Friday, October 31, 2008

"Hog and Hominy"

New from Columbia University Press: Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America by Frederick Douglass Opie.

About the book, from the publisher:
Frederick Opie's culinary history is an insightful portrait of the social and religious relationship between people of African descent and their cuisine. Beginning with the Atlantic slave trade and concluding with the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Opie composes a global history of African American foodways and the concept of soul itself, revealing soul food to be an amalgamation of West and Central African social and cultural influences as well as the adaptations blacks made to the conditions of slavery and freedom in the Americas.

Soul is the style of rural folk culture, embodying the essence of suffering, endurance, and survival. Soul food comprises dishes made from simple, inexpensive ingredients that remind black folk of their rural roots. Sampling from travel accounts, periodicals, government reports on food and diet, and interviews with more than thirty people born before 1945, Opie reconstructs an interrelated history of Moorish influence on the Iberian Peninsula, the African slave trade, slavery in the Americas, the emergence of Jim Crow, the Great migration, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. His grassroots approach reveals the global origins of soul food, the forces that shaped its development, and the distinctive cultural collaborations that occurred among Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Americans throughout history.

Hog and Hominy traces the class- and race-inflected attitudes toward black folk's food in the African diaspora as it evolved in Brazil, the Caribbean, the American South, and such northern cities as Chicago and New York, mapping the complex cultural identity of African Americans as it developed through eating habits over hundreds of years.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

"Black: The History of a Color"

New from Princeton University Press: Black: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau.

About the book, from the publisher:
Black--favorite color of priests and penitents, artists and ascetics, fashion designers and fascists--has always stood for powerfully opposed ideas: authority and humility, sin and holiness, rebellion and conformity, wealth and poverty, good and bad. In this beautiful and richly illustrated book, the acclaimed author of Blue now tells the fascinating social history of the color black in Europe.

In the beginning was black, Michel Pastoureau tells us. The archetypal color of darkness and death, black was associated in the early Christian period with hell and the devil but also with monastic virtue. In the medieval era, black became the habit of courtiers and a hallmark of royal luxury. Black took on new meanings for early modern Europeans as they began to print words and images in black and white, and to absorb Isaac Newton's announcement that black was no color after all. During the romantic period, black was melancholy's friend, while in the twentieth century black (and white) came to dominate art, print, photography, and film, and was finally restored to the status of a true color.

For Pastoureau, the history of any color must be a social history first because it is societies that give colors everything from their changing names to their changing meanings--and black is exemplary in this regard. In dyes, fabrics, and clothing, and in painting and other art works, black has always been a forceful--and ambivalent--shaper of social, symbolic, and ideological meaning in European societies.

With its striking design and compelling text, Black will delight anyone who is interested in the history of fashion, art, media, or design.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

"Fighting for the Cross"

New from Yale University Press: Fighting for the Cross: Crusading to the Holy Land by Norman Housley.

About the book, from the publisher:
In a series of massive military undertakings that stretched from 1095 to 1291, Christendom’s armies won, defended, and lost the sacred sites of the Holy Land. Many books have been written about the Crusades, but until now none has described in detail what is was like to take part in medieval Europe’s most ambitious wars. This vividly written book draws on extensive research and on a wealth of surviving contemporary accounts to recreate the full experience of crusading, from the elation of taking up the cross to the difficult adjustments at home when the war was over.

Distinguished historian Norman Housley explores the staggering logistical challenges of raising, equipping, and transporting thousands of Christian combatants from Europe to the East as well as the complications that non-combatant pilgrims presented. He describes the ordinary crusader’s prolonged years of difficult military tasks, risk of starvation and disease, trial of religious faith, death of friends, and the specter of heavy debt or stolen homelands upon arriving home. Creating an unprecedented sense of immediacy, Housley brings to light the extent of crusaders’ sacrifices and the religious commitment that enabled them to endure.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

"Defying Empire"

New from Yale University Press: Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York by Thomas M. Truxes.

About the book, from the publisher:
This enthralling book is the first to uncover the story of New York City merchants who engaged in forbidden trade with the enemy before and during the Seven Years’ War (also known as the French and Indian War). Ignoring British prohibitions designed to end North America’s wartime trade with the French, New York’s merchant elite conducted a thriving business in the French West Indies, insisting that their behavior was protected by long practice and British commercial law. But the government in London viewed it as treachery, and its subsequent efforts to discipline North American commerce inflamed the colonists.

Through fast-moving events and unforgettable characters, historian Thomas M. Truxes brings eighteenth-century New York and the Atlantic world to life. There are spies, street riots, exotic settings, informers, courtroom dramas, interdictions on the high seas, ruthless businessmen, political intrigues, and more. The author traces each phase of the city’s trade with the enemy and details the frustrations that affected both British officials and independent-minded New Yorkers. The first book to focus on New York City during the Seven Years’ War, Defying Empire reveals the important role the city played in hastening the colonies’ march toward revolution.

Monday, October 27, 2008

"The Culture of War"

New from Presidio Press: The Culture of War by Martin van Creveld.

