Steve Goddard's History Wire

FOCUS: American History -- The Housing Bomb / Roosevelt's Second Act / Things That Matter

The Housing Bomb -- Why Our Addiction to Houses is Destroying the Environment and Threatening Our Society by M. Nils Peterson, Tarla Rai Peterson, and Jianguo Liu, Johns Hopkins UPress '13, $29.95, 224 pages, ASIN #1421410656. Index, notes, no bibliography, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

Talk about capturing a reader's attention: In their Introduction, the authors write that "The world is facing a housing bomb that will make the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis look trivial. Public attention focused on this housing bomb has been limited, with much greater emphasis having been placed on the environmental impacts of human population."

The authors quote Paul Ehrlich as bringing the housing bomb concept to the masses in his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, yet he concedes that global collapse has not yet occurred, "although political strife, poverty, and violence have combined with overpopulation to create regional famines...."

"Without realizing how much a contemporary home already contributes to environmental destruction," the authors argue on their dust jacket, "most of us want bigger and bigger houses and dream of the day when we own not just one dwelling but at least the two our neighbor does. We push our children to 'get out on their own' long before they need to, creating a second household where previously one existed.

"We pave and build, demolishing habitat needed by threatened and endangered species, adding to the mounting burden of global climate change, and sucking away resources much better applied to pressing societal needs. 'Reduce, reuse, recycle' is seldom evoked in the housing world, where economists predict financial disasters when 'new housing starts' decline and the idea of renovating inner city residents is regarded as merely a good cause."

About the authors: M. Nils Peterson is an associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University. Tarla Rai Peterson teaches wildlife and conservation policy at Texas A&M University and environmental communication at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Jianguo Liu is the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at Michigan State University.

Roosevelt's Second Act -- The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War by Richard Moe, Oxford UPress '13, 376 pages, ASIN #0199981914. Index, sources and selected bibliography, notes, appendix, grouping of b&w glossy images.

     

Teasing his readers on serious subjects, old Washington hand Richard Moe sets up a number of questions for us to answer before going on to answer them himself. Such as....

*"There has been an assumption, then and since, that FDR always intended to run for an unprecedented third term. Is that accurate?"

*"For ten months after Hitler invaded Poland FDR didn't talk with anyone, including Eleanor, about his intentions -- except (Supreme Court) Justice Felix Frankfurter just days before the convention. Why Frankfurter?"

*"Both presidents Roosevelt and Obama have suffered from the 'second-term curse.' What are the similarities, and what lessons can Obama learn from FDR's experience?"

Minnesota native Richard Moe was chief of staff to VP Walter Mondale and a senior advisor to President Jimmy Carter. He was president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation from 1993 until he retired in 2010. He has written two previous books. He and his wife divide their time between Washington and Santa Fe.

Things That Matter -- Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics by Charles Krauthammer, Crown Forum '13, $28, 387 pages, ASIN #0385349173. Index, no notes, bibliography or illustrations.

     

   Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer writes about what matters to him. Hardly surprising that, but before dismissing him simply as a conservative, the reader should know he's likely to keep his readers guessing about his take on any given issue.

So, what matters to Charles Krauthammer? "The cunning of cats....the innocence of dogs....the finer uses of the F-word....the perfectly thrown outfield assist....the difference between historical guilt and historical responsbility....(and) Is a doctor ever permitted to kill a patient wishing to die?"

In a brief Q&A, Charles Krauthammer discusses the writing of his book with former White House press secretary Dana Perino:

Q. As a long-time fan of yours, there are some of your columns that I remember reading, and where I was when I read it, and how I said to my husband, "That's exactly what I was thinking!" Do you know when a column is going to be a hit?

A. Quite the opposite. I'm always amazed how wrong I am. A column that I think will sink like a stone might catch on like wildfire. Others that I'm proud and smug about as I submit for publication, leave no trace. Which is why I'm a writer, not a publisher. I wasn't made for marketing.

Q. Given the mention in your essay, and because I have a gut feelling that we're on the same page, what is your preferred style on serial commas?

A. With commas the rule should always be: the fewer the better. They are a scourge, a pestilence upon the land. They must be given no quarter. When you list three things, it should be written: a, b and c. If you see a comma after the "b" -- call 911 immediately.

Charles Krauthammer's column is syndicated to 400 newspapers worldwide. He is a panelist on regular TV shows and is a former member of the President's Council on Bioethics. He lives in Chevy Chase, MD.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- The Letters of John F. Kennedy / Scheherazade's Feasts / Falling Upwards

The Letters of John F. Kennedy, Edited by Martin W. Sandler, Bloomsbury Press '13, $30, 372 pages, ASIN #1608192717. Index, two groupings of b&w glossy images.

     

With all the books written and published about John F. Kennedy's life and times, somehow a comprehensive collection of his letters has never been gathered. And while  marking the 50th anniversary of JFK's tragic death is always painful, it does spur scholars and historians to take on tasks that will serve history well, such as a compendium of letters of one of the most literate of our presidents.

"One can discover more about Kennedy the man," writes historian Martin W. Sandler, "and the extraordinary and harrowing times in which he lived by reading his correspondence, than by reading any number of other books about him."

Usefully, Editor Sandler has isolated subject areas thematically, such as letters to JFK's parents from his boarding-school housemaster, defeated in his effort to get the boy to clean up his room. Other themes are worth reading as well:

*"(Presidential) Candidate Kennedy's delicate campaign to win the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, a liberal icon who had accused his family, in her newspaper column, of using Joseph Kennedy's money to buy political allegiances."

*"The warm correspondence between JFK and poet Robert Frost, who memorably read at his inauguration."

*"Witty (and merciless) critiques of JFK's campaign oratory and other initiatives from Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who went on to become one of the president's most trusted advisers and Ambassador to India."

Editor Martin W. Sandler has written numerous works on American history and has taught American history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Smith College.

Scheherazade's Feasts -- Foods of the Medieval Arab World by Habeeb Salloum, Muna Salloum, and Leila Salloum Elias, UPenn '13, in oversized format on glossy stock, 218 pages, ASIN #081224477X. Index, bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

 

     

From the dust jacket:

"The author of the 13th century Arabic cookbook Kitab al-Tabikh proposed that food was among the foremost pleasures in life. Scheherazade's Feasts invites adventurous cooks to test this hypothesis.

"The influence and power of the medieval Islamic world stretched from the Middle East to the Iberian Peninsula, and this Golden Age gave rise to great innovation in gastronomy no less than in science, philosophy, and literature. The medieval Arab culinary empire was vast and varied: with trade and conquest came riches, abundance, new ingredients, and new ideas.

