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We Review the Best of the Latest Books

ISSN 1934-6557

December 2007, Issue #104 Holiday Issue

Arts & Photography / Graphic Design / Art History / History

From Sacred to Secular: Visual Images in Early American Publications by Barbara E. Lacey (The University of Delaware Press)

From Sacred to Secular is an interdisciplinary study of eighteenth-century American culture based on the evidence of illustrated books, maga­zines, pamphlets, almanacs, and broadsides. It uses the illustrated publications as material artifacts to be studied for what they tell of a society's values, ideas, attitudes, and assump­tions. Written by Barbara E. Lacey, professor of history at Saint Joseph College in West Hartford, the book employs the literature of a variety of fields, including history, art history, literature, religion, and the growing scholarship on the history of the book, thus bridging the gap between disciplines. From Sacred to Secular is un­usual because it concentrates on the illustrations, restoring little-known images to the modem viewer, and explores the meanings of an image situated in a text.

Although the American Puritans are often said to have been iconoclastic devotees of ‘the Word,’ their early illustrated publica­tions show they utilized a wide variety of visual images to communicate ideas about re­ligion, people, and politics. The images in the printed texts clarify the meaning of complex ideas, mediating between lay culture and learned culture. While many scholars of image-and-text concentrate on literary as­pects, From Sacred to Secular emphasizes the visual im­ages as primary source materials, analyzing them, pointing to how the image supports or in some cases deconstructs the text.

The term ‘From Sacred to Secular’ refers not to two opposing views, nor to a complete transformation of imagery, but to a spectrum of religious, cultural, and political ideas. Chapters are devoted to memento mori imagery, children's readers, visionary literature, and illustrated Bibles. One chapter shows the demonization of the Indian even as the Indian was being adopted as a symbol of America. Other chapters deal with propaganda for the American Revolution, canonization of lead­ers, secularized roles for women, and sacralization of sites in the new nation. Throughout, analysis of image and text shows that the religious and secular contrasted, coexisted and intermingled in eighteenth-century American illustrated imprint.

The images, first identified in the micro-form Charles Evans Early American Imprint Collection, include many little-known wood-cuts and engravings. From this collection, ap­proximately one hundred images were se­lected for reproduction by means of photo-graphing the original. The publication of this study is timely, appearing when academic discourse and everyday language is engaged in the ‘pictorial turn,’ a fundamental shift involving encoun­ters with and concerns about the visual. Both textbook writers and research scholars are attempting to address the role of nonverbal ex­perience in transmitting and transforming cul­ture and ideology. The meanings of the eighteenth-century images are not self-evident, because they draw upon knowledge of allegories, emblems, and classical refer­ences as well as medieval symbolism, all of which require explication.

Lacey says it becomes clear that religion and the Enlightenment were not antithetical, and that the eighteenth century witnessed not only secularization but the persever­ance of religious values and the beginning of a dis­tinctly modern civil religion, all of which continues to shape American society and culture.

In From Sacred to Secular, nine thematic chapters are arranged in approxi­mately chronological order. Chapter 1 examines the eighteenth-century American religious imagery found in elegiac broadsides, funeral sermons and portrait frontispieces. The next three chapters are devoted to religious works with targeted audiences: chapter 2 discusses primers, or children's readers, in Eng­lish and German, and popular chapbooks; chapter 3 is concerned with accounts of visions and dreams, a highly individualized form of piety, not requiring the mediation of an organized church; chapter 4 exam­ines Bibles and other religious works intended for different denominations, some with typological interpretation. By mid-century, traditional Christian visual imagery began to be employed for overtly political purposes. Chapter 5 deals with stereotypes of the Indian and border warfare between the Protestant English and the Catholic French. Chapter 6 focuses on the American Revolution, during which religious imagery was used in satiric caricature, and the por­trayal of military scenes and memorial sites. In the post-Revolutionary period, both Christian and neo-classical images celebrated the new nation: chapter 7 considers portraits that canonized the new politi­cal leadership, and also looks at Europeans of stature and at the frontispieces of notable American women. Chapter 8 addresses a new understanding of the role of women in the republic and women's new aspira­tions; and chapter 9 examines the consecration of the American landscape in the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and suggests the origins of civil religion. The conclusion highlights a comparison of the Massachusetts Bay Colony seal of 1675 with the United States Great Seal of 1783, and evaluates the hypothesis of secularization.

This study of religion and secularization in early America approaches the subject from a variety of dis­ciplines. It is at the intersection of American studies, art history, material culture, the history of the book, word-and-image studies, and early American social and religious history, each perspective suggesting the value of visual imagery for early American historians and eighteenth-century specialists.

While attention is given to the social and cultural contexts in which these works were created and seen, the principal method of From Sacred to Secular is to examine and interpret the composite pictorial and verbal form, reading it as one might read a text. The narrative alternates between consideration of intellectual and social circumstances and the images themselves. For some of the illustrations, the meaning is illusive; not every viewer, then or now, can read or understand every image, and not everyone will read them in the same way.

Path breaking and timely, these little-known images can be perused and enjoyed by contemporary readers. From Sacred to Secular will be of interest to students of American history and American art at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, scholars of the eighteenth century, and gener­al readers interested in the arts.

Arts & Photography / Native Studies / Folk Art

Alaska Native Art: Tradition, Innovation, Continuity by Susan W. Fair, edited by Jean Blodgett (University of Alaska Press)

When Susan Fair began working on Alaska Native Art in the mid-1990s, it would have been the first publication that dealt with all the Native arts and cultures of Alaska. Now, some ten years later, it is still the first and only book that gives the reader a comprehensive knowledge of the many different Alaskan Native cultures and their art, and it does so with excellent reproductions and a thoughtful, informed, and stimulating text. I am proud to have done something to help this happen. – editor Jean Blodgett, executive director of the Alaska State Council on the Arts, from the preface

Ranging from the islands of the Bering Sea to Alaska's interior forests, Alaska Native Art celebrates the rich art of Alaska's Native peoples, both setting their work in the context of historical traditions and demonstrating the vibrant role it continues to play in contemporary Alaskan culture. Alaska Native Art showcases a staggering array of types of art – from beadwork to ivory carving, basketry to skin sewing – from Aleutian Islander, Pacific Eskimo, Tlingit, Athabaskan, Yup'ik, and Inupiaq artists, as well as full-color photographs of artists at work. For Alaska's Native artists, their art is comprised of much beyond a single life – it is the expression of thousands of years of cultural heritage. This historical influence contributes immense depth and dimension to the work of Native artists.

Illustrated with full-color photographs of artists and their works, Alaska Native Art examines the concept of tradition in the modern world. Susan W. Fair demonstrates that tradition is alive and well in Alaska through the words of Native artists and a multitude of examples, reproduced in color and accompanied by historic photographs.

Fair (1948-2003) was a folklorist, curator, and advocate for Native peoples. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and published extensively on Alaska Native art, including two chapters in the catalog Eskimo Drawings (2003). She curated major art exhibits across Alaska and worked throughout her life to increase respect for and appreciation of Alaska Native artists and their work.

Alaska Native Art is intended as a study of material culture and of cultural attitudes about art and the making of art. It examines a number of issues regarding several permanent Percent for Art and corporate collections of Alaska Native art curated between 1989 and 1999. Initially, this book was meant to serve as an interpretive catalogue for the major Percent for Art exhibition Tradition, Innovation, Continuity, at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. As time went by, Fair curated three more standing exhibitions. Many of the objects collected for Tradition, Innovation, Continuity are illustrated in the book, while fewer items are included from the other exhibitions.

Fair said that the emphasis on persons and culture throughout the book, in addition to the discussion of objects, was an important one to her as a folklorist. She found it inappropriate, even impossible, to separate material things from the people who make and use them. She preferred to focus on the way in which the construction of material things requires the genius of individual expression, the influence of many people, the intervention of memory and collective tradi­tion, and, often, the need to make an honest living doing what one does best. There must be a context to an object for any analysis of objects. The book was written to document that context as well as to record the objects in these exhibitions.

