Yale Book Award - Book Selections 2008

back to AYA Services

Benjamin Franklin

By Edmund S. Morgan, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University
Yale University Press, 2002, 314 pps.
$24.95 retail

Benjamin Franklin is perhaps the most remarkable figure in American history: the greatest statesman of his age, he played a pivotal role in the formation of the American republic. He was also a pioneering scientist, a bestselling author, the country’s first postmaster general, a printer, a bon vivant, a diplomat, a ladies’ man, and a moralist--and the most prominent celebrity of the eighteenth century.

Franklin was, however, a man of vast contradictions, as Edmund Morgan demonstrates in this brilliant biography. A reluctant revolutionary, Franklin had desperately wished to preserve the British Empire, and he mourned the break even as he led the fight for American independence. Despite his passion for science, Franklin viewed his groundbreaking experiments as secondary to his civic duties. And although he helped to draft both the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, he had personally hoped that the new American government would take a different shape. Unraveling the enigma of Franklin’s character, Morgan shows that he was the rare individual who consistently placed the public interest before his own desires.
Written by one of our greatest historians, Benjamin Franklin offers a provocative portrait of America’s most extraordinary patriot.

The Cold War: A New History

by John Gaddis, Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military & Naval History at Yale
Doubleday, 2007, 344 pages, 1.7 lbs
$27.95 retail

In 1950, when Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il-Sung met in Moscow to discuss the future, they had reason to feel optimistic. International communism seemed everywhere on the offensive: Stalin was at the height of his power; all of Eastern Europe was securely in the Soviet camp; America's monopoly on nuclear weapons was a thing of the past; and Mao's forces had assumed control over the world's most populous country. Everywhere on the globe, colonialism left the West morally compromised. The story of the previous five decades, which saw severe economic depression, two world wars, a nearly successful attempt to wipe out the Jews, and the invention of weapons capable of wiping out everyone, was one of worst fears confirmed, and there seemed as of 1950 little sign, at least to the West, that the next fifty years would be any less dark.

In fact, of course, the century's end brought the widespread triumph of political and economic freedom over its ideological enemies. How did this happen? How did fear become hope? In The Cold War, John Lewis Gaddis makes a major contribution to our understanding of this epochal story. Beginning with World War II and ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union, he provides a thrilling account of the strategic dynamics that drove the age, rich with illuminating portraits of its major personalities and much fresh insight into its most crucial events. The first significant distillation of cold war scholarship for a general readership, The Cold War contains much new and often startling information drawn from newly opened Soviet, East European, and Chinese archives. Now, as America once again finds itself in a global confrontation with an implacable ideological enemy, The Cold War tells a story whose lessons it is vitally necessary to understand.

Day of Empire

By Amy Chua John M. Duff, Jr. Sterling Professor of Law at Yale
Random House, 2006, 256 pages
$25.95 retail

In a little over two centuries, America has grown from a regional power to a superpower, and to what is today called a hyperpower. But can America retain its position as the world’s dominant power, or has it already begun to decline?

Historians have debated the rise and fall of empires for centuries. To date, however, no one has studied the far rarer phenomenon of hyperpowers—those few societies that amassed such extraordinary military and economic might that they essentially dominated the world. Now, in this sweeping history of globally dominant empires, bestselling author Amy Chua explains how hyperpowers rise and why they fall. In a series of brilliantly focused chapters, Chua examines history’s hyperpowers—Persia, Rome, Tang China, the Mongols, the Dutch, the British, and the United States—and reveals the reasons behind their success, as well as the roots of their ultimate demise. Chua’s unprecedented study reveals a fascinating historical pattern. For all their differences, she argues, every one of these world-dominant powers was, at least by the standards of its time, extraordinarily pluralistic and tolerant. Each one succeeded by harnessing the skills and energies of individuals from very different backgrounds, and by attracting and exploiting highly talented groups that were excluded in other societies.

