Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 4/14/2008

In his uneven first book, Smith presents the reader with scenes from his life, covering his career in the film industry, alcoholism, ego issues and a quest for meaning. Smith provides plenty of flashbacks from his years as a misguided, sky-diving 20-something and also tackles his existential battle at the age of 57 (in the opening chapter, which takes up a full third of the book, Smith treks up a hill to perform Native American meditation practices). Occasionally using vivid, descriptive language and other times passing over important topics in summary (the death of his first child, his second marriage), the author searches for a central theme, and despite the book’s title, being a key grip isn’t it; Smith doesn’t address that topic directly until he’s two-thirds of the way through his story. Other chapters, such as brief entries about snapping turtles, are more tangential than metaphorical. At times, Smith jumps from first to second person, with two chapters written from one version of himself to another. This lack of focus leads to patchwork reading, though some will doubtless be seduced by Smith’s forthright, rueful voice. (Aug.)

“The charts are full of stories of childhood abuse now,” Elliott writes, and speculates that fans of childhood abuse literature “want to be shocked at the start of the book, crying in the middle and exultant at the end.” Her account (Jane Elliott is a pseudonym) adds little that is fresh to the genre beyond that her “[s]eventeen years was an astonishingly long time to have been systematically abused.” A good part of this “true story of a four-year-old girl who fell into the power of a man for whom evil was a relentless daily activity” is devoted to the shock—graphic detail of her stepfather’s physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Some readers will feel for Elliott as she continues to be victimized by a thoroughly amoral lunatic head of an incredibly dysfunctional family; others may find that the explicit detail teeters perilously close to the pornography of violence and of sexual degradation. While Elliott’s stepfather is eventually sentenced to 15 years, little exultancy follows until Elliott decides to tell her story and achieves British bestsellerdom. Elliott’s account, written with Crofts, makes fascinating reading as one wonders, in page-turner fashion, whether anyone will stop this man from terrorizing his stepdaughter, her mother, her siblings and the entire neighborhood. The vagueness of time and place, however, raise disquieting questions about reality. (Aug.)

The ill effects of not providing proper treatment for people with serious mental disorders has become all too apparent in recent years, writes research psychiatrist and treatment advocate Torrey (Surviving Manic-Depression). Released en masse from institutions beginning in the 1960s, the most severely ill are “most likely to become homeless, incarcerated, victimized, and/or violent.” Torrey details how civil liberties suits have prevented such people from being involuntarily institutionalized, leaving them a danger both to themselves and to others. Confronting these issues head on, Torrey offers both the clinical and the anecdotal, citing several tragic examples: in the case of Cho Seung-Hui, the 2007 Virginia Tech killer, he faults both the university and stringent state laws regarding involuntary commitment for neglecting to treat a clearly very ill young man. This reform-minded book calls for a change in laws affecting how mentally ill people are treated, keeping close track of those with a history of violent behavior and creating a more comprehensive treatment approach. Chilling and well documented, this text has many no-nonsense solutions to protect the mentally ill themselves as well as society as a whole. (July)

In this impassioned debut, wildlife journalist Stolzenburg examines predation’s crucial role in the preservation of ecological diversity, painting nightmarish pictures of what happens when top carnivores are exterminated from ecosystems. Without sea otters to keep ravenous sea urchins in check, some ocean floors in the North Pacific have been stripped of kelp. In Yellowstone National Park, the eradication of wolves has resulted in a glut of elk that have trampled river banks and chewed down young trees. White-tailed deer have denuded the undergrowth in the forests of the eastern United States, because wolves and cougar have disappeared. Without large meat eaters, mid-size predators—raccoons, blue jays, crows, squirrels, opossums—have proliferated, to the detriment of songbird populations. In dazzling descriptions, Stolzenburg demonstrates how the delicate balance between predator and prey is so essential, and his book, rich in dramatic accounts of life and death in the wild, is powerful and compelling. (July)

The original America Eats! was written for the WPA by out-of-work writers during the Depression of the 1930s as “an account of group eating as an important American social institution,” the development of local, traditional cookery by churches and communities, fairs, festivals, rodeos, fund-raisers, rent parties and the like. It was never completed or published, but when food writer Willard (Secrets of Saffron) found the manuscript in the Library of Congress, she decided to follow the footsteps of the original writers to find what remained of these feasts, or a modern equivalent. The result is an interesting anthology of original WPA writing (most by unknowns, but often lively) and contemporary experience. Willard found Brunswick Stew (historically made with squirrel meat) in North Carolina and Virginia as well as versions of it in Minnesota (booya) and Kentucky (burgoo). Recipes (not always with squirrel) are given. There are still Melon Days in Colorado and Oklahoma, and an Apple Week in Washington State. Fewer homes have kitchen gardens now, and some fair food is distinctly modern (fried Twinkies), but Willard did find a wild-game dinner in Oregon and, of course, barbecue everywhere. Where there were once tobacco farms in traditionally dry Southern counties, Willard, in this engaging book, finds vineyards. (July)

