Nonfiction Reviews

The 18th-century rococo artist Jean-Antoine Watteau is art critic Perl's favorite painter, one who transforms “powerful feelings—of love, friendship, lust, avidity, curiosity—into delectable artistic play” and “poetic pattern.” Perl's exquisitely composed study is organized alphabetically; from “Actors” and “Art-for-Art's Sake” to “Zeuxis,” and each chapter involves a theme, individual or movement related to Watteau. There are many delightful surprises, even to the reader familiar with the artist's oeuvre; Perl illuminates the links between Watteau's Harlequins and Pierrots and Beckett's characters, “so clownish and so heartrending.” His entry on “Flirtation” expands this theme, ubiquitous in Watteau's paintings, into a profound commentary on love and metamorphosis. Perl's essays on Watteau's most famous works, The Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera and Gersaint's Shopsign, are equally inspired; Cythera displays what for Perl are Watteau's most poignant themes: the confounding of one's own emotions and the “elegant chaos” of the mind's consistently contradictory nature. Perl, art critic for the New Republic, has written a carefully researched, book of rare beauty and provocation. 44 illus. (Sept. 19)

This brisk and likable new memoir by the prolific and plainspoken former U.S. poet laureate Hall (White Apples and the Taste of Stone) covers the years before and after the period he and the late poet Jane Kenyon famously shared. After a childhood divided between his beloved rural New Hampshire and frustrating suburban Connecticut, he devoted himself in high school to poems, composing lines (“Dead people don't like olives”) at all hours. He felt out of place at a prestigious boarding school, but at home at 1940s Harvard, where he met Frank O'Hara, Edward Gorey, John Ashbery, and Robert Bly (who would become Hall's closest friend). Over a series of moves—back and forth between England and the U.S. (he considered Oxford University “a party school”), he finally left academia to live in New Hampshire with Jane Kenyon. He became a successful professional poet and a prolific freelance writer, meeting and working with George Plimpton and with the widow of the actor Charles Laughton, Eva La Gallienne. The memoir's last segment is by far its most affecting: the afflictions of grief and of old age—a stroke, trouble driving and walking, a scary manic episode—join up with the pleasure and ironies of late-life fame. (Sept.)

In 1962 Allen Ginsberg wrote to Bertrand Russell: “All I know is, I've lived in the midst of apparent worldly events and apparent transcendental insights, and it all adds up to I don't know what.” Both the worldliness and the transcendence come through in these letters by the beat poet, published for the first time. As the poet's biographer and prolific literary archivist, Morgan has selected just 165 out of more than 3,700 letters. They offer a comprehensive look at Ginsberg's life, from his earliest letter to the New York Times in 1941 to his dying message to Bill Clinton requesting an arts prize “unless it's politically inadvisable or inexpedient.” Ginsberg wrote at length to just about anyone: Kerouac and other literary colleagues, of course, but also journalists and literary critics who failed (in his estimation) to fully appreciate what the beats had accomplished. The playful, experimental side of his personality comes through, from his youthful attempts to attract the attention of Ezra Pound to his experiments with LSD. Ginsberg's admirers will be glad Morgan has followed the poet's instructions not to “smooth out rough horny communist un-American goofy edges.” (Sept. 15)

Skloot had been writing poetry for 20 years, short stories for 15, with three novels on the way, when he was struck with a brain disease that ravaged his memory. Fiction became impossible. Only memoir could help him reassemble his past; two he wrote in this phase, In the Shadow of Memory and A World of Light, have received great praise. This latest memoir moves away from the illness theme to explore what has made Skloot a writer, “the sort of person who could only deal with what happened to him by writing about it.” He first explores what he calls “external” influences forming him as a writer—the discovery that he could fulfill school writing assignments with his baseball mania, that his television heroes like Peter Gunn were cooler as observers than as doers, even that the rituals of cooking could bring comfort. Then he focuses on how his writerly sensibilities have shaped his life—from how he jogged listening “to hear the hidden cadence” to the way he communicated with his aging, memory-impaired mother through song. Skloot is such a fine writer that he can—and does—write about eating “baloney and eggs” and makes it seem fascinating. Writers at any stage of their careers will treasure this volume of clean, expressive prose that delights without ever showing off. (Sept.)

