Nonfiction Book Reviews: 10/26/2009

This sprawling text reconstructs the history of civilization in order to illuminate the importance of water in human development from the first civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and the Indus River Valley to the present. Solomon (The Confidence Game) advances a persuasive argument: the prosperity of nations and empires has depended on their access to water and their ability to harness water resources. The story he tells is familiar, but his emphasis on water is unique: he shows how the Nile's flood patterns determined political unity and dynastic collapses in Egypt. He suggests that the construction of China's Grand Canal made possible a sixth-century reunification that eluded the Roman Empire. Finally, he attributes America's rise to superpower status to such 20th-century water innovations as the Panama Canal and Hoover Dam. Solomon surveys the current state of the world's water resources by region, making a compelling case that the U.S. and other leading democracies have untapped strategic advantages that will only become more significant as water becomes scarcer. (Feb.)

Nash culls reminiscences from long-term girlfriends, starlets like Ann-Margret and Cybill Shepherd, and assorted strippers, showgirls and groupies for this gossipy, besotted biography of rock's original sex god. They attest to the allure that had females lining up for access to the young Elvis's bed: devastating looks, pelvic gyrations and a bad-boy sneer combined with a romantic soul, sublime kissing technique and a courtliness that lulled parents into handing over their underage daughters. (He was attracted to 14-year-old brunettes, Nash argues, like future wife Priscilla.) And there's the indefinable magnetism—i.e., celebrity—that kept them coming through the drugs and debauchery, the bizarre monologues and random gunplay, the impotence and incontinence and vomit and bloat of the King's declining years. Nash's mix of breathless melodrama (“his voice was soft and sensuous, and he had a mischievous grin on his face, and he was looking straight at her”) with rote psychoanalysis (“Elvis could never really let go of [his mother] Gladys”) often reads like a fan magazine. Her shallow but vivid portrait nonetheless manages to evoke much of what made Elvis so enthralling. (Jan. 5)

Fellman (Inside War) examines the “central” role of terrorism “in the development of the American state” in this provocative academic treatise. Defining terrorism broadly as “overlapping forms of political violence”—i.e., an interchange between state and nonstate actors—Fellman offers five historical case studies that demonstrate “the underlying currents of terrorism intrinsic to the formation of American society.” The detailed case studies cover the expected episodes: the radical abolitionist John Brown's 1859 raid on the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Va.; Union Gen. William T. Sherman's “scorched earth” march through Georgia; the white-supremacist—e.g., Ku Klux Klan, Mississippi White Line—campaign against Reconstruction; the 1886 Haymarket Square affair; and the Philippines War of 1899–1902. Fellman shows that throughout American history “the uses of political violence have been motivated by religious certitude coupled with psychological anxiety.” In a brief coda, the author argues that “these historical cases created the political template for modern-day American terrorism following September 11.” Although at times Fellman overstates the primacy of terrorism in shaping American institutions, this is a thoughtful and compelling re-evaluation of terrorism's long and often profound influence in our history. (Jan.)

America's mad romance with consumer debt is finally on the decline, and Farrell, economics editor for public radio's Marketplace Money, guides readers to a healthier relationship with their finances. Personal finance is more than just money, he points out; it's about deciding how to live a good life, figuring out what you really cherish and value, then putting your money behind those goals and beliefs—and how living environmentally conscious is a natural outgrowth (and happy consequence) of living within your means. He examines the evolution of consumer debt and moves on to offer concrete advice on dealing with risk and debt, putting savings aside for investing, college, retirement, charitable giving—and realizing if and when you “have enough.” With an emphasis on changing the way we live to make the most of what we have and promoting moderation, Farrell provides a solid and encouraging high-level overview of individual financial health. (Jan.)