In 2003, after two years at sea, the 55-foot catamaran sailed by the Silverwoods, a suburban California family that chucked it all to sail around the world, hit a reef off the South Pacific island of Scilly (now known as Manuae), putting the life of Jean and John and their four children (ages five to 16) in peril. The first part of the book is written from Jean’s perspective as she opens with the wreck and then moves smoothly between the family’s fight for survival and the story of their journey. By juxtaposing the two tales, Jean illustrates how the children’s maturity and cohesiveness were not only a byproduct of the trip but also the keys to all the Silverwoods surviving their ordeal, especially John, who was critically injured by the falling mast. Jean wears her heart on her sleeve, and her writing about her marital problems or John’s alcoholic relapses is honest. John’s narrative is half as long as Jean’s, underscoring his straight-to-the point personality and writing style. The saga from John’s perspective lacks emotion, but his ability to interweave the story of the Julia Anne (a sailing ship that hit the same reef in 1855) gives an eye-opening account of how much and how little sea travel has changed in 150 years and accentuates the heroism of this family that overcame an extraordinary ordeal. (July)

Peter, a star at the University of Nebraska’s storied football program in the late 1990s and a first-round NFL draft pick, details his short, frenzied life as a drug user and veteran of the treatment center circuit. It started with painkillers in college, which turned into a full-blown addiction as he battled an array of injuries that ended his career by his late 20s. With plenty of money and time available, Peter’s partying escapades eventually led him to freebasing cocaine and turning his upscale New York City apartment into arguably the world’s most expensive heroin retreat, complete with a live-in junkie stripper girlfriend. Avoiding self-help urgings and self-congratulations, Peter (who is now clean) and O’Neill have crafted an unflinching look at the dark side of a life devoted to pleasure. Peter’s recollection of his college glory days is a little overbearing, but the book’s power lies in his honesty in detailing the depths of his despair from seeking the next high. (July)

This densely researched report adds to the growing literature on Big Pharma’s efforts to sell blockbuster drugs and with its two crusading heroes seems ready for Hollywood. Expanding on her reporting for the Boston Globe, Bass focuses on psychiatrist Martin Teicher, who as early as 1988 noticed that the antidepressant Prozac seemed paradoxically to cause suicidal thoughts in his patients, and the nearly blind Rose Firestein, a lawyer in the New York State attorney general’s office who was investigating the inappropriate marketing and use of Paxil for unapproved purposes. Drug companies insisted there was “no scientific evidence whatsoever” linking GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil, Ely Lilly’s Prozac and other serotonin-increasing antidepressants to suicidal thoughts and behavior, and Bass describes the dogged battle to show that company researchers had deliberately suppressed the results of trials with negative outcomes. Bass also follows the story of Tonya Brooks, an unhappy teenager who attempted suicide while taking Paxil. Although the story sometimes gets lost in the details of then attorney general Eliot Spitzer’s 2004 suit against GlaxoSmithKline (eventually settled for $2.5 million), this story of determined do-gooders is inspiring. (June)

Thoroughly enjoyable and informative, this new book by Miller (Finding Darwin’s God), a Brown University biologist and leading proponent of evolution, dismantles the scientific basis of intelligent design piece by piece. He does this by taking seriously the claims of intelligent design (though with tongue often in cheek), such as irreducible complexity, and looking at the biological facts and the dubious conclusions ID concepts would lead to. He turns to the peer-reviewed scientific literature to demonstrate that the two biological phenomena ID proponents say could not have evolved—blood-clotting proteins and bacterial flagella—are now well-enough understood to fully rebut intelligent design. Looking at the underlying philosophical issues, Miller explains that ID’s proponents want to replace modern science with “ 'theistic science’... that would use the Divine not as ultimate cause, but as scientific explanation.” Miller effectively explores the devastating consequences such a change would have on both science and society. In a measured, well-reasoned book, Miller explains why evolution does not deny us our humanity or our unique place in the universe. Illus. Colbert Report appearance on June 16. (June 16)

Although numerous biographers have guided readers on a journey through Kafka’s labyrinthine life and writings, celebrated novelist Begley (About Schmidt) cannily allows Kafka to speak in his own words as much as possible, weaving selections from letters, journals, novels and stories into a biographical narrative. Kafka’s father wanted a law career for his son, but Kafka’s will to write was so strong that he felt a “constant trembling on [his] forehead.” His period of greatest creativity came between 1912 and 1917, when he wrote, among others, The Metamorphosis and most of The Trial. Begley points out that many misread Kafka by making him synonymous with his characters. There has also, Begley writes, been an intense “feeding frenzy of exegetes and other types of Kafka scholars circling around The Trial... one can almost hear scholastic dentures going clack-clack,” subjecting the works to critical theories of every stripe. Begley’s book emphasizes the importance of valuing the aesthetic and emotional impact of Kafka’s work, offering a fresh glimpse of the tortured genius behind some of the 20th century’s most perplexing and most rewarding writings. Photos. (June)

