Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 5/21/2007

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 5/21/2007

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
Steven Pinker. Viking, $29.95 (512p) ISBN 978-0-670-06327-7

Bestselling Harvard psychology professor Pinker (The Blank Slate) investigates what the words we use tell us about the way we think. Language, he concludes, reflects our brain structure, which itself is innate. Similarly, the way we talk about things is rooted in, but not identical to, physical reality: human beings take "the analogue flow of sensation the world presents to them" and "package their experience into objects and events." Examining how we do this, the author summarizes and rejects such linguistic theories as "extreme nativism" and "radical pragmatism" as he tosses around terms like "content-locative" and "semantic reconstrual" that may seem daunting to general readers. But Pinker, a masterful popularizer, illuminates this specialized material with homely illustrations. The difference between drinking from a glass of beer and drinking a glass of beer, for example, shows that "the mind has the power to frame a single situation in very different ways." Separate chapters explore concepts of causality, naming, swearing and politeness as the tools with which we organize the flow of raw information. Metaphor in particular, he asserts, helps us "entertain new ideas and new ways of managing our affairs." His vivid prose and down-to-earth attitude will once again attract an enthusiastic audience outside academia. (Sept.)

Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do with My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab
Melissa Plaut Villard, $13.95 paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-8129-7739-4

Plaut decided to become a New York City cabbie after getting laid off from a job as an advertising copywriter, then began posting about her interactions with patrons on a blog that forms the backbone of this memoir. The anecdotal structure has its weaknesses, repeating the cycle of passengers getting in the cab, engaging in conversation with Plaut, then leaving either a generous tip or a lousy one. There are also a number of scenes set at the garage, where she slowly develops a friendship with a 62-year-old transsexual driver while struggling to avoid another senior cabbie with bladder control problems. Plaut's growing dissatisfaction with the job provides the memoir with an emotional undercurrent. She has trouble shaking off the feeling that she's wasting her potential, and the drain of interacting with abusive passengers and a hostile police force eventually sets her to dreaming of dying in a car crash. In the end, however, she's grown more comfortable with her fate, ready to continue circling the streets looking for fares. Her storytelling technique may be uneven in this debut, but it shows promise. (Sept.)

A Higher Purpose: Profiles in Presidential Courage
Thomas J. Whalen. Ivan R. Dee, $26 (256 p) ISBN 978-1-56663-630-8

Boston University social scientist Whalen (Kennedy Versus Lodge) insightfully applies to residents of the White House JFK's rubric from his Profiles in Courage. As Kennedy did, Whalen seeks heroes who display a willingness to go against the political tide in order to do what is right. The ultimate example is Gerald Ford, who took the profoundly unpopular step of pardoning Nixon and then paid the political price in the next presidential election. Whalen also cites FDR's maneuvering to support Great Britain against the Nazis in the days before Pearl Harbor despite an isolationist and antiwar electorate; Harry Truman's firing of the abrasive but wildly popular Douglas MacArthur; and Kennedy's siding with civil rights interests challenging segregation at the University of Alabama. Several other examples are less obvious instances of presidential courage. These include Andrew Jackson's heartfelt yet ill-advised fight against a national bank and Grover Cleveland's opposition to the annexation of the Hawaiian islands. Two more events in Whalen's roster are debatable. Was Lincoln going against, or with, political currents when he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation? And was Theodore Roosevelt not catering to his large Progressive base when he broke up the Northern Securities railroad companies' combination? These quibbles aside, Whalen's study constitutes intriguingly construed history, eloquently told. Illus. (Sept.)

A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign
Edward J. Larson. Free Press, $27 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9316-7

In this absorbing, brisk account, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Larson (Summer of the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion) recreates the dramatic presidential race of 1800, which, Larson says, "stamped American democracy with its distinctive partisan character" as Republicans and Federalists battled for the presidency. Larson explains how a race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson actually ended in a tie between Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. (The tie was resolved by Congress.) The bitter infighting and the sophisticated political jockeying of 1800 spelled the end of any idea that America would be governed by enlightened consensus, resulting instead in the two-party system we know today. Readers will find many similarities between the intense electioneering of Adams and Jefferson, and the heated political races of today. For instance, Larson delineates debates about security and the Alien and Sedition Acts, the complex calculus of the Electoral College and the ad hominem remarks of commentators. Larson's volume will join Susan Dunn's Jefferson's Second Revolution as an invaluable study of a crucial chapter in the lives of the founding fathers-and of the nation. First serial to American History magazine. (Sept. 18)

In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century
Geert Mak, trans. from the Dutch by Sam Garrett. Pantheon, $35 (896p) ISBN 978-0-375-42495-3

On January 4, 1999, Mak, a journalist and one of the Netherlands' most popular authors, set out from Amsterdam on assignment for his newspaper, the NRC Handelsblad, to crisscross Europe in the final year before the millennium to discover "what shape the continent was in." And crisscross he did: Vienna, London; Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Chernobyl, Lourdes, Budapest; Srebrenica and dozens more. For his columns, collected here, Mak used his reporter's eye to describe the vividness of the countryside and cityscapes through which he traveled, his writer's ear to interview individuals who had experienced Europe's most terrible and terrific times, and his historian's pen to narrate the passing of that most extraordinary of centuries. What Mak discovered was that while "Europe" is turning itself into an ostensible "union," there is unexpectedly "little in the way of a shared historical experience." There is no European people, for instance, and every nation has conceived its own version of the catastrophic First and Second World Wars. Mak's brilliant compendium is difficult to define-is it a history book, a travelogue, a memoir?-but stands out as a remarkable, insightful, exhilarating exposition on that peculiar continent across the Atlantic. Map. (Aug. 7)

