Thursday, April 30, 2009

"Portfolios of the Poor"

New from Princeton University Press: Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day by Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford & Orlanda Ruthven.

About the book, from the publisher:
About forty percent of the world's people live on incomes of two dollars a day or less. If you've never had to survive on an income so small, it is hard to imagine. How would you put food on the table, afford a home, and educate your children? How would you handle emergencies and old age? Every day, more than a billion people around the world must answer these questions. Portfolios of the Poor is the first book to explain systematically how the poor find solutions.

The authors report on the yearlong "financial diaries" of villagers and slum dwellers in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa--records that track penny by penny how specific households manage their money. The stories of these families are often surprising and inspiring. Most poor households do not live hand to mouth, spending what they earn in a desperate bid to keep afloat. Instead, they employ financial tools, many linked to informal networks and family ties. They push money into savings for reserves, squeeze money out of creditors whenever possible, run sophisticated savings clubs, and use microfinancing wherever available. Their experiences reveal new methods to fight poverty and ways to envision the next generation of banks for the "bottom billion."

Indispensable for those in development studies, economics, and microfinance, Portfolios of the Poor will appeal to anyone interested in knowing more about poverty and what can be done about it.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

"The Conservatives"

New from Yale University Press: The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History by Patrick Allitt.

About the book, from the publisher:
This lively book traces the development of American conservatism from Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Daniel Webster, through Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Herbert Hoover, to William F. Buckley, Jr., Ronald Reagan, and William Kristol. Conservatism has assumed a variety of forms, historian Patrick Allitt argues, because it has been chiefly reactive, responding to perceived threats and challenges at different moments in the nation’s history.

While few Americans described themselves as conservatives before the 1930s, certain groups, beginning with the Federalists in the 1790s, can reasonably be thought of in that way. The book discusses changing ideas about what ought to be conserved, and why. Conservatives sometimes favored but at other times opposed a strong central government, sometimes criticized free-market capitalism but at other times supported it. Some denigrated democracy while others championed it. Core elements, however, have connected thinkers in a specifically American conservative tradition, in particular a skepticism about human equality and fears for the survival of civilization. Allitt brings the story of that tradition to the end of the twentieth century, examining how conservatives rose to dominance during the Cold War. Throughout the book he offers original insights into the connections between the development of conservatism and the larger history of the nation.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

"Red Orchestra"

New from Random House: Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler by Anne Nelson.

About the book, from the publisher:
In this unforgettable book, distinguished author Anne Nelson shares one of the most shocking and inspiring–and least chronicled–stories of domestic resistance to the Nazi regime. The Rote Kapelle, or Red Orchestra, was the Gestapo’s name for an intrepid band of German artists, intellectuals, and bureaucrats (almost half of them women) who battled treacherous odds to unveil the brutal secrets of their fascist employers and oppressors.

Based on years of research, featuring new information, and culled from exclusive interviews, Red Orchestra documents this riveting story through the eyes of Greta Kuckhoff, a German working mother. Fighting for an education in 1920s Berlin but frustrated by her country’s economic instability and academic sexism, Kuckhoff ventured to America, where she immersed herself in jazz, Walt Disney movies, and the first stirrings of the New Deal. When she returned to her homeland, she watched with anguish as it descended into a totalitarian society that relegated her friends to exile and detention, an environment in which political extremism evoked an extreme response.

Greta and others in her circle were appalled by Nazi anti-Semitism and took action on many fronts to support their Jewish friends and neighbors. As the war raged and Nazi abuses grew in ferocity and reach, resistance was the only possible avenue for Greta and her compatriots. These included Arvid Harnack–the German friend she met in Wisconsin–who collected anti-Nazi intelligence while working for their Economic Ministry; Arvid’s wife, Mildred, who emigrated to her husband’s native country to become the only American woman executed by Hitler; Harro Schulze-Boysen, the glamorous Luftwaffe intelligence officer who smuggled anti-Nazi information to allies abroad; his wife, Libertas, a social butterfly who coaxed favors from an unsuspecting Göring; John Sieg, a railroad worker from Detroit who publicized Nazi atrocities from a Communist underground printing press; and Greta Kuckhoff’s husband, Adam, a theatrical colleague of Brecht’s who found employment in Goebbels’s propaganda unit in order to undermine the regime.

For many members of the Red Orchestra, these audacious acts of courage resulted in their tragic and untimely end. These unsung individuals are portrayed here with startling and sympathetic power. As suspenseful as a thriller, Red Orchestra is a brilliant account of ordinary yet bold citizens who were willing to sacrifice everything to topple the Third Reich.
Visit Anne Nelson's blog.

Monday, April 27, 2009

"World War II Behind Closed Doors"

New from Pantheon Books: World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West by Laurence Rees.

About the book, from the publisher:
In this revelatory chronicle of World War II, Laurence Rees, winner of the 2006 British Book Award for History, documents the dramatic and secret deals that helped make the war possible and prompted some of the most crucial decisions made during the conflict.

Drawing on material available only since opening of archives in Eastern Europe and Russia, Rees reexamines the key choices made by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt during the war. And as the truth about Stalin’s earlier friendly relationship with the Nazis is laid bare, a devastating and surprising picture of the Soviet leader emerges.

