Nonfiction Reviews

Based on a Pushcart Prize–nominated essay, this clear-eyed, candid work portrays the immense emotional toll that two daughters' illnesses take on a family living in Atlanta. Of the Handlers' three daughters, two developed fatal, rare bone-marrow disorders: Susie was diagnosed with leukemia when she was six and died two years later; Sarah, the youngest, suffered from Kostmann's syndrome, and died at age 27, in 1992. Haunted by these deaths, the author, the so-called “well sibling,” revisits her conflicted childhood, when her father, a crusading civil rights lawyer from Harrisburg, Pa., and her kind, smart mother from Boston, were happy and still looking toward the future. The family's move to Atlanta in 1965 allowed the father to support labor unions, and Handler, as the oldest, was alerted to the importance of demonstrations and even taken to the funeral of Martin Luther King. However, with Susie's diagnosis (compounding the worry over Sarah's chronic sickliness), the parents “began the slow and terrible turning away from one another that erodes families facing the death of a child.” In the last part of this affecting memoir, Handler struggles in her young adulthood to find her own way. (Apr.)

St. John (Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer) builds on his 2007 New York Times article about the Fugees, a soccer program for boys from families of refugees from war-torn nations who have been resettled in the town of Clarkston, Ga., 13 miles east of Atlanta. Led by the founder and coach Luma Mufleh, a strong-willed, Jordanian woman who turned her back on a privileged past to stay in America after attending Smith College, the three youth teams are a conglomeration of players from Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East. The challenges they face are many, including an ongoing fight against city hall for a field on which to play, and getting by with subpar equipment. Their biggest challenge, however, is the difficulty immigrants face in learning the ways of a strange land and living with the memories of tragedy (some players had lost a parent to violence or imprisonment). In spite of it all, the Fugees compete admirably with mostly white, better-funded suburban teams. St. John begins with an inspiring description of a beautifully played game and then delves into the team's formation, but his storytelling takes on the methodical approach of a long series of newspaper articles that lack narrative flair and progression. (Apr.)

According to Gibson (Warrior Dreams), “No political movement [in the last two decades]... can account for the intensity of feeling expressed by those... who experience an attachment to animals and places so overwhelming that they feel morally compelled to protect them, and who look to nature for psychic regeneration and renewal.” He follows the thread of the “recently recovered tradition of Native American spiritualism” and historical figures who rejected a mechanical view of modernism—Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, John Muir, Rachel Carson—arguing that “out of these shards of history came the new culture of enchantment” and a paradigm that stresses a relationship with rather than dominion over other species. The rise of the “reenchantment of nature” is not all sweetness and light; Gibson notes the ecological damage caused by enthusiastic nature tourists and evangelicals' backlash against “nature worship” as idolatry. But the book's message is passionately optimistic. Gibson believes that the cultural transformation gathering momentum and “coupled with political courage to act” can “remake the world.” (Apr.)

No term in American political discourse elicits such uncomplicated reverence as the word “freedom”—and no concept is more complex and conflicted, argues this brilliant study. Drawing on everything from the writings of Frederick Douglass and Emerson to presidential inaugurals and Supreme Court opinions, Purdy (For Common Things), who teaches law at Duke, surveys the ways in which the ideals of individual liberty, dignity and fulfillment have made and remade America. It's a vexed and protean legacy in his wide-ranging account, one that's given us both stirring liberation movements and misbegotten wars; a doctrine of laissez-faire economics and a welfare state that shields workers from the industrial economy; an unbridled thirst for personal self-actualization amid private utopias and a dread that our lives are incoherent, isolated and socially meaningless. In scintillating prose that's erudite but straightforward and packed with insights, Purdy offers both a searching critique of America's ideology of freedom and an affirmation of the “millions of small declarations of independence from hierarchy, constraint, and fear” it has inspired. The result is a tour de force of engaged political philosophy from one of America's most perceptive public intellectuals. (Mar. 5)

This elegant, passionate, elliptical memoir of self-exploration and revelation transports the reader well beyond its origins as a series of Harvard lectures. The title is an allusion to novelist and MacArthur fellow Marshall's (The Fisher King) geographic, intellectual and emotional triangulation among the peoples and locales that shaped her—Barbados and Grenada; the Bajan community of Brooklyn; and Africa. Marshall begins with a 1965 State Department–sponsored tour of Europe in the company of her idol, Langston Hughes, when she was a young author and civil rights activist. The book continues as a meditation on “Bodies of Water” (the theme of the original lecture series) as diverse as the James River, the principal port of entry for African slaves in the 18th century, and the Caribbean. Among other personal stories that give her book artistic flair are Marshall's early encounter with the redoubtable editor Hiram Haydn; her disturbing experience with another editor, who was giddy over her upcoming tour of a Virginia plantation (“Our association ended shortly thereafter,” Marshall writes drily); and her father's odd devotion to Father Divine. When the USIS again taps Marshall, this time for a mission to Nigeria, the reception she and other U.S. representatives elicit from some of their hosts—welcome combined with shame over their ancestors' complicity in the slave trade—is revelatory. 6 illus. (Mar.)