"The emergence of a luxurious cuisine in this period inspired an extensive body of literature: poets penned lyrics on the beauty of asparagus or the aroma of crushed almonds; nobles documented the dining customs obliged by etiquette and opulence; manuals prescribed meal plans to deepen the pleasure of eating and curtail digestive distress."

About the authors: Habeeb Salloum has written many books on Middle East, North African, and Arabian cooking. Muna Salloum and Leila Salloum Elias are co-authors of a book entitled The Sweets of Araby.

Falling Upwards -- How We Took to the Air by Richard Holmes, Pantheon '13, $35, 404 pages, ASIN #0307379663. Index, bibliography, notes, illustrations, three groupings of b&w glossy images.

     

From the front cover:

"In this heart-lifting chronicle, Richard Holmes, author of the best-selling The Age of Wonder, follows the pioneer generation of balloon aeronauts, the daring and enigmatic men and women who risked their lives to take to the air (or fall into the sky). Why they did it, what their contemporaries thought of them, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet is a compelling adventure that only Holmes could tell.

"His accounts of the early Anglo-French balloon rivalries, the crazy firework flights of the beautiful Sophie Blanchard, the long-distance voyages of the American entrepreneur John Wise and French photographer Felix Nadar are dramatic and exhilarating. Holmes documents as well the balloons used to observe the horrors of modern battle during the Civil War (including a flight taken by George Armstrong Custer); the legendary tale of at least 67 manned balloons that escaped from Paris (the first successful civilian airlift in history) during the Prussian siege of 1870-71; the high-altitude exploits of James Glaisher (who rose seven miles above the earth without oxygen, helping to establish the new science of meteorology); and how Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jules Verne felt the imaginative impact of flight and allowed it to soar in their work."

Author Richard Holmes is the author of The Age of Wonder, which was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and was one of the New York Times Book Review's Best Books of the Year in 2009. He has written numerous other books as well. He lives in England.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOCUS: American History -- The Founders at Home / Chris Christie

The Founders at Home -- The Building of America, 1735-1817 by Myron Magnet, Norton '13, $35, 480 pages, ASIN #0393240215. Index, notes, no bibliography, two groupings of color glossy images, other b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

Author George Will perhaps captures best the gist of Myron Magnet's argument in The Founders at Home: "We can better understand the Founders, who shaped how we live, if we better understand how they lived in the homes they designed and social circles that radiated from those homes. The American Revolution, he argues, was a success because of its moderation, and this virtue suffused the Founders' lives."

To accomplish this, historian Magnet analyzes biographically "the military and political genius of the first president, George Washington, to the consummate diplomat John Jay, from the 'firebrands' William Livingston and the Lee brothers to Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson." And it it is the essence of his message that readers examine the photographs, plans, and drawings of their stately homes, from Washington's manse at Mount Vernon to the much less ornate Hamilton Grange; from Montpelier and Monticello to the Lees' home in Stratford.

Myron Magnet "also looks at controversy with a clear eye, particularly the question of slavery, which shaped these men's lives, influenced their actions, and often caught them up in complex dilemmas, most particularly in Jefferson's case. Jefferson's majestic home at Monticello seems to reflect that ambiguity; it was built to separate the slaves who served the house from the living areas using tunnels and gadgets that maintained a palpable distance, even as Jefferson caried on a long-running affair with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves."

Perhaps most tellingly, Magnet describes "a turning point in world history, a personalized explanation of why the American Revolution, of all great revolutions, was the only successful one, resulting in two centuries of unparalleled freedom and prosperity."

Author Myron Magnet, editor-at-large of City Journal was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2008. He has written or edited numerous other books and lives in New York City.

Chris Christie -- The Inside Story of his Rise to Power by Bob Ingle & Michael Symons, St. Martin's Press '13 paperback. $15.99, 333 pages, ASIN #1250031265. Index, notes, no bibliography, grouping of b&w images.

     

From the back cover:

"Drawing on interviews with Chris Christie himself, his family, and his many long-time supporters as well as political opponents, (authors) Bob Ingle and Michael Symons trace Christie's life. He grew up in New Jersey, surrounded by a big, roiling Italian-American family, where his mother, Sondra, and grandmother, Anne, were powerful influences.

"Surprisingly, his political career nearly ended after a bruising loss in a local county campaign, but was revived when Christie was appointed U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, which led him to being elected governor. Despite calls to run for president, Christie reiterated his commitment to reforming New Jersey.

"Beneath Christie's combative public persona is an intensely loyal family man, whose deep roots in New Jersey shape his core values. Written by New York Times best-selling author Bob Ingle and fellow journalist Michael Symons, who have covered the governor's political career for more than a decade, Chris Christie offers the first inside portrait of this fascinating man."

Bob Ingle is co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Soprano State, which was made into a 2011 documentary. Michael Symons is a veteran New Jersey journalist, currently based on Press Row in the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- The Childhood of Jesus / In Peace and Freedom / Populist Collaborators

The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee, Viking Press '13, $26.95, 277 pages, ASIN #0670014656.

     

 "In this haunting and surprising novel about childhood and destiny," writes Nobel Laureate and twice-Booker Prize winner J.M. Coetzee, "a small boy arrives by boat in a new country after being separated from his parents and a piece of paper which would have explained everything. During the journey, a man has taken it upon himself to look after the boy. Upon arrival, they have been assigned new names, new birthdates, and essentially new lives. They know little Spanish, the language of this foreign land, and they know nothing about its customs.

As the plot unfolds, "The renamed Simon and David make their way to the relocation center in the city of Novilla, where the authorities treat them politely, but coldly." The author recounts Simon's up-and-down labor experience, and Simon becomes obsessed with the need to find David's mother. Eventually a woman is found who serves as a surrogate, but his school's administration "detects a rebellious streak in him and insists he be sent to a special school far away. His mother refuses to turn him over, and it is Simon who must drive the car as the trio flees across the mountains.

J.M. Coetzee has written 21 books, which have been translated into many languages. A native of South Africa, he now lives in Adelaide, Australia.

In Peace and Freedom -- My Journey in Selma by Bernard LaFayette, Jr. and Kathryn Lee Johnson, foreword by Congressman John Robert Lewis, afterword by Raymond Arsenault, UKentucky Press, $35, 240 pages, ASIN #0813143861. Index, bibliography, notes, chronology, four appendices, grouping of b&w glossy images.

      

From the book jacket:

"Dedicated to working toward social change through nonviolence and peace since his teens, Bernard LaFayette, Jr. has been a civil rights activist for more than 50 years. He was  co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a leader in the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins, a Freedom Rider, an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the national coordinator of the Poor People's Campaign. At the age of 22, Lafayette assumed the directorship of the Alabama Voter Registration Campaign in Selma -- a city that had previously been removed from the campaign's list due to the dangers of operating there.