In Alaska Native Art, Fair discusses the methodologies she used while curating exhibitions. These sections explore a curator's vision for an exhibition and its design. Working with ethnographic objects as opposed to new materials is much like the distinction between archaeology and ethnography. In the ethnographic context, participants may be willing to contribute their skills and knowledge, but they are also in the midst of their own lives, and a researcher must keep pace with them. Ethnographic arts are often out of context or immobilized in a museum collection, while an exhibition and its interpretations brings them back to light, to life. Conversely, a ‘contemporary’ object may not even be manufactured at the time when the exhibition was envisioned. Fair was interested in how tradition flowed through the exhibition and in the perceptions of what was traditional and what was considered contemporary. This curiosity was fueled by the stance taken by the Percent for Art com­mittee, who felt most comfortable with objects that looked old. They used the term ‘traditional,’ like most non-Native people do, in a careless though well-intentioned way. Much of the current debate about tradition – centered in the fields of folklore, aesthetic anthropology, archaeology, and art history – is presented as theory, or resembles theory. But it is essentially an extended dis­cussion constantly modified, an attempt to rein in the terms ‘tradition’ and ‘traditional’ and to use them in a more focused manner. Fair’s analysis thus reflects upon the ways in which tradition has been defined by scholars. But her foremost goal in Alaska Native Art is to demonstrate how Native artists from a number of different groups use, live with, discard, reinvent, and think about their traditions as they make their art and live their lives.

This wonderful book reflects Susan Fair's years of experience working with Alaska Native artists throughout the state and represents a unique contribution to our understanding of traditional, transitional, and contemporary Alaska Native art. – Nelson H.H. Graburn, Professor of Anthropology and Curator at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley and author of Ethnic and Tourist Arts

Susan Fair's illuminating book is as brilliant and original as she was. She provides a vivid account of the works of Alaska Native artists, bringing to life not only the artworks, but also the artists so often neglected in scholarly studies. – Molly Lee, Curator of Ethnology, University of Alaska Museum of the North

Alaska Native Art takes the Tradition, Innovation, Continuity exhibit as a point of departure, building upon its foundation by providing greater insight into the lives of the artists behind the objects, describing the culture and history of the Native peoples whose work is the root of the collection. Beautifully illustrated, lavishly produced, and featuring a fascinating study of the concept of tradition in the modern world, the book is a gift to Alaska's Native artists from Fair and her legacy. The wide range of work make this landmark volume the most comprehensive study of Alaskan art ever published. This is a volume to treasure, a tribute to the incredible vision of Alaska's artists and to the enduring traditions of Alaska's Native peoples.

Arts & Photography / Painting / History & Criticism

Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné by Christopher Wright (Chaucer Press)

Nicholas Poussin was the founder and the greatest practitioner of seventeenth-century French classical painting and is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of all time.
Born in Normandy, Poussin (1594-1665) was in his early twenties before his interest in the arts led him to Rome. He detached himself from the popular Baroque movement of his native school, choosing instead to echo the monumentality and classical clarity of the Renaissance. Poussin's influences, from the sensuous renderings of Titian to the later, bolder themes of antiquity, mythology and religion produced an impressive collection of paintings ranging from The Worship of the Golden Calf (c.1634) to Four Seasons (c.1664, painted shortly before his death). All his works testified to a strong classical idiom and, though Poussin did not live to see his style accepted, his combination of clarity and logic strongly influenced classically oriented artists such as Benjamin West, Jacques-Louis David and Paul Cézanne.

In Poussin Paintings, illustrated in full color, Christopher Wright, distinguished art historian, specialist in seventeenth-century painting and world authority on Vermeer, charts Poussin's stylistic development in 17th century Rome from his experimental early pictures through to the uncompromising works of his later years. He discusses the Sacraments as an interrelated series of moods and analyzes the serene poetry of the landscapes. Wright presents considered arguments on the interpretation of Poussin's corpus of paintings as well as the controversies surrounding the authenticity of many of them.

The first edition of Poussin Paintings was completed in 1982 and published in 1985. Since then a large number of small changes have been made to Poussin's oeuvre, resulting in what amounts to a reappraisal of his art. The change has been the elimination of many of the old controversies about authenticity and chronology. There is now a much greater consensus of opinion as to the evolution of the artist's early work, and according to Wright, Poussin's ability to repeat himself in his declining years is also now accepted.

Of all the French painters of the seventeenth century Nicolas Poussin has been taken as the one person to epitomize an age – that of Louis XIV. Nothing could be further from the truth – but it has always been the temptation for writers and intellectuals to seize upon the unique and consider it to be typical of its times. According to Wright, only later interpretation and admiration turned Nicolas Poussin into an establishment figure and it was only after his death that his art became an ideal which young students in the French academy were supposed to copy. Poussin Paintings considers the ways in which Poussin, especially in his mature years, went against the conventions of his time and produced a unique art.

As a center of attraction for artists educated in any of the other states in Italy, Rome was of paramount importance. More important for the purposes of this account is the fact that Rome later became the main cultural center for foreign artists from all over the rest of Europe to learn their profession, although a surprising number of these returned permanently to their native countries. Poussin therefore must be seen as a relatively rare exception of a painter who was prepared to stick it out in his difficult early years and then to remain, firstly as a successful painter with adequate patrons, and in his last years as a grand old master revered by all. Poussin was out of tune with the French court and could not in any event provide the large decorative cycle for the Grande Galerie of the Louvre which he was required to do. Unlike so many of his contemporaries Poussin seems to have been impervious to many of the trends around him.

As told in Poussin Paintings, most of Poussin's landscapes fall into the category loosely called ‘classical’. The main ingredient was the careful rearrangement of nature both in composition and lighting. So few of these great landscapes survive and they are so scattered that it is difficult to imagine their impact together. If his figures were composed from wax models in a little theatre, as is well known, then Poussin's landscapes were composed from an intimate knowledge of nature. This is proved by Poussin's all too few surviving drawings of the Roman Campagna. The twentieth century prejudice against Poussin was exacerbated by Cezanne's all too famous statement that he ‘wanted to do Poussin again, from nature’. The implication of this comment, even if Cezanne did not mean it, was that Poussin did not work from nature.

But Poussin responded to nature with a serene poetry. His drawings of trees and hills show an excitement for natural phenomena – an appreciation of the nuances of light caught with the sepia wash. When translated into paint it is inevitable that Poussin would change his knowledge into something more formal. Yet formality in Poussin's landscapes has been overestimated. The most severe, the Funeral and Burial of Motion have usually been taken as typical, yet they are unique in Poussin's land­scapes in being stage-like in their composition.

Almost all Poussin’s pictures reveal an extreme sensitivity towards his chosen interests. They disconcert today because we rarely make the time to look at them. Wright says that Poussin's art must stand or fall on its own merits and in many respects Poussin failed. He only achieved his goal of the victory of mind over eye on a few occasions. He paid the price for this in two ways. He has been the darling of intellectuals for three centuries, as a consequence inspiring much pedantry. The second way is more serious and less foreseeable in his time. It is simply that for a time the intellect has gone out of fashion as one of the necessary accomplishments in looking at a picture and in modern terms Poussin seemingly appeals only to the learned, but Poussin Paintings disproves this easily held point of view by displaying the genius of a man who hid his abilities much of the time by trying too hard.

There has always been a tendency to deny the visual impact of Poussin's greatest pictures, and instead there has been a preference for explanations of the moral and intellectual background to his art. Poussin's sense of color was unique, and the chromatic intensity of his predominating blues, reds and yellows outshines so many of his more austere contemporaries. Poussin is the only artist in the whole history of art who came close to achieving an impossibility. It was Poussin's vowed intention to make the spectator think and feel, even at the expense of denying him visual pleasure. From this, in the last twenty years of his life, Poussin never wavered. He produced some very complex and nearly incomprehensible pictures as a consequence, but he also brought into the world a few canvasses which bravely prove that the mind can triumph over the eye.

A Frenchman who lived in Rome for 40 years, Nicolas Poussin was one of the most influential painters of the 17th century, yet today, largely ignored by the general public, he is admired only by scholars and artists. His best pictures are dark meditations on tragedy and death, while his happy pictures of drunken, posed bacchanals are almost ludicrous to the modern taste. Even his landscapes point to a moral. Wright has sought to restore Poussin's importance and meaning for our time, and, with the aid of some 200 color plates, he has succeeded. … Poussin's avowed goal was to make the spectator think and his religious or mythological scenes here emerge as the working out of an ethical viewpoint. Wright enables us to see this without over-emphasizing Christian or classical symbolism. – Publishers Weekly
Few artists have vexed scholars as much as Poussin; the authenticity of several dozen of some 200 paintings purported to be his work is still being questioned. This is the seventh catalogue raisonne on Poussin, and Wright disputes some earlier opinions regarding the undocumented paintings. … This treatise is both a readable introduction for the sophisticated layperson and a synthesis of critical opinion for the scholar. Highly recommended. – Eleanor Riley, Getty Conservation Institute Librarian, Marina del Rey, CA, Library Journal

This book on Poussin represents the culmination of Wright’s many years of research and study. Wright’s revealing Poussin Paintings is a major contribution to the historical analysis of Poussin’s complete and sometimes misunderstood oeuvre, as well as a fitting tribute to the instinctive and poetic genius of this complex artist. With over 200 full-color and many full-page prints, he also illuminates issues of authenticity.

