Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 6/4/2007
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 6/4/2007
Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe
Philip McFarland. Grove, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-8021-1845-5
Despite the racy title, McFarland (Hawthorne in Concord) has not penned a salacious tell-all about Harriet Beecher Stowe's romantic life, but rather a fairly unremarkable biography of Stowe and the whole Beecher family. Though ostensibly organized around the three men important to Harriet-her father, her brother and her husband-the device is really just a gimmick that leads to confusing departures from chronology, as when McFarland summarizes the childhood of Harriet's father halfway through the book. The most perceptive sections deal with Stowe's literary career. McFarland argues that Poganuc People is her most "coherent" work, and that Uncle Tom's Cabin, the abolitionist novel that made Stowe an international star, was born in part out of her experience as a mother: when her young son died, Stowe was sensitized to the plight of slave mothers separated from their children. This narrative is sure to be overshadowed by Debby Applegate's Pulitzer Prize-winning study of Stowe's brother, The Most Famous Man in America (2006); Joan Hedrick's Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (1994), to which McFarland acknowledges his debt, will remain definitive. (Nov. 10)
American Creation:Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic Joseph Ellis. Knopf, $26.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-307-26369-8
This subtle, brilliant examination of the period between the War of Independence and the Louisiana Purchase puts Pulitzer-winner Ellis (Founding Brothers) among the finest of America's narrative historians. Six stories, each centering on a significant creative achievement or failure, combine to portray often flawed men and their efforts to lay the republic's foundation. Set against the extraordinary establishment of "the most liberal nation-state in the history of Western Civilization... in the most extensive and richly endowed plot of ground on the planet" are the terrible costs of victory, including the perpetuation of slavery and the cruel oppression of Native Americans. Ellis blames the founders' failures on their decision to opt for an evolutionary revolution, not a risky severance with tradition (as would happen, murderously, in France, which necessitated compromises, like retaining slavery). Despite the injustices and brutalities that resulted, Ellis argues, "this deferral strategy" was "a profound insight rooted in a realistic appraisal of how enduring social change best happens." Ellis's lucid, illuminating and ironic prose will make this a holiday season hit. (Nov. 5)
The Elder Wisdom Circle Guide for a Meaningful Life: Advice from One Generation to the NextDoug Meckelson and Diane Haithman. Plume, $14 (304p) ISBN 978-0-452-28881-2
Inspired by his grandmother, Meckelson, a former worker in the financial services industry, founded the Elder Wisdom Circle in 2001. Now nationwide, this group comprises volunteers aged 60-100 who endeavor to provide assistance to younger people who ask questions through a Web site. Meckelson and L.A. Times staff writer Haithman have divided representative correspondence into such subjects as careers, sibling issues and death. Many engaging and thoughtful questions and responses are recounted. Although one respondent recommends trusting in God, the circle members are by no means all believers and are required to refrain from proselytizing. The elders are not afraid to discuss nontraditional family structures and also humanely and appropriately deal with inquiries about sexuality. Anyone looking for empathy and practical strategies for overcoming difficulties from those who have been there will profit from this light-hearted guide and be inspired to visit the Web site, elderwisdomcircle.org.(Oct. 30)
Cavalier: A Tale of Chivalry, Passion, and Great HousesLucy Worsley. Bloomsbury, $29.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-59691-358-5
Worsley, the chief curator of Britain's Historic Royal Palaces, closely examines the life of 17th-century English aristocrat William Cavendish, a champion of poetry, music, horses, women and architecture, with reference to numerous primary sources including a rich body of his estate papers, letters and poems. Every detail of Cavendish's universe comes to life, from architect John Smithson's designs for his exquisite home to the job descriptions and diets of the building site's laborers. Also vividly described is a nasty household plot against Cavendish's much younger second wife and a costly entertainment staged by Cavendish to curry favor with Charles I. It succeeded, and the King made William earl, marquis, his heir's tutor and a Civil War general, a commission beyond Cavendish's abilities. After a key battle of the war ended in disaster, Cavendish fled to the continent, lived in relative poverty and was branded a coward, but his fortunes rebounded under Charles II, who minted him duke of Newcastle. Although fascinating, this diligently documented account reveals its roots as a doctoral thesis. 16-page color insert, b&w illus. (Oct. 20)
Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial WorldJessica Snyder Sachs. Hill & Wang, $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-8090-5063-5
Science writer Sachs (Corpse) makes a strong case for a new paradigm for dealing with the microbial life that teems around and within us. Taking both evolutionary and ecological approaches, she explains why antibiotics work so well but are now losing their effectiveness. She notes that between agricultural antibiotic usage and needless prescriptions written for human use, antibiotic resistance has reached terrifying levels. A decade ago, resistant infections acquired in hospitals "were killing an estimated eighty-eight thousand Americans each year... more than car accidents and homicides combined." Our attempts to destroy microorganisms regularly upset useful microbial communities, often leading to serious medical consequences. Sachs also presents evidence suggesting that an epidemiclike rise in autoimmune diseases and allergies may be attributable to our misguided frontal assault on the bacterial world. The solution proposed is to encourage the growth of healthy, displacement-resistant microbial ecological communities and promote research that disrupts microbial processes rather than simply attempting to kill the germs themselves. Despite the frightening death toll, Sachs's summary of promising new avenues of research offers hope. (Oct. 16)
Mr. Jefferson's WomenJon Kukla. Knopf, $26.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4000-4324-8
