Nonfiction Reviews

Americans are assaulted by numbers, whether it's the latest political poll or most recent clinical study on caffeine. But what do these numbers really mean and are they communicating a categorical truth? Blastland and Dilnot, from the BBC radio show More or Less, embark on a monumental task of interpreting numerical data and showing how its misinterpretation often leads to misinformation. “It is one thing to measure,” they write, “quite another to wrench the numbers to a false conclusion.” The authors take a close look at statistics that are accepted at face value—many stemming from scientific or medical discoveries. They examine everything from the link between alcohol and breast cancer risk to baseball batting averages to fascinating assessments of the manipulation of data by politicians when they talk taxes or the cautionary tale of a U.K. educational measurement program designed much like No Child Left Behind. Blastland and Dilnot apply their famously cheeky approach to the analysis of how people are duped, frightened or falsely encouraged by data. (Jan.)

This incisive, if overstated, study locates economic interests rather than clashing ideologies and social systems at the roots of the Civil War. British historian Egnal (A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution) traces America's polarization in the 1850s to antagonistic sectional economies. In the North, he contends, the Republican Party, beholden to a burgeoning “Great Lakes economy” and focused on promoting industrial growth, conceived its effort to ban slavery in America's Western territories—the issue that precipitated the war—in terms of the economic interests of Northern settlers. Conversely, he argues, Southern planters, their soils depleted, saw expansion of slave agriculture onto the fresh soils of those territories as a dire economic necessity; for them, “secession was a rational act.” Egnal's perceptive, fine-grained analysis of fragmentation within the North and South around local patterns of trade, agriculture and manufacturing is especially revealing. Still, economic motives alone don't seem powerful enough to have started a war without the atavistic forces of racism and nationalism energizing them. While not a sufficient account, Egnal's is an illuminating contribution to our understanding of the Civil War's causes. 11 maps. (Jan.)

The authors of the bestselling Halsey's Typhoon do a fine job recounting one brutal, small-unit action during the Korean War's darkest moment. In November 1950, as General MacArthur's troops were advancing deep into North Korea, China warned that it would intervene if armies approached its border. U.S. troops were scattered through mountainous terrain at the onset of a freezing winter. Using extensive interviews with survivors, the authors tell the story of one 234-man company ordered to secure a rocky promontory overlooking the legendary Chosin Reservoir. Abundant and detailed maps enable readers to track the vicious week-long battle almost minute by minute as the men fought off repeated assaults by overwhelming Chinese forces until another marine unit arrived to rescue the few survivors. The authors draw no great lessons from Fox Company's ordeal, but deliver a precise, technically accurate account of the fighting. Although aimed at military buffs, the closeup views of individual marines tested to their limits will engage any reader curious to learn how brave men fought a conventional 20th-century war. 100,000 announced first printing; 12-city author tour. (Jan.)

When it comes to facing old age, writes Athill, “there are no lessons to be learnt, no discoveries to be made, no solutions to offer.” As the acclaimed British memoirist (who wrote about her experiences as a book editor in Stet) pushes past 90, she realizes that “there is not much on record on falling away” and resolves to set down some of her observations. She is bluntly unconcerned with conventional wisdom, unapologetically recounting her extended role as “the Other Woman” in her companion's prior marriage—then explaining how he didn't move in with her until after they'd stopped having sex, which is why it was no big deal for her to invite his next mistress to move in with them to save expenses. She is equally frank in discussing how, as their life turns “sad and boring,” she copes with his declining health, just as she cared for her mother in her final years. Firmly resolute that no afterlife awaits her, Athill finds just enough optimism in this world to keep her reflections from slipping into morbidity—she may not offer much comfort, but it's a bracing read. (Jan.)

In her raw account of love gone wrong, L.A. journalist Resnick (Go West Young F*cked-Up Chick) describes her descent into self-debasement. Resnick's lifelong attraction to unsuitable men—unavailable, abusive and emotionally damaged—hit a perilous stage by the time she reached her early 40s and her last boyfriend, Spencer, who had seemed the “perfect victim to make [her] dreams come true,” broke into her house and wrecked her computer. Alternating with her litany of awful relationships—from the scarily egotistical ex-con painter Eddie to the various men who refused to have a baby with her—Resnick delineates her appalling, loveless childhood and the neglect by her hard-drinking mother, who lost custody of her and her younger brother when Resnick was 12. Subsequently, the teenager bounced around foster homes because she was not welcome in the new household of her father, remarried to an Orthodox Jew with four new children of his own. Resnick's memoir is a desperate, self-excoriating attempt to break the victim cycle first taught to her expertly by her mother, “the original love junkie”; engender a tenderness for her rather indifferent father; and mend the estrangement from her brother. Most important in terms of survival in this painfully honest memoir, Resnick found the wherewithal through a support group to heal and reground herself. (Dec.)