Biographies & Memoirs / History / US / Social Science

Touch and Go: A Memoir by Studs Terkel (New Press)

My curiosity keeps me going. My epitaph is all set: ‘Curiosity did not kill this cat.’ I took a vacation once – it involved a beach – and to tell you the truth, I had no idea what to do with myself. It was torture. Work is life. Without it, there is no life. – Studs Terkel

The extraordinary life and times of an American icon – the Pulitzer Prize-winning oral historian's long-awaited memoir is titled Touch and Go.
At nearly ninety-five, Studs Terkel has written about everyone's life, it seems, but his own. In Touch and Go, he offers a memoir embodying the spirit of the man himself.
Terkel begins by taking readers back to his early childhood with his father, mother, and two older brothers, describing the hectic life of a family trying to earn a living in Chicago. He then goes on to recall his own experiences – as a poll watcher charged with stealing votes for the Democratic machine, as a young theatergoer, and eventually as an actor himself in both radio and on the stage. Terkel details his long journey through law school, the air force, theater, radio, early television, sports commentary and jazz criticism. He tells of his beginnings as a disc jockey after World War II and as an interviewer and oral historian – a craft he would come to perfect and indeed personify, from the adult loners of his youth in Chicago's Wells-Grand Hotel, to New Deal politicians. Finally, he discusses his involvement with progressive politics, leading inevitably to his travails during the McCarthy period when he was blacklisted and thrown out of work despite having become by then one of the country's most popular TV hosts.
Born in 1912, Studs Terkel is the bestselling author of twelve books of oral history, including Working, Hard Times, and The Good War. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Presidential National Humanities Medal and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Touch and Go offers readers the experience of sitting next to Studs, hearing him talk and discovering what a fantastic raconteur he is. Fans of Terkel will find that he's still the same idealist, fighter, and chronicler of American life as he always was.

After a lifetime of interviewing others, Terkel finally turns the tape recorder on himself. At least, that's what he would have us think. Terkel's memoir is more a medley of all the extraordinary characters he's encountered through his career…. Surprisingly, a 12-time author who has built a career on emerging media is a hopeless Luddite. Unskilled with his tape recorder, the bread and butter of an oral historian, Terkel modestly attributes his knack for getting people to open up about their lives to his own ineptitude and slovenliness. This memoir, however, is a fitting portrait of a legendary talent who seeks truth with compassion, intelligence, moxie and panache. Never one to back down from authority, Terkel cracks jokes in law school classrooms and filibusters FBI visits by quoting long passages from Thoreau and Paine. … He laments the national Alzheimer's afflicting this country, and fears the consequences if we don't regain consciousness. Americans might get to know their collective past a lot better if all history lessons were as absorbing and entertaining as this one. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A sort of masterpiece about a life which itself is a sort of masterpiece, Touch and Go is a most remarkable book. Every chapter opens new vistas and new aspects of Studs Terkel's amazing autobiography – from the thousands of figures he recalls, and often captures unforgettably; to the beautiful interweaving of past and present; to the enormous sense of life, and loving life, which seems to burst out of every page. – Oliver Sacks

Studs Terkel, a Chicago institution, a national treasure, and the world's leading extractor of other people's stories, has at last given us his own. Less a memoir than an artfully woven series of memories – bitter and sweet, sexy and morally uplifting, intimate and historically significant – Touch and Go shows that at age ninety-five our country's numero-uno question-asker is still asking, still fighting the good fight. – Victor Navasky

The master storyteller tells his own story, as no one else can, irresistibly. When he had a television show about a diner called Studs' Place, it was so real to some people that they wrote asking for its address. Now we know that the real address of Studs' Place is – everywhere. – Garry Wills

If Studs Terkel were Japanese, he'd be a Sacred Treasure. His lifetime has spanned the boom times of the Twenties, the Depression, World War II, the McCarthy red-hunting era, the civil rights movement, the hippie activists of the late Sixties, and on into present times. By now, the man requires an adjective of his own – Terkelesque. – Margaret Atwood, The New York Review of Books

History from a highly personal point of view, by one who has helped make it. – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In Touch and Go, Terkel offers a memoir which is youthful, vivacious, and enormous fun, like the man himself, giving readers a brilliant and often hilarious portrait of the Chicago of the 1920s and '30s. Fans of Terkel will find much to discover in these remarkable reminiscences. Others will be captivated to learn of the unique and eclectic life of one of America's greatest living legends.

Business & Investing / Economics

Untangling the US Deficit: Evaluating Causes, Cures and Global Imbalances by Richard A. Iley & Mervyn K. Lewis (Edward Elgar Publishing)

As the US current account deficit has expanded to a record of $811 billion in 2006, debate about the deficit's causes and consequences has also grown. Is the deficit a product of American profligacy or a ‘glut of savings’ in the rest of the world? Is it a serious problem or benign?

Untangling the US Deficit charts a course between the competing explanations in a systematic and rigorous approach, incorporating the latest academic research and market data. Particular attention is given to the China-United States trade imbalance and to the special role the US dollar and US capital markets in global finance.

Authors Richard A. Iley and Mervyn K. Lewis say that writing a book on the US current account deficit was a challenge that neither of them could resist. With the United States absorbing four-fifths of the world's cross-border savings, this imbalance is perhaps the biggest issue in the international economy. In addition, with the funds flowing from some of the poorest countries to the richest, the global imbalances take on an extra dimension, as summed up by the view that the flow is ‘fundamentally perverse’.

Both of the authors have been involved with the question of current account deficits for some time. One of them – Iley, Senior Economist, BNP Paribas, New York, a market economist immersed in the daily ebb and flow of financial markets reacting to and affected by the US deficit – welcomed the opportunity that the book offered, to sit back and take a longer-term perspective. The other – Lewis, Professor of Banking and France at the University of South Australia, and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, an academic, who was involved in the debates on current account deficits in the Australian context some fifteen years ago – was glad of the opportunity to see how the literature had changed over the intervening years and to examine matters from the very different vantage point of the US economy.

According to Iley and Lewis, as it turned out, one major difference from the past comes from the sheer variety of views that US academics and others have put forward to account for the phenomenon of the US external deficit. The first task they had was to develop an organizing framework to deal with the different hypotheses, with the aim of producing the most comprehensive account to date of the various views and how they contribute to the story of the evolution of the US current account deficit.

Because the United States occupies such a central position in the world order, an analysis of the US deficit necessarily overlaps with global geopoli­tics and the United States' relationships with China, Japan, the European Union, oil exporters and others. While they have not deliberately sought to emphasize such international geopolitical factors, they cannot be ignored and they have certainly not tried to interpret everything solely in economic terms.

According to Untangling the US Deficit, the different ways of looking at the current account deficit are derived from basic accounting identities involving the current and capital account items in the balance of payments, and from linking these with the national income and production accounts. As with any identity, no causation can be deduced from the various approaches. A nation with a current account deficit will have a capital account surplus. Whether this situation is caused by developments in goods markets or in financial markets, either at home or abroad, cannot be ascertained without additional information. The different perspectives do, nonetheless, highlight some linkages between spending, consumption, savings and invest­ment behavior in one country and its payments position with the rest of the world. While the expenditure data and the balance-of-payments data cannot offer any prescriptive advice to either private or public decision-makers, knowledge of the magnitudes and the alternative viewpoints may be useful for private decision-makers, or they may suggest the need for some microeconomic or macroeconomic policy adjustments.

Iley and Lewis’ analysis is based around the four alternative ways of thinking about a country's current account balance and how it adjusts to policy and other changes:

  • Trade balance approach. A country's current account position measures the balance between exports and imports of goods and services plus the income from or the cost of ser­vicing existing net international assets and liabilities and net transfer pay­ments. This approach focuses mainly on the determinants of exports and imports with an emphasis on real exchange rates and the competitiveness of exportables and import replacement industries.
  • Absorption approach. A country's current account position reflects an imbalance between total domestic use of resources (‘absorption’) and total domestic production or availability of goods and services. This perspective emphasizes policies that affect total domestic demand and supply.
  • Savings and investment approach. A country's current account position indicates an imbalance between domestic saving and domestic investment. This viewpoint concentrates on the determinants of domestic private sector and government saving, and the relative attractiveness of domestic investment opportunities.
  • Portfolio balance approach. Since a country's current account position is mirrored by the capital account position and a change in net foreign assets, it reflects the balance between the net external demand for and supply of a country's financial assets. This capital account perspective focuses on relative rates of return, liquidity, risk and wealth allocation decisions.