This highly insightful study by Kukla (A Wilderness So Immense), director of the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation, investigates Thomas Jefferson's relationships with women, from Elizabeth Moore Walker, the married neighbor with whom Jefferson may have had an affair, to Sally Hemings, the slave whose children he purportedly fathered. One of the most fascinating chapters examines the young Jefferson's failed attempts to woo a classmate's sister, Rebecca Burwell, whose rejection of his marriage proposal may have incited the misogyny found throughout his writings. Perhaps the least satisfying section studies Jefferson's relationship with his wife, Martha: since Jefferson destroyed their private correspondence after she died, Kukla's re-creation of their relationship is necessarily sketchy. The conclusion moves to a larger argument concerning Jefferson's thinking about women as citizens. Kukla shows that Jefferson was much less open to women's political participation and education than were contemporary Enlightenment thinkers, and his "definition of America as a white male polity" was "rooted in his personal discomfort with women." This is one of the most discerning and provocative studies of Jefferson in years. B&w illus., map. (Oct. 12)
Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel SewallEve LaPlante. HarperOne, $25.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-078661-8
In 1692, Salem magistrate Samuel Sewall (1652-1730), along with several others, presided over the conviction and execution of 20 people accused of witchcraft. Five years and much soul-searching later, Sewall publicly repented of his part in the witch trials. Much as she did in American Jezebel, the marvelous biography of her 12th-generation ancestor Anne Hutchinson, LaPlante, who counts Sewall as her sixth-great-grandfather, richly narrates his life in its cultural and religious setting. Drawing on Sewall's diaries and stories told by her Aunt Charlotte, LaPlante sketches a compelling portrait of a committed family man, a dedicated magistrate and a deeply religious Puritan confronting his own shortcomings and questioning the doctrines of his religion. After his public repentance, Sewall reconsidered many Puritan teachings and wrote controversial treatises arguing for the equality of Native Americans, women and slaves. LaPlante's splendid biography brings a personal touch to Sewall's story (also recently recounted by historian Richard Francis in Judge Sewall's Apology, 2005) and his efforts to take the difficult but righteous path. (Oct. 1)
Coltrane: The Story of a Sound Ben Ratliff. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (272p) ISBN 978-0-374-12606-3
Ratliff, the jazz critic for the New York Times, isn't interested in simply retelling the biographical facts of John Coltrane's life. Instead, he analyzes how the saxophone player came to be regarded as "the last major figure in the evolution of jazz," tracing both the evolution of his playing style and the critical reception to it. The first half of this study concentrates on Coltrane's career, from his early days as a semianonymous sideman to his final, increasingly experimental recordings, while the second half explores the growth of Coltrane's legacy after his death. Ratliff has a keen sense of Coltrane's constantly changing sound, highlighting the collaborative nature of jazz by discussing the bands he played in as both sideman and leader. (One of the more intriguing asides is a suggestion that Coltrane's alleged LSD use might have inclined him toward a more cooperative mode of performance.) The consideration of Coltrane's shifting influence on jazz-and other modern musical forms-up to the present day is equally vigorous, refusing to rely on simple adulation. Always going past the legend to focus on the real-life stories and the actual recordings, Ratliff's assessment is a model for music criticism. (Sept.)
My Lobotomy: A MemoirHoward Dully and Charles Fleming. Crown, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-307-38126-2
At age 12, in 1960, Dully received a transorbital or "ice pick" lobotomy from Dr. Walter Freeman, who invented the procedure, making Dully an unfortunate statistic in medical history-the youngest of the more than 10,000 patients who Freeman lobotomized to cure their supposed mental illness. In this brutally honest memoir, Dully, writing with Fleming (The Ivory Coast), describes how he set out 40 years later to find out why he was lobotomized, since he did not exhibit any signs of mental instability at the time, and why, postoperation, he was bounced between various institutions and then slowly fell into a life of drug and alcohol abuse. His journey-first described in a National Public Radio feature in 2005-finds Dully discovering how deeply he was the victim of an unstable stepmother who systematically abused him and who then convinced his distant father that a lobotomy was the answer to Dully's acting out against her psychic torture. He also investigates the strange career of Freeman-who wasn't a licensed psychiatrist-including early acclaim by the New York Times and cross-country trips hawking the operation from his "Lobotomobile." But what is truly stunning is Dully's description of how he gained strength and a sense of self-worth by understanding how both Freeman and his stepmother were victims of their own family tragedies, and how he managed to somehow forgive them for the wreckage they caused in his life. (Sept.)
Diana Ross: A Biography J. Randy Taraborrelli. Citadel, $26.95 (539p) ISBN 978-0-8065-2849-6
Taraborrelli has totally rewritten, expanded and updated his 1989 bio Call Her Miss Ross to create what is now truly a definitive biography. The new book boasts epic research, including extensive interviews with Ross and virtually all the major people in her life (his enviable first-hand access began in the 1970s when he started an international fan club for the Supremes and later worked for Mary Wilson). This time out, there is more background about the early Supremes years that yields a complex and fascinating tale of ambition, ego, insecurities and harsh showbiz realities. Taraborrelli delves more deeply into Ross's psyche, allowing readers to fully appreciate her drive to escape Detroit and conquer the music world. The book also benefits greatly from Taraborrelli's thoughtful analysis of conflicting viewpoints represented in published memoirs by Ross, Wilson, Berry Gordy, and a slew of Motown performers. It's to Taraborrelli's credit that he refuses to cast people as one-dimensional heroes, victims or villains. This riveting page-turner is actually a tribute to a woman who has survived and thrived for more than four decades in a profession littered with one-hit wonders. 16-pages of photos. (Sept.)
