Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 3/5/2007

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 3/5/2007

Presidential Diversions: From George Washington to George W. Bush
Paul F. Boller Jr. Harcourt, $25 (432p) ISBN 978-0-15-100612-0

Overall, this harmless collection of presidential trivia is perfect for those with a taste for such gossip: the toenail clippings of history. Texas Christian University's Boller lays out his survey of chief executive hobbies in 42 short chapters.Washington rode horses, danced and attended the theater. Jefferson liked to hike, invent contraptions, design buildings and study nature. Truman threw horseshoes and played piano. Sometimes Boller must grasp at straws in order to find something to say, since presidents are often, by nature and necessity, workaholics. Since Andrew Johnson entertained himself only by playing with his grandchildren, Boller must give a long peroration on Johnson's defensiveness about his lowly origins. Lyndon Johnson, too, couldn't understand why people wasted time in leisure, but he drove motor boats at recklessly high speeds and we are told at some length what a good dancer he was. The current Bush, as we all know from media reports, likes to exercise, clear brush on his ranch, fish, hunt and golf. Boller's book will be enjoyed by fans of his previous works (Presidential Anecdotes; Presidential Wives) and all others who take their history "light." (June)

The Best of Friends: Two Women, Two Continents, and One Enduring Friendship
Sara James and Ginger Mauney. Morrow, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-077948-1

Mauney, a freelance wildlife filmmaker based in Namibia, and James, a news correspondent for NBC Nightly News, Dateline and other programs, have maintained a remarkable friendship since they were both 12-year-old girls growing up in the genteel circles of Richmond, Va. While their mothers' generation was expected to marry socially suitable husbands, their daughters grew up with wider possibilities. Mauney left Richmond to become arm-candy for a world-class tennis player, who dropped her just when she was beginning to look for a wedding ring. James was too busy building a career in broadcasting to put much energy into finding a man. It wasn't until Mauney's romance hit bottom that the two became close again. In alternating chapters, they record their unfolding lives from their mid-20s through their 40s, with Mauney working in rural Africa and James in fast-lane New York City. Their divergent paths turn out to be quite parallel in the end, as they contemplate their children's developing friendship. By giving sensitive support to each other at key moments, these two women both found their way to balancing marriage, motherhood and creative careers. Their book-a sweet summer read-pays tribute to the advances that feminism brought to a generation of young women and to the enduring value of female friendship. (June)

The Story Is True: The Art and Meaning of Telling Stories
Bruce Jackson. Temple Univ., $25 (256p) ISBN 978-1-59213-606-3

The author is a polymath: a prolific author of books, a professor of American culture, a documentary filmmaker, an exhibiting photographer who can allude to James Joyce as easily as Bob Dylan. Here he turns his considerable intellect to stories: those we tell each other and those told by lawyers, politicians and authors from Homer to Faulkner. Jackson's goal is to deconstruct the stories, to determine what is true about them, why and how they work, how they differ from reality, and how and why they are central to our everyday experiences. Much of his commentary about the structure and rhetoric of stories isn't new, but writing with breakneck energy, he consistently entertains. This is primarily a vehicle for Jackson to riff like a jazz musician, and occasionally as self-indulgently, on an eclectic selection of stories, storytellers, and cultural phenomena that interest him, among them the prosecutors and defense attorneys who orchestrated the O.J. Simpson trial; Walker Evans and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; American movie westerns; and a lovely and moving remembrance of his adult daughter as a child. Happily, Jackson's opinions, even those that annoy, make for good reading. (May)

The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down
Colin Woodard. Harcourt, $27 (384p) ISBN 978-0-15-101302-9

Woodard (The Lobster Coast) tells a romantic story about Caribbean pirates of the "Golden Age" (1715-1725)-whom he sees not as criminals but as social revolutionaries-and the colonial governors who successfully clamped down on them, in the early 18th-century Bahamas. One group of especially powerful pirates set up a colony in the Bahamas. Known as New Providence, the community attracted not only disaffected sailors but also runaway slaves and yeomen farmers who had trouble getting a toehold in the plantation economy of the American colonies. The British saw piracy as a threat to colonial commerce and government. Woodes Rogers, the governor of the Bahamas and himself a former privateer, determined to bring the pirates to heel. Woodard describes how Rogers, aided by Virginia's acting governor, Alexander Spotswood, finally defeated the notorious Blackbeard. Woodard's portrait of Rogers is a little flat-the man is virtually flawless ("courageous, selfless, and surprisingly patriotic"), and the prose is sometimes breathless ("they would know him by just one word... pirate"). Still, this is a fast-paced narrative that will be especially attractive to lovers of pirate lore and to vacationers who are Bahamas-bound. Maps. (May)

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr
Nancy Isenberg. Viking, $29.95 (544p) ISBN 978-0-670-06352-9

Does Burr belong in the pantheon of founding fathers? Or is he, as historians have asserted ever since he fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel, a faux founder who happened to be in the right place at the right time? Was he really the enigmatic villain, the political schemer who lacked any moral core, the sexual pervert, the cherubic-faced slanderer so beloved of popular imagination? This striking new biography by Isenberg (Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America) argues that Burr was, indeed, the real thing, a founder "at the center of nation building" and a "capable leader in New York political circles." Interestingly, if controversially, Isenberg believes Burr was "the only founder to embrace feminism," the only one who "adhered to the ideal that reason should transcend party differences." Far from being an empty vessel, she says, Burr defended freedom of speech, wanted to expand suffrage and was a proponent of equal rights. Burr was not without his faults, she concludes, but then, none of the other founders was entirely angelic, either, and his actions must be viewed in the context of his political times. As this important book reminds us, America's founders behaved like ordinary human beings even when they were performing their extraordinary deeds. Illus. (May 14)

From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America
Christopher M. Finan. Beacon, $25.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-8070-4428-5

