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SirReadaLot.org


We Review the Best of the Latest Books

ISSN 1934-6557

April 2007, Issue #97

Guide to This Issue

Arts & Photography / Architecture

Lighthouses: A Pop-Up Gallery of America's Most Beloved Beacons by Linda Costello, Bruce Foster & Al Mitchell, with photography by Wendy Edelson (Thunder Bay Press)

Mariners have ventured onto the seas for thousands of years, and for nearly that long their comrades on land have used light to call them home from the deep.… To make their voyages easier and safer (especially at night), friends and well-wishers began to bank fires on coastal summits.…

…Perhaps the earliest of these ‘light houses’ was the mighty Pharos in ancient Alexandria, a hustling Mediterranean grain port. …Built around 280 BC and soaring nearly 450 feet into the sky, it was not only the first but also the tallest lighthouse in history. A roaring fire blazed day and night in an enormous cauldron on its roof, producing a light that could be seen from fifty miles at sea. The ancients were so impressed with the lighthouse that they counted it among the Seven Wonders of the World.  – from the Introduction

From the busy Atlantic waters to the rugged Pacific coast, readers explore the country's most historic and beautiful lighthouses with three-dimensional pop-ups. Lighthouses: A Pop-Up Gallery of America's Most Beloved Beacons features more than 25 color photographs and original illustrations showcasing America's coastal guardians.

From the historical to the technical, author Al Mitchell, a renowned expert in the field of lighthouse study, explains the important roles played by each beacon through the years.

Lighthouses includes five architecturally accurate three dimensional pop-ups designed by acclaimed paper engineer Linda Costello. The pop-ups stand approximately 9 1/2 inches tall and 5 inches in diameter and demonstrate each lighthouse's unique design and function.

Readers turn the pages to reveal original, illustrated pop-up scenes; each scene in Lighthouses demonstrates how these elegant structures serve the nation as effective navigational markers and cherished attractions. After the introduction, which gives a brief history, comes (1) Northeastern Lights – Portland Head Lighthouse in Maine. This is followed by (2) Mid-Atlantic Lights – Bodie Island Lighthouse in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina's distinctive black-and-white barber pole, (3) Great Lakes Lights – Split Rock Lighthouse in Minnesota, (4) Pacific Coast Lights – Old Point Loma Lighthouse, the beacon for California's Gold rush traffic, and finally (5) Florida Lights – Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse. The book concludes with an afterword entitled Saving America's Lighthouses.

Lighthouses celebrates several of America's finest and most historic surviving lighthouses with amazing pop-ups. Each of these grand old lights bears a storied past, and each cuts a striking figure, as highlighted on the three-dimensional pages.

The quintessential collection for any lighthouse admirer, Lighthouses: A Pop-Up Gallery of America's Most Beloved Beacons captures the splendor of these popular maritime landmarks – the ultimate book for admirers of lighthouses and architecture.

Arts & Photography / Graphic Design

Type Idea Index by Jim Krause (Index Series: How Design)

The basic principle behind Type Idea Index is simple: ideas breed ideas. The book is designed to expand readers’ knowledge of type and helps them brainstorm new ideas.

Type Idea Index is not a how-to book; it is a what-if book, full of typographic samples that are designed to prompt viewers to consider a variety of creative approaches for all kinds of design projects. Type Idea Index offers an in-depth examination of the creative and practical issues involved in the important areas of type design, including such as font anatomy, headlines, and body texts.  

Each of the visuals being put forth has something to do with typefaces or hand-drawn letters. The samples have been custom-created to offer ideas, inspiration and information to anyone looking for ways to expand their ability to convey themes, deliver messages and communicate information through typography and design. Readers will find themselves face to face with 650-plus, custom-created examples of typography and type-intensive design. Type Idea Index is the sixth installment in the best-selling, globally popular Index series by design expert Jim Kraus: Idea Index, Layout Index, Color Index, Design Basics Index, and Photo Idea Index.

If readers thumb through the pages of Type Idea Index they will see plenty of photos, illustrations, patterns and decorations that accompany and integrate themselves into the typographic samples. Why this expanded focus? It's because real world layouts often include both typographic and non-typographic elements, and in an effort to be as designer-friendly and useable as possible, this book offers ideas pertaining not only to the use of typefaces, but to the environs in which the type is presented as well.

Type Idea Index takes a different structural approach compared to most books on typography. Here, theme rules and outcomes (logos, headlines, etc.) follow. Type Idea Index’s content is divided into seven broad thematic categories: Energy, Elegance, Order, Rebellion, Technology, Organic and Specific Eras. Within each of these chapters readers will find sections related to a variety of typographic and design outcomes. At the end of each chapter is a mini-essay called a Focus Topic. These essays deal with subjects related to type, design and creativity.

Typefaces from over 150 different font families are featured in the book. Most of the samples appearing in its pages contain type that has been used without modifications; some samples use type that has been altered to fit the needs of a particular design (graphic elements added, characters re-proportioned, digital effects applied, etc.). At the end of each chapter a full listing of the font families used in that section are also listed.

Type Idea Index is a little vinyl-bound tool – an idea-generating, horizon-expanding, knowledge-broadening power tool that can be used to boost the creative output of designer-illustrators and anyone else who uses type. The book eschews the ponderous style found in other books in favor of a fresh, accessible approach. Type Idea Index, with its lively and engaging perspective, will enhance readers' appreciation for – and creative dexterity with – all things typographic.

Arts & Photography / Painting

Pieter de Hooch: A Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy by Wayne E. Franits (Getty Museum Studies on Art Series: Getty Publications)

In the hushed stillness of what is most likely early morning, a dutiful mother butters bread for her young son, who stands patiently and respectfully at her side. The artist has captured a trivial moment in a daily routine and imbued it with an almost sacrosanct quality, thereby eternalizing it for posterity. This splendid scene makes the viewer feel as if he or she is encroaching upon a mother and son absorbed in their hallowed morning ritual, a feeling no doubt intensified by the immaculate interior that they occupy. Only one object tarnishes this otherwise unsullied space: a discarded toy top, lying on the floor to the left. The painting exudes a resplendent air of domesticity, orderliness, and virtue.

A Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy was executed by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) sometime between 1661 and 1663, possibly during his sojourn in Delft but most likely while he resided in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, we do not know whether De Hooch painted this picture with a specific patron in mind or whether he intended it for sale on the open market. In fact, nothing is known about its early history. The very first reference to the painting was made only in 1750 in the catalogue to an auction in Amsterdam in April of that year, where it was described as being ‘very natural and artful.’

In Pieter de Hooch, author Wayne Franits, professor of fine arts at Syracuse University and specialist in seventeenth-century Dutch art, provides answers to some of the questions that might be raised by modern-day viewers of De Hooch's canvas, starting with the question: Who was Pieter de Hooch? What insights into Dutch daily life during the so-called Golden Age can be gleaned from it? What associations did A Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy evoke for seventeenth-century viewers?

The first chapter of Pieter de Hooch examines the Getty Museum's De Hooch in relation to the artist's life and work, exploring the artist's stylistic development and his complex relationship to other painters in the Dutch republic. Chapter two shifts to the subject matter of the painting, placing it within the broader context of seventeenth-century Dutch concepts of domesticity and child rearing. Contemporary Dutch authors were quite opinionated about these concepts and, consequently, their writings are particularly revealing as readers seek to assess contemporary responses to paintings such as De Hooch's. The final chapter ties A Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy and related domestic imagery to the wider framework of the market for such art in De Hooch's day. This chapter explores in detail the question of the degree to which the painting provides an accurate reflection of life during that era.

In Pieter de Hooch Franits places the subject matter of the painting within the broader context of seventeenth-century Dutch concepts of domesticity and child rearing and ties it to social and cultural developments in the Netherlands during the second half of the seventeenth century. Though the book amplifies and perhaps demystifies various perspectives, the significance of De Hooch's canvas within its original context, these perspectives cannot supplant – and are not intended to supplant – what visitors to the Getty Museum most enjoy about the picture: its enchanting beauty.

Audio / Health, Mind & Body / Religion & Spirituality / Buddhism / Philosophy

Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill (2 Audio CDs, running time 2 hours) by Matthieu Ricard (Sounds True)

What is the one thing everyone wants? Happiness. But where do we find it? For a number of years, French Buddhist monk and former cell biologist Matthieu Ricard has been working with scientists and meditators to find out. Ricard is a major participant in the research and collaboration between cognitive scientists and Buddhist practitioners, spearheaded by the Dalai Lama and the Mind and Life Institute. They are exploring the effects of meditation on the brain and its correlation with happiness. What he has discovered: "Happiness is not something you seek, but rather it is a skill you develop."

In Happiness, Richard merges the newest scientific research with traditional Buddhist teachings and contemporary Western philosophy to show readers how unexpectedly attainable happiness is. Happiness, according to Ricard, cannot be found in fleeting experiences of pleasure – the joy of a sunny day, the refreshing taste of an ice cream cone, the ecstasy of sex – but only in the depths of an individual's being. Happiness is not self-interested, but rather compassionate, seeking the well-being of others. If we are truly happy, writes Ricard, we can change the world because of our compassion for others and our desire to end hatred and bring happiness even to those we don't like.