Terror in Black September: The First Eyewitness Accounts of the Infamous 1970 HijackingsDavid Raab. Palgrave, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4039-8420-3
Thirty-seven years ago on September 6, Palestinian revolutionaries hijacked four airliners bound for New York. Two of the planes were flown to the desert outside of Amman, Jordan, and held there just as the Jordanian civil war erupted. Raab, a health-care executive, was a 17-year-old hostage on one of those planes, and he recounts the ordeal, which resulted in his being separated from his family and dragged back and forth across Jordan for weeks in fear for his life. Raab also attempts to narrate the larger story, from the tense, fractious multinational negotiations over the hostages to the conflict between the Jordanian army and the Palestinian guerrillas. It is an ambitious undertaking, one that Raab lacks the craft to achieve. While the book is painstakingly researched, the writing rarely comes alive, even in the most dramatic situations. The various sources-including Raab's account that he wrote soon after his release-seem to be stuck together rather than shaped. Still, much of the material is intrinsically fascinating and a sad reminder of how much and how little has changed. Four hijacking attempts in one day was a record that would stand alone for 31 years, until another September day in 2001. (Sept.)
Letters to a Young Teacher Jonathan Kozol. Crown, $19.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-307-39371-5
Forty years ago, Death at an Early Age catapulted Kozol into national prominence as a compassionate yet clearheaded observer of the rotten state of American education. His latest book reviews many of the basic issues he has spent his life exploring through teaching and writing. Here, he cleverly weaves his observations-as well as a thinly disguised biographical memoir-into a series of 16 letters written to "Francesca," a first-grade teacher at an inner-city public school in Boston. Overall, the book will delight and encourage first-year (or for that matter, 40th-year) teachers who need Kozol's reminders of the ways that their "beautiful profession" can "bring joy and beauty, mystery and mischievous delight into the hearts of little people in their years of greatest curiosity." But his encouraging words rarely lapse into treacle. In fact, he offers tough observations on American education addressed to a larger audience. His forceful opinions are convincingly argued-most notably, that educational vouchers will deepen divisions between diverse groups in racially decided cities; that middle schools demoralize students and should be abolished entirely; and that the Gates Foundation made a "damaging mistake" in aggressively funding a "small school craze" that will reinforce "the racial isolation of the students they enroll." (Sept.)
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone ElseMichael Gates Gill. Gotham, $23 (288p) ISBN 978-1-592-40286-1
The son of New Yorker writer Brendan Gill grew up meeting the likes of Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway. A Yale education led to a job at prestigious J. Walter Thompson Advertising. But at 63, the younger Gill's sweet life has gone sour. Long fired from JWT, his own business is collapsing and an ill-advised affair has resulted in a new son and a divorce. At this low point, and in need of health insurance for a just diagnosed brain tumor, Gill fills out an application for Starbucks and is assigned to the store on 93rd and Broadway in New York City, staffed primarily by African-Americans. Working as a barista, Gill, who is white, gets an education in race relations and the life of a working class Joe . Gill certainly has a story to tell, but his narrative is flooded with saccharine flashbacks, when it could have detailed how his very different, much younger colleagues, especially his endearing 28-year-old manager, Crystal Thompson, came to accept him. The book reads too much like an employee handbook, as Gill details his duties or explains how the company chooses its coffee. Gill's devotion to the superchain has obviously changed his life for the better, but that same devotion makes for a repetitive, unsatisfying read. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)
Cochrane: The Real Master and CommanderDavid Cordingly. Bloomsbury, $32.50 (448p) ISBN 978-1-58234-534-5
Thomas Cochrane was one of the Royal Navy's greatest frigate captains and most controversial figures during the Napoleonic Wars. A counterpoint to Horatio Nelson and his "band of brothers," who were masters of fleet actions and blockade, Cochrane was a daring commerce raider whose prizes were so rich that he sailed into port with solid gold candlesticks lashed to his mastheads. He was a master as well of coastal raiding and cutting-out expeditions, culminating in the crippling of a French squadron at Basque Roads in 1809. Cordingly, an established historian of Nelson's navy, tells Cochrane's story with flair and sympathy-especially when recounting his professional destruction by a corrupt and inefficient naval establishment, which he challenged from his seat in Parliament with the same energy he turned against the French at sea. Cochrane's support of radical domestic causes further marked him, and in 1814 he was convicted in a Stock Exchange scandal whose details remain unclear. Surmounting disgrace and imprisonment, Cochrane in 1818 was offered command of revolutionary Chile's navy. He led it to victory against its Spanish enemy, then repeated the performance for another rebel state, Brazil. Less successful fighting for the Greeks against the Turks, he returned to Britain a national hero, had his case successfully reviewed and was restored to rank and honor. Small wonder that Cochrane's career was a major source of Patrick O'Brian's popular series, though Cochrane might have considered Jack Aubrey a bit of a bore. (Sept.)