"In this compelling memoir, written with Kathryn Lee Johnson, LaFayette  shares the inspiring story of his years in Selma, beginning with the decision to go to Dallas County, AL, though other members of SNCC warned him that no progress could be made there. LaFayette was one of the primary organizers of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement and the Selma to Montgomery March, and he relates the historic events he witnessed in impressive detail, chronicling his experiences with both the black community and the white authorities."

Author Bernard LaFayette, Jr. is Distinguished Senior Scholar-in-Residence at Emory University's Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, GA, and the chair of the national board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Author Kathryn Lee Johnson teaches in the School of Education at the University of Rhode Island. She has authored several books for educators on teaching, writing, and developing independent study skills.

Populist Collaborators -- The Ilchinhoe and the Japanese Colonization of Korea, 1896-1910 by Yumi Moon, Cornell UP '13, $45, 312 pages, 22 illustrations, ASIN #0801450411. Index, footnotes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

   

"An empire invites local collaborators in the making and sustenance of its colonies. Between 1896 and 1910, Japan's project to colonize Korea was deeply intertwined with the movements of reform-minded Koreans to solve the crisis of the Choson dynasty (1392-1910)," writes historian Yumi Moon. "Among those reformers, it was the Ilchinhoe (Advance in Unity Society) -- a unique group of reformers from various social origins -- that most ardently embraced Japan's discourse of 'civilizing Korea' and saw Japan's colonization as an opportunity to advance its own 'populist agendas.' The Ilchinhoe members called themselves 'representatives of the people' and mobilized vibrant popular movements that claimed to protect the people's freedom, property, and lives. Neither modernist nor traditionalist, they were willing to protect the people's freedom, property, and lives. Neither modernist nor traditionalist, they were willing to sacrifice the sovereignty of the Korean monarchy if that would ensure the rights and equality of the people.

"Ultimately," author Yumi Moon argues, "the Ilchinhoe members faced visceral moral condemnation from their fellow Koreans when their language and actions resulted in nothing but to assist the emergence of the Japanese colonial empire in Korea."

Yumi Moon is assistant professor of History at Stanford University.

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Dog Songs / Neanderthals Rediscovered / The Discovery of Middle Earth

Dog Songs -- Poems by Mary Oliver, Penguin Press '13, $26.95, 127 pages, ASIN #1594204780. B&W images sprinkled through text.

     

Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Mary Oliver has forged relationships  over the decades with varieties of living things. In her latest work, she singles out the canine world for her attention in this collection of 35 dog songs and one essay. Some of her poems are but a paragraph long, others go on for several pages.

Let's sample a couple of the shorter ones:

"If You Are Holding This Book:

    You may not agree, you may not care, but if you are holding this book you should know that of all the sights I love in this world -- and there are plenty -- very near the top of the list is this one: dogs without leashes."

"Conversations:

    "1. Said Bear (poet's dog), I know I'm supposed to keep my eye

on you, but it's difficult the way you

lag behind and keep talking to people.

"Well, how can you be keeping your eye on me

"When you're half a mile ahead?

"'True,' said Bear. 'But I'm thinking of you

"all the time.'

        "2.  I had to go away for a few days so I called

"the kennel and made an appointment. I guess

"Bear overheared the conversation.

"'Love and company,' said Bear, 'are the adornments

"that change everything. I know they'll be

"nice to me, but I'll be sad, sad, sad.'

"And pitifully he wrung his paws.

"I cancelled the trip."

 The Neanderthals Rediscovered -- How Modern Science is Rewriting Their Story by Dimitra Papagianni and Michael A. Morse, Thames & Hudson '13, $29.95, 208 pages, ASIN #0500051771. Index, bibliography, in-text notes, two groupings of color glossy images, other b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

"The Neanderthals Rediscovered offers a fairer assessment of a species whose name is still often used as a pejorative and reveals that the superiority of Homo sapiens may be less self-evident than we supposed," write the authors. "Papagianni and Morse contextualize the Neanderthals in a full dramatic arc of their history -- from their evolution in Europe and expansion into Siberia to their subsequent disappearance (and ultimate revival in popular culture)."

In this fascinating volume, Papagianni and Morse recount how advances in DNA technologies have compelled us to reassess their place in our own past. "It turns out that the Neanderthals' behavior was surprisingly modern. They buried the dead, cared for the sick, hunted large animals in their prime, harvested seafood, used red paint and spoke." Yet these advances collectively have done little to shake the image of Neanderthals as our "dim-witted cousins."

About the authors:

"Dimitra Papagianni holds a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Cambridge. Michael A. Morse holds a Ph.D. in the history of science from the University of Chicago.

The Discovery of Middle Earth  -- Mapping the Lost World of the Celts, by Graham Robb, Norton '13, $28.95, 387 pages, ASIN #039308163X. Geographical Index, General Index, works cited, notes, chronology, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

 

From the dust jacket:

"Fifty generations ago the cultural empire of the Celts stretched from the Black Sea to Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. In six hundred years, the Celts had produced some of the finest  artistic and scientific masterpieces of the ancient world. In 58 BC, Julius Caesar marched over the Alps, bringing slavery and genocide to western Europe. Within eight years the Celts of what is now France were utterly annihilated, and in another hundred years the Romans had overrun Britain. It is astonishing how little remains of this great civilization.

"While planning a bicycling trip along the Heraklean Way, the ancien route from Portugal to the Alps, Graham Robb discovered a door to that forgotten world -- a beautiful and precise pattern of towns and holy places based on astronomical and geometrical measurements: this was the three-dimensional 'Middle Earth' of the Celts. As coordinates and coincidences revealed themselves across the continent, a map of the Celtic world emerged as a miraculously preserved archival document."

Author Graham Robb is the author of three prize-winning biographies, each one selected as a New York Times Best Book. He lives on the Anglo-Scottish border.

 

****GETTING A JUMP ON BLACK FRIDAY!****

Hi Friends of History Wire -- Gift-giving season begins tomorrow; actually, thanks to our retailing friends, it starts soon after Thanksgiving dinner. So we thought we'd get an even earlier start, although the price of our holiday offer is FREE.

Thanks to our friends at Viking Publishing, we're giving away a special book as a Thanksgiving special. It's Pinkerton's Great Detective -- The Amazing Life and Times of James McParland by Beau Riffenburgh, a book The Wall Street Journal calls "a compulsive page-turner." The book probes the cloak-and-dagger methods of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, renowned for its skills of subterfuge, infiltration, and investigation.

