Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 5/5/2008

The authors of this unsettling indictment of American industrial mendacity detail the impact of the “trillions of tons” of largely unregulated toxic pollutants that have been poured into the environment after WWII when synthetic chemical compounds entered mainstream life. The Shabecoffs argue that the world is becoming a perilous place for the young; fetuses, newborns and toddlers are vastly more vulnerable to environmental contaminants than adults, and hazards lie latent in teething rings (leaching plastic toxins), bath water (laced with chemical contaminants), lush lawns (dusted with herbicides) and the very air they breathe—all contributing directly to a “rising incidence of childhood illness,” including asthma, autism, cancer—once “a rarity” among children—and even a drop in average IQ. The authors build their compelling case against polluters like dogged prosecutors, condemning “perpetrators,” including General Electric and Dow Chemical, slamming “co-conspirators,” most prominently compliant conservative governments, and exposing “witnesses for the defense,” among them misleading scientists-for-hire. The authors' passionate exposé of corporate America's behavior is numbing in its impact; an appendix detailing steps parents can take to reduce risk eases the angst. (Aug. 12)

Girling (Rubbish!) plunges with occasional squeamishness and a boatful of biting wit into the sorry state of Britain's seas and shores. Beginning with a short history and mythology of human/sea relations, he homes in on local matters, from the decline of once famous seaside resorts like Brighton, Blackpool and the Isle of Wight to sewage pollution in the English Channel. Readers will relish these tales of failing fisheries and stubborn, salty fishermen and will be interested, if depressed, to discover the unsustainable way Scottish salmon are farmed factory-style by Norwegian megacorporations, as well as the all-too-familiar sluggish responses of the British government. Graphic descriptions of infestations of “Russian doll” parasites and sea lice enliven the occasionally dense narrative. Girling's fascination with and intricate coverage of the minutiae of British politics—from efforts to save seaside towns from falling into the sea to connecting ports with the public system of roads and rails—is as local as a smalltown newspaper, however, and is likely to cause eyes on this side of the Atlantic to glaze over. (Aug.)

This collection of 15 essays from wide-ranging contributors including Noam Chomsky and controversial consequentialist philosopher Ted Honderich grapples with whether or not Palestinian terrorism can be morally justified and ultimately falls short. In failing to include even one Palestinian voice and precious few Israelis, these essays rely almost exclusively on the work of those who are privileged enough to be able to view the phenomenon of Palestinian terrorism (as well as Israeli state violence, referred to by many contributors as Israeli terrorism) as an abstraction and at a remove. Some of the writers (Igor Primoratz, William L. McBride, Gerald Cohen) make genuine efforts to fuse philosophical considerations with human realities, but the predominant tone is one of arrogant pronouncements on the lives of others. Such a conversation might be of interest in the halls of academia, but to the extent that it can be expected to contribute meaningfully to the real-life resolution of decades of conflict, this largely aloof and oddly bloodless effort fails to engage, even though the issues raised are urgent and go to the heart of what drives Western foreign policy today. (Aug.)

Slave labor. Death marches. Refugee camps. Not the path most diplomats follow to the corridors of power. But that's just the road Siv traveled in this mostly gripping firsthand account of pain, perseverance and survival. In 1975, Siv, scion of a middle-class Cambodian family, got caught up in the murderous campaign of social re-engineering unleashed on that Southeast Asian country in the wake of the Vietnam War. “We saw decomposing bodies with arms tied behind their backs. One had the throat slit open. One had a big black mark on the back of the neck. A woman had a baby still at her breast,” Siv writes of the scene following the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh. Later, forced to leave his beloved family behind in a labor camp, he sets out to find freedom. “I was the loneliest person on earth,” Siv writes. “Not knowing what had happened to Mae [his mother], my sister, and my brother was torturing me. But I had to move onward.” Siv survives countless brushes with death, but makes it to Thailand and eventually the U.S. At times, incidents, people and places pile on top of each other without much space for the reader to reflect on or make sense of them. Still, the story is always compelling, and Siv moves the narrative forward by raw force of will. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (July)

