"THE BOMB IN MY GARDEN : The Secrets of Saddam’s Nuclear Mastermind (Wiley, September 24, 2004; $24.95) is important and utterly gripping. The old cliché is true -- you start reading, and you don't want to stop. Mahdi Obeidi's story makes clear how hard Saddam Hussein tried to develop a nuclear weapon, and the reasons he fell short. It is also unforgettable as a picture of how honorable people tried to cope with a despot's demands. I enthusiastically recommend this book."
     — James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly
    Mahdi Obeidi oversaw Iraq’s only successful uranium processing program, and later became director-general of Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization. He and his family are now living in the United States in an undisclosed location. Kurt Pitzer began the Iraq war embedded with the United State Army’s 3rd Infantry Division and jumped his embed when Baghdad fell. He met Obeidi there and helped him turn his secrets over to the U.S. He has reported from war zones for the Boston Globe and the Sunday Times of London, and his dispatches for People were among the most widely read accounts of the war.
      Renowned neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran, named by Newsweek as one of the 100 people to watch in the 21st Century, heralds the revolution in his bold new book,
A BRIEF TOUR OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS (Pi Press, an imprint of Pearson Technology Group, July 23, 2004, $ 23.95). In it, he audaciously claims his and his colleagues’ insights into the human brain are now on the verge of bridging what C.P. Snow called the two cultures dividing the modern world: cold hard science on the one hand, and arts, philosophy and humanities on the other.
     V. S. Ramachandran M.D., Ph.D., is director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, and adjunct professor of biology at The Salk Institute.
   Authors Phyllis Moen and Patricia Roehling of THE CAREER MYSTIQUE (Rowman & Littlefield, January 2005, $22.95, paperback, 304 pages), wrote this book to “lobby” for change. The career mystique, they argue, is a social invention perpetuating a regime of roles, rules, and regulations reifying imaginary divides – divides between home/workplace, men/women, paid work/unpaid care work, and employees/retirees. Social inventions can become obsolete.
     Phyllis Moen holds the McKnight Presidential Chair of Sociology at theUniversity of Minnesota. She serves on the board of Civic Ventures (a non-profit organization aimed at fostering both individual and societal renewal as Americans move into retirement). Dr. Moen is also a member of the Conference Board’s Work-Life Leadership Council. Patricia Roehling joined the faculty of Hope College in 1987. She is a full professor and the chairperson of the psychology department. Pat also maintains a clinical psychology practice.  Pat has served as the director of research at the Cornell Employment and Family Careers Institute, at Cornell University, conducting research on the ways that men and women mesh the competing demands of work and family. Currently, Pat conducts research in the area of work and family, and also on attitudes toward the overweight.
    In THE FIEFDOM SYNDROME: The Turf Battles That Undermine Careers and Companies—And How To Overcome Them (Currency/Doubleday, $15.95 paper, October 2005), longtime Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Robert J. Herbold offers critical tools that can help conquer the insidious threat that fiefdoms – individual and division-wide battles over territory and turf – pose to organizations. Based on over thirty years of first hand experience at Microsoft and Procter and Gamble, Herbold reveals that the tendency to create fiefdoms that control precious resources and the flow of information, stems from basic human nature. Organizational fiefdoms, Herbold notes, “exist in companies large and small...in nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and franchises.” They were found in the turf battles between the FBI and the CIA prior to 9/11 as well as struggles that exist within our country’s school systems.                            

    Shaking the human hardwired impulse to uncover nonexistent reasons behind events in every aspect of life and the financial markets is a monumental challenge. Essayist, veteran trader and derivatives expert, Nassim Nicholas Taleb continues to take on the challenge of finding in the newly expanded 2nd edition of,
FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and the Markets (Thompson Texere, April 2004). Since the book’s initial publication the world has changed drastically and Taleb’s ideas have spread from the world of financial markets to the pages of the New Yorker to the Pentagon. Widely reviewed and translated in 14 languages, FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS is considered a landmark work.Expanded with over a third more material, this new edition explores in greater depth how our brain interprets the world as being far less random than it actually is and examines how people are fooled by uncertainty. Also included is an additional Preface, a new section called “A Trip to the Library” consisting of notes and reading recommendations as well as an extensive References section.

 “Anyone who cares about fair play should find this book revelatory.”
      —Publishers Weekly
     “A fascinating catalog of impeachable offenses and prosecutable crimes.”
      —Kirkus Reviews
     In FOOLED AGAIN, (Basic Books, re-launch June 2006, $32.95) Mark Crispin Miller’s research shows that there was no one “switch” that changed the election, but rather a constant series of anomalies both small and large that put Bush in office.
A professor of media studies at New York University and well-known public intellectual, Mark Crispin Miller has written for mainstream media on film, television, politics, advertising and culture. His e-newsletter “News from Underground” is widely read in the progressive community and regarded as reliable and unique.   
“C.K. Prahalad argues that companies must revolutionize how they do business in developing countries if both sides of that economic equation are to prosper. Drawing on a wealth of case studies, his compelling new book offers an intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability.” — Bill Gates
    The lead book of Wharton School Publishing/Pearson’s new business imprint, THE FORTUNE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (August 25, 2004; $27.95 hardcover), proves that the future will develop from serving the poor, because the innovations that are developed are superior-- top quality, low price, high volume and world-scale. Accompanying the book is a 25 minute CD that shows first hand how real people have dramatically improved their lives when companies engage the BOP.
     C.K. Prahalad is the Harvey C. Freuhauf Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan Business School, as well as a researcher, speaker, and prominent consultant. Business Week has called him “a brilliant teacher at the University of Michigan” and also described him as “maybe the most influential thinker on business strategy today.” In 1994 he co-authored the bestseller, Competing for the Future, with Gary Hamel. Translated into 14 languages, it was named the Best Selling Business Book of the Year in 1994. His most recent awards include the McKinsey Prize three times, the SMR-PWC award, and the ANBAR Electronic Citation of Excellence. A prominent world-class guru, Professor Prahalad has consulted with the top world companies and serves on the Board of Directors of NCR Corporation, Hindustan Lever Limited and the World Resources Institute.
     Allen Rosenshine is one of the best leaders of a creative enterprise I've ever known. His new book shows him to be a masterful storyteller as well. FUNNY BUSINESS is witty, engaging, and more than lives up to its title. Prepare to be charmed.
     --- Bob Wright, vice chairman, GE; chairman/CEO, NBC Universal
      FUNNY BUSINESS: Moguls, Mobsters, Megastars and the Mad, Mad World of the Ad Game (Beaufort Books, imprint of MidPoint Press Books: July 2006; $24.95).
As Chairman of BBDO Worldwide, Inc., Allen Rosenshine has led one of the world's most successful advertising enterprises. He spearheaded what Time magazine called advertising's big bang in the creation of Omnicom Group, now the world's biggest and most successful marketing communications company. Advertising Age has named Allen among the 100 most influential people in advertising in the twentieth century.  
Page 2
Click here to continue to Page 3 of Recent Titles.
To return to the Current Titles page, click here.