February 2008, Issue #118

Memories are made of images in the mind. I use the camera as an extension of my vision, capturing everyday life without disturbing the natural flow of events. And if it draws a smile, all the better. – Hakimi

Through his use of conventional black-and-white film and a belief that a good photograph is the result of constantly watching to predict the perfect moment, Kazem Hakimi's work harks back to the photojournalism of Cartier-Bresson and those early Magnum photographers who were able to capture moments that superficially contained nothing, but which when printed onto photographic paper became iconic images.

With the United States and Iran once again squaring off in the Persian Gulf and the actions of firebrand president Ahmadinejad never far from the news, An Eye for Iran provides a welcome opportunity to view images that show the human side of a nation we are being led to distrust.

Hakimi was born in Shiraz in Iran, but moved to the UK in 1974. Having trained initially as a civil engineer, he then studied photography in London. An Eye for Iran is based on a visit he made in 2004 to the cities of Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashad. The writer of the introduction, James Attlee, is the author of Isolarion, A Different Oxford Journey.

As told by Atlee in the introduction to An Eye for Iran, as we look through the images in this book we realize that they too, in a sense, are tourist photographs; many of them are taken at tourist sites, in parks, by the river, at important religious or historic monuments. The photographer has not sought out sensational scenes that would confirm Western preconceptions about Iran; we see no images of mass demonstrations, firebrand politicians or religious zealots. The subjects of the photographs are largely Iranians at leisure. To examine a people at rest is to see something about their society that is not revealed in news bulletins or leader articles. The parks and city squares of Iran, the political climate being what it is, are largely the preserve of Iranians. In these communal spaces families disport themselves, taking the lives they usually live behind closed doors out into the open. For example, one picture depicts a tightly knit family group, picnicking together on the grass. Their bodies form a horseshoe shape; a young man, in his late teens or early twenties, is in the center of the frame Spoon in hand, he pauses between mouthfuls. All the energy of the group, it seems, is focused on him. His place in the composition reflects his place in the family; doted on by his mother, admired by his sisters, looked up to by his younger siblings, he basks in the glow of their attention, confident in his youth and good looks. His back is turned to his younger brother, whose face is contorted by tears; for some reason he is locked out for this moment from the family circle and the photographer has caught this tiny domestic drama.

Hakimi's passion for photography was born early. For a period after he came to live in Britain Hakimi put the camera aside, but his interest in photography was reawakened towards the end of his teenage years. At Oxford Polytechnic his subject was Civil Engineering, but he remembers spending as much of his time in the photography department as on his official studies. Still later, he studied for a 13-Tech in photography at Richmond upon Thames College in Twickenham. Yet when he returned to Iran with a camera, as a Farsi-speaking Iranian who understood the culture of the people that surrounded him, his position was very different to that of the German tourists. While making these pictures he traveled with his family, visiting places other Iranians love to visit; cameras in such locations are ubiquitous. He was, in other words, the photographer with the perfect alibi, his presence in every way explicable and therefore unremarked.

That Hakimi has perfected a technique of cheerful invisibility is obvious from the intimacy of some of the photographs collected in An Eye for Iran. The image he calls A fistful of rials was taken without a zoom at literally an arm's length from his subject. Two elderly men are concluding a transaction that has taken place on the street; one counts the money while the other watches seriously, perhaps a touch deferentially (his hands together in a submissive gesture), until the deal is sealed. Once more, these figures seem imbued with an archetypal quality; they are not rich, their clothes speak of extended use and their faces are lined not just with age but with years of struggle, yet they are survivors.

The women in Hakimi's photographs appear in many guises, from ancient beggars to a swift-footed young goatherd. Some are rendered anonymous by their black covering; one image shows women who are distributing leaflets to promote the wearing of a type of chador that does not even leave the eyes uncovered.

Iran is, of course, a theocracy and religion plays a part in daily life to an extent largely unfamiliar in the West. Religious belief is present, in the photograph of the young boy unselfconsciously praying in the public park, in the old woman holding a candle at the entrance to a shrine, in the vast banner of Ali and his descendents, the 12 Imams of Shi'ism, draped across a house.

A message emerges from An Eye for Iran, one that although it is delivered quietly is as important as any declaimed from a podium or broadcast across the world's media. It is simply this: can the people in these photographs – the dancing boy, the family picnicking in the park, the old men counting rials, the young woman having her fortune read by the side of the road, as well as the many other characters readers will meet as they look through the pages of this book – really be our enemies? The question is left hanging in the air; the lone pedestrian continues on his way down the boulevard, unaccompanied except by his shadow, his hands clasped behind his back, looking this way and that, simply observing, as he steps casually yet purposefully forward into the eternal present.

Throughout An Eye for Iran, Hakimi shows how well he understands the techniques of traditional photojournalism: he remains both present but still invisible to the people in the scenes his lens has captured. The result is a captivating book that will appeal to all those wishing to gain an insight into life in this unique and fascinating country.

Audio / Politics / Conservatism

Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America (Abridged Audio CD: 5 CDs, running time 6 hours) by Ann Coulter, read by the author (Random House Audio)

Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America (Hardcover) by Ann Coulter (Crown Forum)

Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America (Paperback) by Ann Coulter (Random House Large Print)

Liberals always have to be the victims, particularly when they are oppressing others. Modern victims aren't victims because of what they have suffered; they are victims of convenience for the Left.... Liberals are the masters of finger-wagging indignation. They will wail about some perceived slight to a sacred feeling of theirs, frightening people who have never before witnessed the liberal's capacity to invoke synthetic outrage. Distracted by the crocodile tears of the liberals, Americans don't notice that these fake victims are attacking, advancing, and creating genuine victims. – from the book

In this most controversial and fiercely argued book, Ann Coulter calls out liberals for always playing the victim – when, as she sees it, they are the victimizers. In Guilty, Coulter, legal correspondent for Human Events and columnist for Universal Press Syndicate, explores this idea, claiming that when it comes to bullying, no one outdoes the Left. Guilty is a catalog of offenses, which Coulter presents from A to Z. Revealing their hypocrisies, Coulter cries “Guilty!” on the following topics:

The Press. “The media wanted to screw Obama, but only in the sense that they literally wanted to have sex with him.”
Single Mothers. “Hollywood actresses have dropped sex tapes and moved on to single motherhood as a way to promote their careers.”
Sex Education. “More seventh graders know how to put on a condom than can name the first president – although kids who are really good with a condom all seem to know the name of the forty-second.”

The audio version is read by the author, and who doesn’t know Coulter’s voice!? As with each of her past books, all of which were New York Times bestsellers, Coulter is fearless in her penchant for uttering politically incorrect pronouncements about politics and culture today. Packed with barbed humor and insight, Guilty is a reality check on a Left ‘gone wild’, to use her expression.

Biology / Zoology / Geriatrics

The Social Behavior of Older Animals by Anne Innis Dagg (The Johns Hopkins University Press)

How do young and old animals view each other?
Are aged animals perceived by others as weaker? Or wiser?
What is the relationship between age and power among animals?

Taking a cue from Frans de Waal's seminal work examining the lives of chimpanzees, Anne Innis Dagg, teacher in the Independent Studies program of the University of Waterloo, in The Social Behavior of Older Animals probes the lives of older mammals and birds. Synthesizing the available scientific research and anecdotal evidence, she explores how aging affects the lives and behavior of animals ranging from elk to elephants and gulls to gorillas, examining such topics as longevity; how others in a group view senior members in regard to leadership, wisdom, and teaching; mating success; interactions with mates and offspring; how aging affects dominance; changes in aggressive behavior and adaptability; and death and dying.

The Social Behavior of Older Animals is about animals well past their prime who live either in the wild or in captivity where they have large areas in which to move and interact with others. The question of who is old is fairly easily answered for people. Oldsters who take advantage of seniors' discounts are rarely asked to produce identification to prove their age; they often have gray or white hair, and their bodies provide other physical clues.

What about other animals, where signs of aging such as wrinkles and spots are covered with fur or feathers? By definition, older animals are nearing the end of their lives, but that does not mean we can distinguish them from their companions. Indeed, most behavioral research on wild animals does not mention older individuals at all. One problem was that, until recently, people believed that wild animals did not live to be old, dying instead from accidents or disease, or being killed and eaten by predators. Therefore, there is little information available about aged individuals in older books and articles.

Some basic facts about aging in animals as told by Dagg in The Social Behavior of Older Animals:

Animals in zoos tend to live longer than wild ones, because they do not have to worry about predation or lack of food or water. However, this is not true for large mammals such as orcas (killer whales) or elephants – the latter can live for 60 or 70 years in the wild, but they usually die by their forties in captivity.
Older animals are slower and less agile than their junior selves, and may suffer from arthritis, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and other health problems, including mental confusion.
Older mammals are often gaunt, with fur or hair that has turned gray or white.
Males and females of a species may have very different average life-spans. Orca males, for example, have longevity of about 40 years, while females often live into their fifties.
Healthy female mammals are getting old if they produce fewer young than formerly, and are definitely in that category when they stop reproducing entirely.
Healthy males may stop reproducing when they grow old.
Small animals in general have a far shorter lifespan than large animals, and longevity is correlated to some extent with metabolism.
Longevity is an adaptive trait, positively correlated with unique attributes such as flying ability (sometimes), possession of armor (in turtles and armadillos), and life underground (for moles and mole rats).
In dogs, larger species such as Great Danes and collies have a short lifespan of 8 to 10 years, while small dogs live much longer on average.
Researchers in different areas may have varying standards for old age.

Information used in The Social Behavior of Older Animals came from a large number of books and articles on animals, the most profitable being those written by zookeepers, wildlife zoologists, and individuals or groups of people who study or simply love animals and from journal articles. The book first considers general knowledge about elderly animals, and then the bias inherent in collecting information on their social behavior. Throughout, Dagg often refers to wild animals as ‘older’ rather than ‘old,’ to reflect the difficulty of knowing exactly how old an older animal is.

Chapters of The Social Behavior of Older Animals include: (1) Evolutionary Matters, (2) Sociality, Media, and Variability, (3) The Wisdom of Elders, (4) Leaders, (5) Teaching and Learning, (6) Reproduction, (7) Successful Subordinates, (8) The Fall of Titans, (9) Aging of Captive Alphas, (10) Happy Families, (11) Mothering – Good and Not So Good, (12) Grandmothers, (13) Sexy Seniors, (14) Their Own Person, (15) Adapting and Not Adapting, (16) All Passion Spent, and (17) The Inevitable End.

Dagg describes many problems in obtaining sufficient data. For example, there is not enough data to answer many questions about older male elephants; largely because of culling and poaching for ivory, many African countries no longer have any older males and, therefore, no natural populations of elephants. In Zaire, killing elephants for their ivory was banned in 1977, but it has been replaced by killing elephants because they are raiding crops, even in areas where there are no crops. A recent inventory found ivory from 6500 animals, with older elephants as the preferred target, because of their large tusks. The same problem of excessive harvesting exists for whales.

Scientists studying the behavior of animals now largely agree that they have feelings and emotions, just as people do. As Marc Bekoff stated: "There are pleasure-seeking iguanas, amorous whales, elephants who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, pissed off baboons who beat the stuffing out of others, sentient fish and a sighted dog who serves as a Seeing Eye dog for his canine buddy." This is why, of course, we cannot assume that the behavior of one animal is representative of its entire species. Ethically, it also means we should think of animals as the sentient beings that they are.

At once instructive and compelling, The Social Behavior of Older Animals is a pioneering and theme-spanning book revealing the complex nature of maturity in scores of social species and shows that animal behavior often displays the same diversity we find in ourselves.

Business & Investing / Accounting / Taxes

Tax Deductions for Professionals, 4th Edition by Stephen Fishman (NOLO)

What do architects, lawyers, dentists, chiropractors, doctors and other licensed professionals have in common? Answer: Special tax considerations including a 50% bonus depreciation for 2008. If readers are professionals, no one needs to tell them that taxes are one of their largest expenses, and the best way to minimize taxes and maximize take-home income is to take advantage of every tax deduction available.

Many professionals miss out on all kinds of deductions every year simply because they are not aware of them – or because they neglect to keep the records necessary to back them up. Tax Deductions for Professionals, tailored for the unique needs of professionals, it shows readers how they can deduct all or most of their business expenses from their federal taxes – everything from advertising to vehicle depreciation. The book is organized into categories featuring common deductions, including start-up and operating expenses, health deductions, vehicles and travel, entertainment and meals, home office.

Unlike other books on the market, Tax Deductions for Professionals, written by attorney Stephen Fishman, helps readers choose the best legal structure for their practice, the most important business (and tax) decision they will make. The book also covers putting money into retirement accounts, the tax implications of owning the building they work in, and deducting the cost of continuing education, professional fees and other expenses. The table of contents includes:

Tax Deduction Basics: How Tax Deductions Work; The Value of a Tax Deduction; What Professionals Can Deduct
Choice of Business Entity: Types of Business Entities; Limiting Your Liability; The Four Ways Business Entities Are Taxed; Comparing Tax Treatments; Should You Change Your Business Entity or Tax Treatment?
Operating Expenses: Requirements for Deducting Operating Expenses; Operating Expenses That Are Not Deductible; Tax Reporting
Meal and Entertainment Expenses: What Is Business Entertainment?; Who You Can Entertain; Deducting Entertainment Expenses; Calculating Your Deduction; Expenses Reimbursed by Clients; Reporting Entertainment Expenses to the IRS
Car and Local Travel Expenses: Deductible Local Transportation Expenses; The Standard Mileage Rate; The Actual Expense Method; How to Maximize Your Car Expense Deduction; Other Local Transportation Expenses; Reporting Transportation Expenses on Schedule C; When Clients Reimburse You; Professionals With Business Entities; Should You Trade In or Sell Your Old Car?
Long Distance Travel Expenses: What Is Business Travel?; What Travel Expenses Are Deductible; How Much You Can Deduct; Maximizing Your Business Travel Deductions; How to Deduct Travel Expenses; Travel Expenses Reimbursed by Clients
The Home Office Deduction: Qualifying for the Home Office Deduction; Calculating the Home Office Deduction; How to Deduct Home Office Expenses; Audit-Proofing Your Home Office Deduction
Deductions for Outside Offices: If You Rent Your Office; If You Own Your Office; If You Lease a Building to Your Practice
Deducting Long-Term Assets: Long-Term Assets; Section 179 Deductions; Depreciation; Tax Reporting and Record Keeping for Section 179 and Depreciation; Leasing Long-Term Assets
Start-Up Expenses: What Are Start-Up Expenses?; Starting a New Practice; Buying an Existing Practice; Expanding an Existing Practice; When Does a Professional Practice Begin?; How to Deduct Start-Up Expenses; Expenses for Practices That Never Begin; Organizational Expenses
Medical Expenses: The Personal Deduction for Medical Expenses; Self-Employed Health Insurance Deduction; Deducting Health Insurance as an Employee Fringe Benefit; Adopting a Medical Reimbursement Plan; Health Savings Accounts
Retirement Deductions: Why You Need a Retirement Plan (or Plans); Types of Retirement Plans; Individual Retirement Accounts-IRAs; IRAs for Businesses; Qualified Retirement Plans; Keogh Plans; Solo 401(k) Plans; Roth 401(k) Plans
Inventory: What Is Inventory?; Do You Have to Carry an Inventory?; Deducting Inventory Costs; IRS Reporting
More Deductions: Advertising; Business Bad Debts; Casualty Losses; Charitable Contributions; Clothing; Disabled Access Tax Credit; License Fees, Dues, and Subscriptions; Education Expenses; Gifts; Insurance for Your Practice; Interest on Business Loans; Legal and Professional Services; Taxes; Domestic Production Activities
Hiring Employees and Independent Contractors: Employees versus Independent Contractors; Tax Deductions for Employee Pay and Benefits; Reimbursing Employees; Employing Your Family; Tax Deductions When You Hire Independent Contractors
Professionals Who Incorporate: Automatic Employee Status; Paying Yourself; Employee Fringe Benefits; Shareholder Loans
How You Pay Business Expenses: Your Practice Pays; Using Personal Funds to Pay for Business Expenses; Your Client Reimburses You; Accountable Plans
Amending Tax Returns: Reasons for Amending Your Tax Return; Time Limits for Filing Amended Returns; How to Amend Your Return; How the IRS Processes Refund Claims
Staying Out of Trouble with the IRS: Anatomy of an Audit; The IRS: Clear and Present Danger or Phantom Menace?; How Tax Returns Are Selected for Audits; Tax Shelters, Scams, and Schemes; Ten Tips for Avoiding an Audit
Record Keeping and Accounting: Recording Your Expenses; Documenting Your Deductions; Accounting Methods; Tax Years
Help beyond This Book: Secondary Sources of Tax Information; The Tax Law; Consulting a Tax Professional

The 4th edition of Tax Deductions for Professionals is updated with the latest tax laws and numbers, providing information on the 2008 tax breaks for small businesses.

Aimed at anyone who runs a professional practice, including doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, architects and even chiropractors - to say nothing of accountants. – Accounting Today
Step-by-step strategies for making your tax bill as low as possible. – Cedar Rapids Gazette
Thorough, straightforward and specific, Tax Deductions for Professionals contains all the information you need to take advantage of every money-saving opportunity. – Architectural West

Offers...guidelines for converting a vacation into a business trip. – Marketwatch.com

Tax Deductions for Professionals is every professional's ‘know how’ guide to reducing taxes. Comprehensive, easy to read and filled with interesting examples, the book is well organized. Not a tax preparation guide, the book provides the information readers need to maximize their deductible expenses – and avoid common deduction mistakes. The book helps readers provide their tax professionals with better records, ask better questions, obtain better advice and evaluate the advice they get from tax professionals, websites, and other sources. Tax Deductions for Professionals can be a legal companion, providing practical advice and information so that they can rest assured that they are not paying more to the IRS than necessary.

Business & Investing / Economics

"Are Economists Basically Immoral?" and Other Essays on Economics, Ethics, and Religion by Paul Heyne edited and with an introduction by Geoffrey Brennan and A.M.C. Waterman (Liberty Fund, Inc.)

I started out wondering why economists arrived at so many immoral conclusions and gradually discovered both that social systems were far more complex than I had supposed and that my notions of morality were much too simple. – Paul Heyne

Eight years before his death, Paul Heyne listed among his strong convictions: “Theology has absolutely nothing to contribute to the discussion of public policy issues.”

A well-trained theologian, a gifted and dedicated teacher of economics for over forty years, and the author of a highly regarded and widely used textbook, The Economic Way of Thinking, which has gone through eleven editions, Heyne influenced generations of students of economics and is still doing so today. Many of the essays in "Are Economists Basically Immoral?" and Other Essays are published in this book for the first time. The editors, Geoffrey Brennan and A.M.C. Waterman, have divided Heyne's essays thematically to cover three general areas: the ethical foundations of free markets, the connection between those ethical foundations and Christian thought, and the teaching of economics – both method and substance. Heyne's writings are unique in that he takes the critics of the free market order seriously and addresses their arguments directly, showing how they are defective in their understanding of economics and in their ethical and theological underpinnings.

Heyne (1931-2000) was one of the most influential educators of economic principles in the United States for almost forty years. He received two divinity degrees from Concordia Lutheran Seminary while also earning a master's degree in economics from Washington University. He then earned his Ph.D. in ethics and society at the University of Chicago. He taught economics at various universities before settling at the University of Washington in 1976, where he taught until his death.

Heyne believed passionately in ‘the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals’ and agreed strongly with Goodrich "that education in a free society requires a dialogue centered in the great ideas of civilization." Like Goodrich, he "saw learning as an ongoing process of discovery."

"Are Economists Basically Immoral?" and Other Essays on Economics, Ethics, and Religion is a collection of Heyne's essays focused on the issue that preoccupied him throughout his life. An introduction by the editors situates the essays within the unusual life of Heyne, describing how an anti-capitalist divinity student gradually became convinced, through his study of economics, of the close association between the logic of free markets and a proper Christian understanding of the social order.

For a man who so often disparaged publication as an activity, Heyne wrote a great deal in the thirty-six years between his University of Chicago doctoral dissertation of 1963 and his last paper, written for the Hoover Institution in 1999.

The provenance of Heyne's thirty extant unpublished papers is not always easy to identify. Of those where it is clear, eight are the texts of public lectures delivered at various universities in North America, five are papers read at conferences of the Southern Economic Association and other professional bodies, and five were commissioned for conferences organized by Liberty Fund. Two of his symposium papers were published as chapters in books. Therefore at least one – and possibly more – have been lost.

Brennan and Waterman ask in the introduction to "Are Economists Basically Immoral?" and Other Essays: Why bother to republish any of this material? The justification for the current collection gradually came to Brennan and Waterman as possible editors when they read and re-read the University of Washington papers and all other Heyne material they had access to. That justification became clearer as they discovered things he had never bothered to tell them of his intellectual development from 1953 to 1976. For though he was an intimate friend of each of them, he much preferred to debate the latest (or perennial) issues they disagreed upon than to talk or write about himself. For these reasons, a selection of those papers that most effectively capture his message should be placed in as many hands as possible.