Academics turned portfolio managers, Landier and Nair offer up evidence for socially responsible investing's potential for financial gain and real social change, highlighting how returns, risks and goals differ in ethical investing. The book traces the evolution of socially responsible investing (SRI) from its 18th-century Quaker roots to the first socially responsible mutual fund, 37-year-old Pax World, and finally to more recent “responsibility indices” and the increasing availability of corporate sustainability reports. The authors wisely credit the growing influence of “the corporate governance movement”, the increasing number of socially responsible mutual funds, large public pension funds' interest in “responsibility issues,” and the “dynamic regulatory landscape” for pushing change on environmental, human rights and other social fronts, making an ethical investment approach a viable option. The authors assess the research on stock returns in ethical investing and the trade-offs for one's principles, projecting that a more balanced socially responsible investment portfolio can grow close to industry averages on the S&P 500, for example, and better than benchmark portfolios. While the fictitious investors in the book grate, its appeal to “invest in who you are” is genuinely persuasive. (Dec.)

Dr. Johnson was one of the most keenly observed figures in his time, and with the second book of the season anticipating the 2009 tercentenary of his birth (after Peter Martin's, published by Harvard in September), he remains a massive, grotesque genius who continues to haunt us. Popularly written by prolific biographer and literary critic Meyers (Hemingway), this departs from a strict chronology to narrate significant events and their meaning for Johnson. A central concern involves one of Johnson's darkest secrets, which Meyers says other biographers have evaded: his masochistic sexuality at the hands of his confidante Mrs. Hester Thrale. The biography also speculates on other aspects of Johnson's sex life, both during his marriage to a much older woman and after her death. But Meyers's book is balanced and accomplishes much else. In discussing the great Dictionary that made Johnson famous (and led to a royal pension to ease his hardscrabble life), the Rambler and Idlers essays, Johnson's edition of Shakespeare and Lives of the Poets, Meyers goes to the heart of a tortured, contradictory and pessimistic sage whose self-lacerating personality, says Meyers, would come to influence modernists as disparate as Woolf, Beckett and Nabokov. 19 illus. (Dec.)

The indictment in November 2007 of Anthony (Tony) Marshall, the only child of the late legendary philanthropist Brooke Astor, for misuse of his mother's fortune led to an unheard-of scrutiny of America's discreet aristocracy. Gordon, a journalist whose New York magazine article on the scandal in August 2006 formed the germ of this extended work, delivers a balanced, dogged—and ultimately sad—detective account of how Astor's grandson Philip Marshall ended up betraying Tony, his own father. Horrified by accounts of the shamefully reduced conditions under which his then 103-year-old grandmother was being cared for (attested to by servants and Astor's good friends Annette de la Renta and David Rockefeller), Philip legally challenged his father, the custodian of her considerable estate, and Tony's wife, Charlene, citing in particular the uncharacteristic altering of Brooke's will in the last years before she died (she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's). Gordon sifts painstakingly through the rubble of the extended Astor family history, from Brooke's disastrous first marriage at age 17 to her dazzling reinvention in her 50s as the celebrity widow of Vincent Astor (who died in 1959), firmly ensconced at the helm of the venerable and very useful Astor Foundation. In the end, Gordon tells a sad and moving story of elder abuse. (Dec.)

Rees, a London journalist, decided to face his midlife crisis by picking up the French horn—an instrument he hadn't played since he was a teenager—and whip himself back into shape so he could play a Mozart concerto in front of an audience in just one year. Luckily, he had one of England's best horn players to give him lessons, but it was still an uphill battle—for starters, the concerto was composed in the key of E flat, but the horn was tuned to F, so Rees (like every performer before him) had to transpose the notes down a tone as he played along. Along the way, he recounts the instrument's colorful history, including a playful recreation of the first performance of Handel's Water Music (when the hunting horn first appeared alongside more widely acknowledged “serious” instruments), and chats with many of the world's leading performers, as well as Holly Hunter and Ewan McGregor who, like Rees, played the instrument in their youth. Rees's self-assigned quest turns into an amiable romp with quiet bits of inspiration. (Dec.)

Santopietro, who spent two decades as the manager of two dozen Broadway shows, has previously delivered well-received biographical career assessments of Doris Day and Barbra Streisand. Although Sinatra is covered in countless books, including several focusing on his films, Santopietro's approach attempts to seamlessly blend Sinatra's life, movies and public persona. Sinatra's tough-guy behavior masked a “wounding tenderness,” observed ex-wife Mia Farrow, and an underlying thesis of this book is that a similar quality permeated his onscreen characters, “confident and brash, yet very often vulnerable.” Striving for honest critiques and a witty, encyclopedic coverage, Santopietro begins with Sinatra's 1935 short subjects; dances through the grandiose 1940s MGM musicals; documents Sinatra's “professional and personal despair” and decline in such “giant turkey” disasters as The Kissing Bandit (1948); and analyzes his Oscar-winning comeback in From Here to Eternity (1953). The book verges on the speculative (“Sinatra sensed...”) as it bounces from heavy hype (“one of the immortals”) to pseudo-hip—in a writing style that sometimes works and sometimes simply annoys. Despite such lapses, this mammoth movie compendium, filled with forgotten facts, 53 b&w photos and a detailed filmography, is certain to satisfy Sinatra's legions of fans. (Nov. 11)