To be the lucky winner, e-mail us at the link in the upper right hand corner of the History Wire home page and leave your name and address. We'll dip deep into the basket and select a winner. We've been having a few e-mail problems lately; hopefully, that's resolved now. And in the meantime, please accept our warmest wishes for a bountiful and fulfilling holiday season!!

Peace,

Steve Goddard, Publisher, History Wire

FOCUS: American History -- Lincoln's Boys / Trees in Paradise / Darling

Lincoln's Boys -- John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln's Image, Viking '13, $29.95, 374 pages, ISBN #978-0-670-02566-4. Selected bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

     

In the archives of American presidential administrations, we discover intimate relationships and then those who functioned well but weren't as close to the President. In the former category, for example, we might find such links as LBJ to Bill Moyers, FDR to Henry Morgenthau, and Ike to Sherman Adams.

In his latest work, historian Joshua Zeitz -- once a senior policy advisor to the governor of New Jersey -- surveys the mechanics of presidential relationships with their aides, to tease out which factors create intimacy and which destroy it. While John Hay was secretary of state in the Lincoln administration, John Nicolay had a very different relationship within the presidential staff.

From the back cover:

"Lincoln's official secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president's immediate family. Hay and Nicolay were the gatekeepers of the Lincoln legacy. They read poetry and attended the theater with the president, commiserated with him over Union army setbacks, and plotted electoral strategy. They were present at every seminal event, from the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to Lincoln's delivery of the Gettysburg Address -- and they wrote about it after his death.

"In their biography of Lincoln, Hay and Nicolay fought to establish Lincoln's heroic legacy and to preserve a narrative that saw slavery -- not states' rights -- as the sole cause of the Civil War. As Joshua Zeitz shows, the image of a humble man with uncommon intellect who rose from obscurity to become a storied wartime leader and emancipator is very much their creation."

Joshua Zeitz has taught American history and politics at both Cambridge and Princeton. He has written two previous books.

Trees in Paradise -- A California History by Jared Farmer, Norton '13, $35, 552 pages, ASIN #0393078027. Index, notes, illustration credits, further reading, appendix, three groupings of b&w glossy images.

     

 

From the dust jacket:

"California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It's the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to 'improve' the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities.

"They imported blue-green eucalypts whose tangy fragrance was thought to cure malaria. They built the lucrative 'Orange Empire' on the sweet juice and thick skin of the Washington navel, an industrial fruit. They lined their streets with graceful palms to announce that they were not in the Midwest anymore."

Jared Farmer, a Utah native and former Californian, is the author of On Zion's Mount, a landscape history awarded the pretigious Parkman Prize for literary excellence. He teaches history at Stony Brook University.

Darling -- A Spiritual Autobiography by Richard Rodriguez, Viking '13, $26.95, 235 pages, ASIN #0670025305.

 

     

  From the book jacket:

"In the aftermath of 9/11, many Americans compulsively searched the sky. Richard Rodriguez turned his imagination toward the desert -- the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- and began to consider his relationship to the God of the desert, and to terrorists who kill in the name of God.

"A homosexual and a Roman Catholic, Rodriguez writes passionately of the Abrahamic religions that have shaped him and excluded him. This book, framed by reflections on the desert as an ecology of emptiness, includes the author's encounter with cancer and tender portraits of friends lost -- particularly a woman he addresses as 'Darling.' At the center of the book is a consideration of women -- their importance to Rodriguez's religious formation and sexual liberation, and their centrality to the future of the desert religions."

Richard Rodriguez is the author of Hunter of Memory, Brown, and Days of Obligation. He was a long-time contributor to PBS and continues to write for noted publications. He lives in San Francisco.

 

 

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Going to the Dogs / Catastrophe 1914 / The Woman Who Lost Her Soul

Going to the Dogs -- Greyhound Racing, Animal Activism and American Popular Culture by Gwyneth Anne Thayer, UKansas Press '13, $39.95, 304 pages, ASIN #0700619135. Index, bibliography, notes, appendix, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

 From the dust jacket:

"As the first cultural history of greyhound racing in America, Going to the Dogs....charts the sport's meteoric rise -- and equally meteoric decline -- against the backdrop of changes in American culture during the last century. Gwyneth Anne Thayer chronicles the sport's origins in 'coursing' in England, through its postwar heyday, and up to its current state of near-extinction. Her entertaining and informative account offers fresh insight into the development of American sport and leisure, the rise of animal advocacy, and the unique role of dogs in American life.

"Thayer describes greyhound racing's dynamic growth in the 1920s in places like St. Louis, Chicago, and New Orleans, then explores its phenomenal popularity in Florida, where promoters exploited its remote association with the upper class and helped foster a celebrity culture. By the end of the century, media reports of alleged animal cruelty had surfaced as well as competition from other gaming pursuits such as state lotteries and Indian casinos. Greyhound racing became so suspect that even Homer Simpson derided it."

Gwyneth Anne Thayer, associate head of special collections at the North Carolina State University Libraries, became interested in the culture and history of greyhound racing after adopting an ex-racing greyhound named Zachary.

Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Max Hastings, Knopf, $35, 628 pages, ASIN #0307597059. Index, bibliography, notes and references, two groupings of b&w images.

     

In recent years, perhaps no historian of the two world wars has gained, deservedly, more acclaim than Max Hastings. Now, he focuses on the year leading up to what came briefly to be known as the Great War, as if no other such conflict could equal its carnage and historical resonance. In a brief book jacket sketch, the author limns his doorstop volume:

"In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings gives us a conflict different from the familiar one of barbed wire, mud and futility. He traces the path to war, making clear why Germany and Austria-Hungary were primarily to blame, and describes the gripping first clashes in the West, where the French army marched into action in uniforms of red and blue with flags flying and bands playing.

"In August, four days after the French suffered 27,000 men dead in a single day, the British fought an extraordinary holding action against oncoming Germans, one of the last of its kind in history. In October, at terrible cost, the British held the allied line against massive German assaults in the first battle of Ypres. Hastings also recreates the lesser-known battles on the Eastern Front, brutal struggles in Serbia, East Prussia and Galicia, where the Germans, Austrians, Russians, and Serbs inflicted three million casualties upon one another by Christmas."

Max Hastings has written more than 20 histories, most recently Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945. He spent his early career as a foreign correspondent for BBC-TV and various newspapers and has received numerous awards both for his books and his journalism. He lives in London.

The Woman Who Lost Her Soul -- A Novel by Bob Shacochis, Atlantic Monthly Press '13, $28, 713 pages, ASIN #0802119824.

