A multicellular organism has specialized structures to destroy mutant cells that wildly multiply; when these structures fail, the organism suffers from possibly lethal tumors. A beehive has workers who police the behavior of other workers to ensure that work gets done and that only queens lay eggs. Without such disciplinarians, the hive would soon fail. Humans have evolved internal behavioral structures that allow us to cooperate in society, and impel us to punish non-cooperators.

All of these are instances of multilevel selection, as discussed in this fine book of essays. Some readers will be startled to find this material instead of the ancient debates over individual vs. group selection and self-interest vs. altruism---the place where the debate over multilevel selection began in the mid-1960's. The contributors are tops in their respective fields, including H. Kerne Reeve, Eors Szathmary, Richard Michod, Andrew Pomiankowski, Craig Packer, John Maynard Smith, and other equally fine biologists. Their uniting in this book shows that the group selection debate is over, at least among the knowledgeable.

I loved this book, and have spent many hours following up on the other writings of the authors, both in book and article form. This book suggests what I have long had a suspicion is the case: all of biology is sociobiology, in the sense that whenever you have organisms consisting of more than one type of cell that cooperate in making a whole, you have social mechanisms involved in mediating among the divergent interests of the individual parts, and structures emerge that more or less successfully resolve the mediation problems. Darwinian selection then operates upon these mediating structures, yet in no way different from, or even in addition to, the way selection operates on individual genes.

The authors say this is a book for residents of Hong Kong rather than for tourists, but really it is ideal for the kind of traveller who is interested in how various cities work and "feel". I bought this in HK while travelling there in 2001, and can attest that it faithfully and insightfully captures what Hong Kong is "like" (at least at a certain level).

The format basically that of a photo essay, with high-quality photography of distinctive features of HK's urban landscape and often insightful commentary. The authors have a predilection for the language of postmodern continental philosophy, not usually my favourite reading, but sometimes used here to good effect.

This book is as fascinating to anyone interested in mathematics as any other mathematician's biography, with the extra asset of his life being deeply imbedded in 20th century history. While it gives a most interesting account of the French and international mathematical world during the second half of the century (especially on Bourbaki and, of course, on the distributions), it also tales the story of a "committed" (formerly trotskist) intellectual who valued his struggle for decolonization as high as his mathematical work.

Although interpretation is an elusive term that defies precise definition, Jane Bathori's book on the interpreting the melodies of Debussy must be considered a primary reference to these songs. Originally published in 1953, this small manual has been translated by Linda Laurent, a distinguished Bathori scholar. Jane Bathori played a tremendous role in the development of 20th century song and was perhaps the most sought-after interpreter of vocal music of her day. She premiered more than 100 songs by many composers, including Debussy. This book, one of the first of its kind written, is an invaluable reference by a fascinating personality in vocal music, and it is good to have it available in an English translation--for good measure, Pendragon has also published the original French text with the English.

hauntingly beautiful photographs of the best Paris has to offe

Everyone has read "Romeo and Juliet", the classic love story by William Shakespeare, and most have seen the movie "West Side Story," probably noticing some similarities- two groups against each other with lovers in the middle, and a tragic ending. But with these two plays together, you will discover almost every scene from West Side Story parallels one from R&J. The text of R&J also has notes to help the reader understand some of the difficult Shakespearean language. I am a freshman in high school and this book really helped me with an essay.

This trailblazing book presents a truly radical hypothesis. It argues that Old (loosely: Early and Mid-Zhou) Chinese had a rich affixal morphology, typologically comparable to many SE Asian languages today, but radically divergent from its medieval successor(s) and modern dialect descendants. It is radical in the sense that it once and for all destroys the myth of Old Chinese (OC) as an isolating, static, purely monosyllabic language, recorded in a writing system divorced from the spoken variety underlying it. Reintegrating a full-fledged theory of morphology into the reconstruction of the OC lexicon and its phonology, Sagart convincingly subverts almost all basic assumptions about the nature of 'the' Chinese language, which have periodically havocked rational interpretations of Chinese culture, history and philosophy, ever since the days of the _lettres édifiantes_. Assumptions, one hastens to add, which are still guilelessly cherished by the majority of sinologists and general linguists alike.