As Boston Globe columnist Sullivan points out in this book, Brown's personal life (sexual exploits, spousal abuse, jail time) obscured a public persona that encouraged African-American children not to drop out of school and demanded that his African-American brothers and sisters respect themselves rather than putting themselves down. At the center of the book is Brown's concert at the Boston Garden on the night following Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968. Because of rising tensions among African-Americans in the city, Mayor Kevin White's first impulse was to cancel Brown's concert. Yet realizing that ticket holders might be just as angry over a canceled concert as they might be impassioned to riot by a raucous one, he and Brown worked out a deal to allow the concert to go on. Once on stage, Brown opened with his by-then famous “Please, Please, Please,” which became that night a rallying cry for his audience to respect themselves and others, just as King had done. Sullivan only briefly traces Brown's rise and fall as a musician from his early days in Edgefield, S.C., to his death in Augusta, Ga., as he recovers a facet of James Brown as a political and racial leader. (Nov.)

Wild, who's written companion books to the sitcoms Friends and Seinfeld, doesn't pretend to any objectivity on the subject of Neil Diamond—over the years, he's interviewed the singer-songwriter for Rolling Stone, written liner notes for a retrospective box set, even produced an episode of Behind the Music. So this isn't so much a biography as a book-length case of pure, unapologetic fandom that traces every step of Diamond's life, from his childhood in Brooklyn and his rise to fame in the 1960s and '70s to his most recent comeback albums. (Wild is not, however, critically blind; an attempt to watch the film of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, for which Diamond wrote the soundtrack, ends in frustration.) The cutesy references to song titles can get annoying—Wild runs the phrase “I'm a Believer” as a self-description into the ground—but perceptive insights into the biographical circumstances of Diamond's artistry abound. If you are not a Neil Diamond fan already, this book is not likely to change your mind, but Wild knows he's preaching to the converted: “If you hate Neil Diamond,” he jokes, “then you may actually hate yourself.” (Nov.)

Self-confessed glutton, travel writer and novelist Barlow (Eating Mammals; Intoxicated) doesn't scrimp on either culinary or cultural delights in this charmingly informative and witty narrative. Barlow, a resident of the relatively unknown corner of Spain, sets himself the task of consuming every part of the staple meat of rural Galicia. Traveling with his Spanish wife, a vegetarian, and his infant son, Barlow serves up vivid tales encountered during the year dedicated to his “porco-graphical tour.” But this tale is more than a culinary treat. Barlow is a companionable guide expounding upon history, traditions and the personalities of Galicia. His writing style is quick, lively and filled with delicious details. He takes readers on a sublime journey of the senses, including three Carnivals, one in Laza, a thousand-year-old event, combining ant throwing and a “pig head bacchanal.” He explores why the cousin of Fidel Castro lives at the end of a dark muddy lane in a pokey hamlet, and tracks down Antón, the most famous pig in Galicia. And he indulges in a 12-course meal, including ribs, at one of Spain's most lauded restaurants. “As the ribs sit in the gentle heat, that glorious, fat-infiltrated meat is slowly transforming into what was for me one of the most spellbinding dishes I have ever eaten.” (Nov.)

In 1991, Greenside, a teacher and political activist living in Alameda, Calif., found himself at both the end of a relationship and “the end of the world.” The French world, that is: Finistère, a remote town on the coast of Brittany, where he and his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend spend 10 weeks. Preternaturally slow to negotiate the ways of life in a small Breton village, he gets help from Madame P., his slow-to-melt landlady and neighbor. At summer's end (as well as the end of his relationship), his attachment to France became more permanent through the quasi-impulsive purchase of an old stone house, which was made possible with the help of Madame P. She figures prominently and entertainingly through the rest of the book, facilitating several of the author's transactions with the sellers and the local servicemen who provide necessities such as heating oil and insurance. At times the author's self-deprecation comes across as disingenuous, but his self-characterization as a helpless, 40-something leftist creates an intriguing subtext about baby boomerism, generational maturity and the relationship of America to France. Greenside tells a charming story about growing wiser, humbler and more human through home owning in a foreign land. (Nov.)

Gifford, the 78-year-old former star for the New York Giants and later an icon on Monday Night Football, tells the story of this much-chronicled game between his Giants and Johnny Unitas's Baltimore Colts from both his perspective and through interviews with teammates and opponents. Gifford decided to write this book after David Halberstam, a friend of Gifford's who had planned to write a book about the game, was killed in a 2007 car accident. Gifford's is a candid, insightful and entertaining look at the camaraderie and culture of the first great stirrings of the NFL, when professional football was a second-class sport in comparison to baseball. He describes vividly an era where the Giants players worked second jobs in the off-season, spent many fall nights barhopping their way across midtown Manhattan and often partook of cigarettes and beer in their Yankee Stadium locker room. Despite the title, this is less a book about how that 1958 game changed the NFL (which was covered in Mark Bowden's summer release of The Best Game Ever) than it is an enjoyable telling of the men who played it. (Nov.)

