January 2010, Issue #129

The arts of Zen are not intended for utilitarian purposes or for purely aesthetic enjoyment, but are meant to train the mind, indeed, to bring it in contact with ultimate reality – D.T. Suzuki

As Zen becomes ever more accepted and understood as a spiritual path in the West, Zen art also becomes better known and appreciated. While the publication of Zen writings – the classics as well as works by modern teachers has increased exponentially in recent years, exhibitions and catalogues on Zen art have also flourished, allowing Zen art to be appreciated by more Westerners than ever before.

When a Zen master puts brush to paper, the resulting image is an expression of the quality of his or her mind. It is thus a teaching, intended to stop people in their tracks and to compel them to consider ultimate truth.

Forty masterpieces of painting and calligraphy by renowned masters such as Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768) and Gibon Sengai (1750-1837) are reproduced in The Zen Art Book along with commentary that illuminates both the art and its teaching. The authors are Stephen Addiss, Tucker-Boatwright Professor in the Humanities: Art at the University of Richmond, Virginia, as well as a world-renowned calligrapher; and John Daido Loori, abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt. Tremper, NY, the founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen and a renowned photographer.

The works presented in The Zen Art Book are visual expressions of Dharma by leading monk-artists of the past and present, but Zen art is not only an historical phenomenon. In Japan, painting and calligraphy continue to be important elements of Zen expression, and masters such as Fukushima Keido are besieged with requests for brushwork by both monks and laypeople. The vital element in these works both new and old, in whatever medium, is the expression of Zen mind. Whether historical or contemporary, the mark of Zen art is the ability to be right here, right now.

Addiss and Loori’s essays in The Zen Art Book provide an excellent introduction to both the aesthetic and didactic aspects of this art that can be profound, perplexing, serious, humorous, and breathtakingly beautiful – often all within the same simple piece.

Audio / Health, Mind & Body / Religion & Spirituality / Outdoors & Nature

Finding Beauty in a Broken World [ABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK] (3 Audio CDs: running time 3 ¼ hours) by Terry Tempest Williams (Sounds True)

When faced with the chaos of our times and tragedy in her own life, Terry Tempest Williams, award-winning author of Leap, An Unspoken Hunger, Refuge and most recently Red – A Desert Reader, asked: How do we pick up the pieces? And what do we do with these pieces? To find her answer, this visionary author and naturalist embarked on a journey that took her around the globe. In Finding Beauty in a Broken World, she delivers a story, a mosaic, an exploration of truth from a passionate artist and humanitarian.

In this original author adaptation of her acclaimed book, Williams recalls an odyssey that began on the rocky shores of Maine, where she prayed for one word to follow after the events of 9/11. That word was ‘mosaic’ – and it marked the first step on a path that took her to the artistic heart of Italy.

In Finding Beauty in a Broken World, after a mosaics workshop in Ravenna, she brought the understanding to her day-by-day observations of a beleaguered Utah prairie dog town. Williams marveled over this tunnel building, highly communicative species and dubbed them ‘prayer dogs’ for their habit of standing and watching the sunset. Prairie dogs are crucial to the biodiversity of the grassland ecosystem, a living mosaic, yet they have been driven to the brink of extinction.

The story of her brother’s death entwined with Williams’ account of her trip to Rwanda with visionary artist Lily Yeh. In war-torn Rwanda they took on the seemingly inconceivable task of fostering healing through art in the aftermath of genocide, as villagers and artists built a genocide memorial together, literally through the rubble of war.

… After intimate study of a prairie dog town at Bryce Canyon, her visit to 19th-century prairie dog specimens at the American Museum of Natural History segues, dreamlike, to a glass case of bones from the genocide in Rwanda, where Williams, overwhelmed by the death of her brother but knowing that her own spiritual evolution depended upon it, travels with artist Lily Yeh, who understands mosaic as taking that which is broken and creating something whole, to build a memorial with genocide survivors. The book, itself a skillful, nuanced mosaic (a conversation between what is broken... a conversation with light, with color, with form) uses this way of thinking about the world to convincingly make the connection between racism and specism and sensitively argues for respect for life in all its myriad forms. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Ecologist and writer Williams composes gracefully structured inquiries lush with unexpected and revelatory correspondences. In her most far-reaching and profoundly clarifying work to date, Williams considers the complex beauty of brokenness and the redemptive art of creating wholeness from fragments in a triptych of explorations.… Scientific in her exactitude, compassionate in her receptivity, and rhapsodic in expression, Williams has constructed a beautiful mosaic of loss and renewal that affirms, with striking lucidity, the need for reverence for all of life. – Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

Terry Tempest Williams' tools are words, ideas, sentences, fragments. She uses them to dig into chosen corners of our world, and to illuminate some unknowns in flickering light. – Washington Times
With hypnotic prose – reminiscent of John Berger in its poetry – Terry Tempest Williams inhabits the post-9/11 world wide awake, utterly open, completely feeling. Taking notes in shattered worlds as her own family breaks and reshapes into something surprising and completely beautiful, Williams presets us with an incredible achievement, a beautiful, terrible, wonderful, hopeful witness. The farthest thing from insanity I've read. – Alexandra Fuller, author of The Legend of Colton H. Bryant
How a book could be this gentle and this heartbreaking simultaneously I do not know. But over a simple trajectory of mosaic-to-prairie-dog-to-contemporary genocide, Terry Tempest Williams leads us with methodical accuracy into the devastations and delights of now. – John D'Agata, author of Halls of Fame

Presented by the author in her own words, Finding Beauty in a Broken World is an inspiring story of how we can overcome even the most traumatic wounding the world can offer. The book is a call to listeners to create beauty in the world they find, each in their own way, each in their own time, each with their own gifts. On her journey, which was both heartbreaking and hopeful, Williams discovered that mosaic holds a miraculous secret for overcoming even the most traumatic wounding this life can offer.

Business & Investing / Personal Finance / Health, Mind & Body

Mind over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health by Brad Klontz & Ted Klontz (Broadway Business)

Let's face it – just about everyone has a complicated, if not downright dysfunctional, relationships with money.
As Drs. Brad and Ted Klontz, a father and son team of pioneers in the emerging field of financial psychology explain in Mind over Money, people’s disordered relationships with money aren’t their fault. They don’t stem from a lack of knowledge or a failure of will. Instead, they are a product of subconscious beliefs and thought patterns, rooted in childhood, that are so deeply ingrained in everyone, they shape the way they deal with money their entire adult lives. But people are not powerless. By looking deep into themselves and their pasts, they can learn to recognize these negative and self-defeating patterns of thinking and replace them with better, healthier ones.

The Klontzes draw on decades of experience helping people resolve their issues with money and their research on the treatment of money disorders to show readers how to unearth the underlying origins of their self-defeating financial behaviors, get honest about their relationship with money, and ultimately take control of and transform their financial life. But this change can't happen overnight. The journey to financial health has three legs:

Identifying Financial Flashpoints – painful, distressing, or traumatic early life events associated with money that are so emotionally powerful, they leave an imprint that lasts into adulthood.
Rewriting Money Scripts – self-destructive and often false assumptions or beliefs about money, what it means and how it works, that each person takes away from their financial flashpoint experiences.
Overcoming Money Disorders – persistent, predictable, often rigid patterns of self-destructive financial behaviors that result from these scripts and from the unfinished business related to financial experiences.

Grounded in all they've observed in their years of practice, as well as in their peer-reviewed psychological research, the Klontzes in Mind over Money isolate and describe the 12 most common money disorders – and how to spot them in ourselves and others. These disorders fall into three categories:

Money Avoidance Disorders (also includes Underspending and Excessive Risk Aversion)

· Financial Denial.

· Financial Rejection.

Money-Worshipping Disorders (also includes Pathological Gambling, Workaholism, and Overspending)

· Hoarding.

· Compulsive Buying.

Relational Money Disorders (also includes Financial Dependence and Financial Incest).
- Financial Infidelity.

· Financial Enabling.

Finally, the Klontzes walk readers through the wealth of techniques and exercises they've used to help clients overcome their money disorders and enjoy a healthier and happier relationship with money. The basics of financial health aren't complicated, say the Klontzes, and readers are all capable of mastering them. When they practice healthy financial behaviors (e.g. maintain reasonable and low debt, have an active savings plan, as well as follow a conscious spending plan), they don't just become materially richer – they become emotionally richer as well.

Mind over Money isn't a book about ‘managing money’. Instead, it's about managing the relationship with money. It's about looking deep within to identify those false, unhealthy beliefs about money that hold people back, understand their root causes, and ultimately overcome them. It's about repairing those relationships to enjoy greater mental and material wealth.

Mind over Money is a lifeline for anyone who thinks of money as a way to secure happiness, love, or define their self-worth. I know because I was driven by these unhealthy behaviors that almost put my family and me in financial crisis. The process this book walks you through worked for me – I now control my money – my money no longer controls me. My hope is that after reading the book, you'll be on your new path to financial healing too. – Wynonna Judd
The Klontzes, a father son team, have the mental answer to money. This book will help you overcome your own ‘wrong thinking’ and get moving fast in the right direction to the financial destiny and freedom that you deserve. – David Bach, bestselling author of The Automatic Millionaire and Start Late, Finish Rich
An insightful and highly understandable glimpse into why intimate discussions surrounding money are so difficult for so many people. Our past definitely influences the present and our future – far more than many might realize. – Pat DeLeon, former President, American Psychological Association
Mind over Money is a valuable resource for individuals wanting to break free from a troubled financial past and create a healthy current relationship with money that can create future financial success. It is Must reading on everyone's Now list. – Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Stanford University, author of The Lucifer Effect and The Time Paradox
Brad and Ted Klontz know the power of the dollar in our lives, and they've long studied the emotions behind our financial decisions. Through their research and this compelling book, they can change lives. – Jeffrey Zaslow, coauthor of The Last Lecture, author of The Girls from Ames

Whether readers want to learn how to make better financial decisions, have more open communication with their spouses or kids about the family finances, or simply be better equipped to deal with the challenges of these tough economic times, Mind over Money, based on research, will help them repair their dysfunctional relationship with money and live a healthier financial life.

Entertainment / Games

Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold 'Em by Tom McEvoy & T.J. Cloutier (Championship Series: Cardoza Publishing)

Written by World Champion players T. J. Cloutier and Tom McEvoy (8 titles between them), Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold 'Em is a guide to winning at two of the world's most exciting poker games. All the answers to players’ most important questions are included:

How do readers get inside their opponents' heads and learn how to beat them at their own game?
How can readers tell how much to bet, raise, and re-raise in no-limit hold'em?
When can they bluff?
How do they set up the opponents in pot-limit hold'em so that they can win a monster pot?
What are the best strategies for winning no-limit and pot-limit tournaments, satellites, and super-satellites?

