SirReadaLot.org

July 2006, Issue #87

Guide to This Issue

Issue Contents:  From Wood to Linoleum: The Cuts and Prints of Barbara Mathews Whitehead, What is Graphic Design For? Print in Fashion: Design, Development and Technique in Fashion Textiles, Every Mother Is a Daughter: The Never-ending Quest for Success, Inner Peace, and a Really Clean Kitchen, The Rebels of Ireland: The Dublin Saga, Negotiating Buck Naked: Doukhobors, Public Policy, and Conflict Resolution, Children: Ugly Fish, Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide, White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms: A Guide to Building Inclusive Schools, Promoting High Expectations, and Eliminating Racism, Leadership in Higher Education: Views from the Presidency. Teaching Environmental Ethics, Barbra: The Way She Is, Making Short Films, with DVD, American Singing Groups: A History, from 1940 to Today, Transgender Health and HIV Prevention: Needs Assessment Studies from Transgender Communities Across the United States, Body after Baby: The Simple 30-Day Plan to Lose Your Baby Weight, People's Movements, People's Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements, Maharanis: The Extraordinary Tale of Four Indian Queens and Their Journey from Purdah to Parliament, Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England, Roughneck Nine-One: The Extraordinary Story of a Special Forces A-team at War, Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World, The Da Vinci Kit: Mysteries of the Renaissance Decoded, A Fresh Twist on Fabric Folding: 6 Techniques 20 Quilt & Decor Projects, Creative Computer Crafts: 50 Fun and Useful Products You Can Make with Any Inkjet Printer, Good Green Kitchens, Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar, Dark Deeds, Sweet Songs: A Journal of Sorts, The Economics of Fantasy: Rape in Twentieth-century Literature, Emma, Last Voyage of the Valentina, Sacred Eroticism: Georges Bataille and Pierre Klossowski in the Latin America Erotic Novel, Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion: A Comprehensive Resource for Identifying North American Birds, Edens Lost and Found: How Ordinary Citizens Are Restoring Our Great American Cities, Brothers and Sisters in India: A Study of Urban Adult Siblings, Writing Southern Politics: Contemporary Interpretations and Future Directions, A Black Way of Seeing: From "Liberty" to Freedom, Study Guide to Epidemiology and Biostatistics, 6^th edition, Prenatal Diagnosis, Continuing Professional Development for Clinical Psychologists: A Practical Handbook, Clothing and Textile Collections in the United States: A CSA Guide, The Genealogist's Internet: Third Expanded Edition, The Erotic and the Holy: Kabbalistic Tantra for Everyday Living, Abraham's Children: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conversation, The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance, Cruel but Not Unusual: Violence in Canadian Families, Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora

Arts & Photography / Graphic Design

From Wood to Linoleum: The Cuts and Prints of Barbara Mathews Whitehead by Barbara Mathews Whitehead, introduction by Lonn Taylor (Texas Christian University Press)

Barbara Whitehead is one of the few artists in Texas who regularly work in woodcuts and linoleum prints. From Wood to Linoleum showcases her work.

Whitehead began her career as an illustrator in 1969 for Bill Wittliff's Encino Press. Her work soon became widely known among collectors and lovers of fine printing. With her late husband, Fred, she established Whitehead & Whitehead Publishing Services, providing book and poster illustrations as well as book production and design. Such Austin-area book printers as David Lindsey, Thomas W. Taylor, and David Holman, and university presses at TCU, SMU, the University of New Mexico, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Texas, and others used their designs.

As seen in From Wood to Linoleum, Whitehead's work has a boldness and assertiveness about it that is peculiarly Texan, even when her subject matter is not Texas. Among her favorite projects are Growing Up in Texas, a collection of reminiscences, David L. Lindsey's The Wonderful Chirrionera and Other Tales from Mexican Folklore, and R. G. Vliet's long poem, Clem Maverick: The Life and Death of a Country Singer. Whitehead does extensive research to prepare for her wood and linoleum cuts. After research, she says, "I go off in another world somewhere and concentrate on the subject I'm working on, and while I'm driving off to the grocery store or something it comes to me."

The work shown in From Wood to Linoleum comes from The Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos, which houses the Fred and Barbara Whitehead Collection. The collection contains posters, woodblocks and woodblock and linoleum prints, and work from Encino Press. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Barbara Whitehead is a three-time winner of TIL's design award.

Barbara is of course a long recognized marvel with graver and wood. Her collected works – as this book so beautifully attests – absolutely shine with originality, with personality, with bedrock appropriateness to the subject at hand, and always, always with that special bold flair that makes her work so instantly recog­nizable. She is above all one of those rare artists whose work not only illustrates but illuminates as well – and those of us who care about the bookmaking arts in Texas are much blessed to have her. – Bill Wittliff

Woodcuts remain Barbara's first love, and they are the medium she is most closely identified with. Her work is instantly recognizable; there is a unique quality about her vibrating lines and blocks of color that cause them to jump off the page. They are powerful because of the economy of line and mass that form them; at the same time there is a strong sense of the absurd. Barbara has always looked on life with an unflinching eye. – Lonn Taylor, from the introduction

The woodcuts are beyond description; the book contains anywhere from one to six per page. As Lonn Taylor says in the introduction to From Wood to Linoleum, quoting Whitehead herself, “Woodcuts get the essence, and I like to get at the essence of things.”

Arts & Photography / Graphic Design

What is Graphic Design For? by Alice Twemlow (Essential Design Handbooks Series: RotoVision)

The roles of graphic designers have never been so diverse: they must often copy write, edit, curate, originate photography and illustrations, design typefaces, and be astute marketers and businesspeople all in a world of converging media. The issues that preoccupy contemporary practitioners include maintaining a dispassionate and ironic distance from one's subject matter; and the celebration of phenomena like the quotidian, ambiguity, complexity, and even absence. Also evident is a vociferous questioning of a traditionally revered model of communication in which the designer is positioned as an author, disseminator, or generator of messages and the audience a passive receiver or consumer of those messages.

What is Graphic Design For? is a guide to the world of graphic design, exploring all the issues that shape contemporary design: economics; ethics; technology; multimedia communication; theory and developments in other fields that impact globally on local cultures, with a special focus on work from emerging design locations, including China, Russia and Eastern Europe. In the pages of What is Graphic Design For?, readers meet designers from all these camps and, through their work and thinking, examine the issues that are of critical relevance to design today and, more importantly, to the people who engage with it on a daily basis. In the 21st century, graphic designers throughout the world are facing tough but exciting challenges: new technologies, new ways for clients to interact with customers, and an audience that is increasingly literate when it comes to design, global influences, and cultures, What is Graphic Design For? starts by exploring the issues that shape design today: sustainability, ethics, technology, theory, and developments in other fields that impact globally on local cultures.

According to author Alice Twemlow, who writes, curates exhibitions, and lectures about design and visual culture, the very idea of design having a purpose or being for something, in the context of early 21st-century society, is somewhat anachronistic. It seems to belong to an era in which ideology and fundamental truths were possible and when manifestos were proclaimed. In today's decentralized society, the responsibility for social change and progress has fallen to individuals and small groups, non-profits, and publications. Consequently the messages are more numerous and more complex. Many designers are politically motivated, of course, and are working under the radar for a host of social causes, but as design critic Rick Poynor has remarked, "Designers inevitably express the values of their day. And today's values are not primarily about social responsibility."

The book breaks the discipline down into its elements, examining traditional practices such as typography, signage, advertising, and book design, as well as more recent developments including VJing, games design, software design, and interactive design.

What is Graphic Design For? concludes with a showcase of the work of cutting-edge designers from many parts of the world. The book includes work by barbara says, Radovan Jenko, Rebecca Ross, Jonathan Ba'nbrook, karlssonwilker, Stefan Sagmeister, Base, Kerr Noble, Sweden Graphics, COMA, KesselsKramer, Frederic Teschner,  cyan, Land Design Studio, thomas.matthews, deValence, Ji Lee, Clarissa Tossin, Ed Fella, Jürg Lohni, UVA, Fl@83, LUST, James Victore, Vince Frost, John Morgan, Why Not Associates, KimHiorthoy, Open, Wieden+Kennedy, Allen Hori, ORG, Barbara de Wilde, HunterGatherer, Pentagram, Martin Woodtli

What is Graphic Design For? is a visually oriented new graphic design handbook, extending the issues raised in the bestselling original What is Graphic Design? The special focus on work from emerging design locations, including China, Russia and Eastern Europe, is particularly invaluable.

Arts & Photography / Fashion

Print in Fashion: Design, Development and Technique in Fashion Textiles by Marnie Fogg (Batsford)

The relationship between print and high fashion has never been more potent. For more than thirty years print has been used to support the concepts of structure and shape, designers adhering to the modernist precepts that form follows function and that decoration for its own sake is somehow essentially frivolous. Print is a distraction and yet invites recognition; it is an affirmation that there is time in the world to play, and that decoration is, in itself, a purpose.

Print in Fashion, by Marnie Fogg, media consultant on all aspects of the fashion industry and lecturer in Visual Studies and the Culture of Fashion at the University of Nottingham, is the first and only book to explore cutting-edge print design for fashion through the designer’s eyes. Print in Fashion guides readers through the design process, looks at sources of inspiration and considers the relationship between fashion designer and print designer. From Paul Smith’s iconic stripes to the paisleys and peacock feathers of Matthew Williamson, Fogg explores the enduring appeal of print design as an expression of the fashion design process.

The book is concerned with all aspects of the design process as it examines sources of inspiration and preferred methods of working and studio practices employed by contemporary cutting-edge designers. It considers the role of innovative development in print technology and how the immediacy of modern processes affects creativity, maintaining the sublime conjunction of image, color and texture that printed textiles for fashion represent. The book is complete with interviews, studio examples, exclusive archive material from international fashion houses, and full-color photographs of patterns. Innovative fashion and textile designers such as Eley Kishimoto and Jonathan Saunders explain their work, take readers through their artistic process, and consider the relationship between fashion designer and print designer. Some of the striking motifs are based on nature, others are drawn from urban graffiti and graphics, and still more go retro, abstract, or folkloric.

