Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 11/26/2007

This debut essay collection is full of sardonic wit and charm, and Crosley effortlessly transforms what could have been stereotypical tales of mid-20s life into a breezy series of vignettes with uproariously unpredictable outcomes. From the opening “The Pony Problem” to the hilarious “Bring-Your-Machete-to-Work Day” (which will ring true for any child of the early 1990s who played the first Oregon Trail computer game), Crosley is equal parts self-deprecating and endearing as she recounts her secret obsession with plastic ponies and the joys of exacting revenge via a pixilated wagon ride. In less capable hands, the subjects tackled—from unpleasant weddings of long-forgotten friends to horrendous first jobs—could have been a litany of complaints from yet another rich girl from the suburbs. But Crosley, who grew up in Westchester and currently lives in Manhattan, makes the experiences her own with a plethora of amusing twists: a volunteer job at the American Museum of Natural History leads to a moral quandary, and a simple Upper West Side move becomes anything but. Fans of Sarah Vowell’s razor-sharp tongue will love this original new voice. (Apr.)

California journalist and author Finnamore (The Zygote Chronicles) renders a sharp, cut-to-the-quick account of her painful divorce after five years of marriage. Living in the canyons of tony Marin County with her marketing v-p husband, N, and their toddler son she calls A, the author is devastated by N’s announcement that he wants a divorce—and yet she is not surprised. In brief, astute chapters riddled with a dry, deadpan humor, the author reconstructs this surreal journey from giddy romance with a suave older man (she is 40, while he is in his 50s), through motherhood and the dawning suspicions of his infidelity, to his abandonment and denial that he is involved with someone else. Finnamore enlists various characters to see her through her crisis, which spans denial and anger, grief and acceptance: her jaded, long remarried mother, Bunny, who brings the pain-killers and stocks the house with junk food; her no-nonsense diminutive friend Lisa, who remarks upon hearing the news of the divorce, “You have no idea how I have longed for this day”; and her vehemently antimarriage childhood buddy Christian. Eschewing a divorce lawyer, Finnamore manages to come through with the help of her friends and conveys in this frank, winning memoir her supreme vulnerability and bravery. (Apr.)

Goodison, an acclaimed poet who received Jamaica’s Musgrave Gold Medal in 1999, makes lyrical exposition sing with dulcet island patois in this homage to her mother, Doris, who grew up in the sleepy Eden-like setting of Harvey River, but raised her own nine children in urban Kingston under less coddled conditions. Starting on a supernal note, in which Doris bequeaths this book to her daughter in a dream, the memoir draws a richly textured portrait of a sprawling, well-to-do family, including seven strong-willed siblings with deftly sketched personas. As “plump and pretty as a ripe ox-heart tomato,” Doris—whose Anglo-African blood attests to Jamaica’s history of interracial dalliance—joins her sisters in the clique of “fabulous Harvey girls,” their surnames trumpeting the family’s landed-gentry status. But it’s a working-class chauffeur—the author’s father—who wins Doris’s hand in marriage. Borne away from her childhood idyll, she takes in her first moving picture, produces a succession of offspring and plies her domestic skills, especially sewing, gamely weathering the vicissitudes of life outside paradise. Steeped in local lore and spiced with infectious dialect and ditties, Goodison’s memoir reaches back over generations to evoke the mythic power of childhood, the magnetic tug of home and the friction between desire and duty that gives life its unexpected jolts. (Mar.)

Khanna, a widely recognized expert on global politics, offers an study of the 21st century’s emerging “geopolitical marketplace” dominated by three “first world” superpowers, the U.S., Europe and China. Each competes to lead the new century, pursuing that goal in the “third world”: select eastern European countries, east and central Asia, the Middle East Latin America, and North Africa. The U.S. offers military protection and aid. Europe offers deep reform and economic association. China offers full-service, condition-free relationships. Each can be appealing; none has obvious advantages. The key to Khanna’s analysis, however, is his depiction of a “second world”: countries in transition. They range in size and population from heavily peopled states like Brazil and Indonesia to smaller ones such as Malaysia. Khanna interprets the coming years as being shaped by the race to win the second world—and in the case of the U.S., to avoid becoming a second-world country itself. The final pages of his book warn eloquently of the risks of imperial overstretch combined with declining economic dominance and deteriorating quality of life. By themselves those pages are worth the price of a book that from beginning to end inspires reflection. (Mar. 11)