Crowley (1453), an independent scholar of the 16th-century Mediterranean, focuses here on the final contest between Christian and Muslim, Hapsburg and Ottoman, for control of the Middle Sea. Masterfully synthesizing primary and secondary sources, he vividly reconstructs the great battles, Malta and Lepanto, that shaped the struggle and introduces the larger-than-life personalities that dominated council chambers and fields of battle. This was a time of hard men who took high risks, asked no mercy and gave no quarter. Familiar figures like Philip II of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent share the stage with Jean de La Valette, whose inspired defense of Malta in 1565 checked a tide of Ottoman victories, and the great corsair Hayrettin Barbarossa. Crowley recreates the fighting and the brutality in page-turning prose that never sacrifices accuracy for color. He also demonstrates that the conflict, which ended with a compromise peace in 1580, marked the Mediterranean basin's end as the center of the world. Henceforth the loci of power would shift elsewhere in a modernizing world. Illus. (July 1)

This commendable biography follows the life of New England patriot Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814), the celebrated—and sometimes reviled—writer of poems, plays, history and satire. Drawing heavily on correspondence as well as Warren's published writings, Stuart traces her unusual education in provincial Massachusetts, loving marriage to James Warren, on-again off-again friendship with John and Abigail Adams, literary rise and controversial antifederalist views after the Revolution. Warren emerges as a fully fleshed-out woman with literary insecurities, intractable opinions and a high-strung temper as well as deep affection for her husband and sons. Stuart includes fascinating period details, focusing primarily on Warren's home-front experiences of rampant inflation, scarcity of goods, high taxes and profiteering during the Revolution as well as typical 18th-century illnesses and family anxieties. Most poignantly, Stuart depicts Warren's loneliness and despair after the deaths of three of her five sons. This account is valuable as an eyewitness play-by-play of the American Revolution and will be a great resource to scholars of women's and literary history. 6 b&w illus. (July)

This spirited work contributes significantly to a developing interpretation of the years 1794–1815 as an era of worldwide, total war. Journalist Mostert moves smoothly from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean, from Timor to Tarragona, demonstrating the constant, decisive influence of sea power on war, diplomacy and policy. His connecting thread is the rise of Britain to superpower status through the Royal Navy. Sea power, through battle and blockade, frustrated France's ambitions both revolutionary and imperial. Sea power, directly and indirectly applied, helped decide land engagements from the Iberian Peninsula to the Indian Ocean. It also opened the world to Western influence. Equally significant is Mostert's presentation of the war at sea as a high-tech operation: the ship of the line developed in Europe was the most complex technological artifact of its day, requiring highly skilled personnel to build, sail and command it. Britain developed all of these; its only challenge, an embryonic one, came from the fast-developing United States. That, however, is another story—a story, one hopes, for another book of this quality. 16 pages of illus., 6 maps. (July)

British military historian Jones (Stalingrad) explores the physical and psychological depths of the 872-day siege of Leningrad during WWII—“one of the most horrific sieges in history”—in this sobering chronicle. Leningrad, a city of 2.5 million, was a major objective of Hitler because of its economic, military and symbolic significance (as the “birthplace of the Bolshevik Revolution”). Besieged and poorly served by the corrupt and incompetent city administration, Leningrad descended into starvation, “widespread looting and cannibalism” and deadly epidemics. Despite the appalling conditions, says Jones, “a remarkable humanity still survived,” and Leningrad miraculously managed to hold out until the Soviet Army liberated the city in January 1944. It's likely that more than one million civilians perished during the siege. Following in the footsteps of Harrison Salisbury's classic 1969 account, The 900 Days, Jones draws extensively from the diaries of siege victims and interviews with survivors for a harrowing portrait of life reduced to a single pursuit: “the hunt for food.” Readers interested in military history, the Soviet Union or the psychology of survival will appreciate this unforgettable saga. 35 b&w illus., 5 maps. (July)

Widmer, a Brown University history professor and former Clinton speechwriter, examines the timely question of how the concept of liberty has influenced the development of America and American foreign policy from pre-Revolutionary days to the present. Widmer argues that liberty was part of the New World's allure for centuries, and that the Puritans' quest for religious freedom led directly to the peculiarly American concept of liberty that he says “was essential to America's modern greatness.” While acknowledging many foreign policy fiascos inconsistent with his thesis—including the Mexican-American war, the CIA's destabilization of various Latin American governments and the war in Vietnam—Widmer argues that overall, American actions have been instrumental in furthering liberty, both nationally and internationally. He places Lincoln's performance during the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, FDR's leadership during WWII, the Marshall Plan and Kennedy's inspirational Pax Americana on the liberty side of the ledger. The Iraq War is addressed only in a scathing epilogue. Widmer offers a critical, informative and ambitious study that honors the best American impulses without ignoring the times the country has fallen from grace. (July)