Wood, founder of the ingenious Wealth Watchers program, shares her accessible plan for financial independence in this highly original, commonsense approach to managing money. Her plan is based on the tenets of Weight Watchers—but rather than counting calories, readers are encouraged to figure out how much money they can spend each day. It's extraordinarily simple: Wood advocates basic action steps that anyone can take, including getting organized, creating a monthly budget, setting goals and journaling. She discusses the best approach to handling fixed expenses (e.g., housing and insurance) and semifixed expenses (e.g., transportation and child care) and includes a daily, monthly, quarterly and yearly journal in the back of the book for the reader to complete. Easy to follow and complemented by the author's well-told personal story, this unassuming book won't intimidate those with little financial knowledge and provides the simple tools everyone can use to take control of their finances. (Jan.)

After compiling several books of essays featuring other people's voices (I Like Being Catholic), popular Beliefnet.com blogger Borchard lifts her own voice to tell her story. She's a mental health train wreck—recovering alcoholic, bipolar, a touch of obsessive-compulsive, highly sensitive and therefore easily overstimulated in places like Toys R Us, where mothers of young children are sentenced to go. Fortunately for Borchard's family and herself, too, this is a funny book that she lived to write, after six psychiatrists, 23 medication combinations and hospitalization. Borchard's gift and distinction is her humor, the golden rope out of the pit of despair and a tool for transforming hysteria into hysterical laughter. She does a good job of countering the you-are-what-you-think crowd who blame the mentally ill for their own illness. Some readers might find there's TMI (too much information), but the author's desire to be helpful is boundless. This self-help memoir offers hope, particularly for those with intractable depression. Even better, it offers levity. (Jan. 6)

One of the most widely read and respected writers of detective fiction, James (The Private Patient) explores the genre's origins (focusing primarily on Britain) and its lasting appeal. James cites Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, published in 1868, as the first detective novel and its hero, Sergeant Cuff, as one of the first literary examples of the professional detective (modeled after a real-life Scotland Yard inspector). As for Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, James argues that their staying power has as much to do with the gloomy London atmosphere, “the enveloping miasma of mystery and terror,” as with the iconic sleuth. Devoting much of her time to writers in the Golden Age of British detective fiction (essentially between the two world wars), James dissects the work of four heavyweights: Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh. Though she's more appreciative of Marsh and Allingham (declaring them “novelists, not merely fabricators of ingenious puzzles”), James acknowledges not only the undeniable boost these women gave to the genre but their continuing appeal. For crime fiction fans, this master class from one of the leading practitioners of the art will be a real treat. 9 illus. (Dec.)

For a quarter-century now, Duke University's Petroski has replaced Samuel Florman as the foremost American civil engineer explaining to lay audiences the nature of engineering and its crucial role in improving the world. Petroski has long been outraged by the persistent elevation of scientists over engineers in terms of intelligence and creativity. Yet none of Petroski's 14 books on technology has argued so aggressively as his newest that engineers do not merely apply what scientists discover. Instead, engineers seek the most appropriate solution out of several to any engineering problem—not the supposedly single solution requiring diligence rather than depth. Analyzing both historical and contemporary examples, from climate change to public health, Petroski shows how science often overlooks structural, economic, environmental and aesthetic dimensions that routinely challenge engineers. Moreover, he says, sometimes science trails technology, as when engineers had to design the first moon landing vehicles before scientists learned its surface composition. Far from being hostile toward science, Petroski pleads for continued cooperation between science and engineering. When, as Petroski laments, even President Obama has sometimes omitted engineering in touting science, this book could hardly be more timely. Illus. (Jan.)

Noted literary critic Kermode (Shakespeare's Language) presents in part his 2007 Clark lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, given eight decades after Forster's own Clark lectures (published as Aspects of the Novel) and in part a “causerie” (“a loosely organized sequence of observations”), in which “Forster is reduced in size, placed in a wider context, and occasionally scolded.” Kermode provides erudite and good-humored insights into Forster's artistic philosophies, plus deft analyses of the techniques of Forster's contemporaries, such as Henry James (whose style Forster disliked), Virginia Wolfe, Ford Madox Ford and Forster favorite Marcel Proust. Enlarging on Benjamin Britten's remark that Forster was “our most musical novelist,” Kermode shows how musical “transformation and return of phrases was an art he practiced with success in his novels.” Kermode makes the case that Forster's homosexuality was the reason for “his long abstention from fiction” and establishes that Forster placed himself in a “cultivated minority” above the working classes. Kermode is a delightful mentor for readers wishing to reflect not only on Forster's “creativity but on the personal and social circumstances that restricted it.” (Dec.)