Virginia Woolf famously declared that “human character changed” in the year 1910; this dizzying survey of European history and culture before WWI elaborates. Historian Blom (Enlightening the World) examines every innovation of the turbulent period that, in his estimate, gave birth to modernity and its discontents. Automobiles, airplanes and electricity gave humans unprecedented speed and power; the explosive growth of industry, cities and consumerism shattered and rebuilt communities; women, moving into schools and workplaces, demanded new rights; mass politics and mass media challenged traditional authority; psychoanalysis and the theory of relativity challenged ideas about humans and about time and space. The panorama is almost too much to take in, especially since Blom rightly complicates the picture by exploring the diverse ways in which different countries experienced these upheavals. His stab at a unifying theme—a perceived crisis of masculinity that panicked everyone from Proust to proto-Nazi racists as sex roles changed and a machine-driven, bureaucratic economy made muscle-power and martial virtues obsolete—is fruitful, but it only partially illuminates the times. This is a stylish, erudite guide to an age of exhilaration and anxiety that in many ways invented our own. Photos. (Nov.)

Scurvy, contaminated water and challenging environments were among the medical problems faced by frontier settlers, who resorted to the rough-and-ready treatments of herbal and traditional medicines, quack concoctions and whatever worked. This is the story prolific western writer Dary (The Oregon Trail) provides in a deeply researched, anecdotal history. Fourteen chapters range from “Indian Medicine” and “In Western Towns” to “Quacks” and “Midwives and Women Doctors.” A skilled storyteller, Dary fills each chapter with tales of doctors (not always well trained) and patients, colorful events, important discoveries and a seemingly endless pharmacopeia of herbal recipes and drugs, beliefs and often gruesome medical procedures. Dary agrees with today's experts that doctors in that era who practiced “heroic medicine”—bleeding, purging, administering emetics and toxic metals such as mercury and arsenic—did more harm than good. Fortunately, even quacks were too expensive for most settlers, who preferred home remedies. Dary argues that traditional Native American treatments were less harmful and probably more effective. Readers looking for a more insightful history of medicine should choose one by Roy Porter, but this collection of stories of frontier healers will satisfy many readers. 81 illus. (Nov. 10)

Think of saddle-shoed coeds jitterbugging with the boys. The dance could be as sexually evocative then as “grinding” is now. It was all in a night's work for the thousands of young American women who volunteered to host soldiers in United Service Organizations clubs during WWII. The USO's domestic mission was to steer idle troops away from liquor, prostitutes and venereal disease, offering instead homemade cookies and wholesome smalltown girls. In constructing a portrait of wartime sexuality through the lens of the USO's American ideal of women, Winchell highlights what she views as the USO's middle-class prejudices. But she also offers studies of leadership in minority women's lobbying for such issues as canteen integration and access for women soldiers. Winchell, an assistant professor of history at Nebraska Wesleyan University, can't seem to let impressive research speak for itself, and her insightful observations are couched in the academic language of race, class, gender and the economics of women's work. The hostesses should have been the voice of this book—sometimes, they manage to be heard. 30 illus. (Nov.)

Not one American prisoner of war was rescued by the U.S. military from North Vietnamese or Vietcong POW camps during the Vietnam War. Not for want of trying, though. Military historian and SEAL specialist Dockery (The Weapons of the Navy SEALs) writes about the little-known last POW rescue mission, in June 1972, which resulted in the death of U.S. Navy Lt. Melvin Spence Dry, one of the special operations officers who undertook the dangerous mission. But Dockery writes about the mission only in the last four chapters of this mistitled book. The first 26 chapters are devoted mainly to the story of U.S. Air Force Capt. John Dramesi, who was shot down on April 2, 1967, and taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. Dramesi escaped twice, once from the infamous Hanoi Hilton, only to be recaptured and tortured. He was a main player in the planning of the ill-fated Operation Thunderhead. Dockery offers up less than promised in this drily written book that nonetheless tells an amazing story of survival. Photos. (Nov. 4)

What are the odds that an ordinary billionaire like Bruce Wayne could acquire the physique and hand-to-hand fighting skills to defeat supervillains? Zehr, a Canadian neuroscientist and martial arts black belt, looks at the science of the body's “capability to respond and adapt to... extremes.” The author draws on Batman comics and movies to glean clues on how Wayne chiseled his body into a fighting machine. As a study of human physiology, this detailed and accessible discussion could appeal to Batman fans and those interested in intensive physical training who are prepared for serious science rather than fantasy. But Batman is only the scaffolding on which Zehr hangs his detailed look at the role of genetic makeup, diet, strength training and development of motor skills in attaining the “outer limits” of physical performance. Surprisingly, the discussion barely mentions the training of real-life people who need many of the same skills as Batman: special ops forces. Despite the book's strengths, readers may get the impression from the many exclamatory asides of an author still running around the house with a bedspread trailing behind him. 55 b&w illus. (Nov.)