An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President
Randall Robinson Basic Civitas, $26 (352p) ISBN 978-0-465-07050-3

The title promises a history of Haiti, but Robinson (The Debt, etc.) delivers a brief for former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and an excoriation of American policies and actions related to his exile. The portrait of Aristide borders on hagiography: "Of all the public Christians I have known personally, Aristide led a life that emulated the implacable Christ whose sympathies for the poor Aristide had since childhood taken to heart." The Americans, meanwhile, are largely portrayed as evil: "American officials had armed and directed the thugs, organized an unelected and unelectable opposition, and choked the Haitian economy into dysfunctional penury." Robinson's righteous outrage often turns to rant, and his passionate, partisan account veers into repetition, without providing adequate context for his ire. He offers minute descriptions of Artistide's abduction to the Central African Republic in September 1994, his flight and the efforts to save and relocate him, but spends little time on Aristide's governance as Haiti's first democratically elected leader. "For the uninitiated, Haiti must appear to be a bewildering stew of obscure and violent events," Robinson writes. How sad that he did not use these pages to clarify the broth. (Aug.)

Children at Play: An American History
Howard P. Chudacoff. New York Univ., $27.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-8147-1664-9

Throughout American history, argues Brown University historian Chudacoff (The Age of the Bachelor), parents have sought to control their children's games and toys, but kids have been determined to set the terms of their play. In the colonial era, children typically played with improvised toys, and parents tried to prevent play from degenerating into "idleness," insisting that games must serve God or family. In the 19th century, consumer culture intersected with a new conception of childhood as a distinct, adorable life stage to be cherished, while children increasingly played with toys that brought them into contact with the market. By the 20th century, adults, influenced in part by the new field of child psychology, focused on educational toys and directed kids off the streets and into playgrounds, where they could be carefully supervised. The tension between parental prerogatives and children's autonomy manifests itself still, says Chudacoff: parents try to keep children indoors for fear of dangers lurking outside, but children take new kinds of risks playing in cyberspace. While a bit dry and broad, Chudacoff's work gives historical depth to debates that continue to rage over what constitutes appropriate child's play. 22 illus. (Aug.)

Ike: An American Hero
Michael Korda. HarperCollins, $34.95 (784p) ISBN 978-0-06-075665-9

Characterizing Dwight Eisenhower as an American with a "big grin" and "long-limbed, loose American way of walking," this smitten biography demonstrates his heroism by dwelling on his World War II record as commander of Allied armies in Europe. Korda (Ulysses S. Grant) defends "the people's general" against criticisms leveled by subordinates and historians (Eisenhower's presidency flits by in an admiring 64 pages), but for all his fulsome comparisons of Eisenhower to Napoleon and Grant, the author's case is weak. Korda's approving gloss on Ike's "broad front" approach-directing "all the Allied armies to engage the enemy at every point... until superior numbers inevitably ground the Germans down" because "he did not think a single, clever stroke would do it"-makes Eisenhower sound like a terrible strategist. At best, Ike comes off as a competent diplomat-in-arms, enabling egomaniacs like Churchill, De Gaulle, Montgomery and Patton to cooperate, and soothing wife Mamie's anxieties over his glamorous secretary. Unfortunately, Eisenhower's self-effacing affability in this role means his story is usually upstaged by the colorful prima donnas around him. A more critical analysis might have made for a more interesting biography. Photos. (Aug. 21)

The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever
David M. Friedman. Ecco, $26.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-052815-7

World-famous after his pioneering 1927 nonstop transatlantic flight, Charles Lindbergh, says Friedman, thought he was a god, and after a 1928 otherworldly experience in the Utah desert, he committed himself to exploring the science of eternal life. His sister-in-law's damaged heart valve led Lindbergh to seek out Nobel laureate Alexis Carrel, whose vascular-suturing technique made open-heart surgery and other advances possible. The pair embarked on an immortality project at New York's Rockefeller Institute. Utilizing Carrel's expertise with tissue culture and Lindbergh's mechanical engineering genius, they kept extracted organs alive and functioning for weeks at a time. As Friedman (A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis) demonstrates, these biological experiments were integral to the pair's obsession with eugenics, their belief that the white race was endangered by lesser organisms and to Lindbergh's later enthusiasm for the Nazis. Friedman, who has written for GQ and Esquire, makes complex science accessible and serves as an absorbing cautionary tale on how two heroic reputations were marred by fascism and anti-Semitism. Photos. (Aug. 21)

The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink
Robert D. Morris. HarperCollins, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-06-073089-5

In this engrossing and disquieting book, the author, who specializes in drinking water epidemiology, raises the alarm about hidden perils in our water. He traces the history of the search for water-borne pathogens from the mid-19th century, when doctors discovered the bacterium that causes cholera (the blue death), to the 20th century, when it was found that chlorination and filtration would block many of the organisms responsible for diseases such as typhoid fever, dysentery and cholera. But today, our water supply is far from safe. Some pathogens elude conventional filters; others are resistant to chlorine; and chlorinated drinking water may increase the risk of certain cancers. Climate change, emerging diseases, toxic chemicals, decaying pipes and terrorism also threaten our water. To dramatize his thesis, Morris describes devastating outbreaks of gastrointestinal disease, such as the one caused by a parasite in Milwaukee's drinking water that sickened 400,000 people in 1993. During the 19th century, doctors had to overcome opposition from those who refused to believe that diseases could be waterborne. Now, epidemiologists and researchers who advocate for tighter controls on drinking water must battle drinking water industry lobbyists who resist regulatory efforts. Morris argues persuasively that unless we do more to protect the water we drink, we court disaster. (Aug.)

