Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 10/8/2007

In this clouded memoir, Irvine, former development director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), pursues her tortuous trajectory from a loosely Mormon upbringing to strident environmental activism. Irvine writes from the fresh grief of her father's suicide: a fierce atheist with a Mormon pedigree, her father divorced her mother when Irvine was 10, drank heavily and gradually grew estranged from his family before shooting himself in the heart. With her mother and sister, Irvine grew up a “Jack Mormon” (one whose belief in the Church of the Latter Day Saints has lapsed), endured a brief marriage with a yuppie vegetarian and found true love with a lawyer named Herb, with whom she moved to San Juan County, Utah. As Irvine, a grant-proposal writer, and Herb both worked for the SUWA, their advocacy for public lands pitted them in uncomfortable opposition to the pro-development, cattle-friendly interests of their largely Mormon neighbors. Irvine structures her memoir cannily around the four eras of local Native American prehistoric culture (Lithic, Archaic, Basketmaker and Pueblo), each reflecting a period of migration and settlement in her own life. However, her work is filled with so much tertiary detail that emotional resonance is rare. Still, her views on wilderness preservation ring passionately and her research is sound. (Feb.)

Today's race relations,” law professor Ford demonstrates, “are more complex and contradictory than those of the unambiguously white supremacist past.” In this journey through a political minefield, he examines dubious charges of racism and other kinds of bias, while acknowledging that exaggerated claims can piggyback on real examples of victimization. But the author's tenor is often more eye-catching than eye-opening. He revisits Tawana Brawley, Clarence Thomas, O.J. Simpson and Hurricane Katrina, along with Oprah's Hermès problem, Jay-Z's with champagne and Danny Glover's with New York City cabdrivers. Yet at its core, this book raises probing questions about the extent to which “the extraordinary social and legal condemnation of racism and other social prejudices encourages people to recast what are basically run-of-the-mill social conflicts as cases of bigotry.” By analogy, he addresses issues concerning animal liberation, gay marriage, “appearance discrimination,” “sex harassment law” and multiculturalism. In delineating the differences between formal discrimination, discriminatory intent and discriminatory effects, Ford also reviews thorny legal cases involving, for example, McDonnell Douglas and Price Waterhouse. Readers all along the political spectrum will find much to please, annoy and provoke thought about the thin “line between invidious discrimination and plan old unfairness.” (Feb.)

Having been a part of the movement since the 1970s, serving as (among other positions) the executive director of the Hartford Food System, Winne has an insider's view on what it's like to feed our country's hungry citizens. Through the lens of Hartford, Conn.—a quintessential “inner city” bereft of decent food options apart from bodegas and fast food chains—he explains the successes he witnessed and helped to create: community gardens, inner city farmers' markets and youth-run urban farms. Winne concludes his tale in our present food-crazed era, giving voice to low-income shoppers and exploring where they fit in with such foodie discussions as local vs. organic. In this articulate and comprehensive book, Winne points out that the greatest successes have been “an informal alliance between sustainable agriculture and food security advocates... that shows promise for helping both the poor and small and medium-size farmers.” For the most part it is a calm, well-reasoned and soft-spoken call to arms to fight for policy reform, rather than fill in, with community-based projects and privately funded programs, the gaps left by our city and state legislators. (Jan.)

Sonnenberg's curse is her beautiful self-centered and crazy mother, who lies continually, does drugs and navigates through the world with sex as her sole point of reference. Her father is cold and distant. Add in abundant family money, and you have the story of a young girl who grows up in a world of privilege, abuse and despicable behavior all around. Readers get a good dose of drug use, foul language, manipulative behaviors, an accounting of Sonnenberg's affair with her high school English teacher and one chapter titled “Sex with Everybody.” The freelance writer's story is titillating, and her writing is strong and clear, though the power is diluted when she blurs the lines of nonfiction: “I have conflated or changed some events and dialogue, and created occasional composites.” Readers not bothered by the conceit will likely follow along through the outrageous and nasty operational tactics of Sonnenberg's mother until the story line leads to her redemption. (Jan.)