The Murder of Regilla: A Case of Domestic Violence in Antiquity Sarah B. Pomeroy. Harvard Univ., $24.95 (232p) ISBN 978-0-674-02583-7
In one of the great scandals of second-century Greece, Regilla, the pregnant Roman wife of Greek philosopher and rhetorician Herodes, died from a blow to the abdomen. Drawing on archeological and textual evidence, Pomeroy (Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves) carefully reconstructs Regilla's life, her eventual murder and Herodes's trial and acquittal, splendidly recreating the Greek culture of A.D. 160 and its attitudes around class, culture and sex. An upper-class woman with some schooling and exposure to the cultural affairs of her husband, Regilla owned her own property, which became a sore spot in her marriage. In other ways, though, she was hardly unique. Regilla likely could not communicate well in Greek, nor could she match wits with her husband. She married at 15, died at about 35 and ably performed the primary duty of a wife in the Roman Empire: bearing children. Numerous illustrations and quotations lend depth to Pomeroy's masterful depiction of second-century Greece and the tragic portrait of a woman whose story has been lost to history until now. Illus. (Sept. 25)
Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and ImaginationMichael Sims. Viking, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-670-06328-4
What could be more poetic than the bare facts of the cosmos?" asks Sims (Adam's Navel), an acclaimed science writer with a flair for giving reality the luster of myth. Here he takes a single day and guides readers through the history of what we know, and what we've imagined, about sunrises, clouds and other natural phenomena. From the opening passage, which recalls a scene from Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Sims delights in drawing upon a wide variety of cultural sources. In one section, he invokes Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth to stress the importance of shadows; later, he discusses circadian rhythms in the context of Darwin's The Power of Movement in Plants. The hard science is just as vigorously poetic, as when Sims explains how sunlight bounces off the particles in the atmosphere to produce clear blue skies or the reds of twilight. His delightful tour of day and night skies will inspire many readers to look up with a marveling new perspective. (Sept. 24)
The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Anything BetterSandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee. Random, $24.95 (215p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6469-4
What do "golfer's yips," the ability to see auras and the hypnotic appeal of video games all have in common? Each arises from the brain's body map. New York Times science contributor Sandra Blakeslee and her son, science writer Matthew Blakeslee, begin with a quick overview of the sense of touch. According to the Blakeslees, body maps are created by the brain, using touch, to spell out the brain's experience of the body and the space around it. These maps expand and contract to include objects such as clothing, tools or even your car. Some of the more interesting subjects the Blakeslees cover include muscle tone disorders, phantom limb sensations in amputees and the inaccurate body images associated with anorexia. Sketches and sidebars explore topics in more detail, while a glossary explains technical terms. With its breezy "this is so cool" style, this entertaining book will appeal to readers who prefer their science lighthearted and low-key. (Sept. 11)
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-Two Evolutionary Psychologists ExplainWhy We Do What We Do Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa. Perigee, $23.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-399-53365-5That mouthful of a title says it all. According to Kanazawa, a media-savvy researcher whose studies of "beautiful people" have been covered by the BBC and the New York Times, and the late Miller, a professor of social psychology, evolutionary psychology explains almost everything about human behavior. Proponents of what they call "the Standard Social Science Model" believe that the human mind is exempt from biological pressures, while evolutionary psychologists hold that people are an animal species driven by animal needs. The authors suggest that human evolution stopped when agriculture began changing the world much faster than the world could change us, and now 10,000-year-old impulses to find the right mate and produce healthy offspring control nearly every aspect of our existence, from choosing jobs to religious belief. This accessible book opens the youthful field of evolutionary psychology wide for examination, with results often as disturbing as they are fascinating. (Sept. 4)
Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be SmartIan Ayres. Bantam, $25 (272p) ISBN 978-0-553-80540-6
Yale Law School professor and econometrician Ayres argues in this lively and enjoyable book that the recent creation of huge data sets allows knowledgeable individuals to make previously impossible predictions. He calls the data set analysts "super crunchers" and discusses the changes they're making to industries like medical diagnostics, air travel pricing, screenwriting and online dating services. Although Ayres presents both sides of this revolution, explaining how the corporate world tries to manipulate consumer behavior and telling consumers how to fight back, his real mission is to educate readers about the basics of statistics and hypothesis testing, spending most of his time in an edifying and entertaining discussion of the use of regression and randomization trials. He frequently asks whether statistical methods are more accurate than the more intuitive conclusions drawn by experts, and consistently concludes that they are. Ayres skillfully demonstrates the importance that statistical literacy can play in our lives, especially now that technology permits it to occur on a scale never before imagined. (Sept. 4)
The Siege of MeccaYaroslav Trofimov. Doubleday, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-385-51925-0
Trofimov, a Wall Street Journal writer and observer of the Muslim world (Faith at War), tackles an incident unreported in the West: the violent takeover of Islam's holiest shrine by Muslim fundamentalists in 1979. Carrying out his investigations in one of the world's most closed societies, Trofimov has crafted a compelling historical narrative, blending messianic theology with righteous violence, and the Saudi state's sclerotic corruption with the complicity of the official religious institutions. Trofimov aptly points out endemic regional problems with enduring repercussions for fighting terror, but is hampered by his sensationalist style ("The world was twelve months away from the tumultuous events that would cover the mosque's marble courtyard with blood, spilled guts and severed limbs"). In 1979, the Saudi intelligence services apparently had no accurate blueprints of the Grand Mosque, and knew nothing of the underground labyrinth where many of the militants took shelter; they eventually received plans to the site from Osama bin Laden's older brother. Ringleader Juhayman and his followers have inspired al-Qaeda and countless other Islamic revivalist movements to ever greater acts of violence, even though they were mesmerized by their limited understanding of an obscurantist theology and were convinced that that one of their unassuming members was the Messiah. Casual readers will be well served by this introduction to Muslim fundamentalist terrorism. (Sept. 18)
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA Tim Weiner. Doubleday, $27.95 (704p) ISBN 978-0-385-51445-3
Is the Central Intelligence Agency a bulwark of freedom against dangerous foes, or a malevolent conspiracy to spread American imperialism? A little of both, according to this absorbing study, but, the author concludes, it is mainly a reservoir of incompetence and delusions that serves no one's interests well. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent Weiner musters extensive archival research and interviews with top-ranking insiders, including former CIA chiefs Richard Helms and Stansfield Turner, to present the agency's saga as an exercise in trying to change the world without bothering to understand it. Hypnotized by covert action and pressured by presidents, the CIA, he claims, wasted its resources fomenting coups, assassinations and insurgencies, rigging foreign elections and bribing political leaders, while its rare successes inspired fiascoes like the Bay of Pigs and the Iran-Contra affair. Meanwhile, Weiner contends, its proper function of gathering accurate intelligence languished. With its operations easily penetrated by enemy spies, the CIA was blind to events in adversarial countries like Russia, Cuba and Iraq and tragically wrong about the crucial developments under its purview, from the Iranian revolution and the fall of communism to the absence of Iraqi WMDs. Many of the misadventures Weiner covers, at times sketchily, are familiar, but his comprehensive survey brings out the persistent problems that plague the agency. The result is a credible and damning indictment of American intelligence policy. (Aug. 7)
Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of GovernmentMichael Mandelbaum. Public Affairs, $27.95 (336p) ISBN 978-1-58648-514-6
Democracy, until recently, was an anomaly in a landscape of monarchies, dictatorships and empires; its critics-including America's founding fathers-associated it with mob rule and demagogic tyranny. In this engaging treatise, Mandelbaum (The Ideas That Conquered the World) explains how the modern democratic fusion of popular sovereignty-i.e., majority rule-with individual liberty came to dominate the world's polities. His first reason is straightforward: democracy works. Democratic nations, he notes, especially the flagship democracies of Britain and the U.S., are wealthier, stronger and more stable and inspire other countries to emulate them. His second, more provocative explanation, is that the modern spread of free markets provides a "school for democracy" by establishing private property (the fundamental liberty), respect for law, civil society, organized economic interests as the forerunners of political parties, and the habit of settling differences by negotiation and compromise rather than violence. Mandelbaum's market rhetoric-he calls democracy the "leading brand of political system" among "knowledgeable political consumers"-can be a bit simpleminded. But readers will find a lucid, accessible blend of history, political science and sociology, with a wealth of fresh insights into the making of the contemporary world. (Aug.)