The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq
Aidan Delgado. Beacon, $24.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-8070-7270-7

Delgado, one of the few soldiers to gain conscientious objector status during the Iraq War, paints a grim picture of an army suffused with casual racism and capricious violence. After signing up to become an army reserve mechanic-he completed the paperwork on September 11, 2001, minutes before the first tower was hit-Delgado found himself drawn to Buddhism, and his faith ultimately clashed with the military service he faced in Iraq. Having lived in Egypt as a teenager, Delgado was alarmed by the ignorance of Islam and xenophobia among his fellow soldiers. He attributes those attitudes to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, where he was stationed for much of his tour of duty. Delgado's commander, who did not look favorably upon applications for CO status, took his body armor away and didn't return it, even when the unit was under continual mortar bombardment. This slim and readable volume is best when recounting the author's conversations, altercations and adventures in Iraq; his meditations on pacifism are sometimes repetitive and tendentious. In the end, he offers a welcome corrective to much of the aggressive rhetoric that has pervaded the debate over the war in Iraq. (Aug.)

High Tea in Mosul: The True Story of Two Englishwomen in Iraq
Lynne O'Donnell Cyan (IPG, dist.), $21.95 (224p) ISBN 978-1-9057-3609-6

Journalist and foreign correspondent O'Donnell dexterously combines the tumultuous accounts of two Englishwomen living in Iraq with first-person narratives to create an impartial tale about life in Mosul, a mixed-religion city northwest of Baghdad. In the late 1970s, Pauline and Margaret, the British wives of an Iraqi heart specialist and future Mosul University president, respectively, assimilated into daily Middle Eastern life by learning to adapt to overbearing extended families, complying (or not) with secular rules and dejectedly tolerating meals of mutton. By degrees, over the next two decades, Saddam's iron hand tightened; Iran and Kuwait were invaded, while censorship, food rationing and international sanctions ensued. In 2003, Mosul crumbles, and the lives of these Englishwomen become attuned to air raids, bombs and the shudder of explosions. O'Donnell's emotional narrative examines Iraqi life in its entirety and shows that there is more to the country than violence and war. She chronicles friendship and family with stories about everyday life. A thorough look into Iraqi's past and present, O'Donnell's tale adds a human element to the developing history of a turbulent nation. (Aug.)

Left for Dead: The Untold Story of the Greatest Disaster in Modern Sailing History
Nick Ward with Sinead O'Brien. Bloomsbury, $24.95 (208p) ISBN 978-1-59691-455-1

Raised in the 1960s in the village of Hamble on England's south coast, Ward was given sailing lessons by his father by the age of four and quickly grew to love the water. Given that Hamble was near the launching point for a 600-mile race called Fastnet, it's little surprise that come August of 1979 Ward leaped at the opportunity to take part. He describes the race, which killed 15 racers and sank five boats. He tells of what happened when his craft, the Grimalkin, got caught in a vicious storm that blew in across the Atlantic and caught the racing boats in the Irish Sea. The 50-foot waves and 80-knot winds capsized many boats, including his own, which was abandoned by most of its crew. Remaining on board was a dead shipmate and Ward, who tried to maintain his sanity as the storm raged on. That Ward, who had suffered a brain hemorrhage as a teenager and was taking antiseizure medication, survived such a devastating storm at all is something near miraculous. Unfortunately, with the exception of some exuberantly rhapsodic passages near the start on his love for the art of sailing, Ward's book (written with documentary filmmaker O'Brien) is a stiff affair. (Aug.)

King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema
Anupama Chopra. Warner, $24.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-446-57858-5

Although he's not a household name in America, Shah Rukh Khan, sometimes called the "Tom Cruise of Hindi film," is a world-famous superstar, the kind who generates "Elvis-level hysteria" wherever he goes. Born in New Delhi in 1965, Shah Rukh grew up loving movies, with American John Travolta and Bill Cosby among the stars he admired. After graduating from high school, he moved from theater to television to movie acting, gradually finding his niche with "brooding antihero" roles, the sort that other actors rejected for fear of spoiling their leading-man image. As Shah Rukh has became a bigger star, playing a variety of roles, he also helped the industry expand. His films range from traditional themes (Asoka) to remakes of classics (Devdas), song-and-dance romances and even Mission Impossible-type films like Don. Chopra, a Mumbai-based freelance journalist who comes from a filmmaking family herself, offers readers both the life story of Shah Rukh and a condensed history of the Indian film industry. Even if you know nothing about Indian cinema, her prose style ("Bollywood now recoiled from the mafia like a man shrinking from a sore-covered leper on the street") makes this a bizarrely fun read. (Aug.)

Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life
James Blake, with Andrew Friedman. HarperCollins, $25.95 (228p) ISBN 978-0-06-134349-0

Tennis champion Blake, who has appeared on Oprah and The Tonight Show, shares his string of hard-won successes both on the court and in his personal health. A child of a black father and white British mother in Fairfield, Conn., Blake hooked into serious tennis playing by age 11, when he was paired with coach Brian Barker, who remained his gentle mentor for the duration of his career. Having turned professional by his sophomore year of college at Harvard in 1991, Blake had mixed success on the pro circuit for the first few years. Sustaining confidence seemed to be Blake's biggest challenge, as he struggled to follow the advice of his father, Tom, who was fighting a losing battle with stomach cancer: "You can't control your level of talent, but you can control your level of effort." At age 23, he decided to shave his trademark dreadlocks. Soon after, he ran into a steel net post during a practice game in Rome, fracturing his neck vertebrae. Blake was later diagnosed with paralyzing zoster, or shingles. His memoir is an inspirational account of overcoming the odds to return to competitive playing by 2004. (Aug.)

Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf
Maureen B. Adams. Ballantine, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-345-48406-2

Coaxed through a depression by her golden retriever, Adams, a psychologist and former English professor, was drawn to five exceptional women writers who relied on their loyal dogs for emotional support. Flush distracted Elizabeth Barrett after her favorite brother's death, and the poet wrote about "the unsettling similarity between lapdogs and women in Victorian England": both powerless and needing to please others. Formidable, eccentric Emily Brontë, who once savagely beat her fierce mastiff, Keeper, for sleeping on her bed, refused to sentimentalize the human-dog bond in Wuthering Heights, which depicts innocent pets being hung. Carlo, a Newfoundland, comforted Emily Dickinson in a dark time-when she may have been in love with a married man-and Edith Wharton mourned the death of one of her pooches more than the death of her mother. And Adams suggests that Virginia Woolf, depicting a dog's trauma in her biography of Flush, who was dognapped for ransom, dealt with her own childhood molestation (a picture of Woolf's dog, Pinka, appeared on the cover of Flush's biography). Although Adams's knowledgeable minibiographies are necessarily skewed toward a specialized subject matter, lovers of both dogs and classic writers will identify with this sweet, quirky book. Illus. (July 31)

Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean
Douglas Wolk. Da Capo $22.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-306-81509-6

As the graphic novel flourishes and gains legitimacy as an art form, serious comics criticism is an inevitable byproduct, and PW contributing editor Wolk's analytical discourse is a welcome starting point. The volume contains two sections: "Theory and History," an explanation of comics as a medium and an overview of its evolution, and "Reviews and Commentary," a diverse examination of creators and works. This section spans Will Eisner's pioneering efforts as well as the groundbreaking modern comics by the Hernandez brothers, Chris Ware and Alison Bechdel. Since there are decades worth of books already focusing on the superhero genre, the raw clay from which the comics industry was built, the relatively short shrift given to the spandex oeuvre's insular mythologies is a wise choice that allows the nonfan a glimpse into the wider range that comics commands. Wolk's insightful observations offer much to ponder, perhaps more than can be fully addressed in one volume, but the thoughtful criticism and knowledgeable historical overview give much-needed context for the emerging medium. B&w illus. (July)

Rembrandt's Nose: Of Flesh & Spirit in the Master's Portraits
Michael Taylor. D.A.P., $27.50 (168p) ISBN 978-1-933045-44-3

Last year marked the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth, and in this slim, intensely focused volume, Paris-based scholar Taylor (translator of Pierre Schneider's seminal work, Matisse) presents an unusual and carefully researched study that stands alone while acknowledging the author's debt to Simon Schama's Rembrandt's Eyes. "If the sitter is the lead actor of a performance... then the nose is his understudy on the stage of the face," Taylor writes with characteristic verve, underscoring a major theme: the drama of physiognomy and how Rembrandt engaged it in innovative ways and with emotive depth. For Rembrandt, Taylor argues, the nose is a sensual, sexual, vital and often definitive element in his portraits and self-portraits. Taylor's study presents a broader chronological exploration of the painter's portrayal of the human form and the self-portraits he obsessively created throughout his life. Several of Taylor's themes are familiar, such as Rembrandt's interest in the body's physical decline. Yet his perspective is often fresh and probing; the discussion of moral blindness and "seeing-in-blindness" in Rembrandt's Tobit series is particularly illuminating. Taylor's prose is elegant and his interpretations show engagement with Rembrandt scholarship, making this book appealing. to those with a general interest in Rembrandt as well as to scholars of the painter and period. 49 illus. (July 1)

Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness
Dennis N. Griffin and
Frank Cullotta with contributions from Dennis Arnoldy, foreword by Nick Pileggi. Huntington (www.huntingtonpress.com), $19.95 (292p) ISBN 978-0-929712-45-1