The protean Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) seemed to be at the periphery of great events and movements, from Zionism to the forked world of the cold war. Scammell, author of an award-winning biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, views Koestler with balanced patience in this somewhat overlong but definitive biography. A manic-depressive with a Napoleonic complex, Koestler relished feuds with fellow intellectuals such as B.F. Skinner and Isaiah Berlin. He rubbed elbows with Camus, Sartre, Beauvoir and Orwell. Gide, as Scammell points out, stung with his observation that Koestler was better off sticking to journalism. In fact, the last 20 years of Koestler's life were devoted to such flakiness as ESP and levitation. Koestler's dilettantish range of interests is so broad, it's difficult for the biographer to get his hands on his slippery subject. Even after his most successful novels, Darkness at Noon and Thieves in the Night, Koestler never let up. Yet his flip-flops on Zionism and his oddly passive reaction to the Soviet rule of his native Hungary might leave one pondering Koestler's legacy in our vastly different 21st century. 16 pages of photos. (Dec.)

Rejecting as myth that Henry VIII, desirous of a son and a new queen, asked his principal adviser Thomas Cromwell to find criminal grounds for executing Anne Boleyn, the prolific British historian Weir (The Six Wives of Henry VIII) concludes that Cromwell himself, seeing Anne as a political rival, instigated “one of the most astonishing and brutal coups in English history,” skillfully framing her and destroying her faction. Ably weighing the reliability of contemporary sources and theories of other historians, Weir also claims that though perhaps sexually experienced, Anne was technically a virgin before sleeping with Henry. Anne was also, Weir posits, a passionate radical evangelical, with considerable influence over Henry regarding Church reform. Weir wonders if Anne's childbearing history points to her being Rh negative and thus incapable of bearing a second living child. Dissecting four of the most momentous months in world history and providing an eminently judicious, thorough and absorbing popular history, Weir nimbly sifts through a mountain of historical research, allowing readers to come to their own conclusions about Henry's doomed second queen. 15 pages of color photos. (Dec.)

In this complement to his NBCC award–winning Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, Harvard librarian Darnton chronicles in scholarly detail (with 74 pages of notes) and well-selected illustrations the role of libel and slander in 18th-century France. He focuses on the political force of books, pamphlets and periodicals written by expatriates in London, Grub Street–type journalists who destroyed reputations and helped bring down governments. But he also shows how they created meaning and myths for the common people, revealing the wicked, privileged and lewd lives of kings, aristocrats, monks and ministers as well as their servants, mistresses and dancing masters. These anecdotes were distributed for political reasons, inventions that titillated and inflamed the public. They had such titles as Secret Memoirs, The Parisian Police Unveiled and The Private Life of Louis XV (the king's body “corrupted by pox and sapped of its virility”). Although the names and events are sometimes overwhelming, the tale is an intriguing one, and Darnton, our leading historian of the book, is the man to tell it. 47 illus. (Dec.)

Glove up and dive in to what Hollingham describes as a “whistle-stop tour” of a gruesome and fascinating field. The BBC journalist and author (How to Clone the Perfect Blonde) is a deft storyteller who probably never met a dry fact he couldn't infuse with juicy detail. But there's more here than the drive, energy and bravery of medical pioneers, both doctors and patients, from Galen treating gladiators in the second century B.C.E. to Stuart Carter, the first person to have electrical brain implants to treat Parkinson's disease. Hollingham gives us a tribute not only to saving lives but to making them better. Still, it's the missteps that remind us of the human fallibility of even the greatest doctors. “[Robert] Liston's operations were messy, bloody and traumatic,” Hollingham writes of Britain's most famous 19th-century surgeon, describing a procedure in which Liston accidentally lopped off an assistant's fingers. “The patient died of infection, as did the assistant, and an observer died of shock. It was the only operation in surgical history with a 300 percent mortality rate.” What better medical history than one that recounts both successes and failures with honesty and gratitude. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Dec. 8)

