Throughout the 2020-21 academic year, our faculty have been prolific—publishing books that showcase their research and deepen our collective conversation on topics such as faith, poverty, the Arab Spring, and the history of the Holocaust.
“The contributions of our faculty in their rigorous research and scholarly work drives the intellectual life of the College,” said Heather Antecol, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. “We are proud to share their insights and expertise.”
Here are a few recent titles of note:
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In “The Psychology of Poverty Alleviation: Challenges in Developing Countries,” published by Cambridge University Press, William Ascher integrates social and psycho-dynamic psychology, economics, policy design, and policy-process theory to explore ways to follow through on initiatives that help the poor.
Using eight case studies across Latin America, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, Ascher examines successes and failures from poverty alleviation, such as affirmative action, cash transfers, social-spending targeting, subsidies, and regional development. In doing so, he demonstrates how social identities, attributions of deservingness, and perceptions of the policy process shape both the willingness to support pro-poor policies and the conflict that emerges over distributional issues.
Ascher, who is the Donald C. McKenna Professor of Government and Economics, studies strategic planning, policymaking in developing countries, natural-resource and environmental policy. He is a prolific author and co-editor of many books, including “Economic Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America.”
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Hicham Bou Nassif’s book “Endgames: Military Response to Protest in Arab Autocracies,” published by Cambridge University Press, examines the different military responses to popular uprisings during the 2011 Arab Spring in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Libya.
Building on interviews with Arab officers, extensive fieldwork and archival research, as well as hundreds of published memoirs, Bou Nassif shows how divergent combinations of coup-proofing tactics accounted for different patterns of military behavior in 2011.
An associate professor of government, Bou Nassif’s research focuses on military politics in authoritarian contexts and on ISIS recruitment tactics. “The Oxford Handbook of Civil-Military Relations,” which he co-edited, is forthcoming in April 2022.
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Esther Chung-Kim, who is associate professor of religious studies and associate director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, recently published “Economics of Faith: Reforming Poor Relief in Early Modern Europe” with Oxford University Press.
In her book, Chung-Kim examines the role of religious leaders in the development of poor relief institutions in early modern Europe, focusing on the Reformation, religious history, and social welfare reform. She discussed “Economics of Faith” as part of the prestigious Kessler Conversation series at Emory University.
Chung-Kim specializes in the history of world Christianity, including the European Reformation. Her research examines religious conflict, poor relief, and the impact of religion on politics, economics, and society.
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In her book, “The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed,” published by Mariner Press, Wendy Lower investigates the story behind a rare photograph from 1941.
The photo—taken in Miropol, Ukraine—shows Nazis and local collaborators in the middle of a massacre. Lower, director of the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights and a historian of the Holocaust, spent 10 years researching the image, recovering layers of detail that reveal the ideology behind the genocide. The New York Times reviewed “The Ravine” and interviewed Lower for their Book Review’s podcast.
Lower, who is the John K. Roth Professor of History and a George Roberts Fellow, is also the author of “Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields,” a 2013 finalist for the National Book Award.
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In “Goering’s Man in Paris: The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and His World,” published by Yale University Press, Jonathan Petropoulos explores the life of Bruno Lohse, one of the most notorious art thieves in history.
Petropoulos details how Lohse supervised the systematic theft and distribution of more than 30,000 artworks, largely from French Jews, and assisted in amassing an enormous private art collection. After his death, dozens of paintings by Renoir, Monet, and Pissarro, among others, were found in his Zurich bank vault and personal residence.
Reviewing “Goering’s Man in Paris,” Art Newspaper described Petropoulos as “an enterprising, investigative historian.”
Petropoulos, who is the John V. Croul Professor of European History, is a renowned expert on Nazi art looting and restitution. His books include “Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany” and “The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany.”