McEvoy, the 1983 World Champion of Poker, has won four World Series titles. Formerly a 9-to-5 accountant, he quit his day job in 1979 to join the high-pressure poker tournament circuit. In 1995 he wrote the acclaimed Tournament Poker, "one of the most important poker books of all time," according to the Gambler's Book Club in Las Vegas.

Cloutier, the 1998 Player of the Year, has won four World Series of Poker titles. He is the only player ever to have won bracelets in each of the three types of Omaha games: Omaha high-low, limit high Omaha, and pot-limit Omaha. A former football star in the Canadian league, T. J. turned to playing professional poker in the '80s as a road gambler and has become one of the most celebrated tournament players in the world.

Tom McEvoy and TT Cloutier are an awesome team of hold'em players and writers. Now they have put their heads together and come up with the bible on no-limit and pot-limit hold'em. – Phil Hellmuth, 1989 World Champion of Poker

If there is one player that all of us fear the most at the final table, it is T.J. Cloutier. – Berry Johnston, 1986 World Champion of Poker

Tom McEvoy's tournament advice is the best ever written. – Barbara Enright, 1996, World Champion, Pot -Limit Hold'em

T.J. is the best no-limit player on the tournament circuit today. – Hans "Tuna" Lund, 1996 World Champion, Ace-to-5 Lowball

T.J. Cloutier is the number one no-limit poker player in the world. He and Tom McEvoy have written a book that is very much needed, but I think they may be giving away too much in Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold 'Em. – Mansour Matloubi, 1990 World Champion of Poker

Professional players use the strategies outlined in Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold 'Em to win cash games, tournaments, championships and million dollar prizes, and readers can learn them too. Packed with entertaining road stories, this is the definitive guide with solid advice from two of the most recognizable figures in poker. Filled with insights, game play situations, and advice on every aspect of the game, readers get all the answers – no holds barred – to the essential strategies and concepts that will allow them to win.

Entertainment / Music / Classical

Beethoven's Orpheus Concerto: The Fourth Piano Concerto in Its Cultural Context by Owen Jander (North American Beethoven Studies Series No. 5: Pendragon Press)

Beethoven composed his Fourth Piano Concerto in Vienna in the years 1803-06. In that period there was an unusually keen interest in the Orpheus legend, and so it is not surprising to learn that all three movements were – undeclaredly or better described, secretly – based on that famous story. So begins Owen Jander’s Beethoven's Orpheus Concerto: The Fourth Piano Concerto in its Cultural Context.

Jander says he never realized it at the time, but his involvement with this book began in the spring of 1975 when he first heard the forte-pianist Malcolm Bilson play Beethoven's Sonatas quasi una fantasia, op. 27, nos. 1-2, at Wellesley College. The instrument Bilson used was a replica of a five-octave Viennese fortepiano, ca. 1795, by the modern builder Philip Belt. So enthusiastic did Jander become that he commissioned a replica of a six-octave Viennese fortepiano, the sort of instrument that Beethoven would have used in his middle period. Although he says he is a pianist of limited ability, Jander discovered that he could perform the Andante con moto of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto as a piece for solo piano. As he became more curious, he encountered Adolph Bernhard Marx's explanation (made back in 1859) that the second movement of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto was elaborately based on the Infernal Scene in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. He read the versions of the Orpheus legend by Virgil and Ovid, and one discovery led to the next.

The world of publishing has always been wary of books about music that include music examples. Despite that prejudice, Beethoven's Orpheus Concerto includes more than a hundred examples. Many are brief, but others are not – and some extend to three or more pages. Jander says the stories told in the book require these examples, as his role is to point out details in Beethoven's music that reflect various aspects of the Orpheus legend. Readers can only decide the validity of these relationships, however, if Beethoven's notes are there, on-the-spot.

As readers learn in Beethoven's Orpheus Concerto, the basic tension in this concerto lies in the contrasting emphases of the outer movements. The first movement, "The Song of Orpheus": Orpheus, having lost his Euridice a second time, forswears the love of women, denigrates the Bacchantes – those women who conduct orgies at the temple of his friend Bacchus – and then sings songs in praise of boys beloved by gods. The Bacchantes seek to seduce Orpheus, but he rejects them.

Third movement, "The Revenge of the Bacchantes": the Bacchantes spy Orpheus in a meadow strumming his lyre. They pounce on him, rip off his head, and toss it into the River Hebrus. The penultimate chapter of Beethoven's Orpheus Concerto – the one dealing with the third movement of the concerto – begins with a description of Dorothea Biehl's subplot of Hersilia, the woman scorned: attempted seduction, followed by rejection leading to rage, then ultimately revenge. This sequence of emotions is present in the first and third movements of Beethoven's concerto.

In Beethoven's Orpheus Concerto, a fascinating and controversial book, Jander reveals the full story from the opening phrase of the first movement to the last measure of the finale of how the Orpheus legend informs every note of Beethoven’s music. The numerous music examples pose a problem having to do with the layout of a book – they make a consistent look is impossible: the book will win no prizes for its look – but no lover of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto will complain.

Entertainment / Sports

The Official Treasures of the National Football League by James Buckley Jr. and Jim Gigliotti, with a foreword by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (Triumph Books)

Whatever readers’ ages or favorite NFL teams, this interactive book lets them experience football's heritage through authentic replicas of rare memorabilia found at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The Official Treasures of the National Football League is a special edition, collectible book containing 20 replicas of football memorabilia, including play diagrams, letters, contracts, tickets, and trading cards.

The book-in-a-box, written by James Buckley Jr. and Jim Gigliotti, former senior editors at NFL Publishing, tells the long and storied history of football through hundreds of photographs and text. Readers:

Find out how football and the NFL were born.
Meet the game's greatest players, coaches, and heroes.
Relive its most famous games and most memorable plays.
Explore the amazing phenomenon that is the Super Bowl.

The collection of 20 removable facsimiles of historic football artifacts and memorabilia are inserted between the pages of the book in special pockets. With The Official Treasures of the National Football League readers can literally hold the 1933 NFL Rulebook, examine in detail the contracts of Hall of Famers Bill Willis and Marion Motley, and not just read the book, but live the history. In many places, readers find pockets, slips, or envelopes containing facsimiles of some of the most important and influential documents in NFL history. From the minutes of the league's first meeting, to programs and tickets from its biggest games, to modern objects such as draft cards, these items leap from the pages of history.

Each decade of the NFL is covered, along with important milestones throughout its history, so readers can learn how the Super Bowl began and how the T-formation revolutionized the game, find out how Vince Lombardi won games – and how Bill Belichick did the same decades later. And they can discover the connections between TV and football that created the most successful partnership in sports. Readers read about Johnny Unitas winning the ‘Greatest Game Ever Played’, and see the jersey he wore doing it. They can crunch opposing runners with Dick Butkus and see the helmet he used while doing just that. And they can explore how the NFL is spreading around the globe and see the first football used in an international regular-season game.

The NFL experience is a visual one, and it is a tactile one for readers and their kids. Though of course, they won't have to worry about getting tackled . . . unless it's by the kids fighting to get their turn with the book, as they settle in for a trip through 80-plus years of heroes, villains, innovators, and champions.

Teams only play once a week, so readers need to have something to do between games. Whether they follow the NFL through its players, its teams, or through the spectacle that is the Super Bowl, The Official Treasures of the National Football League will be an excellent guide. With this collectable kit, readers relive the history, celebrate the heroes, and own the treasures of the National Football League.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

When discussions of cultural competence in psychotherapy arise, the questions often center on such questions as, how does one become culturally competent specifically? How can therapists and students provide culturally competent interventions that increase the likelihood of success?

While there are numerous resources for practitioners on the subject, the ambiguity remains of what actually constitutes effective multicultural counseling and psychotherapy and how it should be incorporated into sessions. Culture and the Therapeutic Process addresses these questions and more, examining the role culture plays in each stage of the therapeutic process, from before the clinical intake to termination. Each chapter is devoted to one of these stages and provides practical strategies, techniques, examples, and case studies.

Editors are Mark M. Leach, Professor and Training Director of the Counseling Psychology program at the University of Louisville; and Jamie D. Aten, Assistant Director of Health and Mental Health for the Katrina Research Center and Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi.

As reported in Culture and the Therapeutic Process, the book largely grew from Leach and Aten’s frustration with parts of the literature suggesting that some cultural variable ‘should be considered’ or that therapists ‘should be aware of’ a cultural factor in order to engage in some culturally sensitive intervention with no clinical strategies or application guidelines. In most cases, these comments were never followed with specifics of how culture should be considered or developed, leaving counselors wondering how to practically include culture in counseling. Contributors to the volume discuss practical ways of including culture throughout the counseling process, instead of relying on individuals to just ‘consider cultural issues.’ Each chapter equates to a particular stage of therapy, beginning with self-awareness and knowledge, and ending with the inclusion of culture when terminating treatment. It focuses on the individual (therapist and client), rather than agency or community levels of cultural competence.

Each chapter in Culture and the Therapeutic Process provides practical examples, techniques, and strategies to assist therapists. Many of the examples and strategies are practical, giving readers new ways to consider the influence of culture in areas previously not thoroughly considered in the literature. Leach and Aten recognize that there is some overlap among a few of the chapters but also realize that stages within the therapeutic process do not occur independently; thus some overlap is expected in order to offer context to the chapters.

In Chapter 2, Leach, Aten, Boyer, Strain, and Bradshaw introduce readers to the need for increasing therapist self-awareness as a cultural being, and knowledge needed to create and maintain an effective therapeutic relationship. Self-awareness and knowledge reflect respect for the culturally diverse client, and the authors present an overview of some of the common issues found in the competency triad literature. They present obstacles to developing cultural self-awareness, followed by multiple practical exercises and assessment methods designed to enhance self-awareness and knowledge. Fontes incorporates a multitude of ways to conduct an intake interview in a culturally competent manner in Chapter 3, walking readers through each segment of the intake, offering examples and cultural considerations for therapists.

Paniagua, in Chapter 4, offers alternative means of assessing and diagnosing culturally diverse clients. He begins with a discussion of the impact of acculturation assessment and diagnosis, followed by the influence of racism and cultural identity on these counseling segments. Paniagua then moves to the selection of culturally appropriate tests including the mental status exam, discussion of culture-bound syndromes and cultural variations, and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) cultural recommendations. In Chapter 5, Constantine, Miville, Kindaichi, and Owens illustrate the importance of incorporating cultural issues into case conceptualizations, with the resultant implications for therapy. The authors address how personal biases can impede robust case conceptualizations and offer a case conceptualization highlighting the bias. They present the taxonomy that includes cultural considerations based on the therapist's theoretical orientation.