Each of these four analytical perspectives, equally valid because of their definitional equivalence, can be thought of as having a ‘domestic’ version and a ‘global’ or ‘international’ version (or ‘Nth country’ version).

The plan of Untangling the US Deficit is as follows. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the causes of the US current account deficit. The analysis is built around the four major analytical strands: the trade balance view (related to exports, imports and debt servicing); the absorption view (revolving around domestic demand and supply); the savings and investment view (concerning the imbalance between investment and savings); and the portfolio balance view (involving the demand for dollar financial assets). Chapter 2 considers the trade per­spective, while Chapter 3 looks at the other three approaches. Each of these analytical frameworks is examined and assessed from a US domestic perspective and from a global viewpoint.

The international dimension is the subject of Chapter 4. In addition to the ‘global savings glut’ view, a number of economists have christened the current configuration of international capital flows as ‘Bretton Woods II’. Various hypotheses built around this theme are sur­veyed in this chapter.

Chapter 5 focuses on the nature of the adjustment mechanisms to pay­ments imbalances in the context of a world system of independent curren­cies and ‘international financial laissez-faire’. Thanks to the arguments of Alan Greenspan and others to the effect that there has been a ‘sea change’ recently in the degree of globalization and reduction in home bias of investment portfolios, there is now emerging a greater appreciation of the implications of this environment for global imbalances. The upshot of these views is a marked change in the rules of the game for debtor countries (and the sustainability of imbalances) due to capital's much greater ability to flow across borders.

This leads to the question of sustainability and Chapter 6 considers alternative scenarios of the extent and sustainability of the US current account position. The orthodox analysis of the dynamics of the current account balance serves as the starting point, but the conclusions of this analysis are found to be compromised by the ‘unorthodox’ behavior of the United States' external balance sheet. There then follows a detailed exam­ination of the ‘investment income riddle’, the ‘net international investment position enigma’, the ‘dark matter’ debate and the ‘black hole’ in the global financial system.

What becomes apparent is that the sustainability of the US deficit is con­ditioned by the nature and composition of international holdings of US dollar assets. For this reason, Chapter 7 concentrates on the demand for US assets, starting with the implications of a reduction in home bias for the financing of the US deficit. The chapter then goes on to examine the main sources of capital flows to the United States over the last decade. The final section of the chapter considers whether the euro might eventually displace the dollar in its international monetary role.

Chapter 8 is concerned with the China-United States relationship. For many Americans the US trade deficit is synonymous with China and there are many who see the balance of economic power shifting across the Pacific to Asia, with China at its head as the next ‘superpower’. Already, the con­tribution of Asia (China, India, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan) to the growth in world GDP from 2001-2005 at 21 per cent exceeds America's 19 per cent. The chapter tries to put these issues in perspective, and examines the economic issues that confront China and the question of whether its own agenda matches this vision. Finally, the chapter takes up what is for the United States, the vexing issue of China's exchange rate regime.

Finally, Chapter 9 presents Iley and Lewis’ conclusions and recommendations for policy.

What are the causes of the US current account deficit? Are the problems ‘made in the US’ or the rest of the world? Are these deficits sustainable, at what level? These are the types of questions the authors set out to answer and in essence conclude that the answers do not matter for global stability as long as imbalances are left to market forces and the US can avoid large net income outflows. The beauty of this book, however, is watching authors (the unusual combination of a business economist and academic economist) arrive at this conclusion. They provide insights that can come only from years of practical and theoretical experience. – William E. Becker, Professor of Economics, Indiana University, Bloomington, and Editor, Journal of Economic Education

Untangling the US Deficit is a unique and well-researched book and will be of great interest to academic economists and postgraduates. Policy-makers, business and market economists will also find it an enlightening and challenging analysis.

Cooking, Food & Wine

The Anheuser-Busch Cookbook: Great Food, Great Beer by the Editors of Sunset Books, with photography by Noel Barnhurst (Sunset Books)

  • Do you know the difference between an American-style premium lager and a European-style pilsner?
  • What is the best beer to serve with a pepper steak? What about with a great chocolate dessert?
  • What did breweries do during Prohibition?
  • Did you know that Congress once pondered the need for a Secretary of Beer?

Finally, a cookbook that brings together two of America's favorite pastimes – home cooking and enjoying the great taste of beer. Anheuser-Busch, an American authority on beer, presents The Anheuser-Busch Cookbook.

The Anheuser-Busch Cookbook has recipes for grilling, one-pot specialties, and lots of other easy-to-prepare, crowd-pleasing foods. The dishes range from appetizers to (yes!) desserts, and every recipe was selected because it is something that goes great with beer, whether an American-style premium lager, a European-style pilsner, an English-style pale ale, or a dry stout. For example, readers can try Spicy Shrimp Cakes with Corn Salsa, Pepper Steaks with Balsamic Onions, Leek and Chanterelle Tart, or Grill-Baked Apple Crisp. Readers will also find many recipes that call for beer as a key ingredient. Among these are Creamy Lager and Jalapeño Soup, Chicken with Amber Lager and Honey, and Maerzen-Braised Short Ribs.

The book features menus for celebratory gatherings including Tailgates & Picnics, Ski-Country Retreats, Clambakes on the Beach, plus a special Beer-Tasting Menu. There is a glossary of beer terms, A Cook's Guide to Beer, so every cook feels like a pro. Included is a traditional recipe index as well as an index by type of beer. The book also has a foreword by August A. Busch IV, Vice President and Group Executive of the Company.

Beer connoisseurs may point out the book's most compelling feature: the Brewmaster in the Kitchen. Created by Anheuser-Busch experts, ‘Brewmaster’ icons appear throughout, denoting the recommended type of beer – a hoppy lager, an amber ale, or a full-bodied stout, for instance – that best complements each recipe.

The Anheuser-Busch Cookbook raises a glass to that most iconic of American beverages: beer. And who better to come bearing gifts of great-tasting, beer-friendly recipes than Anheuser-Busch? Lavishly photographed, the book gives readers a close-up look at many of the recipes, making the book as beautiful as it is useful. With 185 easy-to-make recipes, this book makes it a simple matter to pair beer with food and easy to gift the beer lover.

Education / Instruction / Age range 7-16

Motivating Learners in the Classroom: Ideas and Strategies (with CD-ROM) by Gavin Reid (Paul Chapman Publishing)

Motivating Learners in the Classroom shows readers how to recognize and meet the individual needs of different kinds of learners, and provides strategies for helping pupils develop their own successful approach to learning.

The key message of the book is that motivation is crucial for effective learning and motivation develops from an understanding of the learning process. That process relates to the complete learning experience – the learner's preferences, the expectations placed on the learner, the task, the teaching process, learning strategies, the resources and the learning environment. The role of management and school ethos are also considered as school systems can have implications for motivation and effective learning.

Written by Gavin Reid, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Motivating Learners in the Classroom is principally about helping teachers help learners build a solid foundation that will assist in the development of motivation and effective learning and promote learner independence. The book is not a ‘pick and mix’ collection of ideas on learning, but focuses on planning for learning, developing the foundations for learning and learner autonomy. The learning plans, the emotional and cognitive factors and how learning is presented and assessed, as well as the fundamental issue of motivation, are all crucial elements of the book.

The book contains:

  • Ideas for ways to motivate all pupils.
  • A chapter on learning styles in the early years.
  • Advice on how to create the best learning environment possible.
  • Questionnaires, memory games and organizational charts.
  • Key practice points.
  • Visual summaries at the end of each chapter.

Some key points are highlighted throughout Motivating Learners in the Classroom – ideas to try in the classroom that allow readers to have a complete matrix of the processes involved in independent and effective learning. Additionally, the CD-ROM included with the book provides many tried and tested strategies related to each of the chapters. A visual overview is included at the end of each chapter, supplying a global and visual picture for visual learners. The Key points of a chapter can be found at the start of each chapter.

The first chapter provides an outline and a rationale for the book in order to establish the importance of the foundations of the learning experience for devel­oping effective learning. Chapter 2 focuses on motivation. According to Reid, teachers often have to think of ways of motivating learners, but learning is more effective if a learner can develop self-motivation.

Chapter 3 highlights the importance of self-knowledge. This chapter examines different learning styles and shows how styles and preferences can be used to develop effective learning skills. Chapter 4 looks at the learning environment and the crucial part it plays in effective learning. Learners have to be aware of the impact different environments can have on their learning. Chapter 5 focuses on memory and looks at aspects of recalling, revising, reviewing and reflecting. The emphasis is on using information to enhance understanding.