Contents of Print in Fashion includes

• Print into Fashion – history of the relationship between print and fashion
• And, Next to Nature, Art – recreating the beauty of nature
• Abstract – fashion textiles as one-off artworks
• Folklore, Fantasy and Fable – inspiration from different cultures and places
• Graphics and Graffiti – the urban environment as pattern
• Vintage – the retro trend

The book also includes footnotes, a bibliography, and an index. Every page in Print in Fashion offers something beautiful and striking. The material is invaluable to anyone interested in fashion and design.

Audio / Biographies & Memoirs

Every Mother Is a Daughter: The Neverending Quest for Success, Inner Peace, and a Really Clean Kitchen [UNABRIDGED] (8 Audio Cassettes, 12 hours) by Perri Klass & Sheila Solomon Klass, read by Anna Fields & Carrington MacDuffie (Blackstone Audio, Inc.)

Oh no, I’m turning into my mother!

Every woman is familiar with the poignant, funny, baffling, or horrifying echoes that resonate at that moment when she first hears her own mother’s voice coming out of her mouth. But this moment of recognition is more than ironic: it is at the root of how we see ourselves, and how we plot and follow the arc that goes from childhood to motherhood. Together, Perri Klass and her mother, Sheila Solomon Klass, in Every Mother Is a Daughter cover more than seven decades of daughterhood and motherhood. Sheila is professor of English at the City University of New York, and Perri is an award-winning author, pediatrician and the medical director of the national program Reach Out and Read. Although they grew up in dramatically different circumstances, they find that their lives have been shaped in strangely similar ways. Sheila grew up in Brooklyn in the 1920s, a child of the city, of the Depression, and of an orthodox Jewish home where a girl’s education was considered unnecessary. She took a job as a live-in babysitter in order to be the first person in her family to go to college, and went on to become a professor of English and a working mother. Although Perri was born into a privileged academic upbringing and encouraged to follow her ambitions, her life turned out remarkably similar to her mother’s: she married an academic, had three children while working full time, and always managed to write in her spare time.

These authors avoid the pitfalls of the often saccharine mother-daughter memoir by interspersing humorous anecdotes within a solid framework of stories of mom Sheila's dark upbringing during the 1940s and daughter Perri's current struggle to keep her own life as a mother, doctor, writer and avid knitter under control. The two exchange ideas, conflicting memories of past events and even gentle criticisms in chapters such as "There Are No Old Babies" and "Milking Reindeer." Readers will appreciate the honesty between the pair as Sheila writes about growing up with abusive and distant parents and her experience as a working mother in New Jersey during the 1960s, while Perri struggles to ‘have it all’ in 2005, consistently feeling as though something, or someone, has been forgotten along the way. The mother-daughter duo triumph over hectic schedules and physical distance through their love of writing and travel, ending with reminiscences of their trip to India to visit the Taj Mahal. This is a treasure for any generation. – Publishers Weekly

In Every Mother Is a Daughter, Perri and Sheila tell their mother-daughter story, looking honestly at their own lives and at each other, in the first co-written mother-daughter memoir. They examine the pulls of love and affection but also at the tension, frustration, and competition inherent in any mother-daughter relationship. With unique perspectives, voices, and insight, they shed light on the critical issues that resonate in the lives of mothers and daughters everywhere.

Audio / Literature & Fiction / Historical

The Rebels of Ireland: The Dublin Saga [ABRIDGED Audio Cassette] by Edward Rutherfurd, narrated by John Keating (Random House Audio)

Spellbinding. . . . Like James Michener and Leon Uris, Rutherfurd does a magnificent job of packaging a crackling good yarn within a digestible overview of complex historical circumstances and events. – Booklist

In a tale of fierce battles, hot-blooded romances, and family and political intrigues, The Rebels of Ireland brings the story begun in The Princes of Ireland to its conclusion. Edward Rutherfurd spins the saga of Ireland's 400-year path to independence in all its drama, tragedy, and glory through the stories of people from all strata of society.

Beginning where the first volume left off, The Rebels of Ireland takes readers into a world transformed by the English practice of ‘plantation,’ which represented the final step in the centuries-long British conquest of Ireland. Rutherfurd takes us inside the process of history by tracing the lives of several Dublin families – Protestant and Catholic, rich and poor, conniving and heroic.
From the time of the plantations and Elizabeth’s ascendancy, Rutherfurd moves into the grand moments of Irish history: the early-17th century ‘Flight of the Earls,’ when the last of the Irish aristocracy fled the island; Oliver Cromwell’s brutal oppression and confiscation of lands a half-century later; the romantic, doomed effort of ‘The Wild Geese’ to throw off Protestant oppression at the Battle of the Boyne. Readers see through the eyes of the victims and the perpetrators alike the painful realities of the anti-Catholic penal laws, the catastrophic famine and the massive migration to North America, the rise of the great nationalists O’Connell and the tragic Parnell, the glorious Irish cultural renaissance of Joyce and Yeats, and finally, the triumphant founding of the Irish Republic in 1922.

The audio is read by John Keating, who performs with the Irish Repertory Theater and the Roundabout Theater, and who can also be heard narrating The Princes of Ireland.

Told from the diverse viewpoints of several interrelated families, this epic recounting of the often tragic fate of one nation under two banners is transformed into an irresistible multigenerational chronicle featuring huge servings of romance, action, conflict, intrigue, and adventure. Ambitious in scope, teeming with a huge cast of finely drawn and realized characters, and dripping with authentic historical detail, this lengthy but eminently readable narrative will satisfy the appetites of discerning historical fiction aficionados. The previous volumes in the series have proven very popular, and the latest installment should follow suit. – Margaret Flanagan, Booklist

Rutherfurd’s stirring account of Irish history, the Dublin Saga, concludes in this magisterial work of historical fiction. Written with all the drama and sweep that has made Rutherfurd the bestselling historical novelist of his generation, The Rebels of Ireland is both a necessary companion to The Princes of Ireland and a magnificent achievement in its own right. Rutherfurd’s richly detailed narrative brings to life watershed moments and events. And through the eyes of his characters, he captures the great Irish nationalists and the birth of a free Ireland.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership / Politics / Public Policy

Negotiating Buck Naked: Doukhobors, Public Policy, and Conflict Resolution by Gregory J. Cran (UBC Press)

Soon after the arrival of Doukhobors (a name given to a group of Russian peasants who left the Russian Orthodox Church in 1785 by Ambrosius, the Archbishop of Ekaterinoslav) in British Columbia, new immigrants clashed with the state over issues such as land ownership, the reg­istration of births and deaths, and school atten­dance. For eighty years, the media represented the Sons of Freedom, a radical group of Russian Doukhobors, through stories of nude demonstrations, children kidnapped by the RCMP, the torching of schools and other buildings, and the bombing of railways and bridges. These events created consternation for governments, orthodox Doukhobors, their neighbors, and the general public. As positions hardened, the conflict, often violent, intensified and continued unabated for the better part of a century, until an accord was finally negotiated in the mid-1980s between the Doukhobors and government.

Negotiating Buck Naked examines the accord closely. Why did it work when numerous other interventions failed, and how did it change the patterns of conflict between the factions? How was the accord reached, and what factors enabled it to succeed? What lessons can be learned from this experience? To answer these questions, Gregory Cran, Director of the School of Peace and Conflict Management at Royal Roads University and a for­mer treaty negotiator for the BC provincial government, develops a theoretical framework for understanding the process of dispute resolution. Cran emphasizes that competing discourses are juxtaposed and that it is these different but equally valid narratives that must be negotiated.

Negotiating Buck Naked examines the events that, in 1979, brought to­gether a skilled group of dedicated local non-Doukhobor people – the Kootenay Committee on Intergroup Relations (KCIR) – with the Douk­hobor factions and a group of government officials and police. This group heard witnesses describe how bombing and arson came to be used as a means of protest and retaliation and how, over a period of sixty years, this was sometimes encouraged and sometimes discouraged by the Doukhobor leadership.

In examining the factors that led to change, Cran’s analysis draws upon interviews with key spokespersons for the Doukhobors who played strategic roles in helping their groups bring an end to bombing and arson. The interviews explore these people's pasts and the stories they told about other groups and the government. They also explore how meaning was constructed and how the epiphanies that were experienced during the KCIR sessions reshaped people's perceptions and views of each other. The lessons resulting from this study challenge conventional conflict theory and conflict intervention practices.

Cran’s role dates back to 1978, when he was asked by the Ministry of the Attorney General of British Columbia to design an intervention process that, so he reasoned at the time, would focus attention away from provincial government. In his late twenties, he had to face an elderly group of extremely determined, very religious people who, at least with regard to the Sons of Freedom, had spent a good part of their lives in prison for standing up for what they believed. Notwithstanding their age difference and his role with the provincial government (which they viewed as the ‘devil’), they reached an accord. For the next twenty years Cran watched from a distance to see whether this agreement would hold, periodically wondering why the process had enabled the occurrence of such a dramatic change. Finally, he found his excuse to return to the region, this time as a doctoral student, eager to look for answers.