In making their selection, Brennan and Waterman began by eliminating book reviews, printed works of one or two pages in little-known publications, and short, unpublished typescripts of unknown provenance. Next they eliminated all essays based on arguments more fully worked out or better expressed elsewhere. Because of the occasional character of much of Heyne's writing, there is considerable overlap of theme and subject matter. They brought the collection down to the twenty-six printed in "Are Economists Basically Immoral?" and Other Essays, roughly one-third of the University of Washington material.

The first eleven of the papers, grouped in the first three parts of the book, have to do directly with Heyne's lifelong concern with ethics and theology, and the relations between these and economics. Part 4 contains two scholarly essays of a historical character, the second commissioned for a Liberty Fund symposium directed by the Fraser Institute in 1982 at which Brennan and Waterman and Heyne met together as a trio for the first time. Parts 5 and 6 contain six essays on teaching, the first being Heyne's introductory lecture at Southern Methodist University in September 1968 on ‘The Nature of Man’ which, with the possible exception of an undated essay in part 3, affords their earliest glimpse of the author in action. Because defining ‘economics’ is crucial to any genuine discussion of economics and ethics, methodology was always important to him, and they print three mainly methodological essays in part 7. The last part illustrates Heyne’s approach to the relation of economics and ethics by printing four of his many essays on specific policy issues.

Heyne was a remarkable man, and the essays in "Are Economists Basically Immoral?" and Other Essays show something of that remarkableness. Even in discussions of topics well beyond the fundamental level, Heyne succeeds in providing students with an appreciation of basic economic principles. Written with the non-expert in mind, and in a highly engaging style, these essays will be of particular interest to students of economics, professional economists with an interest in ethical and theological topics, and Christians who seek to explore economic issues. The engaging style of Heyne's essays makes them accessible to students as well as to scholars.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership / Sports / Reference

Applied Sport Management Skills by Robert N. Lussier & David C. Kimball (Human Kinetics)

Sport management is a growing field, and this growth has created the need for a book that teaches people how to be sport managers. Most people using such a book would not be professional athletes; they would be students learning to be managers in sport industries.

Applied Sport Management Skills uses the four management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to teach readers how to become strong leaders and managers in the world of sport. Written by Robert N. Lussier, professor of management at Springfield College in Springfield, and David C. Kimball, associate professor of management and director of the sport management program at Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts, this book, along with its companion Web site and online student resource, provide a comprehensive overview of management topics with a unique focus on developing the necessary skills for managing sport organizations.

Filled with exercises and real-world examples, Applied Sport Management Skills contains valuable tools to help students understand leadership and management in the sport industry. Chapter-opening scenarios, revisited throughout each chapter, provide a cohesive thread to keep students focused on how sport managers use the text concepts on the job. Case studies in each chapter help students apply their newly gained knowledge to real-life situations. Time-outs encourage students to relate chapter concepts to their own experiences through brief assignments and questions. Self-assessment exercises enable students to better understand themselves and to determine their strengths and areas of improvement. Skill-building exercises provide students with the opportunity to develop skills they can use in their personal and professional lives. Application and skill-development sidebars, learning outcomes, key terms, and chapter summaries reinforce key points covered in the chapter.

Applied Sport Management Skills includes an extensive instructor guide, test bank, and PowerPoint presentation package to assist instructors with class preparation and presentation and engage students in the material. With the text, students also receive a key code that provides access to the online student resource (OSR). This Web site allows students to use the learning activities from the text in a dynamic and interactive setting. Many activities in the OSR can be filled out, printed, and handed in to the instructor, whereas others provide immediate ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ feedback to students. Additional features found only in the OSR include related Internet resources and questions that test students' ability to gather information from sport-related Web sites.

Applied Sport Management Skills provides readers with an understanding of the management principles and concepts used in sport organizations and the challenges that managers face. This understanding is enhanced by the application of that knowledge and by the focus on developing management skills, allowing students to build a solid foundation toward a fulfilling career in sport management.

The OSR also provides additional learning material, including related Internet resources and questions that test students' ability to gather information from sport-related Web sites.

Instructor guide. Specifically developed for instructors of Applied Sport Management Skills, the instructor guide includes chapter and lecture outlines; answers to the time-out and application exercises, review and discussion questions, and case studies; and exercise ideas and suggestions for classroom use.
Test package. The test package, created with Respondus 2.0, includes a bank of more than 900 questions in true-or-false, multiple-choice, and short-answer formats, plus 700 questions that also appear in the textbook, specifically created for Applied Sport Management Skills.
Presentation package. The presentation package for Applied Sport Management Skills includes approximately 350 PowerPoint slides of text, tables, figures, and special elements from the book that instructors can use for class discussion and illustration.

The book is organized based on the traditional four management functions – planning, organizing, leading, and controlling – but it is well grounded in sport contexts. Lussier and Kimball also rely on the principles of the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM). The text covers all of the topics of interest to NASSM members, which are listed in its mission statement (sport marketing, chapter 13; future directions in management, chapters 1-14; employment perspectives, chapter 1 and appendix A; management competencies, chapters 1-14; leadership chapters, 8-12; sport and the law, chapter 7; personnel management, chapter 7; facility management, chapter 14; organizational structures, chapters 5-7; finance, chapter 13; and conflict resolution, chapter 8).

Applied Sport Management Skills presents the principles of management, sport applications of the principles, and skill development. Each chapter includes six types of applications that provide students an opportunity to apply the management principle to actual sports and sport organizations to develop critical thinking skills through the following features.

Reviewing Their Game Plan – Each chapter begins with an opening case featuring real-world sport organizations and their managers, with a photo illustration. Throughout the chapter, examples illustrate how the organization uses the text concepts.
Sport Examples – As the concepts are presented, Applied Sport Management Skills provides many examples of how real-world sport organizations use the principles of management. Lussier and Kimball discuss a variety of organizations, including professional, college, and high school teams, and provide examples from sport businesses, such as Nike, and nonprofit organizations, such as the YMCA and Jewish Community Center. Review any chapter for examples.
Time-Out – Open-ended questions require students to explain how the text concepts apply to their own sport and work experiences. Student experience can be sport at any level and present, past, summer, full-time, or part-time employment. The questions help students bridge the gap between theory and their real world.
Applying the Concept – Each chapter contains a series of three to five Applying the Concept boxes that require students to determine the management concept being illustrated in a specific sport example, as illustrated here.
Cases – Following the review and discussion questions, an actual manager and sport organization are described. Students learn how the manager or organization applies the concepts from that chapter. Each case is followed by approximately 10 multiple-choice questions and some open-ended questions to aid students in applying the concepts to the sport organization.
Internet Exercises – Included in the online student resource are Internet exercises. Several of the exercises require students to visit a sport organization and answer questions to gain a better understanding of sport management.

Applied Sport Management Skills is an applied text for students in sport management and administration, sport business, sport leadership, and other sport management courses. It is a fully integrated textbook with a companion Web site that constructively applies the principles of business management to the sport industry. Lussier and Kimball provide a meticulous and comprehensive overview of management topics with an in-depth focus on how to manage sport organizations. They provide thorough coverage of the principles of management combined with robust sport applications and exercises to develop sport management skills that students can use in their personal and professional lives. Filled with valuable tools, the book gives students a thorough understanding of the management principles of sports organizations. The book can also serve as reference for sport managers and libraries.

Business & Economics / Management & Leadership / Free Enterprise

Free Market Madness: Why Human Nature is at Odds with Economics – and Why it Matters by Peter A. Ubel (Harvard Business Press)
Humans aren't entirely rational creatures.
Is there any place where freedom is more apparent than a supermarket? Walking the aisles of the local grocery store, everyone can freely choose from among dozens of shampoos, scores of cereals, and hundreds of frozen delicacies. Readers might think that they are impervious to television ads or supermarket sales schemes. But marketers and sales experts know how to influence people without their awareness. And the free-market economy is based on the assumption that people act in their own self-interests.

Author Peter Ubel, physician and behavioral scientist, director of the Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine, University of Michigan, argues in Free Market Madness that the combination of human nature and free markets can be downright dangerous for health and well-being. Government must step in and further regulate the markets that reward those who exploit our weaknesses. In the end, public policy must take human nature into account – our rational and irrational sides, our strengths and our weaknesses.

With examples gathered from many disciplines, Ubel in Free Market Madness shows that by understanding and controlling the factors that go into decisions, people can begin to stop the damage they do to their bodies, their finances, and the economy as a whole.

Ubel says liberty is a precious commodity, good in its own right – a gift so special that many of us would die for it. Freedom is also valuable as a means to other ends; it allows people to pursue their goals, goals that vary from one person to another. But freedom to choose is accompanied by the freedom to make bad choices. And in the current marketplace, filled with companies that make a practice of studying human behavior, freedom too often leads to harm and misery. Psychology and sociology PhDs leave academia to work for industry or Madison Avenue where they can employ their knowledge of human behavior in the service of selling consumer goods.

Ubel has studied the errors people make when facing difficult choices. In Free Market Madness he shows how economists came to hold a belief in human rationality, and how that faith has come under question by developments in neuroscience and behavioral economics. More importantly, he raises questions about what the limits of human rationality imply for the proper limits of free markets. Ubel doesn't debate either morality or externalities. Instead, he mounts a third front against unfettered markets.

In doing so, he shows, in broad outline, what markets can look like when they are designed to take account of human nature.

According to Ubel, physician and behavioral scientist at the University of Michigan, marketers exploit basic human irrationality to persuade people to consume dangerously unhealthy foods and spend more money than they have.… While Ubel presents a nuanced treatment of issues often reduced to sound bites, his arguments can be difficult to follow; further, his disdain for everything from snack food to beer, television and expensive prescription drugs might strike some readers as sanctimonious. – Publishers Weekly

Americans believe that the free market produces the best of all possible worlds. So why are our children's lives likely to be shorter than our own? In his riveting new book, Ubel shows us how and why the invisible hand can become an invisible fist – and then tells us what we can do about it. This is behavioral science at its best – a must-read for anyone who thinks that public policy should be based on, of all things, facts. – Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology, Harvard University

In this witty and engaging book, Peter Ubel reveals how problems from the obesity epidemic to out-of-control health-care costs arise when human psychology collides with the free market. Ubel teaches and provokes as he provides a new twist on the history of economics. – George Loewenstein, Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology. Carnegie Mellon University

Free Market Madness is an important analysis of one of the most crucial problems facing business and society today: the failure of market incentives and even educational interventions to ensure rational societal outcomes regarding health and well-being. This deeply insightful yet very readable book will give you a better understanding of what drives your behavior and will empower you to make better and more realistic decisions. – Mary Frances Luce, Thomas A. Finch Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

Free Market Madness is not just another book about behavioral economies. Ubel's unique perspective as a physician allows him to really show how our rationality and irrationality interact – and how they harm both our physical and our economic well-being. – Sheena S. Iyengar, professor of management, Columbia University Business School

Free Market Madness is a provocative book injecting facts into the economic debate about the proper role of regulation. Ubel's stories bring his message home for anyone interested in improving the way society works. With vivid, broad-ranging examples gathered from many disciplines, he shows that by understanding and controlling the factors that go into decisions, people can begin to stop the damage.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership

Just Treat Me Like I Matter: The Heart of Sales by Diane Marie Pinkard (Bonnie Doon Publishing)

Diane Marie Pinkard believes that society is experiencing another paradigm shift – that people are again appreciating the value of caring and trusting interpersonal relations in both the corporate world and the marketplace. She says that people still buy people – they buy from people who treat them like they matter. She teaches that successful selling is not only about closing the sale, it is about building quality relationships, rich connections, and loyal trust – first with oneself, and then with customers. Pinkard, who earned her state teaching credential and master's degree from California Polytechnic University, has launched and operated three successful businesses and she has special expertise in high-tech retail showrooms.

As told by Pinkard in Just Treat Me Like I Matter, business used to be conducted face-to-face, and deals were sealed with a solid handshake. Salespeople were in the business of selling because they genuinely liked people, and they took pride in knowing their customers on a first-name basis, often committing spouses' and children's names to memory.

Fast forward to today's marketplace where text messaging and email blasts rule, and where customer service is in short supply: Just Treat Me Like I Matter is an antidote to that impersonal mentality. In the book Pinkard takes readers back to the basics of sales, offering tools and techniques for developing strong, interpersonal relationships with clients. In the book readers learn:

Power tools for success.
Personality styles and the games people play.
Wise techniques for dealing with difficult people.
Simple practices for developing quality interpersonal communications and good manners.
Step-by-step formulas for successful showroom sales.
Winning secrets for the art of ‘closing the sale’.

By sharing her street smarts through stories, Pinkard coaches her audience on the importance of selling oneself as well as the product.

Throughout my business career, I've recognized that sales is the live blood of success. Diane sets forth a straight-forward approach to that success. Her book is hard to set down; I only did so because my face got tired from smiling. Her personality shines through the words, as does her wisdom; a must read for any serious student of sales and of life. – Daniel Perry, President, Emblem Financial, Inc.

I teach the art and science of selling but what lies beneath is the heart and psychology of what selling situations are all about. Diane has written a sincere and helpful tome for those who are ready to take their selling relationships to a much deeper level. – Tom Hopkins, author of How to Master the Art of Selling

This book is a must-read for all salespeople, whether just starting out or with thirty-five-plus years of experience like myself. All my salespeople loved it. Diane is masterful at weaving life experiences and down-to-earth sales training techniques into a book that sucks you in and ends up preparing you for your biggest sale: ‘Life.’– Thomas De Meo, Owner, Tile and Marble Outlet

Even with almost thirty years of sales experience with a large computer firm, I learned new sales techniques from Diane's book. She is very knowledgeable about her subject. The book contains an abundance of insights and wisdom gleaned by the author from a rich lifetime in sales. Easy to read, enjoyable book. – John O'Malley, Retired Corporate Senior Marketing Representative

Ms. Pinkard has captured the essence of a great recipe for sales and life in general. This book should be a class in school. She has made a self-help book fun, witty, and charming. I learned so much from this book on how to actually apply the lessons to all areas of my life, not just to my work. Thank you for the lessons and even some validations that I was already on the right track. I will be recommending this book to everyone I love. – Candy Warmuth, Personal Services Administrator

Just Treat Me Like I Matter is a valuable roadmap for anyone – from novices to seasoned sales professionals – in any type of business venture. It is also a must-read for those who want to improve the quality of everyday life. No matter what type of selling they do, readers will find the book brimming with tools and techniques. Pinkard inspires readers and challenges them, and her approach is straight-up, genuine, and full of heart.

Business & Investing / Management & Leadership

The Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio: How to Build and Grow a Panic-Proof Investment Portfolio by David Gardner & Tom Gardner (Collins Business)

From Wall Street to Main Street the plummeting stock market has given many investors a severe case of the jitters, if not outright panic. As they have watched their retirement savings dwindle, many investors are desperately wondering what to do. Some have rushed to sell, often suffering major losses in the process. However, selling stocks recklessly is one of the costliest mistakes any investor can make, according to the David and Tom Gardner. In fact, history shows that bear markets can create bargain prices in top quality stocks. "You can make regular contributions to your portfolio or retirement account and pick up good stocks on the cheap," says Tom Gardner, "If you have the right approach."

In this long-anticipated guide to building a portfolio, the Gardner brothers, acclaimed stock pickers and Internet pioneers, in The Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio lay out the simple philosophy that they have used to help millions of individual investors outfox the professionals on Wall Street. The research, the stories, and the results that underpin the book stem from the revolutionary and wildly successful ‘Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio’ – a one-of-a-kind Web experiment in which individual investors follow along as Motley Fool co-founder Tom Gardner invests and manages $1 million of The Motley Fool's own money.

Readers are offered a glimpse into the inner workings of The Motley Fool machine – and an education in building, growing, and defending an individual portfolio. From learning to think like an investor to finding a first stock, from dividend investing to blue-chip bargains to small-cap treasures, from international investing to community-based online tools that are revolutionizing stock selection and asset allocation, The Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio takes readers through the strategies for building a portfolio – no matter how small its start or how big its ambitions.

The Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio draws on the collective wisdom of dozens of analysts across the company as well as thousands of investors throughout its community.

The Gardners lead investors through the process of picking good stocks. New investors will learn how to choose their very first stock by applying six basic criteria, including finding companies with consistent earnings growth and little to no debt. Next the Gardners dig into the types of stocks savvy investors look for among value, high-growth, small-cap, blue-chip and international stocks. Sharing actual success stories (and the occasional, learn-from-experience failure) they detail how to learn which indicators are most important when evaluating a potential buy and how to locate a hidden gem among more volatile small caps. Striving for a balanced portfolio that suits both the individual investor's needs and risk tolerance as well as the necessity for asset allocation, the Gardners offer proven scenarios for achieving the perfect million dollar portfolio – and starting down the road to the next million.

"For long-term investors, now is precisely the time you should be determining what to do with your savings," says David Gardner. "But the last thing you'll want to do is to invest without fully understanding the risks you're taking. Above all else: stick with a plan and keep investing."

Humorous and savvy. – The Wall Street Journal

What sets the Gardners apart . . . is their remarkably explicit, how-to approach to investing and their involvement in the online world that is slowly but surely revolutionizing the capital formation and investment process in this country. – Chicago Tribune

Stands out as an ethical oasis in an area that is fast becoming a home to charlatans. – The Economist

The best place online for talking with investors... amusing as well as educational. – Barron's
Their panache is a cover for a belief in the old-fashioned virtues of patience, simplicity, and prudence. – U.S. News & World Report
They’ve built up a large and much-deserved following. – Washington Post

With the Motley Fool's signature plain-spoken analysis, The Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio is an innovative and timely investing book. Sharing the methods Fool analysts have used to uncover market-beating stock ideas, the book offers an invaluable approach for all investors, from first-timers to seasoned pros. This groundbreaking guide contains page after page of sound, sensible investment advice giving its readers a first class education in building their portfolios.

Business & Investing / U.S. / Taxation / Guidebooks / Reference

Tax This!, 2008 Edition: An Insider's Guide to Standing Up to the IRS by Scott M. Estill (Legal Series: Self-Counsel Press)
Every year the IRS issues more than 34 million penalty notices to individuals and small businesses. What readers may not know is that many of these notices are wrong. And they don't have to hire an expensive tax professional in order to challenge these penalties and stand up to the IRS.

Written by a former IRS attorney, Tax This! is designed to give readers an inside track in their negotiations with the IRS. The book covers the IRS audit process, from the time a return is chosen for audit to the appeals procedure. It also includes information on some little-known tools available to taxpayers to help them tackle the IRS and win. Author Scott Estill, a tax attorney and former IRS Senior Trial Attorney who now operates his own law practice in Denver, specializes in handling IRS controversies including audits, criminal investigations, trials, and collections.

Tax This! includes current advice on finding out what the IRS knows about the individual and what it doesn't know, abating tax penalties, making tax payments by installment, saving on taxes in small businesses, and getting a Federal Tax Lien released.

Estill addresses business meetings, conferences, and seminars on the subject of dealing with the IRS. This updated edition includes pointers on how to deal with the IRS's aggressive new audit strategies, as well as information on the IRS ‘Dirty Dozen’ tax scams and how readers can protect themselves from them.

Other topics include:

What do taxpayers do if their case is referred to a private collection agency?
How can they pay pennies on the dollar to resolve their tax debt?
How will recent changes to bankruptcy law affect them?
What are their rights during an IRS criminal investigation?

Anyone who deals with tax issues on a day-to-day basis understands that the vast majority of tax laws are hopelessly complex. For instance, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, which President Bush signed into law on June 7, 2001, contained 85 major changes (and 441 total changes) to the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), all of which will be phased in (and possibly out) until 2011 – the law itself was 291 pages long. In addition, many tax law changes were proposed after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC, in part to help the victims and also to stimulate a sluggish economy. Adding to this complexity are the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, along with the Small Business and Work Opportunity Tax Act of 2007. Keeping track of all the changes in the tax code is a major challenge – especially to the IRS. The IRS is often criticized, but, according to Estill, in all fairness, its job is next to impossible to perform much of the time.

The purpose of Tax This! is to update the rules and highlight the vast changes made since the fourth edition was published in 2007, and to put readers on a level playing field with the IRS. Once everyone understands the rules of the game, it becomes easier for the taxpayer to win.

After discussing the history and organization of the IRS in the first few chapters of Tax This!, Estill takes readers step-by-step through the filing process, the audit, appeals, and court proceedings. He also includes chapters on IRS penalties, collection and bankruptcy issues, and criminal investigations. He uses real-life examples to explain many of the tax concepts and to demonstrate how to use various defenses and other weapons against the IRS. At the end of each chapter is a section called Tax Points. These sections provide a summary of the main points of the chapter and are an easy way to review and remember the information presented.