Chapter 6 looks at the type of tasks that can be developed to help learners and provides examples of tasks for different types of learners. Some learners such as those with dyslexia or attention difficulties will require a highly structured task. Structure can usually benefit all learners. Learning should be fun, and the research indicates that learners function more effectively in a stress-free environment. This is the key theme of Chapter 7, which focuses on preparing the ‘whole school’ emotionally for the learning experience – this can be done through emotional literacy programs and through social leaning activities. There is an emphasis on managing stress – both organizational stress and individual stress – in this chapter.

Chapter 8 looks carefully at managing learning in the classroom situation. This chapter includes suggestions for behavior management, the need to be proactive and the type of support that can be beneficial for students with additional needs. This chapter also suggests 20 key principles for classroom management. Chapter 9 highlights key aspects of an effective school, taking a whole-school approach. The implication is that classroom learning will be more effective if the school itself is effec­tive. This is an institutional responsibility and this chapter discusses the role of school climate, school ethos and school management.

Finally, Chapter 10 provides some reflections on the key issues and strategies contained in Motivating Learners in the Classroom. It is important that readers contextualize the messages of the book for their own learn­ing context and this chapter encourages readers to translate some of these into their own teaching and learning situations.

The enclosed CD-ROM, age range 7-16, provides activities to try out. The first section of the CD contains practical guidance on some of the key points from the book. Although most of the activities are based on specific chapters, some of the more general strategies are based on the book as a whole. The second part of the CD is a PowerPoint presentation based on the book and can be contextualized for staff development activities.

The practical ideas offered in Motivating Learners in the Classroom will be invaluable to class teachers, trainee teachers, learning support staff and the school management team. The book is directed at all those concerned with the experience of learning and demonstrates how teachers can make learning more efficient and effective for all students. Encouraging a climate of success among learners, it has potential to help all pupils become better learners.

Education / Pedagogy / High School

Engaging the Disengaged: How Schools Can Help Struggling Students Succeed by Lois Brown Easton (Corwin Press)

Based on Lois Brown Easton's experience working with disengaged learners in Eagle Rock, Colorado, Engaging the Disengaged helps educators make positive connections with youngsters of all ages who are at risk of failing or dropping out. Featuring the voices of educators and students, this text covers methods for improving the school-wide climate in ways that support all students and for creating a learning environment that promotes academic, personal, and social growth. Easton, consultant, coach, and author, recently retired as Director of Professional Development at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, Estes Park, Colorado, illustrates how to make meaningful changes in curriculum and instruction and examines the importance of:

  • Teacher-student relationships.
  • Innovative teaching strategies for struggling learners.
  • Developing self-directed learners.
  • Using appropriate assessments for students with learning difficulties.

According to Easton, engagement is not simply a matter of motivating students extrinsically or intrinsically – although we know that intrinsic engagement is usually the better of the two. What we want in schools is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1990 called ‘flow.’ Bruya and Olwell suggest that Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow, "the psychological process that describes how people balance skill, inter­est, and challenge – may hold an important piece of the puzzle of school reform". If the challenge level is too high or too low, learners may disengage from learning, even drop out. If challenge and skill are well matched, students are more likely to be engaged; if the activity connects to the rest of their lives and their interests, they are even more likely to be engaged.

In Engaging the Disengaged, flow is evidence of engagement and engagement stands for all the aspects of school that can be changed to help struggling students want to learn and keep learning. One premise of the book is that engaged students are learning students. Another premise is that schools can do something about engagement. Providing more engaging contexts for learning is not a matter of erecting a three-ring circus tent in the multi-purpose room. According to Easton, the everyday nature of schools can be changed to be more engaging: curriculum, instruction, assessment, the school's culture.

If interviewed about this notion, most students would say that responsi­bility for their lack of engagement is not just a school's problem. They would acknowledge that they have some role themselves in becoming engaged and learning. Given the statistics about students who become lost to learning and the simple moral imperative of education for all, schools must work hard to engage students in their learning, no matter how they come to their opportunities to learn.

The chapters in Engaging the Disengaged include:

Part I: Improving the Culture for Struggling Students

  1. "What About Test Scores?" From a Testing to a Learning Culture. This chapter explores how real learning improves test scores.
  2. "What Do You Mean, Build Relationships? My Job Is to Teach History". Relationships Are as Important as Content. This chapter explores what it is about relationships that advance learning as well as how to build rela­tionships with students.
  3. "What's Community Got to Do With Learning?" Intentional Learning Communities Foster Learning. This chapter builds on the necessity of relationships. It con­siders students as teachers and teachers as students in a Whole-School Learning Community.
  4. "So, What About Discipline?" How Principles Govern a School Better Than Rules. This chapter uses as an example the principles that guide Eagle Rock and how they are much more than a plaque on a wall. Principles – not rules – result in a culture that is meaningful and important to struggling students.
  5. "What's Democratic About Schools?" A Democratic School Helps Students Learn. Most schools are autocratic and top-down. This chapter explores the reasons for schools to behave democratically as well as how they can do so. Struggling students understand the value and responsibility of power and authority.

Part II: Improving Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment for Struggling Students

  1. "What About Standards?" Developing Curriculum According to the Right Standards. This chapter contrasts the conventional way of giving credit to students (seat time and grades) with a truly standards-based approach. It introduces curriculum that is based on documentation. And it also introduces the magic of high expectations. Struggling students become engaged in their own learning when they are in charge of their own learning; this chapter shows how students can be standards-based.
  2. "How Do You Get Them to Learn?" Innovative Instructional Strategies Help Students Learn. This chapter highlights certain conventional strategies of instruction that work especially well with struggling students. It also describes a variety of out­lier strategies – power, voice, choice, accountability, transparency of the curriculum, students as teachers, self-directed learning, and service – that are surprisingly effective in helping students engage in their own learning.
  3. "How Do You Know They've Learned?" Learning from Assessing Learning. Learning happens for students and staff when assessment is for learning. This chapter focuses on two mechanisms Eagle Rock uses to assess for learning: documentations of learning and Presentations of Learning. Teachers learn the logistics of both types of assessment, how they work in a real school setting. They get some ideas about what to do if students are not learning.

The conclusion returns to the focus of Engaging the Disengaged: the student. Teachers look at what educating the whole student means, with a special focus on personal growth without labeling students. They also examine a number of strategies – beliefs and culture, structures, program, and curriculum, instruction and assessment – that help a school embed personal growth into the whole of the school.

The teacher who knows how to re-engage a child in his or her own learning is a treasure indeed, as is the school that supports such a teacher. Easton tells the stories of these teachers in one such school. They are stories from which all teachers – and principals, school boards, parents, and students – can learn. – Ted and Nancy Sizer

An inspiring book! Easton's clear, compelling writing is made more vivid by the wonderful real-life examples. – Dennis Sparks, Emeritus Executive Director, National Staff Development Council

Principals – particularly secondary school principals – should find this book and Easton's earlier work to be all the basic resources required. It is comprehensive and deals with the critical issues of the day. – Richard W. Clark, Executive Vice President, Institute for Educational Inquiry

This insightful and invaluable resource is about changing the culture of schools so that it is more humane and inhabitable for struggling learners. Filled with real examples, Engaging the Disengaged inspires teachers to create an integrated system of support which can make a significant change in their school's culture to engage developing minds and champion all learners, regardless of socioeconomic factors.

Entertainment / Movies / Biographies & Memoirs

Judy Garland by Paul Donnelley (Haus Publishing)

Judy Garland (1922-1969) was one of the greatest performers of the 20th century, whose fame and popularity have long outlasted her early death at the age of 47. Forever associated with the role of Dorothy in the film The Wizard of Oz and the song she sang in it, 'Somewhere over the Rainbow', the demands first of her ambitious mother and then the studio bosses effectively robbed her of a normal childhood while at the same time forcing her to maintain her ‘girl next door’ image and a punishing work schedule with near-starvation diets and amphetamines, resulting in a dependence on drugs and alcohol which finally ended her career and her life, when she died of a drug overdose in a flat in Chelsea.

Judy Garland, an illustrated biography, gives the story of her treatment at the hands of the studios, and how widespread critical success and the devotion of her many fans failed to keep the demons in her soul at bay. One of the greatest female stars of all time, and the best-remembered singing star of Hollywood's Golden Era of musical film, nearly 40 years after her death her recordings are still available and any fragments of memorabilia are instantly collectable, proving her enduring appeal.
According to author Paul Donnelley, the Judy Garland story is anything but straightforward. Even though historically she was born comparatively recently, much myth and misinformation has already entered the Garland lore. Supposedly respected biographers give different versions of tales. Was Judy's stage debut an accident or was it planned? Names are consistently spelled in different ways. Were her sisters named Jimmy and Suzy or Jimmie and Suzie?

