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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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Stephanie Dalley (Newnham 1962)

Recognised since ancient times as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the legendary Hanging Garden of Babylon and its location have long remained a mystery. It was on the “must see” list of Greek and Roman travellers centuries after its supposed existence, yet no trace could be found by excavation or in Babylonian inscriptions. So what did it look like? Who made it? How did the tradition arise?

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Alexia Casale (Trinity Hall 1999)

A debut young adult novel, The Bone Dragon is a contemporary psychological thriller, with a touch of magical realism. The story is told from the viewpoint of Evie, a fourteen-year-old girl damaged by a past she can't talk about, in a hypnotic narrative that, while giving increasing insight, also becomes increasingly unreliable.

A blend of psychological thriller and fairytale, The Bone Dragon explores the fragile boundaries between real life and fantasy, and the darkest corners of the human mind.

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James Anderson (Trinity Hall 1970)

In We Sang Better, two hundred of these singers explain the art of singing in over 70,000 of their own words. Much of their evidence is appearing for the first time in a modern edition. In Volume 2 Why It Was Better (260 pp) the singers explain how they enabled the possibility of superlative singing.

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James Anderson (Trinity Hall 1970)

In We Sang Better, two hundred singers explain the art of singing in over 70,000 of their own words. Much of their evidence is appearing for the first time in a modern edition. In Volume 1 How We Sang (490 pp) the singers present their basic advice.

after the great east japan earthquake
Edited by Gijs Berends (Queens' 1996) and Dominic Al-Badri

The triple disaster that struck Japan in March 2011 began with the most powerful earthquake known to have hit Japan and led to tsunami up to 40 meters in height that devastated a wide area and caused thousands of deaths. The ensuing accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant was Japan's worst and only second to Chernobyl in its severity.

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Edited by Ron Elsdon (Churchill 1972)

Social responsibility has become a goal for both employers and employees in the business community. But what does the term “social responsibility” mean, and what paths must businesses take to make a positive impact on society? Business Behaving Well provides a rationale and roadmap that will enable businesses to integrate social responsibility into their purpose and operations.

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Dame Margaret Joan Anstee DCMG (Newnham 1944)

John Brande Trend, the first Professor of Spanish in Cambridge in 1933, arrived at his Chair by a circuitous route through a variety of disciplines, encountering a host of prominent people in pre-war political, cultural and intellectual life. It was this wider experience that made his teaching so unique and makes his story central to the period through which he lived.

Professor Haroon Ahmed (King's 1959, former Master of Corpus Christi)

Cambridge Computing: The First 75 Years covers the 'halcyon' years of Roger Needham's reign and the expansionist eras of his successors, Robin Milner, Ian Leslie and Andy Hopper. The story begins with Charles Babbage and his 'magical machines' and includes Alan Turing, whose 'Universal Turing Machine' defined the theoretical basis of computability. The central theme of the book is the 75-year history of the Computer Laboratory.

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Deborah R Coen (Trinity 1997)

Earthquakes have taught us much about our planet's hidden structure and the forces that have shaped it. This knowledge rests not only on the recordings of seismographs, but also on the observations of eyewitnesses to destruction. During the nineteenth century, a scientific description of an earthquake was built of stories - stories from as many people in as many situations as possible. Sometimes their stories told of fear and devastation, sometimes of wonder and excitement.

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Professor David Simpson (Magdalene 1970)

In our post-9/11 world, the figure of the stranger - the foreigner, the enemy, the unknown visitor - carries a particular urgency, and the force of language used to describe those who are "different" has become particularly strong. But arguments about the stranger are not unique to our time.

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Dr Michael Jackson (Churchill 1968)

Michael Jackson's Lifeworlds is a masterful collection of essays, the culmination of a career aimed at understanding the relationship between anthropology and philosophy. Seeking the truths that are found in the interstices between examiner and examined, world and word, and body and mind, and taking inspiration from James, Dewey, Arendt, Husserl, Sartre, Camus, and, especially, Merleau-Ponty, Jackson creates in these chapters a distinctive anthropological pursuit of existential inquiry. More important, he buttresses this philosophical approach with committed empirical research.