Both an ophthalmologist and a public health expert at Johns Hopkins, Sommer can honestly claim to have affected millions of lives with his pioneering work in vitamin A deficiency and blindness prevention. In this small gem he gamely takes on America's health care crisis. “We have lost sight of the essentials” that underlie good health, he declares. Making ample use of graphs, tables and maps to illustrate his clear history, Sommer offers a commonsense approach to our dilemma. Want to understand the West's dramatic improvements in life expectancy? Consider simple, inexpensive improvements in standards of living and public health, such as sanitation and nutrition, that predated the explosion of drugs and medical interventions, he asserts. Will the “public option” impair our national health? Look no further than Canada and England, where it works—and where residents are just as long-lived and healthy. Sommer concludes that Americans' health will improve as they “adopt healthier lifestyles and as better, more cost-effective interventions are developed and made available to all.” His cry may get lost in the noisy national debate, but its clarity deserves to be heard. 31 line drawings. (Dec.)

Washington Post science journalist Vedantam theorizes that there's a hidden world in our heads filled with unconscious biases, often small, hidden errors in thinking that manipulate our attitudes and actions without our knowing it. Autonomy is a myth, he says, because knowledge and rational intention are not responsible for our choices. This thesis is not news— since Freud, psychologists have taken the unconscious into account—but Vedanta argues that if we are influenced sometimes, then why not all the time, whether we're launching a romance or a genocide. This is a frightening leap in logic. In anecdotal, journalistic prose, we learn that, through bias, rape victims can misidentify their attacker; people are more honest even with just a subtle indication that they are being watched; polite behavior has to do with the frontotemporal lobes rather than with how one was raised; and that we can be unconsciously racist and sexist. Though drawing on the latest psychological research, Vedantam's conclusions are either trite or unconvincing. (Jan. 19)

According to educator and historian Rosenbaum, Bay Area Jews have encountered relatively little anti-Semitism and have been deeply enmeshed in virtually every phase of local history since the Gold Rush. While Levi Strauss is arguably the city's standout entrepreneur and Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern its most celebrated musical prodigies, other Jews are also prominent. Both Judah Magnes, founder and first chancellor of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, and influential writer Gertrude Stein credited the cultural diversity of their Oakland youth for setting them on a path of personal freedom and intellectual honesty. A patrician businessman who championed the poor, women's suffrage and an improved fire department, San Francisco's Adolph Sutro became the first Jewish mayor of a major American city in 1894. Rose Pesotta, Elaine Black and Samuel Adams Darcy were militant union organizers; and Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978, became the first openly gay office holder in America. This is an absorbing and colorfully detailed story of a minority's outsized impact on its society, particularly in the spheres of the arts, business and politics. 38 b&w photos. (Dec.)

American readers will learn a great deal about Arab perspectives on the war in Iraq from Mansour, an Egyptian journalist and host of an al-Jazeera talk show, in this account of the bloody battles for Fallujah. In April 2004, Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah ambushed an SUV, killing four Blackwater private security guards (widely hated for their violence and arrogance, and called mercenaries by the author). Afterward, a civilian mob mutilated the bodies, dragged them through the streets and hung them from a bridge. Soon American forces surrounded the city, but Mansour's TV crew slipped past; according to Mansour, they were the only journalists inside. Their vivid reports of bombing in residential areas and horrific civilian casualties proved an American public relations disaster. Partly as a result, U.S. forces withdrew, but returned later that year (with Mansour gone) and devastated the city. Mansour writes a gripping eyewitness account of the fighting without concealing his dislike of the American invasion and occupation. Readers may squirm at the account of the assault on the Blackwater guards (and the American attack that followed)—but most of all, perhaps, at the hatred of the American occupation that the grisly action expressed. (Dec.)

