April 2008, Issue #108

Creating Medieval Cairo: Empire, Religion, and Architectural Preservation in Nineteenth-Century Egypt by Paula Sanders (The American University in Cairo Press)

Creating Medieval Cairo argues that the historic city we know as Medieval Cairo was created in the nineteenth century by both Egyptians and Europeans against a background of four overlapping political and cultural contexts: namely, the local Egyptian, Anglo-Egyptian, Anglo-Indian, and Ottoman imperial milieu. Addressing the interrelated topics of empire, local history, religion, and transnational heritage, historian Paula Sanders shows how Cairo’s architectural heritage became canonized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Sanders, dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies and associate professor of history at Rice University, also explains why and how the city assumed its characteristically Mamluk appearance and situates the activities of the European-dominated architectural preservation committee, known as the Comité, within the history of religious life in nineteenth-century Cairo. Sanders explores such varied topics as the British experience in India, the Egyptian debate over religious reform, and the influence of The Thousand and One Nights on European notions of the medieval Arab city.
The story of conservation in Cairo has been told in different ways. In the conventional version, conservation began in the middle of the nineteenth century, when European engineers, architects, and travelers began to clamor for the rescue of Egypt's dilapidated Arab architecture. The scholars who tell this story focus on the history of the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de 1’Art Arabe, the commission founded in 1881 by Khedive Tawfiq and charged with the task of preserving Islamic monuments in Egypt.

Creating Medieval Cairo tells a different story about conservation in Cairo. In Sanders’ story, what we call Medieval Cairo was created in the nineteenth century. Throughout the book, Sanders uses the term ‘Medieval Cairo’ to refer to this nineteenth-century construct and not to Cairo as it was in the Middle Ages. The first half of Creating Medieval Cairo tells the story of Medieval Cairo in two frames: empire and religion. Chapter 1, "Constructing Medieval Cairo in the Nineteenth Century," follows Donald M. Reid's attention to politics and culture, but adds two new elements to the story: the Anglo-Indian and Ottoman imperial contexts. While there is considerable discussion in the historical literature of the British quasi-colonial presence in Egypt, the Anglo-Indian context and its implications for the history of Egypt have received little or no attention. Egypt has been excluded from the writing of Ottoman history, just as the Ottoman period has often been neglected or minimized in accounts of Egyptian history.

Chapter 1 considers how all these elements interacted to shape the way the Comité, the British government in Cairo, European travelers, and Egyptians perceived Arab architecture in Cairo. Sanders explores how different pasts were configured in imperial and local settings, where they overlapped and diverged, and how architecture played a role in them. One goal of Chapter 1, then, is to account for the identification of the medieval in Cairo with the Mamluk period. To address this problem, Sanders discusses the long history of local conservation under the aegis of waqf (pious endowment), as well as Ottoman and Anglo-Indian architectural practice. The Comité's program to survey, record, and preserve old monuments, and the creation of usable historic pasts expressed through architecture, had preludes in both the Ottoman and British empires.

The discussion of these imperial contexts of conservation and their interaction with the history of local conservation in Creating Medieval Cairo shows that there is no single or simple cause for the Comité's blindness to Ottoman practices or its disdain for Ottoman architecture. Sanders finishes this chapter by arguing that British interest in preserving Arab art is best considered within the broader imperial context of British interests in India. The story of architectural preservation has also been isolated from the history of the city's religious life in the nineteenth century. Despite the predominance of religious buildings in the Comité's work, the historiography of preservation has asked few, if any, questions about the character of religious life in Cairo in the later nineteenth century, the role of old religious buildings in local religious life, or the role of architecture in debates and discussions about religion. Many Egyptian officials and dignitaries were silent on the issue of preservation. Others made policy decisions that frustrated the efforts of the Comité. How should we understand their actions? Sanders in Creating Medieval Cairo addresses these questions by discussing conservation within the framework of nineteenth-century religious practice.

Chapter 2, "Islam for the Modern World: Medieval Cairo between Egyptian Reformers and British Critics," discusses the ways in which different ideas about Islam and its characteristics as a religion influenced attitudes toward conservation in Cairo. In the late nineteenth century, many Azhar-educated Egyptians, particularly the followers of Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida, were attempting to create a modern Islam through a wide-ranging program of reform (islah). ‘Ali Mubarak's ideas about Islam as a living tradition made the trade-off between antique mosques and wide, modern streets a reasonable one because in his view nothing of importance in contemporary religious life was being sacrificed. While these Egyptians were articulating a vision of a modern Islam, the British – who viewed Islam as stagnant and incapable of reform – were pursuing an aggressive program to conserve Arab architecture that in visual terms represented Islam as medieval.

Chapters 1 and 2 show how reframing the story of conservation allows for a new understanding of Medieval Cairo as a creation of the nineteenth century. Chapters 3 and 4 lay out the questions that arise from this understanding of Medieval Cairo's historically contingent character. Sanders addresses the questions by showing how Medieval Cairo was constructed and maintained through a series of amalgamations that blurred the distinction between old and new. These amalgamations have sustained an unacknowledged colonial legacy that persists in contemporary World Heritage ideology and practice.

Chapter 3, "Cairo of the Arabian Nights," weaves together two stories that are ordinarily considered as separate, but which, when told together, highlight the historical contingency central to Sanders’ account. Looking at the Arabian Nights and Medieval Cairo in direct relation to one another sheds light on how they were produced and regarded by readers, viewers, and restorers. Creating Medieval Cairo argues that Medieval Cairo and the Arabian Nights are themselves amalgamations of old and new. Through a close reading of a number of texts and images, Sanders shows how these amalgamations were constructed and how they provided fertile interpretive terrain for nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and Egyptian audiences.

Chapter 4, "Keeping Cairo Medieval: World Heritage and the Debate over Fatimid Monuments," reveals the nineteenth century's continuing legacy by analyzing one of the most heated controversies over interventions in Medieval Cairo today, namely, the dispute over the Bohra restorations of monuments established in the Fatimid period (969-1171). The Bohras are Ismaili Shiites who trace their spiritual lineage to the Fatimids but whose communal roots lie in the Indian subcontinent. Their restorations of Fatimid monuments have been categorically condemned by the World Heritage preservation community, who charge the Bohras with violating international conservation standards. This is not merely a contemporary dispute between competing conservation philosophies and practices; it is also a debate over competing notions of historical and cultural authenticity. Sanders argues that these debates can only be understood in the context of the colonially produced relationship between Egypt and India in the nineteenth century. The competing positions that the Bohras and the World Heritage community espouse both belong to the legacy of British colonialism in the East, although they have ended up advocating remarkably different things.

In many areas it breaks new ground, asks new questions, and gives a far more sophisticated, nuanced presentation of preservation and conservation issues for Egypt than I have seen elsewhere . . .. [C]overs familiar territory in a totally new manner. – Jere Bacharach, University of Washington

Offering fresh perspectives and keen historical analysis, Creating Medieval Cairo examines the unacknowledged colonial legacy that continues to inform the practice of and debates over preservation in Cairo.

Business & Investing / Economics / Poverty

Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail by Paul Polak (BK Currents Series: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.)

For the past twenty-five years, two questions have kept my curiosity aroused: What makes poor people poor? And what can they do about their poverty? – Paul Polak, from the Preface

There are 800 million people in the world who live in rural areas in developing countries and make their living from small farms. The scattered quarter-acre plots where they scratch out a living usually have poor soil and no access to irrigation, and they usually can't produce enough to keep from going hungry. While the typical response to these farmers' plight has been to try to donate them out of poverty, massive global aid initiatives have produced little, if any, results. In fact, in some areas where this approach has been tried, such as sub-Saharan Africa, poverty rates have actually gone up.

Why are so many millions of people around the world still mired in poverty, despite decades of relief efforts? International Development Enterprises (IDE, an organization that has helped lift 17 million people out of poverty) founder Paul Polak explains that it is because most poverty eradication programs are fatally flawed.

In Out of Poverty, designer, entrepreneur and self-described ‘troublemaker’ Polak exposes what he calls the ‘Three Great Poverty Eradication Myths’: donations alone will end poverty, national economic growth will end poverty, and Big Business, operating as it does now, will end poverty. Instead of relying on the resources of governments, relief agencies, corporations, and private citizens, Polak points a way forward to a more promising, proven alternative that actually draws on the entrepreneurial spirit of the poor themselves.

Throughout the course of the book, Polak tells success stories about the people he and the IDE have helped. Out of Poverty tells the story of Krishna Bahadur Thapa and his family, and of how they moved from barely surviving on less than a dollar a day to earning forty-eight hundred dollars a year from their two-acre farm in the hills of Nepal. The book tells many stories like Bahadur's, and each of them satisfies another bit of readers’ curiosity about how people who are extremely poor live their lives and dream their dreams. Polak says that what he learned from these people has been put to work in straightforward strategies that millions of other poor people have used to end their poverty.

Each of the practical solutions to poverty described in Out of Poverty is obvious and direct. If it is true that common sense is not really common, and that seeing and doing the obvious are even less so, then some of the conclusions he draws from his conversations with poor people will surprise readers: they certainly fly in the face of conventional theory and practice in the development field. The IDE model is simple: identify market opportunities in high-value, labor-intensive cash crops for the world's poorest rural farmers and provide them access to affordable agricultural tools tailored specifically to their needs. To accomplish this, poor farmers need access to affordable irrigation, a new generation of farming methods and inputs customized to fit tiny farms, the creation of new markets that bring them the seeds and fertilizers they need, and open access to markets where small-acreage farmers can sell their products at a profit. This range of new products and services for poor customers can only be created by a revolution in current design practice, based on the ruthless pursuit of affordability.

The first section of Out of Poverty explains how Polak became curious about poverty, describes the process he learned for finding creative solutions to major social problems, and challenges the poverty eradication myths that have inhibited doing the obvious to end poverty.

The next section, Chapters 3 to 8, describes what many small-acreage farmers have taught Polak, a practical approach capable of ending the poverty of millions of the world's dollar-a-day people. For poor people themselves, there is little doubt that the single most important step they can take to move out of poverty is to learn how to make more money. The way to do it is through grassroots enterprises – just about all of the poor are already tough, stubborn, survival entrepreneurs. Chapter 9 describes how the principles discussed in the earlier chapters can be applied to helping poor people living in urban slums and on the sidewalks of cities in developing countries.

In the wrap-up section, Chapter 10 describes the central role poverty plays in most of the problems facing planet Earth; Chapter 11 describes what donors, governments, universities, research institutions, and readers can do to end poverty; and Chapter 12 tells how Bahadur and his family finally moved out of poverty.

Out of Poverty teaches us to think simple. Paul Polak brings forward ideas and solutions that bypass government agencies and other leaden institutions. Ideas that work! – Paul Newman

Paul Polak offers a personal, radical, and profoundly sensible prescription for alleviating global poverty. His engaging style of storytelling is not only persuasive, but entertaining. Read Out of Poverty – it will change the way you look at the world. – Sandra Postel, Director of the Global Water Policy Project and author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last?

Out of Poverty is very exciting. It matches a lot of my own thoughts about solving things. When you alleviate something but don't fix the cause, it comes back. Paul Polak's approach confronts the root causes. – Steve Wozniak, Inventor of the Apple computer and Cofounder of Apple Computers

Paul Polak listens to people few of us ever hear from – the world's poor ‘one-acre farmers’ – and comes up with simple, practical solutions for helping them better their lives. His work is profoundly inspiring. Even if you don't normally read books about development and poverty, read this one! – Lori Pottinger, Director of Africa Programs, International Rivers

Viewing the poor as passive recipients of assistance has wasted billions of dollars. Top-down, bailout subsidy programs don't work. As Paul explains, we need to partner with the developing world and provide tools and technologies to give them an opportunity to help themselves. – Shrikrishna Upadhyay, Founder, SAPPROS, Nepal

Paul Polak delivers a refreshing dose of common sense to the question of how best to help the world's poorest citizens, the common sense borne of a lifetime of hands-on experience. It serves as a how-to manual for Stanford's course on Design for Extreme Affordability. – James M. Patell, Herbert Hoover Professor of Public and Private Management. Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

Paul Polak's method works because it harnesses the power of design thinking, low cost technology and human enterprise to create sustainable communities of trade. Paul's remarkable work has eliminated poverty and restored dignity to millions of families. – Ann Willoughby, President and Creative Director, Willoughby Design

Throughout the course of this impassioned book, Polak tells fascinating and moving success stories about the people he and the IDE have helped. Bold, spirited, and, at times, even humorous, Out of Poverty is a call for a revolution in the way we view the poor. As a result, it will be received as one of the most important contributions on the subject in recent times. Many readers will come away from reading Out of Poverty energized and inspired to do the work that needs to be done.

Business & Investing / Economics / Social Sciences / Gerontology / Public Policy

Ageing Labour Forces edited by Philip Taylor (Edward Elgar Publishing)

Ageing Labour Forces considers the changing status of older workers, the evolution of public policy on age and work, and the behavior of employers. It attempts to answer the critical question: in an ageing society, can older workers look forward to the prospect of longer working lives with choice and security and make successful transitions to retirement?

Ageing Labour Forces challenges the current stance of many governments and observers concerning policies to extend working lives. It utilizes perspectives and case studies from public policy, employment policy and the attitudes and behavior of older people. Editor Philip Taylor, Faculty of Business and Enterprise at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, together with contributions from leading researchers in a number of countries, argues that older workers have been at the forefront of industrialized society's efforts to respond to the crisis facing social welfare systems and the economic threats associated with population ageing. Their involvement has forced the restructuring of economies, adjustments to social welfare systems as well as redefinitions to the actual concept of old age.

Listening to policy makers and some commentators might make one optimistic that older workers are on the threshold of a new era of opportunity, a ‘golden age’ of job openings and flexible retirement. This volume tests the validity of this claim, focusing on developments in a small number of industrialized nations: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the U.S. Nowadays, the necessity for economies, and the value for both industry and older people of extending working lives seems to be taken for granted and dissenting voices are seldom heard. This volume takes a close look at the relatively recent shift away from rhetoric and action of early retirement towards that of ‘active ageing’, seeking to understand the motives and behavior of key actors, examining recent trends in older workers' labour force participation and offering an assessment of their likely position into the future.

Beginning with an introduction by editor Taylor, Ageing Labour Forces contains an overview of the recent history of older workers before moving on to discuss the changing policy landscape. According to Taylor, the final quarter of the twentieth century saw the growth of early retirement as a phenomenon. Most industrialized nations, and some European ones in particular, have seen a decline, sometimes marked, in labour force participation rates among older workers. This downward trend continued until recently, but noticeable is a recent slowing and in some countries, a modest reversal.

The result has been the breakdown of the three phase model of the life course: education, work and rest. ‘Socially assigned’ economic inactivity has, for some, made the last stage ‘unforeseeable and uncertain’. While early retirement has often been portrayed as an opportunity to enter a life of leisure, free from the stresses of working life and while in good health, in fact, the reality, as some older people have found out too late, is often very different. Research studies have shown that while, for some, it is welcomed and can come as a relief, many others would have preferred to stay on or at least have chosen their time of retirement. Most thought they might easily move into new, often part-time, jobs but the reality is that a lifetime's experience has often counted for little. What should be a period of winding down and relaxation can turn into an anxious wait and an inevitable scaling back of ambitions.

Taylor in Ageing Labour Forces asks, What accounts for the problems faced by many older workers? First is society's preference for youth. Second, and importantly, until recently, many European governments gave tacit, and some overt support to employers wishing to dispense with older labour. Third, evidence shows that older workers sometimes help perpetuate ageist myths.

In the drive for competitiveness and greater efficiency businesses have often being unwittingly drained of vast reservoirs of skills and experience which are then lost forever, but recently, a few employers have begun to recognize that older workers have things to offer and that a blend of youth and experience has business benefits. Against the background of a scarcity of labour and relatively buoyant economies, it is hardly a surprise that some organizations have demonstrated an interest in older workers. What is not generally acknowledged is the continuing pressure that older workers are under as they confront the ‘specter of uselessness’ as the forces of globalization undermine their position in labour markets, with jobs they could do moving elsewhere and employers being unwilling to invest in the level of skills training that might give them a solid foothold in the labour market.

A cautious approach underpins the construction of Ageing Labour Forces. Although proponents of active ageing seem to have a strong case, this needs to be tested. While early retirement now has few defenders, it may still have an important role to play in protecting older workers from the vagaries of labour markets. Chapters are provided by leading experts in the field of age and work in Europe, North America, Japan and Australia. These consist of country reviews where the authors seek to compare the promise of active ageing with the reality of older workers' experiences in the labour market. They examine the ageing of workforces and the changing status of older workers, consider the reform of retirement income systems, the emergence of active labour market policies and the rationale for current actions. They ask whether real progress is being made towards active ageing and set out the critical barriers to extending working lives.

It is clear that, so far, ‘age free’ employment is more aspiration than reality. Indeed, as noted by Guillemard and Jolivet in Ageing Labour Forces, trends such as towards greater work intensification potentially undermine older workers' prospects. While some observers point to a coming era of age-free employment, what might emerge instead is even greater age segmentation of labour markets as global industry demands a highly flexible, mobile and skilled workforce. While industrialized nations are ageing and some commentators draw an obvious link with ageing workforces, new labour reserves are increasingly being mined elsewhere. It cannot, therefore, yet be said with any certainty that a new era of employment opportunity is unfolding for older people. A plausible scenario is one of increasing labour market insecurity and personal hardship as workers can no longer fall back on early retirement when they begin to lose the struggle to maintain labour market competitiveness.

Public policymakers must, then, be wary of pushing older people into labour markets where their abilities are not valued. Based on this review, it might even be concluded that in some countries there is a ‘lost generation’ for whom the notion of working later has come too late. This assessment might be criticized by advocacy groups as being defeatist, but appears to have been recognized by some public policy makers, tacitly at least, in the form of relatively weak activation measures. Initiatives so positioned to assist workers at critical points in their careers so they do not reach their 50s having accumulated a range of characteristics that put them at a disadvantage are likely to be more effective than remedial actions, though of course, this would require a significant ramping up of resources.

It is also Taylor’s contention that targeted exit pathways will continue to play a crucial role in the volatile globalizing labour market of the early twenty-first century. Much of industry may simply feel unable to countenance ageing workforces, with the consequence that those who might hitherto have left the labour market for retirement would instead now be forced to remain economically active, but jobless or underemployed. The likelihood of significant social and individual costs resulting from ‘activation’ has been pointed to in Ageing Labour Forces. As a singular focus on early exit benefited some, but had unintended negative consequences, ‘activation’ has its own pros and cons. Rather than abandoning early exit entirely, new forms of social protection for older workers may be required, probably not on the same mass scale as the past, and not simply misusing other instruments such as disability benefits.

Finally, there is a need to act at a basic level to change the way age and ageing is viewed. In the meantime, according to Taylor, policy makers and commentators need to be brave enough to accept the current limits of active ageing and devise policy responses accordingly. A pragmatic balance is required between, on the one hand, maximizing job chances, and on the other, an escape from diminishing prospects.

Ageing Labour Forces is a provocative work, which will appeal to academics and researchers interested in work, ageing and public policy, as well as labour economics.

Business & Investing / Economics / Social Sciences / Research

The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives by Steven T. Ziliak & Deirdre N, McCloskey (Economics, Cognition, and Society Series: The University of Michigan Press)

Can so many scientists have been wrong over the eighty years since 1925? Unhappily, yes. – from the book

The Cult of Statistical Significance shows, field by field, how ‘statistical significance,’ a technique that dominates many sciences, has been a mistake. The authors, Stephen T. Ziliak, Professor of Economics at Roosevelt University and Deirdre N. McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, find that researchers in a broad spectrum of fields, from agronomy to zoology, employ ‘testing’ that doesn’t test and ‘estimating’ that doesn’t estimate. The facts will startle outside readers: how could a group of brilliant scientists wander so far from scientific magnitudes?

‘Statistical significance,’ a technique that dominates medicine, economics, psychology, and many other scientific fields, has, according to Ziliak and McCloskey, been a huge mistake. The outcome is a case study in bad science – how it originates and how it grows. ‘Null hypothesis significance testing’ is a scientific train-wreck, about which a small group of statisticians have been warning for a century. Ziliak and McCloskey measure the disaster in their home field of economics, and in psychology, epidemiology, and medical science. They also touch on law, biology, psychiatry, pharmacology, sociology, political science, education, forensics, and other fields in the grip of ‘significance.’ Ziliak and McCloskey show field by field how the wreck happened, report on the fatalities, and offer a quantitative way forward. The facts will inspirit the scientists who seek conscious interpretations of ‘oomph’ rather than arbitrary columns of t-tests: how can the statistical sciences get back on track, and fulfill their quantitative promise?

Implied readers of The Cult of Statistical Significance are significance testers, the keepers of numerical things. The authors want to persuade readers of one claim: that William Sealy Gosset (1876-1937) – aka ‘Student’ of Student's t-test – was right and that his difficult friend, Ronald A. Fisher, though a genius, was wrong. No working scientist today knows much about Gosset, a brewer of Guinness stout and the inventor of a good deal of modern statistics. He took an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty. For over two decades he quietly tried to educate Fisher. But Fisher, our flawed villain, erased from Gosset's inventions the consciously economic element.

Ziliak and McCloskey lament what could have been in the statistical sciences if only Fisher had cared to understand the full import of Gosset's insights. They say that only slowly did they realize how widespread the standard error had become in sciences other than their home field of economics. Some time passed before they systematically looked into them. Finally they undertook the broader intervention in The Cult of Statistical Significance. They say they couldn't examine every science or subfield. And additional work remains of course to be done, on significance and other problems of testing and estimation. But they think the methodological overlaps in education and psychology, economics and sociology, agriculture and biology, pharmacology and epidemiology are sufficiently large, and the inheritance in them of Fisherian methods sufficiently deep, that The Cult of Statistical Significance can shed some light on all the t-testing sciences. They were dismayed to discover, for example, that supreme courts in the United States, state and federal, have begun to decide cases on the basis of Fisher's arbitrary test. The law itself is distorted by Fisher.