Mystery and nonfiction writer Griffin covered the Vegas reign of kingpin Tony "the Ant" Spilotro in The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. the Mob. Digging deeper into mob history, he now focuses on Spilotro's lifelong pal, career criminal Cullotta, who appeared in Martin Scorsese's 1995 film, Casino, recreating an actual murder he committed in 1979. Spilotro and Cullotta met in Chicago as teenage troublemakers, and early chapters detail the violent escapades of Cullotta's youth before he escalated to major crimes. Spilotro rose in the ranks of the mob and became the Chicago Outfit's man in Las Vegas, and Cullotta eventually joined him, running a robbery and murder crew. Together, Spilotro and Cullotta extorted illegal bookmakers and drug dealers throughout Vegas. But in the early 1980s, Cullotta became a government witness, bringing down the house. In addition to poring through newspaper archives, Griffin interviewed various sheriffs, attorneys, agents and detectives, while primarily relying on information from retired FBI agent Arnoldy and what Pileggi calls the "phenomenal" memory of Cullotta himself. Griffin's flat, unemotional yet potent writing makes the bloodletting, murders and mayhem chilling and unnerving throughout. 30 b&w photos. (July 1)

Armed and Dangerous: The Hunt for One of America's Most Wanted Criminals
William Queen and
Douglas Century. Random, $22.95 (224p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6577-6

After his bestselling debut, Under and Alone (also coauthored by Century), Queen, a retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, returns with a less successful effort. Here Queen goes back to his early days with ATF, describing his obsessive 1985 quest to take down Mark Stephens, "equal parts gunman, mountain man, drug trafficker, and out-and-out thug." As laudatory as the effort to apprehend Stephens was, the story is too slight to sustain even a brief book, which might explain why Queen fills it out with discussions of unrelated investigations he pursued while waiting for approval to go up into the mountains after his quarry. He also seems to devote as much time to his arguments with his superiors as to the effort to ascend the rugged terrain in the mountains of Southern California where Stephens was hiding out, and the anticlimactic conclusion of their encounter is disappointing. Queen relies on an uncorroborated account from an ex-con and associate of Stephens's for a section that makes Stephens seem truly psychotic. The passing references to the toll the agent's hard-charging style took on his marriage could have been better developed. (July 3)

Taming Democracy: "The People," the Founders, and the Struggle over the American Revolution
Terry Bouton. Oxford Univ., $29.95 (452p) ISBN 978-0-19-530665-1

This is a rare book-scholarly yet written with verve, readable for pleasure as well as for knowledge. It reasserts what historians have long argued: that the American gentry during the period from 1776 to roughly 1800 succeeded "at stunting the meaning and practice of democracy for ordinary white men." Bouton's familiar arguments about "thwarted popular ideals" are drawn only from Pennsylvania. That's because the Keystone State, having gone through the most democratic revolution in 1776 and written the most democratic constitution, had turned by about 1790 and, under its second constitution, fell back under the control of the elite. Yet even if distinctive, Pennsylvania was decently representative of much of the early nation. Up to a point, therefore, Bouton's argument is convincing. What's more, he relates this disappointing history partly through the stories of individuals, like the Black Boys and Jimmy Smith, who'll be unknown even to most scholars. But like so many historians, he applauds the common people acting their democratic part while implicitly condemning the gentry for acting like gentry. This inconsistency mars an otherwise fine book. (July)

The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism
Erez Manela. Oxford Univ., $29.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-19-517615-5

At the close of WWI, America seemed the foe of Western imperialism, according to this probing historical study. Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points peace framework and his rhetoric of self-determination and equality of nations appeared to expectant Africans and Asians like a formula for their liberation from European colonial rule. One Indian leader hailed Wilson as another "Christ or Buddha," and a Chinese academic called him the "number one good man in the world." Wilson was bombarded by petitions from colonial nationalist leaders (including Ho Chi Minh). who hoped he would champion their cause at the Paris Peace Conference. But the other Allies proved unsympathetic to self-determination in their colonial domains and Wilson backed off, provoking disillusioned nationalists from Egypt to Korea to stage uprisings and turn to Soviet communism for inspiration. Manela, an assistant professor of history at Harvard, offers a well-researched, if somewhat dry, survey of anticolonial politics during this fraught period. Wilsonian principles, he contends, laid the conceptual groundwork for the 20th century's nationalist revolutions; yet Wilson's betrayal ensured that anti-imperialism would shift from a liberal internationalist ideology to a radical, anti-Western one. The author presents an enlightening analysis of a shortsighted failure whose convulsive effects are still with us. 20 photos. (July)

Henry Kissinger and the American Century
Jeremi Suri. Harvard/Belknap, $27.95 (294p) ISBN 978-0-674-02579-0

University of Wisconsin historian Suri (Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente) endeavors to explore the philosophical roots of Henry Kissinger's actions as national security adviser and secretary of state under President Nixon, finding those roots in a Jewish boy's experiences of a weak Weimar regime's fall to genocidal Nazism. At the end of the day, in Suri's account, Kissinger's philosophy boiled down to the need to back democracy with muscle. "America, alone of the free countries," said Kissinger, "was strong enough to assure global security against the forces of tyranny. Only America had both the power and the decency to inspire other peoples who struggled for identity, for progress and dignity." But Kissinger's expressed idealism leads Suri to downplay the consequences of Kissinger's actions, including his role in subverting the democratically elected government of Chile's Salvador Allende. Kissinger did not support the brutality of the "regimes he supported in Chile, South Africa, and other parts of the Third World," Suri writes. But, the author acknowledges, he did "nurture personal relations with their leaders as strongmen who could mobilize force effectively against threats to themselves and the United States." At the close of that statement, Suri stumbles into the unpleasant truth of Kissinger's realpolitik. Illus. (July)