A day-by-day account of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia can't yield up much drama or fireworks, or even much sparkling talk, at least as recorded by a few participants, especially James Madison. But in this masterful account, Beeman (Patrick Henry), a noted historian of the late 18th century, does his best to dramatize the writing of the American Constitution. As the convention's hot summer weeks rolled on, tensions built, agreements were reached and compromises (especially, alas, about slavery) were made. Beeman gives each decision, each vote, the weight it deserves and, in brief sketches, brings the delegates alive. The result may not be an exciting story, but, after all, it concerns the writing of the world's longest-lived written national constitution. It's also a story freighted with world-historical significance—and one as well told here as can be imagined. This account is now the most authoritative, up-to-date treatment of the Constitutional Convention since Catherine Drinker Bowen's Miracle at Philadelphia over 40 years ago. It's unlikely to be surpassed. Illus., map. (Mar. 17)

The competing voices in the American political arena are given their due in this nuanced tour of some of the most chewed-over issues of the day. Wenz (Environmental Justice) posits that there are 12 major political philosophies (e.g., libertarianism, contractarianism, feminism and multiculturalism) that, taken in part or in whole, encompass the opinions of most Americans. Fourteen case studies illustrate how these approaches have applied in real-life scenarios, often creating unexpected partnerships and disagreements—most dramatically in the Supreme Court case Kelo v. New London, which centered on an eminent domain dispute and eventually saw the CATO Institute allied with the ACLU in favor of personal property rights. While discussions on the shifting legal status of pornography and the complex variables of the American health care system lack strongly unifying set -pieces, they convey a great deal of information about law and policy in a coherent manner. When Wenz occasionally gets personal, as he does in a wrenching and well-presented chapter on physician-assisted suicide, the book transcends talking points to become a satisfying exhibition of political philosophy in action. (Mar.)

Holroyd's latest starts as a biography of Ellen Terry, one of the greatest actresses of the late 19th century—until it reaches the beginning of her professional and personal involvement with the even more legendary Henry Irving. The story circles back to recap Irving's life, then moves forward with their collaborations on Shakespeare plays and “blood-and-thunder melodramas” at London's Lyceum Theater as well as road shows in England and America. Holroyd also delves into the lives of their children (from separate relationships), and it's Ellen's offspring, Edy and Gordon Craig, who dominate the second half of this hefty family history: Edy took up with a longtime companion who originally had a lesbian crush on Ellen and would later become involved with Vita Sackville-West; Gordon was a visionary set designer who treated the women in his life—including Isadora Duncan—abominably. There's even a place in the saga for George Bernard Shaw (the subject of Holroyd's three-volume biography), who conducted a passionate correspondence with Terry for years before they ever met. Holroyd does a masterful job of keeping all the narrative lines flowing smoothly, ensnaring readers in a powerful backstage drama rivaling any modern celebrity exploits. (Mar.)

Widow of the assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, Jehan Sadat (A Woman of Egypt) fashions a gracious plea for better understanding between the East and West, especially in terms of the fundamentals of Islam and the derailed Middle East peace process. Sadat is avowedly feminist, having established programs for women's literacy and empowerment during her husband's presidency (he served from 1970 until his assassination in 1981), attained her own advanced degrees in her 40s and indeed was a visible Muslim first lady who accompanied her husband around the world. In these eight elegant, evenhanded essays, she delineates “Sadat's principles” for peace, put in motion when he signed the Camp David Accords with leaders Carter and Begin in 1978, by addressing the misconceptions about Islam (exacerbated since 9/11), specifically that all Muslims are extremists, against democracy and bent on subjugating their women. She sketches briefly the sticking points to the peace process, namely Israeli intransigence and the Arab-Israeli tit-for-tat in escalating violence, and stresses firsthand the senselessness of assassinations and terrorism. Her essay “On Being a Muslim Woman” gently rebuffs the Western notion that Muslim women need to be “liberated” from Islam, offering examples of famous Egyptian feminists as well as employing her own notable achievements. Sadat provides an important, insistent voice for continued advancement in peace and social justice. (Mar.)