Finan (Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior), president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, provides an insightful history of the long struggle for free speech in America. The book is especially apropos for our own age, when, confronted by the Patriot Act, otherwise mild-mannered librarians have morphed into tenacious guardians of civil liberty, refusing to open client records to the FBI. The government has more than once tried to suppress the First Amendment right to free expression of suspected radicals, antiwar activists and labor unionists. In November 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer launched raids during which 4,000 Americans, mostly immigrants, were rounded up because they were suspected of being Communists. In 1923, Upton Sinclair went to jail for the brazen act of reading the First Amendment aloud on Liberty Hill in San Pedro, Calif. Thirty-four years later, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and a City Lights bookstore clerk faced trial in San Francisco for selling Allen Ginsberg's "obscene" book Howl. Finan's tome is chock-full of would-be tyrants eager to tell others what they might say and think. But it's also chock-full of heroes (from the ACLU to those brave librarians) who have refused to be silenced. (May)

Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One's Land
Sven Lindqvist, trans. from the Swedish by Sarah Death. New Press, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-59558-051-1

Swedish author Lindqvist ("Exterminate All the Brutes") has written a sobering chronicle of the attempted genocide of aborigines in 19th-century Australia. White settlers arrived and declared whole swaths of countryside terra nullius-no one's land-ignoring the people who had lived there for centuries. By the early 20th century, Lindqvist writes, white Australians recognized that the aboriginals existed, but assumed they were inferior and would one day die out. Indeed, whites massacred the darker-skinned indigenous people, claiming they were only helping the inevitable Darwinian march of progress. Marrying social, political and intellectual history, Lindqvist goes far beyond a predictable history of colonial destruction, violence and exploitation. He shows that many European theorists turned to aboriginals as a case study of the question of when humans became human, and notes that Durkheim and Freud both made crucial assumptions about human development based on their readings of aboriginal cultures. Malinowski criticized Australian aborigines for raising their children liberally; he believed that discipline by beating was a necessary part of parenting. Lindqvist calls for those who have benefited from the oppression of aboriginals to "do penance and mend our ways." Thus, "even the past can be changed." (May)

Holocaust Odysseys: The Jews of Saint-Martin-Vésubie and Their Flight Through France and Italy
Susan Zuccotti. Yale Univ., $28 (288p) ISBN 978-0-300-12294-7

Occupied by Italy in 1943, the southern French town of Saint-Martin-Vésubie served as a haven for Jews from all over Europe. But after Italy's armistice with the Allies, the Italians left the town and many Jews crossed the Alps into Italy, seeking further refuge, only to find themselves face-to-face with the Germans; many were deported to Auschwitz. Zuccotti describes the remarkable scene of the Fremch town square in the summer of 1943 filled with Yiddish-speaking Jews, and reports both positive and tense relations between the refugees and their hosts. Zuccotti (The Italians and the Holocaust) explores these events through the dramatic stories of nine Jewish families, tracing their flight across the continent. These incredible stories demonstrate the perseverance and luck involved in surviving the Holocaust: one man survived as a boy by jumping a fence the night before a deportation and yelling to a passerby to catch him. Other stories come to a chilling end. While relying on oral histories of survivors of these events, Zuccotti probes the strengths and limitations of that form. Supplementing their memories with historical documentation and context, she helps turn painful memories into valuable history. 2 maps. (May)

Ivy Briefs: A Privileged and Confidential Law School Story
Martha Kimes. Atria, $23 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7432-8838-5

First time author Kimes is entertaining and funny in recounting her three years at one of the country's premier law schools. A smart young woman with a good, but not always engaged, sense of perspective, Kimes jumps from the University of Wisconsin to Columbia Law School on the wings of a spectacular showing on the LSATs. Once there, she faces the predictable sadistic professor, hypercompetitive fellow students and, of course, rampant elitism. Kimes is happy to treat with an equal measure of humor the highly stylized courting dance between summer law clerks and mega law firms, as well as the foreboding horrors of the bar exam. Though some stories seem hyperbolic and re-created conversations can be suspiciously pat, Kimes captures with accuracy the gestalt of the law school experience. Kimes did get a job at what she calls "Lavish Law Firm." But she eventually left to join the Make-a-Wish Foundation, which may be her final comment on the world of big-time law. The self-deprecating wit, catty observations and healthy sense of the absurd with which Kimes describes her approach-avoidance reactions to the world of law school raise the book above the ordinary. (May)

Bigger Deal: A Year Inside the Poker Boom
Anthony Holden. Simon & Schuster, $26 (384p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9482-9

Long before poker had achieved today's stratospheric level of popularity, British writer Holden chronicled the challenges and frustrations of a year on the professional poker circuit, in 1990's Big Deal. In this enjoyable sequel, he revisits the poker world, playing in card rooms and tournaments in Europe and America, in home games in his native London and online during 2005 and 2006. The result is a rich account of how the game and its players have changed over the 17 years since he tried (and failed) to become a professional poker player. He profiles a range of people, from poker's living legend Doyle Brunson to the new breed of young professionals, schooled on the Internet and ruthlessly aggressive, and explores the reasons for poker's recent, unprecedented boom. Holden is particularly good in charting the meteoric rise of online poker (and its ambiguous legal status in the United States). He's also adept at articulating his fascination with the game: "The thrilling sense of triumph when you sense something that turns out to be right; the disproportionate despair when you're wrong or the poker gods are against you." (May)

Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friends
Edited and with an intro. by Megan McMorris. Seal, $14.95 paper (300p) ISBN 978-1-58005-203-0

McMorris (Women's Best Friend: Women Writers on the Dogs in Their Lives) collects 29 well-crafted and enjoyable short essays that often focus on how the writer's cat (or cats) has affected her love life-both for better and worse. Kristen Kemp relates how she collected cats to get the affection her boyfriend wasn't giving her. Editor McMorris describes how, after a rough start, when her six-year-old tabby peed on her boyfriend's clothes, he gradually learned to enjoy the cat. A sadder story is told by Susan Schulz Wuornos, evoking the death of her pet just one week before her wedding. The majority of the selections emphasize the individuality and independence of cats, who make certain that their owners know precisely what they want. Erin Torneo stresses that felines are not people pleasers: "They won't plunge into a relationship without careful consideration," And they always have an escape route, lessons she applied to her own relationships. This collection will appeal to all those (especially women) already seduced by the enigmatic feline. (May)

Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer
Chris Salewicz. FSG/Faber and Faber, $27 (592p) ISBN 978-0-571-21178-4

In this biography of punk icon Joe Strummer, music writer Salewicz focuses on the heady days of the punk explosion and Strummer's long hiatus after leaving the Clash. Born John Graham Mellor in 1952 in Ankara, Turkey, to diplomat parents, Strummer enjoyed a peripatetic childhood before being parked at a British boarding school. An art school dropout, Strummer (who was known then as "Woody") lived a hand-to-mouth existence in London squats before rock impresario Bernie Rhodes selected him to head a new punk band, and Woody became Joe Strummer, the sardonic, gravelly voiced rabble rouser. For a long moment, the Clash channeled the most progressive elements in pop culture, blending punk anger, rasta vibes, bank robbers, cowboys and revolutionary traditions into music that remains compelling today. After the band's breakup in 1985, Strummer fell into a long depression that Salewicz attributes to heavy pot smoking and a family legacy that included his brother's suicide. Yet Strummer had revitalized his career and was making excellent music before his sudden death of heart failure in 2002. As a young writer in the punk years, Salewicz had plenty of access to Strummer, and does a good job of providing a blow-by-blow account of the tours and albums. However, Salewicz provides little historical context, thereby diminishing the importance of the Clash. Despite nearly 600 pages of analysis, Strummer remains an opaque figure. (May)

Is This a Great Game, or What? From A-Rod's Heart to Zim's Head-My 25 Years in Baseball
Tim Kurkjian. St. Martin's, $24.95 (258p) ISBN 978-0-312-36223-2

ESPN commentator Kurkjian waxes nostalgic about baseball and his career covering the major leagues. Much in the style of a broadcaster's chatter during a game or the baseball notes columns in newspaper sports pages, Kurkjian peppers the reader with a succession of stories, many no longer than a paragraph. He argues that baseball is the "ultimate skill sport," far superior to football, basketball and all other sports, as well as being the game where players have the most fear of being hurt (by the ball, in this case). He goes on to say that baseball is the funniest game, its stats are the most significant, it has the best preseason, and it is the best game for kids. His rapid-fire stories in support of baseball deification sometimes come at an ad nauseam pace, but there are many entertaining ones in the bunch, including a player who confused the words "erudite" and "hermaphrodite" and another player who brought a live ostrich into a team meeting. His chapters on scouts, stats and spring training are among the best, while the behind-the-scenes chapter about ESPN's Baseball Tonight will be too much insider baseball for most readers. For a book that covers almost all angles of the major leagues, Kurkjian writes only briefly in his final chapter about the recent steroids scandals, a glaring oversight when discussing the modern game. (May)

Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir
John Hemingway. Lyons, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-59921-112-1

The author, grandson of Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway, and son of his youngest child, Gregory, investigates the similarities between these two paternal figures and seeks to find his place in their "strange tribe" with a "famous last name." Sure to excite fans and Hemingway scholars, the book does much to complicate Ernest's image as a macho man, cataloguing both his dependence on women and his gender-bending proclivities. However, the true heart of the book is in exploring the Hemingways' failure as parents and how the familial disposition toward manic-depression created a genetic "Hemingway curse." The author, having escaped the disease, paints his father and grandfather in blunt strokes as loving and generous men who had little understanding of their psychological disorder; the most endearing and comprehensive portrait is of his father's struggles as a transvestite son of a "pillar of American manhood." When describing his own parents' early neglect (his mother was schizophrenic) and, later, his partial reconciliation with his father, the book focuses on the author's generation of Hemingways-but mostly the book is intent upon setting the record straight about Ernest, his youngest son and their similarities. John Hemingway writes honestly and is a sympathetic scrutinizer of this complicated and famous man, the family he parented and the myths to which his writing has given birth. (May)

Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989
Michael Beschloss. Simon & Schuster, $28 (400p) ISBN 978-0-684-85705-3

Don't be afraid!" was George Washington's near-to-last utterance, to the worried doctor at his bedside. The essential founding father's counsel is understood by well-known historian Beschloss (The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany) to set an example for future presidents. Beschloss outlines how several occupants of the Oval Office-including Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Reagan-combined courage with wisdom to change the future of the country, notwithstanding the slings and arrows they earned. Despite its unpopularity at the time, for instance, Reagan's "strong beliefs combined with his optimism" led him to pursue the policy to abolish nuclear weapons, which helped bring down the Soviet empire peacefully. None of the author's heroes were saints, but rather flawed men sustained by friends, families, conviction and religious faith. With contenders for 2008 already lining up, this well-timed book might, the author hopes, persuade some to take the kinds of "wise political risks that Presidents once did."Perhaps. But knowledgeable readers should look elsewhere for genuine historical insight. The author's broad brushstrokes necessarily restrict him to painting nuanced individuals and complex times in only basic primary colors, and there is little that has not been said before-in some cases, many times. (May)

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
Vincent Bugliosi. Norton, $49.95 (1,632p plus CD) ISBN 978-0-393-04525-3

Bugliosi, best known as Charles Manson's prosecutor, spent more than 20 years writing this defense of the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the slaying of President Kennedy, but his obsession has produced a massive tome that's likely to overwhelm most readers. At times, the author seems determined to present every detail his researches revealed, even if it doesn't add to the overall picture (like a footnote on Elvis sightings). Further, while Bugliosi says even serious conspiracy theorists don't claim the FBI or Secret Service were involved, he devotes chapters to each. The book's structure-it's organized by subject, such as theories about the role of the FBI, the KGB or anti-Castro Cubans-leads to needless repetition, and, for an author who excoriates conspiracy theorists, charging them with carelessness and making wild accusations, Bugliosi is not always temperate in his language; for example, twice he makes the nonsensical claim that some Warren Commission critics "were screaming the word conspiracy before the fatal bullet had come to rest." His decision to devote twice as many pages to critiquing Oliver Stone's movie JFK as to his chapter on organized crime (identified by the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassination as the likely conspirators) is a curious one, as is the choice to open the book with a dramatic re-creation of events surrounding the assassination rather than a straightforward chronology of the relevant facts. Moreover, Bugliosi does not always probe whether individuals who are the sole source for certain facts (for example, Oswald's widow, Marina) had any motive to lie. Bugliosi's voluminous endnotes are on an accompanying CD. Gerald Posner's 1993 Case Closed made most of the same points in a much more concise way. 32 pages of illus. (May)

Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home
Gil Reavill. Gotham, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-1-592-40296-0

In this grisly, swaggering tale of gut-churning crime scenes and the men who clean them up after the forensics team is done, veteran true crime scribe Reavill (Beyond All Reason: My Life with Susan Smith) holds nothing back. From descriptions of crimes ("The fusillade of bullets tore through Johnson's body.... Blood, bits of flesh and bone fragments exploded everywhere") to hepatitis C "bleed-outs" ("All four walls of the bathroom looked like someone had taken a blood hose and turned it on them"), Reavill grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go. He follows the techs from Aftermath, Inc.-a bioremediation outfit in suburban Chicago-as they make the rounds of shotgun suicides, multiple murders and meth lab cleanups; dealing not only with the gross-out of the work but trying to stay sane doing it. While some black humor seeps in around the edges, Reavill mostly depicts a cadre of low-key, hardworking men doing a horrible job with respect and compassion. The narrative pace flags a bit in the last 50 pages when Reavill tries to connect Aftermath's work with larger moral issues, but otherwise, if anything can get CSI watchers to flip off the tube and pick up a book, this is it. (May)

Imagining Egypt: A Living Portrait of the Time of the Pharaohs
Written and illus. by Mark Millmore. Black Dog & Leventhal (Workman, dist.), $24.95 (192p) ISBN 978-1-57912-547-9

From the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx to the dynasties of the pharaohs and the myths of Isis and Osiris, ancient Egypt has proved to be endlessly fascinating. Egypt has been credited with teaching other ancient cultures about writing, language, religion and politics. Artist Millmore brings ancient Egypt to life with colorful computer re-creations of ancient monuments as they might have looked in the past, along with photos, diagrams, maps and sidebars. He provides charts that decode hieroglyphics, overviews of Egyptian daily life, stories of such great pharaohs as Amenhotep III (1390-1352 B.C.) and Hatshepsut (1473-1458 B.C.), and descriptive summaries of the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt. Millmore re-creates daily life; food, games (including possible rules for the board game Senet) and sports; and the Egyptian view of death. Glossaries and time lines contribute to the usefulness of the book. Although much of this information can be found in other books about Egypt, Millmore's thorough primer is chockablock with gorgeous illustrations, and the book offers as good a starting point as any for an introduction to life in ancient Egypt. 15,000 first printing. (Apr.)

The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman
Edited by Stephen Pascal. Knopf, $35 (736p) ISBN 978-1-4000-4439-9

Writing about the Ike and Tina Turner show at Carnegie Hall in 1971, Lerman notes, "Tina and Ike are primitive, outdoor water-closet...[she] turns them on with stupid smut. My father would have found them provocative." And while it is no surprise that Lerman, longtime features editor at Vogue, later editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair and all-round arts devotee, disliked them-his tastes ran more to Lotte Lenya singing Kurt Weill-it demonstrates that he was omnivorous in his desire to experience the full range of culture and entertainment. This broad, selection of Lerman's journals is filled with great gossip (on everything from Ruth Gordon's eating habits to architect Philip Johnson's sex life) and some astute remarks on art. Lerman (1914-1994) is a great diarist: the details are precise, the information careening from idiosyncratic to important, and his tone endlessly amused and amusing. While he can be peevish and even mean, he is also frequently funny and generous. The casual reader may be lost at times, but if you are moderately conversant with high art and high society-or just want to know what Princess Marina, duchess of Kent, wore to the Metropolitan Opera in September 1956, Lerman's journals are perfect. 24 pages of photos, 8 in color. (Apr. 6)

Ralph Ellison: A Biography
Arnold Rampersad. Knopf, $35 (688p) ISBN 978-0-375-40827-4

Rampersad's new biography sweeps every cobweb out of every nook and cranny of the life of Ralph Ellison (1913-1994), author of one of the seminal works of 20th-century fiction, Invisible Man. Rampersad, a professor of humanities at Stanford and biographer of Langston Hughes, was given unprecedented access to Ellison's extensive correspondence, and it shows: he seems to leave nothing out, including every cold Ellison ever came down with, though the details often add nothing to the developing portrait. The details will make this the definitive biography for now, but work remains to be done, because Rampersad fails to address the lasting question of Ellison's legacy: why he could never produce a second novel in his lifetime. (The biographer doesn't cover the posthumous publication of Ellison's unfinished Juneteenth.) Ellison never truly embraced the Civil Rights movement, quietly supporting the fight from afar while maintaining that his writing would represent his contribution to the cause. Still, Rampersad does plot how Ellison drew on his experiences in Jim Crow America to produce his groundbreaking novel. He reveals Ellison to have been prickly, short-tempered, self-absorbed and chronically bad to women, but also charming enough to win over influential people. Rampersad provides a wealth of material about Ellison, but synthesizing it all will be up to readers to do for themselves. 24 pages of photos. 40,000 first printing. (Apr.)

The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945
Saul Friedländer. HarperCollins, $39.95 (912p) ISBN 978-0-06-019043-9

In the second volume of his essential history of Nazi Germany and the Jews, one of the great historians of the Holocaust provides a rich, vivid depiction of Jewish life from France to Ukraine, Greece to Norway, in its most tragic period, drawing especially on hundreds of diaries written by Jews during their ordeal, depicting a world collapsing on its inhabitants, along with the thousands of humiliating persecutions that Jews suffered on their way to extermination. Friedländer also provides insightful discussions of the many interpretive controversies that still surround the history of Nazi Germany. He has been party to many of the debates, and he remains attuned to the most recent historical research. Friedländer knows the bureaucratic workings of the Third Reich as well as anyone, but refuses to see in that alone the explanation for the Holocaust. Instead, he focuses largely on cultural and ideological factors. He considers other factors, such as "the crisis of liberalism," but these were not the essential motives for the Holocaust, which, Friedländer says, was driven by sheer hatred of Jews, by "a redemptive anti-Semitism" espoused by Hitler, a belief that Germans could thrive only through the utter destruction of Jews. This is a masterful synthesis that draws on a lifetime of learning and research. (Apr. 10)

