(Princeton University Press, 2017) by SFI External Professor Scott Page (University of Michigan) investigates how businesses and other organizations can improve their performance by tapping a variety of cognitive repertoires. Page traces a causative path to the benefits that arise when teams composed of different kinds of thinkers come together to think, solve, and create. These “diversity bonuses” include improved problem solving, increased innovation, and more accurate predictions — all of which lead to better performance and results.


The Economy (Oxford University Press, 2017) is a textbook designed for a first course in economics. Available in paperback format and as a free, online interactive text, the book aims to address the gap between complex, real-world economic problems and the topics traditionally taught in first-year courses. Several SFI co-authors contributed to its content as part of the Curriculum Open-access Resources for Economics (CORE) project — an international collaboration of economists, teachers, and students led by Wendy Carlin (University College London) and SFI Professor Sam Bowles.


Maya E Groups (University Press of Florida, 2017) is an anthology edited by David Freidel (Washington University), Arlen Chase (University of Nevada), Anne Dowd (ArchaeoLOGIC USA, LLC), and SFI Trustee Jerry Murdock. The book results from an ongoing series of SFI meetings exploring ancient Maya culture. E Groups, named after “Group E” at an archaeological site in Uaxactun, are some of the earliest permanent public structures that were ritual centers and astronomical observatories.


History, Big History, and Metahistory book coverHistory, Big History, & Metahistory (SFI Press, 2017) compiles a classic series of SFI writings that lay groundwork for a macroscopic understanding of written history.  Edited by SFI President David Krakauer, John Gaddis (Yale), and Kenneth Pomeranz (University of California Irvine), the collection brings together insights from distinct fields because, according to the editors, “it seems likely that the disciplines themselves develop less than optimally when they lack ready access to each other’s insights and methods.”


From the Fall 2017 Parallax Newsletter. To subscribe to the paper newsletter, email news@santafe.edu