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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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Invisible Jumpers
Joseph Ford (St Catharine's 1997)

Photographs of jumpers blending into their background from an inventive 1000-hour knitting project Photographer Joseph Ford and knitting pro Nina Dodd have dedicated more hours than is reasonable to creating bespoke jumpers (for humans, animals and even bananas) that blend seamlessly into their surroundings – from bus seats to bushes, carpets to coastlines. The images are executed with such painstaking precision that should the camera, or jumper for that matter, move by an inch the illusion would unravel.

Meditation for Life
Justyn Comer (Trinity 1988)

Career, relationships, health, happiness, sport, creativity – you name it – they can all be enhanced by the practice of meditation. It has the power to improve every aspect of our lives. Although there has recently been a lot of coverage of meditation, most people still see it narrowly as being a relaxation technique, or a spiritual exercise. It can be both these things, but it is also so much more. This book is an attempt to explain the 'more'.

Burning Souls
David Chernushenko (Clare Hall 1987)

A climate breakdown thriller. Burning Souls is a dramatic tale of courage and friendship in a time of political turmoil and ecological collapse.

Long time best friends Simone, Sagan, Jenny and Jiro learned of the predatory practices driving climate breakdown and social collapse, in a time and place when they could dream of making a difference.

And did.

Ideas of Power: The Politics of American Party Ideology Development
Verlan Lewis (Trinity Hall 2009)

This groundbreaking book challenges the dominant view of ideology held by both political scientists and political commentators. Rather than viewing ideological constructs like liberalism and conservatism as static concepts with fixed and enduring content, Professor Verlan Lewis explains how the very meanings of liberalism and conservatism frequently change along with the ideologies of the two major parties in American politics.

Liberty Intact Human Rights in English Law
Michael Tugendhat (Caius 1963)

The connections between conceptions of rights found in English law and those found in bills of rights around the World? How has English Common Law influenced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948 and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 1950?

Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome
Tom Geue (King's 2008)

From Banksy to Elena Ferrante to the unattributed parchments of ancient Rome, art without clear authorship fascinates and even offends us. Classical scholarship tends to treat this anonymity as a problem or game—a defect to be repaired or mystery to be solved. Author Unknown is the first book to consider anonymity as a site of literary interest rather than a gap that needs filling. We can tether each work to an identity, or we can stand back and ask how the absence of a name affects the meaning and experience of literature.

Let There Be Life. An Intimate Portrait of Robert Edwards
Roger Gosden (Darwin 1970)

 The authorized biography of IVF pioneer Robert Edwards is a compelling account of how he led a medical and social revolution by making babies in ‘test-tubes’. Prevailing against opposition when human embryology was new and sacrosanct territory, he was the champion of women and men with infertility, and now millions owe their existence to assisted reproductive technologies. An improbable hero of science, he was a coal miner’s son and a gritty Yorkshireman who rode a roller-coaster of endeavour to a breakthrough for which he was rewarded with a Nobel Prize and knighthood.

Imagined Futures
Max Saunders (Queens' 1976)

This study provides the first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series of 110 books, published by Kegan Paul Trench and Trübner (and E. P. Dutton in the USA) from 1923 to 1931, in which writers chose a topic, described its present, and predicted its future. Contributors included J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh McDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, André Maurois, and many others.

The Impact of Jesus in First-Century Palestine. Textual and Archaeological Evidence for Long-standing Discontent
Rosemary-Margaret Luff (Lucy Cavendish 1972)

Although the archaeological evidence indicates a prosperous and thriving Galilee in the early first century CE, the Gospel texts suggest a society under stress, where the rich were flourishing at the expense of the poor. In this multi-disciplinary study, Rosemary Margaret Luff contributes to current debates concerning the pressures on early first-century Palestinian Jews, particularly with reference to socio-economic and religious issues.

Public Perception of International Crises: Identity, Ontological Security and Self-Affirmation
Dmitry Chernobrov (Girton 2009)

How do people make sense of distant, but disturbing international events? Why are some representations more appealing than others? What do they mean for the perceiver’s own sense of self? Going beyond conventional analysis of political imagining and perception at the level of accuracy, this book reveals how self-conceptions are unconsciously, but centrally present in judgments and representations of international others.

Amateur Musical Societies and Sports Clubs in Provincial France, 1848-1914
Alan Baker, Life Fellow of Emmanuel College Cambridge, Iain Black, Senior Tutor of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and Robin Butlin, Emeritus Professor of Geography and Visiting Research Fellow, University of Leeds

This book explores leisure-related voluntary associations in France during the nineteenth century as practical expressions of the Revolutionary concept of fraternité. Using a mass of unpublished and hitherto unused sources in provincial and national archives, it analyses the history, geography and cultural significance of amateur musical societies and sports clubs in eleven departments of France between 1848 and 1914. Original research is set within the context of published historical studies of sociability in France as a whole.