Photographer and author Eichenbaum trains her lens on 40 dancers in this collection of photographs, short essays and interviews. She covers a wide range of artists, from the worlds of Hollywood, Broadway, ballet and modern dance. While some, such as Rasta Thomas and Ethan Stiefel, are young, most are veterans—Rita Moreno, Cynthia Gregory, Liza Minnelli and Dudley Williams. Despite a certain level of fawning (to Mitzi Gaynor: “Mitzi, you’ve still got it”; to Russ Tamblyn: “You look almost exactly as you did in West Side Story”), the dancers mostly transcend this with thoughtful comments. The section on Mikhail Baryshnikov is peculiar, relating Eichenbaum’s failed pursuit of an interview and the restrictions placed on her photographing the star. And there are some glaring omissions—no Balanchine ballerinas? So few young dancers? Still, there’s a constant refrain that links the disparate artists together, summarized succinctly by Jean Butler, star of Riverdance: “At the end of the day, I just want to dance.” This is recommended for dance aficionados. 40 b&w illus. (June)

Bestselling author Kurlansky (Cod; The Big Oyster) provides a delightful, intimate history and contemporary portrait of the quintessential northeastern coastal fishing town: Gloucester, Mass., on Cape Anne. Illustrated with his own beautifully executed drawings, Kurlansky’s book vividly depicts the contemporary tension between the traditional fishing trade and modern commerce, which in Gloucester means beach-going tourists. One year ago, a beach preservation group enraged fishermen by seeking to harvest 105 acres of prime fishing ground for sand to deposit on the shoreline. Wealthy yacht owners compete with fishermen for prime dockage, driving up prices. Fishermen also contend with federal limits on their catches in an effort to maintain sustainable fisheries. But while cod are protected from extinction, the fishermen are not. Some boats must go 100 or more miles out to sea—a danger for small boats with few crew members. Tragedies abound, while one, that of the swordfish boat Andrea Gail, documented by Sebastian Junger in A Perfect Storm, brought even more tourists to Gloucester. (June 3)

Part of the family that ruled much of central Europe since 1273, Wilhelm von Habsburg (1895–1949) came of age during the last 23 years of the dynasty’s rule. Von Habsburg lived a nomadic and tragic life; he was a bisexual and a political chameleon (including a brief pro-Nazi period) who was implicated in a major financial scandal in Paris during the 1930s. But during WWI, he had become a fervent Ukrainian nationalist, and this became his life’s one constant, culminating with efforts to help formerly pro-German Ukraine turn to the West at the end of WWII. As Yale historian Snyder (Sketches from a Secret War) shows, his efforts were futile; he was charged by the Soviets with spying and died in prison. Snyder hews closely to his subject, so that the complexities of 20th-century Ukrainian history sometimes get short shrift, e.g., he devotes only two sentences to the 1933 “terror famine” that killed three million peasants. Generally, though, this is an interesting biography of a man whose colorful life embodied many of the tensions that plagued Europe in the early 20th century. Illus., maps. (June)

Jeffers (Onward We Charge), a former broadcast journalist and prolific author, chronicles the career of one of the forgotten heroes of WWII in this informative and sprightly popular biography. Born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma, Lucian Truscott (1895–1965) joined the army when war was declared in 1917, and though he spent the war on the Mexican border as a second lieutenant with the 17th Cavalry, he remained in the postwar army, acquiring a reputation as “a hell-raising cavalryman.” He also was a prime mover in turning the postwar horse cavalry “into a mechanized force.” After Pearl Harbor, Truscott went to England, where he set up an American-style commando unit, the First Ranger Battalion. He served as General Patton’s deputy for the invasion of North Africa, and as a commander in the invasions of Sicily and Anzio. Since most of his wartime service was in Italy—the “forgotten front”—and the “unpretentious” General Truscott didn’t seek attention, his crucial role in the Allied victory has been overshadowed by others. Students of military history will welcome this first—and long overdue—biography. (June 3)

Rotter, a professor of history at Colgate (The Path to Vietnam), proposes to restructure the debate over the atomic bombing of Japan by putting the subject in a global context. His detailed analysis of Japanese reactions to Hiroshima and Nagasaki draws a commonsense conclusion: the nuclear strikes combined with Soviet intervention gave Emperor Hirohito the opening he needed to end a war clearly lost. America alone, however, did not decide to build the bomb; leading scientists in other countries worked on embryonic atomic bomb projects. Nor were Americans alone in considering the bomb’s use. In Britain, Germany and Japan, false starts, scarce resources and wartime exigencies limited results. Rotter nevertheless concludes that any other power would have dropped a developed bomb with no more hesitation than the U.S. Ironically, the superpowers’ mutual efforts to step away from the abyss in later years were accompanied by increasing and successful efforts by others to join the nuclear club: Britain, France, Israel, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea. The atomic bomb is now “the world’s bomb”—as political, cultural and religious contexts increasingly deny that genuine noncombatants exist. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock continues to tick. 18 b&w photos. (June)