Mackenzie and Weisbrot (Maximum Danger), professors of government and history respectively at Colby College, provide an insightful and well-argued analysis of the 1960s' social, economic and policy dynamics that opened both the public and the government to great and necessary social legislation. The authors argue that the postwar movement of political power from the cities to the suburbs, the decline of conservative Southern Democrats' power in the party and the confident climate of prosperity facilitated the greatest and most far-reaching federal legislation since the New Deal. Unlike many historians of this period, Weisbrot and Mackenzie, in addition to telling of key civil rights legislation and Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, also give due and detailed diligence to environmental legislation, such as the Clean Air Act and the Wilderness Act, which defined strict rules to ensure federally owned wilderness largely remained wilderness. Throughout, the authors reveal how prosperity and a rare window of real opportunity with Democrats in power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue fueled domestic reform. (July 7)

The strength of this history lies in the compelling stories it tells about the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans who moved to the Soviet Union only to be imprisoned or killed by the Communist state. Many of those tracked by documentary filmmaker and television journalist Tzouliadis came to the Soviet Union during the Depression seeking economic opportunity or because they believed in Communist ideology. After a quick romance, the harsh reality set in as they were sent to languish or die in Stalin's prison camps. When Tzouliadis focuses on individual stories, such as that of Thomas Sgovio, who was imprisoned for almost a quarter-century before being allowed to return to the West, his words leap off the page. Too often, however, he veers away from his main subject with criticism of American journalists, ambassadors, artists and fellow travelers such as Paul Robeson and Walter Duranty who were either taken in by Soviet propaganda or willing to overlook state brutality. These stories have been told elsewhere and with more nuance, and here they detract from what is otherwise a captivating history. (July 21)

Memoirist and editor Matousek (Sex Death Enlightenment) attempts to dissect the relationship between life's harshest tests and the gift of self-discovery and survival in this absorbing compendium of anecdotes. The author, who has AIDS, interviews many survivors of trauma and loss, including writer Joan Didion, mystic Andrew Harvey, poet Stanley Kunitz and Tibetan nun Nawang Sangdrol, among others, to inquire how deepest crisis forces us to re-examine our lives and move forward. After stating that “Transformation is in our wiring,” Matousek concludes that the key to our survival is not cheating death but living as passionately, creatively and courageously as possible. Using scientific data, psychological research and his own life experiences, he uncovers the essentials of enduring against all odds while answering his chief question: “What force flips a falling person back on his feet, reconstitutes him after disaster, helps him prevail in the face of great challenges?” Matousek shows an uncanny skill for merging spirituality, science and common sense into practical answers for surviving our own lives. (July)

We usually associate chronic disease with the elderly. But Edwards is both young and chronically ill—only 25, she has a rare genetic respiratory disease, primary ciliary dyskinesia, whose symptoms resemble those of cystic fibrosis. She navigates her very full personal and professional life with fortitude, a sense of humor and without a trace of self-pity. As she illustrates through her own story and those of others with illnesses ranging from fibromyalgia to type 1 diabetes, being young and ill is a complication unto itself: “Better technology means chronically ill kids grow up and enter an adult system unprepared for them.” But Edwards's story is less about being ill than about being healthier. It is about getting up in the morning and dealing with what everyone else deals with, and more. Suffering did not make her a better person, she says. It made her “a better sufferer.” Edwards is able to use her own treatment experiences to help others facing illness. It's also made her wise, generous and a terrific storyteller. (July)

At once defensive and pugnacious, classicist Hillman uses this book to get back at the “overly conservative” academics who forced him to delete from his doctoral dissertation a chapter on the widespread recreational drug use in antiquity. The world was rife with disease, war and natural catastrophes, Hillman reminds readers, and “extreme suffering demands extreme relief.” Ancient Greeks and Romans used substances from plants and animals to heal the body, but also, Hillman says, to heal the mind and as a source of creative inspiration. Taking up an old thesis of such scholars as Morton Smith and John Allegro, Hillman contends that ancient poets and playwrights from Homer to Aristophanes, and philosophers from Pythagoras to Empedocles, featured the use of mind-altering drugs in their writings. Despite being tiresomely polemical throughout, Hillman ends with a peroration on the roots of the Western notion of freedom in ancient Greece and on the right to use recreational drugs as a core freedom. (July)