In the book they invite general and non-technical readers to the discussion, too. If they start at the beginning and read through chapter 3 they will get the main point – that oomph, the difference a treatment makes, dominates precision. The extended but simple ‘diet pill example’ in chapter 3 will equip them with the essential logic and with the replies they will need to stay in the conversation. Chapter 17 through to the end of the book provides a brief history of the problem and a sketch of a solution.

Readers may find it strange that two historical economists have intruded on the theory, history, philosophy, sociology, and practice of hypothesis testing in the sciences. Ziliak and McCloskey are not professional statisticians and are only amateur historians and philosophers of science. Yet economically concerned people have played a role in the logic, philosophy, and dissemination of testing, estimation, and error analysis in all of the sciences. Gosset himself, they note, was a businessman and the inventor of an economic approach to uncertainty. Keynes wrote A Treatise on Probability (1921), an important if somewhat neglected book on the history and foundations of probability theory.

Advanced empirical economics, which they have endured, taught, and written about for years, has become an exercise in hypothesis testing, and is broken. They are saying in The Cult of Statistical Significance that the brokenness extends to many other quantitative sciences – though notably – they could say significantly – not much to physics and chemistry and geology. They don't claim to understand fully the sciences they survey. But they do understand their unhappy statistical rhetoric.

McCloskey and Ziliak have been pushing this very elementary, very correct, very important argument through several articles over several years and for reasons I cannot fathom it is still resisted. If it takes a book to get it across, I hope this book will do it. It ought to. – Thomas Schelling, Distinguished University Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, and 2005 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics
With humor, insight, piercing logic and a nod to history, Ziliak and McCloskey show how economists – and other scientists – suffer from a mass delusion about statistical analysis. The quest for statistical significance that pervades science today is a deeply flawed substitute for thoughtful analysis. . . . Yet few participants in the scientific bureaucracy have been willing to admit what Ziliak and McCloskey make clear: the emperor has no clothes. – Kenneth Rothman, Professor of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Health

The Cult of Statistical Significance shows how the most important statistical method used in many of the sciences does not pass the test for basic common sense. Significance testers will read the book optimistically – with a sense of how ‘real’ significance can transform their science. The book will encourage scientists who want to know how to get the statistical sciences back on track and fulfill their quantitative promise.

Business & Investing / Marketing & Sales

Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences by Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff, & Darrel Rhea (Voices That Matter Series: New Riders Press)
In a market economy characterized by commoditized products and global competition, how do companies gain deep and lasting loyalty from their customers? The key, Making Meaning argues, is in providing meaningful customer experiences. The book was written by Steve Diller, who with more than 20 years of strategy and marketing consulting experience, leads Cheskin’s Experience Design Studio and also drives Cheskin’s innovation practice; Nathan Shedroff, one of the pioneers of experience design, program chair of California College of the Art's groundbreaking MBA in Design Strategy; and Darrel Rhea, CEO of Cheskin, one of the world’s most influential strategic design consultants.

Writing in the tradition of Louis Cheskin, one of the founding fathers of market research, Diller, Shedroff and Rhea in Making Meaning observe, define, and describe the meaningful customer experience. By consciously evoking certain deeply valued meanings through their products, services, and multidimensional customer experiences, they argue, companies can create more value and achieve lasting strategic advantages over their competitors. Making Meaning not only encourages businesses to adopt an innovation process that’s centered on meaning, it also tells them how. With real-world examples drawn from the Cheskin company's experience and from the authors' observations of the contemporary global market, this book outlines a plan of action and describes the attributes of a meaning-centric innovation team.
Making Meaning is not a book about finding one’s soul in the workplace. It is a straightforward business book with a straightforward capitalistic goal: To encourage businesses to create more value by adopting a process that deliberately places meaning at the center of innovation. This is a recipe for a healthy business in any economic climate, but in today's volatile environment, where shareholder value can evaporate more quickly than it can be built, the authors believe it is both a timely and a reasonable pursuit. If readers innovate with an eye to what is meaningful in their customers' lives, their products and services are more likely to be adopted and retained, not tossed aside when the next new sensation arrives. If they identify the core meanings that their product, service, or brand convey, they are more capable of translating the experience into multiple cultures – again, a timely and reasonable pursuit, given our increasingly globalized economy. And if they approach innovation with meaning at the center of their process, they are better able to foster open and transparent collaboration among departments and functions. This saves costs, saves time, and produces real value for the customer, the shareholders, and the people with whom they work.

Louis Cheskin in 1945 used the emerging discipline of psychology, to help some of this country's most prominent businessmen (and they were all men at that time) to rethink and redesign their products. He helped Marlboro find its masculinity, margarine find its true color (yellow). Some 50-odd years later, Diller, Shedroff and Rhea say that their own work in the field has led them to the conviction that for companies to achieve enduring competitive advantage through experience design, their innovations cannot be based simply on novelty. Increasingly, companies must address their customers' essential human need for meaning.

In Making Meaning, they observe, define, and describe the phenomenon of the meaningful customer experience. Where Louis Cheskin drew almost exclusively from psychology, they add insights from cultural anthropology and contextual design. In this book they briefly wrestle with defining both ‘experience’ and ‘meaning’ in the context of business innovation. They offer readers a list of types of meaning their work has led them to find are most valuable to people. And they offer practical strategies for turning their business into a ‘meaning business,’ focusing on the roles, tools, and process of identifying, designing, delivering, and maintaining meaningful experiences. They show readers how meaning can be the engine behind innovation and an organization's strategic plan, as well as a way of unifying vision and communicating it to everyone in an organization – whether they are selling software or soft drinks, or something that doesn't even exist yet.

We're now hip-deep, if not drowning, in the 'experience economy.' Here's the smartest book I've read so far that can actually help get your brand to higher ground, fast. And it's written by people who not only drew the map, but blazed these trails in the first place. – Brian Collins, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide Brand Integration Group
This delightfully clear book is intended to help companies connect real people by placing meaning at the center of a company's ‘culture of innovation.’ With wit, intelligence, and humor, Making Meaning is about as far as one can get from the rapaciousness of soulless consumerism. Louis Cheskin must be smiling! – Brenda Laurel, Ph.D., Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems
A visionary, eye-opening book that tackles the critical emerging question: When everything is possible, what is necessary? Authored by top leaders in the field, it is a must-read for anyone looking towards the future, for it brilliantly illustrates one of the promising keys to business success. – Marco Steinberg, Associate Professor, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design
Making Meaning is a 'whole brain' innovation process that makes a whole lot of sense. – Brad Casper, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Dial Corporation

Making Meaning is an engaging and practical book for business leaders, explaining how their companies can create more meaningful products and services to better achieve their goals. Some businesses have already discovered this approach, but Diller, Shedroff and Rhea articulate it in a persuasive and practical way. Their vision of a world of meaningful consumption is idealistic, but this is a straightforward business book with an eye on the ROI. It shows how to bring R&D, design, and marketing together to create deeper and richer experiences for customers. Readers will find it an enjoyable, thought-provoking read. At the very least, it will give readers an opportunity and a vantage point from which to think about what their job means, and why that's an important consideration.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership

So What?: The Definitive Guide to the Only Business Questions that Matter by Kevin Duncan (Capstone)

We all know how irritating it can be when a child repeatedly asks why? And yet we are often unable to answer the simplest of questions in a clear, direct way, and frequently have no idea why we are doing something. This problem has a huge bearing on inefficiency in business, and goes some way to explaining why so many people spend so much time doing things that have no bearing on the true purpose.
Kevin Duncan in So What? says that by behaving like a child, in a genuinely inquisitive way, readers can get right to the heart of the matter and save themselves hours, days, and months of anguish. Duncan, who worked in advertising and direct marketing for twenty years, teaches at Canterbury University, and advises various businesses as a non-executive director, business strategist and trainer.

So What? helps readers navigate through the potential conflict that may arise from asking a boss "Do we really need to do this?" or "What's the point of that?"
For example the book covers:

The value of questions. The only way to break the unholy chain of vagueness is to start by asking questions.
Write a list of what one is not going to do, because what they are not going to do is just as important as what they are going to do.
The issue of ‘when’. Put the frenetic activity in early on, so that there is plenty of time to make mistakes, and rectify them.
Simple is good. Why would anyone want the route to getting something done to be complicated? If the way forward is clear, take it.
Jargon and cliché red alert. Business does not work if people talk nonsense. Jargon limits clear expression and prevents people from articulating what they really mean. Only plain English will do.
The Why chromosome. Take the inquisitive nature of childhood and continue it into later life.

As Duncan says, it is not a complicated approach, and it is perfect for self-employed people, who can ask the questions of themselves, but it does require some subtlety when used with colleagues.

According to Duncan in So What?, once all the right questions have been posed, there is a final, sure-fire method for testing whether something is relevant and helpful to the matter in hand. By completing the sentence "Something must be wrong if..." with a true statement of the current reality, it is simple to work out if one is wasting one’s time. For example, "Something must be wrong if I am spending three days a week in meetings."

So, Duncan advises: be more inquisitive. Let the questions roll. Pay attention to what the answers are. By so doing, readers will immediately improve the quality of their lives, and the success of their businesses.

Being successful in business is not a matter of being clever-clever but plain-and-simple-smart. Unfortunately being clever-clever is much easier than plain-and-simple-smart, and that is what most business books focus on. So What? is different. It gets you to ask yourself (and your colleagues) those questions that get to smart answers and helps you turn them into smart habits and smart actions. Oh, and it's a pleasure to read too. – Mark Earls, author, Herd and Welcome to the Creative Age

I sit in meetings discussing businesses almost every day. Sadly, much of the talking just doesn't move anything forward. Kevin makes observations that are so sharp that it could save you months of wasted time. If you really want to get straight to the point and sort your business out right now, read this book as soon as possible. – Don Williams, partner, BDO Stoy Hayward

A refreshingly different kind of business book, full of the straight-talking, no-nonsense and practical advice we have come to expect from Kevin Duncan. Also, lots of useful quotes throughout, and a very handy at-a-glance collection of summaries from the works of other business gurus. – Rita Clifton, Chairman, Interbrand

Far too much business analysis ends up in serving to over-complicate the issues. The bigger the company, the more opinions on the table. Kevin's clinical style cuts through all this static so you know exactly where you are. With so much on at any given moment, that's a really valuable quality these days. For people who value their time and need to move forwards quickly, then I strongly recommend you read this book. – Mark Giffin, Head of Brand Strategy and Creative Development, Visa Europe

So What? gives it to readers straight like no other business book they will have read – Duncan's no-nonsense style takes readers to the heart of the issue with dozens of different scenarios.

Childrens / Families / Animals / Ages 4-8

Say Daddy! by Michael Shoulders, illustrated by Teri Weidner (Picture Books Series: Sleeping Bear Press)

When does a child's life-long love of reading begin?
Could it be on the day they are born?

Daddy read a book about promises and making dreams come true.
He closed the last page and smiled at me for hours and said, ‘Say Daddy! Say Daddy!’
He hoped Daddy would be my first word!
I just made a funny sound.

Finally Grandma reads about the most important thing of all ... families ... and how they are always there for us.

‘Say Nana! Say Nana!’
She hoped Nana would be my first word!

Say Daddy! is the story of a family's love of reading and the newest addition to their family. When a newborn bear arrives, Mother shares a book about love and brother reads a tale about friendship. Aunt Grace and Uncle Roy read about adventures and laughter. Daddy reads a book about promises and making dreams come true. Grandma reads a book about families.

Each member of the family is hopeful, that after the reading and snuggling and hugging, their name would be baby bear's very first word. The delighted family dances and cheers when they hear baby's first word is ... BOOK. Daddy, however, just won't give up: "Now, say Daddy!"

Sharing books is important to the bear family of readers in Say Daddy!.

The National Institute for Literacy encourages reading with very young children, "When does a child learn to read? Many would answer kindergarten or first grade. But researchers have found strong evidence that children can begin to learn reading and writing in their earliest years, long before they go to school."

Educator and author Michael Shoulders, who has devoted his career and life to spreading the word that ‘reading is magic,’ offers a gentle telling of the power of reading together and the lifelong love of books. Endearing watercolor illustrations from Teri Weidner bring the family to life as they share touching moments through the pages of books. A wonderful baby shower gift, sweet reading for a parent and child and perfect for early readers, Say Daddy! is a story that reinforces the importance of lifelong reading beginning at the earliest age.

Computers & Internet

Running Windows on Your Mac by Dwight Silverman (Peachpit Press)

Now readers no longer have to choose between Mac OS X and Windows. The latest Macs from Apple can run both Mac OS X and Windows, so readers are not limited to just one operating system. Running Windows on Your Mac explains how this technology works and walks readers through the process of setting up Windows on their Mac.

Aimed at three types of users, the book asks readers, are they Windows users who are buying their first Mac? Macintosh users who need to run Windows software? Or just computer users who want the best of both worlds? Readers will find detailed instructions for installing Windows on their Mac, a guide to the Mac for Windows users and a reference to Windows for Mac users.
In Running Windows on Your Mac, readers learn how to

Load and configure the two most popular Mac OS X virtualization programs, Parallels Desktop for Mac and VM ware Fusion.
Install Windows easily, either in Parallels or Fusion, or with Boot Camp.
Keep their Windows installation in top shape, free of viruses and spyware.
Run Windows applications alongside Macintosh programs.
Add their new Mac to an existing Windows network.
Explore the intricacies of a new operating system, either Mac OS X or Windows.

Written by Dwight Silverman, veteran journalist, computing columnist, technology blogger, and interactive journalism editor at the Houston Chronicle, Running Windows on Your Mac, the first part of the book provides information for anyone who wants to run Windows on the Mac, while the last three parts focus on specific user types.

Part I, Installing Windows on the Mac, lays out the many choices readers have for running Windows on the Macintosh. It then walks them through the processes of installing the software they need to run Windows, and then installing Windows itself. Readers learn how they can run Windows in a window on the Mac desktop, run Windows programs as though they are part of the Mac OS, and run Windows as the primary operating system.

Part II, Macintosh for Windows Users, is designed to help Mac newbies cope in their new environs. It walks them through the basic differences between the Mac and Windows operating systems, and how they can make the Mac operating system seem more Windows-like. It also shows them how to get their Mac talking with Windows PCs on their home network. They learn how to get started with the software that comes with the Mac, how to download and install new programs, and how to take advantage of the new features in Leopard, the latest version of Mac OS X.

Part III, Windows for Macintosh Users, introduces the vagaries of the Windows operating system to those who are new to it. This part of Running Windows on Your Mac emphasizes how to prevent spyware and viruses – a major issue on the Windows platform, which the Mac has largely eluded to date.

Running Windows on Your Mac is a handy reference showing how the technology works and walking readers through every phase of the process of setting up Windows on their Mac. There’s something in it for everyone. Once readers have finished reading the book, they should have mastered everything they need to know to switch between the Windows and Mac platforms with ease.

Education / Early Childhood

Creative Activities for Young Children, 9th Edition by Mary Mayesky (Delmar Cengage Learning)

It seems in today's fast-paced world that people are eager to buy into the notion of speeding up a child's development, using any means at hand to make ‘smarter’ babies. Early childhood educators know that with or without technology, young children will develop at their own unique pace and that despite the rapid changes in the world, the developmental needs of young children remain constant. Our commitment to the development of their creativity must remain at least, or grow at best, as young children face the pressures of today's world.

Creative Activities for Young Children, 9th edition is filled with creative and easy-to implement activities for young children. Hundreds of activities and research to match make this book a good resource for those planning to work creatively with children across the curriculum. The author, Mary Mayesky, Professor Emerita, Program in Education, Duke University; former director of the Early Childhood Certification Program, explains that since the last edition of Creative Activities for Young Children, national standards for preschool/early childhood education have been adopted in many states. Standards are meant to ensure that all students master basic skills, but as early childhood educators, the teacher’s job is to ensure that young children develop those qualities and skills that will empower them to contribute meaningfully to the needs of future societies – even in ways that we cannot yet see. In this standard-driven educational milieu, Mayesky’s advice to early childhood teachers is to remain steadfast to what they know is developmentally sound for children.

Teachers will find reflected in the pages of Creative Activities for Young Children the same joy and sense of purpose that led them to working with young children. Maintaining the same purpose as in the first eight editions, this edition is designed for those who are dedicated to helping children reach their full potential. It is written for people who want to know more about creativity, creative children, creative teaching, and creative curriculum and activities. While it is sound in developmental theory, it is practical in applying these theories in actual classroom settings.

Part 1 of Creative Activities for Young Children presents a general discussion of various child development theories. Included in Part 1 are chapters on creativity, aesthetic experiences, and social-emotional and physical-mental growth, as reflected in art development theories. Part 1 sets an appropriate theoretical stage for application of these theories in specific curriculum areas presented in Part 2.

Part 2 covers the early childhood curriculum in Section 5 and Section 6. Section 5 covers creativity in curriculum areas. Section 6 addresses creativity in the multicultural, anti-bias curriculum, including the place of celebrations in the curriculum.

Some features new to the ninth edition include:

New Think about It and This One's for You features in each chapter.
New lists of Additional Readings at the end of each chapter.
New and updated Software for Children references in each chapter and updated information on software companies with contact information in Appendix H.
New activities for preschool, kindergarten to grade 3, and grades 4 to 5 in every chapter.
A section on Bloom's taxonomy, how to plan lessons encouraging children's higher-level thinking, and appropriate activities for each level of thinking.
A new section on early childhood learning standards, including a summary of current national status, discussion of what is included in these standards, and their benefits and drawbacks.
Teaching strategies for children with special needs.
Expanded section on play theories, including information on theories of Vigotsky, Piaget, Elkind, Parten, and Smilansky.
Activities using the Internet in all curriculum chapters (Chapters 15-23).
Teaching strategies on effective use of Internet resources to enhance older students' aesthetic experiences with two types of virtual museums.
Discussion of new technologies, including iPods, interactive white boards, blogs, wilds, and Google Earth.
Expanded section on theories of children's art development, including theories of Lowenfeld, Read, and Kellogg.
New two-dimensional activities, including mosaics and montage.
New three-dimensional activities, including mobiles and stabiles.
Expanded section on the importance and use of puppets throughout the curriculum, as well as Web resources for puppet patterns and activities.
New information on uses of flannel/story boards across the curriculum as well as Web sites references for flannel board character patterns.
A new Section 6. The new Section 6, Creativity: A Multicultural View, includes the following chapters: Chapter 24: Creativity, Diversity, and the Early Childhood Program; Chapter 25: Creative Multicultural Ideas; and Chapter 26: Developmentally Appropriate Celebrations.

A key supplement to the ninth edition of Creative Activities for Young Children is the Instructor's Manual. It includes answers to review questions, multimedia resources, and discussion topics for every chapter of the text. It also includes Observation Sheets, Student Activity Sheets, Small-Group Activity Sheets, and masters for overhead transparencies. The new e-Resource component provides instructors with the tools they need in one CD-ROM. The Professional Enhancement booklet for students focuses on key topics of interest to future early child-hood teachers and caregivers.

The Online Companion to accompany the ninth edition of Creative Activities for Young Children is a teachers’ link to early childhood education on the Internet. It contains many features to enhance and enrich readers’ understanding of creative activities for the young child including the Critical Thinking Forum, Web Activities, Web Links, Sample Quizzes, Online Early Education Survey, Observation Sheets, and PowerPoint Presentations.

This book is very comprehensive and covers the topics I am looking for in a text. It is apparent that the author has a wealth of information and experience to share in a mentoring style. – Linda Aiken, M.Ed., Southwestern Community College
Many of my students over the years have decided to keep the textbook for use in their classrooms. That is high praise and quite a tribute to the author’s work. – Carol Anderson, M.S., Colorado Community College
The text is an easy read and is loaded with excellent applicable examples. – Phygenia Young, M.S., Forthsyth Technical Community College

Creative Activities for Young Children, 9th edition is a terrific book filled with fun, creative, and easy-to implement activities for young children. All the activities have been classroom-tested. Readers will enjoy exercising their own creativity, as well as helping young children do the same. Hundreds of activities, and up-to-date research make this book an invaluable resource for those planning to work creatively with children across the curriculum.

Entertainment / Sports / Biographies & Memoirs / History / Civil Rights / African American Studies

Across the Line: Profiles in Basketball Courage: Tales of the First Black Players in the ACC and SEC by Barry Jacobs (The Lyons Press)

Remarkably, despite the groundbreaking role of players such as Perry Wallace, Charles Scott, Wendell Hudson, and their compatriots from Louisiana to Maryland, their actions in advancing civil rights and transforming the game of basketball have gone largely untold – until Across the Line. The book is set within the context of the tumultuous 1960s and early 1970s, grounded in the civil rights struggles on campus and within the larger community, and enriched by the viewpoint of players, relatives, coaches, teammates, opponents, and other observers. Across the Line recounts the experiences of the pioneering African-American basketball players at eighteen schools in the Atlantic Coast and Southeastern Conferences, the South's most prominent, historically white intercollegiate leagues. The book was written by Barry Jacobs, who for 20 years covered college basketball, as well as news and other sports for the New York Times.

As told in Across the Line, Perry Wallace feared he would be shot when he stepped onto a basketball court in a Vanderbilt uniform. Georgia's Ronnie Hogue jumped atop a press table, swinging a chair in self-defense, as a menacing crowd approached following a road game. Craig Noble joined other threatened black students in a rare, en masse flight from the Clemson campus. Maryland's Pete Johnson seethed when a teammate used a racial epithet in a supervised workout and his coaches let it pass. C. B. Claiborne could not attend the Duke team banquet his freshman year because it was held at a white country club.

Collis Temple, whose father carried a pistol for protection against marauding whites in rural Louisiana, scuffled with an opposing player each season he played at LSU. Wendell Hudson's mother cried when the Birmingham native, whose family routinely hit the deck each time racists' bombs exploded in their neighborhood, decided to become the first black athlete at the University of Alabama. Al Heartley and other black students locked themselves in a campus dorm at North Carolina State, fearing the actions of an unruly white crowd the night Martin Luther King was assassinated.