In the 1960s, the author's parents seemed poised to join the exodus of Italian-American families from New York to the suburbs. Instead, thanks to the chronic gambling debts of his father, Hugo, a city welfare bureaucrat who ran an illicit sports-betting operation on the side, they wound up in the Bronx—at the vast Coop City housing project that became a watchword for urban anomie. Ignoring overdue bills and eviction notices, his parents insisted the family partake of the finer things—books, museums, opera, European vacations—all financed by bad checks and fast talking. Journalist Agovino, telling long, colorful conversations from decades past (in a disclaimer Agovino says he taped his parents recalling stories and conversations),  paints a loving, picaresque portrait of his youth and the tension between his mother's yearning for middle-class stability and his father's faith in the big score. He sets it amid an elegy for a white, ethnic New York—the old-country foods, the lovable wise guys—that expired in Coop City's windswept Le Corbusierian sterility. Unfortunately, the author's family seems more eccentric than iconic, and Agovino's narrative, meandering from Caribbean travelogue to summer food-service jobs, doesn't impart much shape to their sociocultural journey. Photos. (Sept.)

A Malawi artist now living in England, Kambalu delivers a wickedly dry memoir that reflects as much the coming-of-age of his impoverished, tiny African country as it does himself. Born in 1975 into a Christian family of eight—an Ngoni mother and a Chewa father with a missionary education—Kambalu spent a peripatetic childhood moving among remote villages at the whim of his father's work as a medical assistant, which provided the family starvation wages. Early memories of being plagued by parasites, malaria, jiggers and various evangelical sects coincide with a growing awareness of his father's temperamental outbursts—fed by alcohol, the “Jive Talker” of the title spewed snippets from Nietzsche and other philosophers to his wary children. By age 12 Kambalu was “Born Again,” then invented his own religion he called “Holyballism,” and eventually secured a much coveted spot at Kamuzu Academy, subsidized by Malawi dictator Banda and modeled on the best British public schools down to its brutal initiation rites. Kambalu's memoir comprises brief, ironical anecdotes and hilarious cameos of “raving eccentrics,” especially during his six-year tenure at Kamuzu. (Sept.)

After describing the sudden onset of madness in one of his older sisters, followed two years later by his younger sister's, Tracey seeks to understand the legacy of schizophrenia that has haunted his family for generations, traced back to his great-great-grandmother Mary Egan, who emigrated from Ireland. His search takes him first to County Roscommon, the mythic center of Ireland, where he explores the Irish lore of fairies who, according to myth, “capture minds from those who lose them.” Tracey then travels to Dublin to consider more scientific explanations for schizophrenia, but even Dr. Dermot Walsh, who helped link the dysbindin gene to this mental state, cannot offer anything conclusive. He concludes his travels at Gleanna-a-Galt where he finds the legendary well his mother told him about when he was a child, a well said to make the mad whole again. In a symbolic gesture—at a loss for anything else he can do—he procures two bottles of the healing water for his sisters. While Tracey finds no conclusive answers, his book helps to dispel misconceptions about schizophrenia and reveals the various attempts by experts to make sense of this mental illness. (Sept.)

In this problematic book, Boston University professor Fromkin (A Peace to End All Peace) asserts a personal strategic relationship between president Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII during the Algeciras Conference of 1906. The gathering was to mediate the future of Morocco; France, backed by other European powers, argued for protectorate status, while Germany, wanting to end French dominance in Morocco, argued for independence. The bulk of the book recounts the lives of Edward VII, his tempestuous nephew Kaiser Wilhelm II, and of TR prior to Algeciras. In emphasizing a collaboration between Roosevelt and Edward, neither of whom attended the conference, Fromkin seems to discount the roles of lead mediator Henry White, and his capable assistant Samuel R. Gunnmere, in orchestrating the results, which were largely unfavorable to Germany. Fromkin likewise discounts the machinations of the British Foreign Office, which outweighed any influence the monarch might have had. Only one direct communiqué—secret or otherwise—between TR and Edward, dispatched after the conference, is cited, making Fromkin's assertion of a close “secret partnership” a reach. Overall, Fromkin's volume is without a raison d'être. Illus. (Sept. 5)