Johnson and Sandhu present ways to develop treatment plans that embrace a variety of cultural contexts in Chapter 6 of Culture and the Therapeutic Process. They present perspectives of different worldviews and their impact on therapist, client, and professional and theoretical biases. They offer specific skills related to treatment planning and follow with a multitude of specific questions to ask the client, and questions for therapists to ask themselves. Finally, the authors present a checklist for culturally congruent treatment planning and examples of culturally related treatments.

In Chapter 7, Roysircar and Gill highlight cultural issues that arise when establishing a positive therapeutic relationship. The authors focus on cultural encapsulation and decapsulation, using trainee process notes to highlight topics that can arise when developing the relationship. These narrative notes are liberally included throughout the chapter and offer readers insights into trainee thoughts, transitions, and transformations.

Treatment implementation and recommended approaches to working with clients of diverse socio-cultural backgrounds are presented in Chapter 8. Utsey, Fischer, and Belvet begin by discussing how Western worldviews limit the therapeutic possibilities, and how personality development, mental illness, and healthy psychological functioning are influenced by culture. The authors review socio-cultural models of therapy, followed by a case study, including brief transcripts of the therapeutic intervention.

Ridley and Shaw-Ridley present a three-stage model of termination within a cultural context in Chapter 9. Culture is often overlooked when considering termination issues and the authors present insight into important factors during their pretermination, active termination, and post-termination phases. They incorporate multiple brief cases from which to accentuate their points. They offer practical means to sustain treatment outcomes and offer readers vast culturally appropriate social support components.

In Chapter 10, Fukuyama and Phan present a case study that includes central cultural variables found in multicultural counseling and therapy. Issues such as acculturation, identity, vocational development, and family relationships are presented. Clinical themes and commentary are provided, as is a liberal use of transcripts of therapeutic sessions. The authors include their own reflections and tie together many of the areas presented in earlier sections of Culture and the Therapeutic Process.

In Chapter 11, Vandiver and Duncan present best cultural practices in four areas: (a) help seeking, (b) assessment, (c) treatment, and (d) training and supervision. This is accomplished by providing a brief review of clinical research that informs counselors about practicing multicultural counseling and by offering ways that this research can be applied to practice.

Solidly grounded in personal experience, clinical knowledge, and research-based information, this volume contains a wealth of practically applicable suggestions and makes a strong and well-reasoned case for culture suffusing psychotherapy in all of its aspects. It provides an excellent introduction to the field, but its fresh and novel approach makes it also attractive to seasoned clinicians immersed in practicing psychotherapy with a culturally diverse clientele. – Juris G. Draguns, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University

This is a practical book on multiculturalism. The contributors are experts, wise in experience and up-to-the-minute knowledge about culture and psychotherapy. If you see any diversity of clients (or do research on psychotherapy), this book will help you. – Everett L. Worthington, Jr., PhD, Professor, Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University

The editors and chapter authors of this book present an inclusive approach that goes beyond the question of ‘what is your culture’ to the more significant question of who are your culture teachers. The developmental sequence across chapters is complex and dynamic in contrast with other sometimes simplistic and stereotyped presentations about culture. – Paul B. Pedersen, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Counseling and Human Services, Syracuse University; Visiting Professor, University of Hawaii

Culture and the Therapeutic Process offers readers a way of including culture throughout each stage of treatment. Readers will find new ways to consider the influence of culture and expand their own knowledge and skills as practitioners. They will find the combination of literature and experience, as shown in the practical examples, very useful. The book also helps readers determine where their areas for cultural growth lie and offers practical examples that mental health professionals can use to begin or continue their cultural journey.

History / Asia / India / Europe / Germany

Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism: Ancient India's Rebirth in Modern Germany by Douglas T. McGetchin (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press)

German Romantics in the late eighteenth century recognized echoes of their own concerns for nature, sentiment, and religious transcendence in ancient Indian literature. Intrigued by this distant world, they enthusiastically promoted its antiquity, beauty, and a unique linguistic connection between German and Sanskrit, a language they believed predated Greek.

Investigating the growth of Indology – the study of East Indian texts, literature, and culture – and the diffusion of this knowledge about ancient India within nineteenth-century Germany, Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism contextualizes approaches to contact by historically grounding them in a contemporary history of German culture, education, and science. The book, written by Douglas T. McGetchin, Assistant Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, answers the historical anomaly of why Germany had more nineteenth-century experts in the academic discipline of Indology than all other European powers combined despite the lack of German colonies there. German interest in ancient India developed because it was useful for widely varying German projects, including Romanticism and nationalism. German Indologists made successful arguments about the cultural and intellectual relevance of ancient India for modern Germany, leaving an ambiguous legacy including a deeper appreciation of South Asian culture as well as scholarly justifications for the warlike image of a Swastika-bearing Aryan 'master race'.

Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism analyzes the growth of German Indology (the Orientalist study of South Asian texts, literature, and culture) and the diffusion of this knowledge in modern Germany. Through a comparative examination of Indology in Britain and France to highlight the German case, this study reveals that German Indologists received official governmental sanction and formed a close network of scholarship that performed crucial functions within Germany. Germans found Indological knowledge to be malleable, useful for widely varying projects including maintaining its Romantic roots, providing cultural assets for the state, and creating an unintended countercultural undercurrent within German society.

Indology also was able to grow because German Indologists made successful arguments to German governmental ministers about the cultural and intellectual relevance of ancient India for modern Germany. These goals included the pursuit of a narrow, scientific, and positivistic philological approach to Indology to benefit the growth of German science, and a German polity that drew heavily upon the idea of linguistic affinity. Indology promoted nationalism and state power by providing an intellectual basis for German greatness through a linguistic Aryan pedigree, developing alongside colonialism and its articulation of European superiority.

The translations and scholarly work of Indologists created a momentum of their own and became hard to control. The cultural traditions of South Asia, including Buddhism, provided a viable alternative to those who experienced the despair of the fin de siecle and a discontent with what they saw as a European civilization in decline. Part of Indology's ambiguous legacy includes the perpetuation of racism, supplying significant tools that Nazis used later.

The study of Sanskrit contributed to the growth of science and led to the rapid dissemination in Europe of important works of Indian literature and religion. Investigating both the growth of academic Indology and the nonacademic diffusion of that knowledge to answer important questions about the complex interrelationship of academic disciplines, government, and culture, Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism uses hitherto neglected sources, including university and state archives in Berlin and Lepzig, the Prussian ministry of education, and Indological works.

While Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism is limited to the German study of India within a specified period, explaining why there was such an unlikely preponderance of Sanskrit professors in Germany, the issues and concerns raised in the book are applicable to any cross-cultural encounter. Ultimately, investigating both the growth of academic Indology and the nonacademic diffusion of that knowledge helps to answer important and fundamental questions about the interrelationship of academic disciplines, government, and culture outside the university.

History / Military / Europe / Arts & Photography

The Royal Italian Air Force, 1923-1945 [Regia Aeronautica Italiana] by Spencer A. Coil & Renato Zavattini (Schiffer Military History Series: Schiffer Publishing Co.)

We are devoted to a strong aerial policy. All one has to do is to look at a map to see that Italy will never have a sufficient number of aircraft to defend itself. – Prime Minister Benito Mussolini

We watched with compassionate admiration the gallant Macchi 200 pilots die in their flying crates beside the stukas they had to protect.... – Rudolf Sinner, Technical Officer of II/JG 27, 1942

In The Royal Italian Air Force, 1923-1945 the authors have assembled over 600 images from private photo albums and individual groupings offering a unique perspective on the Royal Italian Air Force ( Regia Aeronautica) from 1923-1945. There are period photos of the everyday life and adventures of pilots and personnel on a variety of war fronts and campaigns. In addition, there are images of Regia Aeronautica, Aviazione Legionaria and Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana aircraft as well as candid photos of aces such as ltalo Balbo and high profile figures such as German Knight's Cross recipient Italian General Giovanni Messe. The color gallery also contains heretofore unpublished images of period headdress, uniforms, and accoutrements from private collections.

Authors are Dr. Spencer Anthony Coil, independent scholar, consultant and frequent guest speaker on military history and Dr. Renato Zavattini, formerly at the University of San Paulo, teacher of history and philosophy.

A complete history of the Regia Aeronautica, its men, and its methods is outside the scope of The Royal Italian Air Force, 1923-1945. Instead, Coil and Zavattini present the history of the force and its members in times of peace and war. They include images from private albums, collections, and archives. The book covers the birth of the force and the 1920s, the men, the aces, the planes and the tactics.

As a result of the service provided by Italian aviators during the First World War, the Regia Aeronautica, or Royal Italian Air Force, was created by Royal Decree on March 28, 1923. The decree combined the aerial forces of the army and navy to form a unified air force, just as Great Britain had done with the creation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. The force's first commander was General Pier Ruggero Piccio. Its newly-designed flag was presented on November 4, 1923, the fifth anniversary of the date on which the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy's chief opponent in the war, signed an armistice. Thanks to the efforts of Secretary of State for Air Italo Balbo, the fledgling air force developed rapidly in the late 1920s. Aviation schools specializing not only in flying, but also in navigation, etc., were established. In the 1930s, Italian aviators gained international acclaim by setting numerous aviation records such as timed flights between Europe and North America. Perhaps one of the greatest military accomplishments during this period was the development of strategic bombing theories by aerial strategist Giulio Douhet.

With its increase in size, and the improvements in materials and technical advances, the Regia Aeronautica made great strides during its first decade. Fifty-four new airports and airfields were constructed in Somalia, and twenty-eight more were built in Eritrea to the north. They would be required for the five hundred military aircraft employed by the Italians in the region.

The Spanish Civil War proved to be a difficult test of the Regia Aeronautica's capabilities. Less than two weeks after the fascist ‘Caudillo’ Francisco Franco declared war on Spain's republican government, Italy unofficially entered the war on the side of the former. During the war, Italy's air force flew more than 8,500 war missions. Without a doubt the Spanish Civil War provided both the Italian and German Air Forces with invaluable information about combat aviation for the coming conflict, and especially value in coordinating fighter and bomber attacks. Both sides employed combat aircraft in Spain, and this gave the Italians, as well as the Germans, the opportunity to assess their combat aviation capabilities. However, air combat in Spain was nothing like it would be in the coming world war, and the Italian High Command thus entered war against the Allies with an inflated impression of their air force's equipment and capabilities.