Why we are excited: Obama is a talented, charismatic politician and living proof that whites have welcomed blacks into the mainstream. Why he can't win: He's still mired in an ideology of racial victimhood and separatism that Steele (White Guilt), a Hoover Institution fellow and, like Obama, the son of a black father and white mother, deplores in this stimulating, conservative critique. Obama's conflict over his mixed parentage and abandonment by his father, the author argues, engenders a need to prove his racial authenticity by accommodating a black identity politics that, while it energizes his African-American base, risks alienating white voters. Worse, as president Obama might reflexively support affirmative action and government initiatives to help African-Americans, instead of emphasizing the self-reliance, individual responsibility and avid assimilation that Steele contends are the only remedies for the black community's problems. The author's tendency to psychologize Obama's policy agenda sometimes overreaches. Still, the book is full of fresh insights into the cultural politics of race; Steele's analysis of Louis Armstrong and Oprah Winfrey as “iconic Negroes” granting moral absolution to whites, for example, is a tour de force. (Jan. 8)

Battle is the dramatic centerpiece of Civil War history; this penetrating study looks instead at the somber aftermath. Historian Faust (Mothers of Invention) notes that the Civil War introduced America to death on an unprecedented scale and of an unnatural kind—grisly, random and often ending in an unmarked grave far from home. She surveys the many ways the Civil War generation coped with the trauma: the concept of the Good Death—conscious, composed and at peace with God; the rise of the embalming industry; the sad attempts of the bereaved to get confirmation of a soldier's death, sometimes years after war's end; the swelling national movement to recover soldiers' remains and give them decent burials; the intellectual quest to find meaning—or its absence—in the war's carnage. In the process, she contends, the nation invented the modern culture of reverence for military death and used the fallen to elaborate its new concern for individual rights. Faust exhumes a wealth of material—condolence letters, funeral sermons, ads for mourning dresses, poems and stories from Civil War–era writers—to flesh out her lucid account. The result is an insightful, often moving portrait of a people torn by grief. Photos. (Jan. 10)

Many little girls dream of becoming a princess and finding their Prince Charming. Fine was no different and, at the age of six, traced the Windsor family tree to Peter Phillips, an English royal of her same age, and announced she would marry him. Unlike other girls, however, this dream did not fade away with adolescence. With a story line akin to a chick lit novel, her memoir follows her single-minded path to become suitable wife material for a prince, to move to England and to be swept away in a royal romance. Born to hippie parents in rural Colorado, Fine comes of age feeling out of place and escapes to the East Coast for college and then to graduate school in London. There she ingratiates herself into English social circles, eventually rubbing shoulders with Princess Anne, the Duchess of York and others. Amid her lessons in British society and the universal woes of dating, she also gains the important knowledge that the strength of one's conviction can be the strongest predictor of one's fate. Provided the reader doesn't grimace to see her determination, intelligence and grace used to pursue a man she's never met, Fine's is a charming and humorous story. (Jan.)

While best known for his foundational works on the history of Jewish mysticism, the German-born Gershom Scholem's interests were not only wide ranging but so advanced as to still be pertinent in contemporary academic thought. This substantial selection from his unpublished youthful diaries, written when Scholem was between the ages of 16 and 22, is a major addition to his published work: even in his late teen years, Scholem is a full-blown intellectual writing profoundly about important religious and social issues and taken seriously by established scholars like Martin Buber. These entries detail everyday happenings—including Scholem's extraordinarily close friendship with Walter Benjamin—as well as his musings on a wide range of topics, including the new Zionist movement. There is also a passion that conveys Scholem's humanity; when friends were killed in WWI, he wrote: “The old men should be shipped off to war. They can kill one another if they want, they shouldn't rob youth of its blood, which is a vicious act against the future of society.” These diaries are vital reading for anyone interested in 20th-century Jewish culture, Jewish mysticism and the history of Zionism. (Jan.)