The emotional core of the book is the amazing new testimony obtained from nearly a hundred separate witnesses from the period—former Soviet secret policemen, Allied seamen who braved Arctic convoys and Red Army veterans who engaged Germans in hand-to-hand fighting on the Eastern Front. Their dramatic personal experiences make clear in a compelling and fresh way the reasons why the people of Poland, the Baltic states and other European countries simply swapped the rule of one tyrant for another.

Rees’ ability to weave high politics—the meeting of the Allied leaders at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam—with the dramatic personal experiences of those on the ground who bore the consequences of their decisions is eye opening. World War II Behind Closed Doors will change the way we think about the Second World War.
Visit the official Laurence Rees website.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

"The Fisherman's Cause"

New from Cambridge University Press: The Fisherman's Cause: Atlantic Commerce and Maritime Dimensions of the American Revolution by Christopher P. Magra.

About the book, from the publisher:
In the first book-length examination of the connections between the commercial fishing industry in colonial America and the American Revolution, Christopher Magra places the origins and progress of this formative event in a wider Atlantic context. The Fisherman’s Cause utilizes extensive research from archives in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. in order to take this Atlantic approach. Dried, salted cod represented the most lucrative export in New England. The fishing industry connected colonial producers to transatlantic markets in the Iberian Peninsula and the West Indies. Parliament’s coercive regulation of this branch of colonial maritime commerce contributed to colonists’ willingness to engage in a variety of revolutionary activities. Colonists then used the sea to forcibly resist British authority. Fish merchants converted transatlantic trade routes into military supply lines, and they transformed fishing vessels into warships. Fishermen armed and manned the first American navy, served in the first coast guard units, and fought on privateers. These maritime activities helped secure American independence.
Read an excerpt from The Fisherman's Cause.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

"The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe"

New from Princeton University Press: The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change by Daniel H. Nexon.

About the book, from the publisher:
Scholars have long argued over whether the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended more than a century of religious conflict arising from the Protestant Reformations, inaugurated the modern sovereign-state system. But they largely ignore a more fundamental question: why did the emergence of new forms of religious heterodoxy during the Reformations spark such violent upheaval and nearly topple the old political order? In this book, Daniel Nexon demonstrates that the answer lies in understanding how the mobilization of transnational religious movements intersects with--and can destabilize--imperial forms of rule.

Taking a fresh look at the pivotal events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--including the Schmalkaldic War, the Dutch Revolt, and the Thirty Years' War--Nexon argues that early modern "composite" political communities had more in common with empires than with modern states, and introduces a theory of imperial dynamics that explains how religious movements altered Europe's balance of power. He shows how the Reformations gave rise to crosscutting religious networks that undermined the ability of early modern European rulers to divide and contain local resistance to their authority. In doing so, the Reformations produced a series of crises in the European order and crippled the Habsburg bid for hegemony.

Nexon's account of these processes provides a theoretical and analytic framework that not only challenges the way international relations scholars think about state formation and international change, but enables us to better understand global politics today.

Friday, April 24, 2009

"Slumming"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885-1940 by Chad Heap.

About the book, from the publisher:
During Prohibition, “Harlem was the ‘in’ place to go for music and booze,” recalled the African American chanteuse Bricktop. “Every night the limousines pulled up to the corner,” and out spilled affluent whites, looking for a good time, great jazz, and the unmatchable thrill of doing something disreputable.

That is the indelible public image of slumming, but as Chad Heap reveals in this fascinating history, the reality is that slumming was far more widespread—and important—than such nostalgia-tinged recollections would lead us to believe. From its appearance as a “fashionable dissipation” centered on the immigrant and working-class districts of 1880s New York through its spread to Chicago and into the 1930s nightspots frequented by lesbians and gay men, Slumming charts the development of this popular pastime, demonstrating how its moralizing origins were soon outstripped by the artistic, racial, and sexual adventuring that typified Jazz-Age America. Vividly recreating the allure of storied neighborhoods such as Greenwich Village and Bronzeville, with their bohemian tearooms, rent parties, and “black and tan” cabarets, Heap plumbs the complicated mix of curiosity and desire that drew respectable white urbanites to venture into previously off-limits locales. And while he doesn’t ignore the role of exploitation and voyeurism in slumming—or the resistance it often provoked—he argues that the relatively uninhibited mingling it promoted across bounds of race and class helped to dramatically recast the racial and sexual landscape of burgeoning U.S. cities.

Packed with stories of late-night dance, drink, and sexual exploration—and shot through with a deep understanding of cities and the habits of urban life—Slumming revives an era that is long gone, but whose effects are still felt powerfully today.
Read an excerpt from Slumming.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

"The Odd Man Karakozov"

New from Cornell University Press: The Odd Man Karakozov: Imperial Russia, Modernity, and the Birth of Terrorism by Claudia Verhoeven.

About the book, from the publisher:
On April 4, 1866, just as Alexander II stepped out of Saint Petersburg's Summer Garden and onto the boulevard, a young man named Dmitry Karakozov pulled out a pistol and shot at the tsar. He missed, but his “unheard-of act” changed the course of Russian history-and gave birth to the revolutionary political violence known as terrorism.

Based on clues pulled out of the pockets of Karakozov's peasant disguise, investigators concluded that there had been a conspiracy so extensive as to have sprawled across the entirety of the Russian empire and the European continent. Karakozov was said to have been a member of “The Organization,” a socialist network at the center of which sat a secret cell of suicide-assassins: “Hell.” It is still unclear how much of this “conspiracy” theory was actually true, but of the thirty-six defendants who stood accused during what was Russia's first modern political trial, all but a few were exiled to Siberia, and Karakozov himself was publicly hanged on September 3, 1866.