In Negotiating Buck Naked Cran fills a gap in the history of the Doukhobors regarding how, after many years of turmoil, competing narratives were eventually negotiated into a new story structure that laid the foundation for bringing an end to violence; and he also informs those interested in conflict intervention and peace building – whether they are government policy makers, police officers, conflict practitioners, or members of the general public – about the lessons that were learned in addressing a particularly complex ethno-political conflict

Chapter 1 provides a brief history of the Doukhobors and the conflicts that emerged when they came to Canada. Cran describes the various failed attempts on the part of the government and the community to address the ongoing tension between state policies and religious beliefs. Chapter 2 explores what has been written about the Doukhobors and about conflict and culture in order to highlight not only where these theories diverge but also where their limitations come into play. Chapter 3 describes Cran’s role as a young provincial government representative who came face-to-face with a myriad of situations, ranging from hunger fasts and blockades to efforts to get all the groups in the same room together. Chapter 4 sets out the conflicting narratives and events that unfolded in the period during which the KCIR was meeting. Chapter 5 continues with the narrative exchange but notes what happened when pressure was brought to bear on the Union of Communities of Christ, the Sons of Freedom, and the Fraternal Council of the Christian Community and Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors (also known as the "Reformed Sons of Freedom,") to make a choice between abandoning the process altogether and constructing a common narrative. Negotiating Buck Naked details key parts of the exchange, the situations that emerged between sessions, and the dilemmas the groups faced in negotiating their storied pasts. Chapter 6 returns to the Kootenays after nearly twenty years to interview three people who played a significant role in helping the Orthodox Doukhobors and the Reformed Doukhobors reach an accord. The book explores the meanings each group created about the other during their earlier years and then what happened when they participated in the KCIR sessions. In Chapter 7, those interviewed describe their experiences throughout the KCIR sessions and tell how these experiences helped them to reshape their views and perspectives. Finally, in Chapter 8, Cran examines the transcripts and interviews to educe lessons that may be useful to conflict theorists and practitioners, public policy makers, and others addressing difficult and challenging conflict situations, such as that presented by the Doukhobors.

An unparalleled testimony of persecution, protest, conflict resolution, and hope. By taking seriously stories, cultures, and communities, Gregory Cran masterfully weaves together astonishing firsthand narratives of twentieth-century Doukhobor oppression with a rigorous academic analysis of conflict and terror. – Trevor C.W. Farrow, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta

Negotiating Buck Naked offers new ways of dealing with conflicts considered to be intractable as it tells in detail the fascinating story of two peoples in British Columbia changing their collective minds. The book extracts valuable lessons and challenges traditional conflict resolution practices. It will be useful to conflict resolution practitioners, policy makers, peace makers, and peace keepers.

Children / Ages 3 to 7

Ugly Fish by Kara LaReau & Scott Magoon (Harcourt, Inc.)

There’s only room for one fish is this tank….

Ugly Fish is ugly and big and mean, and he won't share his driftwood tunnel or his special briny flakes with anyone.

And that means the wimpy little fish who keep showing up in his tank have got to go.

But then one day someone bigger and uglier and maybe even meaner arrives . . . and suddenly Ugly Fish isn't feeling quite so confident anymore.
Kara LaReau is a children's book editor and the author of the Rocko and Spanky series. She was inspired to write Ugly Fish after reading an article about childhood bullying. The article said some kids actually think it’s cool to be mean to others. With that attitude, LaReau says, “They’ll probably end up alone. Or, like Ugly Fish, even worse!”
Ugly Fish was cowritten and illustrated by Scott Magoon, freelance illustrator and designer who is making his picture-book debut with Ugly Fish. Magoon has had lots of experience with ugly fish – the pond near his childhood home in Maine was teeming with them. Not only would the catfish sting him when he tried to pick them up, but they were also bottom feeders that turned the entire floor of the pond to muck, making it no fun to swim in.

Ugly Fish is an irreverent and terrifically funny book about a bully who at last gets his comeuppance. The story is laced through and through with fish doing what fish do – eating other fish, which may upset some tender-hearted individuals – but, hey, that’s what fish do; get over it!

Children / Reference / Encyclopedias / History / World

Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide by Leslie Alan Horvitz & Christopher Catherwood (Facts on File)

This A-to-Z encyclopedia examines the entire history of crimes against humanity, during wartime and peacetime. With more than 450 entries, Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide covers a wide range of relevant topics: human rights, war criminals, trials of war crimes, examples of genocide, international organizations and international law concerning war crimes, and more.

Coverage includes: Amnesty International, apartheid, Armenian genocide, Babi Yar, Klaus Barbie, biological weapons, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, collateral damage, conflict diamonds, Darfur, Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, El Salvador, ethnic cleansing, Freedom House, Geneva Conventions, ghost prisoners, gulags, Human Rights Convention, Saddam Hussein, International Committee of the Red Cross, My Lai massacre, North Korea, Pol Pot, Rwanda, Shining Path, slavery, Taliban, Desmond Tutu, and Simon Wiesenthal. Also included is a primary resources section of documents vital to understanding this subject.

The title Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide was chosen for the sake of simplicity and compression, because the book's scope extends to such topics as crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, and human rights violations. Many of the individuals profiled – a veritable ‘rogues' gallery’ – were never formally indicted for war crimes; indeed, they committed their crimes during periods when their countries were not at war. Nonetheless, their excesses and abuses of human rights warrant their inclusion. Some of them, such as Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Joseph Stalin, none of whom have ever had to answer for their crimes in a court of law, are well known. Other men profiled here – and nearly all are men – while hardly household names, nonetheless stand out, whether because their cases shed light on an important issue (the destruction of public or cultural property, for example) or because they establish a crucial legal precedent. Although these pages are crowded with dictators, mass murderers, and torturers, the authors, Leslie Alan Horvitz, freelance writer and the author or editor of many books, and Christopher Catherwood, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (Great Britain) and teacher at the Universities of Cambridge and Richmond, feel they would have been remiss if they had not given space to prominent human rights organizations and activists who have done so much to redress grievous wrongs often at great risk to their lives.

War crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, and genocide all have a legal definition. Therefore, a great many entries are concerned with what is known as international humanitarian law, or IHL, dealing with the rules and conduct of war, the distinction between international and internal conflicts, types of weapons that can and cannot legally be used in conflicts, and the treatment of prisoners of war and civilians under occupation. Readers will find lengthy discussions about the principal treaties that constitute IHL, including, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 1977, the Conventions against Genocide and Torture, and the London Charter that established the rules under which the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals would be conducted. In addition, readers will find a discussion of how IHL applies to terrorism and whether suspected terrorists should be treated as prisoners of war. If it is not enforced, of course, the law enshrined in all these treaties, protocols, and conventions means very little. So several entries are devoted to institutions and mechanisms that have emerged in the postwar era to resolve international and regional disputes and investigate and prosecute human rights abuses. For instance, several entries focus on each of the three special ad hoc courts that have been set up by the United Nations in order to try individuals implicated in war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone.

The entries in Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide will provide readers with a context – a historical perspective – that will allow them to understand and assess events in these countries in light of what came before.

Education

White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms: A Guide to Building Inclusive Schools, Promoting High Expectations, and Eliminating Racism edited by Julie Landsman, & Chance W. Lewis (Stylus Publishing, LLC)

For African Americans, school is often not a place to learn but a place of low expectations and failure. In urban schools with concentrations of poverty, often fewer than half the ninth graders leave with a high school diploma.

White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms encourages reflection and self-examination, as it calls for understanding how students can achieve and expecting the most from them. It demonstrates what’s involved in terms of recognizing often-unconscious biases, confronting institutional racism where it occurs, surmounting stereotyping, adopting culturally relevant teaching, connecting with parents and the community, and integrating diversity in all activities. The book is edited by Chance W. Lewis, assistant professor at the School of Education, Colorado State University and founder and Chairperson of the African American Research Consortium; and Julie Landsman, consultant and teacher in the Minneapolis Schools.

W. E. B. DuBois noted in his groundbreaking book The Souls of Black Folk that the problem of America is of the color line. If this is the case, then we are deplorably behind in addressing issues of education for African American students, for DuBois identified this problem more than a century ago. What makes us so reluctant to grapple with this issue? Landsman and Lewis, the editors of White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms, believe that much of the work must be done within the community and in the racial group who does most of the educating: the White teachers, administrators, counselors, and social workers of our students.

Landsman and Lewis believe now is the time to engage in the uncomfortable talks, the continuing dialogue, the community work necessary to truly understand and change the situation for those students who are being failed by our public educational institutions and assessment standards. Now is the time to look at practices and the results of those practices with the blunt and critical lens of urgency and concern. Now is the time to look at our position of power in the classroom and question our assumptions about the kids we teach. It is time for critical reflection about our roles in the schools and in the commu­nities from which our students come.

Landsman and Lewis have found that although all children of color experience difficulty and systematic racism in this country, African Americans have received more than a fair share of negative media attention. Much of White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms is devoted to their education and to what is addressed to close the gap between African American students and all others. We also believe that Latino students as well as Native and Asian students suffer from stereotyping, generalizations, and invisibility in our schools and colleges. For many of these students, those same suggestions and ideas, theories, and pedagogies apply as well to their African American brothers and sisters. Autobiography and memoirs are interspersed throughout White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms to bring home to readers, on a visceral level, what we really mean when we speak of low expectations or invisibility within the curriculum. We need such stories to remind us of the human costs of our educational failures, our systematic indifference, and the assumption of deficits instead of strengths our students bring.

Part One of White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms is entitled "Foundations of Our Work: Recogniz­ing Power and Privilege." In chapter 1, "Being White: Invisible Privileges of a New England Prep School Girl," Julie Landsman calls on the work of Peggy McIntosh and Thandeka as well as W. E. B. DuBois and Barack Obama to clarify what it means to be White in America and how this affects everything we do and how we live. She concludes with some suggestions for exploring Whiteness and engaging in dialogue around the privilege of "single consciousness" as opposed to DuBois's "double consciousness."

Part Two, entitled "Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: How Do We Do It?" includes five chapters by practitioners working in classrooms in both universities and public schools. In chapter 2, "Yes, But How Do We Do It?" Ladson-Billings breaks down what it means to teach effectively when teaching African American students and how to apply this to the classroom in a practical, doable manner. In chapter 3, "The Empty Desk in the Third Row: Experiences of an African American Male Teacher," Robert W. Simmons III captures an experience he had with a student in his inner-city classroom. He draws a picture here of what an activist, culturally competent teacher does in the world.