At the beginning of World War II Italy only possessed about 3300 military aircraft. Of this number approximately 1,300 were bombers, 1,100 were fighters, and 800 were reconnaissance aircraft. Of that number only about half of them were operational, and these were deployed over a wide area. Of the Regia Aeronautica's 105,000 personnel, only about 6,300 of them were pilots. The Regia Aeronautica was both under-equipped and understaffed. Additionally, most of its aircraft were obsolete by then-modern standards, and what aircraft were able to fly were expected to operate on vastly scattered fronts. And even though the technical expertise of the air force's mechanics was high, their abilities were not able to overcome the poor design quality of the aircraft they were expected to maintain.

As told in The Royal Italian Air Force, 1923-1945, the battlefronts over which the Regia Aeronautica served were varied and widespread: East Africa, France, North Africa, the Balkans, Russia, and the Mediterranean. It even played a small part in the ill-fated Battle of Britain in 1940. And despite the degree of opposition it faced. Men and machines fought to the bitter end. From 1940 to 1945, the Regia Aeronautica suffered the loss of 9,000 men killed and 3,500 missing.

When Italy signed an armistice with the western Allies in 1943, the Regia Aeronautica had only a few hundred aircraft left in its arsenal, many of them unable to get off the ground. In 1944 the Allies supplied it with obsolete aircraft, so that it might carry on the war against the Germans. Its pilots and aircrew fought valiantly against its former ally in the Balkans, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Greece. On June 2, 1946, more than a year after the end of the war in the West, a proclamation announced the end of the Regia Aeronautica and the birth of the new Italian Air Force, the Aeronautica Militare Italiana.

While their brethren carried on the fight for the Allied cause, airmen loyal to the Fascist cause fought on for the R.S.I., or Italian Social Republic, as the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, or Republican National Air Force. This formation, though, is outside the scope of The Royal Italian Air Force, 1923-1945.

Throughout the war the Regia Aeronautica experienced difficulty in training new pilots and aircrew. Chronic deficiencies in both aircraft and fuel limited the duration and quality of training, and the result was a lower life expectancy in combat for these brave men.

Fighter pilots' training consisted of three phases: basic, advanced, and operational, all of which were inferior to the training regime of his opponents. Like their opponents, Italian pilots excelled at aerobatics, at least those who survived their first few fights. Unlike their foes, Italian fighter pilots often had to do without radio equipment, which required them to fly in tight formations. However, once battle was joined fighter formations quickly split up so the pilots could engage in individual combat. If pilots were to survive they had to be especially aggressive: to turn and run from an opponent flying a better designed aircraft with a much more powerful engine was not an option. Also, Italian pilots and crews were not rotated out like their American counterparts after a specific number of missions, but continued to fly for as long as they were able.

As with all of the world's air forces, aerobatics formed the basis of fighter tactics in the Regia Aeronautica. Squadron and flight leaders developed their own maneuvers, which they added to those taught in the schools to their young pilots. Thus, each squadron might employ different tactics. This was a necessary survival tactic, since Italian pilots almost always flew against adversaries flying more powerful and better-armed aircraft. While on patrol, pilots generally flew in standard V-formation, in which the patrol leader was flanked by two wingmen, surrounded by more such ‘Vs.’

According to The Royal Italian Air Force, 1923-1945, historians are finally beginning to give the force credit for having fought with gallantry, and the bravery of its pilots and air crewmen is beyond question. This was often remarked on by friend and foe alike, who were often amazed that the Italian Air Force was able to accomplish so much with so little. Lack of radio equipment in many aircraft, a lack of fuel and replacement parts, obsolete airplanes, and a lack of modern aircraft technology did not prevent the men of the Italian Air Force from doing their duty, though all too often at the cost of their lives.

The Royal Italian Air Force, 1923-1945 is not a technical history of this long-overlooked subject but a unique tome that illustrates the men and the equipment of the Italian Air Force, all the more interesting because it illustrates the human side of this subject. The book, through its extensive use of never-before-seen photographs, conveys the bravery and emotion of those who fought, and helps to preserve the memory of those who died.

History / Outdoors & Nature / Conservation / Biographies & Memoirs

No Place Like Home: Notes from a Western Life by Linda M. Hasselstrom (University of Nevada Press)

For anyone curious about the state of the contemporary West, Linda Hasselstrom, writer, teacher, rancher, offers a report from the front, where nature and human aspirations are often at odds, and where the concepts of community and mutual responsibility are being redefined.

In No Place Like Home, Hasselstrom contemplates the changing nature of community in the modern West, where old family ranches are being turned into subdivisions and historic towns are evolving into mean, congested cities. Her scrutiny, like her life, moves back and forth between her ranch on the South Dakota prairie and her house in an old neighborhood at the edge of downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming. The vignettes that form the foundation of her consideration are drawn from the communities she has known during her life in the West, reflecting on how they have grown, thrived, failed, and changed, and highlighting the people and decisions that shaped them.

Hasselstrom's ruminations are both intensely personal and universal. She laments the disappearance of the old prairie ranches and the rural sense of community and mutual responsibility that sustained them, but she also discovers that a spirit of community can be found in unlikely places and among unlikely people. The stories as a whole define Hasselstrom's idea of how a true community should work, and what kind of place she wants to live in.

Contents of No Place Like Home include:

Prologue: A 54 Chevy Named Beulah
Selling the Ranch
Dear John: How to Move to the Country
The School Bus Driver Waved
Laughter in the Alley
Tomato Cages Are Metaphors
A Rocket Launcher in the Closet
The Beauty of Responsibility
Watching for Grizzlies Anyway
He Pinched the Burning End
Shoveling Snow in the Dark
Stalking Coffee in Sitka
Recycling Freedom
Tattoos and a Thong
Learning the Names of Cows
How to Live at the Dump
It Doesn't Just Happen
Making Pottery out of Sewage
Pray for Me I Drive Highway 79
The Stolen Canoe Mystery
Playing Pool with the Cat Men
Sounding the Writing Mudhole
Investigating the Heron Murders
Who's Driving the Subdivision?
Overlooking Antelope Ridge
Epilogue: Waiting for the Storm

Hasselstrom explores the making – and breaking – of community in the American West, a clear-eyed view of those areas identified by most as `rural' western towns, farming and ranching communities – and the division between past norms and current trends in the regions she calls home. She writes from the heart of the West, and her story is a compelling, straight-from-the-hip rendering of the reality of modern western life. Her message is timely, and it suggests there's hope that the current polemics dividing the West might yet be resolved before all that's good and true is gone. – Judy Blunt, author of Breaking Clean

No Place Like Home promises to be one of Hasselstrom's very best books. She is defining the notion of community in today's American West. Moving back and forth between her South Dakota home place and her recent years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, she looks for both continuities and contradictions. Given the narrowness of these two milieus, a reader might expect the essays to be restricted. But the opposite is true. Hasselstrom seeks universal truths about both contemporary ranching and current city dwelling. She has her feet in both worlds, and the resulting essays are superb. – Ann Ronald, author of Oh, Give Me a Home: Western Contemplations

Hasselstrom’s voice in No Place Like Home is unique and honest, both compassionate and cranky, full of love for the harsh, hauntingly beautiful shortgrass prairie that is her home, and rich in understanding of the intricacies of the natural world around her and the infinite potentials of human commitment, hope, and greed.

Home & Garden / Home Design / Reference

I’ve come to believe that to pull back from planetary eco-cide, and the accompanying misery of isolation and meaninglessness, requires of us precisely the rethinking to which this book calls us. To revitalize ourselves, our communities, our homes, and our planet is not a question of sacrifice. It’s a question of listening within ourselves to discover what really makes us happy. It’s about finding our power. – Frances Moore Lappé, from the foreword

In Little House on a Small Planet Shay Salomon says, “Many of us know someone who has suffered the consequences of an inflated mortgage, an overwhelming construction project, or a house simply too large to keep clean. Will our dream home always be a celebration of excess, and a drain on our lives? How much space does it take to be happy? Working in construction, I watched people's dream houses balloon into unmanageable giants. I saw the effect on homeowners, the psychological, social, and financial toll, and I looked for new options that could lead them to a simpler, happier home.”

Little House on a Small Planet is a guidebook and an invitation. With floor plans, photographs, advice, and anecdotes, this unique book asks and answers, “What fills a home when the excess is cut away, and how do we get there from here?”

Readers will discover how to:

Build, remodel, redecorate, or just rethink their needs.
Think, sometimes literally, outside the box.
Live close and simple.
Apply spiritual and social solutions to their material desires.

Salomon, a former social worker, is a carpenter who has built several tiny houses, a construction manager, and a workshop leader. She and photographer Nigel Valdez visited more than a hundred homes while researching this book.

According to Salomon in Little House on a Small Planet, construction has some alarming effects on the environment. Forty percent of all the raw materials humans consume are used in construction. Most of the trees we cut down become buildings. Half of the copper we mine becomes wire and pipe inside these buildings. Building an average house adds seven tons of waste to the landfill. New-house construction is arguably the single greatest threat to endangered species: even in areas where human population is on the decline, animals and plants are more threatened each day, due to the construction of new houses.

Working as a natural builder, Salomon tried to ease the destruction of construction by using nontoxic, natural materials, and by designing homes in alignment with the sun's path, the prevailing winds, and other natural factors. Throughout North America building has been influenced by ‘green’ thinking, and houses have improved, but despite major advances in insulation and design, the typical house built today requires almost as much energy to heat and cool as one built in 1960. Why? Because it's bigger. House size and location are the greatest determinants of a home's effect on the environment. The challenge to builders is to construct a single-family house as efficient as a New York City apartment, which, on the average, uses a fraction of the energy of a typical detached house. All over North America, people are taking up this challenge. They see that excessive housing has not led to excessive happiness. They build, remodel, redecorate, or just rethink their needs, prudently and calmly, constructing a sane life around themselves. Little House on a Small Planet reports on the designs and patterns they've come up with, and the values they share. The fourteen principles in the book are a condensation of a few hundred people's experiences, and offer the foundations of a simpler and happier home.

Salomon asks, How did the ‘American Dream’ become a dream about a big house? During a brief stint as a social worker, she became certain that if the women she counseled just had their own homes, they'd be able to work out their other problems easily. It's a simple, straightforward solution, and she wanted to be part of it. So she returned to the kind of construction labor work she had done before college.