Noted presidential biographer Dallek (An Unfinished Life) turns his skilled pen to the man from Independence. In brisk prose and with the confidence of his vast knowledge of the era, Dallek interprets the life of the simple man who, having unexpectedly and with little experience assumed the presidency when FDR died, surprised everyone by so skillfully shouldering huge burdens. In his day, that meant ending the war with Japan (by authorizing the bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki), ordering American troops to repel the invasion of Korea, firing Douglas MacArthur and facing down the Soviets. It also meant protecting the New Deal from erosion, dealing with striking labor and taking unprecedented steps to desegregate the government and armed forces. Just listing these achievements makes clear why Dallek, like other historians, places Truman high on the list of American presidents. Like so many other biographies in the splendid American Presidents series, Dallek's little book is now the best starting point for knowledge of Truman's life and for an astute assessment of his career. (Sept. 2)

Despite the enthusiastic title, the Intrepid's story is no more epic than that of a dozen others. Yet after entering service in January 1944, it saw plenty of action, as this impassioned history shows. White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, and former fighter pilot Gandt (Bogeys and Bandits) deliver a steady stream of nuts-and-bolts battle action. The war against Japan offered innumerable dogfights, invasion support and sea battles during which the carrier suffered terrible damage from torpedoes and kamikaze attacks. Decommissioned in 1947, it returned to service in 1954 after an extensive overhaul. Details of Cold War cruises lack the fireworks of war, but readers will find some interest in the ship's duties recovering early astronauts. The obsolescent Intrepid served off Vietnam during 1966–1968, losing many planes and pilots. The authors devote 50 pages to the surprisingly difficult process of turning the Intrepid into a popular New York City tourist site. Lowbrow military history, full of purple prose and overwrought, invented dialogue, but undemanding military buffs will enjoy it. Maps. (Sept. 30)

The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded. In his classic, The Long Gray Line, Rick Atkinson followed West Point's 1966 class for 20 years. With only five years' perspective, Murphy lacks Atkinson's depth and epic scope, but his work stands out from much current military reporting by avoiding editorializing about war. He confines himself to a skillful journalistic narrative of events that are gripping enough to hold any reader's attention. (Sept.)

The Bush administration's security and intelligence-gathering policies have inspired few critiques as thorough as Ratner's. The president of the progressive Center for Constitutional Rights presents a mock trial of 14 U.S. government and military officials, Donald Rumsfeld chief among them; with immunity from criminal prosecution while in office, Bush and Cheney are named as unindicted co-conspirators. The charge is torture and war crimes. The opening statement describes the Bush administration's alleged “torture program” in detail and the role the “defendants” played. The “prosecution evidence” includes statements of former Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo detainees describing tortures such as sleep deprivation, water-boarding and stress positions. Ratner presents the defense primarily through government documents, such as the infamous John Yoo memo rejecting the application of the Geneva Accords to detainees. This “defense” is followed by a rebuttal based on international law that systematically rejects the government's arguments. Of course, a real trial would give the defense an opening and closing statement, and books don't allow for cross-examination. Though his case appears strong, Ratner's conceit will appeal primarily to those who have already voted “guilty.” Photos. (Sept.)

For three generations of Matthews's family, Russia was a place that “made us and freed us and inspired us and very nearly broke us.” In this fascinating family memoir, Matthews, Newsweek's Moscow bureau chief, recounts that history. His maternal grandfather was executed in Stalin's purges in 1937. His mother, separated from her own mother for 11 years, grew up essentially as an orphan. But even more extraordinary is the tale of Matthews's parents' relationship. His father, Mervyn Matthews, was a British embassy staffer in Moscow turned graduate student who left Russia after the KGB tried to recruit him in 1960. Returning in 1963, he fell in love with a Soviet woman, but when he again refused to do business with the KGB, he was thrown out of the country. For the next several years, he lobbied to reunite with the woman who would become Matthews's mother, finally getting her out of the USSR in 1969. Drawing on KGB files and his parents' hundreds of letters from their years of separation in the 1960s, Matthews (now married to a Russian woman) relates this dramatic tale in understated but lovely prose. B&w illus. (Sept.)

Textbooks have long served as a main battlefield in the culture wars and the latest salvo comes from Schweikart, a history professor at the University of Dayton (A Patriot's History of the United States), who examines leading American history texts and other books that he sees as purveying “a distinctly slanted view of American history—one that portrays the United States as oppressive, imperialistic, and evil.” Each “lie” is deliberated in a brief essay. A chapter on the notion that FDR knew in advance that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor focuses largely on countering Robert Stinnett's Day of Deceit. The belief that Columbus was responsible for killing millions of Indians (“drivel”) is, he says, based on faulty statistics. In examining the belief that Richard Nixon sent burglars into the Watergate office complex, the author accepts G. Gordon Liddy's account of events over John Dean's. Regarding the Rosenbergs, Schweikart cites Soviet documents proving they were indeed spies. Schweikart marshals an arsenal of statistics and scholarly studies, and while his own biases will limit his reach, he offers an object lesson in the need for scrupulous balance in the writing of history textbooks. (Sept. 4)