About the book, from the publisher:
A respected scholar of military history and an expert on strategy, Martin van Creveld recently explored the modern world’s shifting method of combat in The Changing Face of War. Now, in The Culture of War, he argues that there is much more to war than just soldiers killing one another for whatever reason.

War has always been a topic of deep intrigue. Fighting itself can be a source of great, perhaps even the greatest, joy; out of this joy and fascination an entire culture has grown–from the war paint of tribal warriors to today’s “tiger suits,” from Julius Caesar’s red cloak to Douglas McArthur’s pipe, from the decorative shields of ancient Greece to today’s nose art, and from the invention of chess around 600 A.D. to the most modern combat simulators. The culture of war has its own traditions, laws and customs, rituals, ceremonies, music, art, literature, and monuments since the beginning of civilization.

Throughout the ages, the culture of war has usually been highly esteemed. Not so in today’s advanced countries, which tend either to mock it (“military intelligence is to intelligence what military music is to music”) or to denounce it as “militaristic.” This provocative book, the first of its kind, sets out to show how wrongheaded, and even dangerous, such attitudes are. The Culture of War argues that men and women, contrary to the hopes of some, are just as fascinated by war today as they have been in the past. A military that has lost touch with the culture of war is doomed not merely to defeat but to disintegration.

Innovative, authoritative, and riveting, this is a major work by one of the world’s greatest and most insightful military historians.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

"The Decline and Fall of the British Empire"

New from Knopf: The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 by Piers Brendon.

About the book, from the publisher:
A magisterial work of narrative history, hailed in Britain as “the best one-volume account of the British Empire” and “an outstanding book” (The Times Literary Supplement).

After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared to be doomed. But over the next 150 years it grew to become the greatest and most diverse empire the world has ever seen—ranging from Canada to Australia to China, India, and Egypt—seven times larger than the Roman Empire at its apogee. Britannia ruled the waves and a quarter of the earth.

Yet it was also a fundamentally weak empire, as Piers Brendon shows in this vivid and sweeping chronicle. Run from a tiny island base, the British Empire operated on a shoestring with the help of local elites. It enshrined a belief in freedom that would fatally undermine its authority. Spread too thin, and facing wars, economic crises, and domestic discord, the empire would vanish almost as quickly as it appeared.

Within a generation, the mighty structure collapsed, sometimes amid bloodshed. This rapid demise left unfinished business in Rhodesia, the Falklands, and Hong Kong. It left an array of dependencies and a ghost of an empire overshadowed by a rising America. Above all, it left a contested legacy: at best, a sporting spirit, a legal code, and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife.

Brendon tells this story with brio and brilliance; covering a vast canvas, he fills it with vivid firsthand accounts of life in the colonies and intimate portraits of the sometimes eccentric British officials who administered them. It is all here—from brief lives to telling anecdotes to comic episodes to symbolic moments. Panoramic in scope and riveting in detail, this is narrative history at its finest.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

"Judgment Calls"

New from Oxford University Press: Judgment Calls: Principle and Politics in Constitutional Law by Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry.

About the book, from the publisher:
Judgement Calls tackles one of the most important and controversial legal questions in contemporary America: How should judges interpret the Constitution? Our Constitution contains a great deal of language that is vague, broad, or ambiguous, making its meaning uncertain. Many people believe this uncertainty allows judges too much discretion. They suggest that constitutional adjudication is just politics in disguise, and that judges are legislators in robes who read the Constitution in accordance with their own political views. Some think that political decision making by judges is inevitable, and others think it can be restrained by "strict constructionist" theories like textualism or originalism. But at bottom, both sorts of thinkers believe that judging has to be either tightly constrained and inflexible or purely political and unfettered: There is, they argue, no middle ground.

Farber and Sherry disagree, and in this book they describe and defend that middle ground. They show how judging can be--and often is--both principled and flexible. In other words, they attempt to reconcile the democratic rule of law with the recognition that judges have discretion. They explain how judicial discretion can be exercised responsibly, describe the existing constraints that guide and cabin such discretion, and suggest improvements.

In exploring how constitutional adjudication works in practice (and how it can be made better), Farber and Sherry cover a wide range of topics that are relevant to their thesis and also independently important, including judicial opinion-writing, the use of precedent, the judicial selection process, the structure of the American judiciary, and the nature of legal education. They conclude with a careful look at how the Supreme Court has treated three of the most significant and sensitive constitutional issues: terrorism, abortion, and affirmative action. Timely, trenchant, and carefully argued, Judgment Calls is a welcome addition to the literature on the intersection of constitutional interpretation and American politics.

Friday, October 24, 2008

"The Lost History of Christianity"

New from HarperOne: The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia--and How It Died by Philip Jenkins.

About the book, from the publisher:
In this groundbreaking book, renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins offers a lost history, revealing that, for centuries, Christianity's center was actually in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, with significant communities extending as far as China. The Lost History of Christianity unveils a vast and forgotten network of the world's largest and most influential Christian churches that existed to the east of the Roman Empire. These churches and their leaders ruled the Middle East for centuries and became the chief administrators and academics in the new Muslim empire. The author recounts the shocking history of how these churches—those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church—died.