Today’s CIA is regularly criticized for emphasizing technology at the expense of “human intelligence.” In this history of the agency’s Office of Technical Services, Wallace, its former head, and academic specialist Melton (Ultimate Spy) refute the charge with exciting content and slam-bang style. The book’s chief value is its perspective on the synergy of technology and tradecraft. From WWII through the Cold War and up to the present, the authors say, technical equipment—for clandestine audio surveillance, for example—has been an essential element of agent operations. In the post–Cold War “information society,” technology plays an even more significant role in fighting terrorism. Agents remain important, along with their traditional skills. Increasingly, however, they support clandestine technical operations, especially infiltrating and compromising computer networks. The authors persuasively argue that employing and defending against sophisticated digital technology is the primary challenge facing U.S. intelligence in the 21st century. Their position invites challenge, but it cannot be dismissed. 32 pages of photos, over 100 b&w illus. throughout. (June)

While most Americans watched the 9/11 attacks on television, the guardians of the nation’s air-control and air-defense systems had the unenviable task of trying to halt them. Working from interviews and tape archives, Spencer’s minute-by-minute chronicle recreates their heroics in nerve-racking detail. In her telling, air-traffic controllers panicked as a seemingly routine—and quickly spotted—initial hijacking metastasized into a coordinated terror attack of unknown size and direction, and tried to divine which of thousands of planes on their radars had become guided missiles. Airline pilots dodged through suddenly chaotic skies while assuring suspicious control towers that they weren’t hijackers themselves. Meanwhile, Air National Guard fighter pilots, hobbled by bad communications and misdirection, scrambled to defend against a murky threat. (Spencer’s sources insist there was a fighter in position to stop United 93, had its passengers not brought it down, by having the pilot ram the airliner with his F-16.) Spencer, a flight instructor, expertly elucidates the complexities and pitfalls of American aviation as it faced a staggering challenge. (June 3)

Ripley, an award-winning writer on homeland security for Time, offers a compelling look at instinct and disaster response as she explores the psychology of fear and how it can save or destroy us. Surprisingly, she reports, mass panic is rare, and an understanding of the dynamics of crowds can help prevent a stampede, while a well-trained crew can get passengers quickly but calmly off a crashed plane. Using interviews with survivors of hotel fires, hostage situations, plane crashes and, 9/11, Ripley takes readers through the three stages of reaction to calamity: disbelief, deliberation and action. The average person slows down, spending valuable minutes to gather belongings and check in with others. The human tendency to stay in groups can make evacuation take much longer than experts estimate. Official policy based on inaccurate assumptions can also put people in danger; even after 9/11, Ripley says, the requirement for evacuation drills on office buildings is inadequate. Ripley’s in-depth look at the psychology of disaster response, alongside survivors’ accounts, makes for gripping reading, sure to raise debate as well as our awareness of a life-and-death issue. 8 pages of color photos. (June)

China’s cities, notes Cotterell (China: A Cultural History), played an important role in symbolizing the legitimacy of a new regime; upstart emperors spent untold treasure and lives on building magnificent capitals, carefully laid out on principles of cosmology and feng shui, to demonstrate their assumption of the Mandate of Heaven. These cities furnish the author with splendid panoramas of 2,300 years of Chinese civilization. Working with maps, photos, reproductions of Chinese art and literary accounts, he recreates the cosmopolitanism of medieval Chang’an, the commercial bustle of Song dynasty Hangzhou and the sublime architecture of Beijing’s Forbidden City. These set pieces frame a sprightly history of China up to the founding of the republic. Cotterell elucidates large-scale themes—the long seesaw battle between China and its nomadic neighbors, the Confucian scholar-bureaucracy’s struggle to control the state, and the cycle of imperial despotism and peasant revolt—while sketching a picaresque chronicle of dynastic succession and court intrigue, complete with overmighty eunuchs and scheming concubines. The result is a fine evocation of China as both a place and a story. 46 b&w photos and maps. (June)

This potentially interesting investigation into the challenges of global food production and distribution is marred by the burial of its argument at the end of the book. Beneath a history of food (old news to any reader of Michael Pollan), factoid avalanches and future-tense fretting, Roberts (The End of Oil) makes a familiar plea for rethinking food systems. When the author illustrates his points with actual players, the narrative becomes affecting and memorable: a French meat packer shows how retail powerhouses dictate prices; a Kenyan farmer demonstrates how “hunger-ending” technologies are often poorly suited to the climates, soils and infrastructures in malnourished regions. Unfortunately, these anecdotes are overshadowed by colorless recitations of Internet research and data culled from interviews. Roberts worries about our “vast and overworked [food] system” and proffers the usual solutions: eat less (land-based) meat, farm more fish, support regional (not just local) agriculture and pressure food policy makers to fund research into more sustainable farming methods (including genetic modification). Despite the undeniable urgency of the issue, Roberts’s arguments are as commonplace as his prescriptions. (June 4)