In this collection of essays, the British historian denounces globalism’s increasing economic inequalities, which in classic Marxist form, he claims burdenthose who benefit least. Not surprisingly, Hobsbawm expects developing political resistance to retard globalism’s progress in the next 20 or so years. Eventually, he implies, globalism will merely be a blip in the historically determined process of the international proletariat’s triumph. The major obstacle to that development is the United States. Hobsbawm’s America essentially has become a rogue superpower that rejects international common law in favor of what he calls “imperialism of human rights,” which, combined with a fear of terrorism, legitimates U.S. military intervention anywhere the “uncontrollable and apparently irrational” U.S. government decides. Hobsbawm contrasts the “instability, unpredictability, aggression” of the American pattern with an earlier, more measured, economically based British version that he considers almost benign by comparison (and is a far cry from his earlier writing on the subject). His loathing for American reliance on “politico-military force” to pursue global ambitions as unlimited as they are undefined has reached new depths. This erudite polemic may appeal to the intellectual left, but is unlikely to change many minds outside that sphere. (Mar. 18)

While plenty of authors have argued that the Mafia and anti-Castro Cubans were behind the assassination of President Kennedy, few have done so as convincingly as Naval War College history professor Kaiser (American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War). Kaiser bills this as “the first [Kennedy assassination book] written by a professional historian who has researched the available archives,” and his attention to detail and use of recently released FBI and CIA files put this analysis ahead of many of its fellows. Kaiser focuses on the tantalizing testimony of Cuban exile Silvia Odio, who claimed to have met Lee Harvey Oswald in the company of Cuban activists, and on the U.S. government’s efforts to kill Castro and Robert Kennedy’s crusade against organized crime. By taking Oswald’s guilt as a given and focusing on the people he crossed paths with and their motives and connections, Kaiser mostly succeeds in avoiding complex and narrative-derailing forensic discussions. This is a deeply disturbing look at a national tragedy, and Kaiser’s sober tone and reasoned analysis may well convince some in the Oswald-was-a-lone-nut camp. 30 b&w illus. not seen by PW. (Mar.)

Theater and TV critic Zoglin steps into the spotlight to deliver mirthful material also worthy of applause. A senior Time writer-editor who covered the magazine’s showbiz beat for 20 years, Zoglin once did major pieces on Carson, Cosby, Letterman, Seinfeld and others. Now he offers a comedy chronicle of laugh makers from the mid-1960s to the early ’80s with entertaining excerpts and funny one-liners. In an opening chapter capturing the charisma and revolutionary impact of Lenny Bruce, he notes, “What the younger comedians who were influenced by him brought was the discipline and craftsmanship that Bruce lacked. They were better actors and more accomplished writers.” The curtain then goes up on a merry mob of iconoclastic innovators: Andy Kaufman, Richard Lewis (“I left my shrink too soon; I had to take an incomplete”), George Carlin and “the seven dirty words,” the raw “racial anger” of Richard Pryor, Robert Klein (“Now you can get every record ever recorded!”) and many more. The book’s centerpiece is a potent profile of Albert Brooks, detailing the lampoons, conflicts and compromises of his now-forgotten standup career. Although some subjects (Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, David Letterman) were initially reluctant to be interviewed, Zoglin’s conversations with numerous top talents enabled him to add fresh quotations to his extensive research through books, magazines and liner notes. Always highlighting how these comics “transformed the culture,” Zoglin on standup is standout. (Feb. 1)

According to the couple of old Woody Creek buddies of Hunter S. Thompson’s (aka “Doc”) who compiled this ramshackle selection of anecdotes about the gonzo practitioner, the kitchen at Doc’s was the favored place for conversation since the living room had devolved into a “squalid, fetid, pigsty.” Thompson’s legend as a fire-breathing, vituperative hellion had spread far and wide—due in no small part to his own self-promotion of it—but many old-time residents of the Colorado mountain town where he holed up for several decades were fiercely protective of their resident hell-raiser. That attitude is clearly represented by this book’s pair of authors, an artist and a sheriff, who relate numerous tales of paranoid and wanton destruction (often involving cocaine, firearms and too many glasses of Chivas) with the same indulgence one reserves for a dangerously eccentric relative. The book keeps the stargazing to a minimum and mostly presents Thompson the man—one who was fortunate he could write because he comes off here as pretty useless at day-to-day life. The authors recount everything from Thompson’s invention of shotgun golf to the reason he needed all those peacocks around. While Cleverly and Braudis try to puncture the media myth of Thompson the Indestructible (on his aborted attempt at covering Vietnam, they sardonically note that he seemed to “only like danger when he was the most dangerous person in the room”), it’s a gentle ribbing; we should all have friends as generous and forgiving as Thompson clearly did. (Feb.)

In Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative College Professor, Adams lampooned liberals, campus radicalism and the academic left. At the outset of his second jaunt across the campus, the highly opinionated professor of criminal justice at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington explains his reason for targeting feminists: “I want to find out why they hate us.” Unleashing salvos of sarcasm, he collects his correspondence addressed to feminist students, professors, activists and administrators, including some letters never mailed (probably for the best). Claiming that “feminist scholar” is an oxymoron, Adams asserts that feminists have no sense of humor, are the biggest censors on college campuses, lack the courage to act as individuals, engage in “widespread academic and personal dishonesty” and attempt to solve problems by changing society rather than their own behavior. Ridiculing “feminist-sponsored masturbation workshops,” he notes, “Men are fully capable of masturbating without taking a seminar.... For campus feminists, it’s another excuse to seek funding from the university administration.” Adams’s caustic survey of the “feminist worldview” is certain to stir up controversy when his conservative radio promotional campaign gets underway. (Feb. 14)

Barcott (The Measure of a Mountain) relates the dramatic and heart-rending story of one woman’s struggle to save the scarlet macaw in the tiny country of Belize. Sharon Matola, an eccentric American who directs the Belize Zoo, learned in 1999 that a Canadian power company planned to build a dam that would destroy the habitat of the 200 scarlet macaws remaining in Belize. Helped by native Belizeans and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Matola mounted a six-year campaign against the dam, undaunted by government officials who branded her an enemy of the state and threatened to destroy her zoo by locating a new national garbage dump next to it—a vindictive act halted only when Princess Anne of Great Britain, which gives Belize millions in aid, planned to speak out against it. But the combined forces of a determined corporation and a corrupt government were unrelenting, even after it was revealed that the power company’s geological studies of the site were faulty and the dam could put human lives at stake. Barcott’s compelling narrative is suspenseful right up to the last moment. (Feb. 12)

Tattersall (Becoming Human), a curator in the anthropology division of the American Museum of Natural History, uses fossil and archeological records to examine the seven (or so) million years from the dawn of the Hominidae, the family that includes humans, to the gradual development of agriculture and permanent settlements. His topic is huge and his pages are few, but this overview will give readers a sense of the current thinking in the field. Tattersall discusses the characteristics that separate Homo sapiens from extinct hominids, concluding that the gulf between us and our closest relative opened up when our enlarged brains gave rise to symbolic reasoning. Asserting that hominid evolution is more complex than previously thought and that the idea of a linear progression of species is far too simplistic, Tattersall presents mitochondrial DNA evidence that we are not directly related to Neanderthals and declares, “We are not the result of constant fine-tuning over the eons, any more than we are the summit of creation.” Finally, he explains the techniques used to interpret the physical evidence of evolutionary processes. This is an elegant, if brief, introduction to a complex field. 20 b&w illus. (Feb.)

Guelzo (Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America) gives us an astute, gracefully written account of the celebrated Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858. These seven debates between two powerful attorneys and statesmen, Abraham Lincoln and Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, starkly defined the stakes between sharply different positions on slavery and union on the eve of civil war and offered examples of serious, deeply reasoned exchanges of views rarely seen in American politics. As Guelzo wisely shows, the debates did not stand alone but were part of a larger Illinois senatorial campaign. Douglas won re-election that year, but Lincoln gained national recognition despite losing and then defeated Douglas three years later for the presidency. Perhaps more important, the views that Lincoln enunciated in 1858—that the government, heeding the majority’s will, should halt slavery’s further spread—laid the foundation for emancipation and a new era in the nation’s history. Guelzo’s smoothly narrated history of this segment of Lincoln’s career, packed full of illustrative quotes from primary sources, will become a standard. (Feb.)

During the spring of 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall promulgated what would come to be known as the Marshall Plan: a proposal to spend up to $20 billion to restore the infrastructure and economies of Europe, then still foundering in recession and poverty after the ravages of WWII. As Mills, American studies professor at Sarah Lawrence, shows in this elegant study, the plan not only offered relief but brought about a degree of European unity by forcing countries to work in concert to mend their fractured continent. The U.S. mostly refrained from influencing specific solutions, an approach that Mills argues the present administration should think about adopting today. The plan worked to the advantage of the United States as much as it worked to the advantage of noncommunist Europe: much of the economic aid supplied was to be used to purchase American merchandise, and legislation required that this merchandise travel on U.S. merchant vessels. Six years after Marshall’s first proposal, the U.S. had invested some $13 billion, and virtually all of Western Europe stood restored. This overview covers a complex subject straightforwardly and well. (Feb.)