For the last three decades, Barry Jacobs has been among the most respected and dedicated sportswriters covering the world of college basketball. Across the Line is his finest work. This book tells the important stories of the brave young men who were only looking to play a game, but ended up making history. Exhaustively researched and eloquently written, Across the Line is a must-read for sports and non-sports fans alike. – Seth Davis, college basketball analyst, Sports Illustrated/CBS

As someone who has been involved with the issue of race and sport for more than forty years, I know too well that there is a huge void in our knowledge of the history of integrating our college athletics teams. Barry Jacobs' Across the Line brings us the rich history of the African-American basketball players who courageously broke the color barriers in the ACC and SEC schools. It is a must read for anyone who wants to know that history. – Richard Lapchick, Chair of DeVos Sport Business Management Program Director, Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport Director, National Consortium for Academics and Sports

Richly marbled with history and always nestled in context, the stories in Across the Line make up a marvelous narrative of race, basketball, higher education and the South – and with his grasp of all four, Barry Jacobs is the ideal guide. The path-breakers he chronicles each walked his own road; for every inspirational tale of a Perry Wallace or Wendell Hudson, there's a Henry Harris, Norwood Todmann or Tom Payne who met a tragic fate. Their journeys will be of profound interest to anyone who cares about the interplay of America's great social issue and homegrown game. – Alexander Wolff, Sports Illustrated senior writer and author of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure

Across the Line tells an important and long-neglected story in sports as well as in social history. Jacob's exhaustive interviews and impeccable research present a clear picture of the obstacles the athletes encountered. This book should be required reading for sports fans of all backgrounds.

Health, Mind & Body / Disorders & Diseases / Biographies & Memoirs

Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate by Sen. Arlen Specter, with Frank J. Scaturro (Thomas Dunne Books)

Never Give In is not simply the memoir of a cancer survivor.

Nor is it just the memoir of a respected senator.

Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican, is Pennsylvania’s senior senator. First elected in 1980, he is now serving his fifth term. Throughout his Senate career, he has served on the Judiciary Committee, which he chaired in the 109th Congress (2005-2007) and continues to serve as its ranking member. Among his many other Senate duties, he is also a former chairman and current ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. In early 2004, was in the midst of a grueling primary race, facing significant opposition from the right as he worked to win his party’s nomination to run for reelection for his Pennsylvania senate seat. It would be the most difficult election in his quarter-century career in the Senate. Following on its heels were two more challenges – the general-election race and opposition to his elevation as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, his lifelong ambition. He overcame these three challenges in time for his seventy-fifth birthday.
But exhaustion and fatigue – initially thought to be the after-effects of months of vigorous campaigning – were found to be far more serious. After a series of tests and consultation with several doctors, Specter was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, Stage IVB, the most advanced stage. As he reports in Never Give In, he had received death sentences before and lived to tell about it. To Specter, this diagnosis was another challenge. After all, he still had a job to do.
His cancer treatments came as he reached the height of his power – surrounded by political storms that polarized Washington and threatened to shut the Senate down. His leadership positions made it his job to manage Supreme Court nominations and public- health appropriations as he faced his own illness. He had fought on public-health issues for years, but now it added potency to the message that the messenger was ailing himself.
The phrase ‘Never give in’ became Specter’s mantra, invoking the famous words from Churchill in his battle with cancer. Never Give In describes the treatment the Senator received and offers his advice on how to handle the side effects, hair loss, and of course, maintain a nearly daily squash regimen.

Specter says he has great respect for the medical community. No one, though, would blame him if he felt otherwise. On four separate occasions he has been misdiagnosed. In 1979, one of the nation's leading neurologists erroneously diagnosed Specter with A.L.S., a.k.a., Lou Gehrig's Disease. The misdiagnoses was later explained away as what appeared to be lingering symptoms from a bought of a form of childhood polio.

Specter's second brush with a death sentence came in 1993 when the chief neurosurgeon at Bethesda Naval Hospital looked at an MRI of Specter's skull and said he had a malignant brain tumor and three to six weeks to live. While Specter did have a tumor on his brain, it was not malignant. His third scare came in 1998, when double bypass surgery left Specter with fluid in his lungs, necessitating two more operations and two-and-a-half more weeks in the hospital.

But the fourth medical misadventure was perhaps the most avoidable. Specter had Hodgkin’s disease. But the diagnosis was delayed and valuable time was lost.

How has he been able to pull through? As he explains in Never Give In, he has sought multiple opinions, maintained a strong belief in making it through, kept up a rigorous exercise routine, and focused on work to keep him from dwelling on health concerns. Specter is a battler and his political career has mirrored his ability to beat the odds during his health struggles. In both cases, as things seemed to be at their most grim, Specter always found a way to push through. He has triumphed in tough primaries and tough elections. A loyal Republican, he is also his own man, a true moderate, not afraid to go against the party grain and follow his conscience. He has won admirers – and adversaries – on both sides of the political fence for his strong stances. Yet, he wonders if his political career – and the inherent stress that comes with it – could have contributed to his health dilemmas. But he has also come to the conclusion that one of his staunchest sources of support during his recoveries was his work.
Never Give In is coauthored by Frank J. Scaturro, counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee on Senator Specter’s staff, where he specializes in judicial nominations and constitutional law issues.

Understanding Arlen Specter's steely endurance is a key to understanding his success in the Senate and in life. Look up tenacity in the dictionary and you'll find Arlen's picture. Trial by fire has tempered him and made him stronger, and wiser. – Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee)
Written in Senator Specter’s trademark candor, Never Give In is a compelling tale of survival – both personal and political – from one of the Senate's most independent voices. Riding the train home with him now for almost 25 years, I count Arlen among my closest friends in the Senate. The words courageous and inspiring hardly do him justice – but trust me, he is both. – Senator Joe Biden (D-DE)

I've been privileged to work side by side with Arlen for over 18 years. While I respect his intelligence and honesty, and value his friendship, perhaps most of all I have admired his toughness in the face of adversity. He just never gives up. – Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)

As Specter notes, time will humble the most powerful, but it should not prevent anyone from doing their best with what they have. Specter is living proof of this. Specter recalls his triumphs and medical scares in one of the most honest and revealing political memoirs in years with Never Give In, a moving glimpse into the life of a tenacious senator. It is inspiration for people of all political persuasions, of how to persevere and succeed – despite what the doctors may say, despite what the tests might show.
Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling / Relationships / Sociology / Marriage & Family

The Mating Game: A Primer on Love, Sex, and Marriage, Second Edition by Pamela C. Regan (Sage Publications, Inc.)

Love, sexuality, and mate selection are fundamental human experiences that only relatively recently have begun to receive scientific attention.

The Mating Game, Second Edition, is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, introductory text about human mating relationships aimed specifically at a university audience. It progresses beyond a psychological or biological/physiological stance and encompasses a wide array of disciplines. This review of theory and empirical research takes an integrated perspective on the human experiences of love and sex.
Author Pamela Regan, Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Social Relations Lab at California State University, Los Angeles, is an ‘up-and-coming’ professor who has established a name for herself by publishing over 40 journal articles, book chapters, and reviews on the dynamics of sex, love, and human mating. She is the coauthor, with Ellen Berscheid, of Lust: What We Know about Human Sexual Desire.

According to Regan, the intimate connections that a person establishes with other people, whether for a few moments or for a lifetime, affect their emotional and physical well-being and even the survival of the species. Without love and sex – without mating and pair bonding and reproduction – humans would feel empty, isolated, and lonely; societies would wither; and humankind would perish.

The Mating Game brings together in one text past and present theory, supposition, and knowledge about human mating relationships. The first section of the text focuses on mate selection and marriage. It begins with an examination of theoretical frameworks for understanding human mating, and considers research on men's and women's mate preferences. Regan then explores the early stages of romantic relationship formation with a particular focus on attraction, flirting, and courtship. Theories of relationship development are discussed, along with research on mate choice and marriage, conflict and dissolution, and therapeutic interventions for distressed relationships. The next two sections focus on two important aspects of mating relationships – love and sexuality.

First, The Mating Game considers the topic of love, beginning with an exploration of theoretical discourse (and empirical investigation) into the nature of love. Special attention is given to the two love types that have received the most scrutiny from social and behavioral scientists: passionate and companionate love. The section ends with a consideration of problematic aspects of love relationships, including unrequited love, obsession and relational stalking, mismatched love styles, and loss of passion. Then The Mating Game explores relational sexuality. Regan examines men's and women's beliefs and attitudes about the role of sex in dating and marital relationships, and sexuality – frequency, preferences, and practices – in beginning and established relationships. Problematic aspects of relational sexuality are considered, including sexual aggression, sexual dissatisfaction, sexual infidelity, and sexual jealousy. The final section summarizes what is currently known about individual differences in relationship orientation. The text considers how maleness and femaleness, global personality traits, and interpersonal belief systems may influence a person's romantic opportunities, behaviors, and outcomes.

New to the Second Edition of The Mating Game:

The reorganized text provides a smoother transition between major sections.
Reviews of the most recent theoretical and empirical work in the areas of love, sexuality, mate selection, and marriage.
New information on the phenomenon of cyber-flirting and the development of romantic relationships over the Internet.
Inclusion of cutting-edge biochemistry research, including a discussion of cutting-edge research on the biochemistry of passion and affection.
Discussion of emerging research on non-heterosexual relationships and cross-cultural dynamics.
Expanded chapters on critical topics.
A new chapter on relationship intervention.

The Mating Game remains ‘reader friendly.’ The comprehensive review and up-to-date information contained in The Mating Game not only provides answers to questions about important life events but also encourages readers' interest in the field of interpersonal relationships and human mating. Essential pedagogical elements – outlines, key concepts, recommended readings, and discussion questions – promote active learning and enhance readers' educational experience. Strongly grounded in methodology and research design, Regan offers relevant examples and anecdotes along with ample pedagogy that will spark debate and discussion on these provocative and complex topics. The Mating Game is ideal for upper level undergraduate or graduate students in psychology, family studies, and sociology, who will find this engaging text a valuable tool for course-related research activities, as well as for self-awareness.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling / Sexuality / Religion & Spirituality / New Age

Tantra for Erotic Empowerment: The Key to Enriching Your Sexual Life by Mark A. Michaels & Patricia Johnson, with a foreword by Tristan Taormino (Llewellyn Publications)

If you've ever wanted to explore Tantra, but didn't know where to begin, you'll want to start with a copy of this book. – Many Hands: New England's Magazine for Holistic Health

Tantra for Erotic Empowerment exhorts readers to embrace their sexuality and discover their own source of erotic power. This step-by-step guide takes readers on a Tantric journey of sexual exploration and personal empowerment. Mark A. Michaels and Patricia Johnson, tantra teachers, demystify the Tantric tradition, teaching readers how to experience sexual pleasure with consciousness and intention. With renewed sexual confidence, readers discover new ways to physically and spiritually satisfy their partners and themselves. This illustrated guide is unique in its holistic approach, showing readers how Tantric practice not only greatly enhances sexual pleasure, but also leads to richer and more satisfying experiences in every area of life. Relevant for anyone, regardless of relationship status or sexual orientation, Tantra for Erotic Empowerment features original techniques, self-exploration exercises, and provocative selections from classical and contemporary Hindu Tantric literature to help readers discover the source of their own erotic power.

Michaels and Johnson say that Tantra for Erotic Empowerment grew out of their experience together as Tantra teachers and practitioners. In their early explorations, they were exposed only to Western Neo-Tantra, initially through reading and then in workshops. To delve into the Tantric tradition more deeply, they began to study with Dr. Jonn Mumford (Swami Anandakapila Saraswati), one of the few Westerners with traditional Tantric training. Mumford later named them lineage holders of the OM Kara Kriya system and initiated them as Swami Umeshanand Saraswati and Devi Veenanand.

Gradually, under Mumford's influence, the substance of their teaching became somewhat more traditional as they fused the best elements of contemporary Neo-Tantra with the material they learned from him. They designed a course, The Fundamentals of Tantric Sexuality, and began offering it over the Internet in 2001. The response of their online students inspired them to write Tantra for Erotic Empowerment. The book expands upon The Fundamentals of Tantric Sexuality, incorporates a few key concepts from their first book, The Essence of Tantric Sexuality, and includes exercises that they have developed over the last eight years in their workshops and private teaching. The book also incorporates some historical background and social commentary. Few Westerners know much about the Tantric tradition, and most have been heavily influenced by cultural attitudes toward sexuality. In order to develop a form of Tantric practice that is at once suitable for contemporary life and true to the authentic tradition, it is important to have a sense of history and an understanding of how culture has shaped them. Thus, this is not a book on traditional Tantra, although they do borrow from that body of knowledge. Readers’ journey through this book's fourteen dalas, or chapters, will be one of sexual self-discovery. The practice includes a brief daily meditation as well as a total of fifty-two exercises, several in each dala.

Tantra for Erotic Empowerment is designed for both individuals and partners. According to Michaels and Johnson, many single people are reluctant to explore Tantra due to the misguided belief that it is for couples only. In fact, most Tantric practices are solo practices. Most people are so focused on relationships with others that they tend to lack awareness of their own internal worlds. It is important to cultivate this relationship with the self, since it provides the strongest foundation for interacting with others in a positive way. Thus, some exercises are presented in two formats, solo and partnered, and couples will benefit from doing both forms.

Michaels & Johnson are a Masters & Johnson for the 21st Century. Written with clarity and a passion for mystical experience and rigorous logic, Tantra for Erotic Empowerment is grounded in ancient spiritual truth, practice, wisdom, and personal experience. Radical, practical, and open-hearted, this book is a straight-forward transformative guide to self-knowledge. Michaels & Johnson's vision of Divine pleasure as a spiritual and sensual path of liberation is a gift to all seekers--for the curious, the novice and initiate alike. – Donna Gaines, Ph.D., Sociologist, author of Teenage Wasteland and Misfit's Manifesto

Tantra for Erotic Empowerment combines a clear-eyed overview of Tantra with multi-faceted Tantric insights in a rare method, allowing readers to pursue Tantra using traditional learning methods, but at their own pace and to the appropriate level of their current (and soon to be expanded) understanding. This book achieves its ambition to inform the casual reader, challenge the student of Tantra and inspire diverse communities to spiritual growth. – Bruce Anderson (Somananda), author of Tantra for Gay Men

This is a fearless and brilliant work, at once scholarly, technically accurate, challenging, and immensely readable. The writing is economical and lucid. The exercises are absorbing and profoundly therapeutic in the 'human' sense. It is a genuine original, and I enjoyed it immensely. – Paul Skye (Swami Ajnananda Saraswati), author of The Mastery of Stress

Tantra for Erotic Empowerment is packed full of useful exercises that can help individuals and couples discover their best erotic selves and find a holistic way of making sexuality a positive force in their lives and in their relationships. – Helen Boyd, author, She's Not the Man I Married and My Husband Betty

With illumination should come empowerment and the exercise of illuminated power. Mark and Patricia have once again given generously of themselves to all seekers fortunate enough to read this marvelous and enlightened work. Profound, practical, and precisely what the western psyche is ready for! – Lon Milo DuQuette, author of The Magick of Aleister Crowley

Tantra for Erotic Empowerment is creative, authentic and engaging. The wisdom, reflections and meditations engage readers’ intellect and inspire thoughtful self-exploration. At the same time, the exercises make the process highly experiential.

History / Americas / Civil War / Biographies & Memoirs

Troubled State: Civil War Journals of Franklin Archibald Dick by Gari Carter (Truman State University Press)

At night, I can in my mind's eye, see these opposing armies & behind them, the two divisions of the country, opposed to each other. And what a sight for this nation thus to be standing before their God.... The Rebels are doing enormous mischief in Missouri – rising up all through the State – They seem to be ubiquitous. – Franklin Archibald Dick, September 6, 1861

Last Friday, the 28th, I read Grant's telegram of the 26th from Raleigh, saying that Johnston had surrendered his whole army to Sherman, on the terms of Lee's surrender. This, of course, was an end of the war. I felt it so myself relief & joy – but oh how inadequate was this relief & joy compared with the immensity of the fact.... At this time, the People of Missouri are dividing over the new constitution to be voted on by them in a few weeks – So perverse are the union men there, that they split up on every question that arises. If political power is to be struggled for, with these scoundrels who have aided the rebellion, certainly that state is not fit to live in. – Franklin Archibald Dick, May 1, 1865

Steeped in family history and documents from a young age, author Gari Carter was given her great-great-grandfather's journals from the Civil War era. These writings of Franklin Archibald Dick awakened her respect and appreciation for the adversity he dealt with and the wisdom it offered her in dealing with her own journey. She spent ten years deciphering his handwriting and researching his life for Troubled State.

In his private journals, Franklin Dick, a St. Louis attorney, Union officer, Missouri assistant adjunct general, and provost marshal general, wrote of his concerns about keeping Missouri pro-Union during the turbulent Civil War years. His firsthand perspective of important historical events include the early Camp Jackson incident when he was Captain Nathaniel Lyon's assistant adjutant general, and when he served as Missouri's provost marshal general under Major General Samuel Curtis. Dick was troubled by the slow progress and terrible cost of the war. For him, the divided city of St. Louis was heartbreaking, and his journal entries changed from early optimism to later doubts about his future due to the war and his loyalty to the Union. After the war, Dick practiced law with Montgomery Blair, President Lincoln's postmaster general.

A benefit to scholars and buffs alike, the journals of Franklin Dick offer readers a different perspective on the Civil War from the contested and bloody battleground that was Missouri. The diaries provide valuable insights on how Unionists reacted to the shifting fortunes of war in Missouri and in St. Louis in particular, and how the life of a St. Louis attorney-turned-provost-marshal changed for all time. The annotations are helpful without being obtrusive, allowing Dick's personality to come through. – David Goldfield, University of North Carolina

Buried for years in family files, this important firsthand Civil War account gives a new view of politics, power, and divided loyalties in the state of Missouri. Filled with intrigue and emotion, Troubled State is a new resource for library collections, historians and Civil War buffs.

History / Europe / Medicine / Public Policy / Literature

Cleansing the City: Sanitary Geographies in Victorian London by Michelle Allen (Ohio University Press)

In Cleansing the City, Michelle Allen, assistant professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, explores not only the challenges faced by Victorian London’s reformers as they strove to clean up an increasingly filthy city but the resistance to their efforts.
From the novels of Charles Dickens and George Gissing to anonymous magazine articles and pamphlets, resistance to reform found expression in the nostalgic appreciation of a threatened urban landscape and anxiety about domestic autonomy in an era of networked sanitary services.

As told in Cleansing the City, the rapid development of London in the nineteenth century brought new challenges not only to the health but also to the social order and cultural identity of the metropolis. Epidemic diseases, such as cholera and typhus, swept through the city. An unprecedented volume of waste matter overflowed from cesspools, rotted in out-of-the-way streets, and flooded the River Thames. Growing numbers of poor residents, who found their house space contracting as the city modernized, took refuge in filthy, overcrowded tenements. And the economic and social divide separating respectable citizens from the debased lower classes grew ever wider. Beginning in the 1830s, reform-minded citizens began to promote public health legislation and magnificent projects of sanitary engineering. Individuals and associations from fields as diverse as medicine, journalism, and engineering campaigned in various ways to improve the health and welfare of the city.

Sanitary reform, however, was not always met with enthusiasm. While some improvements, such as slum clearances, the development of sewerage, and the embankment of the Thames, may have made London a cleaner place to live, these projects also destroyed and reshaped the built environment, and in doing so, altered the meanings and experiences of the city.

Each chapter in Cleansing the City addresses the social challenge and imaginative resonance of filth and purification within the context of one of several key sanitary initiatives: waste disposal, river purification, and housing reform. The first chapter reveals the surprising resistance to reform excited by the London sewer. Although the developing sewerage technology seemed to exemplify sanitary progress, many social observers represented the underground network of pipes as an instrument of social chaos, threatening the ideals of spatial division and social hierarchy in the urban context. In the second chapter, centered on debates about the pollution and purification of the Thames in the 1850s and 1860s, Allen focuses on expressions of resistance to the Thames Embankment, one of Victorian London's most celebrated engineering achievements. Despite wide support, many observers lamented the loss of an eccentric and vital riverside culture that the Embankment was imagined to displace. Chapter 3 continues the discussion of the polluted river in the context of the imagined geography of the Thames in Dickens's Our Mutual Friend. In his great novel of the period, Dickens unsettles the prevailing negative perceptions of the river: although the novel places a high value on moral and material purification, it also deliberately exploits the imaginative energy of filth. While the first three chapters highlight moments of resistance to reform, chapters 4 and 5 record a more pervasive disillusionment with reform that was characteristic of attitudes later in the century. Chapter 4 traces this disillusionment to the perceived failure of housing reform policies and initiatives in the 1870s and 1880s, as well as to more pessimistic ideas about poverty and social change, influenced by social Darwinism. We find a similar pessimism about the capacity of reform to reclaim the lives of the urban poor in Gissing's Nether World, the central text of chapter 5.

According to Cleansing the City, this point about the shift in attitude toward sanitary reform, from optimism to pessimism, from idealism to disillusionment, requires qualification. Slums were cleared, streets widened, and sewers built, but were the poor better off physically and morally than they had been? One of the defining principles of sanitary reform and the source of much of its imaginative resonance was the understanding that urban improvement and human improvement – were complementary processes. Indeed, purifying the environment and uplifting a potentially dangerous underclass were conceived as a unitary mission. But in the latter decades of the century, the mission began to seem less coherent. Reformers were carving out new limits concerning the kinds of people they felt they could help: the upper strata of the working classes could benefit from better-quality housing equipped with sanitary appliances, but the abject poor were perhaps beyond the reach of such help.

