From our pages - 1911 The Magazine announced the publication of The Psychology of Religious Experience by philosophy professor Edward A. Ames. The 400-plus-page book, published by Houghton Mifflin, was divided into three parts. The first, "The History and Method of the Psychology of Religion," looked at the chronology of the field, while the second, "The Origin of Religion in the Race," examined such early religious practices as "Custom and Taboo" and "Ceremonials and Magic." The final section, "The Rise of Religion in the Individual," explored the place of religion in the experience of both individual and society.

1951 A national best-seller by John U. Nef, chair of the Committee on Social Thought and professor of economic history, argued for a return to the "older tradition" of war. War and Human Progress analyzed the effect of technological advances on economic progress-and sounded a warning. After the 16th century, Nef argued, "there was always the risk that wars with new weapons would put an end to economic progress" unless humans restrained their use. In the wake of the atomic bomb, Nef looked at how scientists sometimes refrained from publicly releasing information on any discoveries with dangerous possibilities. One example Nef gave was of Leonardo da Vinci's fears of the "evil nature of men,"-fears that kept him from revealing his submarine designs.

1975 The Magazine published a translation of the flood story in the Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata, followed by commentary from the text's translator, J. A. B. van Buitenen, chair and professor in the South Asian languages and civilizations department. In his commentary, van Buitenen analyzed the differences and similarities between the Bible and Indian versions of the flood myth. Van Buitenen, who was at work on a translation of the entire Mahabharata, noted that in the Indian myth, emphasis is placed less on the fact of man's survival of the flood and more on the force that was indispensable in that survival. Another difference is that the man Manu is not as important in the Indian myth as Noah is in the Biblical myth.

1991 "Books by Alumni" featured a number of scholarly works: Sociology in America, edited by Herbert Gans, PhB'47, AM'50, presented papers from the American Sociological Association's 1988 meeting. American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons by Lois Marie Fink, AM'55, PhD'70, explored the impact of American art on French society, listing nearly 5,000 American works exhibited in Paris during the 19th century. In Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus, Samuel M. Wilson, AM'81, PhD'86, examined the effects of Christopher Columbus and his crew on the aboriginal population and culture of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.-Q.J.