Because Karakozov was decidedly strange, sick, and suicidal, his failed act of political violence has long been relegated to a footnote of Russian history. In The Odd Man Karakozov, however, Claudia Verhoeven argues that it is precisely this neglected, exceptional case that sheds a new light on the origins of terrorism. The book not only demonstrates how the idea of terrorism first emerged from the reception of Karakozov's attack, but also, importantly, what was really at stake in this novel form of political violence, namely, the birth of a new, modern political subject. Along the way, in characterizing Karakozov's as an essentially modernist crime, Verhoeven traces how his act profoundly impacted Russian culture, including such touchstones as Repin's art and Dostoevsky's literature.

By looking at the history that produced Karakozov and, in turn, the history that Karakozov produced, Verhoeven shows terrorism as a phenomenon inextricably linked to the foundations of the modern world: capitalism, enlightened law and scientific reason, ideology, technology, new media, and above all, people's participation in politics and in the making of history.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

"The Marriage-Go-Round"

New from Knopf: The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today by Andrew J. Cherlin.

About the book, from the publisher:
From one of the nation’s leading experts on the American family, a book that explores the state of marriage in America today; its evolution culturally; and with regard to religion and the law, how and why the present state of marriage—a merry-go-round of partnerships—developed, and the implications for parents and children.

During Andrew J. Cherlin’s three decades of study and analysis of family life, he came to see that marriage in the United States was different than in other Western countries—Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—in a way that no one was writing about. He realized that marriage in America, unlike in other countries in the world, was seen as a cultural idael, and the U.S. government was spending money to promote its continuation. The institution of marriage had become a social and political battlefield.

Cherlin writes that Americans marry more repeatedly and have more live-in partners; that marriage and remarriage, frequent divorce, and short-term cohabiting relationships have resulted in a core upheaval in American family life; and that American children have been left to cope with the frequent and disruptive comings and goings of parents.

He writes that Americans have come to embrace two contradictory models of personal and family life: marriage, a formal commitment to share one’s life with another; and individualism, which emphasizes personal growth and development. The former promotes a lasting relationship; the latter encourages one to move on. Each model is culturally reinforced by two basic, powerful institutions: religion and law.

Cherlin writes about the inconsistency of American religion and law with regard to family life. He argues that contemporary religion, although supportive of marriage, embraces the quest for self-development. And he makes clear that family law, which used to be centered on marriage, is today focused on the individual and his or her obligations to children.

He discusses the movement and civil struggle for same-sex marriage in America as opposed to in many European countries, where marriage is seen by gay couples as an oppressive heterosexual institution.

A fascinating book that illuminates the shifting nature of America’s oldest and most cherished social institution, the subject of intense and ever-increasing national debate.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

"The Reign of Terror in America"

New from Cambridge University Press: The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery by Rachel Hope Cleves.

About the book, from the publisher:
When the French Revolution degenerated into violent factionalism and civil war during the early 1790s, American conservative northeasterners reacted in profound terror. Alarmed by the possibility that the United States would follow her “sister republic” into chaos and civic bloodshed, northern Federalists and their Congregationalist allies reacted by aggressively attacking the violence of the French Revolution and its supposed American votaries. The Reign of Terror in America argues that American fears of the violence of the French Revolution led to antislavery, antiwar, and public education movements in the nineteenth-century United States. It is the first history of how Americans perceived the Reign of Terror, and reveals how significantly fears of French Violence changed the United States. Ultimately, these fears inspired a stark opposition to the violence of slaveholding, provided material for dramatic attacks on southern slavery, and helped to spark the Civil War.
Read an excerpt from The Reign of Terror in America.

Monday, April 20, 2009

"The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney"

New from Stanford University Press: The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney by Shirley Anne Warshaw.

About the book, from the publisher:
In the closing months of the Bush administration, bewildered Americans overwhelmingly responded to its disastrous domestic and foreign policies with a single question: How did this happen? In this excellently documented work, presidential scholar Shirley Anne Warshaw offers an in-depth analysis and exploration of the administration's key players to explain what happened – and why.

Although George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney were inaugurated as the President and Vice President of the United States, Warshaw contends that these titles are inaccurate. Combining her study of the actions of both men, knowledge of the spheres in which they operated, and personal interviews with White House staff and Washington insiders, Warshaw demonstrates that Cheney and Bush were nothing less than copresidents. Breaking with popular sentiment, she denies that Bush's authority was ever hijacked or stolen. Bush, the self-proclaimed "decider," focused on building what he called a moral and civil society, anchored by a war on science and the proliferation of faith-based programs, while allowing Cheney to lead in business and foreign policy. Warshaw highlights Cheney's decades-long career in Washington and his familiarity with its inner workings, presenting a complete picture of this calculating political powerhouse. From Cheney's unprecedented merging of the vice president's office into the president's to his abhorrence of what he deemed Congressional interference in the president's ability to do his job, Warshaw paints an intriguing, and at times frightening, portrait of our nation's first copresident and the changes he brought about.