Drawing on an astonishing amount of research, Israeli journalist Bergman describes in fascinating detail the three-decade “intelligence struggle” between Iran and the West. It is a grim history dominated by “a series of failures,” including the rise of Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's alliance with Syria and the regime's success in shielding its nuclear program from international scrutiny. Despite some recent Iranian setbacks—e.g., the 2007 Israeli “Ghost Raid” against a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor—Bergman concludes that Middle Eastern skies “have not looked so gloomy for a long time.” Among the revelations certain to resonate in the U.S. is Bergman's contention that a secret file exists that “proves unequivocally that George H.W. Bush surely knew about all the illegal goings-on” in the Iran-Contra scandal—something Bush has always denied. Bergman stops short of recommending a course of action, but he makes a convincing case that Iran is not only a terrorist state but also the “greatest security challenge the U.S. is facing.” Thoroughly researched and persuasively argued, Bergman's brief against Iran adds a powerful voice to a contentious debate. (Sept.)

Traub (The Best Intentions) tries to rescue the policy of democracy-promotion from the ashes of the Iraq War in this book that is both a critique of contemporary politics and a nimble history of the continuities in American foreign policy. According to the author, the “Freedom Agenda”—George W. Bush's declaration that American liberty is dependent on “liberty in other lands” is—for all its contemporary bungling—a “venerable American axiom.” The ambition to export democracy has been “our missionary impulse,” an impulse the book traces from McKinley's 1898 invasion of the Philippines. Securing democracy at home and abroad is essential, argues Traub; “our own security depends on the progress of liberty”—just not with the “heavy-handed and often bellicose” approach of the Bush administration. Although he gives short shrift to historical democracy-promotion successes in Germany, Japan and South Korea, the author's cogent assessment of the current necessity and challenges of recent efforts by presidents Carter to George W. Bush makes for a useful primer on American intervention in a changing world. (Sept.)

A foreign correspondent for ABC News, Sciutto examines and explains the increasingly negative attitudes toward the United States among citizens of Muslim and Arab countries in this deeply insightful book. Structured around interviews conducted in the Middle East and the U.K., the book offers ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that anti-American sentiment—once the province of fringe groups—has gone mainstream, becoming in effect, a form of Middle Eastern nationalism, uniting moderates and radicals, Muslims and Christians for whom “freedom implies the freedom from American interference.” Sciutto weaves together interviews with historical background, poll data and personal experience in this consistently informative and captivating account. In the strongest interviews, including one with a young, reform-minded Iranian activist and another with an Iraqi doctor, the book sets intense, sometimes horrifying experiences against a complicated and changing political backdrop. The author makes a few amorphous foreign policy recommendations on the basis of his research, but the book is less interesting for what it reveals about American policy than for its empathetic and candid depiction of its subjects and their lives. (Sept.)

In this pithy discussion, renowned scholars debate the American penal system through the lens—and as a legacy—of an “ugly and violent” racial past. Economist Loury argues that incarceration rises even as crime rates fall because “we have become increasingly punitive.” According to Loury, the “disproportionately black and brown” prison populations are the victims of civil rights “opponents” who successfully moved the country's race dialogue to a “seemingly race-neutral concern over crime.” Loury's claims are well-supported with genuinely shocking statistics, and his argument is compelling that “even if the racial argument about causes is inconclusive, the racial consequences are clear.” Three shorter essays respond: Stanford law professor Karlan examines prisoners as an “inert ballast” in redistricting and voting practices; French sociologist Wacquant argues that the focus on race has “ignored the fact that inmates are first and foremost poor people”; and Harvard philosophy professor Shelby urges citizens to “break with Washington's political outlook on race.” The group's respectful sparring results in an insightful look at the conflicting theories of race and incarceration, and the slim volume keeps up the pace of the argument without being overwhelming. (Sept.)