Fairly quickly she was attracted to solar architecture, or sustainable design, and she learned about adobe, and then straw-bale construction. So she understands the attraction of building. She saw data about the shrinking size of households, and how it contributes to higher energy demand. She also visited older houses. She learned that historically in Japan rooms were measured in tatami mats, which are about 3 feet by 6 feet, so a fourand-a-half-tatami room measured about 9 feet by 9 feet, or 81 square feet. Four tatami also meant the room had space to host four visitors overnight, since each tatami can host one sleeper.

She read more local history. After World War I, surviving soldiers returned home to a depressed economy, a housing shortage, and populist social movements that worried some parts of the U.S. government. Developers proposed the FHA as a solution to many problems: In 1948 William J. Levitt was quoted as saying, "No man who owns his own house and lot can be a communist. He has too much to do." The Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation was founded later, and made a cornerstone of its mission the creation of affordable housing. It has acted more conservatively, insisting on higher down payments and lower interest rates (see Chapter 4). Still, the Canadian and U.S. patterns are very similar.

Of all the research, the most compelling information Salomon saw was about vacancy rates. In 2005, after hurricane Katrina, she read a newspaper story about a family that offered their huge second home to a refugee family. Another story said that refugees in Houston were greeted with a 14 percent vacancy rate in that city. (Chapter 6). She turned to the U.S. Census, which reported in 2000 that 10.4 million units of housing were vacant. In comparison, about 250,000 people slept in homeless shelters. So there are about forty-five vacant homes per shelter occupant! If we created a huge national time-share, we could travel anywhere in the U.S., any of us, and still have a place to lay our heads at night. How is it that we have a housing crisis? Maybe a homing crisis, or a sharing crisis, but this isn't a housing crisis.

What does the future hold? As noted in Chapter 10, some cities are placing caps on house size. Les Walker, author of the classic Tiny Houses, says there's more interest for his book now than when it was published twenty years ago. Almost everyone is talking about simplifying their life.

The question really lies with banks. Banks hold an enormous amount of national debt, in the form of mortgages. If these houses drop in value, as many have, what will happen? Do banks really want to hold and maintain all those buildings? In the meantime, while we figure out an economic distribution system that works for everyone, there are things people in the small-house movement are doing to make their own lives, and their local communities, better. Little House on a Small Planet tells their story.

Eight years ago Salomon began collecting floor plans and photographs of people who live in much less space, to show them to clients who came to her for carpentry work or building consultation, and also to include in building classes she taught. The stories in Little House on a Small Planet include details. As she and Valdez traveled across the country interviewing and photographing people and houses for this book, they began to understand the breadth and depth of the small-house movement. Over the past few years, they traveled to about a hundred locations in twenty-four states and four Canadian provinces. Pockets of people all over the North American continent are realizing the benefits of scaling down. They are designing a new dream, one that reunites extended families, makes space for friends, and emphasizes home life over home maintenance.

Anyone who sleeps indoors and cares about the world will find something of interest inside. – Carol Venolia, Eco-architect, Natural Home & Garden columnist, and EcoDwelling faculty member at New College of California
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. For anyone who has ever dreamed of getting off the mortgage rat race and creating not just a house, but a cozy nest that fits – this is the book! Every page is an inspiration, filled with real-life stories and lessons learned on creating better, more affordable, sustainable, and very personalized housing. There is something here that will fit nearly every lifestyle. For those who want to live in a better way: Read this book! – Janet Luhrs, author of The Simple Living Guide and Simple Loving, and publisher of Simple Living Oasis

Salomon offers the savviest plan I've read for figuring out what house you really need.... her questions have forced me to rethink so much. – Marta Salij, Detroit Free Press

Little House on a Small Planet is the emergency user’s guide needed by humanity at this moment of global environmental crisis. – Gregory Paul Johnson, President of the Small House Society

The photographs alone are worth the price of this book.... [The] writing is clear, enjoyable, and inspiring. – Jack Challem, the “Nutrition Reporter” and the best-selling author of Syndrome X

Little House on a Small Planet is the essential guidebook to planning, building, renovating, and inhabiting an eco-friendly small house and offering hope that we can turn around the destructive slide.

Literature & Fiction / Classics

Adeline Mowbray, or The Mother and Daughter; A Tale by Amelia Anderson Opie, edited by Anne McWhir (Broadview Editions: Broadview Press)

In July 1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley, recently expelled from Oxford University for atheism, wrote to his friend and partner in crime Thomas Jefferson Hogg: "Miss Westbrook, Harriet, has advised me to read Mrs. Opie's ‘Mother and Daughter.’ She has sent it hither, and has desired my opinion with earnestness. What is this tale? But I shall read it to-night." Shelley eloped with Miss Westbrook, Harriet, the next month.

This Broadview Edition of Adeline Mowbray uses the first edition of 1805 as its copy text, but also includes important variants from the 1810 and 1844 editions, in which Opie cleans up some of her radical ideas.

This novel, written by Amelia Anderson Opie (1769-1853), touches on issues of race, gender roles, and women's education in the late eighteenth century. Adeline Mowbray tells a story of desire, transgression, and remorse over the lives of a mother and daughter. As the subtitle suggests, the novel begins and ends with the relationship between Adeline and her intellectual, experimental mother, Editha, but encompasses almost every other human relationship in the long journey between their rift and their reconciliation. Pursued and exploited by the same two men, Editha and Adeline are estranged from each other by jealousy and deceit, but finally reunited. A critique of the treatment of women in eighteenth-century society, the novel was inspired in part by the partnership between the Romantic writers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. The appendices include contemporary reviews and material expanding on the novel's themes of colonialism, women's education, marriage, and the tension between feeling and reason. It is the only stand-alone edition available.

The volume is edited by Anne McWhir, Professor of English at the University of Calgary, co-editor of The Broadview Anthology of Literature of the Revolutionary Period and editor of the Broadview Edition of Mary Shelley's The Last Man, who provides and introduction on which this review is based.

When Adeline Mowbray puts her mother Editha's radical theories into practice by eloping with, but not marrying, a notorious writer, the mother and daughter are estranged for many years, but finally reconciled. Adeline Mowbray, or The Mother and Daughter; A Tale is a colonialist novel in its relation to the Other: the dress of Turkish women, the self-immolation of Hindu widows, and the passionate decadence of Creole ladies provide at various points ways of thinking about the experience and virtues of English women. Major Douglas, one of the most decent men in the novel, has made his fortune in India; Charles Berrendale goes to Jamaica to manage an estate (including, inevitably, its slaves). Yet the most potentially dramatic event in the novel – the journey of a freed slave back to Jamaica – is almost parenthetical, recounted with neither drama nor specific detail. The central plot focuses on the failure of the mother-daughter relationship ("it was decreed that every thing the mother of Adeline did should accelerate the fate of her devoted daughter"), and its trajectory is directed relentlessly at the daughter's repentant homecoming.

In this sense, Adeline Mowbray is a romance turned inside out: adventure happens somewhere else, to someone else; marriage is a source of suffering, not an occasion for a happy ending; women learn to live without men, forming primary relationships with one another; and the final deathbed scene – one of several – is the fulfillment of Adeline's longing throughout the novel, a closing in of the world of travel and adventure on a central interior space. Adeline is, as a literal reading of the title might suggest, both a mother and a daughter; ultimately, through her child, she gives her own mother a second chance.

The fact that Amelia Briggs Alderson (Opie’s mother) died young makes it inevitable that her daughter should have found the influence that mothers' lives and attitudes have on their daughters particularly poignant. It also makes Mrs. Mowbray's inadequacy as a mother all the more striking, perhaps in contrast to Mrs. Alderson's recollected competence.

Caught between cultivating reason and principle (conventionally masculine and therefore at odds with the space women were expected to inhabit) and sensibility and sentiment (conventionally feminine and therefore a source of vulnerability), mothers have a difficult task in bringing up their daughters. Adeline Mowbray, both as daughter and as mother, illustrates precisely this tension between reason and feeling. Opie, perhaps more interestingly, struggles with the tension between the domestic space where Adeline reconciles herself to dying, and the wider world of journeys, commerce, slavery, revolution, and imperial adventure and exploitation.

Adeline Mowbray begins some time before the American War of Independence (1775-83). Adeline, raised on an idyllic country estate by her rich widowed mother, Editha, suffers neglect because of her mother's intellectual preoccupations. Although she is given some practical training by her uneducated but sensible grandmother, Adeline is mostly left to her own devices and learns revolutionary principles without the maternal guidance that might have put them in context. By the time she is a teenager, immersed in pro-revolutionary philosophy and politics and largely ignored by a mother who adopts fashionable opinions the way other women adopt fashionable dress, Adeline has become a quietly fervent supporter of the ‘new philosophy.’

From the outset, this is a novel about false learning. Editha Mowbray, in spite of her reputation as a ‘learned lady’, seems to have learned little from her reading but a sense of her own importance. While she frets about whether children should go barefoot or wear shoes, and while she imposes on her daughter a meager diet she has no intention of following herself, narrator and readers agree that she is ridiculous. Mrs. Mowbray's inconsistency, vacillation; and impracticality make her an inadequate parent, a foolish woman, and an irrational thinker.

Like many another mother and daughter, Editha and Adeline in Adeline Mowbray head off to Bath, equipped for disaster by inexperience. The mother's intellectual pretensions being a mere facade, she is looking for love. The daughter's principles having been formed in isolation from the practical world, she is looking for the romance of realized ideals. Mrs. Mowbray is thirty-eight; Adeline is eighteen. Both expect to find suitors. Adeline first meets an Irish colonel, Mordaunt, who, having no intention of marrying, does the honorable thing and leaves town. Second, she meets Frederic Glenmurray, the author of the very books that have already persuaded her that marriage is a corrupt institution. Innocent to a fault, Adeline has no idea that her opinions are socially repugnant. Her mother is appalled when she finally realizes that Adeline means what she says: ideas are for Adeline principles of action, not merely clever forms of words.

When Adeline and Glenmurray fall in love, Mrs. Mowbray (to Adeline's surprise, but not to readers’) will not consent to them living together outside of marriage. Even Glenmurray seems to realize, perhaps for the first time, that theory may not provide the best practical model for life in a world of prejudice – or, at least, of principles different from his own. The ambiguity that confuses high-minded principle with vice is highlighted by Sir Patrick O'Carroll, a handsome young Irishman who has his eye on the mother's fortune and on the daughter's beauty. When Adeline expresses her view of marriage and states her unwillingness to submit to such a degrading institution, she expects Glenmurray to be pleased. However; "[t]o her great disappointment ... his countenance was sad; while sir Patrick, on the contrary, had an expression of impudent triumph in his look, which made her turn blushing from his ardent gaze, and indignantly follow her mother, who was then leaving the room". Principle strong enough to be consistent with practice dooms Adeline to be regarded as and treated like a prostitute. Adeline Mowbray critiques both her principles and the social prejudices that justify others abusing her.