The Diary of Petr Ginz, 1941-1942
Edited by Chava Pressburger, trans. from the Czech by Elena Lappin. Atlantic Monthly, $24 (192p) ISBN 978-0-87113-966-5

The diaries of Petr Ginz, a 14-year-old Czech Jew who died in Auschwitz in 1944, resurfaced in 2003 after nearly 60 years in obscurity. Now edited by his sister, the diary covers 11 months preceding Ginz's deportation to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The entries, along with poems and artwork, demonstrate the young man's determined spirit, imagination and intellectual precociousness. With much that is mundane about his life in Prague-the weather, visits with family and friends, school assignments and grades-the diary also reveals Ginz's prankish and entrepreneurial sides (he initiates a school lottery) and his observations of resistance against the German occupiers and their acts of savage reprisal. Ginz also records the progressive deportations of those he knows to either Theresienstadt or to the Lodz Ghetto. This volume also includes excerpts from Vedem ("we lead"), a weekly periodical Ginz created in Theresienstadt. Pressburger's helpful, if at times sketchy, notes and annotations to the diary include a summary of the fates of Ginz's family, neighbors, schoolmates and friends. While Ginz's diary lacks the expressions of the rich inner life of Anne Frank's, it is a moving and valuable addition to the personal literature of the Holocaust. (Apr.)

Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration
Sam Quinones. Univ. of New Mexico, $24.95 (328p) ISBN 978-0-8263-4254-6

Quinones takes a keen look the migrant economy-both the rural to urban flow within Mexico, and between the U.S. and Mexico-in these nine skillful, moving stories. He devotes the first, middle and last chapters to Delfino Juárez, a construction worker who left his mountain village in Veracruz to work at Mexico City job sites when he was 12 years old before making his way to Arizona through the Sonora desert, a journey that almost cost him his life. Delfino "wanted more from life than simply not to starve," and his pluck shines through the narratives that Quinones (True Tales from Another Mexico) layers with the sociological, economic and historical context of 60 years of immigration. Other standouts among these very fine pieces of literary journalism, include "The Tomato King," about Andrés Bermúdez, a longtime U.S. resident who returns to his native county of Jerez to run for mayor; and "Delfino II: Diez in the Desert," a nuanced portrait of the human trafficking that takes place at the border. The jewel of the collection, "A Soccer Season in Southwest Kansas," depicts the sport's transformative effect-both on the immigrant children and on the High Plains town. (Apr.)

The Knock at the Door: A Journey Through the Darkness of the Armenian Genocide
Margaret Ajemian Ahnert. Beaufort, $24.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-8253-0512-2

This personal, homespun account by an American of Armenian descent interweaves two narratives in alternating chapters: Ahnert's mother Ester's firsthand description of coming-of-age during, and miraculously surviving, the Turkish-sponsored Armenian genocide of 1915, and the middle-aged author's own tender yet urgent reflections on her connection to the distant world of her 98-year-old mother. Ester's formidable personality, humor and abiding religious faith pervade Ahnert's debut, while the latter's fluid transcription of Ester's story provides a frank and searing testimony, as well as a vivid depiction of Armenian village life. While Ahnert's oral history doesn't offer a rigorous historical account or analysis of the systematic slaughter, but rather supplements works like Peter Balakian's The Burning Tigris and Taner Akcam's A Shameful Act, its force lies in the interplay between the narratives of mother and daughter. Together, their stories realize in intimate but accessible terms the vagaries of historical memory and Ester's determination to tell the truth despite the understandable urge among some victims to forget in the face of an official policy of denial from Turkey that continues today.. (Apr.)

The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism
Matthew Carr. New Press, $26.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1-59558-179-2

British author and journalist Carr (My Father's House) bookends his engrossing, unsettling history-including accounts of murderous organizations like the 19th-century anarchists, the IRA, Mau Mau, Red Brigades, Basque separatists, FLN, PLO and Hezbollah and the onset of international terrorism 30 years ago-with a scathing critique of the Bush administration's "authoritarian responses" to the attacks of 9/11. Amid an avalanche of information, Carr argues that most terrorist groups-those with a distinct political goal and popular support within their country-are essentially uncrushable, but negotiating with them (Britain and the IRA, for example) has worked. Carr relates scores of terrorist outrages and devotes equal space to brutal government counterterrorism that, he demonstrates, is not only ineffectual, but also nourishes terrorism. Instead of today's war on terror, Carr calls for addressing the wider causes: "the present eruption of Islamist violence is perhaps a symptom of an imbalance of power and the consequence of decades of manipulation, deceit and hypocrisy in Western foreign policy towards the Arab world." Though his analysis of Middle East politics is open to debate, Carr presents an impressive compendium of terrorist violence and government response. (Apr.)

The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics
Riane Eisler. Berrett-Koehler, $24.95 (250p) ISBN 978-1-57675-388-0

Accomplished feminist social theorist and activist Eisler follows up her 1987 international bestseller The Chalice and the Blade with an inquiry into the nature and causes of "the real wealth of nations" in a contrarian work of grand economic theory. She begins with her original thesis: that we inherit and inhabit a personal and social world that masculinity has built by consistently devaluing and subordinating the feminine. Pointing out the socially and ecologically destructive flaws inherent in both capitalist and socialist economies, she then asserts that our emerging global society needs a new story of what human nature and economics are and can be. For Eisler, economies are social inventions imbedded in larger social systems. She offers a clearly written and compelling account of how the masculine "dominator" mentality brought us to our present juncture, and how a feminine "partnership" mentality can help us redefine key concepts such as "value" and "needs." Citing the most recent economic data and offering numerous relevant examples of places where efforts to practice a caring economics have succeeded both in preindustrial and modern societies, such as the Nordic nations, the book is ambitious in breadth, depth and scope. Eisler delivers another impressive work that's remarkably well referenced, well argued, insightful and hopeful. (Apr.)