Sanitary reform did not by any means disappear from British social life. Its achievements, especially in terms of urban infrastructure, were too significant and its program and approach had become too institutionalized to be discounted. Moreover, social reformers did not simply give up. This change was marked by increasing specialization, as sanitation developed into a highly technical field requiring the expertise of scientists and municipal engineers and by a loss of the coherent vision that sanitary reform in its early decades had so satisfactorily supplied. As Allen states at the outset of the introduction, sanitary reform comprehended the challenges of the Victorian city. It brought the authority of science and religion to bear on these challenges, and it used the tools provided by engineering, medicine, government, and literature to imagine and to build a healthier city. Such a comprehensive vision of social and spatial life also bore the seeds of its own resistance, and the story of that resistance is what Cleansing the City tells.

Cleansing the City stands as a fine corrective to the often triumphalist, Whiggish, ‘march of inevitable progress’ approach to many public health and housing studies. It evokes, sympathetically yet objectively, the sensitivity of those who had doubts about the way the planners and politicians were implementing urban reforms. This is the first work to relate the voices of concern, including the two powerful voices of Dickens and Gissing, to broader considerations of social geography. Professor Allen is to be congratulated on rescuing those who had a pessimistic view of reform, or who opposed it in principle, from obscurity or the facile dismissal of scholars. She investigates what is clearly a powerful and recurring undercurrent in Victorian thought and elevates it into the mainstream. – Anthony Wohl, author of Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain

By recovering these sometimes oppositional, sometimes ambivalent responses, Allen in Cleansing the City brings a significant voice of Victorian resistance to sanitary reform up into the mainstream and thus provides insight into the contested nature of sanitary modernization.

History / Europe / Social Sciences

Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll: Teenage Rebels in Cold-War East Germany by Mark Fenemore (Monographs in German History Series, Volume 16: Berghahn Books)

Living on the frontline of the Cold War, young people in East Germany were subject to a number of competing influences. For young men from the working class in particular, a conflict developed between the culture they inherited from their parents and the new official culture taught in schools. Merging with street gangs, new youth cultures took shape, which challenged authority and provided an alternative vision of modernity. Taking their fashion cues, music and icons from the West, they rapidly came into conflict with a didactic and highly controlling party-state. Charting the clashes which occurred between teenage rebels and the authorities, Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll by Mark Fenemore, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Manchester Metropolitan University, explores what happened when gender, sexuality, Nazism, communism and rock 'n' roll collided during a period, which also saw the building of the Berlin Wall.

Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll is a study of what happens when all these interact. The original conception for the book was influenced by Detlev Peukert's remarkable study of members of the Leipziger Meuten during the Third Reich. As a consequence, it differs from the widely available, standard analyses of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) by focusing less on the institutions designed to establish conformity and more on the occasions when they failed to achieve their goal. In the course of what became nearly a decade spent contemplating youth in East Germany, Fenemore became increasingly frustrated with the one-dimensional depiction of teenagers in the archival sources. The young people who appeared in official reports (particularly those produced by the official youth organization, the FDJ) were class- and genderless. It was as if, in the minds of youth functionaries, no differences existed apart from those between believers and non-believers. The actual make-up, interests, behavior and opinions of the, in reality highly diverse, youth population were less important to report writers than that they gave the appearance of loyal support. The subcultures that they formed as a means of creating their own experiences and identities only became important as evidence of a failure to achieve uniformity.

Fenemore’s search for sources capable of revealing different perspectives, horizons and frames of reference led him increasingly to novels, films and articles in newspapers and magazines. Given the degree to which the Socialist Unity Party (SED) sought to use the media as a means of molding attitudes and beliefs, East German discussions and arguments concerning real issues affecting youth often became sandwiched between and blurred by fictional representations and interpretations. Historians of Germany tend to focus on how images are used to manipulate and distort. But in certain circumstances they can also reflect and help to form perceptions and opinions. Novels and films in the GDR did not just serve as educational and propagandistic devices, but also as tangible attempts to develop new forms of meaning and identity.

It was in the course of analyzing representations of youth subcultures that Fenemore came across evidence for the ways in which gender, sexuality, class and race were interpreted and reproduced in the GDR. In identifying particular aspects of youth sub-cultural style and behavior as alien and other, members of the SED were engaged in a complex process of memory manipulation and displacement. Unlike other people with guilty consciences, German communists did not just try to hide their skeletons. Just as conservatives in West Germany sought to muddy the waters of the past and to make out that they had been reluctant bystanders (or even victims) rather than willing supporters of National Socialism, so too in the East the production of ‘heroes’ served to disguise complicity and to downplay or erase alternative notions of victimhood.

Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll begins with an introductory chapter setting out the methodology and sources and linking aspects of East German society and culture with wider debates about the nature of gender and sexuality in the cold war. The following chapter explores debates about the extent to which gender equality was achieved in the GDR and points to the implications of divisions and conflicts within the party for the ways in which issues of gender and sexuality were interpreted, discussed and reassessed. Subsequently, Chapter 3 explores how the longer history of National Socialism and communism influenced the development of notions of heroism and masculinity in the aftermath of the Second World War.

According to Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll, young people growing up in East Germany were subjected to competing and conflicting influences, particularly in relation to gender. Chapter 4 explores the ways in which, in parts, the education system undermined but, in others, reinforced traditional notions of gender. Chapter 5, in contrast, analyses the impact of the ‘teenage revolution’ brought about by international trends in youth culture. While East German teenagers shared many experiences (school, youth organization and ‘days in production’) which were typically ‘GDR’, to a greater or lesser extent they also retained a sense of shared identity with teenagers in West Germany and in Western Europe as a whole. In seeking to pursue the question of what was specific about the East German youth experience, Fenemore was interested not just in similarities and differences but also in crossovers and reflections. In the East as in the West, young people increasingly expected to be valued as individuals and not just ‘lumped together’. Like their contemporaries in the West, they expected to be free to make their own choices in their private lives. They placed increasing emphasis on intimacy in their personal relationships and on casualness in speech and style of dress.

Music and dancing served not only as means for negotiating, altering and ‘reengendering’ relations between the sexes, but also as sources of generational conflict and refusal to obey those in authority. A stubborn and macho working-class sense of self (which is examined in Chapter 6) combined with the opportunities for expression provided by rock ‘n’ roll to produce a potent form of rebellious opposition (explored in Chapter 9). For a minority of East German youth, the desire to demonstrate masculine superiority became a source of competition and struggle with the state. In their attempts to regain authority and influence over wayward and disinterested groups of youth, the communist leaders resorted to a number of strategies. Some softened the contours of domination. Others hardened them until they were indistinguishable from those of previous German regimes. These alternative attempts to cope with the changes occurring among youth are explored in Chapters 7 and 8 or the 1950s and 10 and 11 for the 1960s.

Under Ulbricht, periods of quite radical reform were interspersed with periods of fairly reactionary repression (not least with the building of the Berlin Wall). Fissures within the ruling party and differences over the balance between production and consumption, persuasion and compulsion, meant that the path of socialist development was far from smooth. It is only by digging down deeper that it is possible to locate these underground streams of critical thinking.

Periods of apparent understanding and reconciliation, however, were often disingenuous. They represented an attempt to out-maneuver enemies as well as to highlight problems. In each case they were followed by a rapid return to manipulation and coercion. Young men were encouraged to join paramilitary organizations, became subject to pre-military training and were exposed to official expectations during military service. Exaggerated notions (and performances of) masculinity were made to serve not just as a means of rebelling against SED rule, but also of upholding and conforming with it.

Fenemore provides greater complexity to notions like the ‘GDR’, ‘the party’, ‘the police’, ‘the press’ and the ‘youth organization’. While it is hard to get away from talking about ‘young people’, he tries to make clear whether he is referring to schoolchildren, teenagers, apprentices, workers, FDJ members, music fans, mods or rockers, boys or girls. Likewise, he seeks to differentiate between SED members who were former Communists, Stalinists or Social Democrats and those who were would-be reformers, members of the armed forces or self-styled Stasi ‘chekists’. While Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll's thematic structure has allowed him to explore different identities and viewpoints in some depth, he tries to preserve enough room to incorporate an understanding of the impact of particular events and how changes occurred across time.

It is probably too early to say what was comparable and what was unique about gender, sexuality and youth in the GDR. In the decade after unification, a significant emphasis was placed on telling, rather than asking, East Germans how life in the GDR had been. Being on the losing side in the cold war meant giving up the right to define (or influence) how the history of their culture and society (with all its ambiguities and contradictions) should be written.

In many ways, Germany became the battle- and showground in a war to prove which was the better system, Soviet collective good or American individuality. Rather than being fought on the ground and in the air, it was a war waged over the airwaves. Each side had its own particular techniques of publicity, propaganda and myth-making. The iconic heroes of the Soviet Union did battle with the legends of Hollywood. In East and West conflicts occurred not just over popular culture and consumption, but also over the gender stereotypes associated with them. According to Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll, to truly understand the complexities of post-war Germany, researchers have to stop taking sides. By finding the way beyond the East-West binary, they can explore and embrace the full range of different post-war ‘German’ experiences and identities. They need to recognize differences not just of politics and geography but of class, gender, education and culture. Internal police reports from the two Germanys reveal striking similarities as well as differences. They point to the way in which those labeled as wayward youth or loose women ended up doubly damned, at home neither in the East nor in the West. While much of the literature emphasizes separate paths of development, there are also approaches that recognize the no-man's-land that existed in between the two states and explore the ways in which crossovers occurred between the two.

Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll is a fascinating and highly readable account of what it was like to be young and hip, growing up in East Germany in the 1950s and 1960s.

History / Europe / Social Sciences / Archaeology

The Undiscovered Country: The Earlier Prehistory of the West Midlands edited by Paul Garwood (The Making of the West Midlands Series, Volume 1: Oxbow Books Limited)

The Undiscovered Country presents the proceedings of a seminar that took place at the University of Birmingham on June 24th 2002 as part of the West Midlands Regional Research Framework archaeological resource assessment. The outcomes of that process have been synthesized and will be published as a major resource assessment and agenda document covering all archaeological periods in the region, including earlier prehistoric periods. It became clear during the earlier prehistory seminar, that the seminar papers themselves addressed a range of topics at several spatial scales that deserved publication in far more detail than the synthesis document allowed.

The West Midlands region constitutes a large part of the British Isles, extending from the plains of eastern England to the Cambrian Mountains, and from the Cotswolds to the southern Pennines: an appraisal of the nature and significance of earlier prehistoric social action and cultural life in this large, centrally-positioned region is clearly essential. Yet the earlier prehistory of the West Midlands has long been neglected or marginalized at a national level, and is often perceived to be sparse and/or unimportant. These perceptions, as the seminar papers demonstrated so unambiguously, are profoundly misleading. The principle aims of The Undiscovered Country, therefore, are to reveal the scale, richness and diversity of the evidence from all earlier pre-historic periods in the West Midlands, and to explore its significance and potential in relation to current research themes and approaches. It is time to resituate the earlier prehistory of the West Midlands at the centre of British prehistoric studies (and not just geographically), with confidence in its present and future contribution to research at a national scale.

The title of The Undiscovered Country is derived from a quotation that expresses this idea succinctly: "...death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns" (Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act III, Scene I).

There is another sense, however, and a more important one in the current context, in which an analogy with exploration and journeys of discovery is appropriate for characterizing earlier prehistoric studies in the English West Midlands. It is evident that some ‘countries of the dead’ are more undiscovered than others: the archaeological evidence in these regions appears to be more hidden or veiled from our gaze, largely by virtue of apparent ‘gaps’ or limitations in the material evidence, or because of the ‘impenetrable’ nature of the landscapes being explored. This certainly appears to be true in the case of the West Midlands, which is repeatedly portrayed as a region neglected and left relatively undiscovered by archaeologists, especially prehistorians. This characterization is not altogether misleading when viewed from a national perspective. The West Midlands has gained a popular reputation, usually among those who live outside the region, mostly implicitly and certainly undeservedly, for being a kind of mightily extended 19th century ‘Black Country’ shrouded by a miasma of industrial and urban blight and surrounded by an extensive rural backwater of dark valleys, ‘blasted’ heaths, and 'useless' rocky hills. These are contrasted with supposed beacons of dynamic cultural life (essentially modern, urban, literary and cosmopolitan: e.g. Stratford-Upon-Avon). These images and valuations have without question left a mark on perceptions of the prehistory of the West Midlands. It is striking, for example, how recent attempts to challenge such perceptions and develop alternative views of the region have had to focus on – and reject – metaphors such as ‘wasteland’ and ‘wilderness’ used for characterizing the prehistoric landscape.

Most recently, although there have been a few attempts to redefine and re-situate the prehistoric archaeology of the region in relation to research themes and new appraisals of the nature of the evidence, it has only been through the Regional Research Framework process reported in The Undiscovered Country that a concerted and comprehensive effort has been made to review, synthesize and evaluate the earlier pre-history of the region as a whole (this volume, Garwood). The West Midlands Regional Research Framework earlier prehistory seminar took place at the University of Birmingham on June 24th, 2002, with most papers focusing on period-based overviews, region-wide multi-period thematic aspects, or particularly important sites or categories of evidence. This approach contrasted with other seminars in the Research Framework series which were mostly organized around county-based surveys. This was mainly because it was recognized from the start that earlier prehistoric evidence of one or several periods is often very sparse within any one county, making it very difficult – at such a relatively small spatial scale – to identify wider spatial patterns or draw general interpretative conclusions. Since the seminar, the papers published in this The Undiscovered Country have been updated on at least one occasion during the editorial process between 2004 and 2006. A synthesis of the earlier prehistoric evidence, current interpretative approaches, and future research agenda for each of the earlier prehistoric periods in the region will be published in due course. This synthesis is based on the papers in this volume and on other published work, and includes discussion of aspects of the evidence not covered by the seminar papers.

One of the most important outcomes of the Regional Research Framework process and the preparation of the papers in The Undiscovered Country has been a new appreciation of the overall character and distribution of earlier prehistoric social practices and forms of occupation in the West Midlands. In previous syntheses, and in the related interpretative literature of the 1980s and 1990s, there were overt attempts to challenge prejudiced and misleading characterizations of West Midlands archaeology (as unimportant or culturally impoverished), and to produce more appropriate appreciations of the region in prehistory. This approach was at least partly based on the idea that research neglect and particular material conditions had led to under-representation and under-appreciation of prehistoric evidence, a point made strongly by Mike Hodder in his seminar paper. It is fully recognized, in this kind of approach to West Midlands earlier prehistory, that the apparent absence or scarcity of prehistoric evidence has somehow to be accounted for. This is achieved, in one way or another, by reference to geological and environmental constraints on the identification of prehistoric sites, their destruction, and certainly a lack of archaeological fieldwork (the assessments by Barber, Garwood, Myers, and Ray in this volume). It may also be suggested that distinctive kinds of earlier prehistoric social practices in the region resulted in low levels of artifact deposition (Ray, this volume).

Garwood in the introduction says that it is now time, however, to re-evaluate this approach to the prehistory of the West Midlands, especially in the light of the period-specific and thematic assessments of the evidence discussed in The Undiscovered Country. These show that the earlier prehistoric archaeology of the region is indeed marked by the relative scarcity of material evidence: substantial monuments are rare, artifact assemblages are mostly small, sites and finds distributions are thin and uneven, and some areas appear to be devoid of earlier prehistoric evidence of any period. It is especially notable how large-scale excavation and survey projects in many cases have produced almost no earlier prehistoric remains, or perhaps only occasional isolated pit groups and small flint scatters, including the Wroxeter Hinterland Project, the Mid-Shropshire Wetland Survey, the M6 Toll route, and the Arrow Valley project in Warwickshire.

In this context, it is becoming increasingly difficult to account for the scarcity of earlier prehistoric evidence in the terms outlined above, or to argue that ‘absence of evidence is not evidence for absence’. It is especially notable that while there have been hundreds of archaeological investigations in the West Midlands since the 1960s, and with few areas untouched by fieldwork of some kind, there has been very little change in overall patterns of earlier prehistoric finds distributions and site identifications. In this light, the tendency to return again and again to explanations that emphasize site obscuration and destruction processes, limited fieldwork, and the material intangibility of cultural practices in the region, appears more like a polemical response to the supposed ‘marginalization’ of West Midlands pre-history rather than a satisfactory way to account for the lack of evidence. Instead, it is important to recognize that the limited and uneven nature of earlier prehistoric evidence (in both quantity and geographical distribution) is a genuine reflection of the material characteristics and intensity of earlier prehistoric social practices in the region, and we should not assume nor expect to discover a rich prehistoric past in all areas.

This does not, however, mean that the West Midlands is unimportant in research terms, nor that areas with relatively scarce evidence for earlier prehistoric occupation should be dismissed as unworthy of future investigation. In fact, there are very good reasons to argue that the opposite is the case in every respect. Despite the overall scarcity of earlier prehistoric evidence, there are parts of the West Midlands with significant concentrations of sites of one or several periods (e.g. the Staffordshire Peak District, the middle Trent valley, the Avon valley in Warwickshire, the upper Severn valley, and parts of upland Herefordshire and Shropshire close to the Welsh border). These are often comparable in scale and density with site concentrations in other regions such as Wessex, southeast England and the East Midlands.

In addition, while some ‘classic’ site types (of various periods) are rare or absent, it is apparent that certain kinds of monument groups (e.g. Neolithic-ceremonial complexes and Early Bronze Age dispersed round barrow groups) and specific site categories (e.g. cave sites, cursus monuments, and round barrows) are relatively common and have clear research significance in national terms. In some cases, individual sites easily bear comparison in terms of surviving material evidence and research potential with similar sites elsewhere. Most notably, recent re-assessments of Lower and Middle Paleolithic evidence in the West Midlands point to the international research potential of sites such as Waverley Wood in Warwickshire (Lang and Buteux, this volume). The potential for new and important discoveries in areas that have hitherto been regarded as ‘empty’ of earlier prehistoric activity, and the possibility of finds in unexpected places and geoenvironmental contexts, should also not be disregarded. This view is reinforced by recent finds in the Tame valley and surrounding areas between Birmingham and Coventry, including a large Mesolithic artifact assemblage at M6 Toll Site 19, Neolithic pits at M6 Toll Site 13, and Early Bronze Age pits at Meriden, Warwickshire.

The uneven distributions of earlier prehistoric evidence, especially between central areas (with low densities of surface finds and known sites), and outer parts of the region (with often dense monument and/ or artifact distributions), also have considerable potential for investigating intra- and inter-regional variation in the nature and intensity of social and economic activity. Indeed, it can be argued that while the region lacks a coherent geographical identity and is an arbitrary unit of study in cultural terms, it is especially well situated for comparative studies of prehistoric societies, cultural repertoires and the activities of many different social groups (Garwood, this volume). This is not only because of the great diversity of cultural forms, practices and sequences of change evident in each period, particularly around the periphery and in different river systems, but also because of the geographical position of the region – it is centrally located in southern Britain Cultural exchanges between these varied regions in prehistory must have traversed the West Midlands.

Contents of The Undiscovered Country include:

Introduction the undiscovered country – Paul Garwood
Lost but not forgotten: the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic occupation of the West Midlands – Alex Lang and Simon Buteux
The Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology of the West Midlands – Andy Myers
Priorities in Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age environmental archaeology in the West Midlands – James Greig
The Neolithic in the West Midlands: an overview – Keith Ray
The Blank Country? Neolithic enclosures and landscapes in the West Midlands – Martyn Barber
Later lithics in the West Midlands counties – Lawrence Barfield
8 Pits, pots, places and people: approaching the Neolithic at Wellington Quarry – Robin Jackson
Recent Work on the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Warwickshire – Stuart C. Palmer
Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age funerary monuments and burial traditions in the West Midlands – Paul Garwood
Bronze Age settlement in Shropshire: research potential and frameworks for settlement studies in the West Midlands – John Halsted
Ceremonial landscapes and ritual deposits in the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods in the West Midlands – Ann Woodward
Regions, cultural identity and social change, c.4500-1500 BC: the West Midlands in context – Paul Garwood

The value of the West Midlands Regional Research Framework earlier prehistory seminar, and the significant research outcomes that have followed from it, has been to look at the full geographical extent of the region and to produce synthetic, critical evaluations of specific periods and categories of evidence across the entire region, with reference to current national research agenda. For the first time it is possible to obtain a reliable and balanced assessment of the nature, scale, types, qualities, distributions and current interpretations of the material evidence for each earlier prehistoric period, together with an evaluation of the research significance and potential of earlier prehistoric studies in the region. The papers in The Undiscovered Country are organized broadly in chronological order but are very diverse in the forms they take and in terms of their approaches to the evidence. There are three general descriptive and interpretative syntheses that cover specific prehistoric periods: the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic (Lang and Buteux), the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic (Myers), and the Neolithic (Ray). There is also a discussion of Early Bronze Age monuments and funerary evidence (Garwood, Chapter 10), which provides a partial overview of this period given the general rarity of other kinds of evidence from non-monument contexts. There are also three multi-period, region-wide thematic studies concerned with specific kinds of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age evidence and related interpretative issues: these evaluate the palaeo-environmental evidence and environmental reconstruction (Greig), air photographic identification and interpretation of monuments (Barber), and lithic artifact assemblages and distributions (Barfield). Three of the papers in The Undiscovered Country focus on particular sites or areas within the region to explore important aspects of occupation sites, ceremonial practices and landscape at various times during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age: these assess the evidence for occupation (especially Early Neolithic) at Wellington, Herefordshire (Jackson), new discoveries at the Neolithic monument complex at King's Newnham/Church Lawford, Warwickshire (Palmer), and Early Bronze Age settlement in Shropshire (Halsted). Finally, there are two papers concerned with long-term traditions of practice and cultural change: these consider the nature of monument complexes, monumentalism and depositional practices in the Neolithic and Bronze Age (Woodward), and the large-scale spatial patterning of social practices from the Late Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age (Garwood, Chapter 13).