Although Glenmurray has written a book against dueling, he accepts a challenge from Sir Patrick, is wounded, and must bear Adeline's rebuke. Editha Mowbray, on the other hand, gives up her dream-world of theory and speculation for a new dream-world of sexual fantasy. Revealing the conventionality and naiveté that underlie her studied eccentricity, she falls for Sir Patrick O'Carroll. Before the Bath season is over, she has married her Irishman and gone with him and Adeline to live in Berkshire. Predictably, Sir Patrick attempts to seduce – probably more accurately to rape – Adeline (now his stepdaughter). She escapes and is reunited with Glenmurray. The lovers flee and eventually, driven to find a warmer climate by Glenmurray's declining health, they move to Portugal.

Opie in Adeline Mowbray seems to think it important to emphasize that Adeline's elopement is reasonable. Adeline, she persuades readers, is not another frail heroine driven by passion, sensibility, and delusion into her lover's arms; she has no other recourse than Glenmurray's protection if she is to avoid Sir Patrick's aggression, for her mother cannot or is unwilling to help her. Adeline loves Glenmurray – but readers may suspect that she loves her self-defined virtue and principle more. And here again the novel's ambiguities and paradoxes tease readers and – slowly – become apparent even to Adeline. Glenmurray may think marriage a foolish institution; but his belief does not make it possible for him to introduce Adeline to his acquaintances. Running away from such a social impasse, the lovers move from Portugal to France. When Sir Patrick is accused of bigamy and accidentally drowns, Adeline and Glenmurray return to England in the hope of being reconciled with Adeline's mother. Adeline, now pregnant, sees her mother only to be driven away: blaming her daughter for Sir Patrick's rejection, Editha vows never to see her again until she is on her deathbed. This rejection, rather than the elopement with Glenmurray, appears to be the turning point in Adeline's fortunes.

The lovers settle in Richmond, where Adeline once again sees Colonel Mordaunt, the confirmed bachelor (and libertine) who was her first suitor in Bath. Various episodes make Adeline increasingly aware of what it means to be the pregnant mistress of a dying man. Glenmurray has by now given up his own theory and has expressed his desire to marry, realizing what Adeline's future will be when he dies. Nevertheless, almost driven to the altar by the horrors she observes, Adeline has a miscarriage and – with her usual principled perversity – changes her mind.

A significant meeting is with Savanna, the ‘mulatto’ woman whose sick husband Adeline rescues from a cruel creditor and who, at an earlier stage of her life, has been a slave in Jamaica. Opie's representation of the racialized Other in Adeline Mowbray, typical of liberal views at the time, may well offend modern readers. Yet her sympathy for people of color and for the slaves she had read about since childhood would be a guiding principle throughout her life.

The institution of slavery contributed a problematic but pervasive metaphor to the discourse of writing on women's rights, and the fact that Savanna is a woman of color makes the metaphor all the more insistent: a free woman in England, Savanna is nevertheless figuratively enslaved by her race, class, and gender. Savanna helps to nurse Glenmurray, who dies, having recanted many of his radical opinions. She is to some degree Adeline's alter ego: both women love men who die; both are socially marginalized and oppressed. Yet (whether or not Opie intends this), the relationship between the two women also points to some telling similarities between devotion and enslavement. Neither slaves nor servants, Adeline and her daughter are, nevertheless, commodities to be exchanged: like Savanna, they are defined in terms of their relationship to those who protect, govern, and pay for them. Yet Adeline's relative power comes from her ability to pay for and control the fate of others, rather than merely being controlled herself: economic exchange makes benevolence possible, and one of Adeline's last acts is to request that her mother continue to support an unmarried mother and her child, the objects of Adeline's charity. Opie's critique of corrupt institutions aims at a change of heart, the individual conversion of those with the power and money to make a difference.

Temporarily mad with grief following Glenmurray's death, Adeline recovers and sets up a school outside London. A former servant turns up in the village to reveal the story of Adeline's past. Forced to move on, Adeline finally marries Berrendale more than two years after Glenmurray's death. He turns out to be selfish and greedy, ruled by unrestrained appetites for food and also for sex. Their daughter Editha is born some fifteen months after the marriage; but by then Adeline has suffered from Berrendale's unfaithfulness, neglect, and unkindness. When Editha is two years old, Berrendale leaves for Jamaica, where he is to manage the estate of his first wife's father.

Adeline, Savanna, and Editha set off for Cumberland, where Adeline's mother now lives. The novel seems to draw in on itself: the larger world – India, Jamaica, even London – seems no longer relevant. By now, Adeline is entirely persuaded that her earlier opinions and convictions were false. Far from advocating independent thinking, she has come to believe that children should be taught ‘sympathies with general society’. She no longer wants even reconciliation with her mother on her own account, but only for the sake of her daughter, little Editha. For Adeline is by now convinced that she is dying. Once Adeline arrives in Cumberland, readers learn that Mrs. Pemberton has settled near Mrs. Mowbray, and that the two women have become friends. They are looking for Mrs. Mowbray's lost daughter, not realizing that Adeline, seriously ill, is confined at a poor man's house in the neighborhood. Adeline Mowbray ends with Adeline's death in her mother's house, surrounded by her mother, her daughter, and Savanna, her surrogate parents, Mrs. Pemberton and Dr. Norberry, looking on.

Opie's novel could be read as a commentary on the laws regarding marriage. Her characters include two bigamists (Sir Patrick and Berrendale) and a couple ‘married’ in the eyes of God, though not according to the laws of church and state (Glenmurray and Adeline). Opie appears to challenge the binary categorization of women as either respectable (i.e., either married or celibate) or disreputable (i.e., whores). Opie, who had frequented trials during her early years in Norwich and who was herself the wife of a divorced man, demonstrates an informed understanding of laws governing inheritance, the social and legal effects of illegitimacy, the sexual hypocrisy of both men and women, the function of marriage in fashionable society, and the crucial practical importance of documents proving the legality of a marriage. Her knowledge is as much a criticism of ‘things as they are’ as it is an endorsement of legal order: marriage, the novel seems to argue, should certainly be more than a mere official act – yet a document is enough to make the difference between degradation and respectability.

As told in the introduction to Adeline Mowbray, this is not merely a novel of 1805. In its context and resonance, it spans the whole period from the American and French Revolutions, through the death of Wollstonecraft, the agitation leading up to the Slave Trade Abolition Act of 1807, the Napoleonic period, the period of reaction that followed it, into the first years of Victoria's reign. As we have seen, it perhaps influenced Percy and Harriet Shelley. Dorothy Wordsworth, more conservative than Shelley in her social attitudes, claimed that it "made us quite sick before we got to the end of it." Charlotte Bronte perhaps found in the description of Berrendale's Creole wife, who "might even attack Berrendale's life in the first moment of ungoverned passion", a hint for the much more fully developed character of Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre (1847).

Anne McWhir’s new edition of Amelia Opie’s Adeline Mowbray deftly positions the text in its larger cultural and global context. It also pays notable attention to the author’s revisions of the text over the course of the nineteenth century, thus leading us to consider the ways in which conventions associated with the Victorian novel evolve out of romantic-era fiction. – Roxanne Eberte, University of Georgia

Whether the novel is radical, as some scholars have attempted to argue, or profoundly conservative, as some of Opie's nineteenth-century admirers believed, is less important than the range of questions it raises and reflects on. Powerful and complex, this engaging novel explores many issues important in the Romantic period, from women's education to the ethics of slavery and colonialism. In addition, the revisions of Adeline Mowbray through the period from 1805 to 1844 allow readers to trace the passage of a highly intelligent and well-connected writer from her youth in fashionable and radical society in the late eighteenth century, through literary fame in the early nineteenth century, to her abandonment of fiction after she joined the Society of Friends – and they invite readers to speculate on her changing attitude to her own story, to the story she was telling, and to the telling of stories in general.

According to McWhir in the introduction, Opie lived to see at least one of her lifelong goals accomplished: the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire. When Opie's life as a poet, novelist, fashionable beauty, and wife was well behind her, she had good reason for high spirits, and good reason to feel at home in the world she had played a considerable role in bringing into being. She never had a daughter of her own, but – a child of Empire and Enlightenment she was one of the mothers of the Victorian world.

Literature & Fiction / Religion & Spirituality

Yiddish Literature in America 1870-2000 edited and with an introduction by Emanuel S. Goldsmith translated by Barnett Zumoff (KTAV Publishing House)

Between 1870 and 2000, the years covered by Yiddish Literature in America 1870-2000, Yiddish literature blossomed from its modest beginnings into a world literature that is the qualitative equal of any of the world s great literatures. Poetry and prose poured out of dozens of great authors in a way rarely seen in previous literary history. Largely unknown to many readers, a large proportion, perhaps the majority, of this Yiddish literature was written in America rather than Europe.

A proper, comprehensive anthology of the American Yiddish literature did not exist until Emanuel Goldsmith published, in 1999, his monumental two-volume, 1300-page anthology in the original Yiddish. The current English translation, by Barnett Zumoff, presents about one-fourth of this material so that readers who do not know Yiddish can sample this great literature. Selections from great authors such as Sholem Aleichem, Moris Rozenfeld, Dovid Edelshtat, Avrum Reyzn, Sholem Ash, Yehoyesh, Ana Margolin, Tsilye Drapkin, Mani Leyb, Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Kadya Molodovsky, Rokhl Korn, H. Leyvik, Yankev Glatshteyn, Itsik Manger, Reyzl Zikhlinsky, and Yitskhok Bashevis Zinger will be of great interest to many.

The translator, Barnett Zumoff is Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a prolific translator. The editor, Emanuel S. Goldsmith is Professor of Yiddish and Jewish Studies at Queens College of the City University of New York and Rabbi of Congregation M’vakshe Derech in Scarsdale, NY.

As told in Yiddish Literature in America 1870-2000, American Yiddish literature provides the most complete, most condensed, and most authentic record of the changing image of American Jewry and of the Jewish people as a whole in the twentieth century. It is a complex and often bewildering image. The horrors of persecution and physical annihilation on the one hand, and the process of identity-erosion and language-assimilation on the other, wreaked havoc upon the thousand-year-old Ashkenazic Jewish civilization. Yet what was essentially a scattered, backward, medieval people at the dawn of the century attained national self-consciousness, forging a this-worldly political and cultural identity that is one of the wonders of Jewish history.