Roston, a former Time writer on technology and energy, positively revels in the chance to dig deep into the ubiquitous, life-enabling carbon. He begins his first book with the science of this element: how the element first appeared when stars burned helium into carbon; how, before there was life on earth, plate tectonics drove the planet's carbon flow through the atmosphere, land and oceans; and how the development of the earliest organisms reshaped the carbon cycle. Turning to humans' use of carbon and consequent speeding up the carbon cycle, Roston is a whirlwind, explaining carbon's role in the formation of everything from DNA to Kevlar bulletproof vests and, finally, carbon's role in the earth's climate. This is what Roston cares passionately about, and the sum of the parts of his energetic explanations of carbon's uniqueness brings, for dedicated and attentive readers, a crystal-clear understanding of the global warming process. Roston never scrimps on explaining even complicated chemical processes, and the result is a convincing argument that the earth is at a crossroad, the time for denial has passed and the time for smart, innovative solutions has arrived. 20 b&w illus. (July)

What should the president do if a “dirty” radioactive bomb were exploded in an American city? Should he or she support the construction of pebble-bed nuclear reactors to provide safe, clean energy? In this presidential primer, MacArthur fellow and UC-Berkeley physicist Muller ranges from terrorism to space exploration to global warming, offering basic information and countering myths. He says, for instance, that dirty bombs aren't as dangerous as people fear; if the radiation is diffused over a large area, the risk of death or of cancer is extremely low. In a survey of energy sources, Muller argues that much-hyped hydrogen and solar energy have a long way to go, whereas nuclear power and coal don't deserve the bad rap they receive. Regarding space exploration, Muller joins the ranks of scientists who maintain that it is better done by robots than by humans. Nuclear technology receives considerable attention, though information is repeated from one chapter to another, but an extensive, balanced section on global warming should be required reading for all informed citizens as well as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain. 50 illus. (July)

Covering a range of novelists from the classic to the slightly idiosyncratic, Foster (How to Read Literature Like a Professor) expounds on the various elements of novel construction and offers advice on how to analyze them. Foster maintains a conversational tone throughout, offering pithy interjections among his literary explication (on the possibility of having a reliable narrator in Huck Finn: “Now seriously, where's the fun in that?”). Each chapter of the book breaks down a different part of the novel, from the significance of Faulkner's repeated use of the word “self-abnegation” to the intermingling of philosophy and fiction, particularly in the work of John Fowles, one of Foster's favorite writers. Foster's enthusiasm for his subject is palpable, but his audience will probably be limited to students, given the combination of examples like Joyce, Faulkner and Woolf (English course staples) and the tone of Foster's explanations—often simplistic to a degree that would seem condescending to more experienced readers, as when he emphasizes that “the narrative voice in a novel is a device invented by the writer” and then explains the idea for a full paragraph. (July)

Wexler, a six-term Democratic congressman, opens his memoir–cum–civics lesson by saying, “I want to proclaim on every page of this book that I am a liberal Democrat and proud of it.” Fortunately for the reader, he is able to weave his proclamations into entertaining vignettes from the campaign trail to the halls of Congress in blow-by-blows of his involvement in defining moments of recent history: defending President Clinton from impeachment and challenging the Gore v. Bush decision. There is a fair amount of stumping in the book as the congressman lauds his district, defends his actions and criticizes his foes. But he shines when describing the absurdities of his political career, particularly the pitfalls of his early campaigns—a manager with a weak bladder and running over a dog in his Wexler-emblazoned campaign car—and his controversial appearance on the Colbert Report. While the prose is occasionally clunky, it does not detract from the pleasures of this fascinating and humorous insider account of the House of Representatives. (July)