Concise, practical, and eminently readable, Tax This! remains the resource for evening the playing field. – Jonathan P. Decatorsmith, Adjunct Professor of Law and former IRS Senior Trial Attorney

Taxpayers who owe the IRS money will find here all the instructions they need on the important questions ... Mr. Estill's advice – forceful and direct – is to research the law, be organized, stand when speaking, and, not least, don't ever interrupt the judge. – Randy Blaustein, The Wall Street Journal

Tax This! is a practical book written by a former IRS attorney, that will help readers keep more of their hard-earned money. Educating themselves or spending a lot of money to hire the best tax professionals is the only real chance tax payers have to win the IRS game. Tax This! gives readers the education they need to eliminate the fear such that they will be able to fight and beat the IRS at both the administrative level and in the court system.

Children / Grades 4-6 / History / U.S. / Reference

The McCarthy Era by Kathleen Tracy (Monumental Milestones: Great Events of Modern Times Series: Mitchell Lane Publishers)

Even more than his outrageous accusations, it was McCarthy’s overly aggressive style that made him appear even more out of control to the general public. He didn’t question witnesses so much as he bullied them. His reckless insinuations, seldom backed by proof or fact, ruined many a career. McCarthy’s name became synonymous with unsubstantiated, paranoiac character attacks. – from the book

The McCarthy Era tells the story of Joseph McCarthy and the issue that made him a household word – the search to bring to light communists in our midst. The book, written by journalist Kathleen Tracy, is part of the Monumental Milestones: Great Events of Modern Times series, a reference volume aimed at grades 4-6.

The McCarthy Era was the product of Joseph McCarthy, one of the most notorious politicians in United States history. Obsessed with routing out communists, McCarthy persecuted thousands of innocent Americans, destroying careers and ruining lives. His tactics of making public accusations based on innuendo instead of proof became known as ‘McCarthyism.’ From the time he was a child growing up in Wisconsin, McCarthy burned with ambition. As a teenager he started his own business; he earned his high school diploma in less than a year; and he became the youngest circuit court judge in state history. When he was elected to the U.S. Senate, he became the youngest senator in Congress.

By the 1950s, average Americans viewed communism as a direct threat to their democratic way of life. McCarthy played on those fears to persecute anyone suspected of having communist affiliations. His crusade brought him power and fame and ultimately led to his stunning public downfall.
The McCarthy Era relates the story of McCarthy in an even-handed manner, giving children a sense of the times without being sensationalist. The author, having written numerous books for this publisher, is experienced writing at this reading level for this audience, using numerous photographs, some of them in color, to help children visualize the topic, break up the text, and make the book more interesting.

Children / Ages 4-8 / Arts & Photography

Oooh! Picasso by Mil Niepold & Jeanyves Verdu (The Oooh! Artist Series: Tricycle Press)

Oooh! What is this?

This is a book about seeing.

Take a close look at the sculptures that Pablo Picasso made from found objects:

Is that a dolphin leaping? A spider creeping? Water falling?

Take a step back. What do you see now?

Explore the imagination of a master artist and discover that what you see depends on how you look.

The innovative sculptures of popular twentieth century modernist Picasso are introduced to young readers in Oooh! Picasso, the second picture book by the creative team of Mil Niepold and Jeanyves Verdu. The book features five sculptures by Picasso.
Niepold is an artist at heart who, since becoming a mother, sees everything in bold colors and daring shapes. When not making art with her girls, she works in the field of human rights. Verdu has been a freelance art director for over twenty years, while also writing screenplays and designing scarves and ties.

Oooh! Picasso allows young readers to see Pablo Picasso's works like they have never seen them before. Bright and playful close-ups of his sculptures, rarely seen in children's books, include: Guitar (made from sheet metal and wire), Girl Skipping (made from wood, ceramic, iron, and plaster), and Baboon and Young (made from bronze from found objects).

And this? What is this?

I am a lollipop dreaming

I am a snail hiding a rose

Oooh! I am a little girl jumping rope.

Crisp close-ups of the everyday objects that Picasso transformed into sculpture offer a fresh look at the artist's work. With each page turn, readers’ imaginations unfold as the moon becomes a guitar and a dolphin becomes a bull. The boldly-colored spreads and spare text introduce readers to the creations of a master artist.

The sculptures made from found objects shown in Oooh! Picasso may inspire kids to create their own masterpieces from everyday items. Emphasis on works made from found objects also lend themselves toward use in teaching units on recycling and the environment.
Children / Ages 4-8 / People & Places / Animals

Trudy written and illustrated by Henry Cole (Greenwillow Books, an imprint of Harper Collins)

Trudy is a sweet, intimate story, written and illustrated by Henry Cole, ending with a big surprise. The story begins at the country auction:

As told in Trudy, when Esme meets Trudy at the county auction, she knows there's something really special about her.

"She's quite a goat!"

But she doesn't know how special, until she takes her home: Trudy can predict the weather. Esme's goat becomes a local superstar!

"Heard you've got quite a goat!"

But one day, Trudy disappears inside her barn and doesn't come back out.

What's wrong with Trudy?

Esme is very worried. But she soon discovers that Trudy has something even more special in store. . . .

Author of Trudy, Cole grew up on a farm in Virginia . . . with dairy cows, not dairy goats. But he loves farm animals, and little red barns, and the first snowfall, and the first warm spring rain. He is the author and illustrator of several books, including Jack's Garden, I Took a Walk, and On Meadowview Street, which have received wide acclaim. The book, with its bold and beautiful illustrations should be no exception.

Children / Literature & Fiction / Teen / Adventure & Thrillers

The Black Stallion and the Shape-shifter by Steven Farley (The Black Stallion Series: Random House Children’s Books)

The Black Stallion is about the most famous fictional horse of the century. – The New York Times
Timeless quality – Instructor

Hot on the tail of the re-release of The Black Stallion, Random House Books for Young Readers announces the newest adventure of this long-loved character in The Black Stallion and the Shape-shifter. In this, the first Black Stallion novel in 10 years, Walter Farley's son, Steven Farley, continues the epic tale of a horse with uncommon talents and his faithful jockey, Alec Ramsey.

When readers rejoin Black, the horse has become celebrated for his racing abilities and has built himself and Alec a comfortable existence as greats of the racing world. But their life of easy recognition is brought to a halt when Black is suddenly injured in Ireland's Foster Stakes race.

The duo head to the Irish coast to recuperate. While there, they are charmed by the pleasant people and intrigued by tales of the kelpie, a shape-shifting creature of myth who carries unsuspecting riders off to a watery grave.

One day while walking on the beach, Alec meets a lonely local girl, Mora, who has found a stray pony. Alec, recognizing her love of horses, teaches her to ride. But when Mora disappears, local tongues start wagging and Alec realizes that she might have been carried off by the kelpie. Alec tries to laugh it off, but he is assured that the creature is real and that, after the girl, the only thing the kelpie wants is a magnificent black stallion.

Has this shape-shifting brute of Irish folklore stolen Mora away to a watery grave? What will Black and Alec make of the misty figure they saw vanish into the ocean fog? Can they solve this ghoulish mystery without disappearing themselves?

Now in The Black Stallion and the Shape-shifter, Alec and the Black must race the shape-shifter, not realizing that if they lose, not only will Mora be lost forever, but so will the Black. This latest adventure is full of intrigue and excitement, a perfect pick for reluctant readers.

Children’s / World Literature / Literature & Criticism / Folklore & Mythology

Folk and Fairy Tales, 3rd Edition edited by Barbara Karasek & Martin Hallett (Broadview Press)
The distinguished American critic Leslie Fiedler once observed that children's books introduce all the plots used in adult works and that adult responses are frequently based on forgotten or dimly remembered works from childhood. This is particularly true of fairy tales, which, in providing much of our earliest literary and imaginative experience, have surely exerted an enormous influence over us.

In addition, fairy tales can have great pedagogical value for teachers and students of literature. The increasing multi-culturalism of our society has brought with it many riches; at the same time, however, it presents a problem for teachers who must endeavor to find some common ground for students from diverse cultural, social, and intellectual backgrounds. In this context, the fairy tale offers a unique opportunity to introduce students to a literary form that is familiar and simple, yet multi-dimensional. No student can claim to be wholly ignorant of fairy tales, but it is highly unlikely that he or she has ever gone beyond their surface simplicity to discover the surprisingly subtle complexities that lie beneath.

The goal of Folk and Fairy Tales, therefore, is to draw attention not only to the fascination inherent in the tales themselves, but also to convey the insights of some critics who have demonstrated, from a variety of perspectives – literary, psychological, and historical – that fairy tales have a complexity belied by their humble origins.

Folk and Fairy Tales is an anthology designed to provide a foundation for university and college courses. The editors, Barbara Karasek and Martin Hallet, who teach at Acadia University and Vanier College, respectively, offer a broad selection of tales, grouped by theme and era, as well as variants of individual tales that invite cross-cultural and comparative analysis. Each group is preceded by an introduction by the editors. Selections from influential works of criticism range from Max Luthi on the fairy tale hero to recent work by Kay Stone and Jack Zipes. Also included is a section on the illustration of fairy tales, and a bibliography. Over two dozen selections are new to the third edition, as is the inclusion of color illustrations.

This book is, first and foremost, an introduction. From the very beginning, Hallett and Karasek, co-organizers of the Montreal Children's Literature Conference, respectively, have seen typical readers of Folk and Fairy Tales as students returning – somewhat skeptically – to the fairy tale for the first time since elementary school or kindergarten – or perhaps even professing to remember nothing about fairy tales not derived from a Disney movie. Thus, to revise their selection of tales or criticism purely for the sake of modernity would have been inappropriate; in striving for that elusive happy balance, they have tried to avoid making changes for change's sake.

At the same time, the valuable feedback that they have received from those who have used earlier editions of Folk and Fairy Tales in the classroom has helped them in adjusting their selection of tales, both to introduce some lesser-known versions of famous tales and to encourage comparison between versions of one tale or categories of several.

Another change is to be found in the addition of a small selection of poetry. It is not representative of a huge body of work, but it demonstrates the continuing vitality of the fairy tale as a source of inspiration, not so much in terms of children's literature as in powerfully evocative imagery that works at an adult level.

Because the pedagogical technique of challenging expectations has been a major principle influencing their choice and juxtaposition of tales, most of those selected will quickly be recognized as ‘classics.’ It must be pointed out, however, that despite their popularity, these well-known tales are not representative of the international body of fairy tales. Karasek and Hallett did not set out to make their selection comprehensive, since it was their feeling that the greatest advantage could be achieved by guiding students through familiar territory while introducing some new perspectives.

The folk tales are arranged in groups that reflect similar motifs and themes, thus permitting students to evaluate the effects of omissions, additions, and changes in versions of one tale and to examine the similarities among various tales. This analytical process may also be applied to the literary tales in Folk and Fairy Tales.

Each group of tales is preceded by a short critical introduction that begins the process of placing the tale in context. Karasek and Hallett point out some of the issues that may well have inspired these stories in the first place and outline some of the reactions which they have in turn provoked. One of their objectives has been to show how the creative imagination has worked on and developed the fairy tale, as evidenced in the small sampling of contemporary stories. At the same time, such creative reworkings, whatever their medium (and the possibilities are endless), can only emerge from a profound understanding of the fairy tale's style, themes, and structure, as is further demonstrated in the section on illustration that is appended to the tales. To encourage further research, they have also included excerpts from influential critical works representative of different approaches to fairy tales, together with a selective bibliography.

According to Karasek and Hallett in Folk and Fairy Tales, pinning down the fairy tale has been made all the more difficult by other developments: the texts of many modern editions have been less heavily censored, and the accompanying illustrations often display a sophistication that inevitably raises questions about the nature of the intended reader. As a consequence of technical improvements that have made color illustration a viable part of any fairy-tale book, the artist has become as important as the writer, and so to the interpretive involvement of folk-tale recorders such as the Grimms, Perrault, and even Andersen, we must now add the contribution of the illustrators – and of course after the illustrators come the animators, bringing the extraordinary and all but overwhelming influence that the Walt Disney studios have had upon our understanding of the fairy tale.

. . . an excellent resource for beginning fairy tale scholarship. – Lucy Rollin, Clemson University
. . . an invaluable collection – Michael Humphries, Southern Illinois University
The themes are provocative; the variants are well-chosen . . . and the critical essays promote meaningful discourse. – Marilyn Jurich, Suffolk University

Folk and Fairy Tales provides a solid foundation for university and college courses. The changes and additions the editors have made have resulted in an anthology that is an even more effective and enjoyable introduction to the study of fairy tales.

Computers & Internet / Design

Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World by David B. Berman (New Riders Press)

There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.

– Marshall McLuhan

How did design help choose a president?
Why are people buying houses they cannot afford?
Why do U.S. carmakers now struggle to compete?

Why do we really have an environmental crisis?

Design matters. Like never before.
Designers create so much of what we see, what we use, and what we experience. In this time of unprecedented environmental, social, and economic crises, designers can choose what their young profession will be about: inventing deceptions that encourage more consumption – or helping repair the world.
Do Good Design alerts designers to the role they play in persuading global audiences to fulfill invented needs. The book outlines a more sustainable approach to both the practice and the consumption of design. Do Good Design is an AIGA Design Press book, published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA.
According to author David B. Berman, today, everyone is a designer, and the future of civilization is our common design project. Berman, a strategic consultant with over 25 years experience in graphic, interface, and accessibility design, has traveled to 20 countries as an expert speaker, serves as the Ethics Chair for graphic design in Canada, and as a vice president of Icograda, the world body for graphic design.

In the section “what can any professional do?” the book sets out these three guidelines:

I will be true to my profession.
I will be true to myself.
I will spend at least 10% of my professional time helping repair the world.

David Berman, in this lively visual narrative, reveals for us the power of design to drive consumption and some of our unbecoming behavior of recent decades. Yet, more importantly, he speaks of the extraordinary potential to design to change the world, leading human behavior toward our aspirational destinies. – Richard Grefe, executive director, AIGA | the professional association for design
I believe that the real value of this book does not reside in the plethora of data and information that it contains but rather in the compelling biographical account of the author’s passionate journey to discover and advocate how design and designers can contribute to doing good in a fragile world. – Jacques Lange, Icograda President (2005-2007)

... just the right measure of passion and reticence...excellent. – Ken Garland, author, First Things First Manifesto

Do Good Design is a call to action by a leader in the field who has ‘walked the walk.’ In this provocative and dramatically illustrated book, Berman offers a powerful and hopeful message for designers. Professionals may be inspired by the message of how one industry can feel better about itself by holding onto its principles.

Education / Social Sciences / Research

Building Evaluation Capacity: 72 Activities for Teaching and Training by Hallie Preskill & Darlene Russ-Eft (Sage Publications)

Building Evaluation Capacity provides 72 activities for learning how to design and conduct evaluation studies. These activities address the entire evaluation process, including:

An understanding of what evaluation is.
The politics and ethics of evaluation.
The influence of culture on evaluation.
Various evaluation models, approaches, and designs.
Data collection and analysis methods.
Communicating and reporting progress and findings.
Building and sustaining support for evaluation.

Each activity includes an overview, instructional objectives, time estimates, materials needed, handouts, and procedures for effectively using the activity, whether there are a few participants or an unlimited number in small groups. To help readers locate specific kinds of activities, Building Evaluation Capacity includes a chart that names the activity, the time needed to implement the activity, and whether background information or knowledge is required prior to implementing the activity. The book also includes several strategies for forming groups and a glossary of instructional strategies.

The book was written by Hallie Preskill, Professor of Organizational Learning and Instructional Technologies at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and Darlene Russ-Eft, assistant professor in the new School of Education at Oregon State University.

According to Preskill and Russ-Eft, it could be said that Building Evaluation Capacity has been in the making for more than 20 years. During the last two decades, they have provided workshops on evaluation in a variety of corporate, education, nonprofit, health care, government, and professional organizations for new and experienced evaluators. In addition, they have taught introductory and advanced courses on evaluation at several universities. Their background in adult learning, training design and delivery, and consulting makes them aware of the need to design instruction using sound adult-learning principles. Thus, when they develop and teach their workshops and courses, they seek ways to make them accessible, relevant, and interactive so that participants increase their capacity and capability for doing evaluation work. This often means finding ways to enliven a lecture or, more often, creating activities that actively engage participants with the knowledge and skills being taught.

The 72 activities in Building Evaluation Capacity cover most aspects of common evaluation practice. That is, they address various definitions and types of evaluation; the politics and ethics of evaluation; multicultural aspects of evaluation; evaluation models, approaches, and designs; data collection and analysis methods; validity and sampling issues; communication about and reporting on an evaluation's progress and findings; evaluation management; and evaluation building and support. As such, the activities can be used in undergraduate or graduate evaluation courses at colleges and universities, by trainers who provide professional development workshops, by students and participants in evaluation courses and workshops, by organization consultants who want to coach their clients about evaluation, and by managers who wish to help their employees more fully understand evaluation practice.

The 72 activities are organized into 12 sections that follow the conceptualization, design, and implementation of an evaluation. Each section includes a brief background of the content covered in the activities. Each section overview also includes a list of resources for those who wish to learn more about the topics covered.

Contents of Building Evaluation Capacity include:

Overview of Evaluation
The Politics and Ethics of Evaluation Practice
Multicultural and Cross-Cultural Aspects of Evaluation
Focusing the Evaluation
Evaluation Models, Approaches, and Designs
Issues of Validity and Sampling
Collecting Evaluation Data
Analyzing Evaluation Data
Communicating and Reporting Evaluation Processes and Findings
Managing the Evaluation
Building and Sustaining Support for Evaluation
Reflections on Learning Evaluation Models, Approaches, and Designs

Building Evaluation Capacity, while explaining there are three main types of evaluation (developmental, formative and summative), lists the following models and approaches frequently mentioned in the evaluation literature.

Behavioral Objectives Approach. "Is the program, product, or process achieving its objectives?"
The Four-Level Model. "What impact did the training have on participants in terms of their reactions, learning, behavior, and organizational results?"
Responsive Evaluation. "What does the program look like to different people?"
Goal-Free Evaluation. "What are all the effects of the program, including any side effects?"
Adversary/Judicial Approaches. "What are the arguments for and against the program?"
Consumer-Oriented Approaches. "Would an educated consumer choose this program or product?"
Expertise/Accreditation Approaches. "How would professionals rate this program?"
Utilization-Focused Evaluation. "What are the information needs of stakeholders, and how will they use the findings?"
Participatory/Collaborative Evaluation. "What are the information needs of those closest to the program?"
Empowerment Evaluation. "What are the information needs to foster improvement and self-determination?"
Organizational Learning. "What are the information and learning needs of individuals, teams, and the organization in general?"
Theory-Driven Evaluation. What are the assumptions underlying the program's development and implementation?"
Success Case Method. "What is really happening?"

Evaluative thinking is an acquired competence, not at all natural. This book offers the best and most comprehensive materials and exercises available for evaluation teaching and training. Students need practice to develop evaluation skills. These exercises provide opportunities to practice. Stakeholders need to learn to think evaluatively to participate meaningfully in evaluations. Every evaluation is therefore also a teaching opportunity and these materials facilitate the essential understandings needed to engage stakeholders. At the essence of all 72 activities presented by Preskill and Russ-Eft, from understanding different types of evaluation to making methods choices and analyzing data, is the challenge of thinking evaluatively. This book is a tremendous contribution to the profession. – Michael Quinn Patton, author of Utilization-Focused Evaluation and Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods
This book is an excellent resource for classroom and field instruction as well as professional development. – Katherine Ryan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Finally, here is a book that goes beyond the theory of evaluation, or the question of what evaluation entails. Instead, it provides hundreds of practical approaches to actually do it. Beyond being all you wanted to know but were afraid to ask, this answers questions most of us have never thought about. It is a remarkable gift to our profession. – John H. Zenger, Managing Partner of Extraordinary Performance Group and CEO of Provant, Inc.

The activities provided in Building Evaluation Capacity not only help facilitate learning about evaluation but also inspire a commitment to making evaluation an effective, meaningful, and useful enterprise. The book is ideal as a text for evaluation courses throughout the social sciences. Students, instructors, trainers, consultants, and managers will find countless ideas and strategies that facilitate learning.

Entertainment / Games / Poker

Omaha High-Low Strategies for Low-Limit Players by Bill Boston (Cardoza Publishing)

There are 5,278 possible hands in Omaha high-low and Bill Boston did the math on every one of them. Boston, author of Omaha High-Low: Play to Win with the Odds, is one of the most respected Omaha experts in the world among professional players. He has devoted the last 25 years to optimal winning strategies through computer simulations and real-life play.

In Omaha High-Low Strategies for Low-Limit Players players learn how to beat all low limit Omaha high-low games – including $2/4, $3/6, $4/$8 and $5/10 games – and how to adjust for the players found at these limits. Chapters include hand selection, reading hands, trap hands, split pot misconceptions, common mistakes to avoid, and how to play the preflop, flop, turn and river.

If readers already have experience playing low-limit Omaha high-low, but have not yet become consistent winners, Omaha High-Low Strategies for Low-Limit Players is for them. Using the statistical charts Boston has tabulated and his seasoned playing advice, readers will be able to more accurately predict the results of playing great, good, marginal and bad cards, which will give them a great advantage over their opponents.