In a case echoing John Grisham's The Innocent Man, two experts in interrogation and false confessions unfold the story of four men who, under duress by the police, all pleaded guilty to the same crime. In 1997, 19-year-old sailor Billy Bosko came home to Norfolk, Va., from a naval tour to find his wife, Michelle, viciously raped and stabbed to death. Police hastily concluded that the Boskos' neighbor, another young sailor named Danial Williams, was the murderer, and after a lengthy interrogation and being told falsely that he'd failed a polygraph test, he confessed. But with DNA evidence not supporting his guilt, police, rather than letting Williams go, looked for accomplices. Eventually three other sailors, Joseph J. Dick Jr., who boarded with Williams, and Eric Wilson and Derek Tice, faced similar treatment, and all pleaded guilty. The DNA evidence and a letter in the police's hands actually pointed to another, far more credible suspect, but police clung to their theory, and Williams plea-bargained and the others were convicted at trial. The authors passionately relate the case of the Norwalk Four as a tragic one in which facts were not allowed to interfere with a good theory, and the justice system failed to do justice. (Nov.)

Prosecutor Saunders is an authority on her subject: the founder of the Stalking and Threat Assessment Team in Los Angeles wrote and toughened California's stalking law. Here she engrossingly explores the menacing crime of stalking as she relates the story of her more than two decades of work in the courtroom. With an able assist from bestselling author Michaud (The Devil's Right-Hand Man), Saunders explains what constitutes stalking (unwanted pursuit, threats and the terrorizing of a victim), who the victims are (usually but not exclusively women, often former girlfriends or wives of their stalkers) and the difficulties of prosecuting this crime. The data, according to the authors, are alarming, with a million women and 370,000 men stalked each year in the U.S. The authors relate in detail some stalking incidents Saunders prosecuted, involving average citizens as well as celebrities like Madonna, Steven Spielberg and Blythe Danner. Readers will be intrigued and sobered by this illuminating guide, complete with legal remedies and possible precautions. (Nov. 4)

Since 50% of Americans will reportedly undergo some form of psychotherapy in their lifetimes, Engel, a professor of health care policy and management at Seton Hall University, presents a complete survey of the 100-year-old history of American mental health practitioners. Tracing the rise and decline of psychoanalysis in America (including the pioneering theories of homegrown talents Harry Stack Sullivan and Karen Horney), and its replacement by other, more targeted forms of therapy, this book notes that mental health treatment has become intensely consumer-oriented, tailored to finicky patients and leading to a variety of therapies such as Gestalt, rebirthing, primal scream therapy and medications like Prozac and Zoloft (though the discussion of medications fails to do justice to their complexities). Engel (The Epidemic: A Global History of AIDS) touts community mental health facilities and new progress in treatments and drugs to control addictions and mental instability. Highly informative, if a bit textbookish in tone, this is a capable introduction to the ever-changing American mental health industry and its practitioners. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Nov.)

This coffee-table book, packed with prints and photographs covering the Allies' June 1944 invasion of France is clearly a labor of love by French military historian François. A preinvasion bombing killed his grandfather, a Norman farmer, and barely missed his father, age 10 at the time. Chapter one offers family photographs as well as posters and photos of the 1940–1944 German occupation. Even better is an epilogue of before-and-after photographs juxtaposing images of locations like Omaha Beach in 1944 and 60 years later. In between, the pages teem with images of the massive Allied buildup in England, the invasion itself and the battles in Normandy interspersed with sidebars on generals and soldiers awarded medals for their bravery. Readers familiar with the iconic Normandy photographs will not find them; among the myriad of images in the archives, François's choices emphasize modest soldierly activity and civilian miseries. The extensive text delivers a conventional, undistinguished history of events, so readers will lose little by skimming. Picture books on the Normandy invasion would fill a substantial shelf, but this one offers some modestly unusual features. 100 color and 400 b&w photos. (Nov.)

This history of the development of the airplane by Spenser, a former curator of the National Air and Space Museum and author of 747, recasts the Wright brothers' contribution as he widens the scope to aviation history in France, Germany and beyond. Spenser starts with the pioneering work of Yorkshire gentleman Sir George Cayley in the late 18th century, delineates the competitive race between inventors in the early 1900s and culminates (somewhat abruptly) in the world of modern jet airliner travel. Spenser's history reads like a textbook for young, aspiring engineers. Instead of a general chronological approach, Spenser divides the book into sections that each track the development of a different part of the airplane, from the fuselage to landing gear. While this allows him to show how the modern airplane is not a singular invention but rather the cumulative result of thousands of different inventors, trials and errors, it does diffuse the narrative. Still, Spenser's book stands as a smart, and occasionally wonkish, history of a thrilling machine all too often taken for granted. (Nov.)

Samuelson, a columnist for the Washington Post and Newsweek, presents a highly readable and thought-provoking discussion of the crippling inflation that hit the United States from the mid-1960s to 1982, resulting in four recessions. According to the author, the culprit of inflation was the “collective failure of communication and candor by the nation's economists”; their bad advice became bad policy as both parties in the White House propagated “economic ignorance” that led to the Great Inflation. The memory of the Great Depression led to “a full employment obsession”—among other dangerous myths and stereotypes that were the “major barrier” to economic convalescence—culminating in a stalemate that was only lifted during the “accidental alliance” between Reagan and Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. While business cycles seem milder now (“The Great Moderation”), the author argues that the cycle could repeat. The book's detailed sketches of the working of the Federal Reserve, stock market and corporate America give a comprehensive picture of the economy, which Samuelson describes as a “social, political, and psychological” mechanism encompassing ideas and values as much as trade and finance. (Nov.)

