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Explore a selection of publications by alumni and academics, and books with a link to the University or Cambridge

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Argentum: The Adventures of a Silver Piece at Great Moments in History

James Leslie-Melville (Trinity 1979)

3000 BCE, east Mediterranean. A slave digs a silver nugget out of the ground at an Anatolian mine, launching it on a journey through the ages to the present day. Criss-crossing the globe, travelling into space and plunging to the seabed, it features in the stories of numerous well-known historical figures, including Alexander the Great, Judas Iscariot, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Ferdinand Magellan and Adolf Hitler, to name just a few.

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The Spiral Gospel: Intratextuality in Luke's Narrative

Rob James (Corpus Christi 2002)

How did the author of the Gospel of Luke intend it to be read? In The Spiral Gospel, Rob James shows that the assumptions many modern readers bring to the text – that it claims to be historically factual, or merely regurgitates existing stories – are not those of antiquity. Building on the central insight that it was written for a community who would have used it as their pre-eminent text, James argues convincingly for a continuous, cyclical reading of Luke’s narrative.

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Unearthing the Underworld – A Natural History of Rocks

Ken McNamara (Emeritus Fellow, Downing College)

People have had a long and often fraught relationship with rocks. They have been used and abused – blown up, dug up and turned into homes and places of worship for thousands of years. Yet these days most people simply ignore them, that is unless they make a home in your shoe. Unearthing the Underworld is a history of the Earth as told through rocks – keepers of secrets of past environments, of changing climates and the pulse of life over billions of years.

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Forbidden Wife The Life and Trials of Lady Augusta Murray

Julia Abel Smith (Selwyn 1978)

On the night of 4 April 1793, two lovers were planning a secret ceremony in Rome. The wedding of the son of King George III to the daughter of the Earl of Dunmore would not only be concealed, it would also be illegal. Lady Augusta Murray had known Prince Augustus Frederick, later the Duke of Sussex, for only three months but they had fallen deeply in love and were desperate to be married. However, the Royal Marriage Act forbade such a union without the King's permission and Augusta's life was changed forever.

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The Salt Is The Schedule

Alea D. Reeves (Hughes Hall 2018)

Did you know that salt was used as a currency to pay Roman soldiers, the Don Juan Pond is so salty that it does not freeze, and the word 'salt' is derived from “salarium” meaning salary? Where would the world be without salt? Too little salt or too much will cause imbalance. Salt is all around and used in many different ways. Salt plays a crucial role in many things such as the body, food, and on roads. Just as salt is crucial and necessary so is a schedule.

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Guide to the Mental Health of Children and Young People: Q and A for Parents, Caregivers and Teachers

Dr Meinou Simmons (Girton 1999)

Supporting the mental health and well-being of children and young people is a top priority for parents, caregivers, and teachers, but it can be tricky to find reliable and evidence-based information. Written by an experienced child and adolescent psychiatrist, in a user-friendly question and answer format, this book outlines the mental health challenges facing our children and young people and offers practical advice on how to best support them.

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Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp: A Nine-to-Five Emergency

Melissa Gatter (Magdalene 2015)

Azraq refugee camp, built in 2014 and host to forty thousand refugees, is one of two official humanitarian refugee camps for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp investigates the relationship between time and power in Azraq, asking how a politics of time shapes, limits, or enables everyday life for the displaced and for aid workers. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, carried out during 2017-2018, the book challenges the perceptions of Azraq as the 'ideal' refugee camp.

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Safety Razor

Emily Osborne (Trinity 2007)

Safety Razor combines personal lyrics with translations from Old Norse skaldic verse, its taut poems running like high wires between the poles of terror and joy, danger and safety, erudition and naivety. Mingling subjects as diverse as dinosaur bones and diacritical markers, Vikings and mothering, Safety Razor pits cultural and historical flotsam against the intimate and the academic.

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Landscape: A common place

Rosamunde Codling (Trinity Hall 1978)

This book brings together a varied collection of material relating to projects on which I have worked as a landscape architect and planner, from a single field in East Anglia to a whole continent. I argue that landscape belongs – is “common” – to us all. Landscapes are for living in, and many of their components meet our material needs. But there is more – landscapes are part of our lives, places where values and emotions co-exist, giving us a different form of sustenance not met by other means.

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Cracking the Nazi Code

Jason Bell (Robinson 2008)

The thrilling true story of Agent A12, the earliest enemy of the Nazis. In public life, Cambridge alumnus Dr Winthrop Bell of Halifax was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As MI6 secret agent A12, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy in 1919 Berlin. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for WWII, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, and to prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts.