These papers reveal great variation in earlier prehistoric activity across the West Midlands, and strongly suggest very sparse occupation in some areas compared to others. At the same time, the evidence from the region is very diverse, is often of extremely high quality in terms of site preservation, surviving monuments, dating evidence and artifact assemblages, and provides widespread opportunities for detailed studies of prehistoric landscapes of all periods. Although in some respects the editors’ attempts to understand the earlier prehistory of the West Midlands are still mostly at a pioneering stage, they say they are now able – partly on the basis of the research papers presented in The Undiscovered Country – to perceive more clearly the general ‘lay of the land’ and key points of reference (in terms of the nature, distribution and significance of the archaeological evidence), and thus follow more dependable routes into what has for far too long been seen as uncharted and dangerous territory.

The Undiscovered Country is the first volume in a series, The Making of the West Midlands, which explores the archaeology of the English West Midlands region from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Industrial Revolution. These books, based on the West Midlands Research Framework seminars held at the University of Birmingham in 2002, aim to transform perceptions of the nature and significance of the archaeological evidence across a large part of central Britain. Series Editors are Paul Garwood, Lecturer in Prehistory, IAA, University of Birmingham; Sarah Watt, Historic Buildings Consultant, CgMs Consulting; and Roger White, Assistant Director, IAA, University of Birmingham.

Home & Garden / Biological Sciences / Reference

Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses: From Emerald Carpet to Amber Wave: Serene and Sensuous Plants for the Garden by William Cullina (Houghton Mifflin)

Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses is award-winning author William Cullina’s book of background plants for North American gardens. With this new volume, Cullina completes the set of books on native plants for the garden that includes Wildflowers and Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines.

In Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses Cullina, director and propagator of the New England Wild Flower Society's Garden in the Woods and Nasami Farm, shares information that will make readers see landscaping as never before. He compares a garden made up of nothing but bright flowers to the detergent shelves in a supermarket, where every package screams for attention. What makes a garden out of a collection of flowering plants are the ferns, moss, and grasses that are the canvas on which nature paints its portraits – dark green, medium green, forest green, light green, lime green, yellow-green, blue-green, gray-green, chartreuse, emerald, teal, puce, and every shade of green in between. These plants, Cullina says, bring to the garden a level of refinement and sophistication unmatched by any flower. Without these plants, nothing would hold the garden together.

Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses also contains a thorough discussion, with maps, of what plant hardiness means in the light of global warming. Although most of the changes are projected to occur over one hundred years, Cullina brings the issue down to today on his own plot of land in northeastern Connecticut. On previous hardiness zone maps he was squarely in zone 5. On the newest map, he is in the middle of zone 6, with zone 7 looming directly south. Using the latest projections, he has drawn a map of what the climate will probably look like seventy-five years from now. The changes would be astonishing.

For each species Cullina also gives the natural range, type of soil, and habitat in which the plant thrives. Finally, he provides complete information on where to buy plants and a list of the best species for various uses. Containing 300 color photographs (many of which were taken by Cullina himself) and encyclopedic, instructive information, Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses gives advanced and novice gardeners alike the tools to grow and propagate these sophisticated plants.

The central purpose of William Cullina's Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses is to show the possibilities that abound in our native flora so that one can choose plants that are both appealing and adapted to the climate and soils of the region in which one lives . . . A gardener who already has some sense of design will find Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses a valuable resource. – Kip Anderson, PBS's "The Victory Garden"

There is an elegance to the writing of Bill Cullina that is rarely found in reference books. His distilled prose, I believe, comes not only from an intimacy with the subject, but from the palpable affection he possesses for the greater whole. It is in his understanding and embracing of the marvels about us that a spark and sparkle is added to each descriptor. – Daniel J. Hinkley, author of The Explorer's Garden

I have always respected Bill Cullina's work. His new book is an indispensable guide that I'll use while designing with these native beauties. – Tracy Di-Sabato-Aust, author of The Well-Tended Perennial Garden

Cullina is a nationally recognized expert on native plants, he's also a master prose stylist, and never has this fact been more delightfully evident than in Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses. Like Wildflowers and Native Trees, Shrubs & Vines, the book combines encyclopedic information about North American species, all written in a fresh and entertaining style. Pulling the garden together – beautifully illustrated, the book is a stunning guide to the background plants that turn flower beds into a landscape. It is both an essential resource and a great read – and Cullina is the go-to guy when it comes to all things green.

Home & Garden / Professional & Technical / Interior Design / Arts & Photography

Best Ugly: Restaurant Concepts and Architecture by AvroKO (Collins Design)

How did the James Beard award-winning design and architecture team AvroKO become one of the hottest restaurant design firms in Manhattan? They started with a concept, which blossomed to images, ideas, colors, and objects. With the release of Best Ugly, they bring their unique vision to the pages of their first book. It is an exploration of design and meaning, and offers a glimpse into the creative process through which AvroKO has produced some of the most remarkable and unique restaurant spaces in New York.

The brainchild of four college friends with a mutual passion for innovative design, AvroKO was formed by William Harris, Greg Bradshaw, Kristina O'Neal and Adam Farmerie. Each lends a distinct expertise to the company, but together they have developed a distinct design method in which they begin with a concept and bring it to physical, psychological, and emotional life by blending several mediums and disciplines. It's what they call ‘Design Connectivity,’ a way to express that every element in an interior should connect or have a relationship with every other element in the space, as well as to the soul of the concept. One of the fundamental principles of Design Connectivity is ‘best ugly,’ a term the partners discovered while traveling through China. Somewhat of a contradiction, ‘best ugly’ came to represent all things that were beautiful and charming in an offbeat, sometimes awkward manner, finding beauty in the unexpected. Their design is never obvious, but layered, with brilliant, unexpected touches, re-appropriated materials, and contrasting elements that are integrated into a larger, unified vision.

Best Ugly focuses on AvroKO's portfolio of restaurant work in New York, which perhaps best illustrates this idea of Design Connectivity. As partner Farmerie puts it, "We think restaurants are interesting animals. They have all of the interesting design elements, while still maintaining artistic features that are grounded in architecture, graphics, as well as diving into food, music, uniforms, etc. It becomes a harmony of all these different mediums coming together." According to O'Neal, "It's really one of the few design vehicles that encompasses that many different artistic pursuits, and we try to do it in such a balance that it develops into a complete experience."

Best Ugly tells the story, inspiration and production behind each space. From initial concept development and naming to unearthing historical research, from sourcing just the right black paint to finding the perfect vintage suit, the book reveals each step along the way. Each restaurant represents not only beautiful and functional design, but also an authentic and meaningful experience. The restaurants featured include PUBLIC, the firm's first self-propelled project. It was AvroKO's design work for PUBLIC that swept the James Beard Awards – the hospitality industry's most prestigious honor – when they walked off with the awards for Best Restaurant Design and Best Restaurant Graphics, an unheard-of accomplishment for a single firm. In addition, Best Ugly features:

The Stanton Social and its celebration of deconstructed vintage fashion and the history of the Lower East Side.
Sapa and the coexistence of neoclassical French and traditional Vietnamese aesthetics.
Odea and the literary origins of its atmosphere of savage nobility.
Quality Meats and its homage to the classic New York butcher shop.
The melding of the English manor kitchen with the humble gastropub in the E.U.

For anyone interested in design, restaurants, architecture, or sexy photography, Best Ugly is a visual feast. The AvroKO principals share each step of their creative process in designing six unique restaurants from scratch. With gorgeous, full-color photography, the book reveals everything from a space's architectural history and striking design to its smallest details and ingenious quirks. Best Ugly is an inspiration for anyone who relishes inventive design, architecture, contemporary culture, and the richest of dining experiences.

Literature & Fiction / History & Criticism / Reference

Reconciliation Discourse: The case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Annelies Verdoolaege (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture Series: John Benjamins Publishing Company)

After the gruelling work of the Commission I came away with a deep sense – indeed an exhilarating realisation – that though there is undoubtedly much evil about, we human beings have a wonderful capacity for good. We can be very good. That is what fills me with hope for even the most intractable situations. – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1999

Reconciliation Discourse, a reworking of her dissertation by Annelies Verdoolaege, Ghent University, is a research monograph analyzing the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) from an ethnographic/linguistic point of view. The central proposition of this book is that the TRC can be regarded as a mechanism that leads to the hegemony of specific discourses, thus exercising power. The analysis illustrates how, through a certain type of reconciliation discourse constructed at the TRC hearings, a reconciliation-oriented reality took shape in post-TRC South Africa. Basically, the study points to the long-term implications a truth commission can exert on a traumatized post-conflict society. Reconciliation Discourse explores the TRC discourse in-depth on the basis of personal stories from TRC testifiers. A combination of Poststructuralist and Critical Discourse Analysis approaches form the theoretical foundations and provides an extensive bibliography with a database of TRC publications.

Reconciliation Discourse is the culmination of four years of intensive doctoral research, and the means to spread Verdoolaege’s ideas and findings both within and beyond the academic community. Although part of a political agenda, the TRC's exertion of power should not necessarily be conceived as a negative force. It is quite likely that the Human Rights Violations (HRV) Committee's reconciliation discourse and consequently also the reconciliation discourse in South African society have shaped the way South Africans think, feel and act. The TRC became so dominant in everyday life that it began to take on a life of its own and became a kind of monument in and of itself to the past.

According to Verdoolaege, the vagueness of the term reconciliation was a deliberate choice, defining reconciliation unambiguously and restricting reconciliation discourse in such a way that it would only allow for a number of limited interpretations, would never have had the same impact on South African society. The power exercised by the TRC on a socio-political level can be conceived as positive since it was a mechanism to decentralize power. All people who had participated in the TRC process – victims, perpetrators, TRC staff, but also the media, politicians, researchers and artists who used TRC material – felt as if they had contributed to ‘the building of a unified and reconciled nation’. Because they were given a voice before the TRC they understood that they were now esteemed citizens of the new South Africa; they had gone from subjected people to subjects of the new state. It is even possible that the entire nation and the entire socio-political scene gained power as a result of the TRC proceedings, since not only TRC participants, but most South Africans might have felt committed to the TRC. They realized that their country was setting an example to the world and they might have felt part of this unique undertaking. This also means that powerless South Africans (uneducated, poor, marginal) might have felt a certain amount of power because of their emotional attachment to the TRC. Everybody talked, discussed and read about the Commission, so it was this discursively produced regime of truth of the entire state system that generated power.

All this can be connected to the inclusive character of the TRC, a notion Verdoolaege uses throughout Reconciliation Discourse. Inclusiveness is the superstructure of the entire TRC concept. First of all, this inclusive dimension was highlighted when discussing the diversity of the HRV testifiers. Through this diversity the TRC emphasized that apartheid had affected everybody, that the entire nation was a victim and that everybody should be healed. As a result of this inclusiveness, testifiers – victim and perpetrator – could possess a double identity before the TRC. The respect that was attributed to each and every testifier before the HRV Committee also formed an important element of the inclusive nature of the Commission. The HRV reconciliation discourse was highly layered on an ideological, historical and identity level, which also stressed the inclusive nature of the Commission. A storytelling template was provided to the testifying victims, but within that format a lot of discursive freedom was accepted – thus appealing to a majority of South Africans.

Reconciliation not only became a national symbol, but also an internationally recognized identifier of the new South Africa. Clearly, by including all South Africans into the TRC process, by constructing a common narrative of the past and by stressing that all South Africans now had to work together to live in peace and stability, the TRC had inclusive national unity as its main objective. The inclusiveness of the TRC is like a Leitmotiv running through Reconciliation Discourse. It appears in different segments of the text and it is part and parcel of some of Verdoolaege’s main findings. Through the reconciliation discourse a majority of South Africans recognized themselves in one central concept. As a result of this reconciliation discourse, a majority of South Africans also felt connected to the TRC. Consequently, they all felt united, which could have formed a solid basis for the construction of new, democratic South Africa.

In Reconciliation Discourse Verdoolaege started from a socio-political phenomenon, located in one particular historical and geographical context, but with an influence on various other transitional processes, namely the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. On the basis of a discursive analysis of the TRC Human Rights Violations hearings and a deconstruction of the Foucaultian archive of these hearings, the researchers concluded that both at the actual HRV hearings and in South African society the TRC exerted a reconciliation-oriented power. In both of these contexts power should be interpreted as a complex and multidimensional concept. At the hearings they noted a fascinating combination of the granting and constraining of discursive freedom. The TRC also exercised power in South African reality, partly based on political motivations, but also inspired by a reconciliation-driven social consensus. This study combined theories from Blommaert, Foucault and other poststructuralists, integrating insights taken from domains such as pragmatics, sociology and political sciences – thus creating an original framework.

Based on her discursive research in particular, Verdoolaege in Reconciliation Discourse highlights three fundamental elements of the South African TRC that could be taken over by other countries trying to address a violent past. First of all, the Human Rights Violations Committee provided a forum for thousands of victims to talk about their sufferings under apartheid. These victims came from South African towns, villages or remote areas and the majority of them did not have a high political, social or religious profile. These victims can be considered as ordinary South Africans, testifying in their own mother tongue and surrounded by family and friends to support them. Giving a voice to citizens and especially to victims of past atrocities is one of the main characteristics of the South African TRC that could be repeated in other contexts. In transitional processes or truth commissions all over the world, particular attention should be paid to listening to and respecting ordinary citizens.

Secondly, by means of the testimonies of apartheid victims and perpetrators, the TRC composed a collective memory, an official archive of the apartheid past. This officially authorized and undeniable archive will forever be cherished by future generations. There does exist a record of the apartheid past now and this record will always be there to be consulted and analyzed. Creating an officially recognized archive that is open to the public and to national and international researchers is also an aspect of the TRC that could be copied by other countries.

Thirdly, the Human Rights Violations hearings formed a template for talking about a traumatic past. Previously, people did not know how to talk about atrocities, how to express emotions of grief and anger – definitely not in public. People now knew how to listen to victims, how to pay respect and how to deal with their emotions and memories. Similarly, in other countries where truth commissions have been established, the reconciliation discourse created at the hearings could be taken as an example for initiatives of the same kind but on a smaller scale. We must not forget that in many countries a truth commission is only a first step on the way to unity and reconciliation. In view of this, it is often important that there is a follow-up to the TRC process, for instance in the form of micro-commissions in various contexts all over the country.

Based on the analyses in this work, reconciliation discourse might definitely be constructed in other countries as well and that the impact on society might indeed be similar as in South Africa.

Reconciliation Discourse is unique on several levels: TRC discourse is explored in-depth on the basis of personal stories from TRC testifiers, a combination of Poststructuralist and Critical Discourse Analysis approaches form the theoretical foundations, and an extensive bibliography provides an impressive database of TRC publications. Finding out whether these findings for South Africa can in any way be expanded to other countries dealing with a traumatic past is a challenge to be taken up by future researchers.

Reconciliation Discourse is part of the series Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture (DAPSAC), whose general editors, Ruth Wodak and Greg Myers of the University of Lancaster invite contributions that investigate political, social and cultural processes from a linguistic/discourse-analytic point of view.

Literature & Fiction / Mysteries & Thrillers

The Picasso Flop by Vince Van Patten & Robert J. Randisi (Texas Hold'em Mysteries: Mysterious Press)

From Vince Van Patten, host of the World Poker Tour, and mystery writer Robert J. Randisi, founder and executive director of the Prive Eye Writers of America, comes a novel of murder and poker suspense. As told in The Picasso Flop, just out of prison after ten years, professional poker player Jimmy Spain visits his wealthy former cell mate and listens to an offer he can't refuse. The rich man wants the ex-con to mentor his only child in the game of poker. In return, he will set Jimmy up and pay all of his buy-ins on the poker tour. This deal looks like easy money, especially after Jimmy meets the kid – a cocky and abrasive twenty-two-year-old girl named Kat Landrigen who has some good, yet raw, poker skills. Soon Jimmy and Kat enter a World Poker Tour tournament at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Things are coming up aces ... until a player is found brutally slain with a Picasso flop – three picture cards – on his body. When suspicion points to Kat as the killer, it's up to Jimmy to find the real culprit – while fighting to remain in the tournament. This is all complicated by the fact that Kat hates her dad and doesn't know he hired her tutor.

As one ghastly murder after another knocks out other players, in The Picasso Flop, this hard-bitten veteran of the felt knows that in this cutthroat world of card sharks, someone could eliminate him – or Kat – for good. Spain must keep her safe and unaware while working his way toward the final table and a potential $1.8 million score. On the clock, with the blinds escalating, and down to his last hand, Jimmy fears he may be drawing dead.

A straight flush winner ... the poker world told so well ... I could not put it down. – Mike Sexton, host, World Poker Tour

Finally a book that shows the drama and excitement of the poker world, plus adds an edgy yet humorous murder twist. I'm hooked. – Farrah Fawcett

Vince Van Patten draws an ace, teaming up with Robert Randisi on The Picasso Flop. Whether you're a poker fiend or a mystery fan, you've drawn the perfect hand in this exciting new thriller! – Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition

… Spain is an engaging, likable character, and some of the poker scenes are done with flair and knowledge, but the loose plot doesn't do justice to the fine concept. – Publishers Weekly
… an appealing setup: pro player Jimmy Spain is returning to the Texas hold 'em circuit after several years in the slammer, and he is schooling young Kat Landrigan for the rich father with whom he served time. … Bottom line: a quick, fun read despite its many flaws. – Frank Sennett, Booklist

Featuring the appearances of such poker luminaries as Mike Sexton, Doyle Brunson, and James Woods, and co-written by an impresario of the game, The Picasso Flop mixes money, mystery, and the adrenaline-pumping excitement of Texas hold'em poker action, Vegas-style.

Literature & Fiction / Romance / Christian

Jezebel by Jacquelin Thomas (New American Library)

Her underlying themes of faith, love, and current social issues will strike a chord. – Romance Reader

[B]rings an African-American perspective and slightly edgier tone into Christian fiction, while keeping the gospel message up front and center. – Publishers Weekly

Nationally bestselling novelist Jacquelin Thomas has garnered much acclaim for her award-winning African-American Christian romance novels. Thomas, the Essence bestselling author of The Prodigal Husband, Defining Moments, and Redemption, is the winner of the Readers Choice Award, the Atlanta Choice Award, and was nominated for the Career Achievement Award by Romantic Times magazine. She is also the founder of the annual Faith-Based Arts Conference, designed to showcase the talents of authors in the Christian/Inspirational genre. With twenty-five titles in print, she has become a driving force in the world of Christian fiction.

Now, Thomas reinvents the biblical story of Jezebel into a modern drama of temptation and sin, and the lives they destroy.

Jezebel follows the exploits of Georgia beauty Jessie Belle who seeks to wed a trusting and prosperous pastor, Traynor Devereaux, as a ticket out of town. Jessie is a 20-year-old woman from Mayville, Georgia who has a reputation for seducing men to get what she wants. For Jessie it's time to put her talent at manipulating men to work.

Traynor, who has a brilliant career ahead, has no idea what kind of world this temptress is leading him into. He doesn't realize that his cunning new bride isn't just dreaming of a new life, but running from an old one – and an unsalvageable reputation that could destroy both their futures.

Seduced by the material possessions that come with position and power, Jessie uses her wiles to move her unwitting husband to the forefront of the country's leading ministry. She's prepared to do it by any means possible – including sex, lies, betrayal, and blackmail – all the while building her own private hell. And when the walls come tumbling down, Jessie Belle in Jezebel will pay a price she never imagined, and discover one last chance at redemption and forgiveness she never expected.

Literature & Fiction / Westerns

Wolves at Our Door by J. P. S. Brown (University of New Mexico Press)

The ranch families of the Sierra had been at war against the drug traffickers of Sinaloa for thirty years. Most of the decent people had moved to the cities and abandoned their ranches to the intruders, although some youngsters and men stayed to fight. . . . The intruders from Sinaloa came heavily armed and began to till any land they could find beside active, hidden watercourses for marijuana and opium poppy crops, regardless of who owned the land. Owners the intruders did not kill were officially denounced to the government in Chihuahua City as drug growers. The intruders used the drug crops that they planted on the ranches as evidence against the owners. The crooked officials put the owners in the penitentiary and the invaders went on and raised the crops unmolested. One hundred and seventy-five ranch owners and young men native to the region had been killed in the war since it began in 1975. . . . At present, native sons had driven away most of the intruders, but this lull in the war was not expected to continue. – from the book

Wolves at Our Door presents ranching families' struggle against border crime.

Along the border of southern Arizona and northern Mexico, a group of Anglo and Hispanic families struggle to keep their ranches going. Author J. P. S. Brown in Wolves at Our Door shows readers a part of the world that few have seen and even fewer have understood, offering a view of the world of cattle ranching in an area where homes are still without electricity or plumbing, where ranches are reachable only by plane or horseback, and where neighbors are family or deadly foes.
The modern border of southern Arizona and Mexico is a landscape with which acclaimed writer and fifth-generation cattleman Brown is all too familiar. Brown lives and works on a ranch near Patagonia, Arizona. In 1999 he was the recipient of the Will James Society's Big Enough Award for his contribution to the cowboy tradition. In 2002 he received the Lawrence Clark Powell Award for his contribution to Southwestern letters. Bringing back characters from his previous works – Jim Kane, Juan Vogel, Andreo ‘The Lion’ Canez and Adam Martinez from Jim Kane, Cinnamon Calf, and The Forests of the Night, Brown tells the story of a close-knit group of Anglo and Hispanic ranching families struggling to keep their ranches alive under the depredation of hardened criminals – drug lords and smugglers.

Ninety-nine percent of border foot traffic crosses American ranchland. Seventy-five-year-old Jim Kane's 7X ranch is right in the middle of today's border trouble. The people who come looking for work are trouble, but not a deadly threat. Half of them are so poor their shoes wear out before they cross the ranches and they surrender to American authority, half dead from exhaustion and exposure. To Kane, the drug traffickers and the unscrupulous ‘coyotes’ who traffic in poor people are the deadly threats to the nation.

In Wolves at Our Door Brown opens a window into a landscape where making an honest living is threatened by the presence of illegal drug smuggling and human trafficking. Age-old values collide with gangs of hardened border criminals in a raw tale of action, adventure, and justice.