     

After a respite of 20 years, National Book Award winner Bob Shacochis returns with a novel in which the author returns to occupied Haiti with The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, in which he "builds a complex and disturbing story about America's coming of age in a pre-9/11 world."

"When the humanitarian lawyer Tom Harrington travels to Haiti to investigate the murder of a beautiful, seductive photojournalist," Shacochis writes, "he is confronted with a dangerous landscape of poverty, corruption and voodoo," writes author Bob Shacochis. "It's the late 1990s, a time of brutal guerrilla warfare and civilian kidnappings and everyone has secrets.

"The journalist, whom he knew years before as Jackie Scott, had a bigger investment in Haiti than it seemed, and to make sense of her death, Tom must plunge back into a thorny past and his complicated ties to both Jackie and Eville Burnette, a member of the Special Forces who was assigned to protect her."

Bob Shacochis draws on his firsthand experience as a war correspondent "to illuminate the simmering political, cultural, and historical global struggle through riveting and richly layered fiction, presenting an intimate portrait of the catastrophic events that led up to the war on terror and the America we have become."

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Never Let a Serious Crisis Go To Waste / The XX Factor / Churchill's Bomb

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go To Waste -- How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown by Philip Mirowski, Verso '13, $29.95, ASIN #1781680795. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

White House phrasemaker and now Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel lent President Obama one of his many memorable sayings in 2009: "Never let a good crisis go to waste," in reflecting on the causes of the Great Recession. In turn, the President lent it to economist/historian Philip Mirowski to title his new book on the complexities of the 2008 American financial apocalypse.

Mirowski's focus is on how the original plethora of economic and social factors metastatized into a debt crisis few could have foreseen. From his dust jacket:

"At the onset of the Great Recession, as house prices sank and joblessness soared, many commentators concluded that the economic convictions behind the disaster would now be consigned to history. And yet, in the harsh light of a new day, we've awoken to a second nightmark more costly than the first: a political class still blaming government intervention, a global drive for austerity, stagflation, and an international sovereign debt crisis.

"Philip Mirowski finds an apt comparison to this situation in classic studies of cognitive dissonance. He concludes that neoliberal thought has become so pervasive that any countervailing evidence serves only to further convince disciples of its ultimate truth."

Philip Mirowski holds the Carl Koch Chair of Economics and the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He has written many previous books.  

The XX Factor -- How the Rise of Working Women Has Created a Far Less Equal World by Alison Wolf, Crown '13, $26, 393 pages, ASIN #0307590402. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

Today's women "are working longer hours, marrying and starting families later, or, if they so wish, focusing on their careers to the exclusion of marriage, and they are earning on a par with men," writes scholar Alison Wolf. "But that is just some of them. And as they draw away from the pack, they leave a very different female world behind."

In her book, Wolf explores why and how women, in less than three generations, have come so far in closing the wage gap with men; and why these gains haven't expanded to elevate the circumstances of women who don't have a corner office or a voice in boardroom meetings."

To support her thesis, Wolf comes up with findings that are likely to stoke the fires of cocktail parties in the months ahead, such as:

*The single best predictor of a woman's future workplace success is staying a virgin until college.

*Contrary to popular belief, it's not stay-at-home mothers and fathers who spend the most time with their kids, but families of two married graduate professionals, the same people who work the longest hours.

*One of the biggest unintended consequences of women's rise in the workplace in the United States and Europe is the shrinking of charity and philanthropy.

*Elite women are less likely to divorce than other women.

Author Alison Wolf is an academic and writer living in London and advises the UK government on education policy.

Churchill's Bomb -- How the United States Overtook Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race by Graham Farmelo, BasicBooks '13, $29.99, 554 pages, ASIN #0465021956. Index, notes, references, unillustrated.

     

From the dust cover:

"Perhaps no scientific development has shaped the course of modern history as much as the harnessing of nuclear energy. Yet the 20th century might have turned out differently had greater influence over the technology been exercised by Great Britain, whose scientists were at the forefront of research into nuclear weapons at the beginning of World War II.

"As award-winning biographer and science writer Graham Farmelo describes in Churchill's Bomb, the British set out of investigate the possibility of building nuclear weapons before their American colleagues. But when scientists in Britain first discovered a way to build an atomic bomb, Prime Minister Winston Churchill did not make the most of his country's lead and was slow to realize the Bomb's strategic implications."

Author Graham Farmelo is a by-fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, and an adjunct professor of physics at Northeastern University. He lives in London.

FOCUS: American History -- The Great Dissent / As American as Shoofly Pie / Imprisoned

The Great Dissent -- How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind -- and Changed the History of Free Speech in America by Thomas Healy, Metropolitan Books '13, $28, 322 pages, ASIN #0805094563. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

 

Federal legal decisions that become the law of the land commonly are the majority decisions of a court -- often the U.S. Supreme Court (witness Brown v. Board of Education or the 5 to 4 ruling in Bush v. Gore). But, as law professor Thomas Healy writes in his new book, sometimes the prime effect of a court decision flows from a dissenting opinion, as happened in 1919, and which transformed jurisprudence from then until now.

In an era stressing the importance of individual rights, it is stunning to recall a justice, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose first 16 years on the Supreme Court was marked by steadfast opposition to all individual rights. But Holmes's dissent in a First Amendment case -- perhaps more familiarly known as the law of free speech -- would change all that.

"Why did Holmes change his mind?," Healy asks. "That question has puzzled historians for almost a century. Now, with the aid of newly discovered letters and confidential memos, law professor Thomas Healy reconstructs in vivid detail Holmes's journey from free-speech opponent to First Amendment hero. It is the story of a remarkable behind-the-scenes campaign by a group of progressives to bring a legal icon around to their way of thinking -- and a deeply touching human narrative of an old man saved from loneliness and despair by a few unlikely young friends."

Author Thomas Healy is a professor of law at Seton Hall Law School. A graduate of Columbia Law School, he clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was a Supreme Court correspondent for The Baltimore Sun. The Great Dissent is his first book.

As American as Shoofly Pie -- The Foodlore and Fakelore of Pennsylvania Dutch Cuisine by William Woys Weaver, UPenn Press '13, 318 pages, ASIN #0812244796. Index, bibliography, notes, glossary, recipes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the Introduction to As American as Shoofly Pie:

"The foods and foodways of the Pennsylvania Dutch represent the largest regional land-based cookery in the United States....This is a food culture with authentic roots, a highly developed culinary tradition of classical preparation, and an extraordinary degree of internal diversity.