Wife of Anne Boleyn's brother George, Jane, Viscountess Rochford, has been painted by historians, beginning with the Protestant Elizabethan John Foxe, as a barren, jealous shrew who lied about George and Anne's incestuous relationship, helping send them to their deaths for treason against Henry VIII. Jane herself was executed for treason several years later for abetting the adultery of Henry's fifth wife, Catherine Howard. According to Fox's revisionist account, Jane was faithful to the opportunistic Boleyn clan; she didn't rush to slander her husband, but succumbed under Thomas Cromwell's relentless interrogation, repeating an indiscretion by Anne about Henry's sexual dysfunction. Moreover, Fox says, George's execution was a financial blow to Jane—his royal perquisites of lands and offices were seized. Jane clawed her way back to a senior court position when she was ordered by Catherine Howard to pass messages to her lover, and Jane's complicity, according to Fox, opened the door for historians to excoriate Jane for her sister-in-law's death. In her debut, Fox never quite convinces readers that her lackluster, almost faceless Jane is a courageous, mostly blameless victim of court intrigues, and this amateurish, toothless history is more a rehash of Anne's rise and fall with a tag-on about Catherine's foolhardiness. (Jan.)

Yarbrough, professor emeritus of political science at East Carolina University and biographer of Supreme Court Justice David Souter, now explores another enigmatic justice, observing the sources and effects of his enduring sense of self-doubt and of himself as an outsider. Although he provides perfunctory biographical facts as well as a few credible psychological observations—that Blackmun had a father of questionable competence and a mother who suffered from depression—it is the evolution of Blackmun's jurisprudence as the liberal Warren Court transforms to the conservative Burger and Rehnquist courts that primarily interests Yarbrough. He ably explores Blackmun's reasoning on many complicated issues, among them the First Amendment, federalism and the death penalty (which Blackmun eloquently disavowed in his final term), but it is Blackmun's seminal 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion that fully engages him. Yarbrough is a knowledgeable Court observer and his detailed chronicle of Blackmun's later behind-the-scenes maneuvering to preserve Roe from being undermined is fascinating and well told. When appointed to the high court by President Nixon, Blackmun was expected to be a conservative twin of his boyhood friend Chief Justice Burger, and his transformation as the Court's liberal icon is a noteworthy story. 13 b&w illus. (Jan.)

Jauhar, a cardiologist who directs the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, completed his internship a decade ago, but still remembers his confusing, tumultuous medical apprenticeship at the prestigious New York Hospital “the way soldiers remember war.” The son of an embittered immigrant plant geneticist who found the American university tenure system racist, Jauhar dithered over career choices and completed a doctorate in physics before embarking on medicine. Jauhar feels responsible when he botches the blood pressure check on a patient who later dies during an aortic dissection and when he misses the high blood sodium level of a man who then suffers irreversible brain damage. He wonders if he and his colleagues have discriminated against a cardiac patient because of his weight, and helps an advanced cancer patient's wife decide against the futile insertion of a breathing tube. As his internship progresses, he romances his future wife (an affair he describes with the passion of one buying a used car); cracks under self-doubt and the expectations of his traditional Indian family, and suffers a serious depression. He regrets that as a doctor he is sometimes impatient, emotionless and paternalistic. Although Jauhar carefully elucidates complex medical terminology for lay readers, his thoughtful, valuable memoir will be most relevant to medical students and interns experiencing similar crises. (Jan.)

In this unconvincing book, George (Making Men Moral), a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, and Tollefsen, a philosophy professor at the University of South Carolina, envision the mass production and exploitation of embryos by scientists for research. In response, they affirm emphatically that an embryo deserves the same moral respect as a human—an argument well-known from religious sources but to which the authors attempt to give a scientific basis. George and Tollefsen offer a detailed scientific analysis of the making of the embryo to conclude that even a single-cell zygote has all the genetic characteristics of a human being. Thus, the embryo “is a complete or whole organism, though immature.” Against those who argue that the embryo lacks consciousness and thus is not fully human, the authors reject mind-body dualism and argue that the embryo has the capacity to develop into a rational being. Yet while these questions continue to provoke controversy in relation to abortion as well as embryo research, this book provides no compelling new evidence about the moral status of the embryo to persuade readers who do not already agree with them. (Jan. 15)