Together with the emergence of the modem Jewish religious movements, the rise of Jewish socialism, Zionism and the Hebraic renaissance and the birth of Israel, and the flowering of modern Yiddish literature and culture all over the world in the first half of the twentieth century are miracles of Jewish creative survival. The significance of Yiddish culture in the totality of the Jewish experience and in the vastness of the 4000-year-old Jewish heritage is still only vaguely realized. But the magnitude and significance of the Yiddish cultural achievement have made it an absolutely vital and essential dimension of modern Jewish continuity.

An important contribution to the field, bringing unknown treasures of Yiddish literature and thought to new readers, and for that we all owe them a debt of gratitude. – Aaron Lansky, President, National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst, MA
Finally, an anthology of Yiddish poetry, prose and essays that introduces the English reader to the richness of Yiddish literature in America. This collection includes well-known authors like Sholem Aeichem and I.B. Singer and others like Yoni Fayn, Melekh Ravitsh and Dora Teytlboym largely unknown in English translation. Barnett Zumoff's careful and fluid translations take readers on a literary and cultural odyssey that will educate, surprise, and delight! – Sheva Zucker, author of Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature & Culture, Vols. 1 and 2; editor of the Yiddish magazine Afn Shvel
In this splendid book, Emanuel Goldsmith as Editor and Barnett Zumoff as Translator, have combined their enormous talents to create a first-ever anthology of Yiddish literature in America fiction, poetry and essays. – Professor Curt Leviant, Editor, Masterpieces of Hebrew Literature: Selections from Two Thousand Years of Jewish Creativity

The excellent selections in Yiddish Literature in America 1870-2000 will delight, even amaze readers and quite likely stimulate them to delve further into the world of Yiddish literature.

Professional & Technical / Architecture / History

In 1991, Nevada's Commission for Cultural Affairs was created to oversee the preservation of the state's historic buildings and the conversion of the best of them for use as cultural centers. Working closely with local groups and drawing on both public and private resources, this program has rehabilitated dozens of historic structures. Nevada's Historic Buildings highlights 90 of these buildings, describing them in the context of the state's history and the character of the people who created and used them. Authors are Ronald M. James, Nevada’s Historic Preservation Officer; and Elizabeth Safford Harvey, who teaches history at Merced College and who has worked on Nevada listings for the National Register of Historic Places, conducted interviews for the Comstock Oral History Project, and served as a research consultant for the Nevada Historic Preservation Office.

The selections in Nevada's Historic Buildings reflect the innovation of early settlers struggling to make a home in an austere environment, as well as the diversification over time of Nevada's economy and population. These buildings are reminders of mining boomtowns, historic ranches, the transportation industry, the divorce and gaming industries, the New Deal and other federal programs, the prosperity of the last half of the twentieth century, and the innovations of Las Vegas's postmodern aesthetic. Their stories reflect the people and events that shaped Nevada. .

These remnants of Nevada's architectural heritage are scattered like flecks of gold across the state's map. Clinging to the sides of windswept mountains or perched beside desert springs, they bear witness to the state's history. When scrutinized, these quiet mementos surviving from earlier times can be made to speak about their eras, providing valuable insights into the development of Nevada's society and culture. For decades, however, many of these aged buildings were abandoned to the corrosive forces of time. Large portions of the state's cultural heritage were irredeemably lost, and significant evidence about the state's past dissolved into the landscape. Although many have engaged in heroic efforts to preserve some of these vestiges of the past, the demands of time, capital, and architectural expertise have too often spelled disaster for many of Nevada's icons of the past.

Two decades ago, a visionary group from Nevada's cultural community worked with members of the Nevada state legislature to address the problems confronting the state's stock of historic buildings. In 1991, a coalition of legislators called for the creation of the Nevada Commission for Cultural Affairs, an agency that would draw on both the public and the private sectors to preserve the best of these resources and to convert them into cultural centers. Key to the commission's work was its collaboration with local people. Each participating community selected the buildings it treasured most and transformed them into cultural centers. Thousands of volunteers picked what would be included in Nevada's Historic Buildings by saving the historic resources most cherished by their communities. Taken together, these refurbished structures represent the best of the survivors. Their stories document the development of the state and highlight key aspects of Nevada's history.

A good part of the American story consists of tales relating to the settlement of a vast continent, the taming of its lands, and the exploitation of its resources to serve the needs of agriculture and industry. The first chapter of Nevada's Historic Buildings opens with the region's tenuous beginnings. If it had not been for later events, the three buildings it highlights might have served as the foundation for a much different state.

The next chapter charts the dramatic events surrounding some of the greatest mineral strikes the world has ever known. It is the story of buildings constructed virtually overnight and seemingly ‘out of nothing’ that demands attention during Nevada's first mining boom. Eleven examples of the state's rich cultural heritage from this first mining era received commission support and are the subject of this chapter.

The other side of early Nevada is the subject of the third chapter. Eleven additional structures dating from the 1860s to the turn of the century serve as examples of how the state developed its non-mining infra-structure and began diversifying its economy. The buildings highlighted in this chapter illustrate the diversification of Nevada's economy as an innovative response to the economic malaise accompanying the decline of Nevada's first mines.

Chapter 4 begins with the turn of the century and Nevada's second great mining boom, the last great mineral rush of the continental United States. Tonopah and Goldfield present images of this time. The wealth of these mining capitals affected the entire region, and their legacy is inscribed in the architecture of Nevada's Progressive Era. Though turn-of-the-century buildings often reflect the opulence of the new mining discoveries, they also testify to an increasing reliance on agriculture and the transportation industry. Roughly two dozen buildings illustrate this period.

Chapter 5 begins with the 1920s and another period of economic change. This was an era of cultural experimentation and economic challenges, when Nevadans once again found innovative solutions to social and economic problems. The state turned to the divorce industry and eventually to gaming, while some residents also began marketing their state's Wild West image as a tourist attraction. Twelve historic buildings document this dynamic period of growth and diversification.

Just as the state was turning to gaming to address the economic downturn of the Great Depression, the federal government implemented the New Deal. Publicly funded projects during the 1930s constituted a distinct phase of Nevada's architectural history, providing the subject for chapter 6. Responding to economic challenges, federal agencies worked with Nevadans to create jobs. Construction projects were essential to this collaboration.

Chapter 7 addresses the prosperity that Nevada experienced during the last half of the twentieth century, another era of cultural innovation. Tourism had played an important role in the state's economic life since the late 1920s. As people enjoyed more opportunities to travel, Nevada, and in particular Las Vegas, became a celebrated destination.

As has been the case during each period of the state's history, Nevada's innovative spirit was reflected in its postwar architecture. During the late 1940s and continuing into the twenty-first century, the state's modern, ultramodern, and postmodern structures inspired the nation's leading architects, winning Nevada a unique place in the history of design. Taken as a whole, the resources described in Nevada's Historic Buildings provide a cross section of Nevada's heritage. These theaters, homes, businesses, courthouses, churches, and schools illustrate a rich history typified by a creative character, but even more, they provide everyone with an opportunity to touch the past.

This book is a welcome addition to the limited body of literature addressing Nevada's architectural legacy. One of its great strengths is the sense of a state personality that is conveyed cumulatively through the stories it tells. The residents of Nevada are portrayed in all their religious, cultural, and occupational diversity, and many of the stories of individual initiative are very engaging. The result is an appealing combination of social and architectural history, unlike many architectural works that largely ignore the human angle in favor of a primarily physical description of historic structures. – Alicia Barber, author of Reno's Big Gamble: Image and Reputation in the Biggest Little City

Nevada's Historic Buildings is a celebration of the resources and of the character of Nevadans who imagined ways to transform an unforgiving landscape into a livable place. The buildings described in the book provide an opportunity to peer through windows at former times and at people who lived and worked in Nevada as its destiny unfolded. The stories of the people and events that shaped Nevada can be provocative and inspiring. Yet no narrative, however informative, can replace the enthralling experience of walking into a building and viewing the site where a people's history was made.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Theology / Reference

In the Beginning Was the Word: Language – A God-Centered Approach by Vern Sheridan Poythress (Crossway Books)

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all their host. – Psalm 33:6

With scriptural teaching and broad-ranging application, In the Beginning Was the Word, a follow-up to Redeeming Science, strives to build a Christian theology of language and reform people’s thinking about words.
Language is not only the centerpiece of everyday lives, but it gives significance to all that people do. According to Vern S. Poythress, professor of New Testament interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary, it also reflects and reveals the all-sustaining Creator, whose providential governance extends to the intricacies of language. He writes, "God controls and specifies the meaning of each word – not only in English but in Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Italian, and every other language. When, in our modernism or postmodernism, we drop him from our account of language, our words suddenly become a prison that keeps us from the truth rather than opening doors to the truth. But we will use our words more wisely if we come to know God and understand him in relation to our language."
In the Beginning Was the Word develops a God-centered view of language. In his interaction with multiple disciplines, Poythress offers plenty of application, not just for scholars and church leaders but for Christians thinking carefully about their speech.

In the Beginning Was the Word asks, How does language reflect God? According to the Bible, God himself can speak and does speak. Humans are made like him, and that is why they can speak. When they use language, they rely on resources and powers that find their origin in God. In fact, Poythress says, language reflects God in his Trinitarian character. Poythress says that because he is a follower of Christ, he trusts in the Bible as the word of God. The Bible is a foundational resource for his thinking about language. From time to time the book looks briefly at other views of language. But Poythress’ primary purpose is helping people increase their appreciation for language, using the Bible for guidance. If readers are not yet convinced about the Bible, he still invites them to think with him about language. The actual character of language does, he believes, confirm what the Bible says.