Donnelley, journalist and TV writer who has written extensively on show business and cinema subjects, in Judy Garland says he thought he knew a fair amount about Judy but when he began research in earnest he was shocked by the stories he learned. The way that Judy was used and abused by MGM was truly terrible. In 2007 movie stars go to extreme lengths to protect their public images, for example, loving couples that really hate each other are careful not to let their animosity become public knowledge. Homosexual leading men marry willing women to hide their true natures lest their careers be harmed by the truth. The young Judy Garland did not have choices. Her relentlessly ambitions mother, Ethel, began feeding her pep pills to keep her awake so that she could perform with her sisters. The studio forced her to take slimming pills to keep her weight down, forced her to take sleeping pills, uppers and downers so that she could work. The studio cafeteria was under strict instructions to feed the growing girl only chicken soup. Louis B. Mayer refused to let her attend her high school prom and sent her on a promotional tour instead. Unsurprisingly, Judy's mother, an archetypal stage mother if ever there was one, was a party to this behavior.

The life of Garland is one of the most harrowing parables on celebrity and the road to fame. Garland was unaware of the increasingly tragic dimensions of her own life and the alcohol- and drug-fueled spiral that would take her to a sad and lonely death in London.

Donnelley in Judy Garland movingly describes how the studio system exploited Judy Garland's talents more exhaustingly than any other star of the period.

Entertainment / Music / Reference

Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits, 4th Edition by Fred Bronson (Billboard Books)

Back in a fully revised and updated fourth edition with eighty extra all-new pages, Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits is a reliable source of information on the most popular songs of our times.

Separate chapters are devoted to artists, songwriters, producers, labels, years, and subjects. Within each chapter, readers will find lists in 300 categories, including The Top 100 Love Songs, The Top 50 Songs Written by Carole King, The Top 100 Songs on Atlantic, The Top 100 Songs of 1999, and more. There is also a revised and updated list of The Top 5,000 Songs of the Rock Era, plus a chart and text section devoted to American Idol finalists.

The Fourth Edition of Fred Bronson's Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits brings back these features of the first three editions:

  • Top hits for artists, writers, producers, and labels.
  • The top songs about places, animals, the body, food and drink, and days of the week.
  • The top one-hit-wonder songs; rock-era, pre-rock era, Motown, and Beatles remakes; songs from motion pictures and the musical theater; male and female solo hits; songs by girl groups; hits from six countries; and instrumentals.
  • Top 100 charts from 1955 to today, featuring countdowns of the greatest hits year-by-­year.
  • The top 5,000 songs from 1955 to today ranked in order and cross referenced with an index listing every song on the top 5,000 by song title.

Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits also has these new or enhanced features:

  • A greatly expanded Artists section – now showcasing 130 musicians, including icons from the early years of rock, such as James Brown, Chubby Checker, and Jackie Wilson, and artists whose stars were still on the rise when the last edition was published, such as Beyonce, LL Cool J, and Ludacris.
  • New charts for the greatest hits on Def Jam and J and expanded charts for Island and Virgin.
  • The Top 100 Digital Downloads from Billboard's Hot Digital Songs, a chart that was first compiled in 2005.
  • The Top 30 Songs by American Idols, featuring the greatest hits by contestants from the No. 1 series on television – including Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, Ruben Studdard, Diana DeGarmo, Kimberley Locke, Fantasia, Taylor Hicks, Bo Bice, Elliott Yamin, Katharine McPhee, and Josh Gracin.

Much more than a collection of charts, Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits is a perennial bestseller and a great read. Filled with fascinating facts and figures, it is an insider's gift to music fans. Entertaining and informative, it is the ultimate music trivia book.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling / Neuroscience

The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness by Jeff Warren (Random House)
A world at once familiar and unimaginably strange exists all around us – and within us. It is the world of consciousness, a protean mental landscape that each of us knows in bits and pieces yet understands in its totality scarcely at all. Tied to the body and the brain, consciousness is beyond our ability to measure or quantify. Despite the attempts of scientists and mystics, poets and dreamers, crackpots and geniuses, to map its contours and explain its secret workings, the mind remains mysterious. And the more we learn about it, the more mysterious it becomes.
But that is not to say that we know nothing about consciousness. In fact, as gonzo science journalist Jeff Warren demonstrates in The Head Trip’s synthesis of cutting-edge research and personal experience, just how much we do know is astonishing.
Warren, science journalist and freelance producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, begins with the insight that consciousness is not a simple on-off proposition, with rigid demarcations separating waking awareness from the murky depths of sleep, but a round-the-clock continuum regulated by natural biorhythms. He then sets out to explore, and to experience for himself, the seemingly miraculous, all-but-untapped potential of the human mind.
From the full-immersion virtual realities of lucid dreaming to the esoteric disciplines of Eastern meditative practices that have reached outposts of consciousness far beyond the grasp of Western science, from techniques of hypnosis and neurofeedback to such exotic states of awareness as the Watch and the Pure Conscious Event, The Head Trip takes readers on a journey through their own heads. Beginning with the mild hallucinogenic state that comes just before true sleep, Warren tries to hone his skills at lucid dreaming, subjects himself to hypnosis and joins a Buddhist meditation retreat, among other adventures. Along the way, he begins to realize that dreaming and waking are equivalent states, and that we can learn how to induce the subtle gradations of consciousness within ourselves.

Warren, a Canadian science journalist, combines the rigorous self-experimentation of Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open with the wacky self-experimentation of A.J. Jacobs's The Know-It-All in this entertaining field guide to the varying levels of mental awareness. … This could come off as New Age psychobabble, but Warren is well versed in the scientific literature, and he provides detailed accounts of his own research.… His self-mocking attitude toward his inability to achieve instant nirvana, along with a steady stream of cartoon illustrations, ensures that his ideas remain accessible. More important than the theories, though, may be the basic tools – and the visionary spirit – that Warren hands off to those interested in hacking their own minds. – Publishers Weekly

An audacious, enchanting, and often hilarious journey into the slippery nature of human consciousness, from deep slumber to lofty states of enlightenment. This book will blow your mind. – Sandra Blakeslee, co-author of The Body Has a Mind of Its Own

An amazing book. Jeff Warren manages to be funny while packing in tons of fascinating science. Rather than staying within conventional boundaries, Warren follows his own formidable curiosity, producing a book that is quirky, refreshing, and nothing short of groundbreaking. – Tom Stafford, co-author of Mind Hacks

Writing about any aspect of consciousness is treacherously difficult, but Jeff Warren's take on the subject is clear, original, and – amazingly – funny! – Rita Carter, author of Mapping the Mind

As readable and fun as a novel, yet accurate and up-to-date, this book is about your most precious possession – your consciousness – and the fascinating states it goes through. – Charles T. Tart, author of Altered States of Consciousness

This provocative, often hilarious, and fascinating book describes a journey conducted with the adventurous spirit and intellectual curiosity of a Darwin coupled with the sensibility of a stand-up comedian. When Warren fits the pieces together, the implications of that knowledge are … mind-blowing. Part user’s manual and part travel guide, The Head Trip will be an instant classic, a brilliant summation of consciousness studies that is also a practical guide to enhancing creativity, mental health, and the experience of what it means to be human. Many books claim that they will change their readers. This one gives readers the tools to change themselves.
History / Germany / Social Sciences / Religion & Spirituality

The Politics of Sociability: Freemasonry and German Civil Society, 1840-1918 by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, translated by Tom Lampert (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany Series: The University of Michigan Press)

An ambitious, original work, The Politics of Sociability is Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann's exploration of the social and political significance of Freemasonry in German history. Using a wealth of archival sources previously unavailable, Hoffmann, Assistant Pro­fessor of Modern History at Ruhr-University Bochum, shows how Freemasonry became a social refuge for elevated and liberal-minded bourgeois men who felt attracted to its secret rituals and moral teachings. German Freemasons sought to reform self and society but, Hoffmann argues, ultimately failed to balance modern politics with a cosmopolitan ethos.

The practice of Masonic sociability reflected an enlightened belief in the political significance of moral virtue for civil society, for humanity. Freemasons' self-image as civi­lizing agents, acting in good faith and with the unimpeachable idea of universal brotherhood, was contradicted not only by their heightened sense of exclusivity; Freemasons unintention­ally exacerbated nineteenth-century political conflicts – for example, between liberals and Catholics, or Germans and French – by employing a universalist language. Ironically, the more the liberal bourgeoisie in the lodges turned to nationalism and even excluded Jewish members to reshape its elitist claims, the more Freemasons became scapegoats for nationalists and anti-Semites.

