Steve Goddard's History Wire

FOCUS: A Potpourri [-- Mad as Hell / The Divided Mind of the Black Church / Brotherhood of Fear

Mad as Hell -- The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies by Dave Itzkoff, Times Books '14, $27, 287 pages, ASIN #0805095691. Index, notes, no bibliography, grouping of b&w glossy images. 

         

Who could have predicted the release in 1976 of the motion picture Network, whose TV anchorman lead becomes totally unhinged, shrieking out the newsroom window from high above the street, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!"

But as ludicrous as the scenario seems to be, consider that it came not long after the United States itself appeared ready to come unhinged by the Watergate scandal. The lessons of that national episode helped screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky envision how America thinks about corporate and media power.

One thing's for sure: mention "I'm mad as hell!" to any American over 50 today, and he or she will recall for you the national sensation that Network became, together with its excellent cast, including Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall; and directed by Sidney Lumet. And lest anyone forgot, Network won four Academy Awards.

Author Dave Itzkoff is a culture reporter at The New York Times, where he writes regularly about film, TV, theater, music and popular culture. The New Yorker has written two previous books.

The Divided Mind of the Black Church -- Theology, Piety & Public Witness by Raphael G. Warnock, New York University '14, 262 pages, ASIN #0814794467. Index, bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

        

From the dust jacket:

"What is the true nature and mission of the church? As a community formed in memory of Jesus Christ and informed by the gospels, what exactly is it called to do? Is its proper Christian purpose to save souls or to transform the social order? As it seeks to bear witness to the 'kin-dom' of God, does it do that best by giving itself over to the work of personal piety or public witness?

"These questions are especially fraught when the church is one built by an enslaved people and formed, from its beginning, at the center of an oppressed community's fight for personhood and freedom. Such is the central tension in the identity and mission of the black church in the United States.

"For decades the black church and black theology have held each other at arm's length. Black theology has emphasized the role of Christian faith in addressing racism and other forms of oppression, arguing that Jesus urged his disciples to seek the freedom of all peoples. Meanwhile, the black church, even when focused on social concerns, has often emphasized personal piety rather than social protest. With the rising influence of conservative evangelicalism, biblical fundamentalism, and the prosperity gospel, the divide has become even more pronounced."

Author Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock serves as Senior Pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA.

Brotherhood of Fear by Paul Grossman -- A Willi Kraus Novel, St. Martin's Press '14, $25.99, 312 pages, ASIN #1250011590.

        

Regular readers of History Wire are often alerted to a mark of respect accorded newly-published books, well before such major awards as the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award are handed out. So it's worth noting that author Paul Grossman's debut nobel, The Sleepwalkers, won a starred review from Library Journal, and his next, Children of Wrath, won the same accolade from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Followers of author Grossman should keep their fingers crossed -- it wouldn't surprise us if Brotherhood of Fear was in a position to further adorn its author's trophy shelf.

From the dust jacket:

"It's Paris, 1933. A refugee with no papers, no legal status, and few resources, Willi Kraus lives in fear of deportation back to Nazi Germany. However, his reputation as a top sleuth precedes him, and he's soon enlisted to work as a private eye -- if under shady circumstances.

"Despite his apparent good fortune, he is a stranger in a very strange land. France is gripped by a fog of disillusionment, anxious about the tides of fascism rising along her borders. Seduced by a sultry but troubled young French girl and befriended by France's most flamboyant financier, Willi finds himself unwittinly drawn into their baffling world."

Author Paul Grossman is a longtime teacher of writing and literature at the City University of New York.

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Over the River and Through the Wood / Sheva's Promise / Roman Guardsman 62-BC -- AD 324

Over the River and Through the Wood -- An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century American Children's Poetry, Johns Hopkins UPress '14 paperback. $29.95, 592 pages, ASIN #1421411407. Title Index, author index, works cited, appendix, notes, follow each chapter, b&w images sprinkled through text.