The book is radical also in the stricter sense, that it operates with a principled and constrained theory of the OC root (minimally: *CV(C)(q)), which holds that, with the possible exception of final resonant + glottal stop clusters, lexical clusters were not licensed in OC at all, so that structural positions extending the root (prefixes, infixes, suffixes; maximal word: *[(P)(-I-)C(-I-)V(C)(q)(-s)]A/B) did invariably encode grammatical, paradigmatic-semantic, or functional information. Moreover, it is possible that a limited number of single final consonants (besides suffixal *-s) did also have derivational functions (*-ng, *-n ?), and even the idea of apophonic nuclei is occasionally entertained (cf. pp. 134-36). Sagart remedies the skewed distributions of initial *h-, *hj-, *z- and *h~- in Baxter's (1992) reconstruction, and rejects Benedict's (1996) *sK- clusters, Pulleyblank's (1991) initial *ngj-, as well as the lateral affricate series posited by Starostin (1989), in favor of various new prefix interpretations. Crucially, he proposes a new theory of initial cluster simplification, along the lines attested in several Mon-Khmer languages, which distinguishes between 'fused' and 'iambic' clusters. The latter loosely attaching type is characterized by epenthesis of a reduced vowel (schwa) into the prefixal template, thereby creating a moraic slot extending the monosyllable. Ample evidence for this type of development from word-families and xiesheng-series, variant readings and remnants in several peripheral modern dialects is supplied. The enigmatic origins of the MC division distinction are not finally settled. Sagart notationally assigns a/b superscripts to Pulleyblank's 'A/B' syllable types, whatever suprasegmental interpretation they might have entailed. He adds the observation that several homo(io)phonophoric series are strictly A/B-segregating, which is sterling evidence for the further study of the phonetics involved. In the realm of rhymes, he argues against positing rounded vowels before labial endings, and offers several other important readjustments of Baxter's system.

The core of the book is a very detailed analysis of the 12 affixes (*s-, *n-, *m-, *p-, *t-, *N-, *k-, *q- // *-r- // *-s, *-n, *-N) proposed and their 25 odd functions in OC (pp. 63-138). The new theory of OC morphonology thus provided is then applied to an extremely interesting lexical testing ground, including personal pronouns, numerals, body parts, the physical world, wild animals, mankind & kinship, cereal names and other cultivated plants, domesticated animals, food, metals, transportation commerce, and writing. This long section (pp. 139-215) is a treasure trove for everyone interested in Chinese culture history, and the implications of ancient loanwords for early connetions of China with the outside world. The book is rounded off with an index verborum, a general index and a copious list of reconstructions.

This is easily the most important book on the OC lexicon since Karlgren's Word-Families (BMFEA 1934), and the most challenging contribution on OC morphology ever written. It deserves to be taught and tested, applied or amended, by whoever reads Old Chinese texts.

Finally, a place to find lots of information, usually scattered to the many technological winds, in one place! I've found a few strategies to help me use what I have more efficiently and I am imagining greater things for my own setup and my company's. I enjoy St.Laurent's books and am happy to have a place to sing their praises.

Sign Me Alice

This play is delightfully funny as it is profound. It was written by Gilbert Eastman who was head of the Drama Dept. of Galleudet University when he notices (visually) all the different sign systems that were abound at the University, that he states that the University had truly become a tower of Babel. The play Sign Me Alice is a truly "D"eaf Play. The introduction looks like a score card and one has to master the emphasis on English words that try to convey the meaning in sign language. A masterful feat in its own right to try to interpret sign language to English. Yet when not signed, many subtle meanings can be missed. Your level of enjoyment will depend upon your use of sign language (ASL), and knowledge of Deaf Culture. The deeper your Deaf experience the more enjoyment you will receive. This play is for everyone, but I also think that although the enjoyment level of this play is very high, you still have to be Deaf to understand. No hold barred, it is the best of Deaf Literature. I loved it.

Guides like the Peterson's and Audubon series are great but sometimes leaving me wanting to know more than the name and distribution of an animal. While this book is also a great guide, with Atlantic species of whales portrayed in the back half, the real surprise comes with the short photo-essay chapters that make up the first half. Packed with color photos and drawings, the author makes you want to think about and visualize the unique adaptations of whales that serve them for life at sea. The photos alone make this book is a real bargain, especially in paperback. As a compact field guide/ biology text, this is my favorite gift for young biologists interested in whales.