Books coming up in 2025

This year…

Coming up this year we have an exciting and varied selection of texts planned, ranging from the academic to the artistic. First up, we have A Short History of Africa and the Rest of the World, a long-awaited posthumous book by Peter Robertson, which will span many centuries of history in this diverse continent. This multi-volume book takes a long gaze back into the history of Africa and its importance in world history, a fact which is usually dismissed in favour of a Eurocentric, and especially Anglocentric, perspective. You can read more about this upcoming work here.

Coming in April, we have a new work by Christopher Prendergast, whose book in collaboration with Peter de Bolla, The Two Julys, was published last Spring. His new book, Modernism’s Nightmares, Derrida’s Ghosts & Other Essays, draws together published essays and reviews and unpublished lectures from the past 40 years, guiding the reader through some of the stickier parts of literary criticism of the 19th and 20th centuries. Prendergast’s analysis of French and English literature is perceptive (and often very witty), as is his engagement with some of the most striking voices of criticism in modernism, postmodernism, and of course, deconstruction.

Later on in the year, we will be publishing the next instalment of our Cambridge Conversations series. This time, Professor Alan Macfarlane is in dialogue with Sherard Cowper-Coles, a distinguished and experienced former diplomat, whose career has led him all around the world and back again. Having served as British Ambassador to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan, as well as Special Representative in Afghanistan and Pakistan, along with stints in Egypt, the US, and Hong Kong, Cowper-Coles brings a vast expertise and wide-ranging knowledge to this exciting series of conversations.

Our creative publications this year will include One Fish, Two Fish, a collection of poetry by Yu Mingquan in translation, introducing English speakers to the work of this contemporary Chinese poet. We will also be bringing out a second edition of West Meets East, a look into the work and method of artist Ann Massing, now with additional material.

Last year…

2024 was an exciting time in the realm of publishing here at Cam Rivers, as we brought out a number of books across the spheres of the arts and humanities.

The Two Julys

In March, we published The Two Julys by Peter de Bolla and Christopher Prendergast, a comparative exploration into the French and American Revolutions. These two pivotal moments in global history, separated by only thirteen years and one ocean, redefined concepts of statehood, human rights, and independence from or dependence on a national community.

The Two Julys can be purchased through Amazon here.

Discord and Harmony

September saw the publication of our latest in the Cambridge Conversation series, this time featuring Sir Vince Cable. This book series is interested in the relationship of China and the West, and so this collection of conversations between Professor Alan Macfarlane and Sir Vince is a fascinating approach, coming from a political and economic perspective and an anthropological one.

Read more about this dialogue here. Purchase Discord and Harmony through Amazon here.

Malacca Strait to River Cam

In the Autumn, we published the memoirs of Y.W. (Charlie) Loke, a world-leading researcher on a historically overlooked organ, the placenta. His autobiography spans 80 from Malaya in the Second World War through to the University of Cambridge in the present day, charting his personal development as well as how much the world has changed over the last eight decades, not only in science but in society more broadly.

Read more about Loke’s memoir here. Purchase Malacca Strait to River Cam through our website here or through Amazon here.

Notes from Ivory Flats

In the autumn, we released this collection of essays by Professor Robert Foley. It offers a witty and perceptive diagnosis of the issues facing higher education in general, and the University of Cambridge in particular, leading the reader through a series of sharp theories and analogies. Notes from Ivory Flats also offers hope in this difficult state of our most beloved national institution, leaving the reader ready to take action.

Read more about this book here. Purchase through our website here and through Amazon here.

China: Past, Present, and Future

Professor’s Macfarlane most recent offering is this book tracing the adventures of 19th century missionary Abbé Evariste Huc. Not only exploring some of Huc’s most exciting discoveries, Macfarlane also uncovers what we can gain from his findings, and what we might see from China in the future. It is then truly in the vein of an Emeritus Professor whose academic life has been dedicated to the dual specialisms of history and anthropology.

Read more about this book here and purchase online through Amazon here.