Thus Rome allowed Africans, Spaniards, and Gauls alike to rise to the highest echelons of power, while the barbarian Mongols conquered their vast domains only because they practiced an ethnic and religious tolerance unheard of in their time. In contrast, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, while wielding great power, failed to attain global dominance as a direct result of their racial and religious intolerance. But Chua also uncovers a great historical irony: in virtually every instance, multicultural tolerance eventually sowed the seeds of decline, and diversity became a liability, triggering conflict, hatred, and violence. The United States is the quintessential example of a power that rose to global dominance through tolerance and diversity. The secret to America’s success has always been its unsurpassed ability to attract enterprising immigrants. Today, however, concerns about outsourcing and uncontrolled illegal immigration are producing a backlash against our tradition of cultural openness. Has America finally reached a tipping point? Have we gone too far in the direction of diversity and tolerance to maintain cohesion and unity? Will we be overtaken by rising powers like China, the EU or even India? Chua shows why American power may have already exceeded its limits and why it may be in our interest to retreat from our go-it-alone approach and promote a new multilateralism in both domestic and foreign affairs.

Green to Gold: How Smart Companies use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage

Daniel C. Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and Andrew S. Winston
Yale Press, 2007, 305pps, 1.1 lbs
$27.50 retail

The essential guide for forward-thinking business leaders who see the Green Wave coming and want to profit from it

This book explores what every executive must know to manage the environmental challenges facing society and business. Based on the authors' years of experience and hundreds of interviews with corporate leaders around the world, Green to Gold shows how companies generate lasting value, cutting costs, reducing risk, increasing revenues, and creating strong brands, by building environmental thinking into their business strategies. Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston provide clear how-to advice and concrete examples from companies like BP, Toyota, IKEA, GE, and Nike that are achieving both environmental and business success. The authors show how these cutting-edge companies are establishing an “eco-advantage” in the marketplace as traditional elements of competitive differentiation fade in importance. Esty and Winston not only highlight successful strategies but also make plain what does not work by describing why environmental initiatives sometimes fail despite the best intentions.

Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment

James Gustave Speth, Dean School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences at Yale University
Yale Press, 2004, 228 pp, 1.2 lbs
$24.00 retail

This book will change the way we understand the future of our planet. It is both alarming and hopeful. James Gustave Speth, renowned as a visionary environmentalist leader, warns that in spite of all the international negotiations and agreements of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth’s environment are not succeeding. Still, he says, the challenges are not insurmountable. He offers comprehensive, viable new strategies for dealing with environmental threats around the world.

The author explains why current approaches to critical global environmental problems--climate change, biodiversity loss, deterioration of marine environments, deforestation, water shortages, and others--don’t work. He offers intriguing insights into why we have been able to address domestic environmental threats with some success while largely failing at the international level. Setting forth eight specific steps to a sustainable future, Speth convincingly argues that dramatically different government and citizen action are now urgent. If ever a book could be described as “essential,” this is it.

Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small

*NO LONGER AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER*

by Barry J. Nalebuff, Milton Steinbach Professor of Management, Professor of Political Science; Ian Ayres, William K. Townsend Professor of Law, Professor School of Management
Harvard Business School Press, 2003, 214 pp, 1.5 lbs

Why Not? is a primer for fresh business thinking, for problem solving with a purpose, for bringing the world a few steps closer to the way it should be. Idealistic? Yes. Unrealistic? No.

Authors Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres have spent their careers asking questions, solving problems, and bringing fresh ideas to market-from insurance that protects against a decline in your home's value to Honest Tea, bottled iced tea that actually tastes like tea. Illustrated with examples from every aspect of life, this book offers simple techniques for generating ingenious solutions to existing problems, and for applying existing solutions to new problems.

In the spirit of Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking, Why Not?will help you take the things we all see, every day, and think about them in a new way. Why not have telemarketers pay you for your time when they call? Why not sell a mortgage that automatically refinances when interest rates drop? Why not organize a "buycott" rather than a boycott? Why Not? will provoke you into finding new business opportunities using everyday ingenuity. Great ideas are waiting. Why not be the one to discover them?