World Inc.: How the Growing Power of Business Is Revolutionizing Profits, People and the Future of Both
Bruce Piasecki. Sourcebooks, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4022-0871-3

In his optimistic account, Piasecki, an environmental consultant, identifies a new consumer expectation: that corporations have social obligations. He describes a 21st-century capitalism transformed by a "bloodless revolution" that has added the necessity of "social response" to the basic tenets of technical quality and price. Piasecki's idealistic but perhaps necessary premise is that multinationals "can address the social problems we struggle with, in conjunction with the government, in a way that's good for both society and business." His answer: social response product development, which he illustrates with case studies from such corporations as Toyota and HP. With Toyota's pursuit of a greener car, for example, Piasecki (Environmental Management and Business Strategy) provides some insight into a successful corporation's shift toward social response capitalism through innovation and leadership. While Piasecki's valuable ideas are timely-given the social pressures of climate change and fossil fuel depletion-this guide's flaw is its breadth. Each of its three sections-the initial outline of social response capitalism, the leadership needed for such a corporate strategy, and the question of profitability-is fodder enough for a book. (Apr.)

The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
William D. Cohan. Doubleday, $29.95 (752p) ISBN 978-0-385-51451-4

This astute if not entirely cohesive debut account from investigative journalist and former banker Cohan chronicles the long metamorphosis of Lazard Frères. Converted from a private partnership to a diversified, publicly traded company in 2005, it was the last great American investment bank to do so. That story intertwines with the career of Felix Rohatyn, Lazard's most famous and influential banker. Readers expecting a comprehensive financial history in the style of Ron Chernow (The House of Morgan) will find the firm's history from its founding as a New Orleans dry goods retailer in 1848 to the early 1960s covered in only two of the 21 chapters. Cohan discusses the following quarter century in more detail, but concentrates almost exclusively on Rohatyn and draws on the general business press. The chapters on the last 20 years contain fascinating and novel information, and rely extensively on the author's personal recollections (he worked at Lazard for six years) and interviews with associates, many of whom remain undisclosed. The result is three incompletely integrated works: a competent history of Lazard, a well-written biography of Rohatyn and an exciting insider's account of Wall Street infighting. (Apr.)

Do This. Get Rich! 12 Things You Can Do Now to Gain Financial Freedom
Jim Britt. Square One, $25.95 (216p) ISBN 978-0-7570-0241-0

Britt, a performance trainer who grew up "chopping cotton" in Oklahoma, sells his advice with all the passion of a free-enterprise preacher presiding over a sales force revival meeting in this financial self-help book promising riches to the masses. He delivers his messages, which mainly involve developing a success-oriented mindset and taking responsibility for your future, as a motivational rant clothed as a business book. Britt's references to unattributed surveys, lack of specificity to support assertions (e.g., "formal education is not the one vehicle that will take you where you want to go financially") , vague explanation of how he built his wealth and what happened to the 24,000 bottles of soap in his garage that launched his sales career-are unsettling. While Britt (2006's Freedom: Letting Go of Anxiety and Fear of the Unknown) conveys an enthusiasm that no doubt plays well in front of large crowds, even the entertainment value of his passion wears thin after the first 100 pages. (Apr.)

Pornology
Ayn Carrillo-Gailey. Running Press, $13.95 paper (232p) ISBN 978-0-7624-2774-1

Carrillo-Gailey is just the latest in a decade-long string of women writers (e.g., Lisa Palac and her 1997 memoir, The Edge of the Bed, for starters) to run with the idea that "good girls" don't need to be afraid of pornography. The concept isn't particularly original, and neither is its execution. After a boyfriend accuses her of being "pornophobic," the Los Angeles screenwriter picks up some erotica in a bookshop, begins masturbating, then breaks up with the boyfriend after a misguided visit to a strip club. The story of how she finds, loses and recaptures her next lover unfolds through a series of implausible anecdotes (beginning with an awkward encounter at Hustler's sex toy shop) populated by a sitcom-perfect cast of supporting characters, including the promiscuous best friend, the gay buddy-even a nearsighted Chinese mother prone to comic malapropisms. Carrillo-Gailey insists all the porn-related material is true, but concedes that some situations have been "altered for dramatic purposes," and the increasingly outlandish nature of those embellishments raises questions about the other passages. On the other hand, they do liven up her banal discoveries: vibrators can be fun, Playboy isn't even that smutty and so on in this uninspired fairy tale. (Apr.)

Educating Peter: An Everyman's Guide to Getting Educated About Wine or How a Famous Movie Critic Learned to Distinguish Cabernet from Merlot
Lettie Teague. Scribner, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7432-8677-0

When Teague, the wine editor for Food & Wine, first takes Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers in hand, he's the sort of uninformed drinker who rarely spends more than $10 on a bottle and inevitably ends up selecting bad vintages. So Teague (Fear of Wine) starts pouring him selections from around the world. Each region gets its own chapter, transitioning between the tastings and Teague's general recommendations. Later, after a visit to Napa Valley, she takes Travers out to dinner to see if he'll be able to interact with sommeliers and match wine to various courses, then visits an assortment of shops to show him what to look for when building his own collection. She corrects his vocabulary when he says a wine has "a fatness to the swirl" instead of "good viscosity." He stubbornly resists New Zealand vintages because director Peter Jackson criticized them, and complains that green wine bottles keep him from seeing how red the wine is. Novice tasters can add this pleasure to more traditional guides, while enjoying the entertainment value. (Mar. 13)

Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny
Suze Orman. Spiegel & Grau, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-385-51931-1

Bestselling author (2005's The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke, etc.) and host of her own CNBC show, Orman encourages women to "give to yourself as much as you give of yourself" in her ninth financial advice book, sure to resonate with legions of readers who will appreciate her straightforward advice and supportive tone. Aiming squarely for a female audience, Orman guides readers through the very basics of finances. She explores why women have dysfunctional relationships with money and notes the ways they undervalue themselves or "treat themselves as a commodity whose price is set by others," while also sharing the story of her own evolving relationship with her finances. Though her explanation of the "8 qualities of a wealthy woman" (harmony, balance, courage, etc.) is more inspirational than practical, she also presents a concrete five-month "save yourself plan" for financial repair, starting with setting aside checking and savings accounts, fixing one's credit rating, saving for retirement, setting up a will and purchasing home insurance. This encouraging guide will not intimidate women who are foundering financially. (Feb.)