Black Power masks Black Pain, says Williams, a social worker and founder of a successful public relations firm. Back when black was beautiful, “we felt comfortable in our dark skin and 'nappy' hair.” Decades later, that sense of pride has morphed into bling that hides the pain of poverty and racism. The result has been depression expressed through violence, addiction, suicide as well as obesity and hypertension. The stoicism blacks are taught in order to not appear weak in the eyes of other black people only leads to denial and isolation. Williams argues persuasively that blacks are not alone. She begins with her own tribulations with depression. From there, she examines how depression is expressed by black men, women and children, and shares the stories of scores of others: rich, poor, successful, incarcerated. This liberal insertion of case reports coupled with a plethora of block quotes can bog down the text. However, Williams is dedicated to convincing her fellow African-Americans that assistance is readily available, whether through counseling, medicine or self-help: “[T]here is no need for you to suffer alone or in silence. Help is out there.” (Jan.)

Luskin (Forgive for Good) approaches the matter of couples' harmony by pinpointing forgiveness as the secret to a relationship's longevity. He defines forgiveness as letting go of anger and despair when your partner doesn't do what you want, yet in one example he does suggest ending a totally unsatisfactory relationship. Still, Luskin's steps toward full forgiveness eventually begin to make a lot of sense once the author reminds readers that they made the choice to be with the person they're with, and that their partner is flawed and so are they. Luskin's advice and case histories draw heavily on his own studies at the Stanford Forgiveness Project, which he directs. But since his notion of forgiveness includes such steps as acceptance of a partner's imperfections, recognizing the love he or she gives and committing to the relationship, “forgiveness” seems like a catch-all term for the same advice many other relationship experts offer. (Jan.)

At 150 years old, Gray's Anatomy still sets the standard in medical textbooks, yet little has been written about its author, Henry Gray. Even less celebrated is Henry Carter, the illustrator who brought Gray's groundbreaking anatomy text to life. Hayes (Sleep Demons: An Insomniac's Memoir) explores the lives of these two men, balancing biographical chapters with his own experience in the anatomy classroom, dissecting cadavers and marveling at each new discovery with prose both lucid and arrestingly beautiful: “Like a pomegranate, whose leathery rind belies its jewel box interior, the kidney is spectacular inside.” From Carter's diary entries, Hayes recreates an era when medical advances were rapidly changing the way people lived as well as challenging religious dogma, and people turned to science in hopes of reconciling the two. Hayes finds emotional resonance in Carter's longing for a job that would matter, as well as in his internal conflicts as a Protestant Dissenter and his fear of professing his despised beliefs in public. As Hayes relates his own growing wonder and respect for anatomy, one feels the echo of Carter and Gray's devotion as they worked to create what one historian called “an affordable, accurate teaching aid.” Hayes pays eloquent tribute to two masterpieces: the human body and the book detailing it. (Dec. 26)

Country music scholar Pecknold (co-editor of A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music) delves into the beginnings of the business of the oft-scorned “hillbilly” music—as country was called before the early 1950s—and studies how it grew into a nationwide moneymaking force by the 1970s. She traces the industry's footing back to radio advertising of the 1920s and the broadcast barn dances of the early '30s, then on to the convergence of the business in its ultimate epicenter, Nashville, in the late '40s and early '50s. Fledgling associations, both of deejays and fan clubs, played a powerful force in driving the music business until the 1958 formation of the Country Music Association (CMA). Pecknold is quite adept when analyzing both novels and films depicting the music business; however, the narrative sometimes lags when she recounts insider details of fan clubs and the formation of the CMA. This is not for the pleasure reader looking for stories of country music personalities; it's a serious academic tome that will be of great interest to the student of the business and cultural context of country music. (Jan.)