Mulcahy's compilation of pro-Democrat sentiment is an amusing if slight read. Purposefully devoid of entries by politicians, the collection attempts to capture the heart and soul of the party by asking 56 individuals—from A-list celebrities to smalltown waitresses and farmers—to explain their devotion to the Democrats. The best selections come from longtime party members such as writer James Brady, who cast his first Democratic vote for Adlai Stevenson in 1952, and Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt, who couples praise for the party with a cogent critique of its education policies. Despite the wide selection, most of the snapshots are too brief to pique the reader's interest. Entries, such as the submission from The Corrections author Jonathan Franzen, read like harried e-mails (“I can't really think of what to say”) and disappoint as even articulate contributors turn in glib and flimsy arguments. Nora Ephron writes, “I barely know a Republican,” while designer Isaac Mizrahi says he's a Democrat because he's not “mean and selfish enough to be a Republican.” Littered with vague platitudes (“The Helpful Party,” “The Party of the Future”), this book is less a thoughtful commentary than a mildly diverting political sampler. (July)

With acerbic wit and contagious indignation, Simpson examines how the United States could have better spent the trillion dollars allocated to fund the Iraq War. His 50 alternatives mix the satirical with the sincere: paving America's streets with gold, paying off the entire country's credit card debt, providing every human on earth with an iPod, flying all Iraqi citizens to a Major League Baseball game as well as caring for returning veterans, providing free college education for all Americans, rebuilding New Orleans and rectifying Social Security and Medicare. Although Simpson clearly means to entertain, his slim book is also a provocation and call to action—he astutely notes that even a fraction of the trillion dollars could have been spent beefing up woefully understaffed American airport security or developing technologies to massively reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil—measures that would arguably do much in guaranteeing American security. Whatever their political affiliation or support for the war, readers will confront the financial cost of the war and re-examine their government's—and their own—priorities. (July 1)

Herzog (Sex after Fascism) confronts how the religious right has controlled “the national conversation about sex,” dictating everything from social attitudes to legislation and HIV prevention funding. “[Their] aim is to infuse with shame all sexual expression and experience outside of heterosexual marriage,” she asserts, examining the writings of evangelical sex and marriage experts whose “brand of Christian porn” exalts married, monogamous sex while deploring homosexuality, pre- and extra-marital sex, pornography, masturbation and even idle fantasy. Herzog examines the global effects of the religious right's influence on domestic sexual policies, detailing the shift from sex education in schools and the proliferation of billion-dollar abstinence-only programs to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, where an insistence on abstinence has been promoted abroad at the cost of billions of dollars in exchange for millions of lives that, she argues, might have been saved by at least an equal emphasis on condom use. This book is a disturbing, important and eloquent examination of one faith–cum–political movement's powerful—and pernicious—influence over human rights at home and abroad. (July)

Pomfret (Hot Sauce) recounts the apparently irresolvable contradictions in his life: as an erotica-writing, gay Catholic lector with an atheist boyfriend, he has ample material, and his lighthearted memoir interweaves the Catechism, “Franciscan Fashions,” “Handy Gay Vocabulary,” humorous asides on how to stalk an archbishop and historical tidbits about martyred believers and gay clergy. The book's best sections detail Pomfret's crisis of faith ignited by the church's child sex-abuse scandals and opposition to same-sex marriage—but they lie buried beneath a morass of irrelevant digressions, stale stereotyping, implausible dialogue and caricatures that are more callous than comedic (Pomfret compares a disabled congregant to Chewbacca). The author elucidates the eventual resolution of his spiritual crises with considerable integrity and manages to present sympathetic portraits of clergy, biting satires of church practices (the worship of Jesus' foreskin, condemnation of Harry Potter) and a nuanced rendering of a church and congregation considering its role in a changing world. Although unfailingly lively, the book suffers from a lack of focus and a dizzying dependence on “fun facts” rather than engaged analysis, which ultimately will leave readers unsatisfied. (July)

While Marshall is best known for his pivotal role during Brown v. Board of Education and his appointment to the Supreme Court, Dudziak (Cold War Civil Rights) recovers a nearly buried undertaking, “one of the great adventures of his life”: Marshall's contributions to the Kenyan Bill of Rights. Marshall arrived in London in January 1960; a month later, the Greensboro, N.C., sit-in began, and Marshall found himself “torn between two continents and two movements.” The author effectively sketches those events in the civil rights movement (civil disobedience, urban riots, Black Power) and in Kenya (President Kenyatta's early moderation and subsequent mistreatment of the Asian minority and suppression of opposition) that supported and undermined Marshall's “faith in the law as a vehicle for social change.” The tensions between Marshall's desire for equal rights and Kenyatta's priorities of “sovereignty and national unity” are still heartbreakingly unresolved, as are Marshall's great hope for the “entrenchment in Kenya of the rights he still hoped for in America.” Dudziak's clarity and careful documentation make her book accessible to the general reader and a valuable tool for African and African-American studies. (July)