Jenkins takes a stand against current scholars who assert that variant, alternative Christianities disappeared in the fourth and fifth centuries on the heels of a newly formed hierarchy under Constantine, intent on crushing unorthodox views. In reality, Jenkins says, the largest churches in the world were the “heretics” who lost the orthodoxy battles. These so-called heretics were in fact the most influential Christian groups throughout Asia, and their influence lasted an additional one thousand years beyond their supposed demise.

Jenkins offers a new lens through which to view our world today, including the current conflicts in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Without this lost history, we lack an important element for understanding our collective religious past. By understanding the forgotten catastrophe that befell Christianity, we can appreciate the surprising new births that are occurring in our own time, once again making Christianity a true world religion.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

"Society Without God"

New from New York University Press: Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment by Phil Zuckerman.

About the book, from the publisher:
Before he began his recent travels, it seemed to Phil Zuckerman as if humans all over the globe were getting religion — praising deities, performing holy rites, and soberly defending the world from sin. But most residents of Denmark and Sweden, he found, dont worship any god at all, dont pray, and dont give much credence to religious dogma of any kind. Instead of being bastions of sin and corruption, however, as the Christian Right has suggested a godless society would be, these countries are filled with residents who score at the very top of the happiness index and enjoy their healthy societies, which boast some of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world (along with some of the lowest levels of corruption), excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer.

Zuckerman formally interviewed nearly 150 Danes and Swedes of all ages and educational backgrounds over the course of fourteen months, beginning in 2005. He was particularly interested in the worldviews of people who live their lives without religious orientation. How do they think about and cope with death? Are they worried about an afterlife? What he found is that nearly all of his interviewees live their lives without much fear of the Grim Reaper or worries about the hereafter. This led him to wonder how and why it is that certain societies are nonreligious in a world that seems to be marked by increasing religiosity. Drawing on prominent sociological theories and his own extensive research, Zuckerman ventures some interesting answers.

This fascinating approach directly counters the claims of outspoken, conservative American Christians who argue that a society without God would be hell on earth. It is crucial, Zuckerman believes, for Americans to know that society without God is not only possible, but it can be quite civil and pleasant.
Read the introduction to Society Without God.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

"Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity"

New from Columbia University Press: Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity by Gary Cross.

About the book, from the publisher:
Adam Sandler movies, HBO's Entourage, and such magazines as Maxim and FHM all trade in and appeal to one character—the modern boy-man. Addicted to video games, comic books, extreme sports, and dressing down, the boy-man would rather devote an afternoon to Grand Theft Auto than plan his next career move. He would rather prolong the hedonistic pleasures of youth than embrace the self-sacrificing demands of adulthood.

When did maturity become the ultimate taboo? Men have gone from idolizing Cary Grant to aping Hugh Grant, shunning marriage and responsibility well into their twenties and thirties. Gary Cross, renowned cultural historian, identifies the boy-man and his habits, examining the attitudes and practices of three generations to make sense of this gradual but profound shift in American masculinity. Cross matches the rise of the American boy-man to trends in twentieth-century advertising, popular culture, and consumerism, and he locates the roots of our present crisis in the vague call for a new model of leadership that, ultimately, failed to offer a better concept of maturity.

Cross does not blame the young or glorify the past. He finds that men of the "Greatest Generation" might have embraced their role as providers but were confused by the contradictions and expectations of modern fatherhood. Their uncertainty gave birth to the Beats and men who indulged in childhood hobbies and boyish sports. Rather than fashion a new manhood, baby-boomers held onto their youth and, when that was gone, embraced Viagra. Without mature role models to emulate or rebel against, Generation X turned to cynicism and sensual intensity, and the media fed on this longing, transforming a life stage into a highly desirable lifestyle. Arguing that contemporary American culture undermines both conservative ideals of male maturity and the liberal values of community and responsibility, Cross concludes with a proposal for a modern marriage of personal desire and ethical adulthood.
Read an excerpt from Men to Boys.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

"The Mind of Jihad"

New from Cambridge University Press: The Mind of Jihad by Laurent Murawiec.

About the book, from the publisher:
This book examines contemporary jihad as a cult of violence and power. All jihadi groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not, are characterized by a similar bloodlust. Murawiec characterizes this belief structure as identical to that of Europe’s medieval millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their European cousins shared in a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission endowed the Elect with supernatural powers and placed them above the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks. Their doctrines of terror as a system of rule were appropriated by radical Islam through multiple lines of communication. This book brings history, anthropology, and theology to bear to understand the mind of jihad that has declared war on the West and the world.
Read an excerpt from The Mind of Jihad.

Monday, October 20, 2008

"Killing for Coal"

New from Harvard University Press: Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War by Thomas G. Andrews.

About the book, from the publisher:
On a spring morning in 1914, in the stark foothills of southern Colorado, members of the United Mine Workers of America clashed with guards employed by the Rockefeller family, and a state militia beholden to Colorado’s industrial barons. When the dust settled, nineteen men, women, and children among the miners’ families lay dead. The strikers had killed at least thirty men, destroyed six mines, and laid waste to two company towns.