A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance Mary Elizabeth King. Nation, $16.95 paper (480p) ISBN 978-1-56025-802-5
Ascholar of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience, King contends that the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993) was explicitly peaceful from its inception. Stating that "[h]istory is often the narrative of wars, and military historians enjoy prestige, whereas the chronicling of how societies have achieved major accomplishments through nonviolent resistance is scant by comparison," she draws on a wealth of documentary and statistical evidence to demonstrate that the Palestinians exercised remarkable restraint during the first years of the intifada. Tying together the threads of civil society, political mobilization and social change, she delivers a fascinating account of a nation in transition. In the occupied "territories," she argues, the Israeli military brutally repressed the "wedging open of nongovernmental political space and development of institutions not under official purview" and deepened the Palestinians' desire for change. The closure of the educational institutions in the West Bank in 1988, for example, caused teachers and professors to return to their home villages, where they were quickly able to politicize uneducated people. While King may be faulted for ignoring the gradual return to violence that's characterized the situation in recent years, her book is essential reading for anyone interested in Mideastern peace. (Aug.)
The Book of Happy Endings: True Stories About Finding LoveElise Valmorbida. Cyan (IPG, dist.), $14.95 (216p) ISBN 978-1-905736-03-4
Valmorbida (Matilde Waltzing) brings her gift for elegant language to this collection of narratives about the search for love. Having interviewed couples from a variety of backgrounds, Valmorbida relates the ups and downs of their eventually fulfilled relationships. Driven by passion for Rosi, a fellow professor, Anneke left her boyfriend in order to forge a union that resulted in the women's 1999 marriage in Holland. The Iran-Iraq War brought exiles Zainab and Mum'am together as lovers and political activists in London, where they have now lived together for 16 years. As Zhen Zhu taught Martin Chinese and he improved her English, their friendship and partnership developed and deepened, but they did not marry until years after they became the parents of twins. Threading through these and other anecdotes is a romance told almost completely in letters between a New Yorker and a Londoner, but their trials and tribulations grow wearying and are less compelling than the other, more straightforward tales. B&w photos. (Aug. 1)
The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect CheeseMargaret Hathaway, with photos by Karl Schatz. Lyons, $22.95 (224p) ISBN 978-1-59921-021-6
Hathaway and Schatz were happy living together in New York City-Schatz was Time.com's picture editor, and Hathaway a former manager of Magnolia Bakery. Still, they wondered "what sort of people" they'd be if they lived in the country, and in this offbeat memoir Hathaway narrates their search. The idea of raising cows wasn't affordable or appealing, but goats were intriguing, especially since their cheeses were so tasty. Before long, the couple decided to leave New York for a yearlong "goat odyssey," searching out everything "goat" that struck their fancy. Starting in New York with a tasting session with maître fromager Max McCalman, they traveled the country visiting goat farms, auctions and shows. While they had a lot to learn-how to milk goats, how to trim their hooves-they were also trying to find a model lifestyle for themselves. Eventually, they realized they wanted a farm with some vegetables and some animals, but not so many that the farm would become a factory. More than anything, they wanted "a modest life" surrounded by people they loved. Back-to-the-land fantasies aren't new, but Hathaway gives theirs a modern twist by emphasizing "terroir," the idea that "food is rooted in the land," and of connecting "the palate to the place." Local-eating, slow-food activists will find much to chew on here. (Aug.)