Chapters on transition planning, domestic and foreign policy implementation, the expansion of presidential powers, and the war in Iraq show precisely how these complementary conservatives ruled. With the facts on the table, Warshaw convincingly concludes that the legacy the Bush administration will leave is a testament to why two presidents equal one massive failure.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

"Minerva's Owl"

New from Harvard University Press: Minerva's Owl: The Tradition of Western Political Thought by Jeffrey Abramson.

About the book, from the publisher:
Informal in tone yet serious in content, this book serves as a lively and accessible guide for readers discovering the tradition of political thought that dates back to Socrates and Plato. Because the arguments of the great philosophers are nearly eternal, even those long schooled on politics will find that this book calls on recurring questions about morality and power, justice and war, the risk of democracy, the necessity for evil, the perils of tolerance, and the meaning of happiness. Jeffrey Abramson argues politics with the classic writers and draws the reader into a spirited conversation with contemporary examples that illustrate the enduring nature of political dilemmas. As the discussions deepen, the voices of Abramson’s own teachers, and of the students he has taught, enter into the mix, and the book becomes a tribute not just to the great philosophers but also to the special bond between teacher and student.

As Hegel famously noted, referring to the Roman goddess Minerva, her owl brought back wisdom only at dusk, when it was too late to shine light on actual politics. Abramson reminds us that there are real political problems to confront, and in a book filled with grace and passion, he captures just how exciting serious learning can be.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

"Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women"

New from LSU Press: Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women: Illegal Sex in Antebellum New Orleans by Judith Kelleher Schafer.

About the book, from the publisher:
When a priest suggested to one of the first governors of Louisiana that he banish all disreputable women to raise the colony’s moral tone, the governor responded, “If I send away all the loose females, there will be no women left here at all.” Primitive, mosquito infested, and disease ridden, early French colonial New Orleans offered few attractions to entice respectable women as residents. King Louis XIV of France solved the population problem in 1721 by emptying Paris’s La SalpĂŞtrière prison of many of its most notorious prostitutes and convicts and sending them to Louisiana. Many of these women continued to ply their trade in New Orleans.

In Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women, Judith Kelleher Schafer examines case histories from the First District Court of New Orleans and tells the engrossing story of prostitution in the city prior to the Civil War. Louisiana law did not criminalize the selling of sex until the Progressive Era, although the law forbade keeping a brothel. Police arrested individual public women on vague charges, for being “lewd and abandoned” or vagrants. The city’s wealthy and influential landlords, some of whom made huge profits by renting their property as brothels, wanted their tenants back on the streets as soon as possible, and they often hired the best criminal attorneys to help release the women from jail. The courts, in turn, often treated these “public women” leniently, exacting small fines or sending them to the city’s workhouse for a few months. As a result, prosecutors dropped almost all prostitution cases before trial.

Relying on previously unexamined court records and newly available newspaper articles, Schafer ably details the brutal and often harrowing lives of the women and young girls who engaged in prostitution. Some watched as gangs of rowdy men smashed their furniture; some endured beatings by their customers or other public women enraged by fits of jealousy; others were murdered. Schafer discusses the sexual exploitation of children, sex across the color line, violence among and against public women, and the city’s feeble attempts to suppress the trade. She also profiles several infamous New Orleans sex workers, including Delia Swift, alias Bridget Fury, a flaming redhead with a fondness for stabbing men, and Emily Eubanks and her daughter Elisabeth, free women of color known for assaulting white women.

Although scholars have written much about prostitution in New Orleans’ Storyville era, few historical studies on prostitution in antebellum New Orleans exist. Schafer’s rich analysis fills this gap and offers insight into an intriguing period in the history of the “oldest profession” in the Crescent City.

Friday, April 17, 2009

"Island of Shame"

New from Princeton University Press: Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia by David Vine.

About the book, from the publisher:
The American military base on the island of Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important and secretive U.S. military installations outside the United States. Located near the remote center of the Indian Ocean and accessible only by military transport, the base was a little-known launch pad for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and may house a top-secret CIA prison where terror suspects are interrogated and tortured. But Diego Garcia harbors another dirty secret, one that has been kept from most of the world--until now.

Island of Shame is the first major book to reveal the shocking truth of how the United States conspired with Britain to forcibly expel Diego Garcia's indigenous people--the Chagossians--and deport them to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where most live in dire poverty to this day. Drawing on interviews with Washington insiders, military strategists, and exiled islanders, as well as hundreds of declassified documents, David Vine exposes the secret history of Diego Garcia. He chronicles the Chagossians' dramatic, unfolding story as they struggle to survive in exile and fight to return to their homeland. Tracing U.S. foreign policy from the Cold War to the war on terror, Vine shows how the United States has forged a new and pervasive kind of empire that is quietly dominating the planet with hundreds of overseas military bases.

Island of Shame is an unforgettable exposé of the human costs of empire and a must-read for anyone concerned about U.S. foreign policy and its consequences.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

"Protestant Empire"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: Protestant Empire: Religion and the Making of the British Atlantic World by Carla Gardina Pestana.

About the book, from the publisher:
The imperial expansion of Europe across the globe was one of the most significant events to shape the modern world. Among the many effects of this cataclysmic movement of people and institutions was the intermixture of cultures in the colonies that Europeans created. Protestant Empire is the first comprehensive survey of the dramatic clash of peoples and beliefs that emerged in the diverse religious world of the British Atlantic, including England, Scotland, Ireland, parts of North and South America, the Caribbean, and Africa. Beginning with the role religion played in the lives of believers in West Africa, eastern North America, and western Europe around 1500, Carla Gardina Pestana shows how the Protestant Reformation helped to fuel colonial expansion as bitter rivalries prompted a fierce competition for souls.