Each of Vern Poythress's books has been, in my judgment, the best book on its particular subject, whether science, hermeneutics, dispensationalism, theological method, gender-neutral Bible translation, or the Mosaic law. Not only are these books expertly researched and cogently argued, but they are explicitly Christian in their starting point, method, and conclusion (to use a phrase of Cornelius Van Til). … in the present book on language, Poythress shows that the foundation of human speech is the speech between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that without God meaningful language would be impossible. He makes this audacious claim, not as a mere preacher but as one who has gained an expert knowledge of linguistics as well as biblical theology. This book is essential for anyone who would pursue an understanding of language. It is also a great help to those who are troubled by contemporary challenges to the very possibility of meaningful communication. And to those who wonder how the word of God can possibly be expressed inhuman speech, Poythress shows us that without the word of God human speech is impossible. – John M. Frame, Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando

If you were to ask me to propose one person to guide me through a thoroughly Christian view of language, Vern Poythress would be my first choice. His detailed knowledge of both the Bible and linguistics, his creative ability to see connections, his determination to be true to God, and his engaging personal manner, all come through in this book. I came away with a fresh appreciation for our creaturely dependence on the triune God, and renewed thankfulness to God for his remarkable gift of language. – C. John ("Jack") Collins, Professor of Old Testament, Covenant Theological Seminary

This book represents a lifetime of theological thinking about the significance of language: about God's involvement with language, the nature of language itself from phonemes to literary genres, and the diverse ways humans interact with one another, and with God, through language. Here one finds not only a biblical but a systematic theology of language built on the insight that human language reflects the triune God, sometimes in surprising ways. And, as if thirty-six chapters were not enough, Poythress includes significant appendices analyzing language in postmodernism, translation theory, speech acts, deconstruction, and more. There is nothing like this book on the market! – Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

This fascinating and remarkably insightful book is the product of a lifetime of profound thinking about the amazing complexity of language as created by God to reflect his own character and give him glory. Poythress's multiple perspectives on language will enable readers to understand the Bible more deeply and also to avoid the mistakes of various non-Christian theories of language that influence society today. This book is a wonderful resource in many ways. – Wayne Grudem, Research Professor of Bible and Theology, Phoenix Seminary

This book – written at a level that presupposes no knowledge of linguistics – develops a positive, God-centered view of language. It is the biblically informed insights that make In the Beginning Was the Word especially valuable. Readers can appreciate language more deeply, and use it more wisely, if they come to know God and understand the relation of God to the language they use.

Religion & Spirituality / Occult

The Way of the Crucible by Robert Allen Bartlett (Ibis)

Alchemy is the ancient sacred science concerned with the mysteries of life and consciousness as reflected through nature. It is a blending of physical and subtle forces which lifts the subject, whether man or metal, to a more evolved state of being. The Way of the Crucible is a modern manual on the art of alchemy that draws on both modern scientific technology and ancient methods.

A laboratory scientist, author Robert Allen Bartlett provides an overview of how practical alchemy works along with treatises on astrology, Kabalah, herbalism, and minerals, as they relate to alchemy.

The Way of the Crucible provides directions for a more advanced understanding of the mineral work – what some consider the true domain of Alchemy. The author has been a practicing alchemist for over thirty years and was a student of the twentieth century’s most highly recognized alchemist, Frater Albertus, at Paracelsus College. After receiving his degree in chemistry, Bartlett was appointed Chief Chemist at Frater Albertus’ Paralab.

In his work in alchemy over the last forty years, Dennis William Hauck in the foreword says that he has met a lot of people who call themselves ‘alchemists’ who never set foot in a laboratory. In fact, just about anyone who talks about transformation – whether it is on the personal level, in the arts, or in business – is likely to call themselves alchemists. In the popular mind, the psychological and spiritual aspects of alchemy have overshadowed the work in the lab. Traditionally, however, alchemists were much more than intellectuals or philosophers. To accomplish lasting transformations, they had to succeed not only on the mental and spiritual levels but on the physical level as well. Tapping into the synergistic relationship between mind, matter, and energy is the essence of traditional alchemy and what differentiates it from all other disciplines.

Bartlett in The Way of the Crucible explains how did the split between spiritual and practical alchemy came about. During the heyday of alchemy in the Middle Ages, alchemists around the world were pursuing the fabled Philosopher's Stone, which was said to instantly perfect any substance and change lead into gold. The fascination with gold brought a new class of mercenary alchemists known as ‘puffers’, who sat at their furnaces constantly fanning their bellows, hoping to produce gold by purely physical means. The puffers worked only with external fires, never kindling the ‘secret fire’ of the initiated alchemist that originated in psychological purification and spiritual meditation. When the puffers were unable perform their transformations, they resorted to trickery to finance their endeavors. Before long, a backlash developed against alchemists in which true alchemists suffered along with the puffers. Gradually, alchemy split into two. The purely physical work of the puffers, who discovered many new compounds and laboratory techniques, gave rise to modern chemistry. True alchemists rejected this commercialization of alchemy and were forced to practice their art in seclusion. In their view, the central work in alchemy – the operation of the Stone – was not within reach of the chemist.

Today, however, the two paths of alchemy are converging again. Advances in quantum physics have revealed the hidden role consciousness plays in nature, and many other fundamental alchemical principles are being proven in practical demonstrations. The operations of alchemy have been shown to work in psychology, sociology, business management, and other seemingly unrelated areas.

Over the years Bartlett says he has been able to amass a wealth of analytical data on a wide range of alchemical products, a task Frater Albertus charged him with many years ago. In 2003 he received 41 requests to give a short presentation on practical alchemy. During that time he received so many requests from students for a text that he decided to write Real Alchemy as a primer and introduction to the much larger work he had planned to publish all along; The Way of the Crucible is that book.

… Robert is the modem epitome of the true alchemist and I highly recommend his work to both beginning and advanced students of the Art. The Way of the Crucible and his previous introductory text, Real Alchemy, are among the few works available today that teach alchemy the way it was meant to be taught. – from the foreword by Dennis William Hauck

In The Way of the Crucible readers will find a wealth of information concerning the art and science of alchemy that makes this arcane subject accessible to modern students.

Social Sciences / Criminal Justice / Law

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: A Reader edited by Jeffrey Reiman & Paul Leighton (Allyn & Bacon)

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, intended as a reader to accompany the text, The Rich Get Richer, is a selection of 25 articles ranging from newspaper stories that highlight issues to articles in professional journals.

Editors of both the reader and the text are Jeffrey Reiman, William Fraser McDowell Professor of Philosophy at American University in Washington, who initially joined the American University faculty in 1970 in the Center for the Administration of Justice; and Paul Leighton, Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology at Eastern Michigan University.

Reiman and Leighton say that as they were putting together the reader, and the text was going into its ninth edition, having been in print some thirty years, professors who used the text called for coverage of existing issues in more depth and asked for examples of injustice to be included. However, the text was not meant to be a complete survey of injustices in the criminal justice system – and certainly not a complete survey of social problems in the United States – nor was it meant to be a complete recipe for fixing all the injustices and social problems. The text has a more focused aim – to show students that much that goes on in the criminal justice system violates their own sense of basic fairness, to present evidence that the system does not function in the way it says it does, and to sketch a theoretical perspective from which they might understand these failures and evaluate them morally – and to do it all in a short and relatively inexpensive book, written in plain language.

The preface to the text notes many of the suggestions from professors who have used it, and the publication of The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison represents an effort to provide supplemental materials addressing some of the suggestions that reviewers and instructors have offered, while at the same time leaving the text intact in a form that has proven successful for classroom use. In selecting articles for the reader, Reiman and Leighton say they were guided by the spirit of the text; focusing on readings that should be of high interest, and presenting sophisticated arguments or important evidence. Because the text is usually assigned for courses along with other books, the reader has been kept to a modest size by limiting the number of articles and carefully selecting readings to highlight their relevance to the text. The chapters in The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison parallel the structure of the text; as the chapter titles indicate. The readings in the anthology usually raise multiple issues discussed in the text, and their introductions to the chapters of the reader try to make those connections explicit while still leaving room for classroom discussion and exploration.

Chapter 1, "Readings on Crime Control in America," presents articles that support the thesis of Chapter 1 of the text; namely, that the war on crime is a failure and an avoidable failure. These articles examine critically the claim that recent decreases in crime rates are due to the massive growth in the use of imprisonment that has occurred since the 1980s, report on the collateral damage to communities – including increased crime – that result from the policy of massive imprisonment, give an inside and personal view of the counterproductive, even crime-producing, features of the imprisonment regime from someone who survived it, and reveal an unexpected harmful dimension of the so-called ‘war on drugs’.

Chapter 2 of The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, "Readings on A Crime by Any Other Name ... ," presents articles that support the thesis of Chapter 2 of the text, namely, that the criminal justice system and the government in general do not protect us against the gravest threats to our lives, limbs, and possessions, because the acts that cause these threats are generally not even treated as crimes. These articles explore in detail such diverse processes as how government watchdogs fail to use their powers to protect workers from occupational hazards, how British legislators are trying to make corporations criminally responsible for occupational deaths resulting from corporate executives' neglect of occupational safety, how lives can be saved in hospitals by means of a simple checklist that doctors nevertheless resist using, how the Federal Drug Administration and other agencies fail to protect consumers from known harmful consequences of chemicals in consumer goods, and how – for comparison – harsh is the approach taken in the People's Republic of China against those responsible for selling dangerous consumer products.

Chapter 3, "Readings on ... And the Poor Get Prison," presents articles that support the thesis of Chapter 3 of the text, namely, that among those guilty of the dangerous acts that the criminal justice system does label ‘crimes,’ the system works to make it more likely that those who end up in jail or prison will be poor people. These articles consider whether a seemingly harsh sentence for white-collar crime is justifiable by comparing it to the much harsher sentences doled out to poor criminals, and report on how racial prejudice and bias against ex-convicts continues to function in employment decisions, thus making it all the more difficult for ex-offenders to go straight. There are also two articles on the recent U.S. financial melt-down, which triggered a worldwide financial meltdown and the gravest recession since the Great Depression.

Chapter 4, "Readings on To the Vanquished Belong the Spoils," presents articles that support the thesis of Chapter 4 of the text, namely, that the failure of criminal justice in the United States continues because it produces ideological benefits for those who could change it. These articles place the high incidence of black imprisonment in the United States in the context of a long history of legal mechanisms to control and stigmatize African Americans, offer a look at the punishment of criminals from ‘the other side’ by viewing it through the distinctive lens of African American ‘hip-hop’ culture and argue – against the prevailing criminal justice ideology – that social injustice weakens the moral obligations of its victims to obey the law and spreads responsibility for lawbreaking to those who profit from social injustice and fail to work against it.

The Conclusion to The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, "Readings on Criminal Justice or Criminal Justice," includes articles that take the next step required by the thesis of the Conclusion of the text, namely, recognition that there are policies that can and should be adopted by the criminal justice system to make it genuinely a system of justice rather than a criminal system. These articles discuss promising ways to improve the criminal justice system, by basing sentencing on social science findings rather than on political pandering, by aiming to heal the breach between criminal and victim that crime causes rather than by focusing on exclusively punitive responses, by devoting greater resources to rehabilitation programs that are shown to work to reduce recidivism, and by supporting early social interventions to help children at risk from sliding into a life of crime.

Contents this Issue:

The Zen Art Book: The Art of Enlightenment by Stephen Addiss & John Daido Loori (Shambhala)