Collected from speeches and editorials by Grant, the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, these essays are remarkable for their prescience: two years before subprime mortgages collapsed, the author described them as “not one borrower left behind” and when other analysts were worried about the effect of a Fed interest rate increase, he foresaw that the “risk to house prices lies not with interest rates but with lending standards.” Other chapters attack bubbles in stocks and the dollar with erudition and wit (“Economics, mistaking itself for physics, is wont to turn up its nose at history, but the past has much to teach”; “as dress on Wall Street has become more casual, so have the monetary arrangements... the gold standard and swallowtail coats have given way to Greenspan and open-neck shirts”). It's hard to imagine reading any other investment newsletter even a week after publication. Grant's is the exception; it paints on a larger canvas and is infused with the author's generous spirit and rich sense of humor. (Nov.)

Although Erickson admits that her own Generation Y son informed her that he would prefer to consult a blog for career advice rather than dead-tree technology, her effort—chock-full of demographic data and a portrait of the generation's collective aspirations—is certainly worthy of the effort required of literally turning pages. An author and researcher in demographics and organizational behavior, Erickson has the ability to customize career strategies for this newest generation entering the workforce in a way designed to be immediately useful. The author's thoroughness in translating generic advice—such as the importance of developing good communications skills—into Gen Y–speak makes the book informative and appealingly fresh. Despite gearing her message to younger workers, Erickson's effort speaks to a much broader audience: her examination of what influences and motivates this emerging generation would be of interest to potential employers and marketers. (Nov.)

According to Sugrue (The Origins of the Urban Crises), most histories of the civil rights movement “focus on the South and the epic battles between nonviolent protestors and the defenders of Jim Crow during the 1950s and 1960s.” The author's groundbreaking account covers a wider time frame and turns the focus northward to “the states with the largest black populations outside the south.” Sugrue highlights seminal people, books and organizations in his tightly focused study that restores many largely forgotten Northern activists as integral participants in the civil rights movement—such as Philadelphia pastor Leon Sullivan; Roxanne Jones of the “welfare rights movement” and first black woman elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate; and James Forman, advocate for reparations. The National Negro Congress, the Revolutionary Action Movement and the National Black Political Convention share history with the NAACP and the Urban League, as Sugrue traces the phoenixlike risings from the ashes of old organizations into new. Dense with “boycotts, pickets, agitation, riots, lobbying, litigation, and legislation,” the book is heavily detailed but consistently readable with unparalleled scope and fresh focus. (Nov.)

For this mordant dispatch from one of the Iraq War's seamiest sides, Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post correspondent Fainaru embedded with some of the thousands of “private security contractors” who chauffeur officials, escort convoys and add their own touch of mayhem to the conflict. Exempt from Iraqi law and oversight by the U.S. government, which doesn't even record their casualties, the mercenaries, Fainaru writes, play by “Big Boy Rules”—which often means no rules at all as they barrel down highways in the wrong direction, firing on any vehicle in their path. (His report on the Blackwater company, infamous for killing Iraqi civilians and getting away with it, is meticulous and chilling.) Fainaru's depiction of the mercenaries' crassness and callousness is unsparing, but he sympathizes with these often inexperienced, badly equipped hired guns struggling to cope with a dirty war. Nor is he immune to the romance of the soldier of fortune, especially in his somewhat bathetic portrait of Jon Coté, Iraq War veteran and lost soul who joined the fly-by-night Crescent Security Group and was kidnapped by insurgents. Fainaru's vivid reportage makes the mercenary's dubious motives and chaotic methods a microcosm of a misbegotten war. (Nov. 17)

Kepel (Al Qaeda in Its Own Words) offers an erudite critique of “the narratives of both Bush and Bin Laden which considered force or violence to be a prerequisite for change in the Middle East.” The book surveys the propagation of the ”war on terror” that eventually led to “the fiasco in Iraq,” but unlike many critiques of the Iraq War, this study focuses on the internecine fighting between various national and sectarian Muslim groups, providing rich historical and cultural context for the internal regional politics that often have derailed U.S. policy. His analysis shifts to Europe, where he examines how different national policies of integration and “multiculturalism” in France and England have resulted in dramatically different experiences of terrorism. Kepel offers alternatives to the American “war on terror” that he believes will help “to transcend terror and martyrdom and to ensure the decisive marginalization of jihadist radicalism.” His prescriptions are as insightful and thoughtful as his critiques, making this a valuable read for those interested in the Middle East and current affairs generally. (Nov.)

Former marine officer Boudreau documents his struggles with the demons of war in this uneven memoir. Initially “infatuated” with war, the author was deployed to Iraq in March 2004 as the assistant operations officer for an infantry battalion. His wartime experiences, however, left him increasingly disillusioned and ambivalent; unable to face another deployment, Boudreau resigned from the Marine Corps after 12 years of service. The author's rage stems from his frustration with the U.S. mission in Iraq, which he concludes is “un-accomplishable,” noting, “I see my fellow Marines getting blown away for nothing and with no chance whatsoever of success.” Boudreau dismisses the “surge” strategy and greets “stories of tactical success with skepticism.” The author's efforts to call attention to veterans' psychological wounds are commendable, but his brief against the U.S. mission in Iraq—a “labyrinth of... unattainable goals”—is supported by occasionally suspect statistics (i.e., his exaggerated figures for army suicides). Boudreau writes convincingly about his inner struggles and draws on a seabag of colorful anecdotes to support his observations and conclusions in this provocative if flawed memoir. (Nov.)