The English—who were latecomers to the contest for colonies in the Atlantic—joined the competition well armed with a newly formulated and heartfelt anti-Catholicism. Despite officially promoting religious homogeneity, the English found it impossible to prevent the conflicts in their homeland from infecting their new colonies. Diversity came early and grew inexorably, as English, Scottish, and Irish Catholics and Protestants confronted one another as well as Native Americans, West Africans, and an increasing variety of other Europeans. Pestana tells an original and compelling story of their interactions as they clung to their old faiths, learned of unfamiliar religions, and forged new ones. In an account that ranges widely through the Atlantic basin and across centuries, this book reveals the creation of a complicated, contested, and closely intertwined world of believers of many traditions.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

"Rosenfeld's Lives"

New from Yale University Press: Rosenfeld's Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing by Steven J. Zipperstein.

About the book, from the publisher:
Born in Chicago in 1918, the prodigiously gifted and erudite Isaac Rosenfeld was anointed a “genius” upon the publication of his “luminescent” novel, Passage from Home and was expected to surpass even his closest friend and rival, Saul Bellow. Yet when felled by a heart attack at the age of thirty-eight, Rosenfeld had published relatively little, his life reduced to a metaphor for literary failure.

In this deeply contemplative book, Steven J. Zipperstein seeks to reclaim Rosenfeld's legacy by “opening up” his work. Zipperstein examines for the first time the “small mountain” of unfinished manuscripts the writer left behind, as well as his fiercely candid journals and letters. In the process, Zipperstein unearths a turbulent life that was obsessively grounded in a profound commitment to the ideals of the writing life.

Rosenfeld’s Lives is a fascinating exploration of literary genius and aspiration and the paradoxical power of literature to elevate and to enslave. It illuminates the cultural and political tensions of post-war America, Jewish intellectual life of the era, and—most poignantly—the struggle at the heart of any writer’s life.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

"The Invisible Hook"

New from Princeton University Press: The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates by Peter T. Leeson.

About the book, from the publisher:
Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss--it's time to go a-pirating! The Invisible Hook takes readers inside the wily world of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century pirates. With swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers the hidden economics behind pirates' notorious, entertaining, and sometimes downright shocking behavior. Why did pirates fly flags of Skull & Bones? Why did they create a "pirate code"? Were pirates really ferocious madmen? And what made them so successful? The Invisible Hook uses economics to examine these and other infamous aspects of piracy. Leeson argues that the pirate customs we know and love resulted from pirates responding rationally to prevailing economic conditions in the pursuit of profits.

The Invisible Hook looks at legendary pirate captains like Blackbeard, Black Bart Roberts, and Calico Jack Rackam, and shows how pirates' search for plunder led them to pioneer remarkable and forward-thinking practices. Pirates understood the advantages of constitutional democracy--a model they adopted more than fifty years before the United States did so. Pirates also initiated an early system of workers' compensation, regulated drinking and smoking, and in some cases practiced racial tolerance and equality. Leeson contends that pirates exemplified the virtues of vice--their self-seeking interests generated socially desirable effects and their greedy criminality secured social order. Pirates proved that anarchy could be organized.

Revealing the democratic and economic forces propelling history's most colorful criminals, The Invisible Hook establishes pirates' trailblazing relevance to the contemporary world.
Visit Peter T. Leeson's website.

Monday, April 13, 2009

"The Garden of Invention"

New from The Penguin Press: The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants by Jane S. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:
A wide-ranging and delightful narrative history of the celebrated plant breeder Luther Burbank and the business of farm and garden in early twentieth-century America

A century ago, Luther Burbank was the most famous gardener on the planet. His name was inseparable from a cornucopia of new and improved plants—fruits, nuts, vegetables, and flowers—for both home gardens and commercial farms and orchards. At a time when the science of genetics was in its infancy and agriculture was often a perilous combination of guess work and luck, many people wanted a piece of the man they called the Wizard of Santa Rosa.

As the United States moved from a nation of farms to a nation of city dwellers, the people behind the new products that transformed daily life were admired with a fervor that is not accorded to their present-day counterparts. Everyone knew and marveled at Samuel Morse’s telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, and Thomas Edison’s electric light. And like these other great American inventors, Burbank was revered as an example of the best tradition of American originality, ingenuity, and perseverance. Burbank had learned the secret of teaching nature to perform for man, breeding and crossbreeding ordinary plants from farm and garden until they were tastier, hardier, and more productive than ever before.

The Garden of Invention is neither an encyclopedia nor a biography. Rather, Jane S. Smith, a noted cultural historian, highlights significant moments in Burbank’s life (itself a fascinating story) and uses them to explore larger trends that he embodied and, in some cases, shaped. The Garden of Invention revisits the early years of bioengineering, when plant inventors were popular heroes and the public clamored for new varieties that would extend seasons, increase yields, look beautiful, or simply be wonderfully different from anything seen before.

The road from the nineteenth-century farm to twenty-first-century agribusiness is full of twists and turns, of course, but a good part of it passed straight through Luther Burbank’s garden. The Garden of Invention is a colorful and engrossing examination of the intersection of gardening, science, and business in the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

"Famine: A Short History"

New from Princeton University Press: Famine: A Short History by Cormac Ó Gráda.