In this scathing indictment of the surprising profligacy and complacency of some of the world's top environmental organizations, journalist MacDonald, a former media manager at Conservation International, exposes the “clubby, well-upholstered world of conservationists.” The posh headquarters and six-figure compensation of top environmental leaders (from the Wildlife Conservation Society's $825,170 to the Sierra Club's $229,000) gall the author, but she's most outraged by organizations routinely accepting donations from oil, lumber and mining industries and corporate behemoths such as Wal-Mart without holding them accountable for ongoing pollution practices. MacDonald singles out BP's “Beyond Petroleum” campaign as a particularly egregious example of “greenwashing” (the label for corporations marketing themselves as green while paying lip service to environmental concerns) and lambastes Ikea for failing to ensure that the goods it imports are manufactured from sustainably harvested timber. Her lament at the loss of activist edge among top-tier environmental groups is heartfelt—MacDonald exhorts them to “stop being such lapdogs and start acting like the watchdogs they were conceived to be”—and her umbrage and ample evidence are impossible to ignore. (Sept.)

In this uneven essay collection that veers between the pedantic and profound, Slovic looks through the lens of literature and life to examine the balance between activism and contemplation: “the responsibility... to be fully present in this life and the responsibility... to be involved with the transgressions and the opportunities of my community.” Some essays are almost purely didactic, such as “Ecocriticism,” which outlines essential but hardly earth-shattering strategies for ecological writing: storytelling, values (a rejection of supposed scholarly neutrality), communication (“so much literary scholarship is unreadable garbage”) and contact. At other times Slovic is subtle, poetic and provocative, as in “Be Prepared for the Worst,” a deeply moving warning against “the sweet sadness of future remorse” that demonstrates how a personal “worst”—the death of Slovic's own child, for example—holds more “emotional sharpness” than hugely tragic but slow-moving, “large, systemic patterns” like ecological deterioration. Despite the academic tone, Slovic's struggle to engage meaningfully with humanity and art in order to fight for a natural world he loves will resonate with readers grappling with their own balancing acts between the personal and planetary. (Sept.)

Marketing consultant Taylor and branding specialist Harrison mine success stories of the truly rich to learn how they acquired their fortunes, whether it has changed them and how they live their lives. Arguing that the wealthy are poorly understood by the average American, the media and marketers of high-end products, the authors contend that accurately understanding this group is critical for success in the marketing, sales, product development, branding and advertising fields. They dispel the myth that most of the rich have inherited their money and reveal the socioeconomic factors behind their self-made rises to success. Exploring how the rich spend their money and what influences their buying decisions, the authors identify the five classes of the newly wealthy with distinct reactions to the value and purpose of money—neighbors, wrestlers, patrons, mavericks and directors—groups that greatly differ in their lifestyles and financial attitudes. Charts and graphs throughout distill key data into easy-to-grasp nuggets, lending clarity to this book whose fresh take on the habits of the American economic elite will be indispensable to marketers. (Sept.)

Musings on the creation, preservation and use of wealth devolve into rambling in this personal finance guide from a seasoned Wall Street investor and inventor of the Lipper Averages for mutual funds. In his search for “the eternal truths” of creating wealth, Lipper addresses the needs of only the very wealthiest Americans, suggesting that investors hire a supermanager to watch over their regular advisers if they have more than three. Focusing on the emotional and psychological aspects of wealth management, Lipper broods upon the reasons why people invest, wealth psychology and the various “investment personalities” (absolute, confident, uncertain, relative, fiduciary, bored, guilty). In a book marked by a paucity of practical suggestions, readers will likely notice—and be dismayed by—the lack of research to support the author's claims. While Lipper competently addresses the responsibilities of great wealth—including handling charitable donations and coming to grips with one's own mortality through decisions regarding wills, trusts and heirs, the long-winded slog to get there is not worth the haul. (Sept.)

What do Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie have in common? And how do they share that certain something with Ulysses S. Grant? They're all first-borns, and in this breezy book, psychologist and “birth order expert” Leman delves into how birth order influences the first-born personality and upends some conventional thinking (e.g., only children and the first child of either sex is automatically a first-born—hence Jolie who has an elder brother can be classified as such) and illustrates first-borns' classic traits: reliability, perfectionism, a penchant for list making and black-and-white thinking, some social introversion but strong leadership abilities. Gender, parental treatment and family size are just as important as chronology, argues the author, who does an admirable job balancing the hope and hype of familial ranking and integrates compelling theories about how schooling and relationships work to address how first-borns can maximize desirable personality traits and minimize liabilities. His spirited and exceptionally easy read will appeal to those readers interested in understanding better whence they came and how to move forward with success. (Sept.)