In this innovative and intelligent book, British novelist and essayist Bracewell (The Nineties: When Surface Was Depth) explores how the 1972 release of the eponymously named debut album by Roxy Music—“a manifesto written in the language of heavily stylized, nuanced and atmospheric pop and rock music”—was actually the culmination of a decade-long British movement in which “fine art and the avant-garde met the vivacity of pop and fashion” with the goal of dissolving the boundaries between “high” and “low” art forms. Bracewell describes in fascinating detail a range of famous and obscure artists, first in the fine arts departments at Newcastle and Reading universities and later in the London of the “swinging '60s,” and delivers in effect a history of the British pop art movement, with special praise for the influence of artist Richard Hamilton at Newcastle, with whom Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry studied. By the time Bracewell ends his look at Roxy Music “at its moment of becoming,” he has definitively shown how the roots of Ferry's artistic vision of the band, both as a musical group and as a pop art concept, helped him produce “one of the most original” groups of its time, fusing “an eclectic range of influences from modern music, popular culture and fine art” (Dec.)

George Clooney may not be the world's “last great movie star,” as the subtitle would have it, but he certainly has magnetism. Potts (Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Chick Flick) has gathered material on Clooney from all of America's major magazines, from People to Playboy, and has tracked Clooney's career from his first commercials through ER and other television work to his latest films. Since Clooney's been adamant that his career is more important to him than his love affairs, there's not a lot of wiggle room for romance reportage, so Potts has had to think more about Clooney's career arc, his transition from television to movie work and his decision to become known as a politically aware moviemaker. While Potts did not interview Clooney or any of his cohorts, she has crafted a readable if thin account of his career, complete with a filmography of his work and a listing of his personal “top 100” favorite films. (Dec.)

Despite the current downturn in the housing market, the country's “mania for homes” that exploded during the last half-decade is still alive and well, according to Newsweek writer McGinn. The fascination with homes—“talking about, valuing, scheming over, envying, shopping for, refinancing, or just plain ogling homes”—has continued even after the market has cooled, McGinn argues, and can be seen in the ongoing popularity of HGTV, the 24-7 real estate and home improvement cable channel and its flagship show, House Hunters. To prove his thesis, McGinn entertainingly explores the gamut of housing obsessions, from buying personally designed and oversized trophy homes, attempting large-scale renovations and spending “obscene” amounts of time on real estate Web sites such as Zillow and PropertyShark to actually going out and getting a real estate license, which McGinn himself does after only minimal training. It is this ability to get inside the actual lives of the housing-obsessed rather that relying purely on statistics to prove his point that makes this book as enjoyable as an episode of Flip This House, another popular housing reality show that McGinn cites in a book that is, at heart, all “about behavior, not economics.” (Dec. 26)

Dundee, a Hall of Fame corner man who has worked alongside 15 world boxing champions, recalls his life and times at ringside with the help of Sugar, renowned boxing storyteller and editor. Together they trace a corner career that has taken Dundee (born in 1923) from boxing's first televised bouts to the heavyweight pay-per-view spectacles of today. Dundee brings to the corner a unique and wide set of skills, acting as trainer, doctor, coach and psychologist all at once. Between tales of the last century's biggest title bouts, the authors provide an in-depth look at sparring, psyching out an opponent, closing and dressing cuts, the politics of weigh-ins and the science of opponent selection. Pulling no punches in this memoir, Dundee readily addresses rumors that he loosened the ropes before the “Rumble in the Jungle,” allowing Ali to pull off the now famous “rope-a-dope” victory against Foreman. He references legends like this in the same humorous and spirited voice with which he admits to spraying goo on his head to cover up his baldness, until it started to melt under the hot ringside lights and freaked out one of his fighters. This book's appeal lies in Dundee's colorful and punchy personality, as he enlivens the prose with entertaining, Yogi Berra–like jokes, tautologies and euphemisms. It's no surprise that Dundee helped Ali develop his famous rhymes. (Dec.)

