Research Recognition
Hamilton Book Author Awards Program: 2000 Awards
Grand Prize Winner
- A. P. Martinich, Professor of Philosophy
Hobbes: A Biography
Cambridge University Press
Runners-Up
- David M. Buss, Professor of Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology
Allyn & Bacon
- Nell Dale, Professor of Computer Sciences
C++ Plus Data Structures
Jones and Bartlett Publishers
- Veit Erlmann, Professor of Music
Music, Modernity, and the Global Imagination
Oxford University Press
- Wm. Roger Louis, Professor of History
The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century
Oxford University Press
About the Books
"Hobbes: A Biography" by A. P. Martinich
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is now recognized as one of the fathers of modern philosophy and political theory. In his own time he was as famous for his work in physics, geometry, and religion. ...His life was a long, rich, and intensely controversial one.
A. P. Martinich has written the completest and most accessible biography of Hobbes available. The book takes full account of the historical and cultural context in which Hobbes lived, drawing on both published and unpublished sources. It will be a great resource for philosophers, political theorists, and historians of ideas. The clear, crisp prose style will also ensure that the book appeals to general readers with an interest in the history of philosophy, the rise of modern science, and the English Civil War. (Excerpts from a review by Cambridge University Press)
A. P. Martinich is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
"Evolutionary Psychology" by David M. Buss
David Buss's "Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of Mind" marks the time to come out of our subdisciplinary caves and share in the new intellectual prosperity. ...
Human beings are biological organisms designed by evolution to learn, and to think, and to construct and absorb norms. The evolutionary perspective changes none of that, but simply provides new clues to understanding why we attend to, think about, and learn some things more easily than others, and why the diverse cultures we construct retain reliable family resemblances to the human prototype.
Buss wrote this book at a very accessible level, in hopes of motivating professors interested in evolutionary psychology to teach it to undergraduates. But after reading it, I believe it should be read much more widely. I would recommend it to anyone interested in social behavior, personality, psychopathology, psychological development, learning, perception, or cognition. In short, everyone in the field. ...psychological research and theory ... would throw off the self-handicapping misconceptions that kept us in the caves for so long.
Reading Buss's book with an open mind should reveal nothing threatening there, only an invitation to a more enlightened interdisciplinary world. And if you don't like the current applications of evolutionary theory to human behavior, reading this excellent overview will better equip you to fix things. Just don't hole up in a cave. (Excerpts taken from a review by Douglas T. Kenrick, Dept. of Psychology, Arizona State University.
David M. Buss is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.
"C++ Plus Data Structures" by Nell Dale
At last, a C++ second-semester test that blends computer science theory with practical software engineering principles. Written with the student in mind, C++ Plus Data Structures begins with a thorough review of important software engineering topics, including modularization, data encapsulation, information hiding, data abstraction, functional decomposition, object-oriented decomposition, and life-cycle software verification methods.
The focus then shifts to abstract data types (ADTs). Lists, stacks, queues, trees, heaps, priority queues, and graphs are introduced using the same recurring pattern: formal; specification of the ADT, a short application using the ADT, and one or more implementation are compared using the Big-O notation. ...
Advanced C++ constructs are presented throughout the book. Class constructors and destructors are stated early to demonstrate the active stance of classes, but copy constructors are not listed until after linked structures have been introduced.
The hallmarks of C++ Plus Data Structures are clear, easy to understand discussions of important theoretical constructs and their implementations in C++. (Excerpts from a review by Jones and Bartlett Publishers)
Nell Dale is a Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
"Music, Modernity, and the Global Imagination" by Veit Erlmann
How was Africa seen by the West during the colonial period? How do Europeans and Americans conceive of Africa in today's postcolonial era? ...[F}ew have asked the reverse: how did – and do – Africans see Europe and the United States? Fewer still have wondered how Western images of Africa and African representations of the West might mirror one another.
In a detailed study spanning from the late nineteenth century to the present, renowned anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Veit Erlmann examines the very creation of a global imagination for black South Africans, Europeans, and African Americans. To this end, he explores two striking episodes in the history of black South African music. The first is a pair of tours made by two black South African choirs in England and America in the early 1890s; the second is a series of engagements with the international music industry as experienced by the premier choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo after the release of Paul Simon's celebrated Graceland album in 1986.
Readers will find the cast of characters involved in these intertwined and international dramas at once telling and impressive. Music, Modernity, and the Global Imagination tells the story of how these artists, activists, and agents effectively invented each other in travel diaries, religious hymns, concert performances, music videos, Broadway plays, and autobiographies.
Ultimately, this book reports on a transatlantic dialogue that carries direct and profound implications for the world's arts and cultures. It is the black diasporic discussion between South Africa and the West, and it is a conversation – about society, music, and Utopia – that is still in progress. (Excerpts from a review by Oxford University Press)
Veit Erlmann is a Professor of Music at the University of Texas at Austin.
"The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century" edited by Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis
The Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. From the founding of colonies in North America and the West Indies in the seventeenth century to the reversion of Hong Kong to China at the end of the twentieth, British imperialism was a catalyst for far-reaching change. The Oxford History of the British Empire as a comprehensive study helps us to understand the end of Empire in relation to its beginning, the meaning of British imperialism for the ruled as well as for the rulers, and the significance of the British Empire as a theme in world history.
The twentieth-century volume pays special attention to each of the geographical regions.
... It is concerned with priorities and vision, together with the mechanisms which held the empire together. ... A central theme is the process of decolonization which reshaped the map of the late twentieth century. (Excerpts from a review by Oxford University Press)
Wm. Roger Louis is a Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.
Co-editor Judith M. Brown is Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth.
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