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Empire First: Churchill's War Against D-Day

Graeme Bowman (King's 1985)

Did Churchill try to sabotage Overlord? Did the ‘Greatest Ever Briton’ champion a ‘Brexit’ military strategy which prioritised British oil and Empire interests in the Mediterranean over the need to liberate western Europe from fascism? Read Empire First and decide. Conventional WWII histories begin in 1933 or 1939 and offer a limited understanding of the conflict but Empire First begins in 1874-75 (Churchill’s birth and Disraeli’s acquisition of Suez Canal shares) to show how Suez dominated British thinking for six decades prior to 1939 and shaped the PM’s wartime priorities.

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Il CERN, che avventura!

Letizia Diamante (Murray Edwards 2009)

This is the Italian version of the only game-book (similar to a "choose-your-own-adventure book") set at CERN, which was published in English as Your adventures at CERN by World Scientific Publisher. It will be translated in other languages in the future. As soon as you open this book, YOU become the main character! You will be catapulted to CERN, one of the most famous laboratories in the world ― a real scientific wonderland of underground tunnels, massive experiments and technological marvels.

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Student Life in Nineteenth-Century Cambridge: John Wright's Alma Mater

Christopher Stray (Sidney Sussex 1968)

This autobiographical memoir, by a man who was at Trinity 1813-19, was originally published in 1827 as Seven years at the University of Cambridge but never reprinted. It gives fascinating details about student life, including examinations, misbehaviour in chapel, teaching, riotous and sexual misconduct, sport and hunting. The author was a successful student, but due to a series of misadventures graduated with a pass degree, and failed to gain a college fellowship.

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Leadership - A Life of Diplomacy

Lord Simon McDonald (Pembroke 1979)

When Abraham Lincoln said, 'You can be anything you want to be,' Americans, and eventually everybody everywhere, lifted their sights. Nowadays anybody can aspire to be a leader, and nearly everybody has to lead sometimes. In his first book, Simon McDonald assumes that thinking about leadership before you lead helps you to lead better.

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Staying the Course: Navigating the Challenges of Part-time Study

Asrif Yusoff (Hughes Hall 2017)

Staying the Course: Navigating the Challenges of Part-time Study is a practical companion that helps and guides you to chart your academic success while progressing in your career. The book is based on the author’s experience in balancing family, work, and study as a part-time student across two master’s programmes and one doctoral programme over the past ten years -- and counting. Across 13 chapters, you will be provided with effective strategies and real insights on:

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Homo Unus: Successor to Homo Sapiens

Kinchit Bihani (Fitzwilliam 2008)

Do you feel disheartened because ... A cocktail of macro trends (changing climate, pandemics, threat of wars, pollution, crony capitalism, etc.), micro trends (inflation, regional wars, racial conflicts, inefficient governments, etc.) and nano trends (strained relationships, loneliness, etc.) is threatening human race. Is there a magical bullet to the aforesaid problems? Will changing leadership and regimes, bringing in new legislations, creating new institutions, new science and other measures bring complete relief?

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Bankers Like Us: Dispatches from an Industry in Transition

Leda Glyptis (King's 1997)

The world is going digital, and so is banking—in fits, starts, and circles. Why is it so hard? Why is the industry constantly getting in the way of its own technological progress and what can we do about it all? This book looks at the human and structural obstacles to innovation-driven transformation and at the change in habits, mindsets and leadership needed for the next stage of the digital journey and argues that this change will be brought about, not by external heroes and saviours, not by a generation yet to be born, but people just like us.

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A Dual Perspective: The German in an English Judge

Konrad Schiemann (Pembroke 1958)

The inspirational story of a young German orphan who escaped a war-torn Berlin to rise to the highest ranks of the European legal system. When Konrad Schiemann escaped his home in Berlin to begin a new life in England, he didn’t know what life awaited him there. An orphan who had lost both of his parents at the end of World War Two, he reached this new country to start again with the help of relatives. Grown up, he decided to practise as a barrister in England and became a judge of the Appeal Court and finally of the European Court of Justice.

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A Young Person's Guide to Vocal Health

Olivia Sparkhall (Homerton 1998)

To maintain a healthy speaking and singing voice, it is essential to keep your instrument in good working order. This is a guide specifically aimed at young people, to help them to understand how to look after their voice. Ideal for choristers, choral scholars, aspiring actors and pop singers alike, it covers avoiding or dealing with problems like colds and sore throats, shouting in sports halls, overuse, diet, hormones, anxiety, abuse, and bad habits.

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Blue Swan

James Giles (Tutor, Institute of Continuing Education)

Blue Swan is James Giles’ second album. Weaving its way through rock, indie, alternative-folk, and ambient music, it carries the listener into a whirlwind of musical expressions. From the pulsating rhythm of the title track, Blue Swan, and the melodic but eerie strains of Shallow Graves, to the hypnotizing cycles of The Western Sky, a path is traced that has no evident boundaries. Each song, however, shares something with the others.

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