In chapter 4, Joseph White, in an interview with Julie Landsman, entitled "Educating Black Males," calls on his years of experience and research into Black psychology to give readers practical, compassionate, and vivid ideas for reaching young Black boys in our classrooms. In chapter 5, "The Unintentional Undermining of Multicultural Education: Educators at the Equity Crossroads," Paul Gorski asks us to go further than the ‘heroes and holidays’ approach to multicultural education. How are we contributing to our students' lack of achievement when we are silent in the face of racist curriculums or generalizations by our colleagues? He asks us to look at multicultural education in an activist context, questioning the power relationships in the country, the school, and the classroom as part of the work we must do to dismantle the present concentration of wealth in the hands of so few while others go without decent schooling, medical care, and community services. In the final chapter of this part, "But Good Intentions Are Not Enough: Theoretical and Philosophical Relevance in Teaching Students of Color," H. Richard Milner explores the theories of multicultural education and best practices. Milner focuses on two main theoretical assumptions that are the foundations of problems White teachers must face when teaching students of color: (1) deficit thinking and teaching, and (2) power and teaching.

In Part Three, "Expecting the Most: How White Teachers Can Ensure African American Achievement," Stephen D. Hancock, in chapter 7, "White Women's Work: On the Front Lines of Urban Education," addresses White women and their role in the school systems as they exist today. He explores avenues that encourage, enlighten, and empower White women to become more effective in diverse classrooms. Carolyn L. Holbrook, in her autobiographical piece in chapter 8, "Low Expectations Are the Worst Form of Racism," explores the intimate and troubling experiences of a Black single mother and teacher raising her children in a system that often does not expect as much from her bright, eager sons and daughters as it does from students who are not of color. In chapter 9, "I Don't Understand Why My African American Students Are Not Achieving: An Exploration of the Connection among Personal Power, Teachers' Perceptions, and the Academic Engagement of African American Students," Verna Cornelia Price spells out clearly exactly why we have the kind of educational gap we have in America and what needs to be done about it. Bruce B. Douglas, Esrom DuBois Pitre, and Chance Lewis address a specific situation in chapter 10, "African American Student-Athletes and White Teachers' Classroom Interactions." This chapter directly shows how deficit thinking about African American student capabilities ultimately hurts them in the long run. In their chapter, "Tips for School Principals and Teachers: Helping Black Students Achieve," Dorothy F. Garrison-Wade and Chance Lewis provide research-based ways that administrators and teachers can address the achievement gap. Finally, in chapter 12, "Black/African American Families: Coming of Age in Predominately White Communities," Val Middleton, Kieran Coleman, and Chance Lewis explore the unique challenges of educating Black students in a predominately White setting.

Part Four, "The Truly Reflective Teacher," addresses how we can rethink our own role in the system of education in which we are working. Ann B. Miser recalls how she was forced to look at her students and their community differently in chapter 13, "Connecting to the Community: Speaking the Truth without Hesitation." She confronts her own hesitancy to speak up about an injustice and what happens when she does. Miles Anthony Irving, in chapter 14, "In Practicing What We Teach: Experiences with Reflective Practice and Critical Engagement," examines his own unwillingness to really engage with his students in controversial issues, issues that he does not feel entirely comfortable with himself. In chapter 15, "Conversation – A Necessary Step in Understanding Diversity: A New Teacher Plans for Competency," Jane Nicolet reconstructs a dialogue she has with a former university student who is going off to teach her first class.

In Part Five, "Creating Activist Classroom Communities," the final part of White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms, classroom teachers and researchers, college professors, and consultants speak about creating the ideal of the inclusive community within the school. In chapter 16, "When Truth and Joy Are at Stake: Challenging the Status Quo in the High School English Class," Julie Landsman draws on her thirty years of experience as a Minneapolis teacher to talk about how to build trust not only among students each hour, but also between a White teacher and his or her students who are primarily Black.

Susan Leverett Dodd and Miles Anthony Irving, in chapter 17, "Incor­poration of Multiculturalism into Art Education," present a history of art education and then proceed to provide suggestions on how to have a truly multicultural art experience. Sharon R. Ishii-Jordan speaks from her perspective as a teacher educator. She is clear and unequivocal, in chapter 18, "Preparing Teachers to Develop Inclusive Communities," about what is needed to truly bring about equity in education and what part teachers play in this process. Verna Cornelia Price, in chapter 19, "How Can Service-Learning Increase the Academic Achievement of Urban African American Students?" gives us a passionate and well-researched way of providing the important connection Professor Joseph White talks about in his interview. Finally, Bridgie A. Ford also urges readers to connect to the communities in which our students live, in chapter 20, "Culturally Responsive School-Community Partnerships: Strategy for Success." Although we often pay lip service to the importance of the community, we often do very little to reach out to the world our students come from every day. 

Ultimately, White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms is only as useful as White teachers make it. Landsman and Lewis have culled together a rich, fresh look at schools and teachers, researchers, and professors from young and old, veteran and new, Black and White from all over the country. Unless teachers put into practice what they are suggesting, not only in the classroom but in their own private moments of reflection, as well as in boardrooms, faculty meetings, and town hall gatherings, racism, inequity, and the achievement gap will continue to deprive the majority of students the right to reach their potential. White students as well as those of color have a great amount to gain from equity for all. For the sake of all children, teachers must follow up their reading with action, their contemplation with change. The writers and teachers and thinkers in White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms show readers a way.

The preparation of a highly qualified teacher workforce has become a national priority. In an unusual turn, the discussion of 'quality' has centered solely on forms of knowledge and the ability to show the acquisition and demonstration of content and competencies. The place and importance of dispositions and clinical skill in teacher practice are largely absent from the national discourse. White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms is an intellectually rich conversation starter. This book explores the myriad considerations needed to create schools that serve all learners. Chief among the requirements is highly qualified teachers – those who are committed to advancing the intellectual development of all learners because each one has the potential to do great things. – Sharon P. Robinson, President and CEO, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education

When people read the title of this book, their initial reaction might be that this is another 'blame game.' However, this book is about one of the most persistent and well documented fault lines in our schools: the educational achievement gap between minority and non-minority students and the critical role of all teachers, particularly white teachers, in eliminating it. White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms is both a practical road map and an appeal to all teachers to re-dedicate themselves to ensuring that all students are prepared and can meet high educational standards – not simply for their sake, but for the future of America and all of her citizens. – Mary H. Futrell, Dean of the Graduate School of Education & Human Development, The George Washington University, and former President of the National Education Association

Black and White teachers in White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms provide an insightful approach to inclusive and equitable teaching and illustrate its transformative power to bring about success. The book is replete with examples of practice, telling insights, and practical models that will engage teachers in practice or in service. It should have a place in every classroom in colleges of education. Its empowering message applies not just to teachers of Black students, but illuminates teaching in every racially diverse setting.
White Teachers / Diverse Classrooms will give its readers pause; it will, hopefully, energize White teachers to look at their classrooms, reflect on their interactions with students of color and even their school building policies and opt for true change and equity.

Education / Leadership

Leadership in Higher Education: Views from the Presidency by Francis Lawrence (Transaction Publishers)

The American higher education system, often characterized as the best in the world, is distinguished for its scholarship as well as its accessibility. Higher education has become the passport to the American dream, and the percentage of those going to college has increased, challenging individual institutions and systems to accommodate growing numbers of aspiring students while searching for solutions to problems of inadequate college preparation and inadequate financial assistance for low-income students. In this time of change and uncertainty, universities have become the targets of media interest, critical examination, and political manipulation. Despite their increasing importance to the nation, the region, and their communities, public and private universities have seen states reduce their support to their state systems of higher education, shifting the responsibility to individuals and institutions.

Leadership in Higher Education, compiled by Francis L. Lawrence, president emeritus of Rutgers University, contains a collection of interviews of thirteen presidents and chancellors of some of America’s top universities. They candidly reflect on their experiences during the decade leading up to the twenty-first century and immediately following it. The book traces the careers of these women and men who have presided over a total of twenty universities or university systems and three national organizations of higher education: Robert Berdahl, Myles Brand, Molly Corbett Broad, John T. Casteen III, Mary Sue Coleman, Norman C. Francis, Nils Hasselmo, Shirley Ann Jackson, Shirley Strum Kenny, William English Kirwan, Francis L. Lawrence, Charles M. Vest, and David Ward. The interviews depict some of the most distinguished and effective institutions of higher education in America, ranging from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the East Coast to Xavier University of New Orleans in the Deep South, and the University of California, Berkeley on the West Coast, and from the NCAA to the AAU.

Painted by the leaders who shaped them, Leadership in Higher Education offers a vivid mural of a richly varied group of universities and university systems, the presidents and chancellors who have, by their own accounts, devoted every waking minute to wrestling with the problems of their institutions and planning for their advancement. The time period that this portrait of American higher education treats is one of considerable economic and cultural stress, from the recession of the early 1990s through the shock of 9/11. The interviews reveal the ways that the leaders of these institutions, in collaboration with their boards, their faculty colleagues, their administrative staff members, and their external constituencies, have charted successful paths that have not simply kept their institutions functioning at the same level in times of fiscal stringency but have taken them forward to new heights of academic achievement in teaching and scholarship.

As shown in Leadership in Higher Education, with great energy and ingenuity, America's higher education leadership, the interviewees and their academic communities, have continuously improved the bedrock teaching, research, and service missions of these institutions of higher education and have done so in circumstances of severe economic stringency. They have brought about this miracle by what in other circles might be termed entrepreneurial means, which are ably described in this book. A conclusion sums up the salient common aspects of the leadership styles of the presidents and chancellors in this volume and ends with a plea for action on the federal level to ensure that affordable access is available to the new more numerous and more diverse cohorts of young people coming of age and eager to enter higher education.