"Within the original area of Dutch settlement in southeastern and central Pennsylvania -- the cultural heartland about the same size as Switzerland -- over 1600 distinctive dishes have been documented, most of which are not available in restaurants or even in local cookbooks. Food, like culture, does not stand still; thus this is a book about food in motion, food moving from old forms toward new identities, new authenticities, and above all else toward a new culinary voice."

Author William Woys Weaver is an independent food historian and author of numerous books. He also directs the Keystone Center for the Study of Regional Foods and Food Tourism.

Imprisoned -- The Betrayal of Japanese Americans During World War II by Martin V. Sandler, Bloomsbury '13, $22.99, in oversized format on glossy format, 176 pages, 0802722776. Index, bibliography, further reading, notes sprinkled through text, scores of color and b&w images sprinkled through text.

While perhaps not carrying the resonance of the Holocaust in internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, is a chapter of military and racial history that will not not soon, if ever, be forgotten. In his new book, historian Martin W. Sandler has unearthed such little-known facts about the Japanese internment camps as the following:

    *"George Takei, actor most famous for the Star Trek TV series, was interned with his parents and siblings.

    *"Japanese-Americans were given two weeks notice to lease or sell all their property, and many did so for far less than their worth.

    *"Internees were forced to make their own beds by stuffing large bags with straw.

    *"A young army captain, Ronald Reagan, spoke at a funeral service for a fallen internee who died in battle. Later when he was president, he signed the Civil Liberties act of 1988 formally apologizing to Japanese Americans."

Author Martin W. Sandler has written more than 60 books, two of which have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Among his other books are the six volumes in his award-winning Library of Congress American History Series for Young People, a series which has sold more than 500,000 copies. He has taught American history and American studies at the University of Massachusetts and at Smith College.

 

FOCUS: Foreign Policy History -- The Assassination of the Archduke / Tyranny of the Weak

he Assassination of the Archduke -- Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World by Greg King and Sue Woolmans, St. Martin's Press '13, $27.99, 384 pages, ASIN #1250000165. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

     

Perhaps no single event prefigured the 20th century better than the June 28, 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo. Within months, all Europe was at war, a conflict that America would join by 1917. Many believe the ill-conceived conclusion to what was then known as the Great War led to World War II and may have even foreshadowed the Cold War. The author has no doubt, in any event, that World War I led to "the eventual destruction of the monarchies of the three major European Empires: Austria Hungary, Germany, and Russia."

Greg King and Sue Woolman's book may be the first of many during the next eight months to chronicle the centennial of the fateful assassination. In their hour-to-hour retelling of that historic day, they "provide a riveting minute by minute account of the motorcade as it makes its way towards the waiting assassination, the shooting and the aftermath."

Both the event itself and the non-fictional recounting are the stuff of novels, combining "royal history, touching romance, and political murder in a moving portrait of the end of an era. With a foreword by Archduke Franz Ferdinand's great-granddaughter Princess Sophie von Hohenberg and unprecedented access to the family's personal artifacts including diaries, letters and family papers, King and Woolmans tell the true story behind the tragic romance and brutal assassination that sparked World War I."

Greg King has written 11 works of royal and social history, specializing in late Imperial Russia and Edwardian-era royalty. He has contributed to numerous noted publications in Great Britain. Sue Woolmans is a royal historian and writer whose work has appeared in Royalty Digest and Atlantic Magazine.

Tyranny of the Weak -- North Korea and the World, 1950-1992 by Charles K. Armstrong, Cornell UPress '13, $35, 328 pages, ASIN #0801450829. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w images.

     

 

From the dust jacket:

"To much of the world, North Korea is an impenetrable mystery, its inner workings unknown and its actions toward the outside unpredictable and frequently provocative. Tyranny of the Weak reveals for the first time the motivations, processes, and effects of North Korea's foreign relations during the Cold War era. Drawing on extensive research in the archives of North Korea's present and former communist allies, including the Soviet Union, China, and East Germany, Charles K. Armstrong tells in vivid detail how North Korea managed its alliances with fellow communist states, maintained a precarious independence in the Sino-Soviet split, attempted to reach out to the capitalist West and present itself as a model for Third World development, and confronted and engaged with its arch enemies, the United States and South Korea.

"From the invasion that set off the Korean War in June 1950 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tyranny of the Weak shows how -- despite its objective weakness -- North Korea has managed for much of its history to deal with the outside world to its maximum advantage, insisting on a path of self-reliance since the 1950s, North Korea has continually resisted pressure to change from enemies and allies alike. A worldview formed in the crucible of the Korean War and Cold War still maintains a powerful hold on North Korea in the 21st century, and understanding those historical forces is as urgent today as it was 60 years ago."

Charles K. Armstrong is professor of history at Columbia University. He is also the author of The North Korean Revolution, 1945--1950, a precursor to this book.

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- The Spymistress / The History of the Renaissance World / The Young Turks

The Spymistress  -- A Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini, Dutton '13, $26.95, 351 pages, ASIN #0525953620.

       

Author Jennifer Chicaverini, author of 27 previous novels, follows up her last book, the acclaimed Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, with the saga of a little-known character in American history, Lizzie Van Lew. In a brief Q&A, she discusses the writing of her latest book:

Q. The Spymistress reveals the story of an almost forgotten yet pivotal woman in American history, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Van Lew. How did you first encounter Lizzie Van Lew's story?

A. I first discovered this remarkable woman while researching an earlier historical novel, The Union Quilters. One of my characters, a regimental surgeon in the Union Army, was captured at Gettysburg, and when I investigated where he likely would have been taken, all paths led to Richmond and to Libby Prison. Every account I read of that notorious prison mentioned Elizabeth Van Lew and the astonishing, audacious risks she took on behalf of the Union captives there, and I was compelled to include her in The Union Quilters as a minor but very significant character. Even as I wrote her chapter, I was convinced that she was so remarkable, so heroic, that she really deserved an entire book of her own. I've wanted to write her story ever since.

Q. Elizabeth Van Lew cared for Union prisoners, orchestrated escapes from the Confederate Libby Prison, and helped construct the Richmond Underground. What did you think was the most surprising and daring of her plots?

A. Smuggling information in and out of the prisons certainly put her in danger almost daily, and she risked exposing her entire operation every time she bribed a clerk or attempted to recruit a Confederate officer, but if I have to choose, I would say that sheltering fugitive prisoners in her own home was her most daring action, because if her house had been raided and the prisoners discovered, not even the clever, quick-thinking Lizzie could have explained away evidence that incriminating.

A graduate of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, Jennifer Chiaverini's novels include the Elm Creek Quilts series and Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker. She lives in Madison, WI, with her husband and two sons.