A better, more enriching life is as easy as 1, 2, 3... 4, 5, 6, 7, according to Leo's first foray into authorhood after a long career as editor-in-chief and editorial director of such publications as Child magazine and Reader's Digest. Leo presents a laundry list of arguments, expert opinions and historical factoids for her theory that the number seven is an organizing principle because, as research shows, the brain can only handle seven pieces of information (such as digits) at one time. Seven, she says, can improve productivity, memory, love, learning and life in general by simplifying the overwhelming modern world. She lists seven behaviors for emotional intelligence, education expert Howard Gardner's seven types of intelligence, the seven things that made her friend Ed happy and so on, ad nauseam. Leo's background in short-feature editorial is tightly woven into her narrative structure, and the invasion of mindless tidbits, graphics and number seven sidebars busy up the pages, creating the kind of overstimulation it vows to cure. Advice seekers ought to consider the classic 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for a recipe for success. (Dec.)

A year after Gary Andrew Poole's full-scale Red Grange biography (The Galloping Ghost), Sports Illustrated reporter Anderson (The All-Americans) focuses on Grange's decision, at the height of his popularity as a college football star, to drop out of school and sign with the Chicago Bears in 1925—who, to capitalize on his fame, lined up 10 games in 18 days so fans in seven cities could see him in action (and that was just the first leg of their national tour). It's a great story, but Anderson has trouble staying out of its way; he continually oversells in an effort to persuade readers for whom Grange is an unfamiliar name that he was as big as Babe Ruth or Jack Dempsey. The effort is unnecessary: the significance of Grange's status as a wholesome star athlete entering the “unseemly” world of the fledgling NFL speaks for itself, as does the amazing success of his manager's efforts to cash in on Grange's fame. (Between the Bears and various endorsement deals, they made roughly $500,000 in two months—over $6 million in today's dollars.) At times, the account feels like a solid magazine piece that's been stretched thin, reducing a genuinely transformative moment in sports history to an episodic highlight reel. (Dec. 29)

Before young basketball players wanted to Be Like Mike, they aspired to fly like Julius Erving. Noted basketball writer Mallozzi was one of those kids who modeled his game after the man they called Dr. J, and his biography does justice to one of the greatest basketball players ever. While Erving declined to be interviewed for the book, there's enough insight from those close to him for a complete portrayal. Erving goes from a talented but not heavily recruited high schooler to a rising collegiate standout at the University of Massachusetts, and eventual superstar in the ABA (New York Nets) and NBA (Philadelphia 76ers). Of course, Erving is most known for his aerial assaults, looking like an “angel flying across the heavens.” Beyond that, Mallozzi shows us how Erving not only developed an all-around game to complement his acrobatics but also became a consummate teammate, a mentor to younger players and a friend to both former coaches and players. There's also the darker side of Erving's life, mostly after his retirement, including the tragic death of his teenage son and lengthy saga about his once-estranged daughter. But in the end, Mallozzi concludes that Erving is as good a person as he was a basketball player, and based on the near-unanimous consensus on that premise by those interviewed, it's hard to argue. It's a well-researched yet fun look into the man to whom current NBA dunkers owe a debt of gratitude. (Dec.)

A patchwork of personal narratives knitted around the impact of U.S. foreign policy before and after September 11, this book brings together leading voices in world literature, academia and international media including Chris Abani, Ricardo Alarcón and Terry Eagleton. Ranging from the autobiographical to the philosophical, these pieces reflect on how American cultural, military and political imperialism touches lives from Mexico to Morocco, Canada to China. A recurring theme of these informal essays is the psychosocial conflict that results from loving American music, food and such historical and pop culture as Marilyn Monroe, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bruce Springsteen, while despising Reagan and Bush. The authors also turn the mirror on themselves to examine why so many non-Americans claim a moral high ground while also assuming that they know “how to be better Americans than the Americans” through the spread of global consumerism. Full of humor and pathos in equal and abounding measure, this compact volume covers the intellectual ground from “Donald Duck to Donald Rumsfeld” with wit, depth and originality. (Dec.)