More than any other form of sociability in the eighteenth century, Masonic lodges recast enlightened ideas as rituals and social practices that aimed at ‘civilizing’ lodge broth­ers. In this figurative sense, Freemasons were ‘living the Enlightenment;’ the lodges were ‘civil and hence polit­ical’ in the sense that they served as microcosms of emerging civil soci­ety. Even if it is mistaken to regard Freemasons as the secret force behind the French Revolution's Reign of Terror (they were, in fact, among its first victims), the pre-political moral language and the social practices of the lodges did possess a political dimension. The Politics of Sociability is divided into three parts, each of which employs a different but complementary approach to the history of Masonic lodges. While a concise history of German Freemasonry in the nineteenth century would be a worthwhile undertaking, in this work, the example of the lodges is used to engage in a critical examination of the questions and premises outlined previously. The first part of the book traces the changing significance of Masonic lodges within two local communities throughout the course of the long nineteenth cen­tury. The second part investigates language and social practices within the lodges more closely, both of which were supposed to foster ‘improvement of the self’ and thus lead to civic virtue. The third part of the book exam­ines lodge speeches, analyzing the transformation of a moral language into a political, patriotic language in particular during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the subsequent rapprochements between French and German Freemasons prior to 1914. The book concludes with a brief review of the tumultuous history of Freemasonry during the ‘new Thirty Years War’ beginning in 1914.

The first part of The Politics of Sociability investigates the changing significance of the lodges for civil society in Germany between the Vormarz period and the First World War. It also examines their significance in regard to the state, the monarchy, and the church. In order to investigate both the constancy and change in Masonic sociability, this study focuses primarily on the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. German Freemasons are compared with their French and American brethren in the nineteenth century. French Freemasons are considered political pioneers and social pillars of the Third Republic, while American lodges are generally regarded as the paragon for the numerous associa­tions and secret societies that formed the backbone of American democ­racy after the Civil War.

According to Hoffmann, it is also important to determine who had access to Masonic sociabil­ity in a particular city and who was excluded, as well as to examine the dif­ferent criteria – class, gender, religion, and race – used to determine this inclusion or exclusion. Hoffmann is interested in the boundaries lodges drew by means of their moral-political imperatives and in the lan­guage they employed to justify these boundaries. In terms of social history, he attempts to determine the social profile and the age groups, as well as the religious and political affiliations of lodge members.

Even more than the social and gender boundaries (the latter are considered in detail in part 2), religious boundaries blatantly contradicted the humanist language of Freemasonry. Following a recent trend among his­torians, this study investigates the fundamental significance of tensions between Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in nineteenth-century German civil society. The question of the inclusion or exclusion of Jews had, since the early 1840s, divided lodges into a liberal camp (e.g., in large trading cities such as Leipzig, Hamburg, or Frankfurt) and a conservative camp (in particular in Prussia, with Berlin and Breslau as its centers). In order to compare these two camps, The Politics of Sociability focuses on Masonic lodges in Leipzig and Breslau. It also provides comparative results on a regional level (Prussia and Saxony) and a national one (Germany, France, and the United States).

In the second part of The Politics of Sociability, the perspective shifts to the inner workings of lodge life. The focus here is on the language and social prac­tices within the lodges, both of which were supposed to help realize the idea of moral improvement. The lodges were supposed to be ‘educa­tional institutions for the humanity of men,’ schools of civic virtue. In the first chapter of this part, the example of Masonry is used to illuminate the nineteenth-century belief in the connection between civic virtue and sociability. The next chapter investigates in depth the compli­cated rules and rituals of the lodges, which were quite literally supposed to maintain the brotherhood of men. The rituals enabled Masonic ideas about moral and political order to be expe­rienced on a physical level. The rituals were supposed to ‘civilize’ mem­bers until virtue became ‘a constitution gov­erning from within.’

The cult of fraternity was a singularly masculine cult. The second chapter of part 2 also examines the extent to which this idea of civilizing the self, of civilizing society, and ultimately of civilizing humanity was con­structed in gendered terms. The following chapter addresses a related issue: Does the idea of civic virtue include a specific form of religiosity, a civil religion that is distinguished from the alleged ‘feminization of religion’ in the nineteenth century? Why did the elevated Burgertum assembled in Masonic lodges perceive the crisis of modern society prior to 1914 as a moral crisis?

The third part of The Politics of Sociability investigates the moral-political language of Freemasonry, focusing especially on speeches by Freemasons within the lodges. In the first chapter of part 3, the example of Masonic lodges is used to outline the semantic connection between the various levels – the concern with improvements of the self is closely tied to vague expectations about society, the nation, humanity. The following chapter investigates in greater detail the political consequences of the lodges' humanist and cosmopolitan self-understanding during the era of nation-states and wars. The central focus here is the tension between German and French Freemasons during the era between the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War. The mixing of nationalist and universalist rhetoric in lodge speeches suggests an ambiguity similar to the one outlined previously in regard to civic virtue and civil society. The persecution of Masonic lodges in Nazi Germany and in the nations occupied by the Germans and their allies had the paradoxical result that an almost complete collection of Masonic documents in Germany survived the Second World War. The history of this collection of documents is itself part of the history of Masonic lodges in Germany. Between 1933 and 1935, the Nazis confiscated all materials held in local lodge archives. The extensive files that every lodge had kept since its founding, extending in some cases back into the early eighteenth century, were transferred to the central Gestapo archive in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. During the bombing of Berlin, these files were moved to two castles in Silesia, where the Red Army subse­quently assumed control of them. The pamphlets and journals remained in the library of the University of Poznan, while the lodge files were transferred to Moscow. They have only recently become available to scholars.

The Politics of Sociability is based primarily on three different groups of documents. The first of these are the government files concerning the surveillance of Masonic lodges, in particular by the Prussian and Saxon Departments of the Interior. These files demonstrate how tense relations were between the state, the monarchy, and the church, on the one hand, and the lodges, on the other.

The lodge files constitute the second and largest group of documents. The present study was able to evaluate systematically only the documents of the Leipzig and Breslau lodges and, in part, those of the Berlin and Dresden grand lodges. These files encompass statutes and laws, minutes of lodge meetings, unpublished speeches, and correspondence. Lists of lodge members and extensive biographical material were also examined: per­sonal files, applications for admission, questionnaires, resumes, vouchers, and brief addresses.

The third group of documents is the extensive collection of Masonic pamphlets and journals. The present study provides the first analysis of all significant German lodge journals between 1840 and 1918. The numerous lodge speeches are particularly important in tracing a conceptual history of terms and ideas. In contrast, for example, to lodges in English-speaking countries, speeches in German lodges constituted an established part of lodge meetings and were recorded by hand in the minutes or largely ver­batim in Masonic journals.

The approach adopted in The Politics of Sociability can be summarized in the form of a question: Which social and dis­cursive practices have transformed ideas about the social and the moral, the national and the universal, the public and the private into objects of politics? The political utopia of the lodges sought to transcend bound­aries and to construct a social space in which ‘the parity of the purely human’ would establish an enlightened universalism. However, the desire to transcend these boundaries, to create ‘a brotherhood of men’ produces its opposite as well: the effort to set oneself apart, the desire for social and moral exclusivity, and the authority to determine who is a man and a citizen and who is not. Those who would like to revive political ideas of the ‘long nineteenth century’, its typical preoccupation with the self, civil society, and humanity – cannot avoid the political apo­rias inherent in those ideas simply by rejecting the notion of the nation-­state. A historical study that investigates ambivalent identities – as a cultural history of the political just as much as a political history of culture – must, therefore, dis­pense with the false alternatives of universalism and particularism and explore the territory in between.