Fran Lawrence is a highly respected and well connected leader of American higher education. The candor he elicits in the interviews with university presidents contained in this book is remarkable. His own insights reflect a wealth of experience and deeply held values. Rarely have the practical experiences of so many leaders and leadership theory been so thoughtfully blended. This book is a must read for both aspiring and serving college and university presidents. – David Hardesty, president, West Virginia University

Leadership in Higher Education by Fran Lawrence is not just a book for academics: it's for anyone interested in leadership in complex organizations. It will be especially helpful to anyone who wants to learn how to inspire and motivate very bright, creative, self-directed people, no easy task as many business leaders have learned. The stories of thirteen leaders of some of America's best universities offer excellent models for the management of knowledge workers, a whole new area of business skill with many difficult passages and dangerous pitfalls for the traditional CEO. – David Stern, commissioner, National Basketball Association

These conversations open a fascinating perspective on the backgrounds and characters of several highly regarded university presidents. The interviews give a good sense of their disparate approaches to the job and the challenges they faced – both challenges that were common to almost everyone and those that were distinctive in each case. The book demonstrates that a variety of strategies can lead to success in these complex and demanding jobs, and also sheds light on more general issues of leadership in higher education. – Nannerl O. Keohane, president emerita, Duke University

If anyone doubts the common perception that America has the best system of higher education in the world, Lawrence in Leadership in Higher Education has produced a casebook of leadership stories that will convince all skeptics. The interviews are remarkably candid and revealing, personal and direct. What emerges from them are stories of power and appeal. These are histories that students of leadership, their teachers, and prospective presidents alike will read with interest and great profit.

Education / Outdoors & Nature / Social Sciences / Philosophy / Ethics

Teaching Environmental Ethics edited by Clare Palmer (Brill Academic Publishers)

Teaching Environmental Ethics explores a wide variety of questions, both of a theoretical and a practical nature, raised by teaching environmental ethics. The essays consider general issues such as the place of environmental advocacy in the environmental ethics classroom; using outdoor environments to prompt reflection on environmental ethics; and handling student responses – such as pessimism – that may emerge from teaching environmental ethics. The essays in the volume also consider practical issues, including successfully teaching environmental ethics to students without a background in philosophy, promoting the development of interdisciplinarity, useful ways to structure syllabi, and teaching and learning techniques.

According to editor Clare Palmer, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Washington University in St Louis, to argue that teaching environmental ethics explicitly is important and worthwhile says nothing about the aims, methods or principal concerns of such teaching. In the book, views about what teaching environmental ethics entails or should entail diverge significantly, in particular with respect to whether the teaching of environmental ethics should be seen as in any sense a practice of advocacy. Several different broad orientations with regard to the role of advocacy in environmental ethics teaching can be identified and most are represented in Teaching Environmental Ethics. Palmer outlines four approaches in the introduction.

One orientation might be called ‘pure intellectualist’. Here environmental ethics teaching is seen purely as an intellectual project, aiming to develop students' ethical reasoning abilities with respect to the environment. It introduces them to ethical issues raised by the environment, and outlines a range of different ethical approaches and values that are potentially relevant to thinking about those issues. Students are encouraged to think critically, to analyze arguments and to consider the evidence for claims, to develop their own consistent arguments and to offer sound reasons for advancing them. This kind of environmental ethics teaching fits the model of many other academic subjects. There is no attempt at advocacy of any kind; the course is regarded as an intellectual exercise.

A second orientation might be called ‘ethical advocacy’. It, too, introduces possible ethical issues raised by the environment, and outlines a range of potentially relevant approaches and values. As with the ‘pure intellectualist’ model, students are encouraged to think critically, to analyze arguments and to consider the evidence for claims, to develop their own consistent arguments and so on. However, the ‘ethical advocacy’ model, alongside the straightforwardly intellectual aim, also aims to help students in working through what is ethical in an environmental context. Such an approach is likely to encourage students critically to consider, and to be prepared to revise, their own beliefs, values and practices with respect to the environment. The ‘ethical advocacy’ then, consists of an additional aim to encourage students to consider what is ethical, and to live an examined and ethical life with respect to the environment.

Others take an ‘environmental advocacy orientation’. This is the majority view in Teaching Environmental Ethics and perhaps the majority view in environmental ethics teaching as a whole, as de Laplante suggests in his paper. Ethical issues about the environment are generally raised in the context of environmental crisis – an environmental crisis understood to have been produced by misguided values. These mistaken values emphasizing consumerism and consumption and understanding the environment as a resource – are seen as tightly bound into what Sterling calls the ‘dominant social paradigm’. Given the dominant social paradigm (DSP) and the urgency of the environmental crisis, the teaching of environmental ethics is regarded as both vital (in putting forward new values) and counter-cultural (in exposing, and opposing, the DSP). Courses that interpret teaching environmental ethics in this way, of course, retain intellectual aims. But there are major additional aims. Not only does such teaching aim to produce students who live ethical, examined lives with respect to the environment; it also aims to produce students who live ethical examined lives with respect for the environment. Students are challenged and encouraged to move from holding views congruent with the DSP to adopting a new environmental ethic. What matters is that students emerge with an orientation towards, and a commit­ment to, respecting or caring for nature, though this respect may he underpinned by different worldviews and have several possible principled manifestations.

Fourthly, some adopt a ‘specific advocacy’ orientation to envi­ronmental ethics teaching: that is, they focus on, and advocate, one particular form of environmental ethic (such as, for instance, the land ethic). Courses of this kind often direct student concern to a range of environmental issues particularly relevant to the ethic at stake. A number of different kinds of ethical responses to those problems may be outlined, but the one flowing from the specific environmental ethic advocated is argued to be the most successful. Good reasons and arguments for the desired ethical position are put forward; other views may be discussed but are seen ultimately as unsuccessful challenges. (It should be noted that such approaches to teaching often arise when the course is being taught in relation to a particular concern, such as forestry or land management.) In most cases the ‘specific advocacy’ approach to teaching environmental ethics is also ‘environmental advocacy,’ inasmuch as the aim is to persuade students to adopt beliefs, values and practices of respect for the environment (though filling out ‘respect’ here with a specified content.) But this is not necessarily the case.

Environmental ethics teaching not only manifests a diversity of orientations and attitudes towards advocacy, it also manifests a diversity of teaching methods. A number of contributors to Teaching Environmental Ethics claim that the nature of their environmental ethics teaching requires them to adopt specific methods that in relation to teaching in higher education as a whole might be seen as unusual or unorthodox. Some of these methods seem to emerge from the nature of environmental ethics as a subject. Others arise from the ways in which educators orient their environmental ethics teaching with regard to advocacy.

Dealing with multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, for example, is part of the nature of environmental ethics even where teaching is located wholly within a philosophy department. Yet teaching that involves drawing on a number of disciplines is not straightforward for a variety of reasons. Consequently, many educators in environmental ethics consciously attempt to develop interdisciplinarity. Some methods that can be adopted include paying conscious attention to the contrasting intellectual cultures of different academic disciplines, involving members of different disciplines actively in the design and delivery of courses, and including visitors to the course from other academic disciplines or from professional environmental practice. The Interdisciplinary Minor in Environmental Ethics at Marquette University, discussed by Schaefer in this book, provides an example of an attempt to achieve interdisciplinarity.

A number of educators in environmental ethics including some in this book also argue that since environmental ethics is about the environment, some teaching at least should actively engage with the environment, rather than wholly being book learning. This may entail the organization of field trips to par­ticularly interesting or important environments (as with the field trip to the island of Rum discussed in Teaching Environmental Ethics; venturing into local environments to consider environmental problems and values at stake there; or even just attention to and awareness of the classroom environment itself. Actively engaging with an environment in these ways may have a variety of purposes. Experiential methods of teaching environmental ethics are, obviously, particularly appropriate in a context of advocacy of any kind: the impact is likely to be felt on an individual's own beliefs and values as part of their examined life, as well having an effect on their purely academic work.

And, indeed, it is the advocacy aims – whether ethical, environmental or specific – of much teaching in environmental ethics that give rise to many of the concerns for method displayed in the papers in Teaching Environmental Ethics. Where there is some intent in a course to encourage students to examine their own lives, ethical beliefs and practices, one might expect reactions from students that are not ‘purely academic’. A number of papers consider how to build students' emotional reactions into the methods adopted in teaching classes, anticipating that student responses to learning about environmental problems or to changing their own environmental values will include – inter alia – pessimism, depression, powerlessness, frustration, anger, confusion and uncertainty. Dealing with these kinds of responses (discussed, for instance, in Sheppard's and Gottlieb's papers) may require carefully tailored teaching and learning methods, ones that are, perhaps, unusual in higher education.

The potential subject matter of environmental ethics is, of course, vast. For this reason, environmental ethics educators must of necessity select particular subject concerns around which their courses focus. Some may emphasize geographical, place-based concerns. These concerns may, literally, focus on the character of and environmental issues raised by the local environment. Cafaro's paper in Teaching Environmental Ethics illustrates how a course in environmental ethics may use local and regional environments as a focus. Equally, though, the pedagogic concerns selected for attention may reflect both the background of the instructor and the constituency of the students being taught. Some instructors have qualifications in biology rather than in philosophy and teach students who are science majors; this is reflected in the concerns on which they focus (see, for instance, Boorse's paper on non-indigenous invasive species in Teaching Environmental Ethics). Others, whether with philosophical backgrounds or not, teach environmental ethics to non-specialist students from a range of different backgrounds (for instance Mason, Gottlieb and Nelson in this book); teaching non-specialist students certainly affects the kinds of material one might choose to include in a syllabus. The subject concerns of environmental courses are also likely to reflect the approach to environmental ethics adopted by the educator (even where there is not an intention to advocate such an approach). Environmental pragmatists, for example, are more likely to construct their courses around policy issues; those committed to deep ecology are more likely to emphasize wilderness (whether or not they are geographically located in proximity to wilderness). Yet others may shape their subject concerns in teaching environmental ethics through the lenses of broader socio-political commitments (such as feminism, animal welfare and bioregionalism).

In subject concern, then, as well as in method and orientation towards advocacy, environmental ethics courses can be extremely diverse. The papers in Teaching Environmental Ethics effectively illustrate this diversity. The book is organized broadly along a spectrum from the more theoretical to the more practical, but no clear divide between the two could be established. The aim is to have theory informing practice, and practice informing theory.