History and science come together in this fascinating story of a woodland salt lick and how the fossil bones found there influenced the beginnings of paleontology in America. The saline springs of northern Kentucky’s Big Bone Lick have nurtured humans and animals for centuries, and the bones of extinct mastodons, bison and other creatures are there to prove it. Biology professor emeritus Hedeen illuminates a time when the concept of extinction was considered outrageous, if not downright blasphemous, since it contradicted the biblical doctrine of a “perfect, unchanging creation.” Early 18th-century naturalists believed the bones were remnants of some rare type of elephant, possibly even Asian elephants that had somehow wandered into American forests. Naturalists such as Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon and Georges Cuvier (who coined the term “mastodon”) appear alongside Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and extinction skeptic Thomas Jefferson, who sent Lewis and Clark west with a laundry list of goals that included finding “knowledge of 'living Mammoth, & of the Megatherium also.’ ” Hedeen depicts a vibrant and exciting era, when the 1755 map notation “Elephants Bones found here” drew the attention of the whole world. (Feb.)

It happened in Colfax, La., on Easter Sunday, 1873; when it ended, the “the largest number of victims in the history of racial violence in the United States,” more than one hundred and fifty African-Americans, were dead. Keith places the massacre at the center of her book, but her sharpest focus is upon white political figures and the slave-holding Calhoun family (the character Simon Legree in Uncle Tom’s Cabin was based upon a Calhoun forebear), most notably William, who witnessed the violence. Keith traces the fortunes of the Calhoun family to the events leading to the massacre, then turns to the Colfax Courthouse assault and judicial aftermath that deepened the complexity of this tragic event. Three white men were convicted, not for murders but for conspiracy in one murder. These convictions were then overturned, and Reconstruction effectively ended according to Keith. Louisiana’s Governor Kellogg declared “no white man could be punished for killing a negro.” Later memorialized by the state with a plaque “celebrating the demise of 'carpetbag misrule in the South,’ ” the horrific massacre has received scant attention from American historians. Keith’s aim is admirable, but the execution could be bolstered with more substantive research. (Feb.)

This unconventional and provocative analysis presents Alexander the Great as anything but. The Macedonian conquest was widely detested and resisted in a Persian Empire military historian Grainger describes not as the discordant mélange of peoples depicted in classical Greek accounts, but as the political and economic center of the civilized world. A hubristic dream of world conquest led Alexander to neglect the empire he ruled. He ignored his health to the point of contributing to his early death. He failed to provide an heir, refused to designate an adult successor and eliminated aspirants to that role. His inability to delegate work or responsibility crippled his administrative system. Macedonia was Alexander’s fulcrum, but his wars left it so weakened that on his death the kingdom imploded and devoted what energy remained to compounding chaos in Greece. Egypt reasserted its independence and its boundaries. The Seleucid kingdom (founded by Seleukos Nikator, one of Alexander’s lesser subordinates) eventually extended from Anatolia to northern India. Seleukos came closest to securing Alexander’s imperial heritage. Even before Seleukos’s assassination, however, his domain proved difficult to control without the military resources Macedonia had provided Alexander. Alexander’s life and conquests may have been extraordinary, but their result was a failed empire whose collapse facilitated the rise of the Roman Republic. (Feb.)

It’s the neoconservative dream come true: a Muslim country in the Middle East that’s rapidly transforming into a liberal democracy with a thriving market economy that builds half of Europe’s television sets. However, it wasn’t American military intervention that produced this miracle, but a combination of European Union economic incentives and moderate Islam. In this engaging, hopeful survey, BBC correspondent Morris paints Turkey as a study in contradictions. A rabidly secular military establishment spars with Islamic parties that champion democracy and human rights; cosmopolitan cities where miniskirts abound and head scarves are few and far between are surrounded by an almost feudal countryside where honor killings are routine. At the center of these upheavals is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has pushed through a whirlwind of progressive reforms while trying to appease his Islamist constituents with proposals to outlaw adultery. Morris is captivated with Turkey’s landscape and people, rendered in vivid reportage, but he’s clear-eyed about its festering conflict with the Kurdish minority, pervasive corruption and the vast economic problems the country faces. The result is an illuminating look at one of the world’s more interesting societies that stands many assumptions about religion, politics and development on their heads. (Feb.)

