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D. Michael Lindsay is a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University and is the author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. In the post below he reflects on the Republican candidates. This post originally appeared on The Immanent Frame.

Mike Huckabee’s early success in the primary season shows that evangelicals have political muscles to flex in the post-George W. Bush era. Just as scribes across the country were ready to write Huckabee’s political obituary, he came out of nowhere and won the Republican Caucuses in Iowa by nine points over Mitt Romney. He also did better in New Hampshire than many pundits predicted, and with South Carolina and many other states up for grabs in the next few weeks, Huckabee’s political star will continue to rise—at least for a few more weeks. (more…)

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The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do men and women really speak different languages? by Deborah Cameron, Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University, argues that gender needs to be viewed in more complex ways than the prevailing myths and stereotypes allow. In the article below Cameron looks at historical stereotypes of female orators and reflects on Hillary Clinton’s primary run.

After Hillary Clinton lost to Barack Obama in Iowa, the London Times columnist David Aaronovitch suggested that part of Mrs. Clinton’s problem might lie in our contradictory attitudes to women’s public speech. If their style is assertive they are labeled “shrill” and “strident”; if it is softer and more conciliatory, that casts doubt on their ability to lead. However she speaks, it seems a woman cannot win. (more…)

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 ***Theodosia Throckmorton (Theo for short), the young daughter of the curator of the Museum of Legends and Antiquities in London, is very busy these days. The year is 1906, and the world’s western powers are busily excavating the treasure

The American Dialect Society has announced that the Word of the Year for 2007, as voted by members at its annual meeting, is subprime. It’s a sturdy choice, given how much media attention has circulated this past year about the financial crisis in the housing sector blamed on mortgage loans made to high-risk borrowers with credit ratings that are less than prime. Subprime (sometimes hyphenated as sub-prime) might not be as flashy as some previous selections by the ADS, such as truthiness in 2005 (comedian Stephen Colbert’s term for “truth from the gut” unencumbered by facts) or plutoed in 2006 (’demoted or devalued in the manner of Pluto losing planet status’). Nonetheless, the word has an intriguing history, even for people like me who aren’t terribly fascinated by the lending practices of banks.

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On January 3, 1992 J. R. R. Tolkien, author of some of the most beloved fantasy books in history, was born. To celebrate his birthday I decided to learn a bit more about him. Oxford Reference Online led me to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature which contained this great biography. Check it out below. And no, I am not yet counting the days until The Hobbit movie is released!

Tolkien, J. R. R. (1892–1973), British scholar of Anglo- Saxon and medieval literature and writer of fantasy fiction, most notably The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The enormous success of the latter novel has been decisive in establishing fantasy fiction as a popular literary genre that straddles the boundary between children’s and adults’ literature. Although few of his works were written expressly for children, most are accessible to teenagers and young adults, undoubtedly the largest group among his readers. (more…)

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To celebrate the holidays we asked some of our favorite people in publishing what their favorite book was. Let us know in the comments what your favorite book is and be sure to check back throughout the week for more “favorites”.

Stephanie O’Cain is an Exhibits Coordinator at NYU Press.

For over five years, Jeanette Winterson’s novel Written on the Body has been the book I return to when I need to renew my sense of admiration for the human body and condition. Winterson gives no hint as to the narrator’s gender in this torrid love affair, forcing the reader to cast aside any preconceived notions about love, loss and redemption and instead focus simply on the complexities of relationships. (more…)

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To celebrate the holidays we asked some of our favorite people in publishing what their favorite book was. Let us know in the comments what your favorite book is and be sure to check back throughout the week for more “favorites”.

Greg Galant is the publisher and CEO of Newsgroper.

The Power Broker by Robert Caro is my favorite book, even if weighted on a per page basis. This 1,336 page biography of Robert Moses is an insightful portrayal of power and New York. Caro contends that Moses was the most powerful non-elected official in American history who built modern day New York – for better or worse. (more…)

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To celebrate the holidays we asked some of our favorite people in publishing what their favorite book was. Let us know in the comments what your favorite book is and be sure to check back throughout the week for more “favorites”.

Dylan Moulton is an Associate Marketing Manager at Palgrave Macmillan.