Palmer concludes the introduction with a worry concerning the kind of environmental ethics teaching that adopts an orientation of ‘environmental advocacy’ or ‘specific advocacy’. One may argue that there are good reasons why so many in higher education adopt these approaches to teaching environmental ethics. The intensity of the environmental crisis is now so pressing that what is important is that students acquire and pass on new environmental values. Yet it is precisely this understanding of the role of education, especially in a university context, that generates uneasiness. Increasingly, work in educational theory has emphasized the importance of critical thinking to students' education. Encouraging students to develop critical thinking skills and abilities, to become autonomous thinkers in their own right, seems to be fundamentally important to any educational undertaking. Yet it also seems to be in tension with any strong sense of education for the environment. Students may be encouraged to become passive learners, accepting what they are being taught and revising their views accordingly, rather than developing the critical skills of recognizing assumptions, evaluating and criticizing arguments and learning to think for themselves. Educationally, this is surely less beneficial to students than developing their critical thinking, even if by doing so students end up with a less environmentally-respectful environmental ethic. And even though refraining from environmental advocacy in the classroom may seem to be a risk (since one is not helping students to any ethical position with respect to the environment); it seems to be a risk worth taking. If threats to the environment are as many and as severe as many environmentalists think, then even the most critical of reasoners is likely, on reflection, to adopt an active environmentally-protective ethic. And such an ethic – unlike that adopted by more passive learners – is unlikely to be overwhelmed by the strongly represented but weakly supported environmental values outside the classroom.

Teaching Environmental Ethics will be particularly useful to anyone teaching environmental ethics or environmental studies, or interested in the theoretical issues that teaching environmental ethics raises, or interested in current issues for teaching critical thinking.

Entertainment / Biographies & Memoirs

Barbra: The Way She Is [LARGE PRINT] by Christopher P. Andersen (Thorndike Press Large Print Americana Series: Thorndike Press)

Funny, I don't feel like a legend. – Barbra Streisand

She is a one-name legend, a global icon, the ultimate diva – one of the most beloved and detested, worshiped and feared, gossiped-about and speculated-about figures of the age; a woman for whom the word superstar was invented. Yet most of what we know about Barbra Joan Streisand is the stuff of caricature: the Brooklyn girl made good, the ugly duckling who blossomed into a modern-day Nefertiti, the political dilettante driving to the barricades in her Rolls-Royce, the Oscar-winning actress and bona fide movie mogul, the greatest female singer who ever lived, a skinflint, a philanthropist, a connoisseur and a barbarian, the woman whose physical characteristics are instantly identifiable around the planet – the tapered nails, those slightly crossed eyes, that nose, the voice.

Barbara has always guarded her secrets and nurtured her own mystique. Even to the multitudes around the world who idolize her, Streisand remains aloof, unknowable, beyond reach. In the manner of his #l New York Times bestsellers The Day Diana Died and The Day John Died as well as Jack and Jackie, Jackie After Jack, An Affair to Remember, and Sweet Caroline in Barbra, Christopher Andersen taps into important sources – eyewitnesses to Streisand's remarkable life and career – to paint a startling portrait of the artist . . . and the woman. Among the revelations:

• New details about her wedding and marriage to James Brolin.
• New information about her many failed love affairs, including her never-before-revealed relationships with Prince Charles and Princess Diana's doomed lover Dodi Fayed – as well as Warren Beatty, Ryan O'Neal, former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Steve McQueen, Richard Gere, Kris Kristofferson, Don Johnson, Jon Voight, Andre Agassi, and newsman Peter Jennings.
• From Funny Girl and The Way We Were to Yentl and The Prince of Tides – and in the recording sessions that produced some of the biggest hits in music history – new behind-the-scenes details of the obsessive drive for perfection, and the Callas-sized ego.
• New insights into Barbra's relationship with her only child, Jason.

Barbra includes a provocative account of what went on between Streisand and Bill Clinton in the White House, what their relationship is like today, and how Hillary feels about Barbra. Whether you love her, hate her, or are simply spellbound by her titanic talent, Barbra is one thing above all others, an American original. In Barbra Anderson stripes away the mask to offer a spellbinding portrait of Barbra in all her headstrong, take-no-prisoners glory.

Entertainment / Movies

Making Short Films, with DVD by Jim Piper (Allworth Press)

When the New York Times recently announced that it had gone multimedia and started running short films in the video section of its online site, the message was clear – short films have entered mainstream media. For anyone wanting to express themselves creatively in short films, help is here.

Making Short Films shows readers how to create real movies using consumer digital video format – without spending a lot of money or time. Making Short Films shows how to get the most from the least so anyone can make engaging films practically by themselves, the way poets create. Working this way reduces expenses to about six dollars per film or the cost of a single tape cassette.

In Making Short Films, experienced filmmaker Jim Piper invites beginners and students to explore, innovate, and experiment in visually exciting ways using simple and inexpensive digital equipment. The award-winning Piper has taught filmmaking for more than thirty years, and along with his technical expertise, he brings entertaining anecdotes and great examples. His descriptions of more than one hundred student films, illustrated with three hundred stills, offer inspiration for beginners, and the accompanying DVD showcases thirty examples that comprise an intriguing and instructive mini film festival. Readers learn how to:

• Develop a story.
• Create special effects with the camera or on the computer.
• Write a script (or not!).
• Operate digital video cameras and equipment.
• Assemble and record a soundtrack with dialogue, narration, and music.
• Compose shots narration, and music.
• Use a variety of angles.
• Discover the expressive world of story films, art films, and documentary filmmaking.
• Apply natural and artificial lighting.
• Master editing programs on Mac and PC.

From equipment to exercises to effects, from planning the story to casting, shooting, and editing the movie, everything a budding filmmaker needs to know and understand is in Making Short Films. The book provides projects and exercises to get readers started. But the primary objective is to teach aspiring filmmakers how to create visual poetry within the confines of the short film.

As a bonus feature, included with the book is an accompanying DVD with thirty completed films by students and beginners. These films run the gamut from off-the-shelf exercises, engaging story films, and a variety of approaches for a documentary film to an array of provocative art films. Not all of the films on the DVD are technically proficient – after all, they were made by beginners. "The point of the book," says Piper, "is not to make you a film smoothie, but to make you a film artist, for which technical perfection is not a requirement."

At last, a book that tells us the whys and what ifs rather than the how tos. Brimming with insightful tips and practical, useful examples, Making Short Films is written with a deep appreciation for film as art rather than as a commodity. It's the book I wish I'd had when I started my career. Long live short films! – John Kelly, Cinematographer

If you love movies and want to learn how to make them, here is a book that takes you by the hand and sends you on your way to fulfilling your dream. This book is a direct and practical manual for anyone seriously interested in learning filmmaking at any level. I highly recommend it. – Peter Maris, Producer/Director

Making Short Films is unlike any other filmmaking book I've seen. If you want to start thinking and working as a filmmaker today, then this is the book for you. – John Moses, Film Instructor, Fresno City College

By emphasizing a minimalist approach and smart technique, this indispensable guide opens up the world of story films, art films, and documentary filmmaking. Throughout this all-encompassing primer, readers are guided and inspired by actual student films. Making Short Films will help bring readers’ unique visions to life. The accompanying DVD is a veritable film festival of artful and meaningful films by beginners. The book is great for film students and independent filmmakers.

Entertainment / Music / Reference

American Singing Groups: A History, from 1940 to Today by Jay Warner, with a foreword by Frankie Valli (Hal Leonard) is the expanded, one-of-its-kind, music reference tome by the music historian and publisher Jay Warner.

The recipient of the Heroes and Legends Pioneer Award and various ASCAP awards, Jay Warner has won 24 gold or platinum awards. Warner, currently CEO and President of National League Music, founded K-Tel's music publishing division; was Vice President of the Entertainment Company, forerunner to SBK-EMI; and is on the board of the Vocal Groups Hall of Fame.

A definitive history of pop vocal groups, American Singing Groups encompasses the doo-wop of Dion and the Belmonts, the Motown hits of the Supremes, the surf sound of the Beach Boys, country-rock of Crosby, Stills and Nash, and the slick pop sounds of 'N Sync. Each entry details the group's career, key members, and its influences. Updated and freshly revised, the book also chronicles the revival of the pop groups in the nineties and the new millennium. New bands in this revision include Backstreet Boys, Destiny's Child and many more. Organized by decade and listed in alphabetical order, American Singing Groups is a testament to a style of music that has entertained millions of people around the world.

The '40s, '50s, and '60s were considered the glory days of vocal groups. The 70s were dismal, but Warner says he was too busy catching up on what he had missed from the earlier decades to notice how slim the pickings were. The '80s were an improvement from the '70s, but still left much to be desired, and the '90s and new millennium, though creating a resurgence in the category and numbers of successful groups, left the format almost unrecognizable.

In beginning his research, Warner discovered that material on the subject were even harder to find than records. In a country where someone has written something on just about everything, there was nothing devoted strictly to vocal groups. But in a world that is more music-conscious than ever, there has never been a history of vocal groups. So Warner says he set out to fill the gap by writing American Singing Groups.

To keep the book a manageable size, and to make it a reference work that would also entertain, he aimed for a balance of well-known groups and obscure-but-interesting ones, while not attempting to list every group in history. The period originally covered in the first edition was from the early 1940s (when most music historians acknowledge the vocal group sound came into its own) through 1990. Only American singing groups are listed (except for a few nearby Canadians) since the vocal group sound is mainly of U.S. origin. In terms of musical style Warner kept the focus on pop, R&B, doo-wop, gospel, jazz, rock 'n' roll, and soul, with an occasional foray into folk and country groups that he felt may have spent more time practicing a vocal modulation than tuning their guitar strings. A further requirement for inclusion in this book is that the group recorded one or more released 45-rpm records or at least one LP or CD.

Since the entries are arranged alphabetically within separate decades, the decisions for listing a group in a particular decade was usually based on the year their performing or recording career began. However certain acts that covered several decades and began in the later part of one are listed in the first decade of their greatest activity. For example, the Impressions were formed in 1958 but are detailed in the '60s, when they were most productive.