Listeners join Ricard on the audio adaptation of Happiness to learn more about:

  • How to use mind training to cultivate sukha – a blissful state of being that arises when we release ourselves from mental blindness and afflictive emotions.
  • Ethics: how this perennial field of philosophy sheds light on the ‘science of happiness’.
  • Guided imagery to relieve pain – both emotional and physical.
  • Practices for working with your mind to develop attention, focus, and clarity – a foundation for inner peace.
  • How to transcend the ego and time to enter ‘the state of flow’.
  • Exercises to exchange suffering for happiness not only for ourselves, but for all of the world and more.

For millennia, philosophers, writers and artists have sought the key to human happiness.…For Ricard, happiness is a deep state of well-being and wisdom that flourishes in every moment of life, despite the inevitability of suffering. Individuals can, however, learn to minimize suffering in life by practicing moderation in all things, as well as meditation. Meditative exercises that individuals can practice to achieve happiness appear in each chapter. Ricard (Tibet: A Compassionate Eye) doesn't have much new to tell us about his subject, but he imbues these reflections with his own deep sense of happiness and verve. – Publishers Weekly

When first published in France, Ricard's Happiness sold over 80,000 copies in the first month of its release. That sounds like a big number, but it may be just the first glimmer of interest, as evidence grows of the measurable effects of inner well-being on our bodies and minds, and as we continue to reach for the state of being that transcends all circumstances and emotions – happiness.

Audio / Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Romance

It Happens Every Spring (Unabridged Audio CD, 8 CDs approximate running time 10 hours) by Gary Chapman & Catherine Palmer (Four Seasons Series: Oasis Audio)

Gary Chapman, director of Marriage & Family Life Consultants, Inc., host of A Growing Marriage, and author of the best-selling book The Five Love Languages, brings his teaching and insight to a new audience with It Happens Every Spring, the first book in the new Four Seasons series. Co-author Catherine Palmer is the Christy Award-winning, CBA best-selling author of more than forty novels.

The fictional counterpart to Chapman's non-fiction book The Four Seasons of Marriage, It Happens Every Spring is set in Deepwater Cove, a small community on the Lake of the Ozarks. It tells the story of Steve and Brenda Hanson, a middle-aged couple who are drifting apart. Brenda Hansen is lost. The last of her three children have left home to go to college and she's facing the empty nest for the first time. She has looked forward to this time, puttering around and tending her husband, Steve. But Steve is totally engrossed in his real estate business and never at home. When he does come home, it's just to fall in bed exhausted. He never notices anything she does around the house, and doesn't seem to care.

When a simple homeless man appears on Steve and Brenda's doorstep, the beauty shop is set abuzz, especially when Brenda lets him sleep on their porch. Then there’s that unsavory business moving in next to the beauty shop and the entire community gets turned upside down.

Brenda decides to remodel the basement and hires handyman, Nick, to do the work. Nick is attentive and constantly complimenting her on her choices and her appearance, and he notices even the slightest little thing. Soon, Brenda is living for Nick's appearance at her house, and putting Steve's physical needs off. Will Brenda come to her senses before it’s too late, or are Steve and Brenda headed for divorce court?

It Happens Every Spring is well-written and insightful. Many couples may just recognize themselves while reading the Hanson's story, hopefully in time to avoid some of the same mistakes. Recommended. Four stars! – Craig Allen Hart, Christian Fiction Online

Relational expert Chapman rewrites his core message in fiction, teaming with prolific Christian novelist Palmer in this first in a projected tetralogy highlighting the concepts taught in Chapman's The Four Seasons of a Marriage. … Five local women start a club (‘TLC’) to help one another through problems in their relationships and their community. … However, the novel's scenes too often conspire to illustrate a counseling point, and the included study guide reinforces the idea that this is self-help disguised as fiction. – Publishers Weekly

I simply loved It Happens Every Spring. Despite its serious theme, it had its lighter moments as well and balanced out to make an excellent story. … I would recommend It Happens Every Spring for every Christian married woman, and even for those women not yet married. – CindyJean

In combining Chapman's practical knowledge with award-winning author Palmer's considerable writing abilities, Tyndale House Publishers has found a winning team, if this first offering, It Happens Every Spring, is any indication.

Business & Investing / Economics / Anthropology / History / Asia

China's Transformations: The Stories beyond the Headlines edited by Lionel M. Jensen & Timothy B. Weston, with a foreword by Jonathan S. Noble (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.)

China's Transformations is the successor volume to China beyond the Headlines. Edited by Lionel M. Jensen, professor and chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame and Timothy B. Weston, associate professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder, it takes readers even farther beyond the ‘front stage’ to explore a China few Westerners have seen. The contributors argue that the great gap between what specialists understand and what the general public believes has led to distorted and potentially dangerous misunderstandings of the most powerful emerging player on the global stage. Seeking to bridge that gap, a group of prominent scholars, journalists, and activists challenges readers to move past the typical images of China presented by the media and to think about the common problems shared by China and the United States. In addition to the editors, contributors include: Bei Dao, Susan D. Blum, Timothy Cheek, Martin Fackler, John Gittings, Howard Goldblatt, Peter Hays Gries, Sandra Teresa Hyde, Tong Lam, Sylvia Li-chun Lin, Jonathan Noble, Tim Oakes, David Ownby, Judith Shapiro, and, Xiao Qiang.

China's Transformations, an entirely new set of essays, explores such critical issues as environmental degradation, nationalism, unemployment, film and literature, news reporting, the Internet, sex tourism, and the costs of the economic boom. The book portrays the complexity of life in contemporary China and how surprisingly often it speaks to the American experience.

Contents of China's Transformations in addition to a foreword, introduction and afterword, include:

Part I: Front Stage

  1. Trouble-Makers or Truth-Sayers? The Peculiar Status of Foreign Correspondents in China – Martin Fackler
  2. The Political Roots of China's Environmental Degradation – Judith Shapiro
  3. Fueling China's Capitalist Transformation: The Human Cost – Timothy B. Weston
  4. Qigong, Falun Gong, and the Body Politic in Contemporary China – David Ownby
  5. Narratives to Live By: The Century of Humiliation and Chinese National Identity Today – Peter Hays Gries
  6. The Internet: A Force to Transform Chinese Society? – Xiao Qiang
  7. The Politics of Filmmaking and Movie Watching – Sylvia Li-chün Lin

Part II: Back Stage

  1. Fictional China – Howard Goldblatt
  2. Of Rice and Meat: Real Chinese Food – Susan D. Blum
  3. Herding the Masses: Public Opinion and Democracy in Today's China – Tong Lam
  4. Sex Tourism and Lure of the Ethnic Erotic in Southwest China – Sandra Teresa Hyde
  5. Welcome to Paradise! A Sino-U.S. Joint-Venture Project – Tim Oakes
  6. The New Chinese Intellectual: Globalized, Disoriented, Reoriented – Timothy Cheek
  7. Reporting China since the 1960s – John Gittings

It has been over six years since the publication of China beyond the Headlines (2000), an experiment in public dialogue, the success of which was displayed in the book's ongoing popularity. This work acquired an audience of general readers, faculty, and undergraduate students that sustained several printings and a partial revision. It became a popular text in courses on modern Chinese history and Chinese politics because it offered accessible, interpretative snapshots of a place that increasing numbers of U.S. citizens wanted to understand. But rather than expand and update an already popular text, the editors Jensen and Weston decided to return to the diverse and rapidly developing topic of contemporary China in the interest of producing a different book governed by the same principles. China's Transformations is the consequence of their reengagement with both the prominent and the obscure dimensions of the Chinese everyday.

In China beyond the Headlines, Jensen and Weston say that as academics they were concerned with establishing a dialogue with the general public, in particular U.S. readers (although one of the pleasant surprises of the first book was its popularity in China). They asked all their contributors to write for educated but unknowing readers and to be candid about the circumstances of their profession as expert on a region of the world that was once a curiosity but has now become the focus of political attention and economic value. In assembling China's Transformations, an entirely new volume of readings, they wanted to return to certain topics from the first book, while also expanding the range of coverage to include areas that may have been beyond the headlines in 2000 but are front-page news now: environmental degradation, epidemiological distress, the sex trade, popular film, children's literature, Falun Gong, fiscal crises, public opinion surveys, the Internet revolution, and expanding, intensified labor violence. They found, not entirely to their amazement, that many of the stories they had followed had changed.

The journalistic conceit of China beyond the Headlines ensured the revelatory reportorial quality of some of the contributions, such as those on China's nascent ultra-nationalism; the counter-hegemonic popular culture of the Uighurs; ethnic, cultural, and religious pluralism; unemployment and labor unrest; and the regional, rural immiseration brought on by the marketization of the Chinese national economy. However, that first volume still lacked an authentic journalistic perspective on the politics of representation, the making of news in China, and the reporting of that news in the West. In China's Transformations, readers has the advantage of two such journalistic voices, Martin Fackler's and John Gittings's, while Xiao Qiang's chapter on the Internet in China addresses journalistic issues from a third perspective. These chapters permit readers to understand better the grand complexity of how the story, any story, gets out of China and before the eyes of interested Western readers, as well as something about information dissemination in China itself.

During the final editing and revising of China beyond the Headlines in the fall of 1999 and winter of 2000, the editors were mindful of the accelerating pace of material change in contemporary China, and they attempted to include as much reportage as they could. However in the intervening period, China has changed at a preternatural rate, with a dizzying speed unsettling for native and foreigner alike.

Unlike the first book, which was largely the product of a symposium on contemporary Chinese politics, China's Transformations collects a commissioned set of chapters drawn from a number of the same contributors but now focused on different topics. They have gathered these chapters under two distinct headings: front stage (qiantai) and back stage (houtai), which are literal translations of the Chinese terms for public and private behavior. The front-stage chapters cover more familiar ground for general readers and those things that have been in the news with greater frequency, but this section also contains a few chapters that reflect what is on the front stage, meaning what defines the explicit everyday of the Chinese. The back-stage section consists of chapters on topics less familiar to general readers but critical to a description of present-day life in China.