Goldstein, Martin and Cialdini meld social psychology, pop culture and field research to demonstrate how the subtle addition, subtraction or substitution of a word, phrase, symbol or gesture can significantly influence consumer behavior. Interspersing references to Britney Spears, the Smurfs and Sex and the City with more academic concepts such as “loss aversion” and the “scarcity principle,” the authors illustrate the simple and surprising approaches that can hone a company’s marketing strategies. Witty chapters detail the allure of the yellow Post-it, the tip-garnering capabilities of an after-dinner mint, how highlighting a product’s weaknesses can increase its appeal, the powerful role of third-party testimonials, how doctors can convince patients to adopt healthier choices by prominently displaying academic credentials in their offices, and how mirroring another person’s gestures can elicit a more generous response by strengthening a perceived bond. While written primarily for a marketing audience, this amusing book has equal value and appeal for executives, salespeople—even parents trying to persuade their kids to do homework. (June)

Kotlikoff and Burns (coauthors of The Coming Generational Storm) turn conventional retirement planning wisdom on its head in a feisty financial guide that questions the financial benefits of college and argues delaying filing for Social Security benefits. Unfortunately, many provocative insights are buried beneath fairly recondite economic analysis. Math-phobic readers may be unable—or unwilling—to follow along as the authors couch their methods to maximize spending power in a number-heavy narrative with awkward case studies that fail to properly personalize the financial challenges new retirees may face. According to the authors, truly sophisticated planning is best left up to computer programs (such as the one Kotlikoff himself has developed and offers online at ESPlanner.com). Readers in search of a user-friendly primer might be put off, but there are nuggets of useful information to be mined—the authors efficiently address Roth IRAs and provide an eye-opening exposé of the duplicity rampant in the personal finance industry. Intrepid readers able to navigate through the numbers will be rewarded—if they keep from drowning in the evidence. (June)

In this bold, well-reasoned book, financial consultants Sirkin, Hemerling and Bhattacharya introduce their concept of “globality,” the next stage of globalization. Following the hundreds of emerging-market companies that have benefited from the migration of production to their lower-cost shores, the authors assert that the flow of opportunity is now changing; it is developing into the equivalent of a corporate tsunami that could threaten the existence of some of the most established companies in the developed world. The emerging companies in India, China and Mexico have absorbed and applied lessons from their outsourcing experiences and are in a position to challenge the very companies they first partnered with. The authors explore the strategic changes companies in developed nations must make to meet this new reality. Vibrant case studies enliven this book, which will appeal to businesspeople and those simply trying to understand why the world of business is suddenly so different. (June 11)

Frustrated by the traffic on narrow bridges? Stunned by the number of buttons on a remote control? Saddened by the lack of basic medical care in the developing world? Kluger (Splendid Solutions) makes the modern world comprehensible, analyzing social and technological systems to reveal that “things that seem complicated can be preposterously simple; things that seem simple can be dizzyingly complex.” He compares cells to cities to stock markets, renders quarks and fractals accessible and draws parallels between Wal-Mart and AIDS clinics in Tanzania. Although Kluger is prone to hyperbole, his astonishing discoveries require no exaggeration: the book describes how even the most technologically advanced manufacturing plant is infinitely simpler than a humble houseplant “with its microhydraulics and fine-tuned metabolism and dense schematic of nucleic acids”—and baseball fans will be dismayed to discover that football is, in fact, the more complex of the two games: “the possible number of starting configurations before the play even begins is... 31.4 billion.” Kluger’s findings are likely to incite controversy, confirming his contention that explaining simplicity and complexity is never as straightforward as it seems. (June)

In this engrossing analysis of modern imagery, Adatto chronicles the rise of America’s “photo-op culture” and the explosion of social networking sites, image-conscious photography and the guerrilla war between gaffe-seeking journalists and self-aware politicians. Average citizens are bombarded with so many sleek and produced images a day, they’ve lost track of authenticity, according to Adatto. Paying particular attention to the photo op’s political influence, she compares coverage of the 1968 campaign between Nixon, Humphrey and Wallace with the showdown between Dukakis and Bush in 1988, demonstrating how, in a mere 20 years, photo-ops and sound bites had transformed news. Adatto doesn’t delve as heavily into contemporary elections; however, she scrutinizes some of the most well-known images from the invasion of Iraq (George W. Bush posing under the “Mission Accomplished” banner; the photos of prisoner abuse from Abu Ghraib), and her solid grasp and interpretation of pertinent pop culture from Bogart to Warhol to the films Network and The Truman Show amply compensate for the lapse. This book is an admirable analysis of the role of the image in modern culture and an eloquent defense of why words still matter. (June)