Readers learn how one unrelated card devalues their hand, why they lose when they chase, and how to recognize and avoid trap hands that will lose piles of chips. Readers also learn how to adjust their play when a board card alters the value of their hand (for better or for worse), and how to maximize every dollar from the profitable hands they are dealt.

Boston’s stats are based on a computer simulation of a good, aggressive, average player who calls with every hand to see the flop from every position. Sound familiar? Not to worry – although he called every flop, Mr. Computer played correctly from the flop onward. What's the value in that? Based on the results of calling with every type of hand imaginable – great, good, marginal and bad cards – we now have a solid foundation to determine which hands are winners and which ones are losers. And why.

Omaha high-low is different from Texas hold'em because players are dealt four hole cards instead of two. This gives them six times as many five-card combinations to make a hand on the flop, turn and river as they do in hold'em and, therefore, an opportunity to play more hands and enjoy the action. It is common for five or more players to find hands to play, generating pots with lots of chips to divide between the winning low and high hands. Unfortunately, many low-limit players don't understand that they must have stronger hands to become involved in the action if they want to win at Omaha high-low. They play too many hands and lose too many chips.

In Omaha High-Low Strategies for Low-Limit Players, readers will find the hands that are profitable to play, as well as trap hands to avoid. Readers learn important strategies that will show them how to win consistently. The concepts in Omaha High-Low Strategies for Low-Limit Players, backed up by statistics and logic, give readers the skills they need to become winning players book is for people who regularly play in loose, high-action, fast-paced low-limit Omaha high-low in poker rooms and online sites across the country. If readers want more than just another how-to book – if they want why-to and why-not-to, what-for, and when-to – here it is.

Health, Mind & Body / Alternative Medicine

Lessons from The Miracle Doctors: A Step-by-Step Guide to Optimum Health and Relief from Catastrophic Illness, expanded edition by Jon Barron (Basic Health Publications)

While modern medicine has made many remarkable advances in terms of treating and preventing most chronic illnesses of the modern era – heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s disease – modern medicine stands as an abject failure. Each year we spend more and more on health care with little good health to show for it.

But holistic healers, herbalists, and renegade medical doctors throughout the world are performing miracles on a daily basis. Thousands of people have come to these miracle doctors, certain that they were terminally ill and have left perfectly healthy. The secrets of these miracle doctors are revealed in Lessons from The Miracle Doctors: a step-by-step program that aims to help readers to take back control of their own health and well-being.

Readers will find a program that integrates all of the body’s biological systems into one whole. The Baseline of Health Program is designed to empower the own body to throw off illness and keep it from returning. The book is compiled by Jon Barron, editor and publisher of the Baseline of Health Newsletter and the Barron Report, founder and Director of the Baseline of Health Foundation and a formulator of nutritional products.

Lessons from The Miracle Doctors outlines the components of the Baseline of Health Program, which synthesizes what is taught by today's miracle doctors. Getting rid of disease is not the big problem, Barron points out – doctors do it all the time. The problem is making sure the disease doesn't return.

The program is designed to empower the own body to throw off illness and keep the illness from returning. And for those who are already healthy, it is designed to maximize the body's defense and repair mechanisms so that they never get sick in the first place. According to Barron, variations of this program have proven so effective that thousands of people have experienced remarkable healings by using it.

Barron's expanded edition of Lessons from The Miracle Doctors additionally addresses ‘hot’ or current major health concerns, ranging from new viruses to antibiotic-resistant bacteria and extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDRTB). It expands on specific health issues that have become a growing concern in the past ten years, such as diabetes and cholesterol. And it takes a look at ‘new’ areas of exploration in medicine that echo the principles and techniques of the Baseline of Health, like using the immune system to combat cancer.

Barron begins with disturbing facts and figures that explain how our health has been ‘stolen’ from us, pointing to aspects of the medical establishment, the pharmaceutical industry, and other health care systems, explaining how their self-preservation, self-interest, and/or limited vision have resulted in barriers to obtaining good health.

The Baseline of Health Program presents proven, step-by-step methods for breaking down those barriers and seizing health, energy, and mental and spiritual well-being. Barron describes the program in detail, addressing all of the different body systems and the protocols for maximizing the health of each of those systems. These include:

Cleansing and detoxification (intestinal cleansing and rebuilding with probiotics; cleansing the mouth; heavy metal detoxing, and cleansing the liver, kidneys, and blood).
Diet, water, and supplements.
Balancing the body's systems (hormones, energy, the mind, exercise, etc.).

Barron also addresses specific conditions and describes how the program can, and has, made a ‘miracle’ difference with cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and other common major disorders and diseases.

Lessons from The Miracle Doctors is a no-nonsense guide that anyone can follow to optimize their diet, nutrition, exercise, and life habits for improved well-being, especially when confronted with the specter of severe health threats. Extensively researched and easy to follow, Lessons from The Miracle Doctors is enthusiastically recommended for its sound advice. – Midwest Book Review

Lessons from The Miracle Doctors is quite simply the best book ever written on alternative health. It clearly, concisely, and eloquently lays out a simple step-by-step program that anyone can use to prevent and, yes, even reverse most of the major diseases we face today. I know this is true because I have personally seen many of the people who have experienced these very same results. – Aris Awitan, M.D.

We would all like to make a difference in the world. This book and the simple, proven plan it offers make it possible for all of us to do just that. Follow its advice and use your influence to get the people you care about to follow, too. In the end, it will heal America. – Terry Martin, President, Healing America, Inc.

This book is among the best and most succinct overviews of health I have encountered, and I read in this field voraciously. The author covers a huge amount of ground in a very understandable manner. setting up a superb overview and filling in various areas with practical information. This is an eminently usable book. – Walter J. Chao, O.D.

This is the only body anyone will every get, and it must last a lifetime – the only question is how long and healthy that lifetime will be. Lessons from The Miracle Doctors encourages readers to take control of their own health. Its health program gives a step-by-step guide to strengthening body systems, optimizing health, and eliminating disease from the body. To live well into the seventies, eighties, and beyond, in great health and vitality, readers need to make the right decisions now. Lessons from The Miracle Doctors can show them how to do it.

Health, Mind & Body / Alternative Medicine

Reiki for the Heart and Soul: The Reiki Principles as Spiritual Pathwork by Amy Z. Rowland (Healing Arts Press)
Reiki practitioners and teachers recognize Reiki as a gentle and powerful healing method. The path to becoming a Reiki practitioner, however, is more than just a commitment to energy healing. In Reiki for the Heart and Soul, Amy Rowland details how reflection on the five core Reiki principles presented in both the Western and Japanese traditions – do not anger; do not worry; be grateful; do an honest day’s work; be kind – can be used by practitioners of all levels and lineages as powerful tools for personal and spiritual growth.
As explained by Rowland, living the five core principles reinforces Reiki’s subtle energy healing: it heals wounded self-esteem and builds healthy self-respect; it demonstrates the creative power of a positive attitude; and it presents a way to peace. Rowland discusses various translations of the Reiki principles, demonstrating how to integrate their teachings into daily life. Drawing upon her training in hypnotherapy and her experience as a counselor, she offers specific techniques and exercises for healing anger and fear as well as living with gratitude, integrity, and compassion. Rowland, a certified Usui Reiki Master with more than 20 years of experience, has taught the Western tradition of Reiki (Usui Shiki Ryoho) since 1994 and also teaches workshops on the Reiki principles and on Reiki and intuition. She is a certified hypnotherapist and has worked as a clinical therapist.

Reiki for the Heart and Soul shows readers how the principles of Reiki can be used not just for healing but also for spiritual growth. It explores how to practice the Reiki values of peace, serenity, gratitude, integrity, and kindness in everyday life, despite the challenges of constant change and frequent crises. The book also provides tools for spiritual growth for practitioners of all levels and lineages. And finally, it includes exercises and meditations to deepen the practice of Reiki.

Amy Rowland has once again written an invaluable and insightful book. Reiki for the Heart and Soul not only provides an excellent overview of the Reiki system but also explores, for the first time, the Reiki principles from a place of depth and authenticity. This book exemplifies the very essence of Reiki and provides us with a map of how we can genuinely use these teachings for the betterment of ourselves and humanity. – Lawrence Ellyard, author of Reiki: 200 Questions and Answers for Beginners and Reiki Meditations for Beginners
Amy Rowland elegantly and eloquently shares how we may each ‘walk our talk’ by offering riveting, real-life examples of how present-day Reiki Masters and esteemed Reiki Masters of the past have utilized, and continue to utilize, the Reiki principles in a dynamic and living way, every day. This is a must read for humanity! – Sensei John King, R.M., D.D., author of Breathology: How to Breathe Yourself to Better Health
Reiki for the Heart and Soul is a gift to us from a remarkable woman who lives and breathes her work. The book literally loves us into each and every precious principle, weaving its magic as we read, bringing us into a deeper understanding. I feel it should be required reading for all dedicated practitioners and teachers. – Mari Hall, founder and director of International Association for Reiki and author of Reiki for the Soul: The Eleventh Door
This excellent book shows how the five Reiki principles can be used for personal development and spiritual growth. Suited to practitioners of every level, it is packed with insights and techniques invaluable to anyone wishing to deepen their understanding and practice of Reiki. – Chris Parkes and Penny Parkes, authors of 15-Minute Reiki: Health and Healing at Your Fingertips
A joyful read! Amy Rowland provides a heartfelt guide for living Reiki in our daily lives. This book will help you open to Reiki as a spiritual path. – Carolyn Musial, teacher/practitioner with the International Center for Reiki Training and author of Communicating with Animals: A Presentation & Meditation

Reiki for the Heart and Soul provides an in-depth book on the principles of Reiki and mindfulness of their values. These techniques help maturing practitioners discover a healthy, happy way of being in the world and to see the way forward on their spiritual path with a sense of guidance and grace. It will also help set newcomers on the path to growth and awareness.

Health, Mind & Body / Emergencies & Disasters

Emergency Preparedness for Health Professionals by Linda Young Landesman (Paradigm Publishing)

Disasters such as the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 have made emergency preparedness a national priority. Government agencies and the healthcare system are preparing for future emergencies, including the threat of pandemic influenza. Meanwhile, on a local level, communities are improving their preparations for emergencies that are common in their areas, such as tornadoes and winter storms.

Health professionals have very important roles in emergency response. Through Emergency Preparedness for Health Professionals, students learn how to prepare for emergencies and how to apply their skills in this new and often challenging context. They will be prepared to meet their professional responsibilities to their employers, patients, and community. The book prepares allied health students to:

Play their important roles in emergency response during their careers.
Meet the expectations of their future employers.
Volunteer effectively and serve their communities.
Be confident and safe responders.

Author Linda Young Landesman, DrPH, MSW, assistant vice president at the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, is a national expert on the role of public health in disaster preparedness and response and the Principal Investigator for the first curriculum on the public health management of disasters, the curriculum that is currently being used nationwide. The information for this textbook was gathered from a wide variety of sources, including experts in the field, journal articles, newspaper and magazine sources, books, government documents, and websites. Key references and list of resources are provided at the end of the textbook in the References and Resources section. The online instructor's guide includes course planning and assessment tools.

Contents of Emergency Preparedness for Health Professionals include:

Chapter 1, Disasters and Healthcare, explains the impact of natural and man-made disasters on public health and the healthcare system.

Chapter 2 discusses Emergency Management on the local and regional levels, the national level, and in hospitals and healthcare facilities. This chapter describes who organizes the response and how the response is organized.

Chapter 3 recommends steps toward Personal Preparedness, including developing skills, creating family emergency plans, and exploring volunteer opportunities.

Chapter 4 introduces Emergency Response Procedures in hospitals and other facilities or provisional sites. Some of the procedures that are covered include decontaminating patients, evacuating a health facility, investigating suspicious specimens in the lab, and more.

Chapter 5 discusses how health professionals can support Continuity of Care for patients with chronic health problems before and after a disaster.

Chapter 6 discusses the roles of the various health professionals on a response team.

Emergency Preparedness for Health Professionals contains features to help students learn about emergency preparedness. These include:

Learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter to help students focus on what they need to know.
Key Terms and phrases are set in bold and defined in the text or in boxes and are listed at the end of each chapter.
A Closer Look boxes add depth or detail with lists, facts, or examples.
Each chapter ends with a Summary and several different types of questions to help students review what they have learned.
A list of useful Websites is included at the back of the book. Because emergency response is a rapidly evolving field, the Internet is an important source of current information. Specialized skills and knowledge for particular health professions also may be found in these websites.
An Abbreviations box at the beginning of each chapter will help you learn the terms, agencies, and procedures that are commonly referred to by their abbreviations.

The textbook looks at response from the point of view of the technician or assistant, not the physician or health administrator. Examples of such fields are medical assisting, pharmacy technician, laboratory technician, medical imaging and radiation therapy, surgical technology, physical therapist assistant, health information technician, and EMT. Emergency Preparedness for Health Professionals can also be adopted for other programs including nursing, licensed practical nursing, and public health. In addition, many accrediting bodies in allied health are considering the addition of a new standard or set of competency requirements for emergency preparedness; this textbook can be used to meet such requirements.

Emergency Preparedness for Health Professionals is the first textbook that prepares health professionals for their important roles in disaster response. It can be used as the primary text for a separate course on emergency preparedness for health professionals. Because the material incorporates an all-professions approach, it will work for a variety of courses in various allied health programs. Emergency preparedness is an ideal choice for creating an inter-professional course, which is a goal of many schools. The book presents what all allied health professionals need to know about emergency preparedness. It is relatively brief so it should work well as a practical supplement for a variety of allied health courses. It introduces all of these students to the same body of knowledge on emergency preparedness. This all-professions approach works because students in all fields need the same foundation, and all need to work together in emergency response.

Health, Mind & Body / Medicine / Surgery / Economics

When Altruism Isn't Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors by Sally Satel (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research)

America faces a desperate organ shortage. Today, more than 78,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant; only one in four will receive one this year, while twelve die each day waiting for help. Many patients are driven to desperate measures to circumvent the eight-year waiting list – renting billboards, advertising in newsletters, or purchasing organs on the global black market. Altruism is an admirable but insufficient motivation for would-be donors.

What can be done to solve the kidney crisis? When Altruism Isn't Enough argues for a government-regulated system in which prospective donors are offered economic incentives to donate a kidney. The book shows why compensating donors is ethically permissible, economically justifiable, and pragmatically achievable.

The book is written by Sally Satel, MD, a recipient of a donated kidney herself, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry. She calls on Congress to reform the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA), which makes it a felony to provide material reward for an organ. Satel suggests that:

Congress should amend NOTA so that existing criminal penalties for selling and brokering organ sales between individuals do not apply to any economic incentives offered by federal, state, or local governments. Such a revision would not require any such incentives; it would simply allow states and federal agencies to undertake experimental incentive programs.
Compensation to prospective donors could take the form of health insurance, tax credits, tuition vouchers, or contributions to tax-free retirement accounts.
Rigorous protections for the safety of donors would be created.
Because the compensation would be provided by the government, every patient in need would benefit, regardless of income.

According to Satel, there are innovative and ethically responsible ways to save lives while simultaneously suppressing the international organ trade. When Altruism Isn't Enough envisions a promising middle ground between the status quo – a procurement system based on the idealism of altruism – and the netherworld of black-market organ trafficking.

Contents include:

Risks of Kidney Transplantation to a Living Donor, Arthur J. Matas, MD. Matas, a transplant surgeon and director of the Renal Transplant Program at the University of Minnesota Medical School, addresses the question of medical risks to living kidney donors and emphasizes the overall safety of the procedure.
The Cost-Effectiveness of Renal Transplantation, Elbert S. Huang, MD, Nidhi Thakur, and David O. Meltzer, MD. They examine the cost-effectiveness of renal transplantation. Huang is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. Thakur's specialty is the economics of health-related behavior. Meltzer is an associate professor at the University of Chicago.
Operational Organization of a System for Compensated Living Organ Providers, David C. Cronin II, MD, and Julio J. Elias. Cronin, the director of liver transplantation at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Elias, a professor of economics at SUNY University at Buffalo, explore what is needed in recruiting and evaluating donors to ensure the best possible medical outcome for both donors and recipients.
Donor Compensation without Exploitation, James Stacey Taylor and Mary C. Simmerling. Taylor, a philosopher at the College of New Jersey, and Simmerling, an assistant professor of public health at Cornell University's Weill Cornell Medical College, explain how the reprehensible features of overseas black markets would be prevented by creating a regulated and tightly supervised compensation program in the United States.
Concerns about Human Dignity and Commodification, by Sally Satel, MD. Satel explores the contention that donor compensation represents a taboo form of commodification and is thus an affront to human dignity.
Altruism and Valuable Consideration in Organ Transplantation, Richard A. Epstein. Epstein, a University of Chicago law professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow, elaborates upon the philosophical and economic weaknesses of the current regime of enforced altruism.
Crowding Out, Crowding In, and Financial Incentives for Organ Procurement, Benjamin E. Hippen, MD, and Sally Satel, MD. Satel and Hippen, a nephrologist who specializes in kidney transplantation at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, conclude that donor compensation will not suppress altruistic acts and is not likely to result in a net reduction in transplantable kidneys.
Rethinking Federal Organ Transplantation Policy: Model Legislation for State Waivers, Michele Goodwin. Goodwin, who teaches at the University of Minnesota's Medical School and School of Public Health, argues that compensation programs are best conducted at the state level, rather than through a more centralized arrangement.

Appendices to When Altruism Isn't Enough provide an exhaustive legislative history, key milestones in institutional support of donation incentives, a review of polling data, and an analysis of the perspectives of major religious groups on donor compensation. The book, lucidly written, explores the key concerns of a government-regulated donor compensation system. It is the first book to describe how such a system could be designed to be ethically permissible, economically justifiable, and pragmatically achievable.

History / Americas / Civil War

Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War by Marc Egnal (Hill and Wang)

Clash of Extremes takes on the reigning orthodoxy that the American Civil War was waged over high moral principles. Marc Egnal contends that economics, more than any other factor, moved the country to war in 1861. Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Egnal shows that between 1820 and 1850, patterns of trade and production drew the North and South together and allowed sectional leaders to broker a series of compromises. After mid-century, however, that changed as the rise of the Great Lakes economy reoriented Northern trade along east-west lines. Meanwhile, in the South, soil exhaustion, concerns about the country’s westward expansion, and growing ties between the Upper South and the free states led many cotton planters to contemplate secession. The war that ensued was truly a ‘clash of extremes.’

In the introduction to Clash of Extremes, Egnal, professor of history at York University, says that the outpouring of books about the causes of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, and the war itself continues unabated. Whether the issue is race, region, or industrialization, the Civil War has left a deep imprint on modern America. You would think that after all these years historians would agree on why the country came to blows, but they do not. Printed volumes of papers and new sources on the Internet have proved a marvelous boon for researchers, so why can historians not explain the origins of the Civil War – or at least agree on the general outlines of an interpretation? Part of the difficulty lies with the very abundance of material. Part of the problem lies in the nature of what historians do; writing history remains as much an art as a science. Still, there is no reason to abandon the question or succumb to an ‘anything goes’ relativism. The Civil War is too important to leave alone.

According to Egnal, Clash of Extremes was written because of the importance of the topic and the new vistas opened by the literature of the past decades. It is also written because of the problems that beset recent interpretations. Many historians now affirm the traditional wisdom that slavery caused the Civil War. The North, led by the Republican Party, attacked the institution, the South defended it, and war was the result.

There are, he says, difficulties with this ‘idealistic’ explanation. To begin with, an emphasis on strongly held views about slavery sheds little light on the sequence of events that led to the Civil War. A focus on slavery also explains little about the divisions within the North and the South. It assumes unity in each of these regions when in fact there was fragmentation. Southerners who deemed the Republican victory so threatening that they called for secession comprised a distinct minority within their section. Of the fifteen slave states only seven, located in the Deep South, left the Union before fighting broke out. And many people in those seven states resisted immediate secession. At least 40 percent of voters, and in some cases half, opposed immediate secession in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Border States – Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri – remained in the Union, while the Upper South states – Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy only after Lincoln's call for troops forced them to choose sides. One hundred thousand whites (along with a larger number of blacks) from the Confederate states fought for the Union. There is no question that some individuals in the South felt that Lincoln's election posed a mortal threat to slavery, but more did not.

Similarly, the North was divided in the years before the war, with only the Republicans rejecting compromise. In 1856 most Northerners backed the Republicans' opponents, and even in 1860 45 percent of the North voted for a candidate other than Lincoln. A convincing explanation must shed light on all groups and not simply focus on those whose outlook fits the interpretation.

Finally, the idealistic interpretation distorts the policies and positions of the Republican Party. Unquestionably Republicans, like virtually all free-state residents, condemned slavery. But for most Republicans, opposition to bondage was limited to battling its extension into the West. Few Republicans advocated ending slavery – except in the distant future. Party members roundly rejected abolitionist demands for immediate action. Moreover, most Republicans (like most Northerners) were racists and had little interest in expanding the rights of free blacks. Indeed, many Republicans advocated free soil and a prohibition on the emigration to the West of all African Americans, free and slave. Blocking the spread of slavery was an important stance and one that frightened many in the South. But this position must not be equated with a humanitarian concern for the plight of African Americans. For most Republicans non-extension was more an economic policy designed to secure Northern domination of Western lands than the initial step in a broad plan to end slavery.