Presidential speechwriter and political adviser Kusnet has assembled a plodding and pessimistic analysis of how workers struggled to adjust to an evolving employee/company relationship at the turn of the millennium. According to the author, a marked shift occurred at the turn of the century as workers graduated “from the blue-collar blues to the white-collar woes.” In the 30 years after WWII, at the height of assembly-line production, many Americans reportedly disliked their jobs, but were content with their wages, benefits and economic security. The end of the 20th century heralded cutthroat competition as American corporations jostled with rivals in global markets, and the social contract between American employers and employees began to fray. In Kusnet's analysis, employees found their work more enjoyable and creatively rewarding yet reported increasing dissatisfaction with growing job insecurity and frustration with how meddlesome bureaucracies impeded their efficiency. Citing four examples of workplace conflicts in 1990s Seattle—Northwest Hospital and Medical Center, Boeing, Microsoft and Kaiser Aluminum—Kusnet answers his titular statement in the first few pages, leaving readers to slog through an uninspired and laborious history. (July)

Widener (The Angel Inside) turns conventional wisdom on its ear in this diminutive but powerful tale that argues that business success does not derive from prestigious degrees but from the careful cultivation of personal integrity and a commitment to excellence. The author couches his teachings in an inviting story of Marcus Drake, a brash up-and-comer with a newly minted M.B.A. and lofty career aspirations, who spends a weekend with one of the world's richest and most powerful businessmen, Bobby Gold. Zooming from deal to deal in chauffeured limos and hobnobbing with sports luminaries, the young man is starstruck and intimidated by the entrepreneur's clout and wealth, which he assumes are the result of aggressive deal making and profit-taking. In the course of a few days, however, Drake's eyes are opened to Gold's Four Rules of Influence, which reveal the difference between the “science of business” and the art of true influence. This slim allegory, with its archetypal characters, packs a far greater wallop of wisdom through its spare and modern-day prose than many ponderous and prescriptive business and leadership books do in far more pages. (July)

NBC News' Middle East bureau chief Engel (A Fist in the Hornet's Nest) tags along on marine patrols and survives his share of ambushes, truck bombs and kidnapping attempts in this riveting memoir of the Iraq War. His worm's-eye reportage of the spiraling carnage exposes the grisly details omitted from nightly newscasts—a dog carrying a severed human head, a massacre scene in a bakery redolent of sweet aromas and the merry trilling of a victim's cellphone—along with his own numbed reactions. His battles with network suits and right-wing bloggers who insist that he find good news to report are a leitmotif, as is his scrupulous discernment of the big picture beneath the chaos of war. Fluent in Arabic, with access to Iraqi prime ministers and insurgents as well as American leaders (including George W. Bush), he deftly elucidates the bitter rivalry between dethroned Sunnis and rising Shiites and, behind that, Iran's skillful consolidation of power in Iraq as the United States flounders. Engel's fine, heartfelt but disabused account of this bewildering conflict renders the suffering in Iraq with understanding and compassion. Photos. (June 3)

Former Senator Gravel and Eisenbach collaborate in this searing denunciation of the American media, which they posit is “the biggest threat to our democracy.” According to the authors, the media marginalize dissenting voices and fail to provide the public with accurate news coverage, being content with regurgitating unconfirmed—and often blatantly untrue—reports from establishment figures. The authors dissect the “media echo chamber” and contagion of lazy journalism, debunking the lies and half-truths that they argue the media have accepted without scrutiny and irresponsibly repeated to the public. In frightening detail, this book illustrates how political elites manipulated the media to deceive the world about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and attempt to pursue war with Iran, using staged photo ops (George W. Bush posing under the “Mission Accomplished” banner) and fabricating events—as in the case of the eventually disproved account of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's heroics. The authors call for “participatory journalism,” which will empower Americans to engage in online political debate. This important book is a valuable contribution to that debate and ought to be essential reading for all Americans. (June)