In a spinoff from her 2006 cover story for Newsweek, “The Boy Crisis,” Tyre delivers a cogent, reasoned overview of the current national debate about why boys are falling behind girls' achievement in school and not attending college in the same numbers. While the education emphasis in the 1990s was on helping girls succeed, especially in areas of math and science, boys are lagging behind, particularly in reading and writing; parents and educators, meanwhile, are scrambling to address the problems, from questioning teaching methods in preschool to rethinking single-sex schools. Tyre neatly sums up the information for palatable parental consumption: although boys tend to be active and noisy, and come to verbal skills later than girls, early-education teachers, mostly female, have little tolerance for the way boys express themselves. The accelerated curriculum and de-emphasis on recess do not render the classroom “boy friendly,” and already set boys up for failure that grows more entrenched with each grade. Tyre touches on important concerns about the lack of male role models in many boys' lives, the perils of video-game obsession and the slippery dialogue over boys' brains versus girls' brains. Tyre treads carefully, offering a terrifically useful synthesis of information. (Sept.)

The title comes from Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun's answer when asked how to make money with music: “the way to get rich was to keep walking around until you bumped into a genius,” as Goldberg paraphrases. Inside the industry for almost four decades, Goldberg now looks back at those he bumped into during his rise from rock writer to public relations to personal management, plus heading three major record companies (Atlantic, Mercury, Warner Bros.). As he puts it, “The idea of this book is to give some impressionistic views, through my eyes, and through the examples of a handful of artists, of the rock and roll business from 1969 through 2004.” He began at Billboard, where his “rhapsodic review” of the Woodstock festival established him as a rock journalist, and his opening chapter covers Paul Williams (Crawdaddy), Gloria Stavers (16 Magazine) and other editors and critics of the 1960s. Doing PR for Led Zeppelin was his “introduction to the adrenaline of a big-time rock tour,” and his backstage memories of those days are vivid and razor sharp, offering an intimate glimpse into PR strategies and tactics. The parade of personalities runs the gamut from Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Nicks to Kurt Cobain and Warren Zevon. Goldberg summons up some fascinating anecdotes as he writes about these performers with much honesty and compassion, bringing it all back home. (Sept.)

Death in popular song comes in all shapes and sizes, but Thomson (Willie Nelson: The Outlaw) skids wildly from one genre and artist to another without pausing to draw larger conclusions. Divided into chapters covering everything from the common teenage penchant for suicide songs to the evolution of murder ballads and gangsta rap, Thomson displays considerable knowledge of music past and present, but his conclusions are often less than profound: death as a “hallmark of teen rebellion” (think James Dean); the Doors' “The End” signifying the late 1960s, Vietnam and “a world defined by death.” In his most compelling section, entitled “Sweetness Follows: Into the Great Beyond” (from the R.E.M. songs of the same names), Thomson explores musicians' approach not to death itself, or even the journey toward it, but to what happens next. Though Thomson admits in the introduction that more death songs will be omitted than included, frustrated readers may wish he had taken his own advice and culled his examples to support a focused thesis. (Aug. 31)

In this brilliantly conceived and superbly narrated account, University of Wisconsin professor emeritus of history Hamerow (On the Road to the Wolf's Lair) makes it undeniably clear that anti-Jewish sentiments drastically slowed the response of the United States and other countries to Nazi atrocities when intervention—through diplomacy, loosening of immigration rules and, later, surgical bombing—was entirely possible. Citing opinion surveys from the 1930s and '40s, Hamerow concludes that virtually all Western peoples would have agreed that the world “had to deal with something called the 'Jewish question.' ” Looking at the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Britain and France, the author carefully traces the ancient roots and history of anti-Jewish sentiment, describes the powerful xenophobic lobbies in such nations as the United Kingdom and the United States working against unrestrained Jewish immigration and shows how general skepticism in the United States about reports of mass murder also played a role. Hamerow's important book is more than history: it is an indictment and an essential cautionary tale about how easily bigotry combined with complacency facilitates evil. 30 illus. (Aug.)

In the throes of becoming jaded and cynical about the American sportswriting scene, Culpepper, a London-based Los Angeles Times journalist covering European sporting events, writes about the internationally known Premiership soccer league and its overzealous fans. The rough-and tumble British soccer sport quickly captivates Culpepper, who wrote on American sports for 15 years, as he learns the rivalries between the fans and teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Portsmouth. A humorist of sorts, he can't help making snide comparisons between the rowdy, cheering British fans and their more somber American brethren, while touting the emotional high of regional pride over big team profits. He falls under the spell of the struggling Portsmouth squad, realizing that the die-hard fans live and die with the fortunes of their players and teams, describing vivid action scenes as thrilling as any in American hockey or football. (Aug.)

