RSA Library Update - September 2007

What follows is a complete list of RSA library acquisitions for the month of September 2007. Fellows are welcome to e-mail library@rsa.org.uk if they wish to borrow any of these items, or search the library catalogue for thousands of other titles....

000s – Generalities

Daniel Jackson & Martyn Thomas (eds.)
Software for Dependable Systems: Sufficient Evidence?
The National Academies Press, 2007, 005.3 JAC
Adopting a broad perspective towards the subject, Software for Dependable Systems seeks to answer key questions such as, how can software and the systems that rely on it be made dependable in a cost-effective manner, and how can one obtain assurance that dependability has been achieved?

100s – Philosophy & Psychology

Nicola Madge
Children These Days
Policy, 2006, 305.23 MAD
Children These Days draws on the accounts of over two thousand children, and five hundred adults, to examine the present day meaning of childhood and its implications for policy and practice. Key questions addressed by the study include: How is childhood perceived? What is it like to grow up and become an adult? What are the influences and controls on young people? Are young people protected or over-protected? How much do young people and adults respect and talk to each other? And, to what extent is Britain a child-friendly society? The book provides unique evidence on children's and adults' views of childhood, and draws conclusions on the attitudes and policies to be challenged and developed in the 21st century.

200s – Religion

300s – Social Sciences

John J. Macionis & Vincent N. Parrillo
Cities and Urban Life
Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006, 307.76 MAC
Cities and Urban Life, authored by two of the best-known textbook writers in the field, provides a comprehensive introduction to urban sociology, urban anthropology, and urban studies. Primarily sociological in approach, this book incorporates historical, social, psychological, geographical, and anthropological insights. While strong in the classical urban sociology, it also gives extensive attention to the new political economy approach to urban studies.

John Gray
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia
Allen Lane, 2007, 320.55 GRA
During the last century global politics was shaped by utopian projects. Pursuing a dream of a world without evil, powerful states waged war and practised terror on an unprecedented scale. From Germany to Russia to China to Afghanistan entire societies were destroyed. Utopian ideologies rejected traditional faiths and claimed to be based in science. They were actually secular versions of the myth of Apocalypse - the belief in a world-changing event that brings history, with all its conflicts, to an end. The war in Iraq was the last of these secular utopias, promising a new era of democracy and producing blood-soaked anarchy and an emerging theocracy instead. Black Mass, John Gray's powerful and frightening new book, argues that the death of utopia does not mean peace. Instead it portends the resurgence of ancient myths, now in openly fundamentalist forms. Obscurely mixed with geopolitical struggles for the control of natural resources, apocalyptic religion has returned as a major force in global conflict.

Wyn Derbyshire
Money & Work: an Essential Guide
Spiramus Press, 2007, 332.024 DER
This guide to money and work seeks to demystify finance, starting with the operation of bank accounts, through to pensions, property-owning and how taxes are calculated. Aimed at young people but useful for all, this book provides all the necessary practical information and teaches many skills that our education system often fail to provide, including credit cards, bank accounts, mortgages and pensions.

Stephen Hall (ed.)
Sustainable Development indicators in your pocket 2007
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2007, 338.927 DEF
Published by Defra to provide an overview of the country’s progress in tackling key economic, social and environmental issues, Sustainable Development indicators in your pocket 2007 contains 68 indicators covering a wide range of topics of everyday concern such as health, housing, jobs, crime, education, and our environment.

Amitai Etzioni
Security First: for a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy
Yale University Press, 2007, 355.033 ETZ
'Rarely have more profound changes in American foreign policy been called for than today', begins Amitai Etzioni in the preface to this book. Yet Etzioni's concern is not to lay blame for past mistakes but to address the future. The author asserts that providing basic security must be the first priority in all foreign policy considerations, even ahead of efforts to democratize. He sets out essential guidelines for a foreign policy that makes sense in the real world, builds on moral principles, and creates the possibility of establishing positive relationships with Muslim nations and all others. Etzioni's conclusions fall into no neat categories, neither liberal nor conservative, for he is guided not by ideology but by empirical evidence and moral deliberation. His proposal rings with the sound of reason, and this important book belongs on the reading list of every concerned leader, policy maker, and voter in America.

Nick Bosanquet, Henry de Zoete & Emily Beuhler
The NHS in 2010: Reform or Bust
Reform Research Trust, 2005, 362.11 BOS
This study by independent think-tank Reform warns that by 2010, the NHS will cost up to £20 billion more than it should for its level of performance. The study finds that in coming years the NHS will deliver a better service and that the Government's waiting times targets will be met, but that overall a failure to introduce reform means that improvements will be bought at a huge and unnecessary cost.

400s – Language

500s – Natural Sciences & Mathematics

600s – Technology (Applied Sciences)

700s – The Arts

800s – Literature

900s – Geography & History