Killing for Coal offers a bold and original perspective on the 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the “Great Coalfield War.” In a sweeping story of transformation that begins in the coal beds and culminates with the deadliest strike in American history, Thomas Andrews illuminates the causes and consequences of the militancy that erupted in colliers’ strikes over the course of nearly half a century. He reveals a complex world shaped by the connected forces of land, labor, corporate industrialization, and workers’ resistance.

Brilliantly conceived and written, this book takes the organic world as its starting point. The resulting elucidation of the coalfield wars goes far beyond traditional labor history. Considering issues of social and environmental justice in the context of an economy dependent on fossil fuel, Andrews makes a powerful case for rethinking the relationships that unite and divide workers, consumers, capitalists, and the natural world.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

"Tried by War: Lincoln as Commander in Chief"

New from The Penguin Press: James M. McPherson's Tried by War: Lincoln as Commander in Chief.

About the book, from the publisher:
James McPherson, a bestselling historian of the Civil War, illuminates how Lincoln worked with—and often against— his senior commanders to defeat the Confederacy and create the role of commander in chief as we know it.

Though Abraham Lincoln arrived at the White House with no previous military experience (apart from a couple of months spent soldiering in 1832), he quickly established himself as the greatest commander in chief in American history. James McPherson illuminates this often misunderstood and profoundly influential aspect of Lincoln’s legacy. In essence, Lincoln invented the idea of commander in chief, as neither the Constitution nor existing legislation specified how the president ought to declare war or dictate strategy. In fact, by assuming the powers we associate with the role of commander in chief, Lincoln often overstepped the narrow band of rights granted the president. Good thing too, because his strategic insight and will to fight changed the course of the war and saved the Union.

For most of the conflict, he constantly had to goad his reluctant generals toward battle, and he oversaw strategy and planning for major engagements with the enemy. Lincoln was a self-taught military strategist (as he was a self-taught lawyer), which makes his adroit conduct of the war seem almost miraculous. To be sure, the Union’s campaigns often went awry, sometimes horribly so, but McPherson makes clear how the missteps arose from the all-too-common moments when Lincoln could neither threaten nor cajole his commanders to follow his orders.

Because Lincoln’s war took place within our borders, the relationship between the front lines and the home front was especially close—and volatile. Here again, Lincoln faced enormous challenges in exemplary fashion. He was a masterly molder of public opinion, for instance, defining the war aims initially as preserving the Union and only later as ending slavery— when he sensed the public was at last ready to bear such a lofty burden.

As we approach the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth in 2009, this book will be that rarest gift—a genuinely novel, even timely, view of the most-written-about figure in our history. Tried by War offers a revelatory portrait of leadership during the greatest crisis our nation has ever endured. How Lincoln overcame feckless generals, fickle public opinion, and his own paralyzing fears is a story at once suspenseful and inspiring.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

"Muslims and Matriarchs"

New from Cornell University Press: Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism by Jeffrey Hadler.

About the book, from the publisher:
Muslims and Matriarchs is a history of an unusual, probably heretical, and ultimately resilient cultural system. The Minangkabau culture of West Sumatra, Indonesia, is well known as the world's largest matrilineal culture; Minangkabau people are also Muslim and famous for their piety. In this book, Jeffrey Hadler examines the changing ideas of home and family in Minangkabau from the late eighteenth century to the 1930s.

Minangkabau has experienced a sustained and sometimes violent debate between Muslim reformists and preservers of indigenous culture. During a protracted and bloody civil war of the early nineteenth century, neo-Wahhabi reformists sought to replace the matriarchate with a society modeled on that of the Prophet Muhammad. In capitulating, the reformists formulated an uneasy truce that sought to find a balance between Islamic law and local custom. With the incorporation of highland West Sumatra into the Dutch empire in the aftermath of this war, the colonial state entered an ongoing conversation.

These existing tensions between colonial ideas of progress, Islamic reformism, and local custom ultimately strengthened the matriarchate. The ferment generated by the trinity of oppositions created social conditions that account for the disproportionately large number of Minangkabau leaders in Indonesian politics across the twentieth century. The endurance of the matriarchate is testimony to the fortitude of local tradition, the unexpected flexibility of reformist Islam, and the ultimate weakness of colonialism. Muslims and Matriarchs is particularly timely in that it describes a society that experienced a neo-Wahhabi jihad and an extended period of Western occupation but remained intellectually and theologically flexible and diverse.

Friday, October 17, 2008

"The Shadows of Consumption"

New from The MIT Press: The Shadows of Consumption: Consequences for the Global Environment by Peter Dauvergne.

About the book, from the publisher:
The Shadows of Consumption gives a hard-hitting diagnosis: many of the earth's ecosystems and billions of its people are at risk from the consequences of rising consumption. Products ranging from cars to hamburgers offer conveniences and pleasures; but, as Peter Dauvergne makes clear, global political and economic processes displace the real costs of consumer goods into distant ecosystems, communities, and timelines, tipping into crisis people and places without the power to resist.