In 2005, Warner decided to create an update to the first edition as fifteen years had passed and a whole new slew of vocal groups had taken the music world by storm. The basic flow of American Singing Groups remains the same with the '90s following the ‘a cappella’ era which followed the '80s. A new chapter on the Vocal Group Hall of Fame follows the '90s as The Hall has been a key exponent of vocal group history since the mid-'90s. Consistent with the original edition, singing groups are cross-referenced throughout this book. When an entry cites a group that has its own separate entry, that group's name is printed in capital letters the first time it appears.

You always hear about new books on music history, but they rarely fulfill your hopes. This one is head and shoulders above the rest. A monumental achievement. As a pretty good historian myself I have to admit that nobody has done it quite as well as Jay. – Jerry Butler, Jerry Butler and the Impressions

This book is must reading for people who are interested in the evolution of the modern singing group. – "Little Anthony" Gourdine, Little Anthony & The Imperials

This book is exciting and informative, and even though I've known a lot of the groups personally, it was truly enlightening. Group harmony fans will enjoy the rich histories. Both thumbs up. – Joe Terry, Danny & the Juniors

How exciting – the history of vocal groups at your fingertips and all under one cover. With such a wealth of information, it's like going to the encyclopedia or library, only much easier. – Carvin Winans, The Winans

This book is the definitive handbook for group singers. Now we can find each other. – Spanky McFarlane, Spanky and Our Gang

Sha Na Na came to the world's attention by singing doo wop at Woodstock. Jay Warner continues in this greasy tradition by telling about everyone who preceded, and those who dared to follow. – Screamin' Scott Simon, Sha Na Na

American Singing Groups took me back to a time, a people, and a music I love. As far as I'm concerned, Jay Warner has made the greatest contribution to music for the '90s and beyond. – Ben E. King, The Drifters

This book is an overdue tribute to vocal groups. I was amazed to discover just how much influence singing groups have had on the origin and development of today's musical styles – from R&B and soul to rock 'n' roll and pop – not to mention the impressive list of solo artists who spent their early years in a group. – Donny Osmond, The Osmonds

...an amazingly accurate work... American Singing Groups is one of the best rock books to hit the stands [and] merits inclusion on every rock fan's bookshelf. – Goldmine

American Singing Groups is a comprehensive reference work, but it is never dull reading, because the subjects are vibrant, colorful, talented, visionary, and historic. With extensive discographies and rare photos, American Singing Groups is a one-of-a-kind entertaining reference filled with musical facts that will fascinate fans and collectors. This is an essential guide to an evolving and ever-popular art form.

Health, Mind & Body / AIDS / Medicine / Gender Studies

Transgender Health and HIV Prevention: Needs Assessment Studies from Transgender Communities Across the United States edited by Walter Bockting & Eric Avery (Haworth Medical Press) gives readers the latest assessment of the health needs of the transgender population.

The impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the transgender community has been largely ignored, and as yet there is surprisingly little research data on the subject of health care and HIV prevention in this marginalized population. Even though recent studies show estimated HIV infection rates to be as much as 60 percent among specific transgender populations in the United States, the transgender community continues to receive inadequate healthcare support. Transgender Health and HIV Prevention tackles the problems inherent in the healthcare system by first assessing the needs of transgender persons, then offering specific practical recommendations for remedy. Top researchers in partnership with community members in San Francisco, Houston, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, New England, San Juan, and Minneapolis/St. Paul bring empirical data together to assess what has to be done to stem the HIV epidemic. Respected experts discuss issues that hinder the effectiveness of HIV prevention programs, including housing, mental health, and employment, as well as the unique broader problems of social stigma, discrimination, and the lack of transgender knowledge and sensitivity on the part of health providers and prevention workers.

Transgender Health and HIV Prevention explores in detail:

• Health and social services needs of African-Americans, Latinas, and Asian/Pacific Islanders.
• Sources for the high rates of HIV infection among male-to-female transgender persons.
• The prevalence of physical and sexual violence, substance abuse, and unemployment in the transgender community.
• Risk behaviors of male-to-female transgender persons.
• Health care providers’ ignorance, insensitivity, and discrimination – with training strategies to increase patient access and effectiveness of care.
• How traditional notions about femininity affect risk behaviors.
• A comparison between transgender persons and other sexual minorities.

This book is referenced with tables to clarify data.

Shares information from critical needs assessments on how transgender people may be served in the widest possible way. – Ronni L. Sanlo, EdD, Director, UCLA Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center

An essential resource for the work of HIV prevention and health. This collection is impressive for its meticulous representation of a community characterized by both common concerns and identity claims and by the many divergences occurring within its members. Adequate and needs-sensitive health care is vital for a community that by and large depends on medical support, is vulnerable to HIV infection, and whose marginalized status also renders it vulnerable to discrimination and hatred. – Dina Georgis, PhD, Assistant Professor and LGBT Certificate Program Coordinator, Department of Women’s Studies, Queen’s University

Transgender Health and HIV Prevention fills a void by providing a groundbreaking empirical assessment of the health needs of transgender persons in several areas around the United States. The book is essential reading for educators, students, researchers, public health professionals, social workers, health care providers, HIV/AIDS caregivers, and prevention workers.

Health, Mind & Body / Exercise & Fitness / Women’s Health

Body after Baby: The Simple 30-Day Plan to Lose Your Baby Weight by Jackie Keller (Avery)

Finally, the book all new mothers have been waiting for: Body after Baby by Jackie Keller.

Nutrition and lifestyle coach and founder of NutriFit, Keller has helped many Hollywood stars and moms get back into shape, including Uma Thurman, Marcia Gay Harden and Tia Carrere. In this book she reveals to women everywhere can learn the secrets of her ‘foolproof’ plan. Doctor-approved, Body after Baby combines nutrition and gentle, healing movements that can be done with baby. According to Keller, not only will Body after Baby help new moms lose the weight they gained – but it will also help them feel their best, look great, sleep better, experience less stress, and give them the energy they need to keep up with their new baby and the rest of their family.

As Keller says, "If you follow the plan, you'll see up to 20 pounds of the weight you gained during pregnancy disappear in 30 days and you won't feel that overwhelming hunger or the fatigue that is associated with new motherhood."

The key ingredient of the recipes and meals are super-fuel foods that are high in nutrients and antioxidants and help readers lose weight. Strawberries, almonds, sweet potatoes, and even dark chocolate are all super-fuel foods that will keep new moms satisfied as they follow the plan. According to Keller, "Chocolate stimulates the production of serotonin, which helps to induce a sense of well-being naturally. This can lead to sounder sleep – what a wonderful treat!"

The 30-day Body after Baby plan is divided into three, ten-day phases and includes more than 100 recipes. The menus have been developed to make moms' lives ‘super easy’ – each recipe takes no longer than 10 minutes to prepare. There are also meal options for vegetarian moms, as well as breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding moms. On every day of the plan, they also learn a targeted, natural exercise movement so they can build a short workout routine designed to tighten and tone the whole body. Complete with easy-to-follow, day-by-day instructions and illustrations, Body after Baby also features helpful weekly shopping lists and tips for reading labels.

Jackie Keller delivers a wise plan.... Her good food and exercise regimen make perfect sense. – Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. professor and vice-chairman of surgery, Columbia University and bestselling coauthor of You: The Owner's Manual
Jackie proves that if you just stay the course, weight loss will follow! – Tia Carrere

Body after Baby will not only help moms get back into those favorite jeans, but it will also reduce their stress and give them more time and energy to spend with their new baby. New moms and their families will love the recipes Hollywood moms and celebrities can't live without, including Uma Thurman's much-loved Chocolate Chip Fondue. But most of all, new moms will love how quickly and easily they'll lose their baby weight on Keller's plan.

History / Americas / Reference / Journalism

People's Movements, People's Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements by Bob Ostertag (Beacon Press)

America was born in an act of rebellion, and protest and dissent have been crucial to our democracy ever since. Along the way, move­ments for social justice have created a wide array of pamphlets, broadsides, newsletters, newspapers, and even glossy magazines.

In 1971, at the age of thirteen, future author Bob Ostertag found himself moved and fascinated by the scene unfolding on the television screen in his family living room. He watched as approximately two thousand Vietnam War veterans marched to the nation's Capitol to ‘return their war-won honors’ – their medals and honorable discharges – to the American government. The veterans spoke words of defiance, solidarity, peace, and anger as they combined a memorial for those comrades lost in the war with a strong call for protest and change. This act, organized through the underground GI press that served as the heart of the anti-war movement, remains a vivid and important memory for Ostertag, a musician and professor of technocultural studies at UC Davis who has written widely on political subjects. He explains, "The image is etched in my mind forever. It fundamentally shaped my understanding of war, of government, and of what constitutes meaningful protest."

Now, in People's Movements, People's Press, Ostertag offers an account of the inextricable links between social change and independent journalism, beginning with an account of William Lloyd Garrison's self-published abolitionist paper, The Liberator, in 1830. Ostertag examines the formation of alternative media sources within the context of five major movements of social change – Abolition, Women's Suffrage, Gay Liberation, The GI/Vietnam Antiwar Campaign, and Environmentalism. Offering readers a fresh perspective on America's long history of protest and rebellion, he gives a voice to the individuals and communities behind these publications and evaluates their impact based on their place within each movement's trajectory.

Ostertag taps into the ways in which journalism becomes a powerful vehicle for social agency. Reminding readers that "words matter, but only when something is done with them," he emphasizes the potential for social transformation that exists within all of us. Detailing the development of and key players in publications from Walker's Appeal to The Lesbian Tide to Vietnam GI, Ostertag's research reinforces the power of journalism: "Testimonies down through the decades speak of the singular impact that movement journals have had for individuals in this transformation from passive isolation to engaged citizen." He builds a people's history of social change, illuminating the very words that inspired zeal for change, spurred political, cultural, and social action, and strengthened solidarity amongst like-minded activists.