British historian Barr re-examines World War I’s “ 'Great Arab Revolt’ ” led by the legendary “Lawrence of Arabia” in this exhaustively researched and vividly narrated history. Thomas Edward Lawrence was a young British intelligence officer when he undertook to organize Arab resistance to the Ottoman Empire, a German ally. The Turkish (Ottoman) sultan was also the caliph—spiritual leader of Muslims worldwide—and the British feared that his call for jihad “threatened their eastern empire.” To secure Arab support against the Turks, the British offered them “a hazy declaration” of future independence. Led by Lawrence, “an eccentric amateur” who adopted the flowing robes of his desert allies, the Arabs began a guerrilla campaign against the Hijaz Railway, “the Turks’ supply line” between Damascus and Medina. Lawrence’s “driving obsession” was to capture Damascus and “foil French ambitions in Syria.” As the war in Europe was ending, the Arabs occupied Damascus and Lawrence installed an Arab government. Upon the war’s conclusion, “Middle Eastern matters were peripheral.” Britain then yielded Syria to France, denying Arab independence and initiating “a new legacy, of increasingly bitter relations.” Barr expertly navigates an intriguing landscape of shifting alliances and labyrinthine politics peopled with eccentric characters to demystify a fascinating legend. illus. (Feb.)

Canadian antiglobalization activist Barlow (Blue Gold) calls for a “blue covenant” among nations to define the world’s fresh water as “a human right and a public trust” rather than a commercial product. Barlow marshals facts and figures with admirable (if often dry) comprehensiveness, noting that as many as 36 U.S. states could reach a water crisis in five years; that once vast freshwater resources like Lake Chad and the Aral Sea are becoming briny puddles; and a handful of multinational water companies, abetted by World Bank monetary policies and United Nations political timidity, are bidding for the “complete commodification” of formerly public water resources. Her passionate plea for access-to-water activism is buttressed with some breakthroughs; Uruguay has enshrined public water rights in its constitution (the only nation to do so), and “water warriors” are fighting back in Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, where activists have forced private water companies to cede control of municipal water systems. There’s a noble tilting-at-windmills quality to the author’s call for private citizens and nongovernmental organizations to challenge corporate control of water delivery, agitate for equitable access to clean water and confront the reality that freshwater supplies are dwindling. (Feb.)

With Hillary Clinton a serious contender for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, Falk’s book is timely, but with a definition of “media” narrowly limited to a few newspapers, it is also problematic. Johns Hopkins communications professor Falk may have missed an opportunity to press an interesting issue—she fails to address whether newspapers staffed with women editors and reporters in key positions show less bias than newspapers run by men—but her book is still of value. After reviewing the presidential campaigns of eight women starting with Victoria Claflin Woodhull in 1872, Falk posits that journalists and editorialists frequently treat women candidates differently than they do men. Women presidential candidates receive less media coverage than their male counterparts and are often portrayed as “unnatural, incapable and unviable.” As Falk also observes, women’s images are more readily emphasized and thereby tarnished—homemaking skills (or the lack thereof) and physical appearances receive more attention than their political strengths. Such media coverage has short- and long-term consequences, according to Falk, the most deleterious being that this allegedly biased media coverage may discourage women from attempting to win electoral office at any level. (Feb.)

In his hugely influential treatise The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan traced a direct line between the industrialization of our food supply and the degradation of the environment. His new book takes up where the previous work left off. Examining the question of what to eat from the perspective of health, this powerfully argued, thoroughly researched and elegant manifesto cuts straight to the chase with a maxim that is deceptively simple: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” But as Pollan explains, “food” in a country that is driven by “a thirty-two billion-dollar marketing machine” is both a loaded term and, in its purest sense, a holy grail. The first section of his three-part essay refutes the authority of the diet bullies, pointing up the confluence of interests among manufacturers of processed foods, marketers and nutritional scientists—a cabal whose nutritional advice has given rise to “a notably unhealthy preoccupation with nutrition and diet and the idea of eating healthily.” The second portion vivisects the Western diet, questioning, among other sacred cows, the idea that dietary fat leads to chronic illness. A writer of great subtlety, Pollan doesn’t preach to the choir; in fact, rarely does he preach at all, preferring to lets the facts speak for themselves. (Jan.)