Epic journeys ain't what they used to be, to judge by this sparkling adventure saga. In recreating Robert E. Peary's storied (and disputed) 1909 trek to the Pole, explorer Avery, four human companions and 16 sled dogs had GPS systems, Internet uplinks, freeze-dried entrées and stand-by air transport; they avoided the death marches and cannibalism that grace Avery's recaps of past arctic expeditions and were greeted at the Pole by a Russian tour guide descending from a helicopter with champagne. Still, there's excitement aplenty in their crossing of what is literally an ocean storm frozen solid, hard as rock yet unstable as the sea. With their alternately heroic and mutinous dogs, Avery's team braves lethal cold, towering ice ridges and heart-stopping traversals of open water via flimsy ice pontoons. The author's chipper prose lacks Peary's ringing mixture of stoicism and bombast (“A few toes aren't much to give to achieve the Pole,” he quotes the frost-bitten old trooper). But Avery offers a strong defense of Peary's achievements against critics who say he faked them—and a captivating homage to a polar frontier that's melting into history. Photos. (Mar. 17)

In this entertaining, briskly written biography, journalist Adams rescues from obscurity the history of Bernarr Macfadden, a man whose life would seem almost implausible if it were not true. An orphan born in 1869 Missouri and raised in abject poverty, Macfadden's discovery of the power of exercise led him to start a wildly successful fitness magazine, Physical Culture, that championed a range of health programs that today would be known as “alternative therapies”—as well as introducing muscleman Charles Atlas (an immigrant from Calabria, Italy, named Angelo Siciliano) to the world—creating the template for every fitness magazine published today. But Adams also carefully delineates how Macfadden's growing passion for publishing turned his various magazines into a $30-million empire. Central to this success was True Story, devoted entirely to nonliterary, factual stories told in the first person. And while his New York Evening Graphic was less successful than competing tabloids, Macfadden can claim to be the first person who hired and spotlighted the gossip columns of Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan—creating another huge impact on American culture to which Adams gives proper due. (Mar.)

This pseudo-autobiography of Cheeta, Tarzan star and the world's oldest living chimp at 76, lacks the substance the chimp's unique life and career demand. Taken from a Liberian jungle in 1932, Cheeta—known as Jiggs prior to his Tarzan role—arrived in New York before eventually making his way to MGM Studios in Hollywood. Along with Johnny Weissmuller, who would become a lifelong friend, Cheeta starred in 11 Tarzan films, from 1934's Tarzan and His Mate to 1948's Tarzan and the Mermaids. After being branded “too old,” Cheeta retired until his role alongside Rex Harrison in 1967's Doctor Doolittle, his final film appearance. The chimp currently resides in Creative Habitats and Enrichment for Endangered and Threatened Apes (C.H.E.E.T.A.) in Palm Springs, Calif., where he is cared for by Dan Westfall, the nephew of one of his original trainers. Peppered with clichéd scenes of Old Hollywood—from the brash Dietrich to the hard-drinking Bogart—this fictionalized memoir misses an opportunity to educate readers on the history of Hollywood's animal performers. (Mar.)

Although Walter O'Malley has been dead for nearly 30 years, D'Antonio's latest work is perhaps the most meticulously detailed and comprehensive account to date of the former owner of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. Through research in O'Malley's letters, documents and myriad interviews with those close to him, D'Antonio (Tin Cup Dreams) presents a well-rounded portrayal of one of the most polarizing figures in baseball history: one New York writer referred to O'Malley as “one of the three worst human beings who ever lived,” while a Los Angeles journalist described O'Malley as a man who “did more for baseball than any commissioner.” D'Antonio paints the whole picture, starting with O'Malley's early days as a lawyer who originally began working with the club in a “troubleshooting” capacity, to taking total control of ownership in 1950. During O'Malley's tenure with the Dodgers, the team had some of its most famous moments in history—the debut of Jackie Robinson, the club's first World Series title in 1955 and, of course, the team's infamous move to Los Angeles. D'Antonio explores everything—O'Malley's business dealings, his personal relationships with Robinson and Branch Rickey, the on-the-field fortunes of the Dodgers. With D'Antonio's access to O'Malley's most personal documents, even baseball historians will find something to learn. (Mar.)