In The Shadows of Consumption, Peter Dauvergne maps the costs of consumption that remain hidden in the shadows cast by globalized corporations, trade, and finance. He traces the environmental consequences of five commodities: automobiles, gasoline, refrigerators, beef, and harp seals. In these fascinating histories we learn, for example, that American officials ignored warnings about the dangers of lead in gasoline in the 1920s; why China is now a leading producer of CFC-free refrigerators; and how activists were able to stop Canada's commercial seal hunt in the 1980s (but are unable to do so now).

Dauvergne's innovative analysis allows us to see why so many efforts to manage the global environment are failing even as environmentalism is slowly strengthening. He proposes a guiding principle of "balanced consumption" for both consumers and corporations. We know that we can make things better by driving a fuel-efficient car, eating locally grown food, and buying energy-efficient appliances; but these improvements are incremental, local, and insufficient. More crucial than our individual efforts to reuse and recycle will be reforms in the global political economy to reduce the inequalities of consumption and correct the imbalance between growing economies and environmental sustainability.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

"Losing Hurts Twice as Bad"

New from W.W. Norton: Losing Hurts Twice as Bad: The Four Stages to Moving Beyond Iraq by Christopher J. Fettweis.

About the book, from the publisher:
Amid all the gloom surrounding the debacle in Iraq, finally here is a highly instructive four-stage plan that will help us move forward.

Now longer than the Civil War, America's conflict in Iraq seems to have no end in sight. A malaise, perhaps greater than that engendered by Vietnam, threatens to undo our national moorings. Christopher J. Fettweis, a military strategy expert, burst onto the national scene with an editorial and NPR interviews that provided an illuminating historical perspective on the ramifications of any great power's defeat. Fettweis contends that Iraq has thrown America into an unprecedented downward spiral, yet he provides a context for America's loss that few political pundits have recognized. With abundant historical comparisons drawn from the American Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, among others, Fettweis charts a natural course of defeat (denial, shock, anger, depression, and acceptance). He offers a prescriptive "grand strategy" that will help us forge a new approach to American foreign policy. This is a book no lover of history can ignore, for there may be a silver lining few have yet realized.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

"War of a Thousand Deserts"

New from Yale University Press: War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War by Brian DeLay.

About the book, from the publisher:
In the early 1830s, after decades of relative peace, northern Mexicans and the Indians whom they called “the barbarians” descended into a terrifying cycle of violence. For the next fifteen years, owing in part to changes unleashed by American expansion, Indian warriors launched devastating attacks across ten Mexican states. Raids and counter-raids claimed thousands of lives, ruined much of northern Mexico’s economy, depopulated its countryside, and left man-made “deserts” in place of thriving settlements. Just as important, this vast interethnic war informed and emboldened U.S. arguments in favor of seizing Mexican territory while leaving northern Mexicans too divided, exhausted, and distracted to resist the American invasion and subsequent occupation.

Exploring Mexican, American, and Indian sources ranging from diplomatic correspondence and congressional debates to captivity narratives and plains Indians’ pictorial calendars, War of a Thousand Deserts recovers the surprising and previously unrecognized ways in which economic, cultural, and political developments within native communities affected nineteenth-century nation-states. In the process this ambitious book offers a rich and often harrowing new narrative of the era when the United States seized half of Mexico’s national territory.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

"Where Have All the Liberals Gone?"

New from Cambridge University Press: Where Have All the Liberals Gone?: Race, Class, and Ideals in America by James R. Flynn.

About the book, from the publisher:
Ever since the publication of Race, IQ, and Jensen (1980), Professor James R. Flynn has been the most respected critic of the notion that the IQ gap between black and white Americans is genetic in origin. This new book is a must for those who want to be up to date with that debate. He also offers an alternative to the vision of American society popularized by The Bell Curve. His overriding purpose is to rearm American idealism with new ideas. Where have all the Liberals Gone? addresses all those who want "something better than a foreign policy that provokes disgust, a domestic politics with neither the vision nor the resources to promote the common good, and a foolish relativism that reduces all ideals to the lowest common denominator." Professor Flynn analyzes the black marriage market, the case for affirmative action, the folly of Iraq, and the liberal failure of will. He traces the history of American idealism from Jefferson to the followers of Leo Strauss. The book ends with a powerful defense of humane ideals and human autonomy. Social scientists, philosophers, and the general public will find this book exciting, unique and the style clear and attractive.

Monday, October 13, 2008

"Why Presidents Fail"

New from Rowman & Littlefield: Why Presidents Fail: White House Decision Making from Eisenhower to Bush II by Richard M. Pious.

About the book, from the publisher:
Presidents are surrounded by political strategists and White House counsel who presumably know enough to avoid making the same mistakes as their predecessors. Why, then, do the same kinds of presidential failures occur over and over again? Why Presidents Fail answers this question by examining presidential fiascos, quagmires, and risky business-the kind of failure that led President Kennedy to groan after the Bay of Pigs invasion, "How could I have been so stupid?"

In this book, Richard M. Pious looks at nine cases that have become defining events in presidencies from Dwight D. Eisenhower and the U-2 Flights to George W. Bush and Iraqi WMDs. He uses these cases to draw generalizations about presidential power, authority, rationality, and legitimacy. And he raises questions about the limits of presidential decision-making, many of which fly in the face of the conventional wisdom about the modern presidency.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

"The Enemy Within"

New from Viking Books: The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World by John Demos.