Brown (Queens Reigns Supreme) presents the case that harsh minimum sentencing laws have led federal prosecutors to rely too much on unreliable informants and cooperators, and too little on solid investigative work; the sentences are also, he argues, feeding the “anti-snitch” movement. Brown correctly notes that long minimum sentences give defendants greater incentive to lie in exchange for a reduced sentence, and he relates anecdotes about deals with unsavory criminals. But these cases don't provide any analysis of whether such arrangements are really antithetical to justice and corrupt the system. For instance, in discussing the agreement struck with unrepentant Mafia turncoat Sammy Gravano, the author doesn't assess the possibility that such plea bargains with mob leaders have contributed to the decline of traditional organized crime. Further, the author's critique of pre-emptive indictments in alleged terrorist plots based on informers could have given more weight to the legitimate fears that waiting too long to stop such a plot may be too risky. The serious issues raised by the federal government's reliance on informants and cooperative witnesses merit a more thorough and nuanced analysis than Brown provides. (Dec.)

Pfaff, head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology and Behavior at Rockefeller University, explains his purpose in clear terms: “The whole focus in these pages is on the possibility that some rules of behavior are universally embedded in the human brain—that we are 'wired for good behavior.' ” He claims he's surveyed the world's religions and found some variant of the Golden Rule in every one, leading him to conclude that this trait is likely to be under some sort of genetic control. The simple mechanism for the occurrence of altruistic acts, he says, is the brain's tendency to confuse “self” and “other”—similar to the blurring of identities that occurs in a love relationship. This empathy—whose neural mechanism Pfaff explains—can prevent us from harming others as well as leading us to do good. The author goes into great detail, far more than is necessary to drive his point home, about how neurobiology and neurochemistry interact to help shape behavior. His sections on parenting, sexual love and aggression are intriguing, but the technical information will make this appeal primarily to those with a strong interest in the brain and the science of behavior. B&w illus. (Dec.)

Community activist and MacArthur fellow Strickland explains the jazz expression “tell your story” as “playing that doesn't just display your virtuosity, but also gives the audience a glimpse of your soul.” He succeeds in doing just that. We get the virtuosity: he was an African-American kid from Pittsburgh's inner city who at 19 established what became Manchester-Bidwell, the now famous arts and job-training center for disadvantaged kids and adults. And we get the soul: he was spurred on by a mother who taught him to polish a wood floor until it gleamed no matter what was going on in the streets outside; an art teacher who believed in the “aimless” boy; a classroom where coffee brewed, jazz played softly, and he had the transformative experience of throwing his first clay pot. It's the American dream with a twist: for Strickland, it was never about shedding his past and getting ahead but about following his bliss and making a difference. Which is not to say the skilled fund-raiser isn't savvy. He touts the value of a Brooks Brothers suit and knowing the right people. Unfortunately, we don't learn how Strickland's philosophy of making the impossible possible applies to his—or our—personal lives. (Dec. 31)

Richo is the psychotherapist and teacher whose popular and impressive How to Be an Adult in Relationships melded Jungian and Buddhist thought in a way that was both poetic and linear. This book is lighter than his earlier works and a quick read. Proposing 52 commitments, or intentions, he follows each one with a pithy essay or meditation. Richo's intellectual grasp is profound, making each commitment an intriguing spiritual yardstick for examining how far we have come or how far we might still go in terms of honesty, kindness and taking responsibility for our actions and relationships. One of the commitments, for example, is “I am choosing to be more authentic in my relationships.” Fleshing this out, Richo encourages the reader to admit one's error “the minute we notice ourselves acting in ways that do not present ourselves honestly.” Other parts of the book deal with seeing ourselves clearly, not hurting others and showing kindness when others rebuff us. People who have not been exposed to Richo's earlier books should enjoy this one, and fans of his work will welcome the return of his unique voice. (Dec. 18)