Outdoors & Nature / Ecology / Biology

The Riverscape and the River by Sylvia M. Haslam (Cambridge University Press)

Rivers . . . were made for wise men to contemplate, and for fools to pass by without consideration. – cited in Walton, 1653

The study of water in the landscape is a new and rapidly expanding field. Sylvia M. Haslam, fresh water ecologist in the Department of Plant Sciences at Cambridge University, in The Riverscape and the River examines how the quantity, function and ecology of water changes as it moves from watershed to river. The development of river and riverscape, their ecology, the effect of human activities and water resources are described both in principle and using case histories. Contrasting examples are given from across the world, including Iceland, Hungary, Malta, Britain and the U.S., which enables an understanding of how water and riverscape interact with each other, and with human impact. The study, development and loss of water resources is also described, including the extreme example of Malta, whose clean water now depends solely on oil imports.

Haslam’s The Riverscape and the River links river and riverscape in an integrated whole. Haslam has worked for over 35 years on rivers, mostly on their vegetation, waters, channels and other contents. More recently she realized the interest of the wider ecosystem, of the river and the riverscape being inextricably joined, both by the water they share, and by the human impact, some interesting, most destructive, inflicted upon them. Changes have been made to allow people to survive, and indeed to live pleasantly. Great changes have also been made from ignorance or greed to remove and contaminate both water and natural heritage. The Riverscape and the River reflects the interest and diversity of that natural heritage, and what has been done to it down the ages.

The Riverscape and the River is primarily about Europe with a little on North America.

The riverscape and the river share the sheet of water which covers the land: in whole or part, permanently or intermittently. The river is a stream of water flowing along a bed in the earth, to the sea (lake or river). The riverscape is that part of landscape which has (or had) a watercourse as its focus. Rain falls upon the riverscape. Some evaporates, some sinks below, gradually emerging as springs or flushes, and most runs down the slope, gradually collecting into the rivers and finally the seas. The hydrological cycle is finished by the evaporation of sea (and fresh) water into the air, and its precipitation back on the earth's surface.

Seeing that life on earth is based on water, and life on land, on fresh water, the river is essential to land life, as well as river life. The riverscape and, to a considerable extent all that grows on it or is put on it, depends on the river, since the river first formed the riverscape. The two are interdependent, both are modified by human impact, and both are natural capital, hence natural resources for people. They thus come from the interaction of natural elements such as flowing water and rising hills, and the interaction with these and the cultural dimension and its diversity. They are live archives, demonstrating the management of natural resources such as water and soil.

The valley is a stretch of country watered by a river, an elongated hollow between hills. How much can be seen, what is seen, and how it is seen, varies with the point of observation. From the river, looking out, the riverside grades up the slope, giving a fairly enclosed view, from large to small. The viewpoint can move anywhere up slope to the hill top, where the view is generally wide and open, and the overall pattern (not the river detail) can be seen better. Aerial photographs, of course, give a yet different view of the river basin. All are equally true, all showing different facets of the riverscape and river.

Case studies include Waccasassa River, Florida, U.S.; R. Cam, Cambridgeshire, England; River Kbir, Malta; R. Golo, Corsica; R. Don (Aberdeen) Scotland; R. San Gorg, Malta; R. Wylye, England; and R. Itchen, England.

The Riverscape and the River is a dense volume; its contents include:

Introduction: Interpretation, A working entity, Riverscape elements, Catchments and their diversity, Natural capital, Intangible values of riverscapes, Values
The natural river and its destruction: The concept of naturalness, Human impact, River vegetation, River animals, Connections and mosaics, Skewing and loss of vegetation from human impact, Restoration and rehabilitation
The natural riverscape and its modification: The layers of the riverscape, History, Case studies
Resources I. Water resources and their loss
Development and variation of rivers: Upstream – Downstream, Downstream variation in vegetation, Case studies
Development and variation of riverscapes: Sense of place, Patterns, Riverscape construction, Recent floods
Building blocks of river vegetation: River architecture, Examining architecture, The building blocks and their habitats, Animals and structure, Water-supported vegetation, Conclusions
Building blocks of flood plain vegetation: The building blocks, Traditional vegetation types, Building blocks of river plain vegetation, Case studies
Resources II. Plants and animals, cleaning and minerals
Building blocks of the riverscape: Case study, Riverscape description, Building blocks which drive riverscape development, The effect of land use changes, Trees, Building blocks for individual species, Buffer strips and beetle banks, Historical examples
Patterns, boundaries and fragmentation, Scale, Mosaics, Community size and fragmentation, Fragments, Communication, Fragmentation and destruction of habitat: case study, Malta, Cultural fragmentation, Change over two decades: Gozo, Maltese Islands, Pattern in relation to habitat, Icklingham Poors' Fen, Suffolk, The Scottish Cairngorms, change over millennia, Dartmoor, England, over millennia, Sensitivity and resistance
Resources III. Settlements and constructions
The harsh riverscape: Case studies, Summary
The tempered or smiling riverscape: River trade, R. Thames, R. Tapio, Old edge of Cambridge, R. Cam, Pond landscape
Envoi: The water features in the riverscape

The Riverscape and the River is an innovative book written for graduate students and professionals interested in how water and riverscape interact. It has more ecology (natural, cultural and historical) and less mathematics and modeling than is currently usual: reflecting Haslam’s interests and her preference for observation and synthesis.

Politics / Biographies & Memoirs / Psychology

The Bush Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg (Random House)

The Bush Tragedy is the book that uncovers the ‘black box’ from the crash of the Bush presidency. Unstintingly yet compassionately, and with no political ax to grind, Slate editor in chief Jacob Weisberg methodically examines the family and circle of advisers who played crucial parts in George W. Bush’s downfall.
Distilling all that has been previously written about Bush into a defining portrait, he illuminates the fateful choices and key decisions that led George W., and thereby the country, into its current predicament. Weisberg gives the tragedy a historical and literary frame, comparing Bush not just to previous American leaders, but also to Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, who rises from ne’er-do-well youth to become the warrior king Henry V.
Here is the story of the early years of the Bush dynasty, with never-before-revealed information about the conflict between the two patriarchs on George W.’s father’s side of the family – the one an upright pillar of the community, the other a rowdy playboy – and how that schism would later shape and twist the younger George Bush; his father, a hero of war, business, and Republican politics whose accomplishments George W. would attempt to copy and whose absences he would resent; his mother, Barbara, who suffered from insecurity, depression, and deep dissatisfaction with her role as housewife; and his younger brother Jeb, seen by his parents as steadier, stronger, and the son most likely to succeed.
Weisberg in The Bush Tragedy also anatomizes the replacement family Bush surrounded himself with in Washington, a group he thought could help him correct the mistakes he felt had destroyed his father’s presidency: Karl Rove, who led Bush astray by pursuing his own historical ambitions and transforming the president into a deeply polarizing figure; Dick Cheney, whose obsessive quest to restore presidential power and protect the country after 9/11 caused Bush and America to lose the world’s respect; and, finally, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, who encouraged Bush’s foreign policy illusions and abetted his flight from reality.

Using in-depth research, analysis, and psychological acuity, Weisberg explores the whole Bush story. It delves as no other biography has into Bush’s religious beliefs, presenting them as at once opportunistic and sincere.

Key topics from chapters in The Bush Tragedy:

The Bushes and the Walkers

· Bush's direct lineal ancestors – his great, great grandfather and his great, great grandmother on his father's side, owned slaves in Maryland in the 1830s.

· The three myths of the Bush men: I made it on my own. I'm not really rich. I'm running to serve my country.

· The Bush family is really two families in conflict – the Bush side and the Walker side.

Father and Sons

· Bill Clinton's view of Bush ("He doesn't know anything. He doesn't want to know anything. But he's not dumb.")

· How George W.'s tormented relationship with his father – and mother – shaped his personality and politics.

· How George W.'s lifelong competition with his brother Jeb drove his entry into politics.

The Gospel of George

· That Bush's oft-told story of his religious conversion is distorted at best, and his famous ‘walk on the beach’ with Billy Graham never happened.

· According to a DKE brother, Bush's parents – in addition to Laura – gave him an ultimatum to quit drinking in the mid-1980s.

· Bush's religious mentor, Doug Wead, doubts the sincerity of his ‘born again’ conversion.

· On the never-released Doug Wead tapes, Bush essentially admits to using illegal drugs.

The Shadow

· An interpretation of the Rove-Bush relationship.

· How Rove used William McKinley's 1896 campaign as a template for 2000.

· Rove's tragic mistake of politicizing the War on Terrorism.

· How Rove's obsession with creating a permanent Republican majority led Bush astray.

The Foremost Hand

· Paul Wolfowitz was shocked to learn that Bush – as a presidential candidate – didn't know Germany was in NATO.

· That Dick Cheney's views on executive power were first developed in Lynne Cheney's 1978 novel, Executive Privilege.

· How Cheney learned to manipulate Bush.

· An explanation of Cheney's obsession with security.

An Amiable Monster

· The location of Cheney's ‘secure, undisclosed location.’

· The AEI retreat in the summer of 2002 when Dick Cheney decided in favor of invading Iraq.

· The separate reasons why Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz each wanted to attack Saddam.

· How Cheney convinced Bush to invade Iraq.

· An analysis of Bush's ever-changing foreign policy.

Dead Precedents

· The story of Bush's Churchill obsession.

· How Bush misunderstands history.

· Bush's reading list.

If you've been scratching your head to figure out how we could have gotten into this mess – The Bush Tragedy lays it all out clearly and boldly and with no political ax to grind. Weisberg has written a hell of a book. – Ben Bradlee, Vice President At Large of The Washington Post

Precisely because he does not think George W. Bush is a joke, Jacob Weisberg has been able to write a very witty and deeply penetrating profile of him. – Christopher Hitchens

The Bush Tragedy is political drama, family history and psychological insight in dazzling combination. If you read one book about George W. Bush and his presidency, this should be it. – Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink

The epic failure of the Bush Administration is a story for the ages and Jacob Weisberg with a clever assist from William Shakespeare – has written a scorching, powerful and entirely plausible account of this perverse family saga. Not only that – it's a beautifully written and erudite book, hilarious at times, a joy to read. – Joe Klein, Time political columnist and author of Primary Colors

The key to understanding the nightmare of the past seven years has been lying in plain sight all along: a twisted drama of family, of father and son and brother and brother. Weisberg has not just picked up the key and opened the door, he has also given us a thorough, and gripping, inventory of the contents of that big, dark, scary room. – Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor, The New Yorker

The Bush Tragedy is a revelatory and defining portrait of George W. Bush by one of our most acclaimed journalists. Unstintingly yet compassionately delving as no other biography has into Bush’s religious beliefs, The Bush Tragedy is an essential work that is likely to become a standard reference for any future assessment. It is the most balanced and compelling account of a sitting president ever written.
Politics / Terrorism / Security

Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century by Philip Bobbitt (Knopf)

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises, and oft it hits

Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits…. – William Shakespeare

Terror and Consent is an urgent reconceptualization of the Wars on Terror from the author of The Shield of Achilles. In Terror and Consent Philip Bobbitt brings together historical, legal, and strategic analyses to understand the idea of a ‘war on terror.’ Does it make sense? What are its historical antecedents? How would such a war be ‘won’? What are the appropriate doctrines of constitutional and international law for democracies in such a struggle?
Author Bobbitt, Herbert Wechsler Professor of Federal Jurisprudence, Director of the Center for National Security at Columbia University, Senior Fellow at the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas, provocatively declares that the United States is the chief cause of global networked terrorism because of overwhelming American strategic dominance. This is not a matter for blame, he insists, but grounds for reflection on basic issues. Further, the U.S. has defined the problem of winning the fight against terror in a way that makes the situation virtually impossible to resolve. We need to change our ideas about terrorism, war, and even victory itself.
Bobbitt in Terror and Consent argues that the U.S. has ignored the role of law in devising its strategy, with fateful consequences, and has failed to reform law in light of the changed strategic context. Along the way he introduces new ideas and concepts – Parmenides’ Fallacy, the Connectivity Paradox, the market state, and the function of terror as a by-product of globalization – to help us prepare for what may be a decades-long conflict of which the battle against al Qaeda is only the first instance.
According to Bobbitt, at stake is whether we can maintain states of consent in the twenty-first century or whether the dominant constitutional order will be that of states of terror.

Three days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. authorized warfare "in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States." One year later, the U.S. Congress authorized the use of the armed forces to wage war against Iraq in order to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq," which included resolutions condemning Iraq's attempts to procure weapons of mass destruction and its mass human rights abuses. Two years later, in response to a devastating tsunami, the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group led 18,000 U.S. troops in a relief effort on behalf of the Indonesian democracy.

These declarations and these actions by the armed forces compose elements of the Wars against Terror. Terror and Consent attempts to set that struggle in a certain context: strategic, legal, and historical. It suggests a way to understand a war on terror, and, most important, why it is necessary to factor future possible worlds into decisions taken when waging such a war. Therefore Terror and Consent is not principally about al Qaeda and the anti-Western revolution within Islam. Ultimately, it is about the changing nature of the use of force in establishing conditions of consent and legitimacy when confronting terror.

According to Terror and Consent, today we are beginning to appreciate that states of consent are intimately connected to the protection of human rights – indeed, that protecting human rights is their reason for being – and that international institutions have a responsibility to protect persons from their own governments when these rights are grossly violated. We are beginning to see also that the security of democratic societies, the centrality of human rights, and the vitality of consensual international institutions are critical to combating terror. None can flourish in an atmosphere of terror, and each has a critical role in defeating this threat to governments that are based on consent. Robust democracies that enforce human rights guarantees and vigorous global institutions that support human rights will not of themselves assure victory in the Wars against Terror. Without them, however, we will surely lose that conflict. Indeed, they are what these wars will be fought over because their evolution is what has brought about this conflict in the first place.

Contents of the sections in Terror and Consent include:

Part I: The Idea of a War Against Terror

The New Masque of Terrorism
The Market State: Arming Terror
Warfare Against Civilians
Victory Without Parade

Part II: Law and Strategy in the Domestic Theater of Terror

The Constitutional Relationship Between Rights and Powers
Intelligence, Information, and Knowledge
The Strategic Relationship Between Ends and Means
Terrorism: Supply and Demand

Part III: Strategy and Law in the International Theater of Terror

The Illusion of an American Strategic Doctrine
Mise-en-Scene: The Properties of Sovereignty
Danse Macabre: Global Governance and Legitimacy
The Triage of Terror

Conclusion: A Plague Treatise for the Twenty-first Century

Philip Bobbitt is perhaps the outstanding political philosopher today. Terror and Consent is indispensable for an understanding of our period, especially of the terrorism phenomenon. At the same time, it is as readable as it is profound. – Henry Kissinger
Philip Bobbitt has long been one of the most thoughtful and wise commentators on the state of the modern world and the challenge that it faces. But in this book, he sets out with clarity and courage the first really comprehensive analysis of the struggle against terror and what we can do to win it. Above all, he understands that this war is new in every aspect of its nature – how it has come about, the profound threat that it poses, how it has to be fought and the revolution in traditional thinking necessary to achieve victory. It may be written by an academic but it is actually required reading for political leaders. – Tony Blair
In this thrilling book, Philip Bobbitt bravely confronts the myths that confound our understanding of terrorism and provides a new way of understanding this phenomenon. He does us the favor of not only describing the traps we've fallen into, but also the ways of escape. – Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
In this original, provocative, and deeply researched book, a superb scholar addresses some of the most basic and vital issues of our time. Philip Bobbitt's Terror and Consent deserves to be widely read, debated and absorbed. – Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage
Philip Bobbitt has taken our understanding of terrorism – and of how to defeat it – to a deeper level. This brave book confronts us with the knowledge that the worst is yet to come, and it points the way for America and its allies to counter the new breed of shadowy, ultra-violent adversaries. More importantly, Terror and Consent wisely shows how governments can do this without sacrificing their legitimacy as guarantors of human rights. This is truly the book for our times. – Steven Simon, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations and co-author of Age of Sacred Terror
A distinguished scholar proposes an entirely new way of understanding and combating modern terrorism. Bobbitt keeps his feet on the ground, boldly offering detailed real-world proposals to combat the problems he outlines. – Kirkus

Challenging, provocative, and insightful, Terror and Consent addresses the deepest themes of governance, liberty, and violence. It will change the way we think about confronting terror – and it will change the way we evaluate public policies in that struggle. The book deserves a wide reading.

Politics / Women’s Studies / Global

From Outrage to Courage: Women Taking Action for Health and Justice by Anne Firth Murray, with a foreword by Paul Farmer (Common Courage Press)

Anne Firth Murray's new book is three things at once: a catalogue of abuses, an analysis of their causes and consequences, and a chronicle of courage under fire. It is the seamless blending of these strands that make From Outrage to Courage a tremendous contribution to all those who wish to understand how poverty and gender inequality conspire to make life miserable and short for so many, and, at the same time, a roadmap for those who wish to do something about it. – from the Foreword by Paul Fanner

From sex-selective abortions to millions of girls who are ‘disappeared,’ from 90 million girls who do not go to school to HIV/AIDS spreading fastest among adolescent girls, women face unique health challenges, writes Anne Firth Murray. In this searing cradle-to-grave review, Murray tackles health issues from prenatal care to challenges faced by aging women. Looking at how gender inequality affects basic nutrition, Murray makes clear the issues are political more than they are medical. Murray, a New Zealander who teaches international women's health at Stanford University, is one of America's best practicing intellectuals. Paul Farmer in the Foreword says that he first met Murray when she was creating the Global Fund for Women, which like her latest book moves from outrage – a necessary but unstable sentiment – to action by supporting small groups of women taking action in pragmatic and important ways. From Outrage to Courage tells the story of these efforts and many others, taking readers across the globe and inspiring those who wish, who need, to take heart in the face of unjust suffering.

Murray draws on decades of experience linking the disparate worlds that are in fact one: the world of the affluent (which has generated its own, often blinkered feminism of glass ceilings) and that of the poor (where women face very different challenges, from lack of water and food to death in childbirth or, through sex-selective abortion, death before birth). Through her scholarship and activism, she has bridged this growing gap in ways that few others have.

From Outrage to Courage focuses on the social and health conditions of the world's poorest women, a topic neglected in the feminist literature of the affluent world. Murray links individual experience – the stories of real women facing real problems – with the less visible structural constraints, many of them rooted in an unjust and globalized economy – against which they must struggle.

To understand the situation of women's health in poorer regions, particularly life-or-death health issues whose outcome depends on whether women can exercise their basic human rights – in other words, be empowered – one only need listen to women at the grassroots levels. At forums, in their writing, in proposals to donor agencies, and increasingly in interviews with journalists, they identify the critical issues affecting their lives and their health, which can be summarized as:

The demeaning and disempowerment of girls and women.
The persistence of poverty.
Unequal access to education, food, health care, and money.
Pervasive violence.

From Outrage to Courage begins with a chapter on women, poverty, and human rights, for this reason: If we are interested in transforming societies by promoting women's health, it is important to make the concept of human rights and justice central, as the basic context for all of our programs to assist girls and women.

Subsequent chapters are concerned with the enormity of the world's grief as it is expressed through women's lives – the issues of son preference, unequal access to education and food, the vulnerability of adolescent girls, the scandals of maternal injury and illness, the prevalence of violence in the home, and the reality of unequal access throughout life, into older age. A current force affecting women's health is the economic power of globalization, which is explored in Chapter 8, in the context of women's labor and need for access to the cash economy. The universal and under-studied problem of mental health is raised throughout the book. "We women worry too much!" as Avotri and Walters quote in their study of Ghanaian women's perceptions of their health. Yes, they do, and that can be both an unhealthy behavior and one that spurs readers to action.

To provide context for the descriptions of women's groups that serve as illustrations throughout the book, a final chapter describes women's activism and the international women's movement and offers some thoughts for the future.

Through stories and descriptions, poetry and statistics, Murray augments the overview provided by From Outrage to Courage. Many issues of women's health have long been invisible, and considered too ‘private’ to discuss. The book tries, as Gandhi counsels, to ‘make injustice visible.’

From Outrage to Courage shows how the abrogation of women's rights around the world persists as a central issue for everyone concerned with human rights. Panoramic in scope, this book illuminates the details of women's lives – their struggles, their resilience, and the ability of so many to respond with practical and visionary solutions. A rare combination of clear analysis and inspiration. – Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1997-2002

Anne Murray's courageous and inspirational book should be serialized in every newspaper in the country. We cannot allow the depth and scope of the stigmatization and discrimination foisted on women all over this globe, and the resulting consequences on their health, to continue. By offering stellar examples of what good can be achieved when people care, Murray shows we can create change. – Jill W. Sheffield, President, Family Care International

Dealing with poverty, diminished status, violence, and patriarchal structures designed to deny women full participation in society has been a formidable challenge for women across the globe. Anne Firth Murray beautifully chronicles the efforts and accomplishments of grassroots women's initiatives that have taken up this challenge. Murray's stories and insights will inspire students, development workers, policy makers, and anyone interested in how change happens. – Judy Norsigian, Executive Director, Our Bodies Ourselves

This book brings together a review of most of the major issues that have engaged the global women's movement over the last three decades. Seeking to ‘make injustice visible’ Anne Firth Murray locates her analysis in the experience of grassroots women and the issues that affect their lives, including persistent poverty, unequal access to food, education, health care and money and pervasive violence against women. Throughout, she looks at the power of women's activism, going beyond victimhood to agency to bring about social change. – Noeleen Heyzer, Former Executive Director, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

From China to India, from Indonesia to Kenya, From Outrage to Courage takes readers on a whirlwind tour of devastation – and resistance. Murray provides a broad, comprehensive survey of global women's health that is grounded in local and personal stories and shows how women are organizing all over the world. This book clearly documents why human rights movements must always address women's rights. Women's courage to transform their situations and communities provides inspiration and models for change. The book is also a work of sound scholarship, free of the jargon that mars many studies of this topic. It should be read and widely shared by anyone concerned about justice in the world.

