UW News

December 2, 2015

Book by UW’s Jackson School faculty among New York Times 100 most notable of 2015

UW News

"The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How they Made the Modern World," by UW Jackson School faculty Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot, was published in May be Princeton University Press.

“The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How they Made the Modern World,” by UW Jackson School faculty Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot, was published in May by Princeton University Press.Rachael Wright

The New York Times has named a recent book by two faculty members in the UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies to its list of 100 Most Notable Books of 2015.

The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How They Built the Modern World,” by Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot was published in May by Princeton University Press.

“Our approach is simple and direct,” Montgomery said in an interview with UW Today about the book. “We chose to write about ideas that have been particularly influential on how people have understood the political, economic, religious and scientific dimensions to modern existence.” The four “big ideas” are capitalism, socialism, evolution and liberal democracy.

In that interview, Chirot said, “Ideas are not just important, but vital. If we fail to understand what ideas govern the modern world, and where they came from, we cannot understand what is going on anywhere.”

In an August 2015 book review, Times writer and political commentator Fareed Zakaria wrote that the authors “have to cover an immense range of material, from economics to evolution to Islamic fundamentalism. But they do so — comprehensively, intelligently and with nuance and judiciousness. I was struck again and again by the extraordinary breadth, erudition and lucidity of this book.”

Montgomery is a lecturer in the Jackson School; Chirot is a professor in the Jackson School with a joint appointment in the sociology department.

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For more information about the book, contact Montgomery at 206-897-1611 or scottlm@uw.edu
or Chirot at 206-685-2412 or chirot@uw.edu.