In The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the ­Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press), which The New York Times called a “sweeping, important study of cetacean science and policy,” history professor D. GRAHAM BURNETT ’93 explores the history of our scientific understanding of, and relationship to, these ocean behemoths.

In his latest novel, Jack Holmes & His Friend (Bloomsbury), creative writing professor EDMUND WHITE tells the story of a two-decade friendship between Jack Holmes, who is unsure of his sexual preferences, and Will Wright, a Southern blueblood from Princeton. The Observer called the novel an “urbane study of the geometry of gay-straight friendship.”

THEODORE K. RABB *61, a professor emeritus of history, explores how artists have depicted war and warriors from antiquity to the 20th century in a color, illustrated study titled The Artist and the Warrior: Military History Through the Eyes of the Masters (Yale University Press).

Professor JOYCE CAROL OATES edited New Jersey Noir (Akashic Books), a crime anthology that includes stories and poetry set in New Jersey. Among the contributors are poets PAUL MULDOON and C.K. WILLIAMS and novelists SHEILA KOHLER, EDMUND WHITE, and JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER ’99. RICHARD ­TRENNER ’70 created the book’s cover photograph.

Woodrow Wilson School professor STANLEY KATZ writes about what Woodrow Wilson 1879 would make of Princeton today in a chapter of The Educational Legacy of Woodrow Wilson: From College to Nation (University of Virginia Press). The collection of essays explores Wilson’s academic career and its connection to his political life and “examines the central role that Wilson played in the evolution of American higher education,” writes James Axtell, the ­editor. Alumni contributors are W. BRUCE LESLIE ’66 and JOHN MILTON COOPER JR. ’61.

SHELDON GARON, a professor of history and East Asian studies, looks at how thrift has been encouraged in East Asia and Europe and lessons for the United States in Beyond Our Means: Why ­America Spends While the World Saves (Princeton University Press).

In Zone One (Doubleday) by COLSON ­WHITEHEAD, a ­visiting lecturer in creative writing, a plague has devastated the world. The story takes place primarily in Manhattan, where ­people are trying to rebuild ­civilization. “Whitehead transforms the zombie novel into an allegory of contemporary ­Manhattan (and, by extension, America),” wrote Kirkus Reviews.

HAL ­FOSTER ’77, a ­professor of art and archaeology, offers a new interpretation of Pop art by examining the work of Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, ­Gerhard Richter, and Ed Ruscha in The First Pop Age (Princeton University Press).