Correction: Due to the publisher's error, we misidentified Sidney Wanzer in our review of his book, To Die Well (Reviews, Feb. 18). He the former head of the Harvard Law School Health Services.

Lifestyle

Food & Entertaining

Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate
Patricia Wells. Morrow, $34.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-0607-5244-6

Wells, the author of several cookbooks including The Provence Cookbook, puts vegetables center stage in this appetizing and innovative collection. After surveying the bounty of her backyard garden, Wells became inspired to build meals around vegetables rather than starting with meat, fish or poultry. She tripled the number she served at each meal and tried different cooking methods, looking for the best-tasting, most wholesome ways of cooking each type. She includes nutritional information and an equipment list for each recipe, and selectively offers wine suggestions, translations of French food idioms, and nuggets of folklore connected to the dish or main ingredient. Recipes are plentiful and tantalizing, all with a slightly unusual approach. She moves from appetizers and salads through meats and side dishes to breads and desserts. The section on pasta, rice, beans, and grains is especially appealing, with such offerings as Pumpkin and Sage Risotto, and Roasted Chickpeas, Mushrooms, Artichokes and Tomatoes. Unusually titled chapters such as "The Pantry" and "Eggs, Cheese, and Friends" provide more than a few gems: Parmesan, Pine Nut, and Truffle Gratins, Fresh Figs on Rosemary Skewers, and Zesty Lemon Salt. Wells offers a fresh perspective and wealth of options for making vegetables the centerpiece of every meal. This collection is highly recommended for cooks and gardeners alike. (Apr.)

Lidia's Italy: 140 Simple and Delicious Recipes from the Ten Places in Italy Lidia Loves Most
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali. Knopf, $35 (416p) ISBN 978-1-4000-4036-0

Surely one of the secrets to Lidia Bastianich's success as a television personality is the high quality of her companion books. Bastianich's never seem like mere collections of stills from the show; they impart new information and are full of dishes even dedicated Italophiles may not know, such as Gnocchi Ravioli with Sausage-Spinach Filling and Sage Pudding. However, the concept for her latest show, and as a result this eponymous book, feels slightly haphazard. While Bastianich is to be applauded for overlooking the obvious Tuscan targets like Florence to concentrate instead on the region's less well-known natural beauty in the Maremma area with its mammoth national park, her "places" are inconsistent. They include single cities (Padova and Treviso) and whole regions (Piedmont). And while Bastianich's native Istria offers alluring specialties such as Fresh Pasta Quills with Chicken Sauce, it makes an odd subject for an opening chapter, since it is no longer part of Italy. Bastianich's daughter and coauthor, who runs an Italian tourism company, suggests a handful of sites to visit in each location, be it Spaccanapoli in Naples or a Cistercian abbey 35 miles outside of Turin. Bastianich is probably incapable of creating a truly bad book-the recipes are as functional as they are tempting-but this all-over-the-boot offering is not her best. (Apr.)

Cook the Perfect...
Marcus Wareing with Jeni Wright. DK, $30 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7566-2624-2

Wareing, a Gordon Ramsay protégé who heads the kitchen of the Grill Room at the Savoy Hotel on the Strand in London, understands that "there's more to know in a recipe than what's written down." In order to give home cooks a bit more guidance, he presents 80 recipes with added Keys to Perfection-additional images and tips that evoke the science behind each step. (He explains why, for example, it's important to dry the apples on the stovetop before baking them into a piecrust.) A 10-step Charter for Successful Cooking that educates readers on keeping an organized, efficient kitchen is illustrated with photos of the chef and his two young sons at work. He also provides an "All Is Not Lost" addendum with suggestions for how to salvage a dish if something goes awry (e.g., if a fondant cake becomes gritty, turn the chocolate into truffles). The repertoire doesn't comprise the standard classics of Western cuisine, but is an eclectic-and somewhat idiosyncratic-mix. Dishes like Chinese Noodle Soup, Southeast Asian-inflected Steamed Cod with Perfumed Broth, and Middle Eastern-inspired Spiced Eggplant supplement British mainstays like Treacle Sponge Pudding and Creamy Fish Pie. Though Wareing brings his professional sensibilities to the proceedings, his cooking is mostly accessible and unpretentious. Pan-Grilled Lamb Chops with Currant-Mint Sauce, served over Spinach with Garlic and Cream, are restaurant elegant but simple enough to serve at home. (Apr.)

The Texas Cowboy Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos
Robb Walsh. Broadway, $17.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7679-2149-7

A Houston native with two James Beard awards, Walsh (Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook) carves Texas up into digestible sections, collecting its juices and leaving lots of contemplative fat. This 10-chapter history reaches as far back as the year 1540, when cattle first came to the area, and examines a multitude of geographic and demographic influences on the Lone Star State's cuisine. It is both a study of rich diversity and a collection of over 100 recipes, though only perhaps a quarter of the meals rise above the commonplace. The liveliest dishes turn up in the section on South Texas and are presented with a Hispanic flair, such as Conejo Colorado (Rabbit Stewed in Red Chile Sauce). There are two intriguing chapters that examine how black slaves transformed into black cowboys and were responsible for the introduction of Texas barbecue, but the accompanying recipes are disappointingly old hat. A fun chapter on Cowgirls in the Kitchen has some of the best of the book's 150 b&w photos as well as a swell Buttermilk-Lemon Pie. Moving into modern times, there is perhaps too much attention paid to the movie Urban Cowboy and the cultural and epicurean importance of Mickey Gilley, but Walsh wraps up his enterprise nicely with entrees such as a Poblano Mac & Cheese and a broiled tenderloin marinated in the black gold of Waco: Dr. Pepper. (Apr.)

