 1968 1969 1971 1973 1973 1974 1978 1978 1979 1979 1979 1980 1980 1981 1982 1982 1982 1986 1986 1986 1987 1988 1988 1988 1988 1989 1989 1991 1991
James Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews Michael Chion, Audio-Vision Richard Bulliet, Islam: A View from the Edge Arnold Schoenberg, The Musical Idea Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity Umberto Eco, Seredipities Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous Manning Marable, Black Leadership David Cannadine, The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain Andrew Dalby, Dictionary of Languages Emma Donoghue, Poems Between Women Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari, Food: A Culinary History Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows Judith Butler, Antigone's Claim Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Comfort Women Victor Cha and David Kang, Nuclear North Korea Ira Katznelson, Desolation and Enlightenment Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Death of a Discipline Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound Michael Dummett, Truth and the Past Edward W. Said, Beginnings, R EPR I NT EDI TI ON Roland Barthes, The Neutral Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia Yolanda Murphy and Robert Francis Murphy, Women of the Forest, 30 TH ANNI VERSARY EDI TI ON Lawrence D. Kritzman, The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought Michael Mauboussin, More Than You Know John Searle, Freedom and Neurobiology HervĂŠ This, Molecular Gastronomy Talal Asad, On Suicide Bombing Seth Lerer, Inventing English Paul Offit, Autism's False Prophets Richard K. Betts, Enemies of Intelligence
1992 1994 1995 1995 1997 1998 1998 1998 1999 1999 1999 1999 1999 2000 2000 2003 2003 2003 2004 2004 2004 2005 2005 2005 2006 2006 2006 2006 2007 2007 2008 2009
Michael Mann, The Hockey Stick and Climate Wars Thomas Doherty, Hollywood and Hitler Wael Hallaq, The Impossible State David Helfand, A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age Eric Kandel, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science
2012 2013 2014 2016 2016