Pulitzer Prize–winner Will (Men at Work) serves up an engaging compilation of his columns and reviews from the past five years. Touching lightly on the Bush administration and heavily upon American history, good government, obituaries and baseball among other less schismatic topics, Will is at his most colorful when describing the intrigues and absurdities of great figures in American political history—FDR setting the price of gold from his bed, Churchill imperiously ordering bacon and alcohol from White House staff. Will is, in the late William Buckley’s words, the consummate “conservative high-priest,” who favors historical analogy and tasteful argumentation to partisan moralizing. The columns are uniformly excellent, but they are short-lived pleasures and can become disposable when read one after another—even the grouping by genre cannot obviate this—and these essays would have been better served had they been arranged chronologically. Nevertheless, this is a rewarding book, offering all the riches of a writer in full control of his medium and with plenty to tell. (June)

Brookings Institution fellow Wittes evaluates the “war on terror” from a refreshingly nonpartisan perspective that assesses the chasm between the gravity of American security needs and the “inadequacy” of its laws. Both a defense and critique of the Bush administration, the book argues in favor of many of the measures taken by the executive branch while condemning its failure to secure congressional cooperation and the necessary “legal architecture” to back policies that were bound to be unpopular. Wittes reserves his real ire for a legislature that has ignored its mandated responsibility of creating “coherent, legal structure for this war” and a Supreme Court that has attempted to extend its jurisdiction over detainees and is increasingly interfering in foreign policy. Wittes’s familiarity with the law and excellent analysis of contemporary Supreme Court cases give this book insight that transcends party politics and make for a fascinating read; however, his heavy reliance on legalese may alienate casual readers. His prose, when not bogged down by jargon, is appealing (“The Constitution is old—old and short”) and services a robust call to action. (June)

Long overshadowed by the Iraq War, the ongoing turmoil in Afghanistan and Central Asia finally receives a searching retrospective as Rashid (Taliban) surveys the region to reveal a thicket of ominous threats and lost opportunities—in Pakistan, a rickety dictatorship colludes with militants, and Afghanistan’s weak government is besieged by warlords, an exploding drug economy and a powerful Taliban insurgency. The author blames the unwillingness of American policymakers to shoulder the burden of nation building. According to Rashid, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and subsequently refused to commit the forces and money needed to rebuild it; instead the U.S. government made corrupt alliances with warlords to impose a superficial calm, while continuing to ignore the Pakistani government’s support of the Taliban and the other Islamic extremists who have virtually taken over Pakistan’s western provinces. With his unparalleled access to sources—“I constantly berated [Afghan President] Karzai for his failure to understand the usefulness of political parties”—Rashid is an authoritative guide to the region’s politics and his is an insightful, at times explosive, indictment of the U.S. government’s hand in the region’s degeneration. (June)

Aid worker Bolton disappoints in this well-intentioned guide to Africa’s economic and political challenges. While the book is well organized and lucid, Bolton veers wildly from straightforward analysis to heavy-handed attempts at humor (Bolton compares Democratic Republic of Congo president Kabila to Sean “P. Diddy” Combs). Graver still, the author condescends to his readers when he debunks “common” myths that he believes readers might hold about Africa (“Africa is overpopulated and they keep having too many children”; “Africa Has Many Dangerous Animals”) and tests readers’ patience with irrelevant asides (“Dressing to Meet a Real Minister of Finance”) and an occasionally preachy tone. When discussing possible solutions to Africa’s problems, Bolton acknowledges that “the weakest part of books like this... tends to be when they reach proposed solutions” and proceeds to stumble similarly, offering tepid ways to make a difference (“Write!”; “Sign petitions”; “Protest”). The final product is an earnest book with high potential that ends up reading more like a dumbed-down primer than a substantive introduction to the state of affairs in Africa. (June)

This slim, scathing book does not mince words about the current state of presidential rhetoric, frankly deploring its “nosedive from our founding era.” Drawing upon interviews with 42 presidential speech writers, Lim investigates what he sees as a particularly American phenomenon whereby “most presidents have preferred to appear less, not more intellectually inclined than they actually were.” He reveals the long “institutional pedigree” of anti-intellectualism in presidential addresses, from Harding to Eisenhower, Clinton (“an intelligent but anti-intellectual president”) to Bush, as presidents have positioned intellectuals as the “piñatas of American politics.” Lim builds his case systematically, introducing fascinating indices to measure oratorical sophistication or simplicity. A massive campaign of “linguistic simplification” is afoot, he argues, and he dissects inaugural addresses and presidential public papers, charting average sentence length, Flesch Readability and the preponderance of platitudes to evince a growing “reification of style over substance.” While his methodology is occasionally esoteric, Lim’s presentation of the consequences of the manipulation of language in the political arena is clear and compelling, and will delight grammarians and political aficionados alike. (June)