Anarchy or Establishment
Henry Thwaites

Lawrence Alderson has devoted much of his life to saving endangered breeds and maintaining biodiversity and was awarded the CBE for services to conservation. He matriculated in 1959 and lectured for four years after post-graduate studies before establishing an international consultancy for business management and animal breeding. In the latter capacity he has had a profound impact on global policies for genetic conservation and global warming. He was founder of Rare Breeds International and RBST and is a leading world authority on saving endangered breeds from extinction.

130 Years of Historical Geography at Cambridge 1888-2018
Alan Baker, Life Fellow of Emmanuel College Cambridge, Iain Black, Senior Tutor of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and Robin Butlin, Emeritus Professor of Geography and Visiting Research Fellow, University of Leeds

This book, published on 1 July 2019, is the outcome of an investigation of the changing character of historical geography as conceived, taught at, researched at, and disseminated from, one institution - the Department of Geography of the University of Cambridge - from the late-nineteenth  century. An explanatory history is given of historical geography within a major department of an ancient English university, but viewed within broader geographical and historical contexts.

The Bad Trip: Dark Omens, New Worlds and the End of the Sixties
James Riley - Faculty of English

The Sixties, for many, was a time of new ideas, freedom, and renewed hope – from the civil rights movement to Woodstock. But towards the end of 1969 and the start of the 1970s, everything seemed to implode. The Manson murders, the tragic events of the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont and the appearance of the Zodiac Killer all called a halt to the progress of a glorious decade. At the end of the Sixties, the hippie dream died – or so the story goes.

How to have a mindful pregnancy
Mark Pallis (Hughes Hall 2001) and Sian Warriner

How to have a Mindful Pregnancy is perfect for mothers-to-be and their partners. Whether you are new to mindfulness or practice regularly, whether you are rushed off your feet or have spare time, these 30 tried and tested exercises will help you easily and gently bring the benefits of mindfulness to your life, helping you feel more connected to your body and your baby.

Unravelling the Double Helix: the lost heroes of DNA
Gareth Williams (Clare 1971)

NA. The double helix; the blueprint of life; and, during the early 1950s, a baffling enigma that could win a Nobel Prize. Everyone knows that James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix. In fact, they clicked into place the last piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle that other researchers had assembled over decades. Researchers like Maurice Wilkins (the ‘Third Man of DNA’) and Rosalind Franklin, famously demonised by Watson. Not forgetting the ‘lost heroes’ who fought to prove that DNA is the stuff of genes, only to be airbrushed out of history.

Robbie: The Life of Sir Robert Jennings
Christine Jennings

Robbie Jennings came from Idle, an industrial village in Yorkshire; but he was never an idle man.  His career was a ‘story of the unforeseeable, even improbable, advance to high position and worldwide reputation of a straightforward man of simple origins’ (from his entry in the ODNB by Sir Franklin Berman). Robbie achieved this eminence through academic success, experience abroad, service in military intelligence, years of teaching at Cambridge and the Inns of Court, and as counsel in major international border disputes.

Understand, Manage, and Prevent Algorithmic Bias: A Guide for Business Users and Data Scientists
Tobias Baer (Wolfson 2015)

Drawing on his background in both psychology and data science, Tobias argues that there are 6 major sources of algorithmic bias (ranging from statistical artifacts and at least 6 distinct types of data issues to human biases of data scientists, users, as well as society at large) and that both data scientists and business users of algorithms (including managers and government agencies) can and need to contribute to fighting algorithmic bias.

It Keeps Me Seeking: The Invitation from Science, Philosophy and Religion
Andrew Briggs (Queens' 1973)

Here is a fresh look at how science contributes to the bigger picture of human flourishing, through a collage of science and philosophy, richly illustrated by the authors' own experience and personal reflection. They survey the territory of fundamental physics, machine learning, philosophy of human identity, evolutionary biology, miracles, arguments from design, naturalism, the history of ideas, and more. The natural world can be appreciated not only for itself, but also as an eloquent gesture, a narrative and a pointer beyond itself.

The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions
Andrew Briggs (Queens' 1973)

When young children first begin to ask 'why?' they embark on a journey with no final destination. The need to make sense of the world as a whole is an ultimate curiosity that lies at the root of all human religions. It has, in many cultures, shaped and motivated a more down to earth scientific interest in the physical world, which could therefore be described as penultimate curiosity.

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