According to China's Transformations, a markedly different international context now governs our perceptions as compared to the time when the first book was published. The contrasting effects produced by the changed circumstances of China and the United States are striking: the world and the United States have, for the most part, moved beyond the sense that China poses an imminent threat to world stability; and it is the United States that registers polarizing reactions in world politics. Arguably, the United States is now an international pariah: it is the only major national power other than Australia that is not a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol; it is the only developed country that practices capital punishment; it is the only developed country that considers itself not bound by the Geneva Conventions and that is opposed to the international movement to ban landmines; and it is the world's largest debtor nation. In short, the United States, more than China, is one of the greatest threats to world peace.

In the oft-cited revolutionary changes of China's economy, citizens of the United States, as well as people all over the world, sense the emergence of something altogether new, different, and in many ways challenging. Bill Gates, in an address before the 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, warned that the countries in attendance should be particularly mindful of the meteoric rise of the Chinese economy and see in it the passing of the global economic torch from the United States and Europe. It is important to keep in mind that China, with about 20 percent of the world's population, is running a substantial trade surplus, meaning it produces considerably more than it consumes. How then would one characterize the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world's population but which consumes 26 percent of the world's oil supply and had a trade deficit (by consuming more than it produced) in 2006 of around $776 billion? The United States is certainly on the international stage the world's most gluttonous nation, with China not far behind, and the consequences for our global future will be harrowing. Yet there is good reason to believe that the competitive drive of these two grand, national powers may lead to greater cooperation than conflict, in no small measure because the planet cannot long sustain the damage wrought by their pursuit of their national agendas. It is encouraging to observe recent changes in U.S. federal funding favoring school programs focused on Chinese – more than 2,400 primary and secondary schools have applied for such funding – and to hope that an inevitable cultural confluence might trump competition.

Clear, readable, and compelling – an excellent collection of essays that I will certainly use myself. – Rana Mitter, Oxford University

I intend to adopt this terrific book. It’s the perfect blend of accessible prose and rigorous scholarship on important but seldom covered topics. – Karl Gerth, University of South Carolina

Complexity is not a quality common to the political and media portraits of “China on the Rise” that flood the popular consciousness and culture is ignored in the interest of political prejudice. Written by those who see inside policy-making circles, China's Transformations reveals how much still needs to be done in terms of understanding the full complexity of U.S.-China relations, both within policy-making circles and within local communities throughout the country. What China's Transformations addresses is culture, because in this understanding the exaggerated differences between China and the United States become points of complement rather than conflict.

China's Transformations offers a fresh perspective and adds the necessary complexity. The book vividly draws out less well-represented stories – the Internet revolution in China, the rise of public opinion surveys, the ominous inflation of labor unrest, unregulated development schemes and the water crisis, the epidemic of sex tourism, Chinese foodways, and current reading habits in China – so that readers may draw closer to the complex texture of the everyday. The text may prove valuable in promoting understanding between the people of the two countries.

Business & Investing / Economics / Politics / Globalization

A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption edited by Steven Hiatt, with an introduction by John Perkins (BK Currents Series: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.)

A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption (6 CDs, abridged, running time 7 hours) edited by Steven Hiatt, with an introduction by John Perkins, read by Erik Synnestvedt (The Audio Partners Publishing Group)

If my Confessions could send such a strong message to the public, it made sense that multiple confessions – or the stories about people who need to confess – might reach even more people... The intrepid contributors to this book uncover events that have taken place across a wide range of countries, all Economic Hit Man game plans under a variety of guises. Each sheds more light on the building of an empire that is contrary to American principles of democracy and equality. – from the introduction by John Perkins

John Perkins’ controversial exposé, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, became an international word-of-mouth sensation and a long-running New York Times bestseller. However, the revelations that Perkins presented in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man were, actually, only a glimpse into the world of economic hit men. It turns out this secret world is even bigger, deeper, and more sinister than even Perkins knew. In A Game as Old as Empire, edited by Steven Hiatt, editor and writer for several Bay Area companies, and president of Editcetera, a cooperative of publishing professionals, Perkins is now joined by a dozen contributors: journalists, investigators, activists, and even other economic hit men. They go much further in revealing how the EHM game has functioned, and continues to function, in many countries around the world. Through detailed confessions and hard facts and figures, A Game as Old as Empire unearths the truth about what is really going on in the world.

In chapters covering countries across the globe, the authors tell how multinational corporations, governments, powerful individuals, banks, other financial institutions, and quasi-governmental agencies operate to enrich small elites and corporate coffers while often impoverishing masses of people and creating debt and dependency that economically enslave countries for generations. Each chapter focuses on a particular case, offering concrete examples of how the economic hit man game is still being played:

  • An officer of an offshore bank tells how he hid hundreds of millions of dollars in embezzled money from around the world.
  • A former staffer exposes how and why the World Bank looks the other way when corrupt elites steal international aid funds.
  • Investigative reporters tell the first-person story of a British mercenary in Nigeria hired to defend a European oil company from local people desperate to share in the wealth being extracted from their land – and what happened to him after he was taken hostage.
  • A nonprofit aid worker offers an eyewitness account of the atrocities committed by militias in Congo – militias financed in part by multinationals in exchange for access to the coltan ore used to make cellphones and laptops.
  • An oil industry researcher profiles an unlikely Economic Hit Man – a consultant who is quietly writing oil production sharing agreements that will cost the Iraqi people $200 billion.

In A Game as Old as Empire readers learn how the IMF and World Bank really function, how resource-rich countries are being stripped of their assets, and how cycles of debt and dependency are created and perpetuated. The methods that the authors describe range from the clearly sinister (such as bribery, fraud, looting, money laundering, threats, and even the use of ‘jackals’ and other means of violence) to the seemingly altruistic (such as many types of debt relief, development assistance, and foreign aid) that are in fact highly exploitative. The authors and others show how this system of corruption and plunder operates in real life, and reveal the price that the rest of the world pays as a result.

After presenting these particular cases, A Game as Old as Empire connects the dots – showing how the various pieces of this system come together to create the world’s first truly global empire. The book then offers a call to action, explaining what ordinary citizens can do to confront and unravel this destructive network of control.

I’ve long known that the institutions of global finance are corrupt, but I was stunned by the insider stories presented in A Game as Old as Empire. With billions of lives and the planet itself at stake, this book sets the stage for serious political mobilization to end this crime against humanity. Buy it. Read it. Mobilize. Send copies to your favorite talk show hosts and bloggers, your Senators and your member of Congress. – David C. Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community

A wide variety of in-the-know authors corroborate and expand upon Perkins' story. And it's frightening stuff. A Game as Old as Empire is well referenced, very readable and perversely entertaining. Hard data is combined with first person narratives and the machinations of international economics are made accessible for the layperson. – Common Ground, Whole Life Times, Conscious Choice and EverGreen Monthly (syndicated review)

This book should provide the last nail in the coffin of the ‘Washington Consensus’: an economic model that has increased global inequality, prevented democratic rule, and destroyed the environment. These insider accounts lay to rest any naïve belief that transnational banks and corporations can bring ‘development’ to poor countries. – Kevin Danaher, Co-founder, Global Exchange

…A Game as Old as Empire is well referenced, very readable and perversely entertaining. Hard data is combined with first-person narratives and the machinations of international economics are made accessible for the layperson. And the book goes one step further by offering hope and practical advice. The chapter "Global Uprising: The Web of Resistance" by policy-analyst Antonia Juhasz sheds light on how people can change the corruption and help create a better world. …With chapters such as "The Human Cost of Cheap Cell Phones" and "Hijacking Iraq's Oil Reserves," A Game as Old as Empire has a conscience-pricking currency. This is an important book that should be read by anyone who wants to know how the world is run to the advantage of the wealthy few and the malicious disadvantage of the many poor. – Adarian Zupp, Common Ground Magazine

A Game as Old as Empire provides the first full inside look at how the dark and dirty world functions. It shows convincingly that the economic hit man game and the web of global corruption are far more widespread, pervasive, and destructive than Perkins described in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. It concludes with a call to action offering ordinary citizens as well as activists advice about what they can do to confront and change this destructive web of control. The audio version is competently read by Erik Synnestvedt, a regular of stage and television, who has also recorded dozens of audio books and done extensive voiceover work nationwide.

A Game as Old as Empire is part of the BK Currents Series, which advances social and economic justice by exploring the intersections between business and society. Offering a combination of thoughtful analysis and progressive alternatives, BK Currents titles promote positive change at the national and global levels.

Business & Investing / Human Resources / Psychology & Counseling / Law

Job and Work Analysis: Methods, Research, and Applications for Human Resource Management, 2nd edition by Michael T. Brannick, Edward L. Levine, & Frederick P. Morgeson (Sage Publications)

Although job analysis has been with us since the dawn of scientific management, it still provides valuable guidance for those who wish to develop new programs or improve existing ones that enhance the contributions of people in organizations. Such programs can help people work smarter, improve hiring and training, make jobs safer, provide a more satisfying work environment, and even allow some of us to make money watching other people work. Job and Work Analysis is written by Michael T. Brannick, associate professor, and Edward L. Levine, professor and chair, both in the Psychology Department at the University of South Florida; and Frederick P. Morgeson, Associate Professor of Management in the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. 