Welsh-born, Cambridge-educated Fowler takes a cynical tone as she recreates her dizzying descent into New York’s demimonde as a strip-club dancer. Assuming an alter ego she calls Mimi, a “parasitical spirit,” the author at age 26 arrived in New York to fill a void after graduating from Cambridge, then spent three years traveling around the world and working on boats as a chef. Back in Manhattan, she soon became one of the nameless crowd of undocumented workers, though white and educated, unable to secure paid work in her field of journalism and finally landing a job as a waitress at a midtown strip joint, Foxy’s. But dancing was where the big money was, especially luring customers into the private Champagne Room, and, as Mimi, she proved a canny, quick learner of the booze-and-drugs grind as well as a loyal sounding board to the other girls of varying nationalities. Despite her self-imposed rules of no kissing and “I don’t do boyfriends,” she fell tenderly for a fellow high-brow Englishman she named Eton, who offered to help pay for her visa application. In the end, Fowler’s writing is self-conscious, though the disaffected female voices that haunt this work throughout are raw and angry. (June)

Marked by meticulous research and careful conclusions, this superbly readable book confirms New York Times journalist Walker as an expert on consumerism. Disputing claims that today’s savvy consumer is immune to marketing, Walker argues that, far from disappearing, marketing has simply become harder to detect—the line between consumer and consumed has blurred as consumers interact more intimately with the brands, embracing them as a part of their own identity and a tool for self-expression. Smart marketers cater to this trend, and the book illustrates tactics such as sponsorships and word-of-mouth campaigns that target the new consumer. Walker wrings every relevant detail from his case studies; his insights into the rise of the Red Bull brand and the repopularization of the working-class Pabst Blue Ribbon beer are particularly illuminating. The result is a thoughtful and unhurried investigation into consumerism that pushes the analysis to the maximum and builds a thesis that refutes the myth of the brand-proof consumer. (June)

A former congressman from Georgia, Jones earlier portrayed grease-covered garage owner Cooter Davenport on the early-1980s TV show Dukes of Hazzard. Now Jones and his wife, Alma Viator, own the Cooter’s Place museums in Nashville and Gatlinburg, Tenn.; they also stage Dukesfest, an annual Nashville gathering of Dukes fans. Looking back at his hardscrabble childhood, he recalls his “barefoot days” growing up in a Virginia railroad shack minus electricity and hot water. He studied TV-radio at the University of North Carolina, but graduated as a “likker drinkin’, hell raisin’, dope smokin’, fist-fightin’, womanizin’ jailbird wild man.” During the 1960s he participated in civil rights sit-ins, established a theatrical career and kept on drinking. At 36, after “three disastrous marriages and countless fractured relationships,” he went on the road to recovery. When the Dukes ratings soared, he became a heartland hero, and Jones’s congressional career fills the final chapters. Capturing Southern culture in a burlap bag full of funny anecdotes, Jones covers miles and memories: “In the vastness of America, I have never found a road that wasn’t interesting.” Observing life from his porch in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this modern-day Will Rogers writes with a mix of humor, pathos and passion in a rip-roarin’ book with a down-home flavor. (June 3)

Bowden (Black Hawk Down; Guests of the Ayatollah) tells the story of the 1958 National Football League championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, a legendary game that proved to be a harbinger of the enormous popularity of pro football over the next 50 years. Bowden writes that the game featured the greatest assemblage of talent ever on one field, including 17 future Hall of Fame inductees. He frames the picture with a wide lens, but then focuses on the roles and lives of a few key players, particularly the Colts’ obsessive and methodical wide receiver Raymond Berry and the iconic quarterback Johnny Unitas, as well as the Giants’ powerful linebacker Sam Huff. The game, played in frigid Yankee Stadium three days after Christmas, stretched into the evening, garnering the largest television audience in the history of the sport to that time. Bowden begins his entertaining and informative narration in the third quarter, and then delves into backstory on the league, players and the buildup, before returning to the gridiron to conclude with a detailed account of the final plays and an epilogue. (June)

Those top-drawer trendies from the 1980 Official Preppy Handbook have grown older and richer; it’s time now to tweak the lifestyles of the über-rich, people Tennant, one-time columnist for the New York Post’s “Page Six” gossip column and cofounder of Radar magazine, knows well. Tennant opens with a “plutocrat primer,” a sketchbook detailing various Filthy Rich types, from hedgers to “heirheads.” Chapters follow on where to buy homes and how to hire staff, especially that “jewelry handler” who carries “illicit substances” for high-echelon rappers. Vacations are another big issue, involving whole new wardrobes and leisure activities. Sports are great for conspicuous consumption of time and money; the most desirable sports, like fly fishing, big-game hunting or polo, can involve special vacations of their own. Even simple sports like golf require joining the right club; Tennant’s matter-of-fact listing of the clubs’ discriminatory barriers speaks for itself. Then, since “to heir is divine,” there’s a chapter on having children—which boils down to buying the most exclusive baby buggy, hiring the least marriage-threatening nanny and picking the most ego-satisfying boarding school. Jazzy page layouts and endless name-dropping make for a great tongue-in-cheek humor book. (June)