The Unnatural History of the SeaCallum Roberts. Island, $28 (392p) ISBN 978-1-59726-102-9
Marine conservation biologist Roberts presents a devastating account of the effects of fishing on the sea. Once abundant aquatic life has declined to the point where "we probably have less than five percent of the total mass of fish that once swam in Europe's seas," he states. Intensive fishing since medieval times has caused this decline gradually over the centuries, so that the fish-deprived sea seems normal to today's generations. Industrial fishing, especially trawling, has virtually eliminated entire habitats, including cod in Canada, oysters in Chesapeake Bay and herring in the North Sea. Now, sophisticated devices such as sonar depth sensors are being used to plunder that last frontier, the deep sea. Callum's alarming conclusion is that by the year 2048, "fisheries for all the fish and shellfish species we exploit today will have collapsed." He argues persuasively for the establishment of marine reserves-protected areas where fish stocks have a chance to recover. His impressive book, replete with quotations from the reports of early explorers, merchants and travelers describing seas teeming with life that's unimaginable today, is a vivid reminder of what we've lost and a plea to save what is left and help the sea recover some of its earlier bounty. Illus. not seen by PW. (Aug. 15)
Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005Luc Sante, intro. by Greil Marcus. Verse Chorus/YETI (NBN, dist.), $17.95 paper (300p) ISBN 978-1-891241-53-6
New York City is fated always to remain my home," writes Sante, who became permanently linked with the city through the underground history he recounted in Low Life, and the lead-off essay in this collection revisits the frame of mind he was in when he conceived that book in the Lower East Side of the early 1980s. The best essays that follow maintain that strong personal connection, such as an eyewitness account of a riot in Tompkins Square Park or the time he lived in the same apartment building as Allen Ginsberg (who "suffered me, if not especially gladly"). The book and music reviews that make up the bulk of the remaining material are usually insightful and occasionally contain striking imagery: he describes, for example, how the punk-country band the Mekons "built an imaginary America out of pocket lint." But collecting disparate pieces in a single volume is a risky proposition, and sometimes an awkward skip, as in a chapter on two books by photographer Michael Lesy, temporarily exposes the anthology's patchwork nature. It's worth working through those rough patches, however, to soak up Sante's various observations on the long legacy of outsider culture, from Rimbaud through Buddy Bolden to Bob Dylan. (Aug. 20)
The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham's White House CrusadeNancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy. Hachette/Center Street, $25.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-466-57933-9
Over the course of seven decades, the Rev. Billy Graham befriended every occupant of the White House, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush. This expansive text draws on Graham's autobiographies, other biographies, presidential diaries and memoirs, and historical texts and documents to examine each of those relationships. Less about Graham himself-or the presidents he knew and advised-than about their interactions and alliances, the text is most likely to appeal to readers with previous knowledge of the subjects. Gibbs, a writer for Time, and Duffy, an assistant managing editor at the magazine, maintain a balance between the political and the personal, featuring Graham's role counseling Eisenhower on civil rights, relating an anecdote about Graham and Johnson swimming in the White House pool and discussing Graham's influence on Hillary Clinton when her husband's infidelities were made public. They foreground Graham's difficulty in negotiating the separation between church and state, particularly during his friend Richard Nixon's 1960 campaign and Nixon's presidency; that friendship forms the centerpiece of this thoughtful book. Gibbs and Duffy marvelously dramatize Graham and Nixon's fraught, intimate relationship, so that some of the other presidents, particularly those who followed Nixon, seem undersketched by comparison. (Aug. 14)
The House the Rockefellers Built: A Tale of Money, Taste, and Power in Twentieth-Century AmericaRobert F. Dalzell and Lee Baldwin Dalzell. Holt, $30 (352p) ISBN 978-0-8050-7544-1
This closely researched history of Kykuit, the Hudson Valley mansion built "to make the Rockefeller name and fortune stand for something other than unbridled greed" is too narrow in scope for most readers. The Dalzells (George Washington's Mount Vernon) cover five generations of Rockefellers, focusing on the patriarch (called Senior here) and his son (Junior), at least as far as the mansion is concerned, while taking a stab at linking it to issues surrounding American country houses of the Gilded Age. What was different about Kykuit, the Dalzells claim, was the Rockefellers' "moral aspirations," their insistence that the house be not only useful and fashionable, but good. Clean prose keeps things moving, but only the most serious Rockefeller devotees will pore over long passages detailing the process of drawing up blueprints, hiring interior decorators and strategizing housekeeping. The Dalzells chronicle every tussle over control of the house's planning between Junior and Senior and, later, between Nelson and his four brothers over Nelson's overflowing art collection. Several fine biographies exist to satisfy readers' curiosity about the Rockefeller family, and it's questionable whether there's nearly as much inherent interest in Kykuit as in Mount Vernon, the George Washington home that draws 20 times as many visitors. (Aug.)
Black Radical: The Education of an American RevolutionaryNelson Peery. New Press, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-59558-145-7
This fascinating follow-up to Black Fire, Peery's 1994 memoir of his political awakening as a U.S. soldier in the all-black 93rd Infantry Division in WWII, begins with his involvement in the Communist Party in 1946. His course through the turbulent history of post-WWII race relations and McCarthy-era excesses leads him to the conviction that "the concrete expression of anti-Communism in America was anti-Black." In 1949, he accepted a Party transfer to Cleveland, where he continued worked as a bricklayer and organized his life around the Party, only to be expelled after internecine quarrels and anti-Communist crusades. Believing that "nothing could be done without a serious Communist Party," Peery became active in the drive to re-establish a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. In New York (1959-1963) and Los Angeles (from 1964), he continued his bricklaying while becoming a founding member of the Communist Labor Party. His politically active mother, six supportive brothers and fiercely disapproving father assume vivid roles. Many anecdotes show off Peery's storytelling ability, as when he arranges a meeting between Leadbelly and the Dean of Canterbury and colludes in accused spy Gerhardt Eisler's escape to East Germany. Some readers may chafe at Peery's avowedly Marxist terminology, but "the development of [his] revolutionary consciousness" is absorbing. (Aug.)