Professional & Technical / Medicine / Internal Medicine / Reference

The Clinician's Guide to Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Gary R. Lichtenstein (The Clinician's Guide to GI Series: Slack Incorporated)

Although the term inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) describes a wide range of inflammatory states, it generally refers to ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Methodologically rigorous studies, which evaluate the epidemiology of these disorders, are relatively rare. Furthermore, much of the available literature is limited by referral bias and inadequate case definition. The latter issue is particularly relevant since the current concept that Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are unique entities has been challenged by recent genetic discoveries. – from Chapter 1

It is an exciting time for gastroenterologists caring for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Since Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis were discovered in 1932 and 1875 respectively, a significant amount of information has been learned about these disorders. Both disorders are found worldwide and they spare no socioeconomic group. These disorders are effectively treated with many different medications; however, approximately 25% of patients with ulcerative colitis will undergo surgery, and over half the patients with Crohn's disease will follow similar suit despite the best efforts.

The Clinician's Guide to Inflammatory Bowel Disease is a quick-reference manual on IBD written by Gary R. Lichtenstein, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, with a panel of contributors who are internationally respected physicians, specializing in IBD. This pocket-sized text provides state-of-the-art information. The book includes 51 tables, 37 figures, including line drawings and photographs, and algorithms.

The articles in The Clinician's Guide to Inflammatory Bowel Disease focus on many of the advances established in various areas of IBD, highlighting many sophisticated topics. These issues will not only inform physicians of the recent progress that has been made in these specific areas, but they will also prepare physicians for the future.

The varied subjects covered in the book encompass a broad scope, however, not every aspect of IBD is addressed. Rather, those clinically important areas that have undergone recent changes or discoveries are covered. Some topics covered in the book include: epidemiology, disease modifiers, extra-intestinal manifestations, nutrition, pregnancy and fertility, surgical and medical therapy, as well as considerations for the pediatric and adolescent patient.

Chapters include:

Epidemiology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Brian G. Feagan, MD and Richmond Sy, MD
Imaging in Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Enrico Souto, MD and Norman E. Marcon, MD
Clinical Features, Course, and Laboratory Findings in Ulcerative Colitis – Peter Legnani, MD and Asher Kornbluth, MD
Clinical Features, Course, and Laboratory Findings in Crohn's Disease – Brian Brauer; MD and Joshua R. Korzenik, MD
Postoperative Recurrence of Crohn's Disease – Mohammed Al Haddad, MD and Jean-Paul Achkar, MD
Extra-intestinal Manifestations of Inflammatory Bowel Disease – David G. Forcione, MD and Lawrence S. Friedman, MD
Cancer in Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Bret A. Lashner, MD
Complications of the Ileal Pouch-Anal Anastomosis – Thomas Lee, MD and Alan L. Buchman, MD, MSPH
Nutritional Support in Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Alan L. Buchman, MD, MSPH and James S. Scolapio, MD
Pregnancy and Fertility with Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Jeffry A. Katz, MD
Indications for Surgery in Inflammatory Bowel Disease – David \Black, MD and Alain Bitton, MD, FRCPC
Surgical Therapy for Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Lisa Poritz, MD and Walter A. Koltun, MD
Medical Therapy for Crohn's Disease – Radhika Srinivasan, MD; Chinyu G. Su, MD; and Gary R. Lichtenstein, MD
Medical Therapy for Ulcerative Colitis – Radhika Srinivasan, MD; Chinyu G. Su, MD; and Gary R. Lichtenstein, MD
Disease Modifiers in Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Jaime Oviedo, MD and Francis A. Farraye, MD, MSc
Evaluation of the Patient Suspected of Having Inflammatory Bowel Disease – L. Arturo Batres, MD and Robert N Baldassano, MD
Special Considerations for Pediatric and Adolescent Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease – L. Arturo Batres, MD and Robert N. Baldassano, MD
Medical Approach to the Patient with Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Peter D. Han, MD and Russell D. Cohen, MD

I think this book is going to become the benchmark not just for fellows and residents but also general GI doctors in private practice who don't sub-specialize in IBD. – Jeremy Schwartz, MD, Beth Israel Medical Center, New York
…an important tool for the effective and efficient management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease. The numerous authors are well-regarded experts in the field of IBD research and clinical practice. –Willem J.S. de Villiers, MD, PhD, Doody Enterprises
This book is an excellent resource and its cost is easily affordable by GI fellows who would get the maximum benefit by reading this book. – Sangeeta Agrawal, MD, Practical Gastroenterology

This up-to-date, user-friendly manual, written by respected physicians, is essential for those who practice in the field. The Clinician's Guide to Inflammatory Bowel Disease is a quick-reference handbook primarily focused for clinicians – gastroenterologists, medical students, fellows, residents, specialists, internists, or family practitioners.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / History / Education

Dominican Approaches in Education: Towards the Intelligent Use of Liberty edited by Gabrielle Kelly & Kevin Saunders (Dominican Series, Volume 2: ATF Press)

.. in children who are learning ... the ingenuity of the first creator shines out, just as the work of the sculptor shines in the statue ... – Albert the Great, quoted by Walter Senner OP

Bringing together a range of scholarly and reflective contributions from every continent, Dominican Approaches in Education offers a wide-ranging view of education in the Dominican tradition. Its focus is the sources, principles and philosophy of Dominican values in education as exemplified by some key figures in the tradition. At the same time it provides a broad sample of the many contexts in which Dominican education, understood in the widest sense of the word and integral to the very purpose of Dominican life, has found its expression past and present. Dominican Approaches in Education has chapters on Dominic, Rose of Lima, las Casas, Catherine of Siena and Aquinas. Philosophers, educators, activists, formators, healers, theologians, artists, preachers, and teachers at many levels all find a place in this book. The thirty-seven contributors – including Timothy Radcliffe OP, Albert Nolan OP and Suzanne Nofke OP – share their analyses and reflections on educating in many different settings, explicitly and implicitly demonstrating ideals and values common to the goals of Dominican education everywhere, and there are Forewords by the present Master of the Dominican Order, Fr Carlos Costa OP and the former head of Dominican Sisters International, Margaret Ormond OP. Editors of the volume are Gabrielle Kelly OP, Dominican Sister, a member of Holy Cross Dominican Congregation in Adelaide, South Australia; and Kevin Saunders OP, Australian Dominican, Prior of the Dominican community and chaplain at Blackfriars Priory School in Adelaide.

The three human values of resourcefulness, solidarity and imagination shared in common characterize different approaches to education around the Dominican world. In Dominican Approaches in Education, Margaret Ormond finds they have much evidence of these values. The two Australian Dominicans and editors of the volume, Kelly and Saunders, were ingenious and resourceful in connecting with thirty-seven Dominican sisters and brothers as contributors – nuns, friars, lay and sisters – from such far away places as Peru, South Africa and Ireland around a common theme. The titles of some articles capture that dimension of solidarity and care: ‘Evangelizing through Education in the World of the Poor’, ‘Grace Outpoured: The Transformative Power of Art’ (working with AIDS victims), and ‘Standing up for the Vulnerable: Education to Prevent Trafficking and the Healing of Victims’, to name a few.

Aquinas' unity of the human person is at the heart of Dominican education. Education is embraced not only by the mind but the whole person. The integration of the liberal arts with specialised disciplines and the relation of spiritual and moral growth to intellectual development flow directly from a philosophy of education addressed to the entire person. – Philip Smith OP

Catherine (of Siena) was ... such a splendid teacher because she was such an enthusiastic learner. And the school at which she studied was the school of Jesus Christ ... This is at the heart of the matter for all who would be teachers in faith ... – Suzanne Noffke OP

Las Casas explains ... (that) to teach is to be together with, to respect the intelligence and its ways, to facilitate thinking ... surrounding those to be educated with kindness, tenderness and untiring love. – Carlos Josaphat OP

My prayer is that this book, the fruit of the reflection and witness of many brothers and sisters from all over the world, will encourage those already ‘cultivating the human pursuit of truth’ to continue to do so, and for those embarking on a life of study and teaching, to do so like St. Dominic, humbly and compassionately, in order to be ‘useful’ to others. – Carlos A. Azpiroz Costa OP, Master of the Order

The contents of this book will capture the imagination of all of those who believe that another world is possible and that Dominicans ... involved in ... education in a wide variety of settings around the world are participating in the coming of this better world. This book shows us how to make ‘intelligent use of our liberty’ to be resourceful in building bridges, imaginative in creating dialogue and caring with and for those in need. – Margaret Ormond OP, Coordinator, Dominican Sisters International

Dominican Approaches in Education – offered in this decade of Dominican Jubilee – 1206-1216 to 2006-2016 – will inform, inspire and encourage those engaged in the work of leading people towards greater life and liberty. The book is a must for those interested in the values and philosophy of Dominican education in schools, universities and pastoral work.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Commentaries / Reference

1 Samuel: Looking for a Leader by John Woodhouse, with series editor R. Kent Hughes (Preaching the Word Series: Crossway)

The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the power of his anointed. – 1 Samuel 2:10b

What kind of leaders should we follow? What kind of leaders should we be? And what does God have to do with it? These are some of the questions inherent in the book of 1 Samuel, as well as some of the questions facing modern society, and even within the church.

As John Woodhouse demonstrates in 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel's biblical context provides serious reflection on our need for leadership and the failure of human leaders.

Ancient Israel's massive leadership crisis was met through three men – Samuel, Saul, and David – in ways that forever changed the character of Israel's leadership and clarified what God requires of his people and their leaders. But as Woodhouse demonstrates in this Preaching the Word commentary, 1 Samuel's portrait of the divine response to Israel's dilemma does more than reveal what God expects. 1 Samuel's canonical context provides serious reflection on the human need for leadership and the failure of human leaders, as well as scriptural discernment for leaders and followers here and now. Even more, it reveals God's answer for Israel, which turns out to be his answer for the entire world and for each person individually.

Woodhouse has been the principal of Moore Theological College in Sydney, since 2002 and previously was in pastoral ministry in a suburban Sydney church. He has a passion for teaching the Bible in a way that helps people understand the various parts of Scripture in light of the center of God's revelation, Jesus.

1 Samuel is part of a Bible commentary series entitled Preaching the Word. The series is noted for its unqualified commitment to biblical authority, clear exposition of Scripture, readability, and practical application. Pastor R. Kent Huffs, retired senior pastor of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, is the general editor for the series, which will eventually encompass every book of the Bible.

1 Samuel is perceptive commentary, which not only illumines Old Testament history but brilliantly points to the New Testament promise that was fulfilled in Jesus. And his insightful, verse-by-verse exposition gives readers the tools they need to understand, apply, and communicate the biblical text with clarity and accuracy.

Religion & Spirituality / Judaism / History

In Those Days, At This Time: Holiness and History in the Jewish Calendar by Eliezer Segal (University of Calgary Press)

Eliezer Segal's approach to Jewish history and tradition has often been light-hearted and humorous. In Those Days, At This Time is a collection of short essays that explore the intricate framework of sacred days and times that make up the Jewish festival calendar. Each piece is devoted to an occasion in the cycle of sacred seasons. With such titles as "Getting a Handel on Hanukkah" and "The Eggs and the Exodus", these essays bring a touch of whimsy to a complex and deep-rooted religious tradition. Segal, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, investigates the ways festival observances have been shaped over the generations, looking at different interpretations of their rituals, their symbolism, and their adaptation to changing historical circumstances.

The weekly Sabbath, as well as the assorted annual festivals of pilgrimage, historical commemoration, appreciation of natural rhythms or spiritual regeneration – all of these have drawn the unceasing attention of diverse types of Jews belonging to different eras, lands, and ideological persuasions. On the one hand, the themes and symbols of the ancient holy days (which have been supplemented occasionally by the introduction of new days of historical commemoration) have been continually reinterpreted or appreciated in novel ways, so that they have never lost their enduring relevance to Jews. On the other hand, the infinite range of human personalities, values, and social circumstances have found expression through the ways in which they have come into relation with the Jewish festival cycle.

In Those Days, At This Time is not intended to serve as an introduction to the Jewish religious calendar, and also not as a learned monograph on that topic. There is no scarcity of books that survey the Jewish holidays from assorted religious or scholarly perspectives. Segal’s purpose is not so much to instill a deeper knowledge of the holidays as it is to use those holidays as a prism through which to illuminate the immeasurable varieties of the Jewish experience. There are ample opportunities, in the course of the meandering excursion across Jewish sacred time, to appreciate how occasions that might appear on the surface to be days of straightforward agricultural or historical commemoration can also become venues for encounters between rationalism and superstition, messianism and mysticism, universality and parochialism, art and commerce, modernity and tradition, passion and intellect.

According to Segal, Jewish tradition insists that an appropriate blessing should accompany each religious deed. In this way, the worshipper is made conscious of the spiritual dimension of what might otherwise have been no more than a physical or secular activity. On historical festivals such as Hanukkah and Purim, which celebrate the rescue of the Jewish people from physical or spiritual threats, one of the prescribed blessings is: "Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe, who has performed miracles for our ancestors in those days, at this time."

The plain meaning of the closing phrase ‘at this time’ is merely that the date of the particular festival is the anniversary of the ancient event that is being commemorated. There is, however, something about the wording that suggests an additional lesson; namely that the events of the past can never be detached from the present situation. History, no matter how remote in years, is not something that can be relegated to a distant age. Rather, it should be appreciated as a living force that continues to shape our relationships with the present and the future.

In Those Days, At This Time is a natural sequel to its predecessor, Holidays, History and Halakhah. Like its predecessor, this book grew out of Segal’s journalistic commitment to providing material appropriate for holiday editions of the publications to which he has contributed. The majority of the chapters first appeared in The Jewish Free Press in Calgary, Alberta.

This collection, no less than the previous ones, attests to Segal’s fascination with Jewish history and tradition and his conviction that old Jewish documents can be relevant to the contemporary situation. His experiences in a Department of Religious Studies convinced him that many of the phenomena that he once regarded as distinctive or idiosyncratic to the Jewish experience are in reality shared by other cultures and religious communities.

These entertaining short essays explore the sacred days that make up the Jewish festival calendar. The target audiences envisaged for In Those Days, At This Time consist chiefly of a Jewish laity (who were the readers of the original newspaper articles) and individuals with a basic background in world religions. In order to make it accessible to a broader readership, Segal has added brief introductions to each chapter, in which he outlines the main features of the respective holidays, as well as an extensive alphabetical glossary at the end of the book where curious readers may find explanations of specialist terms and identifications of persons or works mentioned in In Those Days, At This Time. For more advanced readers, references to classical biblical, Talmudic, and other ancient sources have been inserted into the text.

Religion & Spirituality / Judiasm

Window of the Soul: The Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria edited by James David Dunn, with a foreword by Rabbi Ernesto Yattah, translated by Nathan Snyder (Weiser Books)

An essential primer to guide any serious reader who yearns to encounter firsthand the teachings of Luria, of Lurianic Kabbalah. – from the Foreword by Rabbi Yattah

Seventy-seven years after the exile from Spain of the Jewish people, in a small Jewish settlement in upper Galilee called Safed, Isaac Luria was to answer not only the Jewish people's deepest questions of exile and homelessness. With vision given only to the most gifted of kabbalistic mystics, Luria explained the inner worlds of the spirit and of the evolution that led to the ultimate birth of the cosmos. It is this evolution that reflects the origin and history of souls, according to the teachings of Rabbi Luria. In a selection of passages from Luria's Kabbalah that is both universal, Professor James David Dunn presents the essence of the great rabbi's teachings. Dunn is professor of foreign languages at San Antonio College in San Antonio, Texas. His private and most passionate work for over 25 years has been Judaic mysticism and Jungian depth psychology. Through years of research, he found those teachings to unlock the worlds of the subconscious mind through revelations from the secrets of Kabbalah.

In Window of the Soul, the original Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572) is translated from the original Hebrew. These passages disclose the most profound teachings of the understanding of God and of the universe, inspired by the Torah.

Luria believed that every creature feels the absence, emptiness and mark of imperfection that must necessarily be handed on to it. The ultimate calling in this lifetime or in future lifetimes is to re-harmonize and hence remove inherent imperfections through proper heart and works among all creatures (tikkun). But such an existential calling is not easily heard. To pass through old doors to the inner self brings on the symptomology of ancient malaise of the soul. As Luria understood it, one has only to press on through the density and lassitude of existence and to hope. Whether we are the result of cosmic intention or accident, God has connected us to these answers and to the drama of creation that has made us.

Window of the Soul is a good introduction to this complex theology and allows the reader to experience the ideas through primary sources. It can be recommended as a fine introduction to Lurianic Kabbalah. – Morris M. Faierstein, author of Jewish Mystical Autobiographies

This little book is original kabbalah, translated from the sacred texts of Rabbi Luria. Each line opens doors to the soul that have been locked for many, many years. This is an important work, a small voice that whispers to the wilderness. If the world would only but listen! – Yechiel Bar Lev, author of Yedid Nefesh (Introduction to Kabbalah)/Song of the Soul

Luria's meaning and power will enlighten and change you. – Bernie Siegel

Window of the Soul is the first and only comprehensive selection of Isaac Luria's teachings from the original Hebrew. It is beautifully written, it is original Kabbalah, and it opens doors in the human heart that have been locked for thousands of years. Window of the Soul offers both scholars and lay people the wisdom to heal the modern world.

Religion & Spirituality / New Age

Forbidden Science: From Ancient Technologies to Free Energy edited by J. Douglas Kenyon (Bear & Company)

Forbidden Science, edited by Atlantis Rising publisher, J. Douglas Kenyon, reveals the cutting edge of New Science and shows how established science disallows inquiry that challenges the status quo – even when that inquiry shows verifiable results. The book contains 43 essays by 19 researchers denoting cutting-edge, heretical, or suppressed scientific research, including Immanuel Velikovsky, Nikola Tesla, Rupert Sheldrake, and Masaru Emoto. Following the model of his bestselling Forbidden History and Forbidden Religion, Kenyon has assembled from his bimonthly journal material that explores science and technology that has been suppressed by the orthodox scientific community

According to Kenyon, there is an organized war going on in science between materialistic theory and anything that could be termed spiritual or metaphysical. For example, Masaru Emoto’s research into the energetics of water, although supported by photographic evidence, has been scoffed at by mainstream science because he has asserted that humans affect their surroundings with their thoughts. The materialism or absolute skepticism of the scientific establishment is detrimental to any scientific inquiry that thinks outside the box. This mentality is interested in preserving funding for its own projects, those that will not rock the establishment.

Forbidden Science explores these less traveled, even darkened, corridors beneath the shining edifice of academic science. In these pages readers find evidence that, no matter what the mandarins of the establishment would claim, the truth is not nearly so exemplary, or easily dismissed. In these pages readers learn of many controversial notions supposedly debunked by conventional argument, if, in fact, they have been discussed at all.

Although the so-called mainstream media attempt to convince everyone that the subjects covered in Forbidden Science should be placed entirely under the heading of fringe science, it so happens that what the scientific establishment consigns to the fringe the vast majority of the public puts much closer to the center of its concerns. A recent Gallup Poll, in fact, reports "about three in four Americans profess at least one paranormal belief."

According to a report published in the British journal Nature, one in three U.S. scientists in an anonymous survey, admitted to breaking – in the last three years – rules designed to ensure the honesty of their work. The misbehaviors, says the Minneapolis Star Tribune, range from claiming credit for someone else's work to changing study results due to pressure from a sponsor. "Our findings suggest," say the authors, "that U.S. scientists engage in a range of behaviors extending far beyond falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism that can damage the integrity of science."

According to Forbidden Science, in a recent online debate over the reality of the afterlife, the defender of the skeptical position declared to his opponent, "I don't know that it [the afterlife] does not exist, but you don't know that it does." The general implication seems to be that anyone claiming knowledge that exceeds that of the ‘skeptic’ cannot possibly be sincere and, thus, must be lying, with ulterior motives to boot. This kind of rhetoric from the debunker hit squads has become standard fare in many fields – from the afterlife to intelligent design, from zero-point energy to antigravity – and it is pursued with an emotional fervor that is hard to ignore. Just what, Kenyon wonders, should be inferred from such behavior? Could it be that the institutional mystique that evokes such awe from the media and much of the public is nothing so much as an elaborate subterfuge intended to disguise the weakness and the blindness of these entrenched elitists – something which, like the emperor's new clothes, even a child could perceive? We'll leave the conspiracy angles to others, but it seems apparent that, at least on a subconscious level, much of the posturing, if not the bullying, betrays what is at best a deep insecurity about the actual validity of their claims. The very speed with which some of the more outspoken take offense at any suggestion that the basic paradigm of materialist reductionist science can be questioned betrays, we suspect, deep-seated doubts in their own ability to discern, much less discuss, the truth.

Books like this one could be very threatening to those who perceive the world as strictly black and white – or, at best, as shades of gray. On the other hand, for those who may find the inherent dangers of our time a bit overwhelming, there is still plenty of reason to take heart. The discoveries and knowledge cited in these pages, to say nothing of the heroism, could show the pathway to liberation

From Immanuel Velikovsky’s astronomical insights to Rupert Sheldrake’s research into telepathy and ESP, from Nikola Tesla’s discovery of alternating current to Robert Schoch’s re-dating of the Sphinx, Forbidden Science serves as a compelling introduction to the history of alternative and New Science research. Readers may ask themselves why such material is excluded from consensus thought – indeed, why a discussion of it has been virtually ‘forbidden’ – then they are asking themselves the same difficult questions as are the authors of this book, and this book is for them.

Religion & Spirituality / New Age / Philosophy / Future Studies

Quantum Shift in the Global Brain: How the New Scientific Reality Can Change Us and Our World by Ervin Laszlo (Inner Traditions)

According to futurist Ervin Laszlo, the world is in a Macroshift. The reality we are experiencing today is a substantially new reality – climate change, global corporations, industrialized agriculture – challenging us to change with the rapidly changing world, or perish.
Laszlo, holder of the highest degree of the Sorbonne (the State Doctorate), is recipient of four Honorary Ph.D.s and numerous awards and distinctions, including the 2001 Goi Award (the Japan Peace Prize) and a nomination for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. He is a former professor of philosophy, systems theory, and futures studies in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East and founder and president of the international think-tank The Club of Budapest as well as of the General Evolution Research Group. The author of more than 70 books, translated into 20 languages, he lives in Italy.