In Job and Work Analysis, the authors describe several methods for discovering, understanding, and describing the nature of work and applying the results of job analysis to problems arising in the management of people at work. Methods that are commonly used in industrial engineering for applications such as work scheduling are given minimal attention. They treat the most important and commonly used methods in human resource management in enough detail that readers should become familiar with their value and uses. They show some of the marriages between job analysis methods and purposes. They incorporate some practical suggestions for doing job analysis based on research and on our own experience. In many places throughout Job and Work Analysis, the authors cross-reference other chapters that are relevant to the topic at hand. Job analysis and work analysis cover a host of activities; they are important because they form the basis for the solution of virtually every human resource problem.

Chapter 1 includes definitions and a brief coverage of the uses of job analysis. This chapter is intended to show the practical importance of the material covered in the subsequent chapters. The next four chapters describe the most important techniques of job analysis, with emphasis on those methods that can be used for more than one purpose. Chapter 2 focuses on work-oriented methods, that is, methods that center on what gets done. For example, in the job of auto mechanic, a work-oriented method would focus on tasks such as adjusting brakes. Chapter 3 focuses on worker-oriented methods, that is, methods that center on how the worker does the work. For example, in the job of mechanic, the analysis might focus on the knowledge or judgment used to select the proper tool for the job. Chapter 4 focuses on hybrid methods, that is, those methods that try to gather work- and worker-oriented information simultaneously. Chapter 5 focuses on techniques used to analyze managerial jobs and methods for analyzing the jobs of teams.

Chapter 6 covers job analysis and the law. Job and Work Analysis mentions the most important statutes and describes their implications for conducting job analysis in such a way as to keep out of legal trouble. The next two chapters describe applications of job analysis. The authors focus on how best to ‘marry’ the purpose and method; they also describe and critique research literature that is relevant for each of the topics. Chapter 7 covers several common human resource applications, including job descriptions, performance appraisal, compensation, and job design. Chapter 8 covers topics most dear to the heart of many an industrial psychologist, namely, staffing and training. The final two chapters cover two rather different topics. In Chapter 9, the authors discuss doing a job analysis study. They offer a theoretical rationale and practical advice about planning and organizing a job analysis study and collecting and analyzing data. Chapter 10 focuses on the future of job analysis.

New to the Second Edition of Job and Work Analysis:

  • New co-author Morgeson’s background in business management brings a new perspective and balance to the presentation of material.
  • Expanded coverage is offered on O*NET, strategic job analysis, competencies and competency modeling, and inaccuracy in job analysis ratings.
  • New text boxes provide bio sketches of famous names in job analysis to put a personal face on research.
  • Additional examples and cases illustrate the ‘how-to’ of job analysis in real-life settings.

A companion website offers instructors and students supplemental materials such as course syllabi, examples of data collected as part of a job analysis, task inventory data, and the opportunity to practice data analysis, among other things.

This is a very important book. It is an essential text for any graduate program in applied industrial and organizational psychology. The first edition is the best text on the market today, and the second edition is a huge improvement. Nice work! – Bill Attenweiler, Northern Kentucky University

Thoroughly updated and revised, Job and Work Analysis, Second Edition is the only book currently on the market to present the most important and commonly used methods in human resource management in such detail. The authors clearly outline how organizations can create programs to improve hiring and training, make jobs safer, provide a satisfying work environment, and help employees work smarter. Throughout, they provide practical tips on how to conduct a job analysis, often offering anecdotes from their own experiences.

Job and Work Analysis is intended mainly for undergraduate and graduate students in classes covering human resources management, including classes in job analysis, industrial psychology, organizational behavior, and more specific classes in areas such as personnel selection, training, and compensation. The book can stand on its own or be used with another text that covers the class content. Professionals in a variety of areas, especially human resources or personnel, may find the book useful, and it should be particularly helpful to those new to the human resources function in companies and in government.

Cooking, Food & Wine

Back to the Family: Food Tastes Better Shared with the Ones You Love by Art Smith, with Michael Austin & photography by Stephen Hamilton (Rutledge Hill Press)

Sharing a meal with people you love is timeless and one of life's most fulfilling pleasures. – Art Smith

A generation ago, seeing a family gathered around the dining table for a meal was a familiar sight. It was a time for coming together, sharing the events of the day, and offering encouragement and support to one another. It was an opportunity to do what every family needs to do – spend a little quality time together.

Back to the Family is a call to revisit the heart of every home – the kitchen. Art Smith urges readers to gather loved ones and celebrate mealtime with recipes gleaned from his own southern family traditions and more than twenty years of experience as a world-traveled personal chef.

Back to the Family is a companion to Smith's New York Times bestseller and James Beard award-winning cookbook, Back to the Table. Smith, television personality in his own right, is the personal chef to Oprah Winfrey and a contributing editor to O Magazine. Co-author Michael Austin is a freelance writer specializing in food, wine, travel, and pop culture and photographer Stephen Hamilton is an award-winning, commercial culinary photographer.

The book stresses the importance of recognizing old food traditions (family recipes, meals, memories, etc.) and the equal importance of creating new and healthier food traditions. Of the more than 150 recipes and more than 140 photographs, a sampling includes:

  • Church Lady Deviled Eggs
  • Mache and Baby Spinach Salad with Apples, Toasted Pecans and Parmesan Shavings
  • Chicken and Okra Gumbo
  • Puree of Wild Mushroom Soup
  • Mushroom with Goat Cheese Omelet
  • Sweet Ancho Rubbed Tenderloin
  • Pistachio-Crusted Chicken with Coconut-Chili-Ginger Sauce
  • Tequila-Lime Shrimp
  • Pork Stew with Green Salsa and Fingerling Potatoes

Back to the Family contains an assortment of recipes sparked from Smith's Southern upbringing, such as Chicken and Waffles, Baked Cheese Grits, Chicken and Dumplings and Okra Fritters. And then there is a variety of sweet treats, from Strawberry Pretzel Surprise, to Black Walnut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, and from German Chocolate Cake with Pecan-Coconut frosting to Banana-Blueberry Muffin Tops.

Expanding on the themes that made his James Beard Award-winning Back to the Family cookbook such a success – namely, its focus on comfort foods, togetherness and ease of preparation – Smith's latest, winning collection of over 150 recipes easily meets the standard set by its predecessor. The key to Smith's appeal lies in his ability to combine new flavors with comfort food favorites. … Smith takes great pride in sharing his secrets, which range from brining chicken before frying to adding sour cream to his pancakes, imparting both tang and tenderness. While not exactly revolutionary, the results will be for those who've previously attempted such dishes and gotten mediocre results. Smith even demystifies the oft-troublesome soufflé, and offers easy-to-follow recipes for everything from basic pizza dough to Classic Ceviche. Veteran cooks will probably have many of Smith's dishes in their repertoire, but those just starting out or looking for a standard, go-to cookbook will find this volume indispensable. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Packed with stunning photos of food, family and warm stories of ties to relatives, Smith's cookbook offers an abundance of uniquely flavorful meals. For those anxious to embrace the pleasure of preparing and sharing a meal with loved ones, Back to the Family is a beautifully designed book providing mouth-watering recipes. Along with stunning photos of food and family, Smith provides a wonderful, reminiscent eating and reading experience. Many of the recipes – such as Addie Mae's Potato Salad and Aunt Evelyn's Pound Cake – are inspired by Smith's southern upbringing. Others – like Tomato Pie – are less traditional, but no less flavorful.

Children’s / Ages infant-3 years

Finger Puppet Friends: Little Duck, Little Ladybug, Little Lamb, and Little Bee! [Board book; Boxed set] by Imagebooks (Chronicle Books)

Meet Little Duck, swimming in the pond.

He’s hoping to play peek-a-boo with someone who comes along.

Little Duck loves the water and the flowers and the sky.

But he needs a friend to play with. Little Duck is very shy!

Look, here’s someone to play with! I bet you can guess who.

His best friend in all the world…

Little Duck can play with YOU! – text from Little Duck

Finger Puppet Friends contains sweet, simple rhyming text and interactive finger puppets, which combine for hours of play. The boxed set includes four finger puppet board books, and that’s four friends for baby. Each book measures 9 x 9 inches; each is 12 thick, board-book pages long with full color throughout.

There are the wildly popular finger puppet board books Little Duck, Little Ladybug, Little Lamb and Little Bee boxed for gift-giving. The highlight of the books is, of course, the finger puppets, which are attached to the back of the book with their heads sticking through a hole to the front. Anyone who has had a chance to play with a small child and the finger puppet board books knows: babies and toddlers go nut over these books. In fact, they are in a sense more toys than books.

Children’s / Ages 4-8 / History & Historical Fiction / Biographies

Rudy Rides the Rails: A Depression Era Story by Dandi Daley Mackall, illustrated by Chris Ellison (Tales of Young Americans Series: Sleeping Bear Press)

Rudy thought about Pa’s warning to look out for himself. But he knew that on his own, the only thing he’d get was another door slammed in his face. His stomach ached for food he didn’t know how to get. And that’s all there was to it. Sometimes a fella did need somebody besides himself. – from the book

In 1932, Akron, Ohio is no better off than other parts of the country. Since Black Tuesday in ‘29, companies are closed, men all over the state are out of work, and families are running out of hope. Thirteen-year-old Rudy in Rudy Rides the Rails wants to help but doesn’t know where to turn. His father, sullen and withdrawn, spends his time sulking on their front porch. His mother is desperate, not knowing how she will feed and care for her family. When Rudy learns of other boys leaving town and heading west to seek their fortunes, he hops a train figuring at least there will be one less mouth to feed at home.