In this thoroughly engaging set of long-form interviews, Lowenstein coaxes a second volume of candid responses out of some of the best directors working today on the subject of their first feature films. As an interviewer, Lowenstein, a British writer and director, has a gift for rigor, and he leads his subjects to explore the details of their early careers, from their primitive student films to the finished product of studio-distributed movies. Richard Linklater sets the pace in the first piece with an exhilarating argument for taking the independent path-less-traveled, while Terry Gilliam speaks eloquently of the difficulties of breaking out of the sketch comedy expectations set by his work with Monty Python. In other pieces, Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly chats about the difficulties of being both a frat boy and a film school student at USC, and Sam Mendes affably describes his impressive transition from theater director to Oscar-winning filmmaker with just one movie, American Beauty. In addition to its in-depth access, the book includes a refreshingly international breadth of directors, including Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu on his bloody anthology Amores Perros, and Takeshi Kitano on his even bloodier first feature Violent Cop. Shekhar Kapur’s recollection of his early career in Bollywood is perhaps the highlight of the engrossing collection. (Jan.)

In this engaging book about Boston’s Charlestown High School basketball team, Swidey, a staff writer for the Boston Globe Magazine, explains that “[b]eing part of the Charlestown program was no guarantee that a kid would become a success.... But dropping out of the program dramatically increased the odds that he wouldn’t.” Head coach Jack O’Brien benefited from the team aside from its gaudy won-loss record. Unmarried and with a shattered family history, O’Brien found that the “rigid team structure... offer[ed] the trappings of home.” Like a concerned parent, O’Brien worked year-round to keep his kids away from the overwhelming daily wave of crime and bad influences and into the security of a college-educated future. Swidey masterfully shows over the course of two seasons the struggle O’Brien and his players face in maintaining success on and off the court. The coach observes the lives of his two star players, Ridley Johnson and Jason “Hood” White, go in very different directions after they land out-of-state college scholarships. Swidey expertly examines the slippery slope of Charlestown’s success, tying it into Boston’s disastrous busing scandal and an underwhelming legal system that perpetuates crime, while he builds narrative momentum and details his subjects with the touch of a skilled novelist. This is a prodigiously reported, compulsively readable book that readers (sport fans or not) will savor. (Jan.)

Boylan, an English professor, novelist and memoirist (She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders), tells of growing up in a haunted house in Pennsylvania, where phantom footfalls and spectral mists were practically commonplace. This was a fitting-enough setting for young Boylan, then a boy who longed to become a girl. “Back then I knew very little for certain about whatever it was that afflicted me,” she writes. “[I]n order to survive, I’d have to become something like a ghost myself, and keep the nature of my true self hidden.” In 2006, years after her sex change, Boylan returned to her childhood home with a band of local ghostbusters as she struggled to reconcile with her past as James Boylan, as well as her memories of family members she’d loved and lost there. This memoir is better suited for those interested in broader human truths than in fact (a disclaimer in the author’s note explains that she’s taken liberties in service of the story); readers in the former category are in for a treat. Boylan writes with a measured comedic timing and a light touch, affecting a pitch-perfect balance between sorrow, skepticism and humor. In spite of the singularity of Boylan’s circumstance, the coming-of-age story has far-reaching resonance: estrangement in one’s own home, alienation in one’s own skin and the curious ways that men and women come to know themselves and one another. (Jan.)

Makari, the director of Cornell’s Institute for the History of Psychiatry, provides a comprehensive early history of psychoanalysis from 1895 to 1946. Although his early colleague Josef Breuer justifiably claimed that Freud was “a man given to absolute and exclusive formulations,” the great Viennese thinker’s revolutionary understanding of the psyche evolved quite a bit, shifting away from psychosexual theory toward the tripartite division of the psyche (ego/id/superego) around 1920. Discussing the steadily growing community of psychoanalysts in Vienna (and, successively, in Zurich, Berlin and elsewhere), Makari notes that the Freudians could sometimes be intellectually insular and sectlike, resulting in the expulsion of Alfred Adler and C.G. Jung from Freud’s circle between 1907 and 1913. Makari succinctly describes developments after Freud’s influence peaked, especially the prominence of what came to be called “ego psychology” as developed by Heinz Hartmann, and the bitter intellectual dispute between Melanie Klein and Anna Freud. Makari tries to cover so much ground that some sections get a bit sketchy, but most of his ideas come across clearly in this challenging but rewarding intellectual history. 31 b&w photos. (Jan. 8)