The History of the Renaissance World -- From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Conquest of Constantinople by Susan Wise Bauer, Norton '13, $35, 785 pages, ASIN #0393059766. Index, works cited, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

The prolific historian Susan Wise Bauer has painted with a broad brush in her previous efforts, as she explores such varied subjects as the medieval and ancient worlds, the "well-educated mind," "history for the classical child," and even "The Art of the Public Grovel: Sexual Sin and Public Confession in America."

Following up her surveys of the medieval and ancient worlds, Bauer broadens her canvas to examine "crucial ideas we associate with the Renaissance -- the struggle between divine power and secular power, the resurgence of classical knowledge and reason -- across the entire world, from the sultanates of Delhi to the Sundiata of Mali, from 1100 to 1453. She writes that "This unsettled period of invasions, heresies, and uprisings around the world gave birth, or rebirth, to some of the key debates that still shape our world today."

Author Susan Wise Bauer is the best-selling author of The Well-Trained Mind, the History of the Ancient World, and The History of the Medieval World, among other titles. She teaches at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.

The Young Turks -- The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics, 1908-1914 by Feroz Ahmad, Columbia UPress '13, $45, 256 pages, ASIN #0231700970. Index, works cited, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

   From the dust cover:

"First published in 1969, The Young Turks has bcome the definitive study of a group also known as the Committee of Union and Progress. Counting Turkish army officers among its members, the Young Turks sought to reform the Ottoman Empire by provoking a constitutional revolution against Sultan Ahmed Hamid II.

"Feroz Ahmad details the rise of the Young Turks, their challenge to the sultan, and the ensuing counterrevolution of 1909. He also includes a discussion of the Group of Saviour officers, who set out to destroy the Young Turks. The Ottoman armies routed the Unionists during the First Balkan War and inflicted great losses on them in Macedonia. Yet in 1913, the Young Turks regained power in a coup led by the charismatic Enver Bey. They then abandoned the idea of a union and pursued more modern policies. Ahmad concludes with an examination of territorial losses and the impact of six years of war on the Ottoman state."

Author Feroz Ahmad is a professor of history at Yeditepe University, Istanbul. His books include The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950--1975, as well as numerous articles on late Ottoman and Turkish history and politics.

FOCUS: Military History -- Command and Control / The Internal Enemy / Gabriele d'Annunzio

Command and Control -- Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser, Penguin '13, $36, 632 pages, ASIN #1594202273. Index, bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

"How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction," author Eric Schlosser writes, "without being destroyed by them?" His new book is a sobering corrective to the notion that the nuclear age is history.

"Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years," according to the author, who wrote the prize-winning Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness.

Schlosser's focus is "the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons cannot be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently." He also recounts stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust.

Eric Schlosser's work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The Nation.

The Internal Enemy -- Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, The Internal Enemy by Alan Taylor, Norton '13, $35, 605 pages, ASIN #0393073718. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

Acclaimed historian Alan Taylor sets his gripping tale in early 19th century Virginia, where market-minded capitalists were challenging the old colonial elite, and the landed gentry fought to preserve its privilege against a rising tide of enfranchised commoners. But underlying it all was the issue of slavery, a half-century before the Civil War supposedly set it to rest.

"White Virginians came to see the slaves in their homes and neighborhoods as a dangerous powder keg: a conquered race that could become a vengeful army at any moment," Taylor writes, recounting how the War of 1812 caused relations between America and Britain to reach the boiling point.

"For Virginian slaves it was an escape route: British law held that any person on British soil was necessarily a free citizen, and British commanders considered British vessels British soil. What followed amounted to the single greatest slave revolt in U.S. history....While America and Britain fought, freedmen dared the fatal wrath of their former masters to rescue family, lovers, and friends, and avenge themselves against the tyranny of slavery."

University of Virginia historian Alan Taylor is the recipient of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes for his histories of early America.

Gabrielle d'Annunzio -- Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Knopf '13, first U.S. edition. $35, 589 pages, ASIN #0307263932. Index, select bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the dust jacket:

"Daring night flight missions, dropping bombs and propaganda out of early airplanes. Bloodthirsty orations, inciting a people to war. Trysts with countless women, including the great actress Eleonora Duse. Writing books and plays that moved thousands of young men to begin to dress, smoke, speak, and walk like fictional characters. The creation of a Dionysian paradise, with pleasure and literature at its heart. Here is Lucy Hughes-Hallett's volatile and fascinating life of Gabriele d'Annunzio, the poet, bon vivant, and virulant nationalist who prefigured Mussolini and the rise of Italian fascism.

"Gabriele d'Annunzio was Italy's premier poet at a time when poetry mattered enough to trigger riots. A brilliant self-publicist in the first age of mass media, he used his fame to sell his work, seduce women, and promote his extreme nationalism. In 1915, d'Annunzio's incendiary oratory helped drive Italy to enter the First World War, in which he achieved heroic status as an aviator.

"At once an aesthete and a militarist, d'Annunzio wrote with equal enthusiasm about Fortuny gowns and torpedoes, and enjoyed making love on beds strewn with rose petals as much as risking death as an aviator."

Cultural historian and critic Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of Heroes: A History of Hero Worship and Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams, and Distortions. She was TV critic for the Evening Standard for five years. She lives in London.

 

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Wilson / Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking / The Dark Road

Wilson by A. Scott Berg, Putnam '13, $40, 818 pages, ASIN #0399159215. Index, notes and sources, bibliography, three groupings of b&w images.

As much as any 20th century American president, Woodrow Wilson was a study in contradictions, writes celebrated biographer A. Scott Berg in his latest work. A British Parliamentarian wrote that he knew no historic personage "who so strangely attracts and repels" as Woodrow Wilson." Another Wilson acquaintance explained this conundrum by observing that "probably in the history of the whole world there has been no great man, of whom so much has been written, but of whom personally so little has been correctly known."

Another acquaintance, who first encountered Wilson as a college student, commented on "the personal paradox that was the man: 'Stern and impassive, yet emotional; calm and patient, yet quick-tempered and impulsive, forgetful of those who had served him, yet devoted to many who had rendered but minor service...precise and business-like, and yet, upon occasion, illogical without more reason than intuition itself.'"

Why should Wilson, about whom so much has been written, deserve an 818-page biography now? The occasion seems to be the centennial of Wilson's inauguration as President. His latest biographer has already written four celebrated biographies: Max Perkins: Editor of Genius; (Charles) Lindbergh, which won the Pulitzer Prize; (Samuel) Goldwyn; and Kate Remembered, a memoir of Katharine Hepburn. He lives in Los Angeles. 