        

 When one discusses children's poetry, such names as Robert Frost, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Emily Dickinson rarely come to mind. And yet, as Editor Karen L. Kilcup writes, "most American poets wrote for children," particularly in the 19th century.

The collection she and Angela Sorby have compiled "includes work by poets from all geographical regions, as well as rarely seen poems by immigrant and ethnic writers and by children themselves....By turns playful, contemplative, humorous, and subversive, these poems appeal to modern sensibilities while giving scholars a revised picture of the 19th-century literary landscape."

The editors have grouped these poems thematically, such as "Growing Things," "Domestic Animals," "Wild Animals," "Toys and Play," "Nonsense," "Cautionary Tales," "Learning Lessons," "Slavery and Freedom," "Politics and Social Reform," "Histories," "Science and Technology," "Homework and Handwork," "Family Ties," "Dreams and Visions."

About the Editors: Karen L. Kilcup is a professor of American literature at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Angela Sorby is an associate professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Sheva's Promise: Chronicle of Escape from a Nazi Ghetto by Sylvia Lederman, Syracuse UPress '13, $24.95, 232 pages, ASIN #0815610181. Illustrations.

        

 From the dust jacket:

"In this gripping memoir, Lederman tells her story of survival during one of the most horrific episodes in history. Beginning with Lederman as a young girl in Poland in 1941, Sheva's Promise traces her experience in a Nazi ghetto with her mother and sister. Resolved that she must avoid the detention camp to help her family, Lederman obtains a false birth certificate and escapes the ghetto.

"Through the courage and humanity of a few individuals, she finds work in a hospital in Germany under an assumed identity. With fierce determination and resourcefulness, Lederman manages to elude Nazi capture and eventually immigrates to the United States with her husband.

Sheva's Promise is not only an invaluable piece of historical record but also the work of a gifted writer whose keen eye for detail and skillful attention to language gives readers an unforgettable story."

Author Sylvia Lederman worked in the garment industry and spent the rest of her life in Queens, N.Y.

Roman Guardsman 62 BC -- AD 324 by Ross Cowan, Illustrated by Sean O'Brogain, Osprey '14 on glossy paperback stock, $18.95, 62 pages, ASIN #1782009256. Index, glossary, further reading, in-text notes, b&w and color images sprinkled through text.

        

 From the back cover:

"For four centuries, from the civil wars of the Late Republic to Constantine's bloody reunification of the Empire, elite corps of guardsmen were at the heart of every Roman army. Whether as bodyguards or as shock troops in battle, the fighting skills of praetorians, speculatores, singulares, and protectores determined the course of Roman history.

"Although the reputation of these elite units, especially the praetorians, has suffered over the years owing to their association with the imperial excesses of emperors such as Caligula and Nero, they had a proud fighting tradition stretching from Pistoria in 62 BC, to their heroic last stand by the Milvian Bridge in AD 312. This title will detail the changing nature of these units, their organization and operational successes and failures from their origins in the Late Republic through to their unsuccessful struggle against Constantine the Great."

Author Ross Cowan obtained a Ph.D. in research on the Praetorian Guard and Second Parthian Legion and is now a freelance writer and historian. Illustrator Sean O'Brogain has a BA (Hons) in scientific and natural history illustration from Blackpool and Fylde College (Lancaster University).

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- The Twilight of the American Enlightenment / Tradition in the Twenty-First Century / Assassination

The Twilight of the American Enlightenment -- The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief by George M. Marsden, BasicBooks '14, $26.99, 219 pages, ASIN #0465030106. Index, notes, no bibliography, b&w images sprinkled through text.

        

Most Americans of retirement age remember the 1950s weekly TV program, Father Knows Best, which trumpeted the advantages of postwar America, when Dad went to work and Mom stayed home, when bulldozers were busy helping build the next suburban subdivision, and teenagers grooved to an endless array of rock 'n' roll music.