According to Clash of Extremes, the prevailing interpretation creates an odd dichotomy in explaining the first decades of the Republican Party. Before the war, according to this idealistic approach, the Republicans were humanitarians, driven by their concern for free farmers and African Americans. However, this portrayal of the Republican Party quietly yields to a very different picture in the years after the war. Most accounts depict the postwar Republicans as the corrupt servants of big business. The result is a striking discontinuity. The noble crusaders of the antebellum years become the spoils men of the Gilded Age. But the prevailing interpretation fails to explain the actions of a party that, as soon as it took power in 1861, introduced a bold, coherent program to build a national economy and strengthen the dominance of Northern producers.

Clash of Extremes responds to these concerns. It argues that more than any other reason, the evolution of the Northern and Southern economies explains the Civil War.

The story set forth in Clash of Extremes begins with the era from 1820 to 1850 and the unifying influence of the national economy. Business activity during these decades brought together the North and South for five reasons. First, trade along the Mississippi and its tributaries gave the Northwest and Southwest a shared outlook and a common set of interests. Second, the Border States, had strong and growing ties with the North. These commonwealths saw few benefits and many drawbacks to clashes with the free states. Third, the growth of textile manufacturing and the cotton trade linked the mill owners and merchants of the North with the planters of the South. Fourth, the buoyant economy of the Southwest reinforced the case for the Union. Finally, the burgeoning economy fostered similar divisions in every state, creating the foundation for two national parties. Throughout the United States prosperous farmers, planters, and businessmen came together to support the Whigs. At the same time urban workers and poorer farmers, individuals who felt excluded by the new exchanges, backed the Democratic Party. While the two parties battled each other vigorously over economic issues, both had adherents throughout the country, and shared a common belief in a unified nation.

By mid-century new patterns of commerce and new attitudes had emerged, shattering the unities of the earlier era and providing the basis for a decade of increasingly bitter sectional politics. In the North the rise of the Great Lakes economy changed the outlook of many in the region from western New York to Wisconsin. Producers in the Northwest now conducted most of their business along an east-west axis that began with the lakes and included the Erie Canal and New York City. The booming lake economy required extensive spending on the waterways, higher tariffs to pay for those improvements, and an active federal government to oversee these programs. Using the language of nationalism, individuals in this region demanded the federal government assist the growth of the Northern economy.

A second development helped reorient the North, reinforcing the changes that emerged from the new patterns of trade. Militant anti-slavery grew from a handful of abolitionists in the early 1830s to a powerful movement at mid-century perhaps 15 percent of the Northern population came to affirm radical doctrines, including the abolition of bondage in the District of Columbia and the repeal of federal fugitive slave laws. Together the rise of the lake economy and the spread of antislavery sentiment transformed the North and created the basis for the Republican Party, an organization that had little interest in compromising with the South. The new party was remarkably successful, winning much of the North in its first national contest in 1856 and electing the president in 1860.

Reflecting their roots, Republicans enunciated both antislavery and economic policies, but their clear priority was Northern growth rather than helping African Americans. Even more fervently than other Northerners, Republicans condemned slavery citing the Declaration of Independence and its affirmation that ‘all men are created equal.’ But the only significant initiative Republicans advocated to assist blacks was free soil, a program that furthered both economic and humanitarian goals. Declaring the new territories off-limits to slaveholders, this policy assisted Northern farmers at the same time that it struck a blow against slavery by limiting its expansion. Mainstream Republicans pointedly refused to condemn the Fugitive Slave Act, the interstate slave trade, or slavery in the District of Columbia and federal shipyards. The party acquiesced in the racism that defined Northern society. Although eschewing programs to help blacks, Republicans vigorously supported economic initiatives including higher tariffs, free homesteads, internal improvements, land grant colleges, and a trans-continental railroad.

As told in Clash of Extremes, by 1850 the South too had been transformed by economic change, leading many individuals to become more ardent defenders of states' rights. The most striking turn toward sectionalism appeared in the southern reaches of the Deep South. Planters in these districts displayed little interest in manufacturing or diversified agriculture. Instead, they hitched their future to slavery, a single cash crop, and fresh land. Their determination to expand was intensified in the 1840s by depleted soils, the need for new states to preserve the balance in the Senate, and mounting fears about rebellious slaves in a static society. Unfortunately for these planters, the demand for new lands coincided with the growing opposition in the North to further expansion of the slave regime. The result of this collision of interests was the emergence of an outspoken states' rights group and the ‘first secession crisis’ of 1849-51. Across the cotton states prominent politicians, like John C. Calhoun, called for separation. At mid-century, however, unlike in 1861, lawmakers in Washington hammered out a compromise, staving off disunion.

The evolution of the national economy also shaped the response of the Border States and Upper South to the mid-century crisis. Thanks to expanding trade and the declining importance of slavery, the Border States – Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware – gradually drew closer to the North and shunned the protests led by states' rights politicians. The Upper South – Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas – also boasted many unionists. However, unlike the Border States, the Upper South claimed a militant group of slaveholders, who echoed the disunionists' views.

During the winter of 1860-61 the cotton states seceded. Leading the campaign for separation were the planters and smaller farmers in the southern districts of the commonwealths from South Carolina to Mississippi, and kindred spirits in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. The arguments put forth echoed those raised in 1849-51. Only now the case was immeasurably stronger with the Republicans triumphant, slavery still weaker along the ‘Great Border,’ and more free states in the Union.

According to Clash of Extremes, the secession of the Lower South emerged from what seemed to be a glaring asymmetry. States' rights leaders in the cotton states feared for the survival of slavery and regarded the Republicans as abolitionists. Republicans swore they would not interfere with the ‘peculiar institution’ where it existed and affirmed that bondage might last another hundred years. Secessionists accused Republicans of seeking equality. Republicans replied they had no intention, for the foreseeable future, of disturbing race relations in either section. Both sides were right. The Republicans' short-term agenda, as party members repeatedly protested, was a cautious one; it focused on economics rather than on race. But over the long run, which might have meant decades or even a century, Republican policies would accelerate the end of slavery. Initiatives that boosted Northern industry and the spread of free labor inevitably undermined bondage.

A different calculus governed actions in the Border States and Upper South. Secession came only once war began, and Lincoln's call for troops forced Southerners to choose sides. Led by the larger slave-owners, the Upper South joined the Confederacy. The Border States, with their smaller, less influential planting communities, remained with the Union. Class lines, at least as they were reflected by regions within states, were a more important determinant of loyalties in these two tiers of states than in the Deep South. The free districts of western Virginia split from Virginia, while many small farmers in eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, and northwestern Arkansas fought for the Union.

The policies adopted by the Republicans after 1861 confirm and illuminate the nature of the prewar party. As in earlier years, party members pursued two priorities – assisting African Americans and developing the Northern economy – but not with equal determination. Republicans did not enter the war with any intention of transforming the South's institutions. But after a year of fighting and the prospect of a prolonged conflict, party members became more open to proposals for emancipation and the recruitment of black soldiers. Military necessity coupled with longstanding Republican beliefs in freedom and black rights argued for such daring initiatives. Still more fully in keeping with party ideology were the economic measures adopted between 1861 and 1865. Guided by their self-serving ideology of ‘nationalism,’ lawmakers passed legislation for internal improvements, higher tariffs, a national banking system, a uniform currency, a homestead act, and a transcontinental railroad.

That is a bare-bones outline of the argument of Clash of Extremes. This interpretation explains the sequence of events leading up to the war, the divisions within the North and South, and the goals and evolution of the Republican Party. It indicates why before 1861 the most defiant positions were taken in the northern part of the North and the southern part of the South, making the Civil War a clash of extremes.

A broad, revisionist assessment of the causes of the Civil War ... This one's sure to provoke discussion. – Kirkus Reviews

This is a serious work that may well reignite a historical debate. – Jay Freeman, Booklist

Egnal's perceptive, fine-grained analysis of fragmentation within the North and South . . . is especially revealing ... An illuminating contribution to our understanding of the Civil War's causes. – Publishers Weekly

Marc Egnal's vigorous and original argument will inject new energy into the perpetually fascinating conversation about the meaning of the American Civil War. – Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies, winner of the Bancroft Prize

In lively and accessible prose, Egnal has succeeded in bringing back economics as a core factor in the coming of the Civil War. Readers are in for a delightful surprise as they explore his engaging analysis of how diverging economies produced the conditions that led to secession. – William L. Barney, author of The Making of a Confederate

A most welcome addition to the literature on Civil War causation. Marc Egnal's provocative interpretation may not win universal assent from fellow historians, but it is sure to spark healthy debate about the war's origins. – Michael F. Holt, author of The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War

Clash of Extremes promises to be the most talked-about book in years on the origins of the Civil War. – Daniel W. Crofts, The College of New Jersey

Clash of Extremes argues that more than any other reason, the evolution of the Northern and Southern economies explains the Civil War, an interpretation which may strike some students of the Civil War as unfashionable, or, even worse, old-fashioned. Sweeping from the 1820s through Reconstruction and filled with colorful portraits of leading individuals, Clash of Extremes emphasizes economics while giving careful consideration to social conflicts, ideology, and the rise of the antislavery movement. The result is a bold reinterpretation that challenges the way we think about the Civil War.

History / Americas / Native American / Outdoors & Nature / Botany

Plains Apache Ethnobotany by Julia A. Jordan, with a foreword by Paul E. Minnis & Wayne J. Elisens (University of Oklahoma Press)

These things should be passed on, according to my notion. To the grave with us is no place for it. Our young peoples should know of our language and history, of our generation. It should be put in writing. – Ray Blackbear, 1961

An ethnobotany is a study of the interrelationships between people and plants.

Plains Apache Ethnobotany is a comprehensive ethnobotanical study of a southern plains tribe. In this book, we have one tribe's traditional knowledge of plants, presented for the first time.

According to editors Paul Minnis and Wayne Elisens in their foreword, residents of the Great Plains since the early 1500s, the Apache people were well acquainted with the native flora of the region. In Plains Apache Ethnobotany, Julia A. Jordan documents more than 110 plant species valued by the Plains Apache and preserves a wealth of detail concerning traditional Apache collection, preparation, and use of these plant species for food, medicine, ritual, and material culture.

The traditional Apache economy centered on hunting, gathering, and trading with other tribes. Throughout their long history the Apache lived in or traveled to many different parts of the plains, gaining an intimate knowledge of a wide variety of plant resources. Part of this traditional knowledge, especially that pertaining to plants of Oklahoma, has been captured by Jordan's fieldwork, conducted with elders of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma in the mid-1960s, a time when much traditional knowledge was being lost.

Author Jordan, a research anthropologist, conducted extensive fieldwork among Indians of western Oklahoma as a part of the Doris Duke Indian Oral History Project at the University of Oklahoma, and later at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History served as consultant and co-principal investigator for several anthropological projects. Editors of Plains Apache Ethnobotany are Paul E. Minnis, Professor of Anthropology and Wayne J. Elisens, Professor of Botany and curator of the Bebb Herbarium, both at the University of Oklahoma.

Perhaps the most common image of American Indians is the horse-mounted bison hunter of the Great Plains, bow ready to bring down an animal that supplied nearly all the needs of the hunter. Among other limitations, this icon devalues the importance of plants to indigenous peoples of the plains. They used plants for food, medicines, rituals, shelter, and other material needs. Furthermore, among American Indians, plants often have symbolic importance that transcends their material utility.

Matching the biotic diversity of the Great Plains is the region's cultural diversity. Numerous indigenous groups called the plains home. Each developed their own unique life ways based on a range of economic strategies that combined hunting, gathering, raiding, and trading. Some, like the Mandan, were farmers who lived much of the year in substantial villages, while others, such as the Plains Apache, relied most heavily on hunting and gathering. The diversity was not based solely on the numbers of American Indian groups but also on their changing lifestyles. The introduction of the horse, gun, and markets as well as political and demographic pressure from the expanding United States altered Plains Indians and their neighbors, changes well documented in the historical record.

The study of plains ethnobotany stretches back over a century. Included are some classics of American Indian ethnobotany, including some pioneering studies of American Indian agriculture complemented by ethnobotanical information in early ethnographies of plains groups. Many of these classic studies are from the northern plains. Less well represented is the ethnobotany of the southern plains, although there are exceptions, including the immediate neighbors of the Plains Apache with whom they shared a reservation from 1867 to 1901, the Kiowa and the Comanche.

According to Minnis and Elisens in the foreword of Plains Apache Ethnobotany documents more plant species used by a people native to the southern plains and has utilized a greater number of informants than previous ethnobotanical studies in this region, and it is the first to include information provided by both male and female elders. Included is a wealth of cultural information and detailed descriptions concerning the selection, preparation, and use of over one hundred species of native plants by the Plains Apache. While the core of the book is Jordan’s master's thesis, she also presents some new information. The relevance of her observations has only increased over the years; much of the information gathered by Jordan cannot be replicated today. The Plains Apaches who worked with Jordan were elders in the 1960s, individuals who were raised at a critical time, balanced between a more traditional life way and greater involvement in a market economy and modem political realities.

Ethnobotanical information for the Plains Apache's closest neighbors, the Kiowa and Comanche, is widely available, so publication of Plains Apache Ethnobotany fills a void for southwestern Oklahoma. Plant use information is available for many other Apache groups, including the Chiricahua, Mescalero, Western, San Carlos, and White Mountain, so substantial information about Plains Apache ethnobotany is most welcome, especially in light of the fact that the Plains Apache inhabit a plant world quite different from their cousins in the American Southwest. This helps us understand the role that environment, culture, and history plays in plant use.

When viewed though a wider lens, Plains Apache Ethnobotany documents the world of the largely hunting-gathering Plains Apache. Most ethnobotanical information on the Great Plains is for farming groups, so an expanded understanding of plains hunting and gathering is important to appreciate modern history as well as to know better the lives of ancient hunting and gathering peoples who inhabited the plains for many prehistoric millennia. As Jordan discusses, the Plains Apache had and continue to have enduring relationships with other Apache communities in the American Southwest and with non-Apache groups both inside and outside of Oklahoma. The relationship with other American Indian groups is especially interesting in light of the unique history of Indian Territory and the state of Oklahoma, where many tribes were brought together. Therefore, the salient landscape of the Plains Apache is quite wide in terms of geography, history, and culture contacts.

Chapter 1 of Plains Apache Ethnobotany presents information on Plains Apache history and traditional culture in order to show that these people were gatherers of wild plants and hunters of bison and other game on the Great Plains for at least several hundred years. Chapter 2 deals with their conceptualization of the plant world, including the relation of people to nature, native Apache plant categories, and the concept of plants existing in pairs.

Chapters 3 through 6 in part 2 list the wild plants identified through this fieldwork as being of cultural significance in Plains Apache culture and provide detailed descriptions of the cultural contexts in which the plants were used. Many other wild plants were most likely formerly used, but knowledge of their identity and use is probably beyond recovery. Tables 1 and 2 in the conclusion summarize information on the plants and fungi of use to the Plains Apache.

This fascinating ethnobotany provides valuable insights into how the Plains Apaches used plants for food, medicine, and other cultural purposes. – Kelly Kindscher, author of Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide

The fact that Jordan's thesis is being published more than forty years after its completion rather than sitting on a dusty shelf is a clear testament to its quality and significance to the Plains Apache, to the people of Oklahoma, and to those interested in the use of plants. Handsomely illustrated and comprehensive, Plains Apache Ethnobotany is a valuable resource for ethnobotanists, anthropologists, historians, and anyone interested in American Indian use of native plants.

History / Africa / Politics / Human Rights / Biographies & Memoirs

Face of Courage: A Biography of Morgan Tsvangirai by Sarah Hudleston (Double Storey)

As told by Sarah Hudleston in Face of Courage, Morgan Tsvangirai had an advantage over many other rural Rhodesian children born in the 1950s – his parents believed he should receive the best possible education to ensure his future. The first of nine children, Tsvangirai made the most of his schooling and subsequent opportunities, which saw him start his working life as a sweeper in a textile factory and move on to the Trojan Nickel Mine as a plant operator. It was here that Tsvangirai’s involvement with the mining trade union began, and in 1985 he took up the full-time position of vice-president of Zimbabwe’s Associated Mine Workers Union. Three years later he became secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

Over the next ten years Tsvangirai played a key role in uniting Zimbabwe’s trade union and civil movements into an informal opposition to the Zanu-PF government of Robert Mugabe. This culminated in September 1999 in the launch of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Under Tsvangirai’s leadership, the MDC contested the 2000 parliamentary election and the 2002 presidential election, both hampered by electoral irregularities and intimidation, including two sets of treason charges leveled at Tsvangirai.

Against a backdrop of the wider social, political and economic developments in Zimbabwe, Face of Courage focuses on the life and career of Tsvangirai. It draws on extended interviews with Tsvangirai and those close to him in order to provide an in-depth look at an internationally respected man who has dedicated himself to restoring Zimbabwe to a workable democracy.
Author and journalist Hudleston was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in Johannesburg where she works for the Financial Mail. As she explains in the preface, in 1948 her parents, settled in Southern Rhodesia with very little more than their clothes and a few possessions. Their early days in Bulawayo were not easy, but things slowly improved and when eldest brother was born, her father's meager salary was doubled and life began to be more comfortable. Rhodesia did not have quite the apartheid regime of its neighbor to the south, but was not far from it. They lived in a schizoid society, with huge racial disparities in education facilities and employment opportunities.

Despite not being a Zimbabwean citizen, she has always kept a close eye on events in the country because it is the only place where she says she feels ‘at home’. She says she followed the run-up to the elections in June 2000 with interest and excitement, hoping that the MDC, seemingly sprung from nowhere, would triumph. In truth, the party had grown from a united Zimbabwean trade union movement set on ending the tyranny of a corrupt leader to a government that had overstayed its welcome. Just before the country went to the polls, Tsvangirai gave his now-famous freedom speech at Rufaro Stadium in Harare. It was from this speech that her interest in the man was piqued.

In spite of her family's liberal stance, Hudleston in Face of Courage says that Tsvangirai and herself, born three years apart and of the same generation, grew up in different countries within the same nation. Discovering who he is and what he stands for has been enlightening. Through researching his life and the modern history of the country in which he and she grew up – and which he has dedicated his life to – she says she has rediscovered the country of her birth.

Tsvangirai is a man who has been presented with a seemingly insurmountable task. He is, like so many around him who have dedicated themselves to restoring Zimbabwe to a workable democracy, sacrificing his safety and that of his family. Like them, he is a person of vision and honor. Above all, he is a man of great intelligence, energy and courage, committed to letting go of the past and to forging a new future for Zimbabwe. Face of Courage succeeds in conveying this portrait of the man.

History / Military / World War I

It has taken me the better part of a lifetime to get this under my skin, to sense the rise and fall of the ground, to feel its changes and mood-swings, to have my morale raised by a spring morning on the Somme and cast down by autumn rain on Passchendaele Ridge. How much easier my task would have been had this book been at hand when I started. It is wonderful to see these panoramas, unexploited for so long, in print. They provide a strong fulcrum for our understanding of the war, for they enable us to link personal accounts and official records to the all-important ground on which battles were fought. And, at a human level, they put us eye-deep in hell, looking out across a landscape so familiar to that generation whose endurance and achievement – as I concluded in Tommy, my own attempt to give the war's real heroes the credit they deserve – lift my spirits and break my heart. – Richard Holmes, from the foreword

The Battlefields of the First World War is a visual chronicle bringing together 200 previously unseen panoramic images of World War I covering the Western Front from end to end and from all years of the war. Taken at huge personal risk by the Royal Engineers for secret intelligence purposes, they reveal what no other photographs can. Each panorama offers a view of up to 160 degrees, so sharply focused that the individual figures of a waiting sniper or a louse-tortured infantryman can be made out. Introduced by historian Richard Holmes, and published in association with London's Imperial War museum, this collection reveals the landscape of World War I as it really was: rural landscapes and villages appear alongside the ruinous muddy wastes that epitomize war-torn France in the modern imagination.

This new edition includes a recently discovered trove of 60 German panoramas – not seen for almost 90 years. This revision of The Battlefields of the First World War includes 2 CDs with the full panoramas in interactive, zoomable form with overlay mapping and 6 gatefolds.

Here are the great battlefields of the First World War as readers have never seen them before, from the sites of the first cavalry skirmishes, though the horrors of the Somme and Passchendaele, to the final weeks of conflict. This unique collection of panoramic photographs covers each of the British sectors of the Western Front, end to end. The vast battle-scapes are interspersed with individual photographs and the recollections of the soldiers caught in the action.

Peter Barton, historian, archaeologist and film-maker is co-secretary of the All Party Parliamentary War Graves and Battlefields Heritage Group. He leads the ongoing project to recover, interpret and publish all surviving battlefield panoramas widely regarded as the ‘missing link’ for our full understanding of the First World War. Barton has also led several major excavations on the Western Front, and produced the critically acclaimed documentary films The Underground War, The Soldiers' Pilgrimage and Conviction.