About the book, from the publisher:
Famine remains one of the worst calamities that can befall a society. Mass starvation--whether it is inflicted by drought or engineered by misguided or genocidal economic policies--devastates families, weakens the social fabric, and undermines political stability. Cormac Ó Gráda, the acclaimed author who chronicled the tragic Irish famine in books like Black '47 and Beyond, here traces the complete history of famine from the earliest records to today.

Combining powerful storytelling with the latest evidence from economics and history, Ó Gráda explores the causes and profound consequences of famine over the past five millennia, from ancient Egypt to the killing fields of 1970s Cambodia, from the Great Famine of fourteenth-century Europe to the famine in Niger in 2005. He enriches our understanding of the most crucial and far-reaching aspects of famine, including the roles that population pressure, public policy, and human agency play in causing famine; how food markets can mitigate famine or make it worse; famine's long-term demographic consequences; and the successes and failures of globalized disaster relief. Ó Gráda demonstrates the central role famine has played in the economic and political histories of places as different as Ukraine under Stalin, 1940s Bengal, and Mao's China. And he examines the prospects of a world free of famine.

This is the most comprehensive history of famine available, and is required reading for anyone concerned with issues of economic development and world poverty.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

"The Scientific Way of Warfare"

Recently from Columbia University Press: The Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity by Antoine Bousquet.

About the book, from the publisher:
Beginning with the Scientific Revolution and concluding with today's terrorist networks, Antoine J. Bousquet advances a novel history of scientific methodology in the context of the battlefield. For centuries, scientific conceptual frameworks have been applied to theories of war, particularly with the invention of such influential technologies as the clock, the engine, and the computer. Conversely, many scientific developments have been stimulated or conditioned by the experience of war, especially in the wake of the unprecedented technological and industrial effort of World War II.

Marked by an increasingly tight symbiosis between technology, science, and conflict, the constitution and perpetuation of this scientific way of warfare are best understood as an attempt by the state to turn violent aggression into a rational instrument of policy. In his study, Bousquet explores the relative benefits (such a unique chain of command to safeguard the use of nuclear weapons) and decentralizing (such as the flexible networks that connect insurgents) military affairs. He then follows with specific scientific approaches to war: mechanistic, thermodynamic, cybernetic, and "chaoplexic," a network-centric theory allied with the non-linear sciences.

Friday, April 10, 2009

"How Rome Fell"

New from Yale University Press: How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower by Adrian Goldsworthy.

About the book, from the publisher:
In AD 200, the Roman Empire seemed unassailable. Its vast territory accounted for most of the known world. By the end of the fifth century, Roman rule had vanished in western Europe and much of northern Africa, and only a shrunken Eastern Empire remained. What accounts for this improbable decline? Here, Adrian Goldsworthy applies the scholarship, perspective, and narrative skill that defined his monumental Caesar to address perhaps the greatest of all historical questions—how Rome fell.

It was a period of remarkable personalities, from the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius to emperors like Diocletian, who portrayed themselves as tough, even brutal, soldiers. It was a time of revolutionary ideas, especially in religion, as Christianity went from persecuted sect to the religion of state and emperors. Goldsworthy pays particular attention to the willingness of Roman soldiers to fight and kill each other. Ultimately, this is the story of how an empire without a serious rival rotted from within, its rulers and institutions putting short-term ambition and personal survival over the wider good of the state.
Visit Adrian Goldsworthy's website.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

"Grimoires: A History of Magic Books"

New from Oxford University Press: Grimoires: A History of Magic Books by Owen Davies.

About the book, from the publisher:
No books have been more feared than grimoires, and no books have been more valued and revered. In Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies illuminates the many fascinating forms these recondite books have taken and exactly what these books held.

At their most benign, these repositories of forbidden knowledge revealed how to make powerful talismans and protective amulets, and provided charms and conjurations for healing illness, finding love, and warding off evil. But other books promised the power to control innocent victims, even to call up the devil. Davies traces the history of this remarkably resilient and adaptable genre, from the ancient Middle East to modern America, offering a new perspective on the fundamental developments of western civilization over the past two thousand years. Grimoires shows the influence magic and magical writing has had on the cultures of the world, richly demonstrating the role they have played in the spread of Christianity, the growth of literacy, and the influence of western traditions from colonial times to the present. Through his enlightening and extraordinary account, we see how these secret books link Chicago to ancient Egypt, Germany to Jamaica, and Norway to Bolivia, and grasp how the beliefs of Alpine farmers became part of the Rastafarian movement, how a Swede became the most powerful wizard in early America, and how a poor laborer from Ohio became a notorious villain in his own country and a mythical spirit in the Caribbean.

Despite religious condemnation and laws barring their use, the grimoire has survived to the present day, and not just in Harry Potter films and Broadway's Wicked. Here is a lively and informative history of a genre that holds a powerful fascination for countless readers of the occult.
See Davies's list of the top ten grimoires.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

"Andean Cocaine"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug by Paul Gootenberg.

About the book, from the publisher:
Illuminating a hidden and fascinating chapter in the history of globalization, Paul Gootenberg chronicles the rise of one of the most spectacular and now illegal Latin American exports: cocaine.