Chatterjee (Iraq Inc.) delves into the nebulous world of the Houston-based Halliburton corporation, tracing the company to its roots, when a fortuitous meeting with a young Lyndon Baines Johnson propelled the Brown and Root Company (which later merged with Halliburton) into Washington power politics. The author details the military contracting that largely funded the company through WWII and into the present-day war in Iraq, intertwining the company's history with the biographies of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other officials in the Bush administration. Chatterjee provides a laundry list of abuses for which the company has been investigated, including inflated billing of the Pentagon, providing unsafe living conditions for U.S. soldiers, labor exploitation and coverups to avoid congressional inquiry. He concludes with a look at the whistleblowers that brought these scandals into the public eye and the repercussions of the eventual congressional investigation. Chatterjee keeps the pace of the narrative at a quick clip and nimbly marshals his extensive evidence to reveal—without sanctimony or stridency—Halliburton's record of corruption, political manipulation and human rights abuses. (Feb.)

The notion of America as the divinely anointed homeland of freedom, bravery, democracy and economic opportunity, with everything to teach the world and nothing to learn from it, is so entrenched that this perceptive portrait of America the Ordinary seems downright radical. Hodgson (Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand) situates America as an outpost of Europe, always a part (and not always the most advanced part) of an evolving “progressive, liberal, capitalist civilization” spanning the Atlantic. American history, he contends, has its share of class conflict, bloody and sometimes losing struggles against hierarchy, and institutional dysfunction. Much of its success, he argues, stems from historical and geographical happenstance rather than ideological genius, and its recent performance, in everything from fighting poverty to health care to political corruption, stacks up poorly against other nations'. The author's nuanced, wide-ranging treatment isn't hostile to the United States, but he deplores a new “missionary exceptionalism”—visible in the “confused and delusional” U.S. policy in Iraq. Hodgson's thoughtful critique injects a much-needed shot of perspective and common sense into the debate over America's place in the world. (Feb.)

Crime writer Kleinknecht (New Ethnic Mobs) turns his attention to a different kind of organized crime in this critical reassessment of the lasting influence of Ronald Reagan's presidency—and his hand in the current economic crisis. According to the author, Reagan and his ideological fellow travelers abdicated the government's regulatory role to oversee banking, manufacturing, telecommunications, the media, mining and public welfare, leaving Americans without protection from the avarice of shortsighted corporations. While well-documented and forceful, the book has a strident tone that might put off the very people Kleinknecht tries to persuade—those who have lionized Reagan as the people's president. More crucially, the author tries to lay everything from the decline of America's image overseas to the 2008 meltdown of the global banking system at Reagan's feet, and it is often unclear whether Reagan was the mastermind or simply the figurehead behind which other agents carried out their own plans independent of the president's will. Whatever Reagan's complicity, the policies carried out in his name and under his leadership clearly changed the relationship between the American people and their government, and rarely, the author shows, for the better. (Feb.)

This engrossing, unexpectedly timely study of the politics of cultural nationalism resurrects the hidden history of la pachuca, the female counterpart to the 1940s pachuco, the zoot suit–wearing Mexican-American hipster made notorious by two consecutive wartime flashpoints: 1942's Sleepy Lagoon case and 1943's Zoot Suit Riots. Ramírez (Through an East-West Gaze) builds on the best recent scholarship to argue that la pachuca's sexually charged and gender-ambiguous presence in WWII–era Los Angeles made her so fraught a figure of resistance to both dominant and ethnic norms of feminine behavior that she was difficult to incorporate in narratives shaping Latino identity. A generation later, a nascent Chicano movement re-appropriated the pejorative archetype of el pachuco as a symbol of rebellious pride but continued to vilify or ignore the female zoot-suiter—reflecting, the author contends, the entrenched patriarchal and traditional gender norms in Chicano and U.S. nationalism at large. A vital addition for those interested in American ethnic and cultural studies as well as studies of sexuality and visual culture, this book speaks forcefully to current Obama-era and post–Prop 8 debates over race, ethnicity, sexuality, patriotism and citizenship. (Feb.)

Journalist Gibler has attempted to write a history of Mexican revolution, past and present, but his book functions better as a chronicle of a young American's sojourn in the Third World—and the myriad injustices he witnessed—than it does as a coherent critique of the current economic system and NAFTA. Still, his observations on Mexican resistance to economic oppression are provocative, e.g., he claims the income disparity in Mexico is related to mass emigration from Mexico to the U.S., and that Mexican economic policy and U.S. immigration policy have worked in concert to sap Mexico of its most skilled workers. Gibler brings vivid accounts of stories ignored by mainstream media (the deterioration of the rule of law in Ciudad Juarez, the Oaxaca teachers' union uprising in 2006). Unfortunately, the book suffers when the author digresses from his compelling case studies to launch inept attacks on Jeffrey Sachs's theories. (Feb.)