Cheney: A Revealing Portrait of America's Most Powerful Vice President
Stephen F. Hayes. HarperCollins, $25.95 (512p) ISBN 978-0-06-072346-0

Before he became George W. Bush's running mate in the 2000 election, Hayes reports, Dick Cheney called the vice presidency "a cruddy job." But during his tenure, Hayes argues, Cheney transformed "this traditionally inconsequential office" into "a focal point of presidential power." While emphasizing Cheney's role as vice president, this biography follows his entire political career, beginning with a 1968 congressional fellowship and including key positions in the Ford and George H.W. Bush administrations, as well as 21 years as a congressman. Drawing on interviews with Cheney and others, as well as TV interviews and other journalistic reports, Hayes covers this material engagingly and efficiently. A reporter for the Weekly Standard and author of a previous book on the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, Hayes approaches Cheney sympathetically, countering more critical accounts in the popular press-for example, he laments the way Ambassador Joseph Wilson's "flawed storyline" regarding forged evidence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Niger "hardened into conventional wisdom." The book may not convince detractors, but it sketches a vivid portrait of Cheney as an intelligent, quiet leader committed throughout his career, even as a member of Congress, to strengthening the power and authority of the executive branch. (July 24)

Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency
Nigel Hamilton. Public Affairs, $30 (768p) ISBN 978-1-58648-516-0

This second volume of the author's biography casts Clinton's first term as a Miltonian epic of fall and redemption. The years 1993-1994, culminating in the Democrats' loss of Congress in midterm elections, are "Paradise Lost": a disastrous failure caused by a weak White House chief of staff (Mack McLarty), Clinton's own promiscuous openness to ideas and indecisiveness and, most of all, "co-president" Hillary's baleful influence. 1995-1996 are "Paradise Regained": a new chief of staff (Leon Panetta) restores order, Hillary learns her place and Clinton grows a spine, comforts the nation after the Oklahoma City bombing, humiliates Newt Gingrich and wins reelection. (Alas, enter Monica Lewinsky, "a luscious fruit in the Garden of Eden, eager to be plucked.") Hamilton styles this arc, with many military metaphors, as a study of Clinton's maturing capacity for "command" as he grows from "arch-baby boomer" to "undisputed leader of his country." Unfortunately, this focus on character often overshadows the substance of policy (the treatment of Hillary's byzantine health-care plan is especially sketchy) and is not entirely convincing, since the early, feckless Clinton seems to have accomplished more than the "determinedly presidential" later Clinton, with his third way politics of triangulation. At the celebratory end of Hamilton's account, Clinton's comeback is a merely personal triumph, devoid of political significance. (July)

Motherland: A Philosophical History of Russia
Lesley Chamberlain. Overlook/Rookery, $35 (352p) ISBN 978-1-58567-952-2

Delving fearlessly into her complex and understudied subject, Chamberlain provides a useful synthesis of 200 years of thought by nearly 40 Russian philosophers. Her philosopher-by-philosopher account portrays an important, if flawed, theoretical geography that has earned its place in the philosophical tradition, despite Russia's inferiority complex stemming from Nicholas I's closing of all philosophy departments in universities in 1826. Russian thinkers defined themselves against a Western perspective-Hegelian knowledge, Cartesian individualism, Adam Smith's political economy-that, in their view, simply could not comprehend the culture and society of Russia. Among these thinkers, Lenin is the most influential, and the book's argument can't help turning on his 1908 treatise, Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Yet in trying to provide a balanced view of all relevant figures, Chamberlain misses an opportunity to make Lenin's devastating philosophy the book's compelling center. The progression toward totalitarianism is subtle but clear in hindsight, a result of Russia's precarious position on the physical and moral outskirts of the Western world: "Russian disdain for the West, its sense of being morally superior, always contained the shadow of a fear that Russia was the inferior place." This useful reference and historical corrective should inspire further study into a neglected but rich intellectual landscape. (July)

Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone
Joshua Clark. Free Press, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4165-3763-2

As Hurricane Katrina bears down on New Orleans, Clark (founder of Light of New Orleans Publishing) refuses to leave his French Quarter apartment, convinced that he'll be safe four stories up. In the days that follow, he and other friends who stayed behind make the best of the situation, appropriating huge quantities of liquor during a supermarket looting, and organizing themselves as a makeshift cleanup crew to avoid being forcibly evacuated. Such lighthearted moments become increasingly rare as tension develops between Clark's optimistic outlook and his girlfriend's depressed reaction. "We each think the other's pathetic," he confesses to a friend, "and there's New Orleans busted in the abyss between us." The drawn-out disintegration of their relationship runs through the second half of the memoir, while Clark tape-records impressionistic interviews with fellow storm survivors. The scenes of physical devastation are matched by an uncompromising look at the emotional traumas that unfold in the storm's aftermath-yet through it all, Clark never fully abandons his sense of the absurd. In a short postscript, he turns serious to call attention to "the fastest disappearing landmass on the planet," the coastal wetlands that separate New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico, urging readers to agitate for a solution. (July 10)

I, California : The Occasional History of a Child Actress/Tap Dancer/Record Store Clerk/Thai Waitress/Playboy Reject/Nightclub Booker/Daily Show Correspondent/Sex Columnist/Recurring Character/and Whatever Else
Stacey Grenrock Woods. Scribner, $24 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7432-7491-3