The book that stuck with me this year was Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us. With so much attention directed to the environment lately, it’s a thought experiment with teeth. The imagery of a human impact on the earth – that millions of years from now Manhattan could be a lush forest while the only evidence of human beings may lie in degraded plastics – not only lingered but sparked conversation.

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To celebrate the holidays we asked some of our favorite people in publishing what their favorite book was. Let us know in the comments what your favorite book is and be sure to check back throughout the week for more “favorites”.

Christine Duplessis is a Marketing Manager at Simon and Schuster.

I say that my favorite book is Pride and Prejudice. And it really is brilliant—great characters, great story, writing that has held up for all these years. I can still remember reading it for the first time and how it made me feel. But deep down I know that my favorite book is really a historical romance, The Prize by Julie Garwood, because that’s the book I go back and reread whenever I’m sad or sick or stressed out. But shh. Don’t tell.

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To celebrate the holidays we asked some of our favorite people in publishing what their favorite book was. Let us know in the comments what your favorite book is and be sure to check back throughout the week for more “favorites”.

Lauren Cerand is an independent public relations representative and consultant in New York. She writes about art, politics and style at LuxLotus.com.

When Oxford University Press asked me to recommend a holiday book pick, I was thrilled. For one thing, the blog is a daily must-read for me, and like the best sort of party, it’s a pleasure just to be asked. And although I feel as though I can’t wait to read the new catalog of OUP offerings, I’ve left it on my front table because the cover’s so pretty it makes me smile whenever I walk in the door. As an independent publicist, I spend my days, nights, and almost every waking moment helping worthy books and cultural projects reach their intended, ideal audiences. I feel like my friends at Oxford University Press share a similar enthusiasm for their endeavors, and that’s one reason we’re pals. (more…)

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Tokaj, Hungary

Coordinates: 48 8 N 21 27 E

Population: 5,028 (2007 est.)

Eastern Europe isn’t likely to be the first place most people think of when they hear “wine country,” but red and white grapes have in fact been grown on the slopes of the Carpathians for centuries. Perhaps the best-known region is Tokaj in northwestern Hungary, where the Bodrog and Tisza Rivers converge near the village that lends its name to this part of the country. (more…)

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I’ve been blogging about the Place of the Week for nearly two years now, choosing a new location every seven days that I knew little about but had caught my attention or that appeared in the news. In the last year global warming has become much more than another subject debated within academia; in fact its found its way into our language, popular culture, and even our shopping habits. As I thought about this while I tried to pick my first Place of the Year, I kept coming back to the very visible ways the Earth’s landscape has been altered by the phenomena. (more…)

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Jessica Prentice coined the word “locavore” which was chosen as the Oxford Word of the Year! We asked her how the word came about. Her answer is below.

There’s only one word for it: giddy. That’s how I’ve been feeling since reading the first email informing me that “locavore” was voted 2007’s “Word of the Year” by Oxford University Press. It’s the same feeling you have when you’re twelve years old and the guy you have a crush on gives you a valentine, and doesn’t give one to anyone else. You blush, you jump up and down in your seat, and you send excited text messages to the people you know will understand.

And how exciting to be asked to blog about it and be able to tell the story from my point of view! From the very beginning, the word “locavore” had legs. It’s actually been a fascinating phenomenon to watch: to see something that never existed before take on meaning and gather momentum. It’s also a phenomenon that would have been impossible before the internet. So, how did the word “locavore” come about? (more…)

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It’s always an exciting time at OUP when the New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year is selected. As announced here on Monday, this year’s choice is locavore, meaning “a person who endeavors to eat only locally produced foods.” The word may very well strike a resonant chord for anyone who has mulled over how many miles a bunch of bananas has logged before it gets to the local grocery store. But unlike some of our previous Words of the Year — most recently, podcast in 2005 and carbon neutral in 2006 — locavore is very much “on the cusp,” not yet firmly established in widespread usage, despite its great potential. That means Oxford lexicographers will continue to monitor its progress to see if it eventually warrants inclusion in the next edition of NOAD.

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It’s that time of the year again. It is finally starting to get cold (if you are worried about the global warming maybe you should become carbon-neutral) and the New Oxford American Dictionary is preparing for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year. The 2007 Word of the Year is (drum-roll please) locavore.

The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.