Hardly a household name today, New Zealand–born scientist Ernest Rutherford was a celebrity in the early 1900s rivaling Einstein. Whereas Einstein conducted most of his experiments in his head, Rutherford (1871–1937) was an avid tabletop experimenter who won the Nobel Prize when he was only in his late 30s for his research into radioactive decay. Reeves (President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination) explores how this loud, rough-around-the-edges antipodean, who often carried chunks of radioactive material in his pocket, cracked Cambridge’s snobbish elitism and became head of the university’s prestigious Cavendish Laboratory. Using sealing wax and string to hitch together contraptions that would be laughed out of high school science fairs today, Rutherford discovered the structure of the atom. He also went far beyond most of his colleagues to help scientists fleeing Nazi Germany. Late in his career, Rutherford’s team, using hand-me-down equipment in their cramped Cavendish quarters, beat out international competition to be the first to split the atom. Fans of scientific biographies will enjoy this detailed little portrait of one of the great figures in 20th-century physics. 12 illus. not seen by PW. (Jan.)

Part memoir, part industry exposé, Marks’s account relates how he became a Republican Party operative digging up dirt on Democratic candidates. His field goes by the name “opposition research.” It is mostly legal, according to Marks, but usually secretive and, by his own evolving standards, frequently immoral. Marks drifted into the field during the first half of the 1990s and became a true believer in the GOP cause. The book names names and cites examples, from local races to statewide campaigns (Jeb Bush vs. Lawton Chiles) and includes contests for the U.S. Senate (Jesse Helms vs. Harvey Gantt) and U.S. House of Representatives, as well as presidential elections (Bob Dole vs. Bill Clinton and John Kerry vs. George W. Bush). Marks began writing the book after coming to doubt his vocation’s ethics. Despite this turnabout, he is not an admirable whistleblower with a likable personality. Marks’s tone and language drip with sleaze heightened by passages about his womanizing. In fact, that and often poor treatment of candidates and staff members might lead readers to conclude that Marks fell lower than his clients. Marks has written an important book that fills a gap in the popular literature about American politics, but it is not a pleasant read. (Jan.)

In this slender volume to accompany a J. Paul Getty Museum exhibition, photographer Iturbide captures Mexico’s matriarchal Zapotec village, Juchitán, from 1979 to 1988. (Those unfamiliar with Iturbide or this indigenous Oaxaca State culture may recognize these women’s elaborate lace costume and headdresses from Frida Kahlo’s paintings.) With closeup views of a closed society, Iturbide’s work is photography at its most intimate. Shot from below, images of women in festival dress and others such as the famous Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas, a portrait of a woman sporting a hat of live iguanas, are also exemplars of photography at its most monumental. Iturbide’s subjects bathe, nurse, drink and sometimes pose with expressions that are as warm as the Mexico City native’s compositions are artful. At times these images haunt, such as in Cemetario, where a woman carries firewood across a cemetery while swallows fleet around like so many spirits departing the earth. Mostly they delight as in Juchiteca con cerveza, in which a smiling woman of ample girth imbibes and laughs with brio. A brief essay by Judith Keller provides additional background on Juchitán’s culture and Iturbide’s life. One hopes this slender volume is just the beginning of larger recognition for one of photography’s greatest. 50 b&w plates. (Jan.)

Want to know if your parents are financially obligated to pony up for your dream wedding or if your cousin is owed your recently deceased mother’s painting though there is no mention of it in her will? Chances are someone has already asked and received an answer on how to deal with it from Money magazine and CNNMoney Web site contributors Fleming and Schwarz. They cover nearly every point and question of financial etiquette and fiscal ethics in this advice collection. Breaking the monotony of page after page of questions and answers are statistical results from a Money Magazine poll regarding financial attitudes toward family and friends, along with results from a survey the authors commissioned separately. General rules of thumb are also offered on such topics as evaluating loan requests and what exactly should be included when putting private loan agreements into writing. While a highly useful book to have as a reference, receiving it as a gift could represent a not so subtle hint that a change in behavior is needed. (Jan.)

Here is a book whose title says it all. Written by an academic expert on “lookism” who is also director and founder of the Appearance Phenomenon Institute, this volume is an exhaustive examination of how the handily summarized “PA” (for personal attractiveness) gets you everywhere, from the better job and the better spouse to the better verdict at your criminal trial. Beginning with early evidence of lookism in history, Patzer analyzes preferential treatment given to pretty people from beautiful babyhood onward. While consumers of women’s magazines might not find as much new information as other readers, Patzer refers to dozens of studies, articles and investigation to prove his thesis. Yet Patzer’s volume doesn’t offer much in the way of solutions, apparently because you’ve either got it or you don’t. While Patzer does criticize the overzealousness of the media, reality television and unethical plastic surgeons, he only devotes one chapter to personal affirmations to help deal with and fight back on image obsession. Although he concludes by proclaiming the reader’s newfound awareness of lookism’s pervasiveness is a step forward, one can’t help seeing the weakness in a conclusion that leaves the reader with little more than a well-argued reminder of our culture’s shallow side. (Jan.)