Home & Gardening

How to Live in Small Spaces: Design, Furnishing, Decoration, Detail for the Smaller Home
Terence Conran. Firefly, $29.95 (224p) ISBN 978-1-55407-242-2

Founder of Habitat stores, designer and author Conran (The Ultimate House Book) recognizes in this prescient work that being upwardly mobile no longer translates into living large, particularly for urban dwellers. Opting for a smaller home enables one to live in a more desirable location, perhaps closer to work; a smaller home is cheaper to run (think energy), easier to maintain and forces one to be more selective in purchases and less acquisitive. "Think laterally and creatively" is Conran's dictum, for example, in assessing needs, decorating the space to make the most of light and air, simplifying architectural details, building in storage and investing in functional, dual-use furniture, i.e., wall beds in neutral shades. Conran is fond of open-concept layouts to permit freer circulation space and is not afraid of suggesting strong color for tight spaces. He emphasizes the importance of lighting, especially diffuse lighting. And once you've done all you can yourself, subsequent chapters treat hiring assistance for converting attics, basements and sheds. In "Area by Area," Conran tackles each tight living space specifically for maximum use-kitchen, bedroom, children's room, bathroom, even small yards. Six cases studies nicely conclude this enormously accessible volume, from a studio in L.A. to a split-level apartment in Paris and an engawa house in Tokyo. (May)

1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die
Rae Spencer-Jones, general editor. Barron's, $34.99 (960p) ISBN 978-0-7641-6005-9

This gorgeous volume is like porn for horticulturists. Gardens from all around the world in every possible climate, style and size fill this book to bursting. Here are public spaces everyone knows-like Central Park in New York City, Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens in Canada and Les Jardins des Tuileries in Paris-as well as gardens only the most well-traveled ever get to see; such as Bagh-e Eram in Iran or Jargu Jui Sculpture Park in Romania. Many privately owned, rarely viewed gardens are featured as well, such as Brook Cottage Garden in Oxfordshire, England; Vico Morcote in Ticino, Switzerland; and Rustenberg Farm Gardens in Western Cape, South Africa. Whether one prefers modern sculpture gardens, formal flower gardens or Japanese Zen landscapes, Spencer-Jones's impressive team of 70 photographers, writers and horticulturists have captured them all in concise detail. While some readers might have preferred more and bigger photos (sadly, some entries don't come with pictures at all), most garden lovers will appreciate the comprehensive history, design and climate information that accompanies each entry. (Mar.)

The Plant Finder: The Right Plants for Every Garden
Tony Rodd and Geoff Bryant. Firefly, $49.95 (992p) ISBN 978-1-55407-265-1

This massive tome is a sort of Petit Larousse for the plant world: over two inches thick, with profuse color illustrations and tiny print on glossy pages, it gives basic descriptions and growing conditions for more than 5,000 plants, with a focus on the temperate zones. After a short introduction that includes a global map of hardiness zones, the book is divided into 10 sections-trees and shrubs; annuals and perennials; bulbs, corm and tubers; grasses, sedges and bamboos; fruit and nuts trees and bushes; vegetables and herbs; climbers and creepers; cacti and succulents; orchids; and ferns, palms and cycads-all listed by genus. Each chapter begins with a description of the plant group, followed by a chart concisely outlining the physical characteristics and growing conditions needed for each plant. The rest of the chapter goes into more detail, with short sections on each genus and its species, often accompanied by small but sometimes dramatic color photographs: blossoms of yellow and red Hamamelis japonica (Japanese witch hazel) emerging from snow-draped branches; a wild meadow of the daisy Townsendia parryi (Parry's Townsendia), its purple and yellow blossoms brilliant against a backdrop of rock-bare Colorado hills. Sections are color coded for easy navigation, and beginning gardeners as well as plant fanatics may find this comprehensive volume an indispensable midwinter reference for yearly garden planning, as well as a useful outdoor planting companion come spring. (Mar.)

AIDS in Africa: Two In-Depth Studies

28: Stories of AIDS in Africa
Stephanie Nolen. Walker, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-8027-1598-2

According to UNAIDS, the number of HIV-infected people in Africa is 28 million. But Nolen, veteran Toronto Globe & Mail Africa bureau chief, doesn't believe it: after nine years of reporting on the epidemic, she thinks that number is conservative. Here she offers 28 searing portraits of Africans affected by the deadly virus. Scattered across the continent from the slums of Lagos, Nigeria, to the bush in southern Zambia, these Africans present a mosaic of a continent in crisis and a collective cry for help. She examines the role of soldiers, a "key vector" for AIDS, through the tale of Andualam Ayalew, a commando who was kicked out of the Ethiopian army after testing positive for HIV. He learned of AIDS prevention at a clinic and, risking arrest, returned to his unit to teach his former comrades and other soldiers about using condoms. Agnes Munyiva, a prostitute for 30 years, who has had contact with thousands of men in a slum outside Nairobi, Kenya, does not have HIV. Her natural immunity has brought doctors and researchers from as far away as Canada to study her.With a seasoned journalist's finesse, Nolen effortlessly weaves technical information-health statistics, disease data, NGO reports-into these deeply intimate glimpses of people often overlooked in the flood of contemporary media. Nolen's book packs a real emotional wallop. Photos, map. (June)

The Invisible Cure: AIDS in Africa
Helen Epstein. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-0-374-28152-6

Epstein, a public health specialist and molecular biologist who has worked on AIDS vaccine research, overturns many of our received notions about why AIDS is rampant in Africa and what to do about it. She charges that Western governments and philanthropists, though well-meaning, have been wholly misguided, and that Africans themselves, who understand their own cultures, often know best how to address HIV in their communities. Most significant is Epstein's discussion of concurrent sexual relations in Africa. Africans often engage in two or three long-term concurrent relationships-which proves more conducive to the spread of AIDS than Western-style promiscuity. Persuade Africans to forgo concurrency for monogamy, and the infection rate plummets, as it did in Uganda in the mid-1990s. On the other hand, ad campaigns focused on condom use helped imply falsely that only prostitutes and truck drivers get AIDS. In addition, Epstein examines what she calls the "African earthquake": social and economic upheaval that have also eased the spread of HIV. Epstein is a lucid writer, translating abstruse scientific concepts into language nonspecialists can easily grasp. Provocative, passionate and incisive, this may be the most important book on AIDS published this year-indeed, it may even save lives. (May)