Rudy Rides the Rails is based on the real-life experiences of a boy named Rudy and the spirit of American adventure experienced by so many during the Great Depression. Dedicated to Rambling Rudy, a gentleman hobo who rode the rails during the Great Depression, Rudy Rides the Rails tells story of more than a quarter of a million teenagers who left their homes to lighten their family's burdens or in search of a better life in the 1930's. Met with the same mixed reactions as our twenty-first-century homeless – ridicule and cruelty along with understanding and kindness, Rudy learned so much from people who had so little.

Author Dandi Daley Mackall met the real ‘Ramblin' Rudy,’ Rudy Phillips, in 2000. While the story is a work of fiction, his life and experiences are captured in the story. Mackall’s own family's history is also reflected in the story. During the Depression her grandmother never understood how hoboes would know to stop at her house...until she found the smiling cat carved into the oak free on the front lawn. (Readers will have to read the story to understand this.) Mackall teaches novel writing for the Institute for Children's Literature, conducts writing workshops across the United States and keynotes at conferences and young authors events.

As Rudy lives the hobo life while he ‘rides the rails’ to California, young readers are given a poignant, snapshot view and testament of Depression-era America. The book is beautifully illustrated with full-page watercolors by artist Chris Ellison, who has been illustrating both children's and adult historical fiction for the past 15 years.

Part of the growing Tales of Young Americans series, Rudy Rides the Rails joins other poignant and enriching historical fiction from Sleeping Bear Press where children's lives are filled with adventure, intrigue, and consequence.

Education / Elementary / Counseling

Emotional Coaching: A Practical Programme to Support Young People by Robyn Hromek (Lucky Duck Books: Paul Chapman Publishing)

Resilient kids ‘bounce back’ from the inevitable crises that come along. Most young people are skilled in dealing with frustration, teasing, disappointments and generally maintain good relationships. For some young people the lack of affirming relationships and positive experiences leads to personal, social, emotional and behavioral difficulties.

For them, emotional control is tricky and any perceived threat is met with furious, sometimes physical defense or taken to heart and added to a store of negative self-concept. These young people need a supportive team of people who understand the nature of emotional difficulties and are willing to maintain relationships with them. With education, skill development and social support, most young people with mild to moderate emotional difficulties will develop adaptive coping skills.

Coaching provides a chance to invent new and promising futures through goal setting and skill development. Emotional coaching, as explained in Emotional Coaching, focuses on deciphering and managing emotions in oneself and others. Coaches are able to mediate between young people and emotional crises in a way that empowers them to take responsibility for their reactions and increase self-regulation. Research suggests the longer and the more supported the coaching program is, the better. This means people from the 'natural' settings of extended families, communities and schools – teachers, counselors, psychologists, heads, deputies, aides – make excellent coaches. As part of the immediate environment they are able to debrief young people and provide support.

The emotional issues addressed in Emotional Coaching are common themes among the challenges faced by young people: friendships, teasing, anxiety, anger, depression, schoolwork and happiness. The chapters set out current understandings around the issues, who should benefit, what to cover in coaching sessions and when to refer on to other professionals. The reflection sheets and games reinforce teaching around each theme and are designed for use with individuals, small groups and in the classroom to teach about emotions.

The strategies outlined in the book are all designed to be brief and solution focused. The program includes seven different workbooks and therapeutic board games giving young people the opportunity to practice problem solving and goal setting.

Chapters in Emotional Coaching include:

  1. Emotional Development – The nature of emotions; emotional development and resilience.
  2. Emotional Difficulties – Stressors and developmental anxieties; antisocial behavior and aggression; negative cycles of criticism; shame, anger and violence; effective interventions.
  3. Emotional Coaching – Advantages; young people who may benefit; qualities of a coach; coaching relationship and processes; rewards and motivation and when to seek professional help.
  4. Coaching Strategies – Philosophic and encouraging styles; cognitive behavioral therapy and emotional first aid; therapeutic games and reflections sheets to provide guided practice; respond to crises with Life Space Interviews and restorative practice.
  5. Tricks and Spells for Kids – Emotional firstaid plans; relaxation and guided imagery; slow breathing; boss of worries; gratitude; mindfulness; helpful words; humor; emotional freedom technique.
  6. Friendships – Circles of friendships; successful friendships; dealing with rejection; coaching sessions; reflection sheets; ‘Friendly Friends’ the game.
  7. Resilience: Pests and Bullies – Pests, bullies and bystanders; scripts, humor and cool talk; behavior rehearsal; teachers and parents; coaching sessions; reflection sheets; ‘Tease’ the game.
  8. Anxiety: The Scariest Thing – Early intervention; working with anxious young people; coaching sessions; reflection sheets; ‘The Scariest Thing’ game.
  9. Anger Management: Think Again – Physical responses and self calming; pro-social skills; justified anger; coaching sessions; reflection sheets; 'Think Again' the game.
  10. Success at School: COPS – Confidence, organization, persistence, social skills; robbers; values, virtues and character strengths; goals and rewards; coaching sessions, reflection sheets; ‘COPS’ the game.
  11. Coping: FishBowl – Cultural stereotypes; cognitive behavioral therapy; when to seek help; coping sessions; reflection sheets; ‘FishBowl’ the game.
  12. Authentic Happiness: BLISS – Responsibility and materialism; authentic happiness; BLISS and the BlissBombs; coaching sessions; reflection sheets; ‘BLISS’ the game.

The thoughts and ideas in Emotional Coaching are based on Robyn Hromek’s research and years of experience as an emotional coach to children and young people. They are based on the belief that young people are a work in progress and for most, emotional and behavioral problems are just a phase. Programs that include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), guided imagery, relaxation, slow breathing and behavioral changes, etc., are effective in teaching children about emotional regulation.

This is an innovative and therapeutic program. The book comes with a CD-ROM. There are seven named folders on the CD-ROM, containing the gameboards, game cards, reflection sheets and other items needed for each game. The pack of materials in Emotional Coaching provides teachers, mentors, assistants and others with all they need to support young people through an ‘emotional coaching’ program. Facilitators' notes and comprehensive guidance on how to deliver emotional coaching, structure and rationale are all provided, giving the adults who support these challenging young people the skills and confidence to engage them in the program.

Education / Reference

Reading Against Democracy: The Broken Promises of Reading Instruction by Patrick Shannon (Heinemann)

Think the goal of America's schools is to immerse students in literate behaviors so they can participate in America's rich democratic tradition? Think again. Reading Against Democracy is the book that lays out the story of where literacy education has gone wrong, where it's headed, and what steps readers can take to make sure their children are educated like people, not trained like employees.

Author Patrick Shannon's Broken Promises was hailed by Language Arts as one of nine seminal references on literacy and inequality in education. But, according to Shannon, so much has changed, and worsened, since its publication that instead of revising his classic book, Shannon has written an almost entirely new book. The result, Reading Against Democracy, is Shannon's look at how businesses and political interests broke the promise that American education would teach students how to think, read, and write as citizens.

Shannon, professor of education at Penn State University and a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, describes how business, government, and educational experts have consistently trumped the civic rationales for education with the economic. He explains how attempts to make instructional outcomes more predictable for business have led to a curricular formula that serves American students poorly at home as well as, ironically, in the global economy.

Why write a new version of Broken Promises? Because, says Shannon in Reading Against Democracy, if the Reading First Initiative were not supported by business and reading experts, or federal officials and educational publishers ignored reading research and reading researchers, then teachers could plan reading programs based on students' and communities' needs. With business, reading experts, and the state working separately, the public would deem most teachers to be successful and would consider most students able to read sufficiently well to graduate from high school and enter the workforce.

Learning to read at school promised to make the public both strong and wise – strong enough to defend itself against moral, political, and economic temptations likely to lead it astray and wise enough so that all members could participate in the governance of their own lives individually and collectively. The new promise, however, directs our attention exclusively to the economic possibilities and consequences of reading, hiding the other aspects of the original promises from our vision of reading education and removing them from further discussions. In this way, the new promise limits our relationships to text (and therefore each other), reducing them to the accumulation of skills in order to raise our human capital, later to be sold to others in employment.

According to Shannon, it is becoming clearer each day in schools across America, the new promises, policies, and practices of reading instruction are not benign, appropriate, or necessary. Reading Against Democracy illuminates the past and current relations that created and maintained the inequalities in the continued negotiations of possible meanings of reading education; it documents the consequences of past and current negotiations and programs; and it identifies contradictions between the consequent social structures from past negotiations and the individual and social needs of a democratic public. To make sense of the present, to envision a different future, and to take more strategic action, we must understand the past and how the market ideology of capitalism became the most dynamic force in reading education.

Shannon begins with three chapters that review the original promises of reading education and their imperfect pursuit, from the inception of formal reading programs in America through the intrusion of the industrial ideology and promises of the early and middle twentieth century to the recognition during the 1980s that a market ideology would be employed. Chapter 4 presents the opposition to the industrial rationale for reading education from the turn of the nineteenth century until the 1990s, when it appeared for a moment that a learner-centered reading education was possible, perhaps likely. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 describe the dynamic influences of the state, business, and reading science upon reading education during the last two decades, including the new promises, policies, and practices of Educate America and No Child Left Behind, focused exclusively on reading as human capital. Chapters 8 and 9 detail the consequences of these new laws for teachers and students. Finally in Chapter 10, Shannon describes new efforts to reinsert the promise of civic reading into American classrooms.