Gootenberg traces cocaine's history from its origins as a medical commodity in the nineteenth century to its repression during the early twentieth century and its dramatic reemergence as an illicit good after World War II. Connecting the story of the drug's transformations is a host of people, products, and processes: Sigmund Freud, Coca-Cola, and Pablo Escobar all make appearances, exemplifying the global influences that have shaped the history of cocaine. But Gootenberg decenters the familiar story to uncover the roles played by hitherto obscure but vital Andean actors as well--for example, the Peruvian pharmacist who developed the techniques for refining cocaine on an industrial scale and the creators of the original drug-smuggling networks that decades later would be taken over by Colombian traffickers.

Andean Cocaine proves indispensable to understanding one of the most vexing social dilemmas of the late twentieth-century Americas: the American cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and, in its wake, the seemingly endless U.S. drug war in the Andes.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

"The Generalissimo"

New from Harvard University Press: The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China by Jay Taylor.

About the book, from the publisher:
One of the most momentous stories of the last century is China’s rise from a self-satisfied, anti-modern, decaying society into a global power that promises to one day rival the United States. Chiang Kai-shek, an autocratic, larger-than-life figure, dominates this story. A modernist as well as a neo-Confucianist, Chiang was a man of war who led the most ancient and populous country in the world through a quarter century of bloody revolutions, civil conflict, and wars of resistance against Japanese aggression.

In 1949, when he was defeated by Mao Zedong—his archrival for leadership of China—he fled to Taiwan, where he ruled for another twenty-five years. Playing a key role in the cold war with China, Chiang suppressed opposition with his “white terror,” controlled inflation and corruption, carried out land reform, and raised personal income, health, and educational levels on the island. Consciously or not, he set the stage for Taiwan’s evolution of a Chinese model of democratic modernization.

Drawing heavily on Chinese sources including Chiang’s diaries, The Generalissimo provides the most lively, sweeping, and objective biography yet of a man whose length of uninterrupted, active engagement at the highest levels in the march of history is excelled by few, if any, in modern history. Jay Taylor shows a man who was exceedingly ruthless and temperamental but who was also courageous and conscientious in matters of state. Revealing fascinating aspects of Chiang’s life, Taylor provides penetrating insight into the dynamics of the past that lie behind the struggle for modernity of mainland China and its relationship with Taiwan.
Visit the official The Generalissimo website.

Monday, April 6, 2009

"Bad Advice: Bush’s Lawyers in the War on Terror"

New from the University of Kansas Press: Bad Advice: Bush’s Lawyers in the War on Terror by Harold H. Bruff.

About the book, from the publisher:
From wiretapping American citizens to waterboarding foreign prisoners, the Bush administration has triggered an uproar over its tactics in the War on Terror—and over its justifications for using them. Through a close study of the legal advice provided to President Bush, former Justice Department attorney Harold Bruff provides an incisive and scathing critique of those justifications, which he finds at odds with both American law and moral authority.

Bruff rigorously examines legal opinions regarding NSA surveillance, the indefinite detention of terror suspects, the denial of Geneva Convention protection, trial by military commissions, and suspect interrogation techniques. He shows that Bush’s claims of executive power exceed anything found in U.S. history or judicial precedent, that clear statutory limitations were treated with contempt, and that Bush and his lawyers strove to exclude both congressional and judicial participation in setting anti-terrorist policy.

Bruff dissects the legal underpinnings employed by John Yoo, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and others to defend an inflated view of presidential power, showing how they combined ideology, policy advocacy, and selective readings of legal precedent to bolster executive actions. Most important, he brings into sharp focus legitimate counterarguments from the State Department, the Pentagon, and the Office of Legal Counsel that challenged or refuted these legally suspect views and yet were largely ignored or even ridiculed by the president’s advisers. Offering contrasts with the legal advice provided previous presidents, he also reviews the fundamental constitutional limits on executive action and the principles of professional responsibility that govern lawyers when they counsel government clients.

As Bruff observes, bad advice to presidents is never in short supply, but legal advice should be objective and reliable. His book points up the urgent need for advisers to serve both the president and the nation by finding a middle ground between limiting presidential power and allowing it the flexibility it needs to respond to crises. Both highly readable and authoritative, it is a must for legal scholars and an eye-opener for every citizen concerned with preserving our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

"Station Identification"

New from the University of California Press: Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States by Ari Y. Kelman.

About the book, from the publisher:
This study examines the culture of Yiddish radio in the United States during radio's golden age. Ari Y. Kelman explores the dynamic relationships between an immigrant population and a mass medium and between audience and community. By focusing on voices previously excluded from radio histories, this treatment of non-English-language radio breaks new ground in the study of both American mass media and immigrant culture. Yiddish radio directly addressed the everyday lives of Jewish immigrants, while providing them with invaluable guidance as they struggled to become American. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, radio created a virtual place where Jewish immigrants could listen to voices like theirs and affirm the sound of their community as it evolved, particularly in light of World War II and the years that followed.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

"The Sound of Freedom"

New from Bloomsbury Press: The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault.

About the book, from the publisher:
Award-winning civil rights historian Ray Arsenault describes the dramatic story behind Marian Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial--an early milestone in civil rights history--on the seventieth anniversary of her performance.