In this timely, eloquent and meticulously researched assessment of the “strategic partnership” between Russia and China, Lo (Vladimir Putin and the Evolution of Russian Foreign Policy) explores how their alliance has evolved on political, economic and military fronts. The author counters recent claims that cooperation has reached “a level unprecedented in history” with salient examples of opportunism and narrowly defined self-interest on issues ranging from foreign policy and energy to weapons and national security. While the image of a formal, longstanding partnership bolters their standing in the international community—and as a counterbalance to U.S. hegemony—there are fault lines: Russia fears Chinese irredentism in its far eastern regions (once part of imperial China during the Qing dynasty and inhabited by ethnic Chinese populations), and China must temper its need for Russian energy and weapons to avoid perceptions of dependence and risking its important trade links with the U.S. Lo suggests possible directions in which these ties and hierarchies are likely to shift in the next decade, illuminating the mechanisms and realities behind rhetoric and media-spin in which political regimes are often complicit. (Nov.)

Ott, a former Prince William Sound fisherman and longtime activist around the Exxon Valdez Alaska oil spill of 1989, pours plenty of passion into this exhaustive account of the financial and psychological toll on the residents of Cordova, the town most affected by the disaster. Her book is a scathing indictment of Exxon's take-no-prisoners legal roadblocks. She enumerates the full horror of the spill's aftermath: the 1989 loss of $50 million in fishery revenue, a botched cleanup effort, the onslaught of oil-company lobbyists and continuing fish habitat degradation. Ott focuses on Cordova's struggle to rebuild a sense of community while coping with personal bankruptcies and failing marriages, and covers the legal skirmishing for compensation for the more than 3,000 fishermen who filed claims, closing with a melancholy coda following the Supreme Court's decision to reduce the original jury award against Exxon from more than $5 billion to about $500 million—“devastating news” for those “whose lives entered a state of turmoil some 19 years ago.” Though Ott's narrative is often bogged down with too much detail, she covers an enormous amount of ground with engaging humanity. (Nov.)

British twins Andy and Dave Hamilton provide an inspiring blueprint for eco-living in this elegantly styled guide. The first-time authors posit that while it's impossible—or at least undesirable—to revert to foraging and cave-dwelling, it is possible to be “self sufficient-ish.” To that end, they roll out hundreds of suggestions in four general areas (home, garden, food and lifestyle) to help readers live more harmoniously with Mother Earth. Particularly engaging are their discussions of small-scale beekeeping, harvesting of “wild foods,” home beer, wine and cider making, small space kitchen gardening and low-carbon holidays. While a long list of books on permaculture and other techniques have helped thousands get off the grid, this book has a more inviting feel for those who want to make à la carte green adjustments to their life. The book does have drawbacks: much of its information can be found on the authors' own popular site (www.selfsufficientish.com); and the exclusive British focus leaves those in other countries confused during lengthy discussions of specific edible mushrooms and planting calendars. Yet the book's lush color photography, earnest prose and pragmatic approach will appeal widely as concern over global warming mounts. (Nov.)

Physicist and Ig Nobel Prize–winner Fisher (How to Dunk a Doughnut) explores how game theory illuminates social behavior in this lively study. Developed in the 1940s, game theory is concerned with the decisions people make when confronted with competitive situations, especially when they have limited information about the other players' choices. Every competitive situation has a point called a Nash Equilibrium, in which parties cannot change their course of action without sabotaging themselves, and Fisher demonstrates that situations can be arranged so that the Nash Equilibrium is the best possible outcome for everyone. To this end, he examines how social norms and our sense of fair play can produce cooperative solutions rather than competitive ones. Fisher comes up short of solving the problem of human competitiveness, but perhaps that is too tall an order. Game theory works better as a toolkit for understanding behavior than as a rule book for directing it. Fisher does succeed in making the complex nature of game theory accessible and relevant, showing how mathematics applies to the dilemmas we face on a daily basis. (Nov.)

Signature

Reviewed by Leslie Chang

In Outliers, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) once again proves masterful in a genre he essentially pioneered—the book that illuminates secret patterns behind everyday phenomena. His gift for spotting an intriguing mystery, luring the reader in, then gradually revealing his lessons in lucid prose, is on vivid display. Outliers begins with a provocative look at why certain five-year-old boys enjoy an advantage in ice hockey, and how these advantages accumulate over time. We learn what Bill Gates, the Beatles and Mozart had in common: along with talent and ambition, each enjoyed an unusual opportunity to intensively cultivate a skill that allowed them to rise above their peers. A detailed investigation of the unique culture and skills of Eastern European Jewish immigrants persuasively explains their rise in 20th-century New York, first in the garment trade and then in the legal profession. Through case studies ranging from Canadian junior hockey champions to the robber barons of the Gilded Age, from Asian math whizzes to software entrepreneurs to the rise of his own family in Jamaica, Gladwell tears down the myth of individual merit to explore how culture, circumstance, timing, birth and luck account for success—and how historical legacies can hold others back despite ample individual gifts. Even as we know how many of these stories end, Gladwell restores the suspense and serendipity to these narratives that make them fresh and surprising.