.... in many ways this is the best combination of painstaking social history and well-argued Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history)... One of great virtues of this book is that Hoffmann does not shy away from the contradictions in the Freemasons' rhetoric and actions. Such contradictions, in fact, are key to the Mason's importance, because they force us to rethink some of our assumptions about Imperial Germany.... This is an important book that encourages us to rethink many of our characterizations of the German Kaiserreich and our assumptions about civil society. – Central European History

Based on a rich variety of sources.... Hoffmann explores the evolving relationship between Freemasonry and the monarchy, state, and church, and he also scrutinizes the internal practices and discourse of these notoriously secretive and cosmopolitan societies. . . Hoffmann engages fruitfully with a wide historiography covering themes such as masculinity and racism; he dissects the complex attitude of Freemasonry to Jews and Catholics; and he scrutinizes the attacks of its conservative, clerical, and anti-Semitic critics. – Journal of Modern History

This is an excellent and original work. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann has engaged in the broad discussion on middle-class society in nineteenth-century Germany with a new set of questions and a revised set of answers. He effectively works the ground between culture and politics, investigating how cultural practices were invested with political mean­ings and how politics was grounded on a shared associational culture. This work should have a wide audience. – Jennifer Jenkins, Canada Research Chair in Modern German History, Department of History, University of Toronto

An imaginative, well-written book that shows how a utopian desire to establish the ‘brotherhood of men’ led to its opposite. The author uses wonderfully rich sources to explore the language and inner work­ings of local Masonic lodges, while placing these in a national and international framework. The Politics of Sociability combines cultural, intellectual, social and political history. It is an important contribution to debates about German civil society and the making of the modern self. – David Blackbourn, Coolidge Professor of History, Harvard University

Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the fate of Enlightenment ideals in the nineteenth century. Hoffmann's book is a deeply serious, compelling, and historically textured meditation on fundamental philosophical and political puzzles – including the ten­sions between universalism and exclusivity, the relationship between political maturity and practices of sociability, and changing notions of the self. – Dagmar Herzog, Graduate Center, City University of New York

In The Politics of Sociability, Hoffmann illuminates a capacious history of the political effects of Enlightenment concepts and prac­tices in a century marked by nationalism, social discord, and religious conflict. This concise, comprehensive, well-written and original study, based on rich variety of sources, shows how the devotion to the ideal of brotherhood led to its opposite. Translated from the German by Tom Lampert, the book was the winner in 2002 of the Hedwig Hintze Prize for Best First Book from The Association of German Historians.

History / Middle East / Social Sciences

Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East by Jared Cohen (Gotham Books)

As an American Jew traveling in the Middle East during this age of terror, I should have been unwelcome, I should have felt unsafe, and it should have been impossible for me to engage on any level with people who I'd been told hated my country and my religion. But I found that the easy, monolithic characterization of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ fails to take into account the humanity and the individuality of all of the people who make up ‘us’ and ‘them.’ And the ‘them’ I met – the young men and women of the Middle East should make all of us very hopeful for the future. – from the book

Classrooms were never sufficient for Jared Cohen; he wanted to learn about global affairs by witnessing them firsthand. During his undergraduate years Cohen traveled extensively to Africa – often to war-torn countries, putting himself at risk to see the world firsthand. While studying on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, he took a crash course in Arabic, read voraciously on the history and culture of the Middle East, and in 2004 embarked on the first of a series of incredible and dangerous solo journeys to the Middle East. On the ground in Iran, Cohen originally intended to interview top government officials, but a chance meeting propelled him in a different direction.

In an effort to try to understand the spread of radical Islamist violence, he focused his research on Muslim youth. The result is Children of Jihad, a portrait of paradox that probes much deeper than any journalist or pundit ever could.

Children of Jihad is a firsthand account of the changing face of the Middle East's top demographic: Muslim youths. Through risky, on-the-scene investigations, Cohen discovers a thriving, forward-thinking youth culture. Not so different from their Western counterparts, the majority of Middle Eastern youth eschew their anti-American governments in favor of opportunity through education and technology.

Cohen gives a loose overview of the history of each region and then details his encounters with the young people he meets. The trip begins in Iran with Cohen clutching a piece of paper listing all the important political figures he wants to interview. Then he happens to meet two sisters at the University of Tehran, and an introduction to the city’s nightlife propels him away from his goals toward a documentation of youth culture. Once he hits his stride, the highlights come thick and fast, with tales of illegal alcohol consumption in Iran, encounters with Hezbollah members in fast-food restaurants, a pulse-racing scenario in a Palestinian refugee camp and a daring entrance, and terrifying exit, from Iraq. But the real revelations come from the author’s conversations with the people he meets along the way. Many express pro-American sentiment, and despite some healthy debate, particularly in Cohen’s meetings with university students in Iran and Iraq, he is never subjected to overt hostility.

In Iran, he defies government threats and sneaks into underground parties, where bootleg liquor, Western music, and the Internet are all easy to access. His risky itinerary takes him to borderlands in Syria, the insurgency hotbed of Mosul, and other frontline locales. Children of Jihad details Cohen's remarkable experiences, from illegal underground parties in Lebanon attended by Christians, Shi’a, and Sunni alike, to pulse-racing interviews inside a notorious Palestinian refugee camp. At one point, Cohen wakes up alone in the back of a car in war-torn Mosul, Iraq; at another, he finds himself telling young members of Hezbollah about his Jewish heritage.

At each turn, he observes a culture at an uncanny crossroads: Bedouin shepherds with satellite dishes to provide Western TV shows, young women wearing garish makeup despite religious mandates, teenagers sending secret text messages and arranging illicit trysts. He also makes some telling observations on how the Internet and cable television have provided a vital, and heretofore unthinkable, link between the Middle East and the rest of the world.

After completing Children of Jihad, Jared Cohen joined the U.S. Department of State in September 2006 as a member of the Secretary of State’s policy planning staff.

... riveting from start to finish. – Kirkus (starred review)

In this remarkable book Cohen provides a fresh perspective on the Middle East. Seen through the eyes of the youth, and poignantly describing their hopes and despairs, Cohen provides a timely commentary on the troubled relations between America and the Middle East. Looking at the habits and passions that binds the youth across the cultural divide as well as the politics which divides them, this book provides much food for thought for Americans and Middle Easterners alike. – Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future
This young gutsy writer knows that the East-West struggle is being fought over the cafe tables of the Near and Middle East. Do the youth of the Islamic world dream of an engineering degree from Michigan State or a martyr’s death? This young American has had the moxie to sit and listen for hours at those tables. In the words of the poet, Jared Cohen has taken the road "less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” – Chris Matthews, Host of MSNBC's Hardball and NBC's The Chris Matthews Show
An enlightening and entertaining story that is part travelogue and part cultural analysis. Gaining insights through simple conversation, Cohen paints a compelling picture of the politically awakened youth of the Middle East. – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Former National Security Advisor
Jared Cohen has written a unique book. … There are breathtaking descriptions of flirting with danger and fascinating dialogues that provide deep insights into the politics and sociology of four key countries in the Middle East. – Frank Carlucci, former secretary of defense

Riveting and daring, Children of Jihad reveals the new face of the Middle East and its best hope for future peace and conflict resolution. Cohen artfully combines his natural confidence and flare as a writer to produce a revealing look at the youth of Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Iraq. The book is compelling reading, showing readers the future through the eyes of those who are shaping it. To his credit, Cohen rarely hides the fact that he is Jewish and American, and his openness appears to have been highly respected among the people he encountered – it is also one of the primary reasons why Children of Jihad makes for such compelling reading.
History / Philosophy / Asia / China / Religion & Spirituality / Taoism

The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery, and Invention by Robert Temple, with a foreword by Joseph Needham (Inner Traditions)

Undisputed masters of invention and discovery for 3,000 years, the ancient Chinese were the first to discover the solar wind and the circulation of the blood and even to isolate sex hormones. Many of the world’s greatest inventions have their foundation in ancient China. From the suspension bridge and the seismograph to deep drilling for natural gas, the iron plough, and the parachute, ancient China’s contributions in the fields of engineering, medicine, technology, mathematics, science, transportation, warfare, and music helped inspire the European agricultural and industrial revolutions.

The Genius of China is a revised, full-color, illustrated edition of the multi-award-winning, international bestseller charting the unparalleled and astounding achievement of ancient China. It brings to life one hundred Chinese ‘firsts’ in the fields of agriculture, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, music, technology, and warfare. Among other things, The Genius of China shows the true origins of: the decimal system, printing, paper money, the compass, the wheelbarrow, the crossbow, the science of immunology, porcelain, matches, the rudder, the game of chess, the umbrella, brandy and whiskey, the mechanical clock, and playing cards.

Author Robert Temple is visiting professor of the history and philosophy of science at Tsinghua University in Beijing; fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society; and member of the Egypt Exploration Society, Royal Historical Society, Institute of Classical Studies, and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.

Based on the definitive work of the world’s most famous sinologist, Joseph Needham (1900-1995), author of Science and Civilisation in China, The Genius of China is organized by field, invention, and discovery for ease of reference. Since its original publication in Chinese, the book has won five literary awards in America and been translated into 43 languages. Its Chinese edition, The Spirit of Chinese Invention, was approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education for use in connection with the national secondary curriculum in China. Based on the immense, authoritative scholarship of Needham