According to Shannon, since the first edition of Broken Promises, more educators and researchers have joined the project to defeat the rationalization of reading education and to invigorate a civic reading toward living democracy. Their work provides context, texture, and extensions to Shannon’s and points to the multitude of ways to enter this struggle.

Thoughtful teachers, chafing at restrictions and mandates, are asking themselves, "How did it come to this?" Patrick Shannon's book provides fascinating, thoroughly-researched answers, with an empowering perspective and a hopeful path out of this current nonsense. – Randy and Katherine Bomer, authors of For a Better World

Education is not a disinterested process, nor does it foster many innocent bystanders or casual observers. Pat helps us understand the players, the policies and the programs that influence classroom practices, research agendas, and literacy assessments, and provides the ‘big picture’ of literacy education that enables us to comprehend today's educational landscape. – Frank Serafini, author of Lessons in Comprehension

[Reading Against Democracy] is certain to inspire educators who are discouraged by recent developments to continue their work for equity, humanity, and social justice in our schools. It reminds us that we do not stand alone, but that there are, and there will continue to be, scores of dedicated educators seeking humane and thoughtful ways of helping children to learn. – Catherine Compton-Lily

Reading Against Democracy, is a fully documented, up-to-date, and convincing look at how businesses and political interests broke the promise that American education would teach students how to think, read, and write as citizens. Although the current situation in reading education seems bleak in the United States, if readers examine it closely, they will see it is far from hopeless. If students, teachers, researchers, and parents become aware of the reasons for the present conditions and work together strategically, then they can develop reading programs that keep the original promises of democratic life. This book is a call to get to work.

Education / Social Sciences / Anthropology / Popular Culture / Politics

If Kids Could Vote: Children, Democracy, and the Media by Sally Sugarman (Lexington Books)

Children provide strange echoes of adult discourse. When a seven-year-old girl looking at an assortment of colorful pool toys can pick up a blue plastic hand grenade and wonder aloud, "What messages are they sending children?" we do not necessarily gain insight into the thought processes of this age group, but awareness of the ubiquity of these type of facile questions. – from the book

Preparing children to become citizens of a democracy requires recognition of the different ways in which children learn about politics. Kids in the United States currently spend most of their lives in controlled situations such as schools where the dependency they experience in their homes is reinforced. Books, films, television, and video games influence how children think about democracy.

Building on previous research and including interviews and surveys of children, If Kids Could Vote examines the effect of the media including television, video games, films, books, and textbooks on children's ideas about democracy as well as the implications that their classroom and media experiences have on their preparation for citizenship. Besides presenting the children's voices, Sally Sugarman, emeritus faculty from Bennington College where she taught Childhood Studies for thirty-five years, also examines various aspects of the media and the school situation to see how they affect the children's thinking. Changes that might improve the children's understanding and knowledge of democ­racy are also suggested.

Interviews and surveys of children during three Presidential election years and two non-Presidential years show how some sixth-graders in a Vermont town react to the political issues raised in those elections.

Chapters in If Kids Could Vote include:

  1. The Changing Nature of Childhood and the Media
  2. The Beginnings of the Study
  3. A Look at Three Elections
  4. Politics and the Media in a Non-Election Year
  5. Books, Textbooks, and the Classroom
  6. The New Media
  7. Educating for Democracy

According to Sugarman, examining children's ideas about democracy has significance on many levels. Children provide a perspective on what the society values, but perceived through the prism of dependency. The powerless are by their very position astute observers of the powerful. They may not be accurate observers, but they are sensitive to the underlying themes in the messages that the society offers them.

If Kids Could Vote looks at some specific children as they ponder the questions of democracy and citizenship. It also examines some of the media that engage them. What do children learn about democracy from Harry Potter and Sponge Bob? Listening to adults, some of them believe that the media teach children a great deal, and not all of the lessons are beneficial.

Is it different for children than it is for the unemployed factory worker? In the United States in the twenty-first century, race, class and gender are still meaningful categories in terms of power and politics. Recognizing the limitations of her research, in If Kids Could Vote Sugarman looks at how some specific children feel about the stories that the media, schools and parents tell them about the nature of democracy. Living in the Northeastern United States, their responses may be different than those of children in other parts of the country. However, they are consumers of the same media tales as children throughout the country. Sugarman’s research tests how these shared lessons reflect and shape the political system in which citizens in the United States live.

Although a great deal can be learned by examining wide contrasts such as third world children with those in first world countries, If Kids Could Vote limits itself to a small group of children in the United States. Sugarman notes, however, how language affects our constructs; just the use of first and third world has implications of superiority and inferiority. The media have changed not only in the content, but also in form. Computer children are thought to be like the immigrant children of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, knowing more than their parents do about the new culture. Although we may not want to romanti­cize the children as millennials, the technology does empower them as well as give them new vehicles for constructing their ideas about the world in which they live.

Presidential elections focus the attention of the nation on the issue of democracy. Elongated political campaigns saturate the airwaves with claims and counter claims about how the nation should be governed. Television, the Internet and the classroom declare to children that this is an important moment when democracy is demonstrated in action. In If Kids Could Vote children were interviewed and surveyed during three presidential election years and one non-presidential election year. The study began when the nation was at peace. It was concluded when the nation was at war. Even though the children interviewed and surveyed are different at each time period, the impact of major events on children's thinking is evident. As during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, the impact of the media on children's ideas is intensified at such moments. With the advent of 24/7 news programs as well as the Internet with its invitation to respond to the news, children experience an intensity of messages that may be unique in the history of childhood. How do these messages prepare them to be citizens of a democracy? Through interviews, surveys and analysis of texts, If Kids Could Vote addresses that question.

If Kids Could Vote is a fascinating investigation into the formation of children's polit­ical consciousness. Told through the voices of children themselves, it demonstrates how children construct ideas about citizenship and democracy from messages they receive at home, at school, and in the media. A must read for parents, teachers, and politicians seeking to understand their influence on the next generation of voters. – David Phillips, Wesleyan University

What it means and what it takes to be a citizen lies at the heart of this important book. If our belief in the promise of schooling for democracy is to be taken seriously, Sally Sugarman gives us a wake-up call. With a strong mix of critical awareness and hope, she awakens us – adults – to what is at stake when we settle for a vision of school success content to rely upon superficial, rigid standards and a narrow-minded landscape of experiences. – Frank Pignatelli, Bank Street College of Education

This is an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of how children perceive pol­itics and the media. Sally Sugarman really knows children. She is well respected for her influence on the scholarly analysis of popular culture. Here she provides a superb contribution to our further understanding of them, and of course ourselves. This is a very impressive, very well-written book and will be referred to by researchers and reporters for at least the next decade. – Michael Kalinowski, University of New Hampshire

This book has much to teach about how kids learn, urging adults and children to work together to make democracy work in a changing world. Sugarman, a longtime scholar of childhood, believes that if kids could vote, there might not be any more wars. Maybe. If Kids Could Vote should be of interest to parents, teachers, and those involved in media literacy, popular culture, and child development.

Engineering / Science / Sociology / Law

The Culture of Flushing: A Social and Legal History of Sewage by Jamie Benidickson, with a foreword by Graeme Wynn (University of British Columbia)

To most, the flush of a toilet is routine – the way we banish waste and ensure cleanliness. It is safe, efficient, necessary, nonpolitical, and utterly unremarkable. Yet Jamie Benidickson’s examination of the social and legal history of sewage in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom demonstrates that the uncontroversial reputation of flushing is deceptive.

According to Benidickson, who teaches at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, The Culture of Flushing's point of departure is readers’ personal bodily functions, or rather functions that may have appeared to be personal until their integration through flushing with public waters and watercourses was legislated, engineered, and financed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Viewed from a somewhat more technical perspective, a series of revolutionary initiatives, first associated with the waterborne removal of organic materials from burgeoning cities, then with the bacterial transmission of disease, and eventually involving chemical and mechanical means of purifying water supplies, now underpins vast networks of municipal infrastructure linking waste to water.

The practice of dumping or discharging waste into rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans is longstanding. It received official sanction in Europe and North America, however, only in the nineteenth century, when a peculiar combination of circumstances accompanying urban and industrial growth encouraged sewerage and waterborne waste removal. The introduction of water supply systems in municipalities across Europe and North America increased pressure to remove wastewater from sodden urban landscapes, particularly after the water closet replaced the privy pit and cesspool. A widespread contemporary belief that disease originated in the decay of organic materials suggested that great advances in public health might be achieved by using municipal water flow to flush household wastes into the waterways and to direct manure from the streets to the same destination. Running water, presumed to purify itself, was not considered to be at serious risk from sewerage. This cluster of ideas, emerging as the common law faced growing pressure from intense river usage and before the role of bacteria in disease transmission was understood, nurtured flushing on a grand scale.

Water became a ‘sink’ by design. Indeed, observers have been known to remark that "water is one of the most valuable media for the disposal of municipal, industrial and agricultural residuals." It has even been argued on occasion that such usage enjoys the exalted legal status of a right, a central element of our perilous fantasy that the planet was created for human convenience. The evolution of these views, the prac­tices on which they have rested, and some of the values that constrain and condone such perceptions of water, along with some of the consequences, are the subject of The Culture of Flushing.