“Perplexing” was the family euphemism for Brenner’s older brother Carl; the less tactful thought him “unknowable,” “charm-free” or plain “weird.” At 13, in San Antonio, Tex., where his father owned a discount store, Carl joined the John Birch Society. At 40, he left his career as a trial lawyer to become an apple farmer in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Brenner (House of Dreams) and he were on barely civil terms, but when he was 55, he was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, glandular cancer, and asked Marie for help. She responded, leaving her family in New York to be with Carl, who rejected conventional treatment, and to follow him as far away as China for “scorpion patches,” herbs and red meat for “yang deficit.” The cancer spread quickly; meanwhile, Marie sought to investigate her family’s present and past among her father’s feuding siblings, including writer Anita Brenner (who became part of Mexico City’s art scene that included Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo). And with this research, Brenner courageously and affectingly plumbs the depths of often complex family and sibling relationships. (May 20)

Columnist Huffington unleashes her pen on the “far-right cowboys” and “lunatics” who, she says, are “running the Republican asylum” and—with the media’s help—threatening global safety, American security, health care and civil liberties. Her contribution to ongoing political debates offers well-rehearsed analyses parsing right-wing spin on the Iraq War, the justification for torture, global warming, immigration, stem cell research and health-care reform. Huffington’s sallies have no trouble finding the chinks in the armor of the Bush administration, neocons like Bill Kristol or right-wing media stalwarts like Ann Coulter. While this is a serviceable election-year playbook, Huffington’s populist stance may strike some as shaky given her relationship with the media she decries (she lambastes a television show for giving Ann Coulter a platform without adequately accounting for her own presence on the same program). Moreover, her distinction between the current radical right-wing leadership and Ronald Reagan’s GOP fails to account for the strong continuity in terms of policies and personnel and has more rhetorical appeal than historical merit. (May)

A National Book Award–winning novelist applies her skills to nonfiction

Novelist Elsa Morante and the city she symbolized come alive in this warm, sprightly literary biography. Novelist Tuck (The News from Paraguay) surveys Morante’s life: her troubled relationship with an unstable mother; her salad days writing magazine pieces along with having to occasionally resort to prostitution to make a living; World War II, when she and husband, Alberto Moravia, both half-Jewish, hid out from Fascist persecution in a mountain village; her postwar dolce vita immersed in friendships, affairs and dinner-table debates with Rome’s glitterati. Morante emerges as a complex, vibrant character—difficult, mercurial and fiercely (often rudely) devoted to truth-telling, but also kindhearted and charismatic. Tuck ties the biographical details—and analyses of her subject’s dreams and handwriting—to sympathetic but critical analyses of Morante’s protean works, which include the hothouse melodrama of House of Liars, the darkly beguiling Huckleberry Finn fable of Arturo’s Island and the pitiless meditation on force and corruption of her bestselling History. Tuck sets the life in a colorful evocation of Morante’s milieu, enlivened by her own youthful reminiscences of Italy’s postwar film scene, that makes the book a love letter to Rome as well as to her subject. Photos. (July 29)

Do you associate Texas with architectural heritage? You will after taking a look at these two books (which will be joined in September by The Homes of the Park Cities Abbeville, $75 495p ISBN 978-0-7892-0976-4; 325 color photos; 75 maps and archival images).

When Houston’s Gulf Building opened in 1929, the city’s planners were eager to align the growing metropolis with the dynamism of the American West, and art deco buildings proliferated: courthouses, schools, even car dealerships had sleek, modern designs, and movie palaces incorporated art deco murals. This book grew out of efforts by the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance, begun in 2006 to save some of these structures. The authors, who also did most of the color photography on every page, went through the city and its environs to chronicle existing structures. Some were well preserved, others in disrepair. The authors provide minimal information on the architects or building processes, but their work is intended more as a field guide than a history and may be of interest beyond Houston to similar preservation groups in cities across America. (Apr.)

In Texas “the landscape is always the protagonist,” notes architecture writer Germany (Harwell Hamilton Harris), and she covers 150 years with 25 residences that embody her theme. For the better part of a century, the landscape remained an undercurrent in fashionable homes such as an 1854 Greek Revival mansion in Austin and a Victorian Italianate home in Jefferson. Starting with Philip Johnson’s 1949 de Menil home in Houston, renowned architects appear on the scene, including Bruce Goff, Paul Rudolph and Steven Holl. Once Germany establishes David Williams (1890–1962) as the “fulcrum on which Texas architecture turned,” she proposes a true Texas tradition, which she explores through the work of Williams’s students, co-workers and a new generation that seeks inspiration in the state’s earliest buildings, such as the farmhouses of German settlers in central Texas. The anecdotal style of the entries provides good background on both architects and clients. 225 color photos. (June)