Joyner, a columnist for ESPN the Magazine, uses statistics, game footage and his own formulas to settle pro-football arguments ranging from whether it takes an elite running back to win the Super Bowl to whether the storied 1985 Chicago Bears defense is the best ever. Zealous football fans will appreciate the theories and extensively researched, sometimes surprising, conclusions. Joyner peppers his analysis and opinions with football history and a sense of humor. The league-owned NFL Films, Joyner writes, is “the propaganda arm of an effective socialist regime.” Though he clearly loves the game, Joyner isn't awed by the macho, myth-making empire that is the NFL, taking the league to task over its blackout system and shabby customer treatment. In the end, this is a rich mix of statistical insight and thoughtful, clear-headed criticism. (Aug.)

Editor-in-chief of Tin House magazine, McCormack catalogues over 100 cases of sexual misconduct and criminality committed by Republican officials and supporters in an entertaining effort to expose the hypocrisy of America's self-professed “family values party.” Readers hungry for a helping of schadenfreude will relish the A–Z illustrated collection of misdeeds featuring prominent GOP personalities involved in bestiality, pedophilia, incest, autoerotic asphyxiation and lengthier musings on the exploits of Republican heavyweights including Newt Gingrich, Bill O'Reilly and George W. Bush. Along the way, the author raises unintended questions; his crime blotter seems to speak less about GOP failings and more about the moral decline of American society at large. Indeed, the book's sample is so large that the evidence suggests something awry in the polis, not just the party. And while reading about Rev. Ted Haggard's methamphetamine-fueled romp with a male prostitute is hardly dull reading, the book's most compelling section is its introduction, where McCormack invokes Adorno and social science research to link repressed sexuality to authoritarianism in a fascinating argument that leaves the reader eager for additional analysis that sadly never materializes. (Aug.)

Declaring that generosity is once again fashionable, management expert Handy (The Age of Reason) collaborates with his wife, Elizabeth, to investigate whether high-profile entrepreneurial philanthropists are visible signs of a global philanthropic trend. Celebrating the work of these “new philanthropists” and hoping to encourage others to follow their examples to instigate social change, the Handys profile the work of 23 humanitarians including British soccer star Tony Adams, Breast Cancer Haven founder Sara Davenport, filmmaker Jeff Skoll and Brazilian businessman Ricardo Semlar. Full-page black and white photos of each of the philanthropists begin each profile, along with a color photograph of five objects and one flower that the subjects feel best symbolize what is important in their lives. The stories are uplifting and show remarkable dedication to the causes each embraces—from cooking for the homeless to promoting peace efforts to working with underprivileged children. With its smooth narrative and discerning photographs, the authors' combined effort is a worthy tribute to committed individuals actively seeking to make the world a better place. (Aug.)

Three students died and 58 were injured in the January 2000 fire that arsonists set in the student lounge of Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Newark Star Ledger reporter Fisher tells the story of the two “most badly burned” survivors (roommates Shawn Simons and Alvaro Llanos), proceeding from the devastating fire through the grueling medical treatment into their life-affirming future. A medical education and a detective story unfold within this consistently dramatic account, as Fisher joins a reporter's curiosity and objectivity to a near-familial access to the principals. Unsparing in her description of the hard path to recovery (“The gruesome nature of the work meant that few ever became old-timers in the occupation of treating burns”), Fisher takes the reader inside Saint Barnabas Burn Center, where the charismatic director of the burn unit, Hani Mansour; the nurses; the physical and occupational therapists work miracles, celebrating victories and agonizing over setbacks. Honest and intimate in her account of the stress of “distraught parents,” the intense strain upon marriages and relationships, the prolonged suffering and multiple surgeries of the survivors and the evolving friendship of the accidental roommates, Fisher conveys a deep respect and compassion for all involved—except the arsonists. She succeeds in making what might have been yesterday's news into today's inspiration. (Aug.)