Holmes says in the foreword of The Battlefields of the First World War that during his lifetime the debate over the conduct of the war on the Western Front has ebbed and flowed. Many of the simplistic views of the 1960s have been replaced by a more balanced approach, with scholars analyzing primary sources to illuminate this appalling conflict which had such a profound and lasting effect on Britain. According to him, it would be rash to suggest that we have a consensus view on the war: the sheer scale of suffering it engendered means that, on the one hand, even the most accomplished historian can easily have the objective assessments of his head jolted by the urgings of his heart, while, on the other, youthful historical passions can be cooled by the calmer reflections of middle age.

But although we are now able to look at the Western Front in a broader way than before, there has been a major gap in the historiography of the war, a gap that The Battlefields of the First World War goes a long way toward filling.

According to Peter Barton in the Preface to the First Edition, the interlocking jigsaw of historical material available to researchers might appear to be as complete as one could possibly need to build an accurate picture. However, wide, fundamental – and bluntly obvious – gaps in the puzzle have existed for over eighty years, and until recently there seemed to be no pieces left to fill them. Apart from aerial photographs – an unearthly view – there were no representations of the full landscape of the various battlefields, ones to which we as latter-day observers might easily relate. Without these final pieces, our perceptions would always remain flawed and imperfect. The re-exposure of an extensive archive of panoramic photographs at the Imperial War Museum in London has now eroded those critical pieces, and in these breathtaking pictures we are presented with the ultimate view of the battlefields. It is a ‘lost world’ of immense historic and symbolic importance – and a world almost entirely unseen since the Armistice in November 1918.

Panoramic photographs were used by all the combatant nations throughout the war, predominantly for reconnaissance and intelligence purposes.

Within each panorama lies a throng of detail that exists in no other photograph, indeed, in no other medium. They present a powerful tool that empowers the modern observer to view the battlefields as they actually were, rather than as the authorities wished the public to sec them. Indeed, in not pandering to nostalgia or propaganda they place all other archives of the First World War into temporal, topographical and geographical contexts, revealing more about the nature of the battlefields than any other kind of archival record. If the maxim ‘the camera does not lie’ can be applied to any First World War images without fear of contradiction or argument, these are they. There can be no doubt that absolute reality is depicted for that was the sole purpose of panoramic photography.

With digital technology we are now able to view these extraordinary photographs in an accessible form.

In this revised edition, the original panorama selection has been augmented by the addition of over 100 new images, half British and half German. Some arc reproduced in The Battlefields of the First World War, but all may be found on the accompanying DVD. None have been previously published in complete form. The inclusion of German examples is especially beneficial and indeed essential, for in images as well as text the telling of the war's history has for too long been a one-sided affair. The more research one carries out in German archives, the more one sees that we have for decades been presented with only half the story, and that the version of events as recorded on the opposite side of No Man's Land often tells a rather different tale.

The German panoramas are as captivating as their British counterparts, but as a result of being primarily employed for a different purpose – an artillery application as opposed to reconnaissance – were often taken from safe elevated vantage points in the rear of the fighting zone. Zeiss lenses, however, produced a picture quality that was rarely less than excellent, with crisp capture of features a score of miles distant.

An extraordinary set of panoramic photographs that reveal the battlefields of the Western Front as never before. – The Times

Hauntingly magnificent. – Navy News

Without doubt the best publication on the Great War in many years – it is a superb piece of work. – Western Front Association

The book is a magnificent effort and most impressive one could almost say unique. – Lyn Macdonald

The Battlefields of the First World War reveals a new vision of the landscapes upon, above and beneath which millions of men lived, toiled, fought and died on the Western Front. Unique, unseen panoramas of the world's most symbolic battlefields, from Ypres to the Somme abound in this spectacular visual chronicle of World War I. The addition of the German panoramas to The Battlefields of the First World War constitute a significant new piece of evidence in our understanding of the Great War and add even wider general and military history appeal.

Medicine / Anatomy / Neurology / Reference

Atlas of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord, 2nd Edition (Spiral-bound) by James D. Fix (Jones and Bartlett Publishers)

The Second Edition of Atlas of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord offers the essentials of neuro-anatomy in a revised format. This atlas, written by James D. Fix, Professor Department of Anatomy, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia, allows students to synthesize a three-dimensional concept of the major motor and sensory systems of the human brain and spinal cord by providing a photographic survey of the macroscopic and microscopic structure of the central nervous system. It is organized into six sections and covers material on gross anatomy, spinal cord, brain stem, coronal sections, axial sections, parasagittal sections, arteries and angiograms, neuro-anatomical lesions, nuclear magnetic images of brain tumors, and more. The atlas plates are labeled with emphasis on major neuro-anatomic structures important in clinical neurology. In addition to the high quality plates that made the first edition a bestseller, the second edition now features: five new sections, including Case Studies of Brain Tumors and Degenerative Diseases of the CNS; vertebral and carotid digital subtraction angiography; new two-color design; a mini-atlas of thick stained sections of the brain in the three orthogonal planes; and new angiograms, MRI brain scans, refined illustrations, and myelin-stained plates.

New to this edition of Atlas of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord:

Carotid digital subtraction angiography, lateral projection.
Carotid digital subtraction angiography, antero-posterior projection.
Vertebral digital subtraction angiography, lateral projection.
Vertebral digital subtraction angiography, antero-posterior projection.
Carotid digital subtraction angiography, venous phase, lateral projection.
Mini-atlas of thick stained sections of the brain in the three orthogonal planes – an outstanding collection of serial sections of the brain.
Figures showing location of tumors, e.g., supratenorial infratentorial.
Case studies of brain tumors and degenerative diseases of the CNS.

Raymond Adams, Senior Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, in the foreword provides background or the origin of the plates, saying that in this era when neuro-anatomists are occupied with the ultrastructure of neurons and their delicate connections in stereotaxically lesioned animals, almost forgotten are the lessons in pathological anatomy that have been and continue to be learned from serial whole brain sections. A generation of American neurologists owe to Paul Yakovlev their familiarity with this method of anatomic study. He eventually found his way to the Hirnanatomisches Institut of von Monakow in Zurich, where he became familiar with the methods of Meynert and von Gudden. Upon returning to Boston he began applying this technique to the study of epilepsy, mental retardation, and developmental abnormalities of the brain. Gradually he assembled a vast collection of serially sectioned brains, cut with a giant microtome of his own devising; and for comparison purposes he obtained from his neuropathology colleagues a series of normal brains of various ages also sectioned in coronal, horizontal, and sagittal planes. Some appreciation of the high quality of the myelin sections in this collection can be gained from the plates of the Atlas of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord of Professor Fix that were selected from the Yakovlev collection. Aside from the remarkable clarity of anatomic detail the atlas and the collection from which it was drawn have other merits. They are the type of material that provides students with a global view of the immensely complicated human brain. Only after studying the brain in its entirety does one have a perspective of the relationships of particular systems of neurons. Notable also are the planes of the sections that correspond to those in use in CAT and NMR scans. Yakovlev insisted throughout his professional lifetime that this Germanic method of ‘organ pathology’ offers a unique approach to pathological neuroanatomy and cannot be supplanted by histopathology.

The gross anatomy series includes the brain stem, the cranial nerves, and the gross morphology of the hemispheres. The spinal cord series contains the sensory and motor long tracts, e.g., posterior columns and corticospinal tracts. The brain stem contains cranial nerve nuclei and long tracts; the brain stem sections are accompanied by a reduced parasagittal section, through which the caudorostral level is indicated by a thin black line. Coronal sections extend from the head of the caudate nucleus to the medial geniculate body and the pineal body. Horizontal sections extend dorsally from the corpus callosum to the optic chiasm ventrally. In labeling the atlas plates, Atlas of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord places the emphasis on major neuro-anatomic structures and landmarks that are considered important in clinical neurology. Parasagittal sections extend from the midline to the hippocampal formation. The circle of Willis shows the major cerebral arteries and their relationships to the cranial nerves.

Atlas of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord, Second Edition, provides a photographic survey of the macroscopic and microscopic structure of the central nervous system. It aids medical, dental, and health profession graduate students in their attempt to synthesize a three-dimensional concept of the major motor and sensory systems of the human brain and spinal cord. For more advanced students of neuropathology the atlas offers a technique for studying the anatomic basis for countless diseases and syndromes as yet unexplored. The method also yields valuable quantitative data for the study of diseases of which the pathology is unknown, and of developmental failures.

Medicine / Pathology / Forensics / Reference

Paediatric Forensic Medicine and Pathology by Anthony Busuttil & Jean W. Keeling (Hodder Arnold)

Child abuse and suspicious child deaths are very complicated matters for clinicians, pathologists, law enforcement officials and legal professionals to investigate. At the same time, the evidence base for forensic pathology, especially in pediatrics, is steadily growing. Paediatric Forensic Medicine and Pathology examines this growing body of evidence base in order to present an objective reference for all those working in the field.
Editors include Anthony Busuttil, Emeritus Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and Medical Director, Forensic Medical Services, NHS Lothian, Edinburgh; and Jean W Keeling, formerly Consultant Paediatric Pathologist at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh. Contributors are internationally acclaimed. Although the majority of contributors are UK based, the subject matter is presented, as far as possible, without national or geographic bias, so that the contents have international relevance. Paediatric Forensic Medicine and Pathology is illustrated in color to aid and confirm diagnosis of injury, whether in a living patient or at post-mortem examination.

Individual chapters explore the emerging role of imaging in the diagnosis of non-accidental injury and compare recent evidence contrasting sudden infant death and SIDS; the head and neck injury chapter carefully explores the ‘shaken baby syndrome’ and similar patterns of injury that have recently gained widespread media attention. Special emphasis is given to interview and assessment procedures, and clinical forms are included throughout Paediatric Forensic Medicine and Pathology.

The possibility that a child may have been injured, abused, neglected or otherwise ill treated rightly raises the indignation and anxiety of the caring professions and involves law enforcement agencies. However, in the interests of justice and fairness, a person accused of such injury or neglect is entitled to appropriate legal representation at any hearing and is deemed to be innocent until proven guilty. Quite frequently, dubiety and uncertainty linger about whether or not, in any specific situation, observations made, clinically or pathologically, can be interpreted solely as a manifestation of inflicted injury or neglect, or whether there is a possibility that the observed findings could have come about in other, non-criminal, circumstances. These matters necessitate advice from those with experience and expertise in this field.

The investigation and interpretation of findings of alleged ill treatment of infants and children requires a multidisciplinary approach, centered on the child, his or her well-being in both the short term and longer term, as well as that of any siblings within the same environment. All of the available information about any incident must be carefully collected, collated and evaluated. Laboratory data, both clinical and forensic, the results of radiological investigations and information from the examination of the scene where any incident took place should be carefully sought and evaluated against the clinical findings. A team approach is essential, with close collaboration of family physicians, pediatricians involved in both community and hospital practice, the clinical forensic medical examiner and specialist pathologists, together with police and social welfare services. No incident should be looked at in isolation but rather in the context of the child's development and interaction with his or her family, environment and peer group. The survivors of inflicted injury or neglect in childhood must be carefully followed up, protected and their family unit supported.

In Paediatric Forensic Medicine and Pathology, some of the topics covered are relevant specifically to maltreatment in early life, beginning with the examination of an infant or child for whom abuse is suspected, incorporating the family environment and set against criteria for normal development. The difficult problem of suspected sexual abuse of children is considered separately. The extensive clinical experience of the authors of the opening chapters is readily apparent, highlighting, as they do, the pitfalls of incomplete investigation and ill-considered interpretation. The appropriate level of investigation of specific findings, interpretation of investigations and consideration of differential diagnoses are addressed in chapters contributed by a pediatric radiologist, a hematologist and a clinical pathologist, respectively. Those areas requiring specialist clinical expertise and experience – the eyes, mouth and central nervous system – are considered by specialists in those fields with extensive pediatric experience. The examination of the scene of death or injury is discussed as a background to post-mortem examination of the very young. The interpretation of cerebral pathology in the newborn, the investigation of sudden or suspicious perinatal death and sudden death in both infants and older children are addressed by experienced practitioners. Separate consideration is given to sudden or suspicious deaths that occur in hospital.

In subsequent chapters, more general areas of forensic pathology, including asphyxia and thermal injury, drowning, injury to road users and other accidents are addressed from a pediatric viewpoint. A similar approach is evident in the chapters covering toxicological investigation, DNA profiling and dental identification. Paediatric Forensic Medicine and Pathology concludes with consideration of the role of the expert witness in criminal judicial cases and the provision of reports in the civil medicolegal context.

In the book, two internationally acclaimed editors have brought together a first class author team to provide an up-to-date, comprehensive, and thorough review of the contemporary problems encountered in practice today. The book is a definitive reference work containing the information readers need to investigate pediatric cases. It is evidence-based with the latest peer-reviewed studies. The text furnishes an authoritative, comprehensive text to assist practitioners of medicine and the law dealing with such cases in the appropriate interpretation of these matters and to enable clinical and pathological findings to be presented in an unbiased and dispassionate manner so that the courts are able to better evaluate the specialist evidence put before them.

Paediatric Forensic Medicine and Pathology is an invaluable resource for forensic pathologists, pediatric pathologists, and pediatricians, as well as practitioners in the judicial and legal, criminal investigation and social services systems that have to deal with such cases. Whether in a clinical, laboratory, or legal setting, readers dealing with forensic inquiries or preparing for court will find the comprehensive background and evidence base necessary to support their investigations.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Ministry & Evangelism

Questioning Evangelism/Corner Conversations Set by Randy Newman (Kregel Publications)

Randy Newman's bestselling books – Questioning Evangelism and Corner Conversations – are available in a two-book set, including a complimentary CD of podcasts to bring the teachings and conversations to life on the computer, CD player, or MP3 player. Newman, who has worked with Campus Crusade for more than twenty-five years, currently works in the Washington, D.C., area, interacting with students, professors, and officers at the Pentagon. He is a frequent conference speaker and specializes in helping people of different backgrounds dialogue about issues of faith.

1) Questioning Evangelism by Randy Newman (Kregel Publications)
Questioning Evangelism is a revolutionary look at sharing Christ with unbelievers by using Jesus' penetrating method of question asking to engage others in personal dialogue and life-changing interaction. According to Newman, there's no question about it – evangelism is essential to following Jesus. Unfortunately, sharing the Good News is often seen as a matter of using the right method. But methods don't go very far when a conversation about faith runs squarely up against a brick wall of defensiveness or veers off into an unfamiliar landscape of arguments and objections. What's a disciple of Christ to do then?

“Ask a question,” says Newman. It is, after all, what Jesus did. This questioning style of evangelism is without formulas, without answers to memorize, and readers don’t have to have a Ph.D. in theology to use it. If it sounds too simple, don’t worry. It worked for Jesus; it will work.

Questioning Evangelism steps outside the boundaries of evangelism as usual and tackles the tougher issues of our modern day. [It] is a must read for all! – Mitch Glaser, Chosen People Ministries

This book is must reading for those who want to learn how to bring apologetics into evangelism in a biblical and relationally sensitive sort of way. – J. P. Moreland, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University

Viewed from the evangelical perspective, this book borders on the profound. Viewed from any perspective, Newman brings a new meaning to the word evangelism. With huge amounts of compassion, Newman brings apologetics into evangelism and provides practical examples of how to evangelize by asking questions rather than giving answers. An excellent book for folks who want to communicate with their non-Christian friends without being a bigot. – William M. Easum, Resource Shelf
So many evangelistic techniques are concerned with what to say. We rarely Questioning Evangelism is the most insightful, illuminating and heartening book I've read on the subject in the last ten years. If you find yourself getting discouraged by your evangelistic efforts, get a copy as soon as you can, and then read it on a public transportation system near you. – Barry Cooper, The Briefing

2) Corner Conversations: Engaging Dialogues about God and Life by Randy Newman (Kregel Publications)
Turnerville – an imaginary place where people take time to think and discuss real issues without condemnation or sarcastic cracks. In an age of hurried communication via e-mail, text messages, instant messaging, and cell phones, a place like Turnerville sounds really appealing – doesn’t it? Written by Newman, Corner Conversations allows readers to learn new conversational skills by eavesdropping on important dialogues that grapple with hot-button issues such as:

Why does God allow suffering?
Why should we believe the Bible?
Is Jesus really the only way?
Can we know about life after death?

Readers hear discussions on these kinds of topics, but rarely are they presented in a way that promotes respect without compromise, listening without patronizing, and convictions without arrogance.

Corner Conversations is written for those looking for better evangelistic tools and for skeptics who are looking for the truth. In this follow-up to his 2005 Gold Medallion nominated Questioning Evangelism, Randy Newman allows his readers to listen in on conversations in this imaginary town to encourage open and honest conversations to continue in the real world. In this age of new and instant forms of electronic communication, the art of dialoguing with people who are wrestling with real issues, suffering, the Bible, eternity, Jesus, sex, skepticism, evil, and spiritual journeys, seems to be lost. Corner Conversations is about reaching into peoples hearts the way Jesus did, through conversation. – EventSetter.com
Randy Newman's first book Questioning Evangelism is one of the best books on evangelism around. If you haven't read it, buy it, read it and put it into practice. Corner Conversations is his follow-up, although you won't need to have read Questioning Evangelism to understand Corner Conversations . . . . Newman has been clever in many ways, but one that I enjoyed was that the style of the conversations is different, some are very friendly, some employ the cut and thrust of friendly but pointed argument. Yet each conversation is marked by openness and compassion. So there is something here for each of us, and something here for the different types of friendships, each conversation having several points that you feel that you could use yourself. And the chapters finish by pointing you to further resources. – Mark Loughridge

So there you have it; two books, packaged together, taking two different approaches to helping readers who want to evangelize figure out how to talk to non-believers in a non-off-putting way.

Science / Astronomy / Physics / Cosmology

The Cosmic Connection: How Astronomical Events Impact Life on Earth by Jeff Kanipe (Prometheus Books)

It is one thing to say that the ice age was there; quite another to say how it got there. If the origin of mountains is sublimely moot, so is the origin of the ice. – John McPhee, Annals of the Former World

In this sweeping tour of the cosmos and our place within it, acclaimed science writer Jeff Kanipe in The Cosmic Connection shows the many ways we are connected to the vast universe we inhabit. Long before the Sun emerged from its chrysalis of dust and irradiated its brood of planets, numberless astronomical events affected Earth and its emerging life-forms. Our chemical makeup from the iron in our blood to the calcium in our bones derives from stars that lived and died hundreds of millions of years ago.

Tracing the whole natural history of how events in the near and far universe have influenced life on Earth today, and how they might influence life in the future, In each chapter The Cosmic Connection explores a different type of astronomical event, focusing on such mesmerizing issues as:

How the Earth's orbit and inclination have triggered past ice ages.
The role ancient supernovae may have played in mass extinctions and genetic changes.
How a slight but persistent dip in solar output contributed to a multi-century cooling event called the ‘Little Ice Age’.
The dangers posed by intense geomagnetic storms.
How ancient asteroid impacts pressed Earth's evolutionary reset button and how astronomers are striving to make sure that it won't happen again.
The widespread effects that our Sun's changing galactic environment has on life and climate.

Kanipe, formerly the managing editor of Astronomy magazine, the editor-in-chief of StarDate magazine, and a columnist and feature writer for space.com, covers the gamut of known and theorized events, not only in a historical context but in a future context as well. He also reflects upon the possible societal effects of alien contact, a type of cosmic intervention that some astronomers believe could happen within the next few decades.

Kanipe says he wrote The Cosmic Connection in part because he wanted to shift his focus from the workings of the vast, distant universe, described in Chasing Hubble's Shadows, to that of the nearby universe, specifically the fragile ‘habitable zone’ around the Sun. This is the only place in the cosmos where we know life has arisen. Darwinian evolution alone is not enough to explain the ascension of the human race on this planet. "In its most sweeping terms, life also results from conditions not of our world but of our universe. Some of these, like the motion of the Sun through the Galaxy, might be said to be mechanical in nature. Others, like the impact of a comet or asteroid, could be considered random, capricious events. In any case, evolution would have taken a two-dimensional path without them."

But Kanipe doesn't restrict his book to astronomical events of the past, he also writes about how our civilization might be affected in the future by such occurrences as an asteroid impact, prolonged fluctuations in solar output or a supernova explosion. Though such events are unlikely to happen tomorrow, says Kanipe, our awareness of these possibilities provides us with a unique perspective on the nature and direction of life on Earth and the possibility of life on other planets. "My book is as much about looking in as looking out."