About the book, from the publisher:
A cultural history of witch-hunting, from the Romans through McCarthy

The term “witch-hunt” is used today to describe everything from political scandals to school board shake-ups. But its origins are far from trivial. Long before the Salem witch trials, women and men were rounded up by neighbors, accused of committing horrific crimes using supernatural powers, scrutinized by priests and juries, and promptly executed. The belief in witchcraft--and the deep fear of evil it instilled in communities--led to a cycle of accusation, anger, and purging that has occurred repeatedly in the West for centuries.

Award-winning historian John Demos puts this cultural paranoia in context. He takes readers from the early Christians persecuted in Rome through the Salem witch trials, McCarthy’s hunt for communists, and the hysteria around child sex-abuse cases and satanic cults in the 1980s.

An original and fascinating look at the cultural, societal, and psychological practice of witch-hunts, The Enemy Within illuminates the dark side of communities driven to rid themselves of “evil,” no matter what the cost.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

"Supersizing the Mind"

New from Oxford University Press: Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension by Andy Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:
When historian Charles Weiner found pages of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's notes, he saw it as a "record" of Feynman's work. Feynman himself, however, insisted that the notes were not a record but the work itself. In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that our thinking doesn't happen only in our heads but that "certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world." The pen and paper of Feynman's thought are just such feedback loops, physical machinery that shape the flow of thought and enlarge the boundaries of mind. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than "brain-bound." The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.

Friday, October 10, 2008

"Concentration Camps on the Home Front"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Concentration Camps on the Home Front: Japanese Americans in the House of Jim Crow by John Howard.

About the book, from the publisher:
Without trial and without due process, the United States government locked up nearly all of those citizens and longtime residents who were of Japanese descent during World War II. Ten concentration camps were set up across the country to confine over 120,000 inmates. Almost 20,000 of them were shipped to the only two camps in the segregated South—Jerome and Rohwer in Arkansas—locations that put them right in the heart of a much older, long-festering system of racist oppression. The first history of these Arkansas camps, Concentration Camps on the Home Front is an eye-opening account of the inmates’ experiences and a searing examination of American imperialism and racist hysteria.

While the basic facts of Japanese-American incarceration are well known, John Howard’s extensive research gives voice to those whose stories have been forgotten or ignored. He highlights the roles of women, first-generation immigrants, and those who forcefully resisted their incarceration by speaking out against dangerous working conditions and white racism. In addition to this overlooked history of dissent, Howard also exposes the government’s aggressive campaign to Americanize the inmates and even convert them to Christianity. After the war ended, this movement culminated in the dispersal of the prisoners across the nation in a calculated effort to break up ethnic enclaves.

Howard’s re-creation of life in the camps is powerful, provocative, and disturbing. Concentration Camps on the Home Front rewrites a notorious chapter in American history—a shameful story that nonetheless speaks to the strength of human resilience in the face of even the most grievous injustices.
Read an excerpt from Concentration Camps on the Home Front.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

"A Guide to the Good Life"

New from Oxford University Press: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine.

About the book, from the publisher:
One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives.

In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life. Using the psychological insights and the practical techniques of the Stoics, Irvine offers a roadmap for anyone seeking to avoid the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction that plague so many of us. Irvine looks at various Stoic techniques for attaining tranquility and shows how to put these techniques to work in our own life. As he does so, he describes his own experiences practicing Stoicism and offers valuable first-hand advice for anyone wishing to live better by following in the footsteps of these ancient philosophers. Readers learn how to minimize worry, how to let go of the past and focus our efforts on the things we can control, and how to deal with insults, grief, old age, and the distracting temptations of fame and fortune. We learn from Marcus Aurelius the importance of prizing only things of true value, and from Epictetus we learn how to be more content with what we have.

Finally, A Guide to the Good Life shows readers how to become thoughtful observers of their own life. If we watch ourselves as we go about our daily business and later reflect on what we saw, we can better identify the sources of distress and eventually avoid that pain in our life. By doing this, the Stoics thought, we can hope to attain a truly joyful life.
Read an excerpt from A Guide to the Good Life.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

"The King and The Cowboy"

New from The Penguin Press: The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward the Seventh, Secret Partners by David Fromkin.

About the book, from the publisher:
The story of the unlikely friendship between King Edward the Seventh of England and President Theodore Roosevelt, which became the catalyst for an international power shift and the beginning of the American century.

In The King and the Cowboy, renowned historian David Fromkin reveals how two unlikely world leaders—Edward the Seventh of England and Theodore Roosevelt—recast themselves as respected political players and established a friendship that would shape the course of the twentieth century in ways never anticipated.

In 1901, these two colorful public figures inherited the leadership of the English-speaking countries. Following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, Edward ascended the throne. A lover of fine food, drink, beautiful women, and the pleasure-seeking culture of Paris, Edward had previously been regarded as a bon vivant. The public—even Queen Victoria herself—doubted Edward’s ability to rule the British Empire. Yet Edward would surprise the world with his leadership and his canny understanding of the fragility of the British Empire at the apex of its global power.