With this accessible but unfocused book, Graff explores the political, economic and technological changes that he believes will make the 2008 presidential election “the first campaign of a new age.” Before examining the direct impact that globalization and the Web will have on the next campaign, the author lays out the recent history of American national party politics, from the collapse of the Democratic Party and ascendance of the Republican Party in the early 1980s to the racially charged comment that may have cost Republican George Allen the Virginia Senate race in 2006. These historical chapters cover too much ground in too little space (the first chapter, for example, includes discussion of the social revolution of the 1960s, the economic decline of the Rust Belt, the 1980 election and the Monica Lewinsky scandal). However, Graff, an editor at Washingtonian magazine as well as a blogger and former webmaster for Howard Dean, knows a great deal about the contemporary political issues he discusses in the book's more streamlined second half, which brings a thoughtful clarity to his wide-ranging analysis, from the need for sweeping health care reform to the political uses of Twitter.com. (Dec. 10)

Military historian Alexander (Lost Victories et al.) offers a well-reasoned brief that lays the blame for the Confederate defeat in the Civil War primarily on President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee, and their war-long insistence on conducting toe-to-toe frontal assaults against the much-stronger Union Army. Alexander argues that had Davis and Lee listened to Gen. Stonewall Jackson, things very well could have turned out differently. Jackson—and like-minded generals Joseph E. Johnston, Pierre G.T. Beauregard and James Longstreet—warned against conducting an offensive war against the North. Instead, they advocated waging “unrelenting war” against “undefended factories, farms, and railroads” north of the Mason-Dixon line, bypassing the Union Army and winning indirectly “by assaulting the Northern people's will to pursue the war.” While Alexander convincingly argues that there was nothing inevitable about a Southern defeat, he is no “Lost Cause” advocate. Instead, he presents well-drawn and clear-eyed tactical and strategic analyses of the war's most crucial battles (including First and Second Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg) to buttress his contention that had Jackson not perished in May of 1863 (and had Lee and Davis adopted Jackson's strategy), the South just might have won the Civil War. (Dec.)

Barbarism and civilization have been inextricably intertwined in 20th-century Europe, says University of Chicago historian Wasserstein in this tour-de-force. Taking WWI as his starting point, Wasserstein (Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945) details how some of history's greatest achievements (increased democracy, widespread wealth and longevity) have been accompanied by tremendous violence—two vicious world wars, government-instigated famine in the Soviet Union, genocide in the Balkans and terrorism in the name of Islam. Wasserstein focuses on politics and the economy, moving smoothly from Britain to Germany to Russia to Turkey and back, with a clear command of all the historical material. Cultural and gender issues receive occasional attention, as in his discussions of the status of women in the 1930s and 1960s. Wasserstein even takes his story up to the present, covering changes Muslim immigration has brought to the Continent. At all times, he displays a clear writing style and an admirable balance, two traits that make this a rare gem of contemporary scholarship. Wasserstein ends on a pessimistic note: while he sees greater “tenderness” toward the needy, he fears for the future in a “post-Christian” Europe without a moral compass and a vulgarized public discourse and aesthetics. Photos, maps. (Dec.)

Leadership gurus Tichy (Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will) and Bennis (On Becoming a Leader) examine the critical role judgment plays in effective leadership. Calling judgment the essence of leadership, they identify three judgment domains that can undermine any leader's success—people, strategy and crisis—and explore such challenges as selecting the top team, CEO succession, and crisis as a leadership development opportunity. The good news: even if one isn't born with good judgment, it can be learned. To sustain it, a leader must have character, courage and clear standards, especially when facing obstacles. For example, Jim McNerney, who became CEO of Boeing when it was amid a Justice Department investigation, developed a story line—or “Teachable Point of View”—that created and reinforced a theme of high ethical standards, bringing about a new partnership with Boeing's stakeholders. Additional real-world examples from Royal Dutch Shell, Proctor & Gamble and General Electric illustrate critical points of both good and bad judgment. Easy-to-read charts, lists and matrices reinforce key points. Particularly useful is the final “Handbook for Leadership Judgment” focusing on the practical level. This engaging and thorough work should be mandatory reading for executives and managers at all levels. (Nov. 8)