On Easter Sunday 1939, the brilliant vocalist Marian Anderson sang before a throng of seventy-five thousand at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. an electrifying moment and an underappreciated milestone in civil rights history. Though she was at the peak of a dazzling career, Anderson had been barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolution''s Constitution Hall because she was black. When Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR over the incident and took up Anderson's cause, however, it became a national issue. Like a female Jackie Robinson--but several years before his breakthrough--Anderson rose to a pressure-filled and politically charged occasion with dignity and courage, and struck a vital blow for civil rights.

In the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King would follow, literally, in Anderson's footsteps. This tightly focused, richly textured narrative by acclaimed historian Raymond Arsenault captures the struggle for racial equality in 1930s America, the quiet heroism of Marian Anderson, and a moment that inspired blacks and whites alike.

Friday, April 3, 2009

"Playbooks and Checkbooks"

New from Princeton University Press: Playbooks and Checkbooks: An Introduction to the Economics of Modern Sports by Stefan Szymanski.

About the book, from the publisher:
What economic rules govern sports? How does the sports business differ from other businesses? Playbooks and Checkbooks takes a fascinating step-by-step look at the fundamental economic relationships shaping modern sports. Focusing on the ways that the sports business does and does not overlap with economics, the book uncovers the core paradox at the heart of the sports industry. Unlike other businesses, the sports industry would not survive if competitors obliterated each other to extinction, financially or otherwise--without rivals there is nothing to sell. Playbooks and Checkbooks examines how this unique economic truth plays out in the sports world, both on and off the field.

Noted economist Stefan Szymanski explains how modern sporting contests have evolved; how sports competitions are organized; and how economics has guided antitrust, monopoly, and cartel issues in the sporting world. Szymanski considers the motivation provided by prize money, uncovers discrepancies in players' salaries, and shows why the incentive structure for professional athletes encourages them to cheat through performance-enhancing drugs and match fixing. He also explores how changes in media broadcasting allow owners and athletes to play to a global audience, and why governments continue to publicly fund sporting events such as the Olympics, despite almost certain financial loss.

Using economic tools to reveal the complex arrangements of an industry, Playbooks and Checkbooks illuminates the world of sports through economics, and the world of economics through sports.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

"Parentonomics"

New from the MIT Press: Parentonomics: An Economist Dad Looks at Parenting by Joshua Gans.

About the book, from the publisher:
Like any new parent, Joshua Gans felt joy mixed with anxiety upon the birth of his first child. Who was this blanket-swaddled small person and what did she want? Unlike most parents, however, Gans is an economist, and he began to apply the tools of his trade to raising his children. He saw his new life as one big economic management problem—and if economics helped him think about parenting, parenting illuminated certain economic principles. Parentonomics is the entertaining, enlightening, and often hilarious fruit of his "research."

Incentives, Gans shows us, are as risky in parenting as in business. An older sister who is recruited to help toilet train her younger brother for a share in the reward given for each successful visit to the bathroom, for example, could give the trainee drinks of water to make the rewards more frequent. (Economics later offered another, better toilet training solution: outsourcing. For their third child, Gans and his wife put it in the hands of professionals—the day care providers.)

Gans gives us the parentonomic view of delivery (if the mother shares her pain by yelling at the father, doesn't it really create more aggregate pain?), sleep (the screams of a baby are like an offer: "I'll stop screaming if you give me attention"), food (a question of marketing), travel ("the best thing you can say about traveling with children is that they are worse than baggage"), punishment (and threat credibility), birthday party time management, and more.

Parents: if you're reading Parentonomics in the presence of other people, you'll be unable to keep yourself from reading the funny parts out loud. And if you're reading it late at night and wake a child with your laughter—well, you'll have some guidelines for negotiating a return to bed.
See the Table of Contents and sample chapters from Parentonomics, and visit the Parentonomics website.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

"Going to Extremes"

New from Oxford University Press: Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide by Cass R. Sunstein.

About the book, from the publisher:
Why do people become extremists? What makes people become so dismissive of opposing views? Why is political and cultural polarization so pervasive in America? Why do groups of teenagers, investors, and corporations take unnecessary risks? What leads groups to engage in such destructive acts as terrorism and ethic cleansing?

In Going to Extremes, renowned legal scholar and best-selling author Cass Sunstein offers startling insights into why and when people gravitate toward extremism. Sunstein marshals an abundance of evidence that shows that when like-minded people talk to one another, they tend to become more extreme in their views than they were before. This point applies to such diverse groups as religious organizations, corporate boards, investment clubs, and White House officials. Sunstein introduces original research to show that when liberals are brought together to debate climate change, they end up more alarmed about climate change, while conservatives brought together to discuss same-sex unions become skeptical about same-sex unions. In courtrooms, radio stations, and chatrooms, enclaves of like-minded people are breeding ground for extreme movements.

Sunstein shows that a good way to create an extremist group, or a cult of any kind, is to separate members from the rest of society, either physically or psychologically. This disturbing finding casts new light on the dangers that arise whenever people self-select into niche groups of the like-minded. Sunstein's findings help to explain such diverse phenomena as political outrage on the Internet, unanticipated "blockbusters" in the film and music industry, the success of the disability rights movement, ethnic conflict in Iraq and former Yugoslavia, and Islamic terrorism.

Providing a wealth of real-world examples--sometimes entertaining, sometimes alarming-- Sunstein offers a fresh explanation of why partisanship has become so bitter and debate so rancorous in America and abroad--and of what concrete steps citizens and nations might take to halt the drift towards unjustified extremism.