According to business columnist Donlan, “the free market always works.” His analysis of major issues in modern economics and current affairs is devoted to lavish illustrations and reiterations of this point. Donlan's scope is as broad as his bias is narrow; he considers environmental pollution, global warming, immigration, investment, taxes, price controls, health care, retirement and debt—for each issue's ills, he prescribes the panacea of the free market. The book's sections on American economic history are clearly and cogently presented; still, the author's refusal to engage with theories outside of the strict capitalist equation frustrates. Donlan's restricted perspective has the unfortunate effect of simplifying complex issues, and when describing government initiatives he disapproves of (particularly environmental protection efforts and carbon caps), he resorts to condescending and loaded language. While this book might be useful to a reader looking for a primer on the virtues of the free market as narrated by one of its staunchest champions, those seeking more objectivity and subtler argumentation should look elsewhere. (June)

Correction: The subject of Michael Dobbs's One Minute to Midnight (Reviews, Apr. 21) is the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, not the 1961 Bay of Pigs incident.

Country Living editor-in-chief Nancy Mernit Soriano aptly captures the tone in her foreword: “whether cooking for a gathering in your garden or packing a basket for a romantic picnic... the recipes and tips you'll find on the pages ahead are ones you're sure to revisit again and again.” Classic favorites include Deviled Eggs, Creamy Macaroni Salad, Glazed Bacon- and Cheese-filled Burgers, and Grilled Lemon–Tarragon Chicken. There are some small twists, such as and Lavender and Pepper Steak, but most dishes are deliciously predictable. Bright, attractive and tasteful photos showcase the simple freshness of each dish. Also included in this solid cookbook is helpful information on both charcoal and gas grills; recipes for basic condiments and dressings (like mayonnaise, pickle relish and hot mustard); refreshing drinks (pink lemonade and pineapple cooler); and all the desserts you'd expect, like Fresh Berry Shortcake. (June)

Like Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa, Pump's Hampton's gourmet food store and catering business, Loaves and Fishes, took on a second life in cookbooks (previous cookbooks include Loaves and Fishes Cookbook and Country Weekend Entertaining). The German-born caterer first tells the story of how she came to buy the Loaves and Fishes store 25 years ago before embarking on this well-organized collection of clear and simple recipes. With personal head notes—useful and not overly chatty—the author explains the many ways to entertain or cook for your friends and family. Starters such as clam and bacon dip can get a party off with a bang, while fresh corn soup with local corn is a pure taste of summer. Pump also suggests innovative sandwiches that can be brought to the beach, like Grilled Eggplant, Pepper and Soppressata Sandwiches. She also includes alternatives for inclement weather, such as oven-fried chicken that can be prepared in the kitchen. This is a cookbook that expresses the irrepressible joy of summer. (June)

Denevan used to be a regular, indoor chef, but inspired by foragers who brought seasonal wild foods like miner's lettuce and chanterelles to his kitchen, he began preparing feasts outdoors, in fields and orchards, using the foods at hand and giving eaters a personal introduction to the providers and sources of their meals. This cookbook, named after his traveling al fresco restaurant, brings the fruits of his labors to anybody's kitchen, at least theoretically. Recipes tend toward the exotic: Wild Rice Baked with Chicken, Fennel, and Porcini; Nettle Tagliatelle with Nettle Purée; Fried Squash Blossoms with Lavender Ricotta. Even mundane dishes like stewed green beans are jazzed up with chiles and anchovies. Novices chefs and time-strapped cooks may be intimidated by some of the more labor-intensive recipes, but others will be enticed by such mouth-watering recipes as Smoky Sturgeon and Potato Ravioli and Fresh Lamb Sausage. Interspersed are description of community gardens and vineyards, farmers and fishermen, complete with discourses on raw vs. pasteurized milk and sustainable fish choices. (June)