Quantum Shift in the Global Brain discusses the shift from scientific materialism to a multidimensional worldview in harmony with the world’s great spiritual traditions. It articulates humanity’s critical choice – to be the last decade of an obsolete world, or the first of a new and viable one. It presents a new ‘reality map’ to guide readers through the environmental, scientific, and geopolitical upheavals they are experiencing – the problems, opportunities, and challenges they face individually and collectively – in order to help them understand what they must do during this time of great transition. Laszlo shows that aspects of human experience that had previously been consigned to the domain of intuition and speculation are now being explored with scientific rigor and urgency. There has been a shift in the materialistic scientific view of reality toward the multidimensional worldview of multiple interconnected realities long known by the world’s spiritual traditions. By understanding the interconnectedness of the changing world as well as the changing ‘map’ of the world, according to Laszlo, readers can navigate with insight, wisdom, and confidence.

Quantum Shift in the Global Brain embraces both sides of Laszlo’s lifelong interests and research: the practical side, focused on the problems, opportunities, and challenges we now face, and the theoretical side, seeking the contours of the reality suggested by the latest developments in the sciences. The body of Quantum Shift in the Global Brain consists of three parts. Part 1 is the practical part: it focuses on the shift of the world. The challenge this ‘Macroshift’ poses is that of constructive change, born of foresight empowered by awareness and understanding. As Laszlo says, we either change with the changing world – which we can do if we acquire the understanding and master the will – or we risk growing crises and ultimate breakdown.

Part 2 is the theoretical part, but it focuses on an eminently practical concern: how to understand the world we live in and the universe its wider context. Not only the world, but science is also changing; the change is in the form of a paradigm shift. According to Laszlo, the concept of reality is broad – it extends to multiple universes arising in a possibly infinite meta-universe – and it is deeper, extending into dimensions below the domain of the quantum. It is also more inclusive, shedding light on phenomena that were ignored or considered ‘anomalous’ and relegated to metaphysics, theology, or parapsychology but a few years ago.

The thirteen chapters that make up part 1 (dealing with the changing world) and part 2 (outlining the changes in science's map of the world) make a coherent whole, but each chapter can also be read separately, as prompted by the concerns and interests of readers.

Part 3 moves from theory to hands-on practice. It describes the origins, the projects, and the principal objectives of the Club of Budapest, a global think-tank founded by Laszlo and dedicated to facilitating the changes that need to come about in the world by applying the insights of science's new map of reality to the cause of peace, sustainability, well-being, and human survival.

A closing section – the annex – breaks fresh ground in the scientific mapping of the deeper regions of human experience. It reviews a mind-boggling experience of Laszlo and attempts to interpret it in light of the new map of reality. The experience (‘transcommunication’ with persons who have died recently) is of such staggering importance that it merits venturing beyond the bounds of established science – which are, he says, by no means the bounds of human insight and understanding.

The mind-boggling Quantum Shift in the Global Brain will help readers understand the changing world as well as humanity’s changing map of the world and empower and guide evolution as we move into the critical phase of the Macroshift.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

The Houses of Time by Jamil Nasir (Tor Books)

In the grand tradition of Philip K. Dick, Grand Prix de 1'Imaginaire-winning author Jamil Nasir presents a mind-bending peek into the near-future with The Houses of Time.

David Grant has a singular talent – he can affect the course of his dreams. Quite by chance, he discovers the existence of the Trans-Humanist Institute and under the tutelage of Dr. Thotmoses learns he has more control over his dreams. The leader of the Institute, Dr. Thotmoses, trains Grant in the art of lucid dreaming, which allows Grant to experience a separate dream-life completely under his control. As Grant's skills grow, he becomes increasingly obsessed with the woman he lives with in his dreams – until the day he sees her in the waking world and his life begins to unravel.

However, his talent soon runs away with him and he visits dream places while awake. The waking world and the dreaming world collide. Grant ends up sedated in a hellish mental institution . . . but escapes through his lucid dreams, which he is beginning to control – though the control is far from perfect.
In The Houses of Time Grant discovers, to his horror, that Dr. Thotmoses belongs to the Caucasus Synod Western Orthodox Church, and that they have been grooming him because of his fantastic dreaming talents. Only someone with his talent at manipulating reality and dream can bring their prayer to the Divine Presence in the universe. Many have tried this journey, few have succeeded. Those who have returned successful are rewarded beyond their wildest dreams.

Nasir (Tower of Dreams) combines lucid dreaming, unconscious desires and the search for God in this lugubrious exploration of different layers of reality. … Though Grant trudges toward enlightenment, his misogynistic attitudes and lengthy disbelief in his talents soon make for tedious reading. – Publishers Weekly

A fresh and intriguing science fiction voice. – Denver Post
[Nasir is] a writer who loves words and can turn them into the vital stuff of experience....You'll see a world through new eyes. – Jack Dann
A dazzling achievement that heralds Nasir as a bright new voice in science fiction. – Booklist on Quasar
An interesting new writer. – The Washington Post Book World

This insightful new novel asks an essential question: when the lines between dreams and waking life disappear, who decides what is real? It also brings to light the very real practice of lucid dreaming. As thought provoking as it is thrilling, The Houses of Time challenges our perceptions of consciousness, time, and even human purpose. Moving from the channels of memory to God's doorstep, Grant's journey is like nothing readers have ever read before.

Social Sciences / Communication / Media Studies

Media Literacy, fourth edition by W. James Potter (Sage Publications)

Your level of media literacy now is probably about the same as it was when you first became a teenager. Since that time, your information base has grown enormously about some types of media messages, such as popular songs, movies, TV shows, video games, and Internet sites. However, your information base is not likely to have grown much in other areas – about how messages are produced and programmed, who controls the media, the economics of the industry, and how the media exert their continual effects on you and society. Thus, your current level of media literacy allows you to do many things with the media. However, you could be exercising much more control and getting more out of your media exposures – if you grew your knowledge in other areas. – from the Preface

In this media-saturated world, it is critical to approach media influences using critical thought and active participation. Aimed at students, Media Literacy, fourth edition uses a conversational style to help students gain the skills needed to navigate the rocky terrain of mass messages which are designed to inform them, to entertain them, and to sell them. This book offers a plan of action for gaining a clearer perspective on the borders between the real world and the simulated media world, helping readers become responsible media consumers.
Written by W. James Potter, professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, the fourth edition of Media Literacy:

Expands coverage on media audiences, including industry perspectives on building audiences, children as a special audience, and ways audiences process mass media messages.
Updates approaches to the effects of mass media by presenting substantial information on videogames and the Internet.
Includes two new chapters: one examines the mass media businesses; another focuses on mass media games.
Introduces each chapter with a controversial topic or faulty belief then uses a step-by-step approach to show students how they can use tools to deconstruct those beliefs.

The updated Instructors Manual includes more exercises, examples of media literacy that illustrate the main points of each chapter, and suggested discussion questions. The new Companion Web Site includes study material to help students prepare for class and engaging research exercises to help them practice media literacy.

According to Potter in Media Literacy, the more readers are aware of how the media operate and how the media affect them, the more they gain control over those effects, and the more they separate themselves from typical media users who have turned over a great deal of their lives to the media without realizing it. By "turning over a great deal of their lives to the media," Potter means more than time and money, although both of those are considerable. He means that most people have allowed the media to program them, their exposure habits and the way they look at the world by setting their expectations for relationships, attractiveness, success, celebrity, health, newsworthy events, problems, and solutions. Once the media have gradually defined what life means for people, their behaviors, attitudes, and emotions will fall in line with those definitions. Ascending to higher levels of media literacy gives people the ability to gradually undo the media definitions and erase those ‘lines of code’ that the media have programmed into their minds and replace the media programming with ideas of their own. Media Literacy is written to show readers what it means to operate at a higher level of media literacy and thereby gain more power to use the media to achieve their own goals.

Media Literacy is composed of 22 chapters organized into seven parts: Introduction, Audiences, Effects, Industry, Content, Confronting the Issues, and Springboard. In Chapter 1, Potter shows readers why developing media literacy is such an important thing to do. Chapter 2 presents the ‘media literacy approach.’

Part II presents three chapters to help readers build their knowledge structures about audiences. Chapter 3 focuses on the audience from the individual's perspective, while Chapter 4 focuses on the audience from the mass media industries' perspective. Chapter 5 examines children as a special audience.

The two chapters in Part III deal with the effects of the media. The question of how the effects processes work on people is explored in Chapter 6. More often, the media work in concert with many other factors that each serve to increase the probability that an effect may occur. When readers take a broader perspective on effects, they can more accurately assess the influence of the media in life. This also puts them in a much better position to manage the effects of the media. Chapter 7 will help readers expand their vision about what constitutes a media effect.

The three chapters in Part IV deal with important concepts that readers can use to build their knowledge structures about the media industries. Chapter 8 helps readers see the media industries from a historical perspective. An economic perspective is used in Chapter 9 to show the business foundations of the industries. Chapter 10 profiles the current nature of the mass media industries.

Part V contains five chapters that focus on media content. Chapter 11 introduces the idea of content and presents the major characteristic of all media content – ‘one-step remove’ reality. Then, Chapter 12 focuses on news content, Chapter 13 on entertainment content, Chapter 14 on advertising content, and Chapter 15 on mass media games.

Part VI presents five issues that are important to consider when thinking of the media. Chapter 16 deals with the issue of media concentration, Chapter 17 with the issue of privacy, Chapter 18 with piracy, Chapter 19 with violence, and Chapter 20 with sports.

Finally Part VII wraps up Media Literacy with two chapters. Chapter 21 focuses on personal strategies for improving one's level of media literacy. Chapter 22 examines strategies to help other people with their media literacy.

Media Literacy is a captivating, engaging, reader-friendly textbook essential for introductory Media Studies courses in communication, sociology, film studies, and English.
Social Sciences / Criminology

Criminal Justice Management: Theory and Practice in Justice-Centered Organizations by Mary K. Stohr & Peter A. Collins (Oxford University Press)
Criminal justice students and practitioners in criminal justice agencies know firsthand the value of effective management; they understand the vital need to develop organizations that meet the expectations of their community members as well as those of their workers. With a student-friendly approach, Criminal Justice Management examines the complex subject of justice-centered agencies. Authors Mary K. Stohr, Professor and former Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Boise State University and Peter A. Collins, Ph.D. student in the Criminal Justice Program at Washington State University, interweave their comprehensive research with humor and personal anecdotes to make the study of criminal justice management accessible to students. Chapter exercises and study questions provide a springboard for class discussion, encouraging students to discover relevant applications for these provocative topics.

Criminal Justice Management challenges readers to:

Initiate human relations management practices.
Provide support for the professional development of staff.
Use proactive, collaborative, and shared responsibility forms of leadership.
Develop and maintain strong ethical practices.
Implement evidence-based best practices in agency programming.
Build strong bridges within an engaged and informed community.

A central theme of Criminal Justice Management is that there are a number of paths that lead to the effective management of criminal justice organizations, and it makes all the difference which route is taken. The phrase ‘best practices’ is often bandied about to describe how a correctional treatment program or a police rape investigation or a number of other activities might be organized and implemented. Stohr and Collins argue in this book that there are indeed ‘best practices,’ or better ways of doing things in criminal justice management. These ‘better ways’ are more likely to yield desirable outcomes, such as safety and security for the public, the staff, and the clientele of agencies, a skilled and involved staff and, on balance, an enriching experience for all.

The primary focus is on the dynamics of organizations and how to manage them. After a century of scholarly focus on the management of public and private sector institutions, the knowledge about how best to operate criminal justice agencies already exists and is practiced in part, or in whole, by the most successful managers. This book provides a theoretical, historical, and organizational context for such management practices. To that end, Criminal Justice Management covers a number of topics of interest to practitioners and students of criminal justice management, including organizational and environmental characteristics of criminal justice agencies (Chapter 1); distinctions between, and definitions of, common criminal justice, management, and organizational terms (Chapter 2); a discussion of the value of public vs. private service (Chapter 2); an examination of ethical issues, including official deviance, corruption, the use of excessive force, and sexual and gender harassment (Chapter 3); common management theories and their application (Chapter 4); interpersonal, organizational, and interorganizational communication and barriers (Chapter 5); the nature of the criminal justice role, socialization, and power issues (Chapter 6); leadership theories and styles (Chapter 7); selection issues such as the workforce 2000, diversity and affirmative action (Chapter 8); personnel practices such as selection, performance appraisal, retention strategies, job enrichment, training, and related issues (Chapter 9); managing and evaluating programming, accreditation, and standards (Chapter 10), and strategic planning and budgeting (Chapter 11).

There follows a chapter devoted to the decision-making challenges in criminal justice management (Chapter 12). The final chapter encapsulates the best of management and organizational practices from the scholarly and practitioner literature in the form of an inclusive and consilient proposal of model management practices for criminal justice agencies (Chapter 13).

Chapters 3 and 6 include research instruments used to ‘take the temperature’ of the work environment. Some chapters showcase a perspective or two on the given topic by a criminal justice practitioner, scholar, or student. Some chapters include classroom or training exercises that reinforce knowledge highlighted in the text, as well as key terms and reference tools such as web links for further investigation. Most chapters also include exercises that can be used in class to reinforce concepts and ideas. At the end of each chapter there are discussion questions to spur creative and analytical thought regarding chapter content.

How well the criminal justice system works in a democratic society is a good measure of the health of democracy in that society. . . . I can't imagine a more appropriate foundational book than this one for preparing students to take up the challenges of making our criminal justice system the best it can be. – from the Foreword by Nicholas P. Lovrich, Washington State University-Pullman
The use of humor and personal descriptions is a great strength to the book. This is a topic that is hard for students because it is to some degree dry and can be overly formalistic. A book that can engage and teach in this area is a unique commodity. – Thomas Hughes, University of Louisville
As I read the manuscript and continued to see the authors addressing all of the seminal literature, I became more impressed with their ability to weave organization theory into a very approachable presentation. This is a good, solid book and I would adopt it for an undergraduate class. – Willard M. Oliver, Sam Houston State University

Stohr & Collins bring together the two worlds of practitioners and academe, and they do this by presenting the material in a less formal fashion. Thus the tone of the text, as reflected in the writing, is deliberately conversational at times. Using this student-friendly approach, Criminal Justice Management examines the complex subject of justice-centered agencies. With its emphasis on putting theory into practice, Criminal Justice Management is an invaluable resource for the development of efficient, dynamic, and resourceful justice-centered agencies. Chapter exercises and study questions make for lively class discussion.

Social Sciences / Ethnic Studies

Color, Hair, and Bone: Race in the Twenty-first Century edited by Linden Lewis & Glyne Griffith with Elizabeth Crespo-Kebler (Bucknell University Press)

Color, Hair, and Bone is an interdisciplinary collection of essays that builds on the presentations at a conference on race held at Bucknell University that addressed the issue of the persistence of race in the new millennium.

Edited by Linden Lewis, Professor of Sociology at Bucknell University; Glyne Griffith, Associate Professor of English and Caribbean Studies, Departments of English and Latin American and Caribbean Studies, State University of New York at Albany; and Elizabeth Crespo-Kebler, Dean of Academic Affairs at the Center for Advanced Puerto Rican and Caribbean Studies, at the University of Puerto Rico, Bayamon; these essays all deal with various critical dimensions of race from a sociological, anthropological, and literary perspective. The contributions engage with history – either textually, materially, or with respect to identity – in an effort to demonstrate that these discourses about race are still relevant and central to everyday experiences. The essays are mainly about U.S. race relations but in some cases the analysis extends beyond national boundaries. Color, Hair, and Bone disabuses any notion of color blindness and affirms the position that race still matters in America and beyond.

Many conference attendees decided that the time was right to re-examine an aphorism of W. E. B. DuBois about the way race tends to be reduced, both in popular discourses and in the academic literature, to the issues of color, hair, and bone – the corporeality of the phenomenon. In reviewing DuBois's observation, contributors wanted to combine it with his other more famous remark about the persistence of race and the color line.

Color, Hair, and Bone refocuses the concerns of W. E. B. DuBois in a nuanced way. In addition to consideration of race, the book is sensitive to issues of gender, the body, literature, political activism, and cultural iconography, as well as anthropological and cultural interpretations of race. It views the racial order in ways that go beyond the traditional binaries of black and white and begins to add consideration of class effects as well.

Topics include issues of hybridity and the Diaspora, race, nationality and sovereignty. popular culture, and colonial and postcolonial relations. Chapters and contributors include:

Transcending the Grosser Physical Differences of Race in Contemporary Society: An Introduction – Linden Lewis
Reading in the Dark: Race, Literature, and the Discourse of Blackness – Glyne Griffith
Constructing Black Masculinity through the Fiction of Gloria Naylor – Linden Lewis
Pancakes, Chocolate, and the Trap of Eternal Servitude: A Reading of Race in the United States and Germany – Isabell Cserno
German Archaeologists and Anthropologists in the Andes: The Construction of the Andean Image in Germany and the German Identity in the Andes, 1850–1920 – Uta Kresse Raina
Cinematic Representation of the Yellow Peril: D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms – Lan Dong
Past as Prologue: Rewriting and Reclaiming the Marked Body in Michelle Cliff's Abeng and Margaret Cezair-Thompson's The True History of Paradise – Carmen Gillespie
The Ground Beneath Our Feet: Rastafari and the Construction(s) of Race – Sarah Daynes
Living "in the Shade of the White Metropolis": Class Dynamics in Chester Himes's Harlem – Norlisha F. Crawford
An Affirmation of Cultural Consciousness in August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone – Theda Wrede
From the Pulpit to the Podium: Marginality and the Discourses of Race – Andrea O'Reilly Herrera

This anthology makes a useful text to begin a new genre of discourse on a familiar and persistent social issue. Fresh new voices and approaches reflected in Color, Hair, and Bone will contribute to new insights in the broader field of cultural studies in the academy as well as to a wider, more general audience.

Travel / Europe / Guidebooks

Lonely Planet Italy, 8th edition by Damien Simonis, Alison Bing, Duncan Garwood, Abigail Hole, Catherin Le Nevez, Alex Leviton, Virginia Maxwell, Leif Pettersen, Josephine Quintero, & Nicola Williams (Lonely Planet Publications)

The Italians are not joking when they call their home Il Belpaese, the Beautiful Country. From the cutting-edge fashion houses of Milano to historic ruins and world-renowned cuisine, Italy has something for everyone. According to the authors, Italy is a movable feast of endless courses. No matter how much travelers gorge themselves on its splendors, they always feel they haven't made it past the antipasti. Few countries offer such variety and few visitors leave without a fervent desire to return.

Readers explore the riches of Italy with Lonely Planet Italy as their guide. With a special color feature on Italian art and architecture, this book also contains insider's advice on the best pasta and gelati; skiing and trekking information, notes on history, culture and current politics; as well as practical food and accommodation suggestions for every budget. Widebars add insight into the culture, with details on everything from gladiators to mushroom picking.

Lonely Planet Italy features 137 maps including a full-color Rome map section; full details of Italy's many outstanding festivals, from gondola regattas to saints' days; pensions and prosciutto: insider information on places to stay and eat whatever readers’ budget; the best in Italian nightlife, whether they are after tenors, theatre or techno; and comprehensive and user-friendly Italian language chapter.

Highlights of this eighth edition include:

Ski off-piste, trek the Dolomites or shoot the rapids on the river Lao.
Heed the command 'tutti a tavola!' and begin an epic journey around the Italian table.
Thumb the latest fumetti or debate Fellini’s finer points after readers have read the Culture chapter.
Compare classical columns with state of the art structures from international architects.
Language, cookery and wine courses – the authors of Lonely Planet Italy have checked it out.
Book in and bed down at the best-value accommodation.
Visit lonelyplanet.com for reviews, updates and traveler suggestions.

The country's checkered history has engendered an astonishing regional variety. The great citta d'arte (cities of art) are all intrinsically different. Rome bristles with reminders of its imperial past while Florence and Venice are compact but high-dosage shots of Renaissance art. Indeed, the entire country is strewn with artistic jewels, from the Arab-Norman and Byzantine wonders of Palermo in Sicily to the Baroque marvels of Lecce in Puglia.

Travelers will, of course, venture beyond the cities. From the icy walls of the Alps to the turquoise coves of Sardinia, there is something for everyone. Ski with the chic in Cortina or get lost walking in Tuscany's Apuane Alps. Island-hop around the Aeolian and Egadi groups off Sicily, explore the coastal villages of the Cinque Terre or hang-glide above Umbria's Piano Grande plateau.

Taste buds will demand equal attention. Hundreds of types of pasta are served up and down the country with a ceaseless variety of sauces. Regional specialities abound, such as basil-based pesto in the north, game-meat sauces and the truffles of Piedmont and Umbria in the center, and Sicily's Arab-inspired spices in the south. All washed down with some of the world's greatest wines.

And a word about the Lonely Planet guide book series: from Antarctica to Zimbabwe, if readers are going there, chances are Lonely Planet has been there first. With a pithy and matter-of-fact writing style, these guides calm the nerves of first-time world travelers, while still listing off-the-beaten-path finds to thrill even the most jaded globetrotters.

Lonely Planet Italy shows readers how to get the most from this most fascinating country of Italy. Lonely Planet guides offer travelers the world's richest travel advice, informed by the collective wisdom of over 350 authors living in 37 countries and fluent in 70 languages. They are relentless in finding the special, the unique and the different for travelers wherever they are. When they update their guidebooks, they check every listing, in person, every time and this is the eighth update of Lonely Planet Italy. They always offer the trusted filter for those who are curious, open minded and independent. They tell it like it is without fear or favor in service of the travelers; not clouded by any other motive.