Bill Clinton’s secretary of state dispenses advice both geostrategic (“The first rule for intervening in a civil war is don’t”) and mundane (“Leave time for exercise”) in this engaging foreign policy primer for the next White House occupant. Much of her wry wisdom concerns the muddled nuts-and-bolts of policy making, covering such topics as the indecipherability of satellite photos, the near-impossibility of getting the Washington bureaucracy to follow through on presidential initiatives and the importance of sounding out dissenters. The book provides briefings on world regions and hot spots that will likely preoccupy the next administration, with recommendations that are sometimes specific—lift the embargo on Cuba, Albright suggests—but usually noncommittal. (“There are no good options in Iraq,” the author opines, though she foresees a split into three autonomous regions as the most stable way to proceed.) Between the lines, she articulates a Clintonian approach to the world—moderate and solicitous of allies and world opinion, wary of force but willing to use it. She’s anything but diplomatic on the subject of President Bush’s foreign policy, especially the invasion of Iraq. Savvy and tart, Albright’s is an unusually interesting presentation of centrist thought. (Jan.)

The heart of the matter for Thomas Sowell (Basic Economics) is to ask, “What are the facts?” In his latest book, economist Sowell examines numerous misconceptions about life and economics. Sowell writes like an exacting scholar, but his arguments, which rely on economic analyses primarily, may suffer from oversimplification. Sowell argues that zoning restrictions and rent-control policies hurt those whom they’re meant to help; intones that women earn less than men because they are far less likely than men to choose occupations that require very long hours; believes tenure helps neither students nor professors; demonstrates that even the poor have successfully moved up economically; tackles fallacies about race in America; and aims to convince that “there is nothing baffling or morally wrong about the fact that different nations have different per capita incomes.” He falters in his chapter on the academy, when he becomes an advocate rather than an observer, and oddly neglects the individual choice available to students. Sowell’s purpose is to teach readers to “examine [their] beliefs more closely and more analytically,” and the conclusions he draws are certain to inspire rigorous debate. This readable volume is a useful primer exposing how economics relates to the social issues that affect our country. (Jan.)

Economics professor Yunus claims he “originally became involved in the poverty issue not as a policy-maker, scholar, or researcher, but because poverty was all around me.” With these words he stopped teaching “elegant theories” and began lending small amounts of money, $40 or less, without collateral, to the poorest women in the world. Thirty-three years later, the Grameen Bank has helped seven million people live better lives building businesses to serve the poor. The bank is solidly profitable, with a 98.6% repayment rate. It inspired the micro-credit movement, which has helped 100 million of the poorest people in the world escape poverty and earned Yunus (Banker to the Poor) a Nobel Peace prize. This volume efficiently recounts the story of microcredit, then discusses “Social Business,” organizations designed to help people while turning profits. French food giant Danone’s partnership to market yogurt in Bangladesh is described in detail, along with 25 other businesses that operate under the Grameen banner. Infused with entrepreneurial spirit and the excitement of a worthy challenge, this book is the opposite of pessimistic recitals of intractable poverty’s horrors. (Jan.)

In this provocative and well-researched book, Goldberg probes modern liberalism’s spooky origins in early 20th-century fascist politics. With chapter titles such as “Adolf Hitler: Man of the Left” and “Brave New Village: Hillary Clinton and the Meaning of Liberal Fascism”—Goldberg argues that fascism “has always” been “a phenomenon of the left.” This is Goldberg’s first book, and he wisely curbs his wry National Review style. Goldberg’s study of the conceptual overlap between fascism and ideas emanating from the environmental movement, Hollywood, the Democratic Party and what he calls other left-wing organs is shocking and hilarious. He lays low such lights of liberal history as Margaret Sanger, apparently a radical eugenicist, and JFK, whose cult of personality, according to Goldberg, reeks of fascist political theater. Much of this will be music to conservatives’ ears, but other readers may be stopped cold by the parallels Goldberg draws between Nazi Germany and the New Deal. The book’s tone suffers as it oscillates between revisionist historical analyses and the application of fascist themes to American popular culture; nonetheless, the controversial arc Goldberg draws from Mussolini to The Matrix is well-researched, seriously argued—and funny. (Jan. 8)