Twenty-first-century debate about water is now well under way. Water wars – a phenomenon expected to differ significantly from the water fights of our youth – are widely forecast. The focus of such conflicts is ordinarily presumed to be the availability of water, yet this vital concern is not unrelated to its quality, for variations in water quality may constrain water use or influence costs. If it should seem desirable to retain water quality, or to regain it where it has been lost, there may be some virtue in examining the social and legal processes that led to deterioration and in considering mechanisms designed to forestall that result. The dilemma presented by the need to sustain environmental quality alongside economic activity has become virtually all-pervasive in industrialized societies. Various ways of managing that reconciliation have been adopted. These have included legal control measures, economic incentives designed to influence the behavior of water users, and technological initiatives whose adoption promises – always – more than it will ever deliver.

The adoption of flushing found support in practices and institutions that reflected values, attitudes, and assumptions whose meandering course is a vital part of the story. As a use of water, waste removal presented its own peculiar demands, whose insidious ascendance and subsequent decline within the legal hierarchy in Britain, the United States, and Canada are The Culture of Flushing's central theme. There are, of course, important differences among and within the legal regimes of these jurisdictions, even though they generally share common law traditions. In relation to the practice of flushing, however, striking similarities are notable, whether these resulted from shared legal assumptions or the influence of other professionals whose trans-Atlantic careers and exchanges encouraged the continuing diffusion of learning throughout the public health and sanitary engineering communities.

With reference to the early nineteenth century, Chapters 1 and 2 introduce key aspects of the cluster of ideas and values that influenced decisions about the use of water. Included in the chapters is a description of early – and largely unsuccessful – attempts by navigation, fishing, and riparian interests to check or forestall a growing inclination to discharge waste materials into water. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 describe the introduction of municipal water supply systems by expanding urban communities; rapid growth in water consumption for a variety of purposes, including domestic flushing via the water closet; and the resultant need – influenced by the contemporary understanding of disease – to remove water and wastes from urban centers. Chapters 6 and 7 address the consequences of nineteenth-century sewage for downstream residents, for public health, and for the search for treatment procedures to reduce the volume of raw sewage and untreated industrial waste discharged. Many of the general themes are illustrated quite dramatically in the history of Chicago's water supply and sewage. As Chapter 8 of The Culture of Flushing shows, the Chicago experience generated considerable legal controversy and some particularly vigorous and imaginative defenses of flushing before significant sewage treatment measures were finally implemented.

Implementation of sewage treatment proceeded only slowly, especially as resources began to shift toward drinking-water treatment as a more direct means of safeguarding human health, a transition outlined in Chapter 9. Resistance to wastewater and sewage treatment was frequently encouraged by rudimentary calculations of costs and benefits that largely excluded the possible environmental impacts of flushing. As the twentieth century advanced, some waterways were explicitly dedicated to waste removal, reflecting a powerful assumption – documented in Chapter 10 – that streams are nature's sewers. Early environmentalists, resolute anglers, and concerned policymakers responded to the widespread degradation of waterways with a range of strategies described in Chapter 11 as a riparian resurrection. As Chapter 12 indicates, any number of solutions to the challenges of deteriorating water quality were explored. Late-twentieth-century water quality initiatives combining further waves of litigation and a series of statutory reforms must now be integrated alongside new technology with contemporary insights into the importance of biodiversity and sustainability.

According to The Culture of Flushing we need a generation of transformation more than occasional international ‘water years,’ or even ‘water decades,’ however welcome these may be. It would not hurt at all to renegotiate human relationships with waterways, for a number of assumptions underpinning human entitlements to water resources may be ready for serious reexamination. Biodiversity, sustainability, and ecological integrity – although none of these concepts is free from controversy – are sufficiently well understood that their incorporation as norms into legislation is already widely underway. These emerging societal objectives will require explicit legal protection in order to reinforce the indirect environmental safeguards that have been intermittently provided by riparian rights claims, fisheries cases, and navigation.

The Culture of Flushing does a fine job of comparing issues across national borders, and is one of only a very few studies that integrates English, American, and Canadian experiences. This is a very good synthesis of an important topic that should be of interest to scholars in many fields and to people in many walks of life. – Martin V. Melosi, professor of history, University of Houston, and author of Effluent America and The Sanitary City.
Jamie Benidickson has produced an uncommonly wide-ranging and boundary-crossing book ... Many legal texts deal with water rights but few combine legal approaches and a rich understanding of context to address the questions posed by sewage and waste disposal. Concerned about environmental degradation, Benidickson ... encourages us to think again about the choices we make, the risks we take, and the responsibilities we have as we navigate our ways through what has become a conspicuously waste-full and menacing world. – from the Foreword by Graeme Wynn

The Culture of Flushing brings together American, Canadian and British sources to integrate issues across national borders and is particularly relevant in a time when community water quality can no longer be taken for granted, as it investigates and clarifies the murky evolution of waste treatment. While outlining the history of the legislation of flushing, the book offers no clear policy prescription, but it does indicate the context, noting that the impacts on the environment, the adverse consequences, of doing nothing will be horrific. Those concerned with protecting water quality and the environment will find it unique, comprehensive, and accessible. The book is essential reading for specialists in environmental history, environmental law, public health, engineering, and public policy.

Entertainment / Music / Ethnic

Martinù's Mysterious Accident: Essays in Memory of Michael Henderson edited by Michael Beckerman (Studies in Czech Music Series No. 4: Pendragon Press)

Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) was one of the most prolific composers in the 20th century. Despite the fact that he lived for several years in the United States and had many of his works premiered in this country, he still stands as an enigma. Martinù's Mysterious Accident is a collection of essays by an international group of experts, dedicated to the memory of Michael Henderson, who died in 1994 at the age of 47. Henderson was in the process of writing a biography of the composer.

The essays contained in this collection zigzag across the Martinu landscape. But the book begins with an assortment of materials before getting to the essays. Martinù's Mysterious Accident begins by introducing Michael Henderson and Martinu, the subject of his biographical research. Two reminiscences open the volume: Graham Melville-Mason provides a brief biography, and Jaroslav Mihule describes his first meeting with Henderson. After these pieces, this first section takes on an epistolary form which highlights the reality that – apart from a limited group of aficionados – the critical reception of Martinu's work has never been uniform. It is as easy to come across scholars who either dislike his music, or know nothing about it, as it is to meet eager supporters. Henderson cleverly exploited this in his two letters about the composer, where he takes ‘both sides’ of a putative Martinu controversy; the biographical summary at the end of the second letter is a warm overview. In keeping with Henderson's letters, the editor of the volume, Michael Beckerman wrote his own response to him. In it he goes through Martinu's second piano concerto to discover not so much how it is put together – for knowing that is close to impossible – but how he, and others, might respond to it. In the process, Beckerman touches on such topics as ‘Czechness,’ idylls, and Martinu's birth in the tower.

The second part of Martinù's Mysterious Accident is dedicated to essays about the composer. These essays include a range of new approaches to Martinu – Jan Smaczny looks at the little-known cantata ‘Gilgamesh’; Judy Mabary gives a concise history of Martinu’s collaboration with choreographer Eric Hawkins, The Strangler; Ales Brezina looks penetratingly at the often tortured relationship between Martino and the Czechoslovak government; and editor Beckerman explores questions of construction in Martinu's Piano Concerto No. 2. A shorter piece by Czech scholar Jaroslav Mihule is also included.

The title essay, "Martinu's Mysterious Accident," and the one that follows, "Bohuslav Martinu and Viterslava Kapralova," are the closest readers will get to what the chapters of Henderson's Martinu book might have been. The drastic injuries suffered by Martinu after his accidental fall from a balcony colored the last decade of his life in ways we still do not fully understand. Catching him in his prime, it slowed him down in many ways. Henderson's argument that the works Martinu composed shortly ‘after the fall’ reflect a ‘sharp drop in focus and quality’ should lead to the kinds of debates that help us to clarify such a major biographical issue. Henderson's second essay invokes another critical issue of Martinu's biography, his relationship to Viterslava Kapralova. This short introduction to the relationship will doubtless be amended by future biographers.

Martinu, of course, did not compose in a vacuum. It is certain that things that may have seemed to him aesthetic choices were a result of complex world events. Ales Brezina, head of the Martinu Foundation and now a leading film composer, explores how the individual, buffeted by the state, tries nonetheless to find a firm anchor. Toward the end of his study, he reconstructs an ‘ideal’ model of Martinu's triumphant postwar return to Czechoslovakia, making the reality all the more tragic. In the essay that follows, Jan Smaczny picks up the themes of homelands and a Czech style and approach, by looking at the connection between Martinu’s Greek Passion and his late cantatas.

Martinù's Mysterious Accident mentions Martinu’s uneven critical reception and the role it plays in the composer's contemporary reputation. This is seen nowhere more clearly than in Byron Adams's ‘Martinu and the American Critics.’ While the history of music still tends to be written in great swaths of passing time, Adams shows readers that in ‘real time,’ things are never so simple. Taste, whatever it is, is rarely a matter of uniformity; and readers may be fascinated by the variety of viewpoints from such critics as Downes, Persichetti, and Thomson.

The next two essays, by Judith Mabary and Erik Entwistle, deal with specific works by Martinu, and their first performers. Mabary studies the composer's little-known Strangler and its connections to choreographers Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins, while Entwistle looks at Martinu's piano sonata in the context of Rudolf Serkin's performance.

The next section of Martinù's Mysterious Accident offers the words of the composer himself. Though he has acquired the reputation of a reticent figure, Martinu was eloquent and bold in his attempt to fight for a new operatic aesthetic in the 1930s. Written as much for consumption at home as abroad, the composer speculated about just what a ‘Czech theater’ might be in relation to his opera The Plays of Mary.