Woods, a 30-something sex columnist for Esquire and former correspondent for The Daily Show, has always yearned to be a celebrity: "I've never known what it's like not to want to be famous." Her rambling autobiography starts with a California childhood filled with acting classes and ends with a minor role in the 1990s on 7th Heaven. En route, her stream-of-consciousness memoir is filled with descriptions of adolescent girlfriends and crushes on rock stars. Yet her brief flirtation with fame-as a booker for Johnny Depp's Viper Room-receives a scant six pages and results in a drug-fueled craving for Twinkies. After slogging through three-quarters of the book, Woods finally reveals a mildly interesting experience on The Daily Show in 1999. But it's scant payoff. The only semipoignant note comes when she stares at photos and is saddened to discover how time and drugs have ravaged her. Unfortunately, a tiresome description of her dreams on Ambien interrupts this potentially well-structured essay. Fans of her witty Esquire column will be disappointed by this tedious and self-indulgent collection. (July)

Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World Edited by
Mark Collings, foreword by Lennox Lewis. Skyhorse (Sterling, dist.), $19.95 (512p) ISBN 978-1-60239-028-7

In prose of wildly varying quality, 52 essays address the paradox of how a man who beat other men senseless for a living and served as the spokesman for a religion that taught that white people are devils became the among the most beloved figures on the planet. The broad outlines of Ali's career are known to almost everyone, from the shocking knockout of Sonny Liston to the conversion to Islam and the theft of Ali's title after he refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War. Ali's words-"No Vietcong ever called me nigger"-remain a memorable statement from the era, and his comeback with the three Frazier fights and the "Rumble in the Jungle" provided a triumphant coda that Hollywood couldn't have scripted. Essays from such luminaries as Maya Angelou, Gil Scott Heron and Dustin Hoffman contain the platitudinous, the touching, the surprising and the bizarre. However, there are some excellent pieces here, including one by Stanley Crouch, who refers to the Nation of Islam as "cultural/political LSD... an emotional hallucinogen." Yet what impresses about this book is the sheer variety of contributors (BB King, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Bert Sugar), providing yet another testament to the enduring importance of the heavyweight boxer. (July)

The Velveteen Principles for Women: Shatter the Myth of Perfection and Embrace All That You Really Are
Toni Raiten-D'Antonio. HCI, $16.95 paper (350p) ISBN 978-0-7573-0561-0

In her popular first book, The Velveteen Principles, psychotherapist Raiten-D'Antonio promoted individuality and being Real, in the spirit of Margery Williams's cherished children's classic. In this equally appealing sequel, Raiten-D'Antonio's style is light and appealing as she describes how our culture enforces conformity and how to become Real (i.e., yourself). Drawing on her own difficult childhood as the dutiful daughter of a mother with Parkinson's disease, she explains how girls are raised to be Barbie-perfect wives and caretakers. She calls our materialistic, stereotyping culture "The Object Culture" and the superficial language it uses "Thinglish." The antidote, the way to feel "Real," says the author, "is a fully developed set of your own values and beliefs that are not generic but tailor-made by you." In her 13 principles ("Becoming a Real Woman Is a Process," "Real Women Are Flexible"), she examines the practice of values such as empathy, generosity and honesty. In this simple, sweet and positive book, Raiten-D'Antonio offers a message that will be palatable to a couple of generations of women who have grown up seeking power in the workplace and in their relationships while remaining outwardly conventional and mainstream in their values. (May)

Lifestyle

Food & Wine

Savory Baking from the Mediterranean
Anissa Helou. Morrow, $29.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-054219-1

In Helou's (Mediterranean Street Food) latest, breads that are often overlooked get a star turn: pitas that enfold spicy meats, pillowy focaccia that serves as a platter for rich tomato sauce and flatbreads used to scoop up hummus. Helou draws on cultures from around the region to offer everything from Piquitos (rich Spanish breadsticks) to Sicilian eggplant bread rolls, a lamb-filled Cretan Easter Pie to Moroccan Triangles with Minced Meat, with the similarities between ingredients and preparations demonstrating how much the cultures share despite national divisions. Along with entries as familiar and simple as the aptly named Regular Italian Bread and classic Neapolitan Pizza, Helou delves into less charted territory with recipes like the dazzling sweet Greek Holy Bread and the flavorful Lebanese Strained Yogurt Triangles. Unfortunately for a book about such a colorful region, the accompanying photos of bakers and breads are all in black and white, but home cooks who just want the goods will appreciate the straightforward, easy-to-follow steps and the often detailed remarks about ingredients, history and preparation that preface many of the recipes. Helou has created a paean to the foundation of Mediterranean food. (Aug.)

Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers
Daniel Leader with Lauren Chattman. Norton, $35 (448p) ISBN 978-0-393-05055-4

Leader's new bread-baking book is distinguished from his earlier classic Bread Alone by its focus on regional specialties, from the Alsatian classic pain au levain to Tuscan black olive puccia, from German laugenbrezeln or pretzels to the dark Silesian rye of the Czech Republic. The book opens with 50 pages of well-written and thorough instructions on everything from ingredients to equipment. The most helpful part is the explanation of the basic steps of any bread-making process, which serves as a primer on the procedural elements that are universal across the various European traditions. Leader, who founded the heralded Bread Alone bakery in Woodstock, N.Y., is most interested in teaching holistically, so that his readers will feel comfortable becoming apprentices and then experts themselves. One can't help imagining, however, that bread baking is best learned in the flesh. Leader advises that the only way to figure out if the "dough is ready is through experience," and a hapless home baker might agree. Still, the book is an excellent primer on the best breads of Europe, and the traveler who has returned home with a longing for the Roman specialty pane di altamura might be satisfied with a mouth-watering trip down memory lane. (Aug.)