One hazard of this genre is glibness. In seeking to understand why Asian children score higher on math tests, Gladwell explores the persistence and painstaking labor required to cultivate rice as it has been done in East Asia for thousands of years; though fascinating in its details, the study does not prove that a rice-growing heritage explains math prowess, as Gladwell asserts. Another pitfall is the urge to state the obvious: “No one,” Gladwell concludes in a chapter comparing a high-IQ failure named Chris Langan with the brilliantly successful J. Robert Oppenheimer, “not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone.” But who in this day and age believes that a high intelligence quotient in itself promises success? In structuring his book against that assumption, Gladwell has set up a decidedly flimsy straw man.

In the end it is the seemingly airtight nature of Gladwell's arguments that works against him. His conclusions are built almost exclusively on the findings of others—sociologists, psychologists, economists, historians—yet he rarely delves into the methodology behind those studies. And he is free to cherry-pick those cases that best illustrate his points; one is always left wondering about the data he evaluated and rejected because it did not support his argument, or perhaps contradicted it altogether. Real life is seldom as neat as it appears in a Malcolm Gladwell book. (Nov.)

Leslie T. Chang is the author of Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China (Spiegel & Grau).

Take a trip to New Delhi or New Jersey—or even back in time—with these lavish photography books.

Although photographer Meola's claim that he is “drawn to India because the people are blessed with childhood's sense of wonder” seems slightly patronizing, his photographs are an affectionate tribute to the subcontinent's diversity and history. Meola has a fine eye for detail and devotes equal attention to the grand and the humble, from spectacular Buddhist mandalas and Rajasthan's sprawling forts to rose-ringed parakeets nesting in trees or henna on a woman's hands. Suffused with light and color, his images sidestep cliché to achieve an intimacy and spontaneity that readers will relish. Excerpts from such writers as Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul round out this breathtaking book. (Nov.)

This sleek anthology of iconic images is a nostalgic delight for photography and history buffs. By leaving the book virtually free of text, the editors allow the images to speak for themselves. Classic moments are beautifully reproduced: Margaret Bourke-White's portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, the Apollo 11 launch, the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics, various Kennedy campaign trails, Princess Diana's wedding—as well as whimsical snapshots of Americana and stunning photographs of painters Pollock, Dalí and Picasso. Removable prints allow readers to enjoy even better the collection's vivid, high-quality pictures. (Oct.)

Cohen, creator of the photojournalism book America 24/7, edits this socially conscious collection of haunting photographs and disappointing essays that focus on the unchecked ravages of genocide, global warming, AIDS, child labor, extreme poverty and compulsive consumerism. While the pictures—especially the chilling “Images of Genocide” and Stephanie Seymour's portraits of child brides—disquiet with their beauty and horror, the accompanying text from such luminaries as Jeffrey Sachs and Bill McKibben is unfortunately hollow and anodyne, particularly Cohen's introduction (“do something... even something small... to help repair the world”), but Omer Bartov's statement that “Iconic photographs both record the deeds and potentially anesthetize us to them” provides a powerful caveat for this collection. (Sept.)

The photographs, taken over a span of 10 years, in Lutz's debut monograph remarkably reveal the swampy, 32-mile area that “separates New Jersey from... the rest of the United States of America.” Lutz's fascination with the heavily polluted Meadowlands is contagious, and his compositions gild the seedy motels and impassive empty lots with a lush, despairing beauty. The evocative and moody portraits of drifters and the disenchanted are unforgettable; Lutz's images are powerfully affecting but never exaggerated or disingenuous. A stunning first collection. (Aug.)

Can old rocks and bones support the Bible? The inscription on an ancient ossuary put this question to the test.

In November 2002, the public display of an ossuary (an ancient burial vessel) inscribed “James, the brother of Jesus,” sent ripples of excitement, doubt and consternation through both the religious and scholarly worlds. But when scholars took a close look, they declared the inscription a forgery based on the lack of provenance and a tremendous disparity between the physical writing of the word “James” and the rest of the inscription. In her captivating chronicle, veteran journalist Burleigh (Mirage) enters a dark world full of shady dealings, illicit collectors and monomaniacal archeologists. Along the way we meet an improbable cast of characters, including Oded Golan, the ossuary's owner; André Lemaire, an epigraphist who early on testified to the authenticity of the ossuary's inscription; Shlomo Moussaieff, a billionaire collector with a warehouse full of artifacts of uncertain value; and Israel Finkelstein, a maverick Israeli archeologist who questions the historicity of many biblical events. Burleigh draws readers in from page one and brilliantly captures the compelling debates about archeology's relationship to narratives of faith. (Nov.)