While the print runs were often modest for many of the publications Ostertag highlights, the force behind them was far from timid. Noting that one cannot use traditional, corporate indicators to evaluate the impact of activist media, Ostertag analyzes the way each publication fits into a cultural and political landscape and, with publications of varied characters and opinion coexisting and shaping each movement, he reveals the ways in which independent journalism has become essential to activism past, present, and future. "The independent media form a counterculture in the most literal sense: a culture based in community and individual creativity . . . this counterculture will be crucial to whatever the future holds for movements for social justice."

This story takes readers from the sparse, privately owned media environment of the nine­teenth century to the corporate media saturation of the present. Within these publications, we find debates about the direction of a movement; impassioned cries for rights and civil liberties; lonely voices reaching out to others after being alienated by the mainstream press and the unaccepting world around them; and demands that now seem surprisingly reasonable but were at one time quite revolutionary. Ostertag tells the story not only of the publications but of the many colorful characters who created them.

The story of the social justice movement press is deeply intertwined with the story of the move­ments themselves. Ostertag shows how reliance on the printed word fundamentally shaped what we now know as social movements. People's Movements, People's Press, then, offers a new view – from the ground up – of social transformation in America and raises the question of how social movements will change as they move from print to the Internet as their primary means of communication.

People's Movements, People's Press is an extremely useful inter­vention into the historical debate of the meanings of journalism, democracy, and their various uses and complications. Its measured tone and extensive research are particularly welcome, given the potential volatility of the topic. Highly recommended. – Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media?

Bob Ostertag's People's Movements, People's Press fills a gaping hole both in our understanding of social movements and our understanding of the relationship of journalism to democracy. This is a wonderful book and a delightful read that deserves the attention of all who care about journalism and social justice. – Robert W. McChesney, author of The Problem of the Media

A wonderfully illuminating book. Movements are in large part about communication, and the journalistic efforts of the abolitionists, the women who fought for the right to vote, the environmentalists, and the gay liberation and Vietnam antiwar movements bring the hopes and moral outrage that fueled these movements to life. – Frances Fox Piven, author of The War at Home

This is a piece of our history that everyone concerned about the past and future of our democracy needs to know. – Eric Foner, author of The Story of American Freedom

As large corporations take over every available media outlet, People's Movements, People's Press reminds readers of the great value and historical importance of independent, activist-driven media. By telling the story of the newspapers and magazines of these movements, Ostertag shows the power of the written word to mobilize activists behind a political cause. Concise, accessible, and appropriately urgent, People's Movements, People's Press is an important book of journalism history as well as a call to arms for young activists ready to change their world.

History / Asia / India / Biographies & Memoirs

Maharanis: The Extraordinary Tale of Four Indian Queens and Their Journey from Purdah to Parliament by Lucy Moore (Penguin Books)

Maharanis traces the characters that demolish every known stereotype and shape the emerging modern, democratic society in India.
Originally published by Viking in January 2005, Maharanis recounts the adventures of three generations of Indian queens, starting with 1857 Indian Mutiny and continuing to the present. Ranging from the final days of the Raj and the British Empire to the present, Lucy Moore, magazine writer and novelist, recreates a lost world and describes India’s national growing pains through the audacious lives of four ravishing, influential women of the same family:

• Sunity Devi, mother of the dashing Jit, was a favorite of the British aristocracy and made Queen Victoria godmother of her son Victor.
• Chimnabai, her in-law, was the first to break purdah, in 1913.
• Indira, Chimnabai's daughter, defied her parents to marry Jit for love, became the regent of her husband's state, and counted among her friends Noel Coward, Douglas Fairbanks, Jimmy Stewart, and the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII.
• Ayesiia, Indira's equally fashionable daughter, and friend to the Kennedys, was elected – with the greatest majority ever recorded – to the parliament of an independent India in 1962.

Until the 1920s, being a Maharani – the wife of a Maharajah – meant being tantalizingly close to the power and glamour of the Raj, but locked away by purdah, the law that required women to cover themselves with clothing that effectively acted as chattel. The cast of characters in Maharanis engender these rigid cultural mores, but dare to push the envelope just the same: beginning with Sunity Devi, Moore paints a delicious and irreverent portrait of the lives of radical women of India.

The lives of these influential, immensely colorful women embody the delicate interplay between rulers and the ruled, race and culture, subservience and independence, Eastern and Western ideas, and ancient and modern ways of life in the bejeweled exuberance of Indian aristocratic life in the final days of both the Raj and the British Empire.

Imagine Amanda Foreman crossed with Simon Schama and you have Lucy Moore. – The New Statesman

Erudite, poignant, and compelling. With this exotic and flamboyant story, Lucy Moore brings India to life in a way rarely achieved by English historians. – Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Exotic in detail yet clear in its historical treatment, this is a fascinating picture of a vanished world. – Sarah Bradford, author of America’s Queen and Lucrezia Borgia

Drawing on accounts from the waning days of the Raj and the British Empire to the present, Moore (The Thieves' Opera) brings exhaustive research to bear on the stories of four Indian queens who used their power to help forge social change. Her fly-on-the-wall approach gives their triumphs and struggles immediacy. – Publishers Weekly

A maharani is the wife of a maharaja, and through the lives of four such Indian queens, in two linked families over three generations, Moore demonstrates the changing currents of Indian politics and customs. …The changes of the twentieth century seem to have been easier on the women than on their husbands and sons. With only a few exceptions (including Devi's husband, who had a heart attack during a polo match), the men died young, from complications of severe alcoholism. – The New Yorker
… Moore revels in every detail – from the elegance of the maharanis' attire to the complexities of Indian family life and politics to the trauma and heroism of breaking with tradition – in her scintillating portrait of four revolutionary Indian queens. – Donna Seaman, Booklist

Maharanis is the breathtaking tale of four women who overcame terrible personal loss and centuries of tradition to live lives of adventure, passion, and political influence. While the innumerable cultural and political changes that occurred in India during this period have been well-documented in non-fiction, Moore's triumph is in creating in Maharanis a novel that stands on its own as great fiction even as it authentically describes Indian life over the past 150 years.

History / Military / Europe

Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England by Juliet Barker (Little Brown and Company)

From a master historian comes this astonishing chronicle of life in medieval Europe and the battle that altered the course of an empire.  

St. Crispin’s Day, 1415.

Two armies face off across a sodden plateau in northeastern France, each wait­ing for the other to make the first move. On one side are the English, suffering from dysentery and starvation, their numbers devastated. Arrayed against them is a rested and well-fed French army, a sea of burnished armor and menacing weaponry primed to slaughter the foolish invaders. Nevertheless, the charismatic and brilliant English king, twenty-eight-year-old Henry V, defies conventional military wisdom and leads his ‘band of brothers’ forward. His troops are outnumbered six to one.

What follows is one of the most remarkable battles in history, celebrated for almost six centuries as the classic triumph of the underdog in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Immortalized by Shakespeare and by contemporary historians, the battle of Agincourt has been embellished and edited by the quill of unbridled nationalism. Now, drawing on a wide range of primary sources and original research, in Agincourt, eminent medievalist and historian, Juliet Barker casts aside the myth and shows readers the truth behind Henry's invasion of France and the showdown at Agincourt. She paints a narrative of the entire campaign, from the preparations to the reaping of the spoils. Readers are there in the English camps as common men struggle to secure buckles and laces with numb fingers; in the French front lines as petulant noblemen squabble over positions in the vanguard; and in the deep mud as heavily armed knights stumble and struggle under a barrage of arrows so thick and fast that it darkens the skies.

Barker also takes readers beyond the battlefield to bring into focus the dynamics of medieval life in peace and war. Readers meet ordinary and extraordinary people such as Margaret Merssh, a female blacksmith who forges arms in the Tower of London; Lord Grey of Codnor, who pawns his own armor to pay his soldiers' wages; and Raoul de Gaucourt, the gallant French knight who surrenders himself into English custody simply because the code of chivalry compels him to do so.

If you buy just one book of history this year, choose this one. Juliet Barker's Agincourt, like Henry's achievement, is a triumph. – Bernard Cornwell, Mail on Sunday

Juliet Barker's splendid book omits no detail.... Ms. Barker is a specialist in tournaments and chivalry, and this serves her excellently here…. Wonderfully vivid, clear, and involving. She never forgets that a military campaign is made up of human beings. All the terror, dust, and dirt of war is here. – The Economist

Thoroughly readable.... Barker has done Henry V and his troops proud. – Michael Prestwich, Times Literary Supplement

Barker's great achievement lies in her treatment of the less familiar elements of this dramatic story.... An engrossing account, laced with unexpected and arresting images. – Helen Castor, Guardian

Barker, a British biographer (The Brontës) and accomplished medievalist, brings an excellent synergy of academic and literary skills to this study of the 1415 British campaign in France and the battle that was its climax, around which she elaborately reconstructs the conflict's antecedents. … Barker shows that the battle hung by a thread: French numbers against English desperation, with courage a common virtue. She also illustrates how Agincourt was decisive – not only for its consequences in France. An English defeat would have meant chaos, perhaps civil war. Destiny on both sides of the Channel turned on the outcome of St. Crispin's Day. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Already hailed by critics in the United Kingdom as a masterpiece, Barker's Agincourt is a timeless saga of courage, sacrifice, and vengeance. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, Barker casts aside the legend and shows readers that the truth behind Agincourt is just as exciting, just as fascinating, and far more significant. She paints a gripping narrative of the October 1415 clash, but she also takes readers into palaces and common cottages to bring into vivid focus an entire medieval world in flux. Populated with chivalrous heroes, dastardly spies, and a ferocious and bold king, Agincourt is as earthshaking as its subject – and will confirm Barker's status as both a historian and a storyteller of the first rank.

History / Military / Iraq War

Roughneck Nine-One: The Extraordinary Story of a Special Forces A-team at War by Frank Antenori & Hans Halberstadt (St. Martin’s Press)

At roughly 7:30am (local time) on April 6, 2003, twenty-six Green Berets, along with three Air Force bomb targeters and two additional support troops, faced off against a reinforced Iraqi motorized rifle