We are connected to the cosmos in many ways, connections that may nurture, destroy, or redirect life. The Cosmic Connection is about those connections – both known and speculative – how they have touched us in the past and how they may touch us again in the future, assuming we have one that extends for at least several more millennia. Knowing how astronomical influences have shaped our world and enabled the human race to evolve and flourish, gives us a unique perspective on the nature and direction of life on Earth and the possibility of life on other planets. They are also sobering reminders of our technological limitations, for until we can harness the energy of the stars, physically relocate ourselves in the Galaxy, or manipulate the space-time continuum, we must humble ourselves on the altar of the universe. There would be no surviving the radiation of a nearby super-nova or the impact of a mountain-size asteroid. But knowing that such forces exist – forces that could level 10,000 years' worth of accumulated civilization – ought to humble us into being better stewards of our planet, which, in case nobody noticed, could exist just fine, and would probably be better off, without us.

In the last chapter, Kanipe says that this universe we know exists, and we also know we occupy a special place in it now but that's not always been the case, and it's certainly not going to stay that way forever. The ultimate cutoff point occurs in another 5 billion years when our Sun dies and our planet is reduced to a cinder. Assuming civilization has a good long run and doesn't self-extinguish, however, we won't have to wait nearly that long for certain cosmic connections to intervene. Long before the Sun burns out, orbital forcing and protracted solar fluctuations will alter our climate many times over; asteroids large and small will have had their way with our planet; and the Sun will have wheeled around the Galaxy perhaps 15 or 20 times, drifting through all manner of interstellar environments along the way. Perhaps a maverick black hole or an unknown star will pass through the Oort Cloud, sending thousands of comets toward the inner solar system, some of which may fall upon the Earth.

Kanipe says in The Cosmic Connection that, assuming our technology advances along with us and our wisdom as well, the time may come when we will no longer be vulnerable to whatever the cosmos throws at us. Rather than being passive by-products and bystanders in the universe, we may become its active participants, harnessing the energy of stars and planets, the minerals of asteroids, and the ices of comets to civilization's advantage.

Look anywhere beyond our little nook of the Galaxy and you will see a universe that is not only dispassionate, but dangerous and random; escaping that nook, author and science writer Kanipe (Chasing Hubble's Shadows) examines in fascinating detail the countless astronomical events that, from remote distances and times, have steered the evolution of life on Earth. …Exploring also the possibility of interstellar civilizations, the end of the universe and other topics, this detailed, broad-ranging astronomical meditation will leave science buffs wondering at our good fortune. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Kanipe takes on a long and fascinating journey, eloquently reminding that our planet is not isolated, but rather tethered to the solar system and the cosmos as a whole, by the complex network of laws of nature. – Mario Livio, astrophysicist and author of Is God A Mathematician?

There's probably nothing more serene than a starry night sky, but as Jeff Kanipe writes in The Cosmic Connection, 'It's a dangerous solar system out there.' …You don’t have to be Ann Hodges (struck by a meteorite while napping on her couch in 1954), much less a dinosaur (wiped out by an asteroid 65 million years ago), to get the point: what's going on 'up there' can have a big effect on what's going on 'down here.' The Cosmic Connection is a fascinating read; Kanipe has done a wonderful job of pulling together memorable facts and insights to bring cosmic events down to Earth. – Alan Cutler, author of The Seashell on the Mountaintop

[This]... fascinating book... provides a timely reminder that while we go about our daily affairs worrying about things like what's happening at work or the price of fuel, we are forever at the mercy of a capricious universe that may have something far worse in store for us. – New Scientist

In clear and powerful prose, Kanipe describes a fascinating range of cosmic phenomena which have profoundly affected the life on our planet in the past, and will do so again. – S. G. Djorgovski, Professor of Astronomy at Caltech

Kanipe is an eloquent storyteller who recounts with verve and accuracy the crucial geological and astronomical events that affect life on Earth. – Stephen P. Maran, author of Astronomy for Dummies

The Cosmic Connection is a fascinating and approachable look at our cosmos, taking readers on a wide-ranging journey and showing how we are intimately linked to the rest of the universe. Kanipe raises intriguing questions, and describes in jargon-free prose the truly ‘big-picture view’ of how life on Earth and perhaps life on other worlds, relates to the stars. The narrative style is eloquent and at times droll, but always well paced and fact filled. The book will fascinate and inform everyone who has an interest in astronomy, the evolution of our planet, and the future of humankind.

Science / Zoology / Mammals / Outdoors & Nature / Reference

Carnivores of British Columbia (Royal British Columbia Museum) by David F. Hatler, David W. Nagorsen & Alison M. Beal (UBC Press)

Carnivores hunt and eat other animals, mostly herbivorous mammals. Humans share a long history with carnivores. We fear them as predators, revile them as competitors, exploit them for their fur, and admire them for their grace and beauty.

Carnivores of British Columbia, the fifth of six volumes on the mammals of British Columbia, provides information on the 21 species of wild terrestrial carnivores in the province, including the coyote, grey wolf, red fox, American black bear, grizzly bear, northern raccoon, sea otter, wolverine, northern river otter, American martin, fisher, ermine, long-tailed weasel, least weasel, American mink, American badger, striped skunk, western spotted skunk, cougar, Canada lynx, and bobcat.

Carnivores of British Columbia, written by David F. Hatler, wildlife biologist based in Enderby, specializing in the study of carnivores; David W. Nagorsen, biological consultant based in Victoria, and Alison M. Beal, writer and researcher, describes each species, with illustrations. It discusses the general biology and behavior of the group, then provide keys for identifying animals and skulls. Each species account includes a detailed description of the animal, along with information on distribution and habitat, feeding ecology, social behavior, reproduction, issues around health and mortality, abundance, conservation and management, human uses, and interactions with humans. Each account also includes an illustration of the whole animal, a skull drawing and provincial distribution map.

Species covered in Carnivores of British Columbia include:

Dogs (Canids): Coyote, Grey Wolf, Red Fox.
Bears (Ursids): American Black Bear, Grizzly Bear.
Raccoons (Procyonids): Northern Raccoon.
Weasels and relatives (Mustelids): Sea Otter, Wolverine, Northern River Otter, American Marten, Fisher, Ermine, Long-tailed Weasel, Least Weasel, American Mink, American Badger.
Skunks (Mephitids): Striped Skunk, Western Spotted Ski.
Cats (Felids): Cougar, Canada Lynx, Bobcat.

Carnivores of British Columbia is the fifth in a series of six handbooks revising the Royal BC Museum's Handbook 11, The Mammals of British Columbia by Ian McTaggart Cowan and Charles J. Guiguet (1965), which is out of print. As with the first four volumes (Bats of British Columbia; Opossums, Shrews and Moles of British Columbia; Hoofed Mammals of British Columbia; Rodents and Lagomorphs of British Columbia), this handbook emphasizes identification, distribution and natural history. It is based on the large volume of published information and additional data accumulated over the 40 years elapsed since the work, with the specific goal of being as complete and up-to-date as-possible.

Carnivores of British Columbia provides comprehensive, up-to-date information on the 21 species of wild terrestrial carnivores in the province. This book is an important reference for naturalists and wildlife biologists, as well as for students, schools, the general public and anyone interested wildlife in the province.

Social Sciences / Anthropology / Religious Studies / Judaism

The history of Iranian Jews after the establishment of the Safavid State in Iran in 1501 C.E. has formed the subject of growing academic and broader interest over the last few decades. However, despite the significant increase in the quantity and quality of the publications in this area, some of the main aspects and periods in the history of Iranian Jews have received little or no systematic treatment. Dealing with some broad but closely related areas of history, community, society, and culture among the Jews of nineteenth-century Iran, The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century provides sources of information as well as discussions and explanations related to some of the main conditions and realities that shaped the lives of the Iranian Jews prior to their accelerated transformation in the course of the twentieth-century. Included among the eight sections and over forty annotated and analyzed sources in The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century are those that shed light on these major areas of Jewish life in nineteenth-century Iran.
The book was compiled by David Yeroushalmi, Ph.D. in Iranian Studies, Columbia University, associate professor of Iranian Studies in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History and the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel-Aviv University. His main area of research and publication is the history and heritage of Iranian Jews.

Source materials included in The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century by section include:

Section I. Legal Position and General Condition

Source 1 Regarding the Legal Position of Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (Ahl-i Kitab) within the Shiite State, according to Jam' i-i ‘Abbasi

Source 2 The Condition and Disabilities of the Jews in Iran in the 1850s, according to the Jewish Explorer I.J. Benjamin, Known as Benjamin II

Source 3 On the Legal and Actual Condition of the Jews of Iran in the Year 1873, as Reported in The Jewish Chronicle of London on September 12, 1873

Source 4 The Jews of Iran in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, as Observed by Dr. Jacob E. Polak

Source 5 The State of the Jews in Iran in 1876, as Reflected in the Report of the Anglo-Jewish Association (1876-7)

Source 6 The Jews of Iran in the Year 1888, as Reported by Morris Cohen, Educator and Communal Officeholder in the Jewish Community of Baghdad

Source 7 Regarding the Proper Manners of Association with Unbelievers and Adversaries Source 8 Jews in the Eyes of the City Mob, as Reflected in a Street Song that was Chanted in Tehran towards the End of the Nineteenth Century

Source 9 The Jews of Yazd Being Forced to Dispose of the Charred Bodies of the Followers of Bab, Massacred in 1891

Section II. Demography and Geographical Diffusion

Source 10 The Jewish Population of Iran in the Year 1868, according to a Report Submitted by the British Legation in Tehran on April 28, 1868

Source 11 The Demographic Size of the Jewish Communities and Settlements of Iran Following the Great Famine of 1871-2, as Reported by the Anglo-Jewish Association in 1875

Source 12 Estimates and Figures on the Jewish Population of Iran During the Years 1889-1903, according to European Sources

Section III. Economy and Material Existence

Source 13 Jewish Trades and Occupations in Nineteenth-Century Iran According to Contemporary European Sources

Source 14 Recollections of an Itinerant Jewish Physician of Gulpaygan, Regarding the Year 1811

Source 15 Jewish Minstrels and Dancers of Shiraz in 1888, as Witnessed and Described by the Late Professor E.G. Browne

Source 16 Details of a Commercial Partnership and Dispute between Two Jewish Merchants of Yazd, ca. 1880, Referred for Judicial Decision to Rabbi Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad

Section IV. Communal Organization and Inner Communal Relations

Source 17 The Old Synagogue in the City of Hamadan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, as Described in the Year 1850 by Dr. Abraham de Sola, Chief Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation of Montreal, Canada

Source 18 Standard Formula Used for the Appointment of the Head of the Jewish Community (Heb. Nasi) in the City of Urumia, ca. 1898

Source 19 Communal Agreement Signed and Issued by the Religious Leaders of the Jewish Community of Sanandaj on 22 of Tevet 5635 (December 30, 1874)

Section V. Culture and Education

Source 20 Jewish Culture and Education in Iran in the Nineteenth Century, according to the Late Professor Ezra Sion Melammed (1903-1994)

Source 21 The Educational System in the Jewish Community of Hamadan in the 1840s, according to Dr. Abraham de Sola's Account, Published in 1850

Source 22 A Passage from a Judeo-Persian Homiletic Commentary on Leviticus, Composed by Commentator and Poet Binyamin, Son of Eliyahu of Kashan,

ca. 1824

Source 23 Song of Praise and Prayer for Sir Moses Montefiore

Section VI. Religion and Spiritual Lives

Source 24 From the Memoirs of a Learned Rabbi of Shiraz: Mulla Rahamim Melammed ha-Cohen (Sept. 16, 1864, Shiraz Jan. 12, 1932, Jerusalem)

Source 25 An Account of Pilgrims on Their Way to the Tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel (Located about 15 Kilometers to the North of Al-Najaf, in Southern Iraq), in the Year 1809

Source 26 A Question in Matters of Family Law, in the Jewish Community of Tehran, Addressed to the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Palestine in 1898

Section VII. Aspects of Life and History in the Larger Communities

Source 27 The Jewish Community of Yazd in the Nineteenth Century, according to Azaria Levy, Scholar of Jewish Communities of Iran

Source 28 The Jews of Shiraz in the 1890s

Source 29 The Jewish Community of Isfahan in the Year 1888, as Depicted by the Heads of the Community in the Hebrew Weekly Habazeleth, January 25, 1889

Source 30 The Jewish Community of Kashan during the Great Famine of 1871–2: Testimony of Asher, Son of Yusef, a Native of Kashan (ca. 1872)

Source 31 On the Jewish Community of Tehran in the Year 1875, as Reported by the Chief Rabbi of that Community to Isaac Adolphe Cremieux, President of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, Paris

Source 32 The Jewish Community of Tehran and the Cholera Epidemic of 1892, Reported by Mirza Nurullah Hakim, in the Jewish Missionary Intelligence, London,

March 1893, pp. 44-45

Source 33 On the Condition of the Jewish Community of Hamadan in the Year 1864, according to a Letter by the Heads of that Community to Jewish Leaders and Organizations of Western Europe

Source 34 Letter from the Community of Urumia with Regard to the Condition of the Jews of Western Azerbaijan in the Years 1888-1893

Source 35 Letter by the Heads of the Jewish Community of Tehran to Jewish Organizations of Europe with Regard to the State of the Community of Barfurush, Following the Pogrom in that Community in May 1866

Section VIII. Major Events and Processes

Source 36 Earliest Reports in the Jewish Press of Western Europe Concerning the Jews of Iran and Their Hardships: The Voice of Jacob, London, April 25, 1845

Source 37 Report of the British Consul in Jerusalem Concerning the Condition of Persian Immigrants in Ottoman Palestine in 1892. FO 195/1765, No. 6

Source 38 The Great Famine of 1871-2 in Iran and the Beginning of Organized Activity Abroad on Behalf of Iranian Jews. From the Report of the Persian Famine Relief Fund, Published by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, London 1873, pp. 8-16

Source 39 Presentation of Addresses to the Shah on Behalf of the Jews of Persia, The Jewish Chronicle, June 27, 1873, pp. 213-214

Source 40 Situation of the Jews in Hamadan, in October 1892, as Reported by AJA, 22 (1892-1893), pp. 55-63

In the introduction to The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century, Yeroushalmi provides background to the sources and issues in his study of Iranian Jews in the 19th century. He explains that both on a symbolic level as well as in practical terms, the launching of the first Alliance school in the Jewish quarter of Tehran on February 22, 1898 marked a major turning point in the history of Iranian Jews in recent generations. The school, initially for boys and later on also for girls, was soon followed by the establishment of similar modern-oriented and primarily secular schools under the directorship and patronage of the Alliance Israelite Universelle Organization of France. Thus, Alliance schools were soon founded in Iran's other Jewish communities, with the support and supervision of the Alliance. Among the observers and students of Iranian Jewish history in the 19th-20th centuries there is a common tendency to regard the establishment of the Alliance schools at the turn of the 19th century and onward as the beginning of the ‘new’ or ‘modern’ era in the lives of Iran's Jewish minority. The historical conditions and developments, chief among them the increasing exposure of Qajar Iran to the agents and forces of Western and European influence and penetration on the one hand and the growing contacts and relations between the Jews of Iran and their coreligionists in Western Europe and in the Ottoman Empire during the second half of the nineteenth century on the other hand, led gradually to the infusion of Western-oriented notions and ideas into the social, religious and cultural outlook of community heads, rabbis and the wealthier strata of the Jewish population who lived in Iran's larger urban communities. Reinforced by the growing political, economic and cultural contacts between Iran and the diverse agents and channels of European and Western influence in Iran, the latter forces and ideas in Iran's larger Jewish communities during the 1820s-1890s led, among other results, to the early educational, social and occupational reform in Iran's larger communities during the 1900s-1910s and onward. Moreover, while the increasing exposure and weakness of the Qajar state vis-à-vis the strategic, military, and technological threats and challenges of the European powers contained within them the seeds of diverse pressures, dislocations and upheavals for Iran's general population, the growing political, diplomatic and economic presence of Western and European states in 19th century Iran provided the Jews of Iran with opportunities to seek foreign-European and particularly Jewish-European support and protection. For the Jewish communities and settlements of 19th century Iran, which due to a variety of historical and local conditions (among them vast geographical distances, scarcity of paved and secure roads, and the nature of pre-modern means of communication and transportation) were highly scattered and maintained little connections with each other and with the outside world, the formation and subsequent growth of contacts with European and particularly with Jewish-European and Jewish-Ottoman subjects and institutions constituted a remedy to a centuries-long physical and cultural isolation. Furthermore, all the available sources of information reveal that the goal and motivation of Iranian Jews to seek foreign support and protection in the course of the 19th century derived first and foremost from their profound sense of helplessness and with a view to confront or mitigate a host of existential hardships, physical insecurities and entrenched legal, social and occupational discriminations and disabilities. The latter plights and hazards were for the most part rooted in the long-established status of Jews as an unequal, inferior and widely despised religious minority within Iran's Shiite-dominated state, society and general culture.

Despite the considerable importance of the 19th century as an interim period of continuity as well as a century of gradual and continuous change in the lives of Iranian Jews, however, most areas of the general history, culture and communal lives of Iranian Jews in the 19th century still await systematic research, data collection and balanced and unbiased examination. Yet, according to The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century, the study of Iranian Jews in the 19th century in the broader context of Iranian history on the one hand and in the context of their emerging relations with the foreign powers and with the Jews outside Iran on the other hand confronts researchers with many objective limitations as well as subjective tests and challenges. While the choice of specific areas and topics that have to do with the lives of Iranian Jews during this period results ultimately from researchers’ own choices, there exist numerous difficulties that are independent of researchers’ approaches or methods. Broadly speaking, the objective difficulties and obstacles that stand on the way towards a well-informed and balanced study of Iranian Jews in the 19th century belong to three areas. The first, and by far the most serious and consequential among these, lies in the relative scantiness of primary sources in the various relevant languages.

Second, and hand in hand with the limited body of available primary and authentic sources, students of the 18th and 19th century Iranian Jewry are faced with a very limited body of scholarly and solid research and publications related to the various aspects of Jewish life and history in Iran during this period. Although the studies and publications that have been conducted over the last six or seven decades have added much to our knowledge and understanding with regard to various aspects of social, communal, material as well as cultural and religious lives in Iran's highly scattered Jewish communities, nevertheless many fundamental and in some cases the most elementary aspects and patterns of Jewish life in 19th century Iran have received no comprehensive treatment whatsoever. These areas and disciplines, which in the case of the Jewish communities of North Africa, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq and the Ottoman Empire have formed the subjects of far more extensive and systematic studies, include the areas of demography, economic and material lives, social institutions and communal organization, education, relations with Iran's Muslim and non-Muslim populations, processes and dimensions of forced and voluntary conversion to Shiite Islam, to the Baha'i faith and Christianity, communal and individual responses to Western influence, history of the emerging relations between the Jews of Iran and the Jewish Diaspora in Europe and in the Ottoman Empire, biographies of rabbis and heads of communities, accounts of prominent personalities and families, histories of individual communities, and many more areas and topics.

The third major obstacle that still restricts our ability to form a clear and coherent picture of Iranian Jewry in the course of the 19th century lies in the highly scattered nature of the available sources of information. The latter sources of information and data are highly fragmented and found in small, incomplete and out of context fashion in hundreds if not thousands of diverse and mostly unrelated primary and secondary sources and documents. The rather poor and limited character of the historical sources and documents left to us by Iranian Jews is further aggravated by the lack of any known chronicles or semi-historical writings relating to any given community or geographical area. So far, the students, researchers and bibliographers in the field have not come across any works (including personal diaries or periodic recordings) which provide a descriptive and chronological account of daily lives and events in any of Iran's larger and smaller communities in the course of the 19th century. The vast majority of the routine religious, communal and interpersonal activities and transactions were conducted only in an oral fashion. As a result of the latter conditions and practices, the amount of documents and written records produced by the heads and literate members of those communities was accordingly very limited.

Finally, because of a variety of events, upheavals and hardships that affected or disrupted the lives of the various communities, among them attacks and pogroms perpetrated against some of the communities, partial or total destruction and disappearance of some other communities and settlements, periods of famine, epidemics and other natural disasters, and particularly because of the continuous occurrences and conditions of internal migration as well as emigration to other countries and territories throughout the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, whatever written records and documents were in the possession of those communities and their members suffered from various degrees of damage, neglect or loss, or were kept as memorable sentimental items by community and family members or were in the possession of private collectors, brokers and antique dealers.

According to The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century, within the broader context of Jewish history in Iran ever since Iran's Arab-Muslim conquest in the mid-seventh century C.E., the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century represent a particularly bleak and trouble-ridden period. Indeed, contrary to the observation made by some scholars of Iranian history, the available body of evidence and the research conducted so far demonstrate that some broad processes of marginalization, isolation and demographic decline had shaped and determined the lives of Iranian Jews ever since the 16th and 17th centuries. Hand in hand with other historical forces and conditions, which were related to Iran's internal bloody wars and chaotic affairs and to its external relations and increasingly diminished regional position in the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, the latter processes and forces of isolation and repression reached their peak and exercised their full negative effect on Iran's Jewish communities and settlements during the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. Furthermore, the processes and forces of social and occupational marginalization and religio-cultural decline, which had been set in motion particularly with the advent of the Safavid dynasty in 1501, did not reach their final and clear end in the course of the 19th century. Neither did most years and decades of the 19th century constitute a consistent and uninterrupted course of improvement and strengthening in the overall position, security and welfare of Iran's Jewish minority. Different forms and varying degrees of individual and communal plights and distresses, among them entrenched civil and legal inequalities and discriminations and a host of religious, social, occupational and cultural restrictions and disabilities in the course of the 18th and most years of the following century were among the everyday conditions under which the vast majority of Iran's highly dispersed and by and large poorly protected Jewish communities lived and struggled.