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking -- A Memoir of Food and Longing by Anya Von Bremzen, Crown '13, $26, 338 pages, ASIN #0307886816. Selected sources, b&w images sprinkled through text.

"This is my 'poisoned madeleine' memoir," writes author Anya Von Bremsen in her Prologue. "It was my mother, my frequent co-conspirator in the kitchen and my conduit to our past, who suggested the means to convey this epic disjunction, this unruly collision of collectivist myths and personal antimyths.

"We would reconstruct every decade of Soviet history -- from the prequel 1910s to the postscript present day -- through the prism of food. Together, we'd embark on a yearlong journey unlike any other: eating and cooking our way through decade after decade of Soviet life, using her kitchen and dining room as a time machine and an incubator of memories.

"Memories of wartime rationing cards and grotesque shared kitchens in communal apartments. Of Lenin's bloody grain requisitioning and Stalin's table manners. Of Khrushchev's kitchen debates and Gorbachov's disastrous antialcohol policies. Of food as the focal point of our everyday lives, and -- despite all the deprivations and shortages -- of compulsive hospitality and poignant, improbable feasts."

Author Anya Von Bremsen has won three James Beard awards, has written five acclaimed cookbooks; and is a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure magazine. She has written for Food & Wine, Saveur, The New Yorker, Departures, and The Los Angeles Times. She divides her time between New York City and Istanbul.

The Dark Road -- A Novel by Ma Jian, Penguin '13, $26.95, 375 pages, ASIN #1594205027.

One of the most controversial social policies in the world was promulgated in 20th century China. It has nothing to do with the nation's headlong economic growth; instead, it is the state mandate that parents may be permitted to have only one child. In his latest novel, Chinese writer Ma Jian tallies the "human cost of China's one-child policy through the lens of a rural family on the run from its reach." The Dark Road recounts the story of one such family -- Meili, a young peasant woman; her husband, Kongzi, a village schoolteacher; and their daughter, Nannan.

The dust jacket offers a hint of a life brought about by a state policy that is controversial to say the least:

"Kongzi is, according to family myth, a direct lineal descendant of Confucius, and he is haunted by the imperative to carry on the family name by having a son. And so Meili becomes pregnant again without state permission, and when local family planning officials launch a new wave of crackdowns, the family makes the radical decision to leave the village and set out on a small, rickety houseboat down the Yangtze River. Their is a dark road, and tragedy awaits them, and horror, but also the fierce beauty born of courageous resistance to injustice and inhumanity....

"But The Dark Road is also a celebration of the life force, of the often comically stubborn resilience of the deepest folkways and most basic instincts in the face of the most corrosive of poisons."

Author Ma Jian, born in Quindao, China, in 1953, has worked as a watch mender's apprentice, a painter of propaganda boards, and a photojournalist. He has written a travel memoir, critically acclaimed novels and a collection of short stories. He lives in London with his partner and translator, Flora Drew.

 

 

 

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Harlem Nocturne / Looking Backward / Brothers at War

Harlem Nocturne -- Women Artists & Progressive Politics During World War II by Farah Jasmine Griffin, BasicCivitas '13, $26.99, 242 pages, ASIN #0465018750. Index, notes, sources and selected reading, three appendices, b&w images sprinkled through text.

The Great Migrations of African-Americans from the American South to the North in the first half of the 20th century have proved iconic, not only in changing the American economy through providing jobs for hundreds of thousands but in creatively altering the culture of black America in such fields as fiction, dance, musical composition, and instrumental music.

In her new book, Prof. Farah Jasmine Griffin focuses on three individuals who were a major part of this transformation in Harlem, which she describes as "a vibrant and glamorous neighborhood brimming with creativity and activism:" Novelist Ann Petry, choreographer and dancer Pearl Primus, and composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams. Griffin offers answers to three key questions about their origins:

*How did these women come to live in Harlem? None of the women were actually native New Yorkers. Petro moved to Harlem from Connecticut as a newlywed; Primus's family came to New York from Trinidad when she was three; Williams was born in Atlanta and settled in Harlem after years of travel.

*How did Harlem shape them once they arrived? All were nurtured by the urban institutions and stimulating milieu that flourished in Harlem until the Cold War and advent of McCarthyism. They drew support from political movements such as the Double V Campaign and the Popular Front and were surrounded by fellow artists whose work pushed for social change.

*What kind of achievements were they able to make? These women were considered prominent artists on a local, national, and even international scale during World War II and in the years immediately after. Though they all eventually left New York, their work influenced later generations of artists and inspired future participants in the Civil Rights Movements.

Author Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and African American Studies at Columbia University. She lives in New York. 

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, Penguin Books '82 paperback, $8.95, 234 pages, ASIN #8009CRQ3SU.

 In 1888, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and the heart of the Gilded Age, a transformative novel set America back on its heels. Entitled Looking Backward, it forecast life in the year 2000, when "full employment, material abundance, and social harmony can be found everywhere."

From the back cover:

"This is the America to which Julian West, a young Bostonian, awakens after more than a century of sleep. West's initial sense of wonder, his gradual acceptance of the new order and a new love, and Bellamy's wonderful prophetic inventions -- electric lighting, shopping malls, credit cards, electronic broadcasting -- ensured the mass popularity of this 1888 novel. But however rich in fantasy and romance, Looking Backward is a passionate attack on the social ills of 19th-century industrialism and a plea for social reform and moral renewal.

In her introduction (editor) Cecilia Tichi discusses how the novel echoes the anguish and hopes of its own age while it embodies a sustaining myth of the American literary tradition -- that man's perfectibility is attainable in the New World.

Brothers at War -- The Unending Conflict in Korea by Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Norton '13, $35, 605 pages, ASIN #0393068498. Index, notes, appendix, b&w images sprinkled through text.

"More than 60 years after North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea," writes author Sheila Miyoshi Jager that while "the Korean War has become a forgotten episode in American history. Brothers at War changes that."

A brief excerpt from the dust cover:

"Sheila Miyoshi Jager combines international events with previously unknown personal accounts to create a brilliant new history of that war. From American, Korean, Soviet, and Chinese perspectives, she explores its origins, development, and global implications. Jager narrates an epic story that begins in mid-World War II, when Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill fiercely debated the possibility of Korean independence, and ends in the present day, as North Korea, with China's aid, starves its population as it stockpiles nuclear weapons.

"Drawing on newly accessible archives in several nationals, this is the first account to examine both the military and the social, cultural, and political aspects of the war and its impact across the entire region."

"Sheila Miyoshi Jager earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago and has authored and edited two previous books on Korea and East  Asia. She teaches at Oberlin College in Ohio.