As a kind of appendix Beckerman includes a discussion about Martinu between himself and Jirka Kratochvil. These conversations took place over several months and they reflect sheer delight in Martinu and his music. If anything, the book revels in that delight and the memory of Henderson's love for Martinu.

Entertainment / Music / Instruction

The Singer's Companion: A Guide to Improving Your Voice and Performance by Brent Monahan (Limelight Editions)

The objective of this book is not to make you sing freely but to let you sing freely, in complete mastery of your vocal mechanism and your artistic goals. It is not intended to complicate but rather to simplify, not to clutter up but to clear away. – Brent Monahan, from the Introduction

The Singer's Companion combines the author's extensive research on hundreds of professional singers' and singing teachers' books with 30 years of personal teaching experience. Monahan simplifies the art of learning to sing well, focusing not on physiology or theories, but rather providing practical advice and techniques, as taught by renowned experts, universities, and conservatories. The language is simple, and minimal space is given to theory. As each aspect of good singing and artistry is explained, quotations from dozens of the best singers and teachers, such as Enrico Caruso, Luciano Pavarotti, Eileen Farrell, Manuel Garcia, and Emma Seiler, help the singer to grasp the concept. The building of the vocal instrument and the artist is the focus.

According to Monahan every great singer, whether consciously or unconsciously, uses the techniques and skills readers learn here. Overall, "what we want to do is tantamount to taking an everyday car and – by providing a detailed owner's manual for understanding care and use (the mental element) and retuning, repainting, and polishing it (the physical element) – gradually transforming handling and appearance," declares Monahan in the introduction to his book.

Basing his guide on the empirical or observation-based approach to teaching singing, Monahan, a singer since he was 11 years old and a teacher with more than three decades of experience in addressing vocal issues, discusses the mechanics of good singing in Part I of the book. In addition to stance, breathing, and range, the topics discussed in this section include phonation, resonance, singing and health, practice, and vocal exercises. Part II covers the artistry of singing, from musicianship to pronunciation and diction to performance.

The Singer's Companion also includes exercise sheets, sample songs, illustrations, as well as a CD with exercises, sample songs, and common errors with their corrections. Illustrative diagrams appear in the text.

In an accessible, easy-to-use format, Monahan has distilled the depository of knowledge on singing, presenting the tried-and-true methods that have endured for centuries. Brilliant singers and teachers, prove the point with dozens of charming and pithy quotations. Singers, from classical to popular, from would-be professionals to diligent choir members, can benefit from The Singer's Companion, a concise, down-to-earth, easy-to-use, yet thorough, companion. Especially helpful are "What to do when this thing doesn't work" diagnostic sections and vocal exercises favored by teachers over the ages.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling / Social Work / Human Behavior

The Human Experience: Description, Explanation and Judgment by Elizabeth DePoy & Stephen French Gilson (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.)

Whether we are aware of it or not, everything we do in our lives is based on one or more theories. Each day from the time we get out of bed until we go to sleep at night, our lives are guided by theories – theories of social propriety that help us make decisions about how we behave and why; theories of weather that underpin all forecasting and help us figure out if we should be wearing shorts or a winter coat; theories about the nature of our days and what constitutes a productive and good day that influence what activities we do during the day. The hallmark of professional practice is the use of theory to guide understanding and decisions about how to proceed. Theory and its intertwined relationship with professional action is the subject of The Human Experience.

Theory of human nature and behavior has come a long way, from early views of humans and human phenomena as determined by the gods to contemporary advances that have identified the human genome and its many minuscule yet powerful influences on human behavior. But have we really changed our views of who we are and what makes us tick? – from the Preface

The Human Experience is a comprehensive text that examines, analyzes, and applies theories of humans, environments, and human-environment interaction to professional thinking and action. Through the lens of their original theory – explanatory legitimacy – the authors differentiate descriptive from explanatory theories, and analyze the purposive, epistemological, and value base of theory in six major theoretical domains: longitudinal theories, environmental theories, categorical theories, systems theories, and contemporary and emerging theories.

The authors, Elizabeth DePoy and Stephen French Gilson, professors in the School of Social Work and co-coordinators of Interdisciplinary Disability Studies at the University of Maine, highlight the previously unexamined values and assumptions that underlie theory, its generation, and its use in professional practice. Because they teach human behavior, the authors wanted to write a book that answered two essential questions that they always urge their students to ask: How do you know? And so what? By asking how do you know, they question the evidentiary and logical basis of claims and can then evaluate the efficacy of the knowledge claims. By asking so what, they are implored to determine the worth and application of their knowledge. How do we and should we use what we know to reach our professional goals, aims, and mission?

DePoy and Gilson say that, while there are many excellent texts written for human behavior classes that borrow and apply theories from disciplines such as biology, psychology, economics, public policy, sociology, and other areas, the authors began conversations in 2001 about the need for original social work theory to describe and explain humans and their environments. Explanatory legitimacy, the theory that they apply to the examination of humans and their environments in The Human Experience, was coming together when they wrote Evaluation Practice in 2003, but was not coagulated sufficient for use. They worked on explanatory legitimacy and finally used it to examine disability as diversity, resulting in the publication of Rethinking Disability in 2004. It worked well to tease out descriptive from explanatory theories and to locate categories of human diversity within a value perimeter. But as they were working on these two arenas of social work thinking and practice, they realized that their focus needed to expand to the essential knowledge base of social work, humans, and their environments.

In The Human Experience the authors have used some familiar and some unfamiliar language to categorize and name theory genres. Given their focus on value, pluralistic meanings, and the contemporary understandings that bring us to examine the importance of symbols, they have chosen their words carefully. In order to locate theories within one of these genres, they looked not only at content and scope but at the values that inhere in each. They share these commonalities with readers in the chapter sections that they have named ‘heuristics.’ By heuristics, they mean the central, unchangeable backbone of each of the six genres:

  • Longitudinal theories include those that have been traditionally referred to as developmental theory, life span theory, and so forth. What they wanted to communicate through the term ‘longitudinal’ is the central position of time and the value on time-specific desirables in human behavior, organizational behavior, environmental behavior, and phylogenetic behavior.
  • Environmental theories are those that describe and address the desirable sets of conditions; for humans, organizations, communities, systems, and so forth. They include theories that span the smallest interior aspects within our organic bodies to virtual environments.
  • Categorical theories are those that parse humans into taxonomies on the basis of embodied or exterior characteristics, and value elements such as race, class, gender, ability, ethnicity and culture as primary explanations for the behavior of individuals, families, communities, organizations, and even our globe.
  • They did not change the term ‘systems theories’ because it is viable and accurate, but have expanded their coverage of systems beyond linear systems to discuss complex, chaotic systems that can describe and explain the complex world of the twenty-first century and beyond.
  • And finally, they have posited contemporary and emerging theories, which that delimit by their postmodern flavor, and turn this lens back on their own theory, explanatory legitimacy, to analyze and question its values, symbols, and application.

After critically discussing each genre, positing its heuristics, and visiting with its central theories, they analyze and illustrate how each describes and explains its content domain and can be used to inform professional thinking and action.

The importance of The Human Experience cannot be overestimated. It is a clarion call, an invitation for the allied health professions, and particular­ly for social work, to enter the twenty-first century. The Human Experience takes social theory, makes it accessible and attractive, and points the way to a better way of analyzing human situations, which will lead to a better method of achieving social justice and alleviating suffering. – Tina Passman, Ph.D., M.Dix, associate professor of classical languages and literature and chair of the interdisciplinary Disability Studies Academic Committee, Center for Community Inclusion, University of Maine

DePoy and Gilson present a thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of theory and related assumptions and values that moves theory from the sidelines to its central role in human services practice across the disciplines. The Human Experience is an exceptional text that should be required pre-service reading for all disciplines in the human services – and will surely find its way to the bookshelf of thinking human services professionals everywhere. – Lucille A. Zeph, Ed.D., director and associate professor of education, Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies, University of Maine

In this textbook, DePoy and Gilson introduce the social work field to an innovative, postmodernist conceptual approach for understanding human behavior, appearance, and experience. This text will revolutionize the way instructors think about and teach their human behavior courses and will challenge students to examine how values influence which human behaviors are considered legitimate for social work services and which types of professional responses should be provided. The text includes numerous interesting case examples and thinking points, which encourage the students to engage in critical reflection about the material. DePoy and Gilson incorporate recent postmodern thinking in the chapters on emergent and contem­porary approaches to theory, including an inventive section on visual culture. – Elizabeth P. Cramer, Ph.D., associate professor, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work

The book is aimed at students of social work and all health and human services professionals. The Human Experience will excite readers about theory of humans in context and demonstrate the critical role that theory plays not only in their professional activity but also in every aspect of their private or personal lives. By making the study of theory understandable and even fun, The Human Experience will go a long way toward helping to remove the trepidation about the nature of theory, the difficulty in understanding theory and the skepticism about the relationship between theory and practice. So as readers use theory to understand others in their professional domain, they can remember that theory applies to themselves as well. And maybe after reading this book, readers will come to the understanding that their thinking will always be a work in progress.

Health, Mind & Body / Religion & Spirituality / Alternative Medicine

Hypnotic Use of Waking Dreams: Exploring Near Death Experiences without the Flatlines by Paul W. Schenk, with a foreword by Raymond A. Moody (Crown House Publishing)

Dr. Paul Schenk is a skilled