The 200-MPH Billboard: The Inside Story of How Big Money Changed NASCARMark Yost. MBI/Motorbooks, $25.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-7603-2812-5
Business and sports reporter Yost takes on the rise of NASCAR, bringing readers into the deals that have turned a Southern good ol' boy racing circuit into a clean-shaven marketing goliath. Yost is admirably unsentimental about the sport's growth, but fails to capture NASCAR's appeal to its fans as he looks at racetracks from the corporate hospitality suites. Content to mimic the suits, he frequently observes that the fans are remarkably loyal to the brands they see on the cars, the drivers and virtually anything else associated with American stock car racing. Yost does have access to some inside deal making: a chapter on NASCAR's business-to-business council shows how NASCAR brokers lucrative deals between sponsors, including nontraditional partners like Waste Management. However, the narrative often falls into a quicksand of numbers, including old television ratings and income from prize and sponsorship money. Additional chapters on deals between NASCAR and outfits like UPS and the armed forces feel redundant. In essence, companies sponsor NASCAR because it's high visibility, fast and cool, and because the sport's leaders and drivers are preternaturally accommodating to corporate needs. Business school students may enjoy the details, but general readers might wish Yost had stepped out of the boardroom to hear the crowd and the cars. (Aug.)
What Made Jack Welch Jack Welch: How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary LeadersStephen H. Baum with Dave Conti. Crown Business, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-307-33720-7
Though the title suggests a focus on the famous General Electric CEO's many accomplishments and leadership skills, this management guide draws on the experiences of many other leaders, including Rudy Giuliani and Gen. Tommy Franks, as well as leaders in corporations like Florida Power and Light or Hearst. With intriguing chapter titles like "Are You Really Jack Welch or Just Wearing His Suit? A Lack of Shaping Experiences Can Spell Disaster" or "Doing the Right Thing When No One is Looking: Shaping Experiences that Build Character," the book attempts to show the reader how to seek out and recognize experiences that will help in their own rise to the top. Yet many of the traits Baum focuses on, such as good character or personal courage, seem inherent and hard to develop. In addition, these "shaping experiences" seem difficult to seek out or even realize in the moment. While there's inspiration here, the abstract nature of these leaders' qualities may leave readers full of admiration for those who possess them, yet unsure of how to recognize and improve on these essential characteristics in their own lives. (Aug.)
Do You Think What You Think You Think?: The Ultimate Philosophical HandbookJulian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom. Plume, $14 paper (208p) ISBN 978-0-452-28865-2
In their latest philosophical novelty book, Baggini and Stangroom refashion the kind of frivolous quiz found in women's and men's style magazines-the kind with flippant multiple-choice answers adding up to a final score-as a philosophical tool. The challenges are amusing and fun enough to pass the time during a long commute, making for a kind of Philosophy 101 student's sudoku, but not much more. As in his previous book, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, Baggini encourages people to question common assumptions. Unfortunately, this book feels more superficial than its charming precursor. In the case of a quiz on free will, the scoring requires more time than the test taking. In another chapter, it's possible to conclude that Britney Spears is as great an artist as Mozart. The book's "final" measures the reader's absorption of the history of the discipline that's provided in the overviews and analyses surrounding each of the tests-but it's clear that learning the history of philosophy isn't the point. Once readers have completed the final tally, some may be disappointed to find that, no matter what their score, "what you know about philosophy isn't worth knowing." (Aug.)
Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in AmericaGail Pool. Univ. of Missouri, $34.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-8262-1727-1; paper $19.95 ISBN 978-0-8262-1728-8
Woe betide the poor reviewer who must review a book on book reviewing, especially one that lashes out mercilessly at practitioners in the field. Pool, a longtime freelance reviewer and former Boston Review editor, asserts that editors too often select the wrong books and assign them to the wrong people. Reviewers in turn heap too much praise on these unworthy volumes; the reviewers are biased, unqualified, inaccurate and incompetent. (She illustrates this point with several examples of sadly laughable prose.) The pileup of criticisms is wearing, and Pool's suggested reforms, such as a reviewing code of ethics and having columnists in a variety of fields to make more knowledgeable selections of books to cover, are useful only to a point (e.g., even with a code of ethics, editors must rely on reviewers to reveal conflicts of interest). Pool is often spot-on, however, as when she opposes the "reckless use of comparisons between books or authors" rather than stressing what is unique about a work. Everyone in the field will applaud Pool's passionate insistence on the importance to literary culture of the serious, informed critique, which is increasingly endangered and in need of such vigorous support. (July 6)
Lifestyle
Food & Wine
Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain BreadsPeter Reinhart. Ten Speed, $35 (320p) ISBN 978-1-58008-759-9
Bread is back, Reinhart (The Bread Baker's Apprentice) asserts, and it's better than ever after being villainized during the anticarbohydrate diet fads; his manifesto of renewal, this enthusiastic tome featuring the kinds of whole grain breads he sees as the way forward, will be eagerly received by serious bakers. In three useful preliminary chapters, Reinhart describes how he developed the delayed fermentation process that makes these breads delicious as well as wholesome, dissects wheat's route from stalk to loaf and patiently walks through the new technique's theory and process, in order to arm bakers with every bit of information before they start kneading. The level of technical detail and demand for scientific precision may overwhelm amateurs, but anyone with some experience working with bread dough and starters, as well as a desire to get to the next level, will be gratified by Reinhart's intense but friendly approach. In the more than 50 recipes, from a variety of breads including multigrain loaves, whole wheat cinnamon buns, brioche and crispy lavash, Reinhart builds on the first chapters with detailed commentary on ingredients and preparation, encouraging bakers to own the process but never leaving them in the lurch. Whether or not a home baker is looking for healthier recipes, Reinhart's peerless way of writing about bread is sure to inspire a new respect for whole grains. Color photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)
Great Bar Food at HomeKate Heyhoe. Wiley, $17.95 (128p) ISBN 978-0-471-78183-7
Heyhoe is the founder and executive editor of GlobalGourmet.com, so it's no surprise that her latest creation has the look and feel of a Web site. As small and square as a Mac Mini, with brief text and large photos, the book offers knowledgeable tidbits on how to make 50 or so small bites, the kind that go down nicely with, say, a double martini or a Singapore Sling. Despite its contemporary design, the mood is often retro, in celebration of cocktail party cuisine. Upscale and old school, Heyhoe leads off with Personal Caviar Tortes with Toast Points and follows with Gougere, French cheese puffs made with Gruyère. From there, like any good global gourmet, she jet-sets across many an international boundary, visiting such diverse cuisines as Japanese (Rumaki with Soba Noodles) and North African (Spicy Tunisian Sunset Dip). For partygoers who prefer a cold Brooklyn lager over a Long Island iced tea, a chapter entitled "Brewpub Nibbles and Noshes" suggests such spice-fueled beer snacks as Cumin-Cheddar Coins and Smoky Chipotle Chili. Along the way, Heyhoe includes historical tidbits, such as the free-for-all that was Studio 54 and Austria's importance to Mexican beer. Dorothy Parker's cultural importance is crammed onto a single page, but plenty of her bon mots are quoted for anyone in need of breaking the ice. (Oct.)