“Who is Rachel Jacobs?” the 13-year-old asks her Muslim grandmother Rahat Siddiqi; “that,” Nana tells her, “was my name before I was married.” Thus does a grandmother's stunning reply and a granddaughter's promise “to learn about her ancestors” set Shepard's three voyages of discovery in motion: her grandmother's history; the story of the Bene Israel (one of the lost tribes of Israel that, having sailed from Israel two millennia ago, crashed on the Konkan coast in India; and her own self-discovery (her mother was Muslim, her father Christian, and her grand mother Jewish). Shepard balances all three journeys with dexterity as she spends her Fulbright year, with an old hand-drawn map and her grandmother's family tree, unraveling the mysteries of Nana's past while visiting and photographing the grand and minuscule synagogues in Bombay and on the Konkan Coast. A filmmaker, Shepard writes with a lively sense of pacing (her year proceeds chronologically, interspersed with well-placed flashbacks) and a keen sense of character (getting to know her friend, escort and fellow filmmaker Rekhev as gradually as she does, or capturing the Muslim baker who makes the “only authentic challah in Bombay” in a few strokes). Shepard's story is entertaining and instructive, inquiring and visionary. (Aug.)

The parents of six children home-schooled in Plainfield, N.J., the Millmans offer a positive, encouraging overview of their own efforts and of the nationwide movement, though with scant hands-on specifics. Living on one moderate income in a blighted town with “terrible” public schools in the early 1990s, the Millmans started their eldest children in the local Catholic school, but were put off by the rigidity of the teaching methods. The only “luxury” they could afford was a full-time mom. Fueled by a distaste for public school education and a healthy mistrust for institutions in general, they gradually began to inform themselves about what home-schooling entailed: gathering curriculum and materials, then tailoring a program for each child. The authors put great store by “serendipity and randomness,” that is, letting life provide the “teachable moment” instead of adhering to strict schedules and plans, and they emphasized free reading, learning languages such as Chinese, music and travel rather than writing and textbook use. However, their insistence on “freedom and spontaneity” poses the question: how was the day structured, accommodating the needs of six children of different ages, and by one overtaxed mother? Still, the Millmans produce impressive rates of home-schooling success, and have three kids so far in college. Their cheerleading approach, while sometimes defensive, is accessible and resource-rich. (Aug.)

You sometimes hear the name Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) invoked as a prequel to the life of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). These two natural philosophers, countrymen of the Italian peninsula, stood ready to shove the Earth from its ancient resting place and set it in orbit around the Sun. Though a rotating, revolving Earth challenged common sense and flew in the face of received wisdom, still they both embraced the idea—at their peril. The difference is that Bruno died for his beliefs (tied to a stake and set on fire in a public square in Rome), while Galileo recanted before the Inquisition and lived to advanced old age under house arrest. Legend connects their destinies, reducing Bruno's awful immolation to a cautionary tale that warns Galileo against too vigorous a defense of the dangerous new astronomy.

But, as Ingrid Rowland makes clear in her probing, thoughtful biography, Bruno's support for the Sun-centered cosmos paled next to the rest of his crimes. He was a true heretic by the Catholic Church's definition, for he doubted the divinity of Jesus, the virginity of Mary and the transubstantiation of the Communion wafer into the body of Christ. Protestants—among whom Bruno lived for a time in Switzerland, France, Germany and England—also branded him a heretic, since he was, after all, a professed priest of the Dominican order. Bruno managed, in the span of his 52 years, to be excommunicated twice—from the Calvinist Church as well as the Catholic.

Rowland identifies Bruno in her subtitle as philosopher and heretic. Her full text rounds out the list of his many other deserved epithets, including poet, playwright, private tutor, professor of sacred theology, linguist, master of the art of memory, even copy editor.

As a philosopher, Bruno went far beyond the Sun-centered cosmology of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). Apparently the first man to envision infinity, Bruno posited an “endlessly renewed and recreated universe.” Its limitless expanses of space knew no particular center, but contained innumerable suns, circled by a plurality of earths—and every one of them inhabited.

Rowland's own translations of Bruno's many works, including On the Immense and the Numberless, add immeasurably to her portrait of him. In 1581 he described himself as having “the look of a lost soul... for the most part you'll see him irritated, recalcitrant, and strange, content with nothing, stubborn as an old man of eighty, skittish as a dog that has been whipped a thousand times, a weepy onion eater.”

“He came into the world to light a fire,” Rowland acknowledges of her subject. That he did, and in the end it consumed him. 8 pages of b&W illus. (Aug.)

Dava Sobel, the author of Longitude, Galileo's Daughter and The Planets, is at work on a play about Copernicus.