With nearly 200 letters arranged chronologically under broad rubrics (e.g., Family, Courtship and Romance, Politics and Social Justice, Across the Diaspora), Newkirk (Within the Veil) sets out to offer “a sweeping narrative history of the Black American experience.” That is too large a claim—only 16 letters precede the end of the Civil War, and Newkirk's principle of selection is unclear. Public letters (Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson, Phillis Wheatley to George Washington, James Baldwin's letter to his nephew, Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter to white clergymen) are essential, but Newkirk's bland section introductions do little to set a context for particular letters, though the head notes are generally useful. About half of the letters were written between 1900 and 1940, but the book is up-to-date on the Obama campaign with letters from Rev. Wright and Toni Morrison. This is an instructive, moving—even delightful—primer on the myriad facets of African-American private and public life. (Feb.)

This lavishly illustrated history documents the iconic store's evolution over the past 150 years—from founder Rowland Macy's vision to decades of competition, restoration and expansion. Archival materials provide rich servings of Americana, and detailed footnotes contrast each chapter in Macy's development with a time line of concurrent historical events, trends and fashions. Discussions of Macy's move into suburban communities as well as the move of the flagship store to Herald Square in 1902, the animated competition between Macy's and Gimbels, the start of the famous flower show and Thanksgiving parade, and Macy's involvement in The Miracle on 34th Street are supplemented with extensively researched notes, anecdotes, rare photographs, advertisements and other enlivening illustrations. Grippo (Macy's Thanksgiving Parade) depicts how Macy's has remade itself with the times and for the changing needs of its consumers—who will delight in this affectionate tribute. (Feb.)

In the midst of a recession, Nulman offers a way for marketers, advertisers and entrepreneurs to capture consumer attention by harnessing the power of surprise marketing. Starting with entertaining forewords by comedian John Cleese and talk show host Craig Ferguson, who both understand the necessity of shock and timing in getting laughs, Nulman proceeds to offer (and amuse) with astute insight about how companies can create a bigger bang for their buck by imparting the unexpected in their marketing. Using case studies of ad campaigns, the author describes what successful shocking marketing is (Oprah declaring, “Everybody gets a car,” to her studio audience, which sent her Web site's traffic up 800%) and is not (St. Louis using the ubiquitous arch in an ad campaign to portray the city as “surprising”). Drawing on 15 years of experience as the CEO of the Just for Laughs Festival, the author emphasizes that the element of surprise is pertinent for anyone trying to sell a product or gain attention for a cause or event. This colorful and enlightening book will engage business readers looking for innovative ways to win without breaking the bank. (Feb.)

In this cheerily self-deprecating work, Coyne—an Irish-American Philadelphian who never knew much about his roots and avoided exercise—describes how he undertook a wildly ambitious plan to spend four months playing over 40 golf courses in Ireland and getting to them by walking. Coyne's tiredness quickly translates into hiker's euphoria; however, he has a tougher time facing the Irish breakfast every B&B owner serves him (sausages, rashers, beans, soda bread—“an afternoon of wincing regret”). Having already written a couple of books on golf (e.g., Paper Tiger), Coyne knows his way around a course, but more importantly, he also knows better than to bore readers with monotonous accounts of hole after hole. His style is more that of the travelogue, as he's bowled over by one astoundingly beautiful and windswept course after the next. By the time Coyne gets to Ulster, it's clear that golf is by far the least interesting thing for him, as the author packs his humorous narrative with historical tales and travel anecdotes about the small towns he passes through and the many pubs he stops in along the way. (Feb.)

These brief, engaging and oh-so-revealing anecdotes (90 in all) about first-time periods are written by a vast array of authors, professionals and youth. Edited by a freshman at Yale with a global mission (the “Do More” section at the back lists women's health and reproductive-rights charities), and modeled wittily on Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, these short essays tenderly cover the gamut of grief and embarrassment, joy and disappointment that accompanies the onslaught of menses, written by women from ages 15 to 101. Mostly, these authors concur that Mom didn't tell us much; we didn't expect the big moment even if we had been prompted by reading Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; and suddenly “becoming a woman” proved rather more irritating than momentous. These accounts are touching and brave—“The Curse, 1939,” in which Lola Gerhard writes of starting to bleed cluelessly in the orphanage where she lived and being simply handed a “big bandage” and a belt (“That was it for sex education”); enduring the Old World ritual of being slapped by one's mother or ostracized, as one Indian author writes in “Locked in a Room with Dosai, 1962”; a more enthusiastic reaction by feminist mothers. Gloria Steinem's reprinted “If Men Could Menstruate” (1978) acts as a fulcrum, while others determined to break the silence rage, reminisce and resolve to banish the shame for their own daughters. (Feb.)