Moonen is a fish guy, having served as chef-owner of two seafood temples in New York City. In this new book, he shares his expertise—from how to shop for fish to how to clean it and how to cook it. The cleaning, scaling and filleting pages are particularly good, with clear instructions and excellent photos that leave little room for doubt. Moonen, with coauthor Finamore (Tasty), covers everything from American classics like Manhattan Clam Chowder to modern dishes such as Creamy Fennel Soup with Salmon and Citrus Ragu. What separates this book from others is its focus on sustainability. Moonen is a founding member of Seafood Choices Alliance and an early advocate for chefs making responsible choices when it comes to seafood. The first chapter contains a list of each fish in the book, the best way to cook it and the state of its population. There are no endangered fish on the list (or in the book), because, as Moonen explains in his introduction, “I'm holding off for the time when I can feel confident that these populations are strong again.” For a chef whose current venture is a 16,000-square-foot restaurant in Las Vegas, this kind of restraint might seem surprising, but given the dramatic collapse of seafood populations, Moonen is a welcome and essential voice in the home chef's kitchen. (May 21)

Recently deceased activist and cofounder of the National Women's Health Network, Seaman (The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women) reported on women's health for more than three decades. Here, she and associate Eldridge articulate the myths, controversies, statistics, economics and prevailing protocols that feed continued confusion about what, they argue, is an overmedicalized but profoundly natural experience. With the abrupt end in July 2002 of one segment of the hormonal trial of the Women's Health Initiative (begun in 1992), the authors state, many women, formerly led to view hormone therapy as a cure-all for a multitude of symptoms and conditions (hot flashes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and memory loss, for example), began looking critically at recommended tests, surgical procedures and drugs. Seaman touches on nearly every aspect of women's health (nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress relief, vitamins and herbs, aging, appearance, etc.) as she helps readers frame key questions, evaluate research studies, consider treatment options and move gracefully through menopause and the years leading up to and following it. This volume sheds an invaluable light on a long-cloudy subject. (July)

After a string of books promoting single-diet cures, “Juice Lady” Calbom (Sleep Away the Pounds) offers a whole-life program for regaining health in an unhealthy world, along with tips and schedules that make the plan manageable for even the busiest people. Beginning with a questionnaire to determine the toxicity of one's environment, Calbom emphasizes the need for periodic flushes of the body's systems via fasts and cleanses, then maintenance by drinking lots of vegetable juice and smoothies while trying to avoid certain kinds of plastic or the stress and anxiety addressed in a separate chapter on mental and emotional cleansing. A nutritionist, Calbom has a knack for accessible explanations of anatomical science and offers sound recommendations on diet and exercise alongside rhapsodies about the effects of detoxing and juice fasting. Those who are serious about following the full program will appreciate her patience in explaining its components, while casual dieters will cheer the multitude of symptom checklists and the guide to various foods' nutrient content as well as the variety of cleanses she outlines and accompanies with raw vegetable juice, smoothie and salad recipes. (July)

David Ritz, cowriter to the stars, helps pen two very different music autobiographies.

By his own account, internationally renowned classical pianist Lang Lang has literally traveled the world in an attempt to find himself and to share his music. Only 25, this young piano prodigy became mesmerized by classical music when he heard, before he was two, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2 as the score for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. By the age of five, he won first place in the Shenyang Piano Competition, and his father soon pressed him to become the number one pianist in the world. Through a series of loosely connected anecdotes, Lang Lang retells the story of his father's fierce determination to have Lang Lang win at all costs and his father's willingness to sacrifice his family and his job for his son's success. Following accolades in China and Europe, Lang and his father move to Philadelphia, where Lang enrolls in the prestigious Curtis School of Music at age 14. By 17, Lang substituted for André Watts at the Ravinia Festival in suburban Chicago and launched his career. Lang's successes are admirable, and his memoir reveals a young man still searching for the meaning of life and music. (July)

The story of Grandmaster Flash has been told many times—but never this well—in countless books on hip-hop culture: a DJ whose genius at mixing songs and beats using multiple turntables as the background for rapping MCs in New York City during the late 1970s and early '80s made him one of the founding fathers of hip-hop. Here, Flash's own no-holds-barred look at his rise, fall and resurrection is powered by his insider's look at the transcendent as well as the seamy sides of the early days of hip-hop. He is especially good at presenting new information on his dealings with one of the early hip-hop giants, Sugar Hill Records. He is ably assisted by the ubiquitous Ritz, who, as a coauthor of numerous autobiographies (Ray Charles, Don Rickles, etc.), allows for individual voices and writing styles. While Flash writes in short, phrases, the entire book reveals a complex and thoughtful approach to his life, especially his obsessive mixing work (“I would have to do that thirty-six hundred times to fill an all-day park jam with music the way I wanted to play it”). (June 10)