Forming an era of transition in the history of the Middle East at large and in the internal and external affairs of Iran, however, the decades of the 19th century also served as a bridge between the old and the new. These were indeed years in which long-established institutions, traditions and practices which had evolved over centuries and had shaped and governed the lives of Iran's Jewish minority were coming into increasing contact with new and hitherto unknown sources of influence. These new forces, whose main origins derived from Iran's growing exposure to the physical presence as well as the economic and cultural penetration and dominance of European and Western Powers and their affiliated agencies in Iran and the region, were bound to affect and in the long run erode, reshape or completely eliminate many of the old traditions, institutions and practices which had characterized the lives of the Iranian Jews over many centuries. As a meeting ground for diverse historical, socio-cultural and material forces and developments in the history of Iranian Jews, the course of the 19th century provides researchers and interested readers with a unique and stimulating area of research and investigation. The study of diverse, though closely related aspects of life and activity among the Jews of Iran in the course of the 19th century does not merely clarify the circumstances and the historical dynamics that ultimately transformed them from a fundamentally oppressed, marginalized and threatened minority (particularly in the course of the 17th-19th centuries) into an increasingly active, enterprising and resourceful segment of the Iranian state, economy and society (particularly as of the beginning of the 20th century and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-6). The study of Iran's Jewish communities and settlements in the organic context of Iran's local conditions and developments in the course of the 19th century and in the broader context of their growing contacts and relations with the Western Powers and with their coreligionists abroad, equally shed light on some of the dominant characteristics and patterns of individual and communal lives among the Iranian Jews prior to their rapid modernization in the course of the 20th century.

The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century contains the source materials that have been found, and the material will be of great interest to researchers. It is a unique and stimulating area, ripe for investigation, containing rich source materials. The book shows Iranian Jews as moved from oppression and marginalization in the 17th-19th centuries to an increasingly enterprising part of society at the beginning of the 20th century. The material also sheds light on the patterns of life prior to modernization.

The book is part of Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies under the general editorship of David S. Katz.

Social Sciences / History / Asia / Political Science / Public Policy

Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan edited by Masami Iwata & Akihiko Nishizawa (Japanese Society Series, Advanced Social Research Series: Trans Pacific Press)

Poverty in Japan has been concealed in the chorus of admiration recognizing the nation becoming the world's second largest economy in the latter half of the twentieth century. The collection of papers in Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan written by ten specialist-contributors in poverty research unravels the ways in which the poor have been socially excluded in contemporary Japan and how this reality derives from the structure of inequality in social resources, life chances and power relations. These studies, edited by Masami Iwata, Professor of Social Welfare at Japan Women's University and Akihiko Nishizawa, Professor of Urban Sociology at Toyo University, Tokyo, scrutinize the extent to which Japan's welfare policies have disseminated and consolidated particular types of understanding about poverty. Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan reveals their contradictions by highlighting the lives of the homeless, newcomer foreign migrants, residents in poor housing and many other socially excluded groups.

According to Iwata and Nishizawa, next to poverty, barely any other social problem has been so widely discussed. Poverty has been constantly defined as a problem since the beginning of modern society. Many critiques have constructed poverty as a form of decay, like a persistent chronic disease in developed countries where ‘affluent society’ first developed, even in countries where a welfare state had been implemented with the chief aim of its elimination. Of course, that poverty has constantly been discussed does not mean that a single manifestation of it persists. Every time it is looked at afresh, the concept of poverty itself and how it is measured are revised. Discursive difference has more to do with how poverty is perceived. It is measured in numerous ways, not only in terms of developing different yardsticks and improving research methods, but also by introducing qualitative research, listening to the opinions and outlook of the people who are trapped in poverty cycles. As we all know, many scholars and organizations have engaged on whether poverty is absolute or relative, whether it can be defined objectively or subjectively. They argue the relative merits of many various ways of seeing of the problem, including the cost of living approach, the income approach, the deprivation index approach, the capability approach and more.

By questioning these matters in Japanese society, our understanding of poverty and of social exclusion may elucidate the conditions of life of those who are able to fulfill the role of the subject and its responsibility. Iwata and Nishizawa identified the need to investigate the contested terrain of meaning between exclusion and integration in modern society as a whole. This could be achieved though exploring the grounds for exclusion in the life and times of those in poverty that are structurally placed outside society.

From the above understanding of poverty and social exclusion, Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan examines the reality of poverty and exclusion in present day Japanese society through the following perspectives.

First, since the rapid economic growth of the 1960s the under-standing of poverty has been limited to reading about the concepts developed in advanced Western societies, or it has been discussed only in the context of developing nations. Only an extremely limited number of empirical studies have been completed. In this book, poverty and social exclusion in Japan today are discussed from various angles, through the opinions and behavior of the people actually living in these conditions. Second, poverty and social exclusion are formulated by social resources and life opportunities, as well as by the unequal structure of power. Here, Iwata and Nishizawa focus especially on locating poverty and exclusion in the huge context of social integration. They also examine, in particular local areas, how overt or covert measures of separation and exclusion aimed at the poor people are carried out. They also see the process of exclusion and inclusion among the poor. Third, policies and institutions are not merely a reflection of the social recognition of poverty and the struggle surrounding this recognition. They also help to spread specific views on poverty and cause these perceptions to be viewed as fact. Not only do poverty and social exclusion need to be grasped as they are, but they also need to be examined in relation to the policies and institutions set up to manage them, especially in the context of a debate about the welfare nation. In Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan, poverty and social exclusion in contemporary Japanese society are looked at through an examination of the level of awareness and typology, apparent in the policy formulation process to do with poverty.

In the first section, two theses are discussed examining perspectives on poverty in Japan. The first chapter by Masami Iwata attempts a new approach by relocating poverty through the perceptions displayed in government policies on poverty. This chapter also looks at the characteristics of groups according to the categories used in post-War welfare policies, and discusses the meaning behind this. This is followed by a chapter by Akihiko Nishizawa, who analyzes the way the lower class has been always excluded from the nationalization process in contemporary Japanese society in terms of treatment, concealment and elimination. This chapter draws examples from Tokyo, from the inception of the urban underclass in the pre-War days to the post-War welfare post-war state. In both chapters, the authors discuss not only general definitions of the terms and the reality, but they also argue that a perspective on poverty and social exclusion will come from a reassessment of them in relation to social integration and the welfare system in Japan.

In the second section of Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan, the reality of poverty is portrayed in case studies done from various angles and by various methods. This has rarely been done in Japan before. The third chapter looks in detail at poverty among young women. Chizuka Hamamoto uses the traditional evaluation of poverty based on the income discrepancy approach, but transforms it into a dynamic analysis of poverty by applying the longitudinal panel studies technique. The fourth chapter by Misa Izumihara qualitatively analyzes poverty and housing of elderly women, who have lived through the prevailing post-War home ownership ethos, using the ‘housing story’ technique. In the fifth chapter, Yuko Hayasaka discusses the relationship between health and poverty, comparing experiences in the West and re-examining the existing data in Japan. In the sixth chapter, Keiko Yamaguchi examines the spread of poverty in urban areas, and maps it in the south Kanto region at the beginning of post-industrialization, using various poverty indices.

The third section of Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan contains four different perspectives on how poverty has been objectivized in welfare policies, and how welfare programs have been formulated in post-War Japan. In the seventh chapter, Iwata deals with the Seikatsu hogo (Public Livelihood Protection) program, the core of the post-War poverty policy. She looks at how the `public assistance recipient class' produced by the system has gradually come to occupy a prominent permanent position among people without employment, and discusses the meaning of this. The eighth and ninth chapters look at how the poverty of homeless men and women is screened, excluded and graded in the welfare system and in what measure. In the eighth chapter, Keiko Kawahara looks at the poverty of women in Tokyo, examining contradictions in the various welfare policies, while in the ninth chapter, Yukihiko Kitagawa focuses on male homeless people and on the official policy encouraging their self reliance. In the tenth chapter, Kahoruko Yamamoto describes the exclusion from the system of foreign workers, called newcomers, on the grounds of their having no fixed address, and how their predicament is locked into the consumer society.

The final fourth section consists of two chapters. Chapter eleven is by Nishizawa and chapter twelve by Yosuke Hirayama. They both seek a way out from the current society that produces poverty and social exclusion, into a future welfare society. It is by no means easy to solve the problem of poverty and social exclusion, but the two chapters stress that the way out from the problem can be found in the mutual relationships among people in dire predicaments. Nishizawa discusses the social environment of homeless people, living in an invisible cage, and sees a potential for them to avoid being reduced to a basic level of existence. Hirayama reports as one of the project organizers on a revitalization project of a deteriorated residential area in a Dowa area (literally an anti discrimination area, designated for the improvement of the living standards of people of Buraku origin). Making over physical structures was only a part of the project, and the author describes a continual process of community-bond-building workshops. There, the meaning of improvement and revitalization was constantly questioned, and the residents had to look squarely at their own still unconvinced state. Through this process a pathway towards the reinvigoration of their lives is revealed.

The book brings to light and seeks to unravel the issues of poverty and social exclusion in Japanese society, revealing the contradictions in the understandings and effects of social welfare. Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan will contribute to the debate on a subject that should be the central theme of the `welfare society' series of publications.

Social Sciences / Political Science

Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective edited by Heikki Ervasti, Torben Fridberg, Mikael Hjerm & Kristen Ringdal (Edward Elgar Publishing)
Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective addresses the effect that institutional settings typical to the Nordic countries have upon people's attitudes and behavior. Placed within a European comparative perspective, the analyses presented by the contributing authors center around the welfare state, politics, family and work, as well as cultural concerns including economic morality and religiosity. Despite differences between the Nordic countries, the overall impression given is of a shared outlook and way of life. In the European context, the Nordic countries particularly stand out as a distinct group demonstrating their institutional similarities.

Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective is edited by Heikki Ervasti, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Turku, Finland; Torben Fridberg, Senior Researcher at SFI – The Danish National Centre for Social Research, Denmark; Mikael Hjerm, Associate Professor of Sociology at Umea University, Sweden; and Kristen Ringdal, Professor of Sociology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway.

The editors adopt a wide perspective. Their argument is that as a reflection of the institutional characteristics, surprisingly many features in people's values, attitudes and behavior distinguish the Nordic societies from the rest of the European countries. In the chapters, they present empirical analyses in which they compare the various dimensions of people's values in the Nordic societies to other European countries. The analyses cover four broad themes: living conditions and the welfare state, politics, family and work, and ethical issues and values.

Chapters 2 to 4 deal with living conditions and the welfare state in the Nordic countries. Chapter 2 concentrates on social exclusion and inclusion, which is a core area of social policies. In the recent debate, it has been claimed that social risks are becoming increasingly sporadic in their distribution so that traditional social policies can no longer efficiently guarantee social inclusion. The question posed by Fridberg and Kangas is whether or not the traditional structural factors, like class, labor market position and socio-economic background still serve to explain the phenomenon of social exclusion.

Another big issue is what this will mean for the traditional Nordic welfare state, which has mainly concentrated on traditional socio-economic cleavages between citizens.

The welfare state generates material well-being. However, it is often suggested that material living conditions have only a weak correlation to subjective measures of well-being. It may well be possible that, despite their huge investments in the welfare state, the Nordic countries are not the happiest nations in Europe. In Chapter 3 Eikemo, Mastekaasa and Ringdal focus on the determination of subjective health and happiness in Europe. The main question posed concerns differences in levels of subjective well-being. Do the Nordic countries differ from the rest of the European countries in levels of happiness and subjective health, and how may we account for the differences among the countries?

Chapter 4 of Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective concentrates on social capital. Recently, the importance and the widely ranging positive implications of social capital have been acknowledged by social scientists of all kinds. Social capital promotes economic efficiency and growth, democratic virtue and civic engagement as well as individual health and well-being. In Chapter 4, Fridberg and Kangas set out to find more detailed reasons for the fact that the Nordic countries score highest on most of the indicators that are usually used for social capital. They search especially for an association between various forms of social policies and social capital.

The next three chapters of Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective relate to the political system in the Nordic countries. In Chapter 5, Berg and Hjerm analyze public perceptions and preferences concerning the level of decision making. Berg and Hjerm ask if institutional contexts can be discerned in people's views in relation to which political entity they think should be responsible for various political decisions. They conclude that people's preferred level of decision making differs across countries and that there are differences within the Nordic countries linked to the country's relation to Europe. Trying to explain why people in certain countries prefer European level decision making, Berg and Hjerm show that institutional differences and political articulation matter whereas self-interest does not.

From the level of decision making, we turn to political activism in Chapter 6. Berglund, Kleven and Ringdal distinguish between conventional political activism, mainly channeled through political parties, and unconventional issue-oriented and sometimes elite-challenging political actions. The authors start by discussing whether the declines in election turnout and in party membership are signs of a democratic crisis or whether political participation simply is expressed through other channels than the ballot.

In Chapter 7, Listhaug and Ringdal shift the focus to political trust. More specifically, they distinguish between three dimensions of political trust: trust in the electoral system, trust in the legal system and trust in the European Parliament. They describe detailed country variations with a special focus on the Nordic countries and use summary measures of the three dimensions of political trust in an analysis of cross-national variations in political trust.

In Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective, the themes of Chapters 8 and 9 come closer to the everyday life of people in the Nordic countries as compared with other parts of Europe. Nordenmark's analysis in Chapter 8 is related to the gender aspects of the different European regimes. As often suggested in prior research, the ‘family-friendly’ policies in the Nordic countries make it possible for women to participate in paid labor outside the home. However, it may still be the case that having paid employment on top of family obligations creates more demands than one can handle, which are, in turn, reflected in increasing within-family conflicts. Nordenmark focuses on family conditions, gender role attitudes, levels of satisfaction with the division of labor and, finally, the experience of work-family conflict in the various European clusters of countries.

The other component of everyday life, work, is analyzed in more detail in Chapter 9. As noted above, the structures of work life constitute one of the basic pillars of the Nordic model. In Chapter 9, Ervasti analyses the effects of the emergence of non-standard work arrangements on job quality. In this chapter Ervasti examines whether there is a clear association between non-standard work and working conditions and if this association varies in accordance with labor market regime in Europe.

The remaining three chapters of Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective concentrate on moral and ethical issues. The aim of these chapters is to find out whether the Nordic countries form a separate unit in Europe in relation to underlying values and not only in terms of social structures. Moreover, these chapters aim to examine whether or not the recent trends in structural development and values are likely to impact moral and ethical issues so that the Nordic countries become more or less similar to the other European countries. According to recent criticism, the Nordic welfare states are not very well suited to receive immigrants. In Chapter 10 Ervasti, Fridberg and Hjerm examine whether there are cross-national differences in attitudes towards immigrants that can be explained by differences in societal macro-level conditions.

In Chapter 11, the focus shifts to economic morality. Ringdal examines if there is evidence for the traditional assumptions about especially high standards of economic morality in the Nordic countries. The chapter has a wide scope and covers cross-national differences in the following themes: economic trust, economic morality, consumer victimization, and unethical and illegal economic behavior. The final multilevel analysis focuses on consumer victimization, having been asked for a bribe, and the frequency of minor or serious economic offences.

The final empirical chapter of Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective, Chapter 12, concerns religiosity. Recently, both secularization and the emergence of non-traditional forms of religiosity have been said to contest the traditional religious settings. In Chapter 12, Ervasti sets out to test these allegations empirically. Are people in the Nordic countries still more secular than other European nations? How much does religiosity influence the lives of individuals in the Nordic countries?

In the concluding chapter the editors summarize the findings and discuss whether the Nordic uniqueness has its roots in reality or whether it is a myth.

For outsiders, the popularity and social sustainability of the extensive scope of Nordic welfare states, such as the strong role of the state and high levels of taxation, remains something of a mystery. Making use of recent international survey data, this important book goes some way towards solving this mystery. It underlines the remarkable success of Nordic welfare institutions which help to maintain not only low rates of poverty and inequality, but high levels of well-being, trust, social capital and political participation. – Jochen Clasen, University of Edinburgh, UK

Nordic welfare states have long enjoyed a leadership position in the provision of social welfare. They are now caught up in the current of thorough-going reform that is sweeping across Europe. This book uses data from the European Social Survey in fresh and innovative ways to demonstrate the resilience of Nordic models and to show how political discourses are changing across a whole range of policy areas. – Peter Taylor-Gooby, University of Kent, UK

Providing highly rigorous and up-to-date data, with a wide coverage of topics, Nordic Social Attitudes in a European Perspective will be of great interest to academics and students in sociology, social policy and political science. It will also appeal to anyone interested in the Nordic countries in general.

Social Sciences / True Crime / Psychology

Fakers: Hoaxers, Con Artists, Counterfeiters, and Other Great Pretenders by Paul Maliszewski (The New Press)

Why would two poets invent a fake writer, complete with a fake oeuvre and compelling life story, and then submit their fabrication to a literary magazine? Why would a journalist concoct an eight-year-old junkie and then write an article about him, later winning a Pulitzer Prize for her invention? Why might a memoirist pretend to be a Holocaust survivor, a gang member, or a recovered addict with a prison record? And why do we believe such wild fictions that masquerade as the truth? Why are we forever getting fooled by frauds?

Fakers are believed because they each promise us, screen-gazing and experience-starved, something real and authentic, a view, however fleeting, of a great thing rarely glimpsed.

Fakers is an exploration of the varieties of faking, from its historical roots in satire and con artistry to its current boom. Award-winning writer Paul Maliszewski journeys into the heart of our fake world, telling tales of the New York Sun's 1835 moon hoax, the invented poet Ern Malley (the inspiration for Peter Carey's novel My Life as a Fake), and Maliszewski's own satiric letters to the editor of the Business Journal of Central New York (written, unbeknownst to the editor, while he worked there as a reporter). Through these stories, he explains why fakers almost always find believers and often flourish.

The essays in Fakers explore:

Jayson Blair's faked New York Times stories, about Jessica Lynch and much else.
Early American con artists.
Oscar Hartzell and the long-running Drake's fortune scam.
Internet hoaxes about man-eating bears.
Han van Meegeren's forged Vermeers.
Clifford Irving's fake autobiography of Howard Hughes.
Michael Chabon's fictionalized version of his early years.
Binjamin Wilkomirski's fabricated Holocaust memoir.
In-depth interviews with three fakers: journalist Michael Finkel, painter Sandow Birk, and performance artist Joey Skaggs.

In Fakers Maliszewski examines these incidents not as aberrations but as part of a larger fake media culture, which we inhabit every day. In doing so he investigates our relationship to truth and authenticity and exposes the contradictions in our communication culture. "We voyeuristic many," Maliszewski writes, "we want the real, and indeed we hunger for it, but we also want our real stuff to be engaging and entertaining and come in readily consumable packages."

Interesting insights into the nature of deception. – Publisher's Weekly
Intriguing and engaging. – Library Journal

Entertaining thoughts on the inventive presentation of stuff that might have been so but wasn't. – Kirkus Reviews

In this detailed if uneven meditation, Maliszewski explores the complicated world of deception and those who practice it. The book begins with the author defending his own habit of publishing letters to the editor under pseudonyms while working as a reporter in upstate New York. … The book abounds with interviews and anecdotes about con men, art forgers and historical fakes, leading Maliszewski to conclude, writing, after all, needn't be a mirror in which authors discover only themselves looking back and grinning. The author could stand to take a bit of his own advice, although the book as a whole does provide some interesting insights into the nature of deception. – Publishers Weekly
This fascinating survey of fakers and fabulists begins with a confession from the author that he, too, has been a faker…. The book is not only about the fakers but also the faked and about our natural desire to believe the unbelievable – as long as the tale is told convincingly. – David Pitt, Booklist

Not only is Fakers beautifully written and fun to read, but it is tremendously useful. It explains clearly and with perfectly chosen examples just what the distinction is between pointed pranks and lazy fabrications, and between satire and malice. And unlike previous efforts on the subject, this one is entirely in favor of the imagination. – Luc Sante, author of Low Life and Kill All Your Darlings

Here it is, the one true guide to the world of forgery. Paul Maliszewski shows us how to distinguish the masterpieces from the frauds, the inspired fakes from the merely counterfeit, tossing off along the way a few gemlike examples of the former. This is a perfect book for our pompous, authenticity-grubbing times. – Thomas Frank, author of The Wrecking Crew and What's the Matter with Kansas?

For anyone who has ever lied – or been lied to – Fakers contains true-life tales about faking. The book tells us much about what we believe and want, why we trust, and why we still get duped. Interweaving psychoanalysis, investigative reporting and biting insights, Maliszewski draws from his expansive pool of knowledge to explore the varieties of faking. With elegance and humor he navigates through the guts of the reporting process and provides a keen perspective that aims neither to damn nor to absolve but instead to understand these phenomena.