A warmhearted introduction to philosophy that blends Eastern and Western intellectual traditions with specific exercises to enhance the reader's ability to think philosophically for herself. Over the course of 10 topics ranging from “Simplicity” to “Joy,” and with a decided emphasis on self-improvement, McCarty (Little Big Minds) discusses a wide variety of philosophers, ranging from such canonical figures as Plato and Sartre to those—like Charlotte Joko-Beck—who sit closer to the New Age end of the spectrum. Throughout, the author emphasizes the ability of active reflection to improve lives, by promoting open-mindedness, the awareness of cultural diversity, social understanding and the ability to recognize priorities. Though the book contains little that is not already common currency among self-help manuals, its focus on philosophizing as a group activity and on the everyday practice of thinking, supplemented by each chapter's collection of exercises centered around music, poetry and the arts, taken together provide a pleasantly tangible approach to understanding how notions like tolerance, flexibility and perspective can enrich our busy lives. (Dec.)

The ideas of the arch-deconstructionist philosopher are illuminated but not entirely clarified in this ambivalent study. Mikics (A New Handbook of Literary Terms) gives an insightful and blessedly readable rundown of Derrida's debt—and objections—to such thinkers as Husserl, Sartre, Nietzsche and Freud. He's less successful at explicating Derrida's own doctrines—the resistance of language to stable meanings, the opacity of the self, the relativism of morals—perhaps because Derrida disdained the very concept of explicability. The author frames his subject as a skeptic trying to expunge psychology and metaphysics from philosophy, but the quotations he proffers—“Justice remains to come, it remains by coming, it has to come, it is to come, the to-come”—make Derrida seem as “semi-intelligible” as detractors claim. Mikics is most compelling when he criticizes Derrida—for misrepresenting other philosophers, for betraying his own principles and for his weaselly defense of the anti-Semitic writings of literary critic Paul de Man, an exercise in deconstructionism as sophistry and deceit. Mikics finds Derrida “neither so brilliantly right nor so badly wrong” as reputed, but his sharp portrait can make Derrida, in certain lights, seem very wrong indeed. (Dec.)

Though the poisons of pollution and the encroachment of climate change are continuing environmental threats, it's the acceleration of biodiversity loss that most alarms Fraser (God's Perfect Child) in this well-sourced study of worldwide attempts to knit together enough ecosystems to keep life alive. The problem: the disappearance of nature itself—the mass extinction of species, from lumbering polar bears to fragile flowers—that could see half of all nonhuman life extinct by the end of this century. The solution: rewilding—a nascent “resurrection ecology” that designs wildlife refuges (“cores”) and, more importantly, creates corridors connecting one refuge to another so that species such as elephants, tigers and wolves can range more wildly, a key to survival. Successful rewilding in North America, the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, has led to a rebound in mountain lion and bear populations; more unexpectedly, the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea, a narrow 155-mile-long corridor uninhabited by humans for 55 years, has seen an ecological rebirth and is now home to 67 endangered species. Though Fraser's fact-heavy prose is slow reading, her story of grassroots activism paired with the scientific is environmentally inspirational. (Dec.)

Furness, a corporate motivator and trainer, distills pearls of wisdom from “tigers,” outstanding achievers who succeed at work and life and stand apart from the crowd. He shares case studies of such tigers as Sarah Bailey, winner of 16 paralympic medals; Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airways; and Dave Willis, CEO and founder of Whitford Worldwide. The author explores the characteristics that make tigers so successful: they clearly define objectives and set goals in every area of their lives, surround themselves with a close-knit team handpicked more for will than for skill and attend to work/life balance, a key component in living well. Helpful tips punctuate the book, offering advice on related topics. Furness also offers sound advice to help avoid common recruiting pitfalls, stresses the habits of top performers and emphasizes the importance of thinking creatively. Lastly, he provides thoughtful guidance on maintaining an open-door policy, looking the part and making connections. (Dec.)