Pure Flavor: 125 Fresh All-American Recipes from the Pacific Northwest
Kurt Beecher Dammeier with Laura Holmes Haddad. Clarkson Potter, $32.50 (250p) ISBN 978-0-307-34642-1

The proprietor of "that awesome mac and cheese place" in Seattle's Pike Place market has created a cookbook that also serves as a "who's who" in Seattle artisanal food production. As the subtitle suggests, the recipes showcase Pacific Northwest superstars such as salmon, crab, mushrooms and cherries, and the purveyors who make and sell the very best of all of them. Many of the recipes suggest particular brands, and the back of the book includes a list of Seattle markets, food shops and restaurants. In this way, the book can feel a bit like a cross-pollinating marketing brainchild, with many shoulders being patted. The book will likely be most helpful as a culinary guidebook for Seattle residents and frequent visitors. Many of the recipes tread some familiar boards, but several stand out as fresh and original: fresh tomato and cheese curd salad, and Dungeness crab mac and cheese. The title refers to Dammeier's practice of using only the freshest of ingredients, ones that "reflect the natural rhythm of the seasons." Though there are some nods throughout to the seasonality of certain ingredients, the book could go further toward helping the home chef navigate the increasingly murky waters of food origin. (July)

Health

Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing
Timothy McCall. Bantam, $17 paper (576p) ISBN 978-0-553-38406-2

Western-trained internist and Yoga Journal medical editor McCall has practiced Iyengar yoga for a decade. In 2002, he traveled to India, where most scientific research on yoga's medical benefits has been conducted. The results of that visit and McCall's subsequent study of yoga therapy and ayurveda (India's ancient medical system) are presented here, translated into Western medical terms. For example, McCall demystifies such concepts as samskaras (unconscious patterns that negatively affect behavior and health); scientists, McCall says, explain these patterns as repeated firings of neurons that change the brain's "wiring." Although McCall's focus is on yoga therapy, he includes material that will be helpful to most students. For readers challenged by illness, he provides an overview of popular yoga styles and their suitability for various degrees of fitness; steps to finding a yoga therapist; and what to expect from a session. Twenty chapters feature noted yoga instructors describing their approaches to specific conditions-panic attacks, carpal tunnel syndrome, depression, infertility, cancer, etc. They offer advice, rather than fixed protocols, based on their tradition and experience. This might frustrate readers seeking a formula, but those willing to experiment have access to many diverse tools and practices. No doubt McCall's fine articulation of yoga's healing potential will appeal to a large audience of instructors, students, physicians and their patients. (July)

The Craving Cure: Break the Hold Carbs and Sweets Have on Your Life
Rena Greenberg, foreword by Bernie Siegel. McGraw-Hill, $16.95 paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-0714-7736-9

From her own struggles with food addiction, hypnotherapist Greenberg (The Right Weight) developed a program for breaking physical and emotional dependence on sugar, carbohydrates and caffeine. An ordained minister and founder of Wellness Seminars, Greenberg has used her techniques in hospitals and corporate settings to help people lose weight and stop smoking. Here, she guides readers through exercises to uncover negative beliefs, strengthen intention, gain awareness of individual foods' effects on the body and develop a healthy lifestyle. To rid the body of addictive substances, lessen withdrawal symptoms, naturally boost energy and impart inner calm, she recommends a two-week cleansing emphasizing vegetable juices; balanced, whole meals consisting of complex carbohydrates, animal protein and healthy fats; deep breathing; and movement. Affirmations, visualization and self-hypnosis are used to recognize deeper needs that readers may be trying to meet with food. People who feel trapped in compulsive food behaviors will benefit from Greenberg's minute examination of the subconscious roots of addiction. (July)

Gardening

Orchids to Know and Grow
Thomas J. Sheehan and
Robert J. Black. Univ. Press of Florida, $19.95 paper (312p) ISBN 978-0-8130-3065-4

For gardeners or orchid lovers intimidated by the plant's exotic and temperamental reputation, Sheehan and Black, both environmental horticulture professors emeriti at the University of Florida, have written a small, rather dry but helpful volume outlining basic orchid cultivation methods, as well as some surprising orchid facts (vanilla is an orchid!). Beginning with the six qualities that define an orchid and instructions on how to identify one, they proceed with two chapters on naming and taxonomy, followed by an encyclopedic list of orchid genera that takes up the bulk of the book. The chapters describing hands-on orchid culture cover light, water and temperature needs; growing media; containers and potting; propagation; diseases and pests; and how to grow orchids in greenhouses as well as in the home. The information, although thorough enough to get started, is sketchy at times: the propagation section mentions "a method of germinating orchid seed aseptically on nutrient agar" but rather than describe how to do it in your kitchen, which they state is possible, they merely remark that "most amateur gardeners prefer to purchase flasks of already germinated seeds." Despite this sometimes frustrating lack of detail, the book, which also contains enticing color plates of many of the genera, is a good reference for both beginning and experienced orchid growers. (July)