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Timothy Melley (Girton 1987)

In December 2010 the US Embassy in Kabul acknowledged that it was providing major funding for thirteen episodes of Eagle Four—a new Afghani television melodrama based loosely on the blockbuster US series 24. According to an embassy spokesperson, Eagle Four was part of a strategy aimed at transforming public suspicion of security forces into something like awed respect. Why would a wartime government spend valuable resources on a melodrama of covert operations?

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Dr David Esterly (St Catharine's 1966)

Awestruck by the sight of a Grinling Gibbons carving in a London church, David Esterly chose to dedicate his life to the art - its physical control, intricate beauty and intellectual demands. Forty years later, he is the foremost practitioner of Gibbons's forgotten technique, which revolutionised ornamental sculpture in the late 1600s. After a fire at Hampton Court Palace in 1986 destroyed much of Gibbons's masterpiece, the job fell to David Esterly to restore his idol's work to its former glory.

Dr Christopher Chippindale (curator at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) and Dr Frederick Baker (Co-Director of the Cambridge University Prehistoric Picture Project,G uest Lecturer, Cambridge University Screen Media and Cult

• P • I • T • O • T • I • presents the fascinating results of the meeting of new digital arts with ancient rock-art images, known as pitoti in the dialect of Valcamonica. The prehistoric pictures, with which the Alpine valley abounds, become like film stills in a vast cinema auditorium. Their peck-marks, pexils, hammered in the rock have been transformed in the pixels of digital imagery.

Jennie Rooney (St John's 1998)

Joan's voice is almost a whisper. 'Nobody talked about what they did during the war. We all knew we weren't allowed to.' Joan Stanley has a secret. She is a loving mother, a doting grandmother, and leads a quiet, unremarkable life in the suburbs. Then one morning there is a knock on the door, and suddenly the past she has been so keen to hide for the last fifty years threatens to overturn her comfortable world. Cambridge University in 1937 is awash with ideas and idealists, yet unworldly Joan feels better suited to a science lecture and a cup of cocoa.

Michael Marshall (King's 1984)

Have you ever wondered what happens to friends from the past when you move on and don’t need them any longer…?

David is an author, on the verge of having his first novel published. His life is finally looking up after years of struggle. But a chance encounter with a man who whispers ‘Remember me?’ is just the start of a chain of sinister events. Catherine has everything she could wish for; a strong marriage, two children, a house in an affluent area of Manhattan, but she believes she’s being stalked....

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Robert Cox (Corpus Christi 1959), Roger Sherwin (St Catharine’s 1958), Tony Thompson (St Catharine’s 1958)

Following plans hitched within the walls of St Catharine’s college, nine dare-devil Cambridge students set off in 1961 on the trip of a lifetime after their graduation. Their mode of transport was the iconic VW Kombi van and their journey took them across three continents at a time of global political, economic and cultural turbulence. With the world in the grip of the Cold War, the students moved through the Soviet Union, the Middle East, South Africa and Asia. They meet treacherous terrain and undergo some nerve-wracking, often bizarre encounters.

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Rev. J Mostyn Roberts (Pembroke 1975)

We may call him a prophet for his prescient analysis of trends in philosophy that explain where we are today; we may call him an apologist; less accurately, though popular articles and publishers’ blurbs delight in it, he may be called a philosopher. Fundamentally though, Francis Schaeffer rejoiced in being a pastor and evangelist. That is how he began, and through many twists and turns, that is what he remained to the end.

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David Schiff (Clare 1967)

Breaking down walls between genres that are usually discussed separately - classical, jazz, and popular - this highly engaging book offers a compelling new integrated view of twentieth-century music.

Placing Duke Ellington (1899-1974) at the center of the story, David Schiff explores music written during the composer's lifetime in terms of broad ideas such as rhythm, melody, and harmony. He shows how composers and performers across genres shared the common pursuit of representing the rapidly changing conditions of modern life.

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Kate Kirk and Charles Cotton

The Cambridge Phenomenon: 50 Years of Innovation and Enterprise covers the remarkable history of the Phenomenon since 1960, from the challenges of starting businesses in a hostile environment to the boom years in the late 1980s and 1990s, the dotcom bust in 2000 and the new reality of starting and growing businesses when money is tight.

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