Parenting
Parenting Without Fear: Letting Go of Worry and Focusing on What Really MattersPaul J. Donahue. St. Martin's Griffin, $14.95 paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-312-35891-4
Clinical psychologist Donahue presents the novel idea that parents should "do less," not more, for their children and argues that parents' fears are holding kids back from developing self-reliance and independence. According to Donahue, parents mainly fear letting go, not doing enough, and unstructured time. He takes readers through these topics one by one, helping parents teach their children to be independent, cooperative, respectful, mindful, imaginative and curious, and to develop compassion for others. The thrust of this work is devoted to ways of raising resilient children and bolstering parents who tend to follow trends rather than march to the beat of their own drummer. A recurring theme is the overscheduling of kids and the accompanying competition so prevalent today. Donahue advises limiting extracurricular activities such as team sports and making time for family dinners, independent play and outdoor exploration. The author points out that not only parents but kids should learn to be more "mindful," noting that even children of the frenzied computer age can be taught to slow down. Donahue's heartfelt discourse on "what really matters" just might help anxious parents replace the rush to get ahead with a calm and respectful attitude toward child rearing and life. (Aug.)
The BabyCenter Essential Guide to Your Baby's First Year: Expert Advice and Mom-to-Mom Wisdom from the World's Most Popular Parenting WebsiteLinda Murray, Anna McGrail, Daphne Metland and the Babycenter Editorial Team. Rodale, $15.95 paper (480p) ISBN 978-1-59486-411-7
The authors-all editors at the popular BabyCenter Web site-provide the resource for which so many parents yearn: an instruction manual to accompany their newborn baby. Devoted to baby's first year, this guide is divided into three-month segments, each covering development, feeding, sleep, baby care (i.e., coping with colic) and tips for the self care of exhausted moms and dads. "Just for Dads" sections address ways in which fathers can be actively involved from birth. New parents will find "Part One: The Firsts" particularly helpful, with instructions on everything from how to pick up a baby and place her down again to the first diapering and bath. The authors leave no question unanswered-no matter how obvious (e.g., "Your baby will need diaper changes from the first day"). They've also taken advantage of a number of polls and surveys conducted by the BabyCenter staff, so parents can compare their experiences on such subjects as falling in love with their baby at first sight or how many times the baby awakens during the night. This practical primer will be especially invaluable for first-time parents. (Aug.)
Great Expectations: Baby's First YearSandy Jones and Marcie Jones, with Michael Crocetti. Sterling, $14.95 paper (672p) ISBN 978-1-4027-3646-9
The mother-daughter team who coauthored two other Great Expectations books open this outsized parenting manual with a chronology of what to expect-day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month-during baby's first year. They follow with a how-to section (feeding, diapering and other baby care issues), a shopping guide (analyzing features of strollers, cribs and car seats), a review of parental issues (mostly mom's physical and mental needs) and an A-Z of baby medical problems. This layout breeds a lot of overlap; some issues-car seats, breast-feeding, crib hazards-are covered repeatedly. While the authors mention that 35% of children in America are born to single mothers, the target audience is the traditional nuclear family, preferably one with ample financial and social resources. They're very modern in their trust-your-instincts advice, stressing that parents are wise enough to choose their own parenting style-comforting crying babies vs. ignoring them, etc. Likewise, they don't fret about boosting baby's I.Q. with fancy toys. Philosophical issues aside, the eye-catching charts and diagrams are bound to catch the eyes of bookstore browsers. (July)
Gardening
Gardening at Eden: And How to Do It at HomeMatthew Biggs. Eden Project (IPG, dist.), $35 (318p) ISBN 978-1-903919-73-6
This massive coffee-table book documents the Eden Project, a megabotanical garden with the biggest "Biomes" (greenhouse domes ) in the world ("for who would want to visit the second-largest?") built in a barren clay pit in Cornwall, England. Former record producer and Eden promoter Tim Smit describes its genesis: "we had the idea to build... giant conservatories which would tell the story of human dependence on plants." With an intent to "interpret what wildness looks like and then to explore its domestication," Biggs (Matthew Biggs's Complete Book on Vegetables) focuses on two climates: the humid tropics, site of "the first human adaptation to the wild in its early domestication," and the warm temperate, "relevant to the birth of Western civilization," and also including regions in South Africa, California and the Mediterranean. The book is loaded with gorgeous photographs of exotic plants, like the stinky, extravagantly phallic Titan arum, lush meadows of prairie flowers as well as the more pedestrian potatoes and apples-and, of course, glimpses of the soap bubble-like Biomes. Biggs's advice on how to duplicate Eden plantings in your own garden contains information on composting, growing,and pest control, but much of it will not be new to gardeners, although tips about growing exotic plants such as yardlong beans and bitter gourd and tidbits like the history of the sweet pea are intriguing. American readers are apt to be flummoxed by Anglicisms such as temperatures given in centigrade. (July)