Across the Atlantic, Vice President Roosevelt—the aristocrat from Manhattan who fashioned his own legend, going west to become a cowboy—succeeded to the presidency after President McKinley’s 1901 assassination. Rising above criticism, Roosevelt became one of the nation’s most beloved presidents.

The King and the Cowboy provides new perspective on both Edward and Roosevelt, revealing how, at the oft-forgotten Algeciras conference of 1906, they worked together to dispel the shadow cast over world affairs by Edward’s ill-tempered, power-hungry nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. At Algeciras, the U.S and major European powers allied with Britain in protest of Germany’s bid for Moroccan independence. In an unlikely turn of events, the conference served to isolate Germany and set the groundwork for the forging of the Allied forces.

The King and the Cowboy is an intimate study of two extraordinary statesmen who—in part because of their alliance at Algeciras—would become lauded international figures. Focusing in particular on Edward the Seventh’s and Theodore Roosevelt’s influence on twentieth-century foreign affairs, Fromkin’s character-driven history sheds new light on the early events that determined the course of the century.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

"Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World"

New from Yale University Press: Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World by Giulia Sissa, translated by George Staunton.

About the book, from the publisher:
In this fascinating book Giulia Sissa looks at sensuality and sexual desire in the Greek, Roman, and early Christian worlds, demonstrating how modern concepts of sexuality have emerged from the practices and theories of ancient times. Countering the assumptions of many other scholars, Sissa emphasizes the centrality of heterosexual desire and passion in the classical period, arguing that the importance of homosexuality has been overemphasized.

Drawing widely on contemporary literature and philosophy, Sissa examines each culture in turn, arriving at a variety of fresh insights. She draws a distinction between pleasure and desire in the ancient world, for example, and she analyes the different ways in which men and women were seen to experience erotic feeling, looking closely at portrayals of such transgressive women as Medea, Clytemnestra, and Jocasta. Incisive and often provocative, this is a striking new analysis of sexual attitudes in the classical and post-classical world.

Monday, October 6, 2008

"What Blood Won't Tell"

New from Harvard University Press: What Blood Won't Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America by Ariela J. Gross.

About the book, from the publisher:
Is race something we know when we see it? In 1857, Alexina Morrison, a slave in Louisiana, ran away from her master and surrendered herself to the parish jail for protection. Blue-eyed and blond, Morrison successfully convinced white society that she was one of them. When she sued for her freedom, witnesses assured the jury that she was white, and that they would have known if she had a drop of African blood. Morrison’s court trial—and many others over the last 150 years—involved high stakes: freedom, property, and civil rights. And they all turned on the question of racial identity.

Over the past two centuries, individuals and groups (among them Mexican Americans, Indians, Asian immigrants, and Melungeons) have fought to establish their whiteness in order to lay claim to full citizenship in local courtrooms, administrative and legislative hearings, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Like Morrison’s case, these trials have often turned less on legal definitions of race as percentages of blood or ancestry than on the way people presented themselves to society and demonstrated their moral and civic character.

Unearthing the legal history of racial identity, Ariela Gross’s book examines the paradoxical and often circular relationship of race and the perceived capacity for citizenship in American society. This book reminds us that the imaginary connection between racial identity and fitness for citizenship remains potent today and continues to impede racial justice and equality.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

"Blessed Days of Anaesthesia"

New from Oxford University Press: Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World by Stephanie J. Snow.

About the book, from the publisher:
Among all the great discoveries and inventions of the nineteenth century, few offer us a more fascinating insight into Victorian society than the discovery of anesthesia. Now considered to be one of the greatest inventions for humanity since the printing press, anesthesia offered pain-free operations, childbirth with reduced suffering, and instant access to the world beyond consciousness. And yet, upon its introduction, Victorian medics, moralists, clergymen, and scientists, were plunged into turmoil.

In Blessed Days of Anesthesia , Stephanie Snow offers a vivid and engaging account of the early days of anesthesia unravels some key moments in medical history: from Humphry Davy's early experiments with nitrous oxide and the dramas that drove the discovery of ether anesthesia in America, to the outrage provoked by Queen Victoria's use of chloroform during the birth of Prince Leopold. And there are grisly stories too: frequent deaths, and even notorious murders. Interweaved throughout the story, a fascinating social change is revealed. For anesthesia caused the Victorians to rethink concepts of pain, sexuality, and the links between mind and body. From this turmoil, a profound change in attitudes began to be realized, as the view that physical suffering could, and should, be prevented permeated society, most tellingly at first in prisons and schools where pain was used as a method of social control. In this way, the discovery of anesthesia left not only a medical and scientific legacy that changed the world, but a compassionate one too.

Bringing together the history of science and an account of profound social change, Blessed Days of Anesthesia is a compelling, and broadly illuminating, account of a fascinating period in medical history.
Read about Stephanie Snow's five favorite books on the history of medicine.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

"Science on the Air"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Science on the Air: Popularizers and Personalities on Radio and Early Television by Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette.

