Administration

Research Recognition

Hamilton Book Author Awards Program: 1997 Awards

Grand Prize Winner

• Robert H. Kane, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy
  The Significance of Free Will
  Oxford University Press 1996

Runners-Up

• Judith G. Coffin, Assistant Professor, Department of History
  The Politics of Women's Work: The Paris Garment Trades, 1750-1915
  Princeton University Press 1996
• Karl Galinsky, Floyd A. Cailloux Centennial Professor of Classics
  Augustan Culture
  Princeton University Press 1996
• Jeffrey L. Meikle, Professor of American Studies
  American Plastic: A Cultural History
  Princeton University Press 1996

About the Books

The Significance of Free Will
by Robert Kane

"Professor Robert Kane contributes what is surely among the most comprehensive and detailed studies of the free will issued to date. . ." (from a forthcoming review in the International Philosophical Quarterly). "This is the best defense of libertarian free will ever written. Indeed, it is in the first rank of books written on the topic of free will." (from a forthcoming review in Southwest Philosophical Review). In the past quarter-century, there has been a resurgence of interest in traditional philosophical questions about free will. The first of this book's aims is to explore the significance of this recent work, both for the advancement of understanding in one of philosophy's most perennially challenging areas, and for broad contemporary concerns in ethics, politics, science, religion, and humanistic studies. Building a rigorous survey of the major debates, philosopher Robert Kane demonstrates the richness of current free will inquiry, tracing its far-reaching implications and connecting it to vital currents in twentieth-century thought. The book's second goal is to defend a classic "incompatibilist" or "libertarian" conception of free will in ways that are both new to philosophy and that respond to contemporary scientific learning. Incompatibilist or libertarian accounts of freedom are often criticized for being unintelligible or for having no place in the modern scientific picture of the world. Kane asserts to the contrary that a traditional view of free will (one that insists upon the incompatibility of free will and determinism) can be supported without the usual appeals to obscure or mysterious forms of agency and can be reconciled with recent developments in the sciences-physical, biological, neurological, cognitive, and behavioral.

The Politics of Women's Work: The Paris Garment Trades, 1750-1915
by Judith G. Coffin

"Judith Coffin's first book is a major achievement . . . Her study both challenges simplistic interpretations of industrialization and carefully situates garment workers in a complex debate about work, women, and family in industrial France" (from a forthcoming review in American Historical Review). Few issues attracted more attention in the nineteenth century than the "problem" of women's work, and few industries posed that problem more urgently than the booming garment industry in Paris. The seamstress represented the quintessential "working girl," and the sewing machine became the icon of "modern" femininity. The intense speculation and worry that swirled around both helped define many issues of gender and labor that concern us today. In this wide-ranging history of the Parisian garment industry, from the unraveling of the guilds in the late 1700s to the first minimum wage bill in 1915, Judith Coffin explores how issues related to working women took shape. What constituted "women's" work? Did women belong in the industrial labor force? Why was women's work equated with low pay? Should not a woman enjoy status as an enlightened home-maker/consumer? In this fascinating combination of the social history of women's labor and the intellectual history of the nineteenth century social science and political economy, Coffin sets many such questions in their fullest cultural context. She examines the century-long historical processes that made gender fundamental to the modern social division of labor and our understanding of it.

Augustan Culture
by Karl Galinsky

"Karl Galinsky presents a bold new interpretive synthesis of Augustan culture, one that everyone in the field needs to take into account. The broad scope of the book, together with its sense and sensitivity, should guarantee it a mainstream readership as well." Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Director, British School at Rome. Grand political accomplishment and artistic productivity were the hallmarks of Augustus Caesar's reign (31 B.C. to A.D. 14), which has severed as a powerful model of achievement for societies throughout Western history. Although much research has been done on individual facets of Augustan culture, Karl Galinsky's book is the first in decades to present a unified overview, one that brings together political and social history, art, literature, architecture, and religion. Weaving analysis and narrative throughout a richly illustrated text, Galinsky provides not only an enjoyable account of the major ideas of the age, but also an interpretation of the creative tensions and contradictions that made for its vitality and influence.

American Plastic
by Jeffrey L. Meikle

"A spectacular book, as entertaining and engaging as it is informative. Meikle is a superb scholar and gifted wordsmith, and he has crafted a highly original and significant work." Michael Schiffer, Director, Laboratory for Traditional Technology, University of Arizona. Early twentieth-century promoters of the Plastic Age envisioned a never-ending flow of miracle materials conjured up by modern alchemy out of air, water, and coal. By World War II, celluloid, invented in 1869 as a substitute for ivory in billiard balls, had been eclipsed by such synthetic materials as Bakelite, Plexiglas, vinyl, and polystyrene. As plastic continued expanding into everyday life, it embodied the promise and the threat of limitless material abundance. Jeffrey Meikle traces Americans' ambivalent involvement with plastic from Bakelite radios and nylon stockings to Tupperware and polyester suits. He moves easily from the rise of the plastics industry to plastic's symbolic hold on style and the popular imagination. Meikle shows how American's enthusiasm for everything plastic has been complicated by environmental doubts and by the plasticity of postmodern existence.

Summaries of the books are from the publishers - Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, and Rutgers University Press.

Check out more Hamilton Award winners: