Month: December 2014

Editors: Liao Ping-Hui and David Der-Wei Wang Publisher: Columbia University Press – 416 pages Book Review by: Paiso Jamakar This is a unique book. It is the first study of colonial Taiwan written in English. In that respect it is of immense value to historians and scholars on Taiwan. The amount and variety of information you will find in it is immense. This voluminous book with a lot of historical and cultural detail is a must for the library of anyone closely interested in Taiwan, as well as Chinese and Japanese studies. I found there was no better way...

Author: Terry F. Godlove Publisher: Columbia University Press – 245 pages Book Review by: Paiso Jamakar When you ask an average person “What is religion?’ he or she will likely reply: “a belief in a supernatural being,” or “a set of values, or rules relating to ethics, or on how to treat other human beings” or something similar. But when you ask most people “What is the meaning of religion?” they will most likely be stumped and not know what to say. But philosophers have a lot to say and write on this question. Immanuel Kant, a German thinker...

Author: Alison Bashford Publisher: Columbia University Press – 466 pages Book Review by: Paiso Jamakar This book is a concise history and wide-ranging discussion of the many aspects of the population problem from the 1920s until the 1960s. In the late 1960s there was widespread alarm and debate on the “population bomb” with the fear that the fast growth of population will outstrip the worldwide availability of, and capacity to, grow food, causing massive hunger and death. There were numerous organizations, such as Zero Population Growth or ZPG for example, that advocated that governments, particularly in the Third World,...

Editors: William G. Tierney, Zoe B. Corwin, Tracy Fullerton, and Giselle Ragusa Publisher: johns Hopkins University Press – 336 pages Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram This book summarizes a decade of research in game design and learning. The four editors of this book are scholars in the areas of education, learning, media, and online and electronic gaming. The purpose of writing this book was to make the college application process easier. Specifically, this book aims to enable students to use the tools of online games and social media to make applying for college less intimidating. These days, students at...

Author: Helen Lavretsky, MD, MS Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press – 255 pages Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram “Resilience is a pattern of positive adaptation resulting from past or present adversity or risk that has posed a substantial threat to good adaptation,” according to Dr. Helen Lavresky, the author of this book who is a geriatric psychiatrist. She writes at the outset that that those who study and treat older people (researchers, clinicians, family members for example) must not only be aware of, but also thoroughly understand the four main problems that aging people face: Physical and mental illnesses...