About the book, from the publisher:
Mr. Wizard’s World. Bill Nye the Science Guy. NPR’s Science Friday. These popular television and radio programs broadcast science into the homes of millions of viewers and listeners. But these modern series owe much of their success to the pioneering efforts of early-twentieth-century science shows like Adventures in Science and “Our Friend the Atom.” Science on the Air is the fascinating history of the evolution of popular science in the first decades of the broadcasting era.

Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette transports readers to the early days of radio, when the new medium allowed innovative and optimistic scientists the opportunity to broadcast serious and dignified presentations over the airwaves. But the exponential growth of listenership in the 1920s, from thousands to millions, and the networks’ recognition that each listener represented a potential consumer, turned science on the radio into an opportunity to entertain, not just educate.

Science on the Air chronicles the efforts of science popularizers, from 1923 until the mid-1950s, as they negotiated topic, content, and tone in order to gain precious time on the air. Offering a new perspective on the collision between science’s idealistic and elitist view of public communication and the unbending economics of broadcasting, LaFollette rewrites the history of the public reception of science in the twentieth century and the role that scientists and their institutions have played in both encouraging and inhibiting popularization. By looking at the broadcasting of the past, Science on the Air raises issues of concern to all those who seek to cultivate a scientifically literate society today.

Friday, October 3, 2008

"The Closing of the American Border"

New from Harper: The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11 by Edward Alden.

About the book, from the publisher:
A provocative, behind-the-scenes investigation into the consequences of America's efforts to secure its borders since 9/11

On September 10, 2001, the United States was the most open country in the world. But in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil, the U.S. government began to close its borders in an effort to fight terrorism. The Bush administration's goal was to build new lines of defense against terrorists without stifling the flow of people and ideas from abroad that has helped build the world's most dynamic economy. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way.

The Closing of the American Border is based on extensive interviews with the Bush administration officials charged with securing the border after 9/11, including former secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge and former secretary of state Colin Powell, and with many of the innocent people whose lives have been upended by the new border security and visa rules. A pediatric heart surgeon from Pakistan is stuck in Karachi for nearly a year, awaiting the security review that would allow him to return to the United States to take up a prestigious post at UCLA Medical Center. A brilliant Sudanese scientist, working tirelessly to cure one of the worst diseases of the developing world, loses years of valuable research when he is detained in Brazil after attending an academic conference on behalf of an American university.

Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to show how an administration that appeared united in the aftermath of the attacks was racked by internal disagreements over how to balance security and openness. The result is a striking and compelling assessment of the dangers faced by a nation that cuts itself off from the rest of the world, making it increasingly difficult for others to travel, live, and work here, and depriving itself of its most persuasive argument against its international critics—the example of what it has achieved at home.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

"Between Virtue and Power"

New from Yale University Press: Between Virtue and Power: The Persistent Moral Dilemma of U.S. Foreign Policy by John Kane.

About the book, from the publisher:
In this survey of U.S. history, John Kane looks at the tensions between American virtue and power and how those tensions have influenced foreign policy. Americans have long been suspicious of power as a threat to individual liberty, Kane argues, and yet the growth of national power has been perceived as a natural byproduct of American virtue. This contradiction has posed a persistent crisis that has influenced the trajectory of American diplomacy and foreign relations for more than two hundred years.

Kane examines the various challenges, including emerging Nationalism, isolationism, and burgeoning American power, which have at times challenged not only foreign policy but American national identity. The events of September 11, 2001, rekindled Americans' sense of righteousness, the author observes, but the subsequent use of power in Iraq has raised questions about the nation’s virtue and, as in earlier days, cast a deep shadow over its purpose and direction.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

"The H. L. Hunley"

New from Hill and Wang: The H. L. Hunley: The Secret Hope of the Confederacy by Tom Chaffin.

About the book, from the publisher:
On the evening of February 17, 1864, the Confederacy’s H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic and became the first submarine in world history to sink an enemy ship. Not until World War I—half a century later—would a submarine again accomplish such a feat. But also perishing that moonlit night, vanishing beneath the cold Atlantic waters off Charleston, South Carolina, was the Hunley and her entire crew of eight. For generations, searchers prowled Charleston’s harbor, looking for the Hunley. And as they hunted, the legends surrounding the boat and its demise continued to grow. Even after the submarine was definitively located in 1995 and recovered five years later, those legends—those barnacles of misinformation—have only multiplied.

Now, in a tour de force of document-sleuthing and insights gleaned from the excavation of this remarkable vessel, distinguished Civil War–era historian Tom Chaffin presents the most thorough telling of the Hunley’s story possible. Of panoramic breadth, this Civil War saga begins long before the submarine was even assembled and follows the tale into the boat’s final hours and through its recovery in 2000. Beyond his thorough survey of period documents relating to the submarine, Chaffin also conducted extensive interviews with Maria Jacobsen, senior archaeologist at Clemson University’s Warren Lasch Conservation Center, where the Hunley is now being excavated, to complete his portrait of this technological wonder. What emerges is a narrative that casts compelling doubts on many long-held assumptions, particularly those concerning the boat’s final hours. Thoroughly engaging and utterly new, The H. L. Hunley provides the definitive account of a storied craft.