The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation. (more…)

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Patagonia, Argentina

Coordinates: 45 0 S 69 0 W

Approximate area: 300,000 sq. mi. (770,000 sq. km)

Perhaps best characterized as a sparsely populated, expansive arid region situated almost literally at the ends of the Earth, Patagonia once teemed with an impressive range of flora and fauna. Of course to fully appreciate the abundance of life that once called this piece of South America home, it helps to have a degree in paleontology. (more…)

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D. Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in The Halls of Power, spent long hours trying to get to the bottom of the Evangelical mind-frame. In the podcast below Lindsay explains how he got the interviews that shaped his book. Additionally, on Beliefnet, they are holding a Blogalogue (such a cool word right?) about Lindsay’s research with journalists Hanna Rosin and Jeff Sharlet, evangelical author Jerry Jenkins, and former Bush aide David Kuo. Read Lindsay’s first piece here.

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David Bornstein, author of How To Change The World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas is a journalist who specializes in writing about social innovation. In his book, Bornstein profiles some of the incredible individuals who have successfully changed the world by blurring the line between business and social action. In the excerpt below Bornstein looks at why studying social entrepreneurship is so critical.

Over the past century, researchers have studied business entrepreneurs extensively. They have analyzed their orientation to action, to risk, and to growth; they have explored the entrepreneur’s “personal value orientation” and “internal locus of control” and searched for clues to explain the entrepreneur’s propensity to seek out and exploit change. Not only have business entrepreneurs been thoroughly studied, but their talents have been nurtured by value systems, government policies, and a wide array of institutional supports. (more…)

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Last spring, just as OUP was beginning to buzz with excitement for our fall books, D. Michael Lindsay, the author of Faith In The Halls of Power, came and talked to us. For the next couple of weeks I am going to share some of what he said. It the podcast below Lindsay tells the story of what happened when Bud McFarlane woke up from his attempted suicide attempt. The transcript of the audio is after the jump.

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The post below is by Theo Calderara, editor at OUP.

Evangelicals in politics get a lot of attention these days, much of it focusing on issues like abortion. But while everyone’s watching what James Dobson is doing in America, they’re missing what Rick Warren is doing in Africa.

Last night, Michael Lindsay spoke about his new book, Faith in the Halls of Power, at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. One of the many fascinating things the crowd heard is that while everyone thinks evangelicals have a lot of influence on domestic issues, they’re really making an impact abroad. (more…)

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D. Michael Lindsay is the author of Faith in The Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite and is a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University. In the post below he examines the influence of religion on the military based on his experience interviewing prominent evangelical Americans. Read more by Lindsay here.

In the buildup to the General Petraeus’s appearance before Congress, we’ve been hearing a lot about partnerships between the American military and Sunni tribal leaders, like the so-called “Anbar Awakening.” These military leaders are often the only Americans Iraqis ever meet. And these leaders are more and more likely—especially at the elite level—to be evangelicals. (more…)

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In “The Grammarian’s Five Daughters,” a fable by science fiction writer Eleanor Arnason, a mother bestows grammatical gifts to five daughters seeking their fortune in the world. The eldest daughter gets a bag full of nouns, the next gets verbs, the next adjectives, and the next adverbs. The youngest daughter is stuck with the leftovers, those “dull little words” overlooked by everyone else: the prepositions. But the prepositions ultimately bring order to a chaotic land, serving as the foundation for a strong and thriving nation organized under the motto “WITH.”
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Okay, I am two days early but on Sunday, August 19, it will be the the 151st anniversary of Condensed Milk. To celebrate this product which everyone under-appreciates we searched Oxford Reference Online and found this great profile of the Borden company in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Be sure to read the whole thing to find some neat tidbits about Elsie The Cow.

At one time the Borden company was America’s largest dairy business. Gail Borden Jr., the founder of the Borden Condensed Milk Company, was born in Norwich, New York, in 1801. He died in 1874, leaving behind a thriving business, two sons, and a host of inventions and patents. (more…)

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Life is looking pretty dreary for the orphans of the Windcity orphanage and cheese factory. They work excruciating shifts producing the most foul cheese on the earth (2 ounces make you hallucinate. 3 ounces will kill you) and to top it all of they mu

The Celebutantes: On The Avenue by Antonio Pagliarulo