"In many ways," writes author George M. Mardsden in his Introduction, "the mid-twentieth century was a time of tremendous optimism. Americans were constantly being reminded that theirs was the best nation on earth....Probably no one quite believed all the hype, but still, in many ways, things (and it was especially things) were better than they had ever been.....

"As Alan Ehrenhalt, author of The Lost City, put it in that engaging look back at growing up in Chicago, it was 'not that the 1950s were a golden age....but that they were a time when life as it was seemed so much better than life might have been.' Everyone could remember or had heard of enduring the hardships of the Depression, or could look back to or imagine coming of age in 1943, when boys were sent off to an incredibly grim world war."

Against this backdrop, Marsden demonstrates why the values of the '50s "would prove hollow when buffeted by the widespread upheavals of the 1960s. Liberal consensus ideals eventually gave way to multiculturalism even as the mainline Protestant establishment collapsed. Into the resulting cultural vacuum rushed the leaders of the religious right who proposed to reestablish a consensus of American enlightened ideals, but now based on the beliefs of evangelicalism and other conservative religious."

In conclusion, the author concludes that both America's left and right wings proved unable to provide for religious diversity in public life -- "a failure that continues to define American culture and politics today."

Author George M. Marsden is Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History Emeritus at Notre Dame and has written many books, largely on American history. He lives in Grand Rapids, MI.

Tradition in the Twenty-First Century  -- Locating the Role of the Past in the Present, Edited by Trevor J. Blank & Robert Glenn Howard, Utah State University Press '13, 225 pages, ASIN #0874218993. Index, about the contributors, notes follow each essay, unillustrated.

        

From the back cover:

"In Tradition in the Twenty-First Century, eight diverse contributors explore the role of tradition in contemporary folkloristics. For more than a century, folklorists have been interested in locating sources of tradition and accounting for the conceptual boundaries of tradition, but in the modern era, expanded means of communication, research, and travel, along with globalized cultural and economic independence, have complicated these pursuits. Tradition is thoroughly embedded in both modern life and at the center of folklore studies, and a modern understanding of tradition cannot be fully realized without a thoughtful consideration of the past's role in shaping the present.

"Emphasizing how tradition adapts, survives, thrives, and either mutates or remains stable in today's modern world, the contributors pay specific attention to how traditions now resist or expedite dissemination and adoption by individuals and communities. This complex and intimate portrayal of tradition in the twenty-first century offers a comprehensive overview of the folkloristic and popular conceptualizations of tradition from the past to the present and presents a thoughtful assessment and projection of how 'tradition' will fare in years to come."

About the editors:

Trevor J. Blank is assistant professor of communications at the State University of New York at Potsdam. He earned his Ph.D. in American studies from the Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, and an MA at Indiana University's Folklore Institute. Robert Glenn Howard is professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His teaching and publications span several fields, including communication, folklore studies, journalism, and religious studies.

Assassination -- A History of Political Murder by Lindsay Porter, Overlook '10 in oversized format on glossy stock, $35, 191 pages, ASIN #0500251584. Index, list of illustrations, notes, scores of b&w and color glossy images sprinkled through text.

        

Ask an American to name a political assassination and, dollars to donuts, s/he will cite that of President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald 50 years ago last November. But as historian Lindsay Porter writes, high-profile political assassinations occurred as far back in history as ancient times and aren't restricted to elected officials.

Among the killings she profiles are:

"Julius Caesar, the most famous political murder in history, and what it meant for the Roman Empire.

"Thomas Beckett, a sacrilegious killing of the head of the Church of England in his own sanctuary, the first assassination of its kind.

"Henry IV, and the first modern assassination.

"Jean-Paul Marat, whose bathtub stabbing spurred the French Revolution.

"Archduke Franz Ferdinand; how the First World War was started by a secret society of assassins.

"Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Vlla; how the public turned outlaws into icons.

"John F. Kennedy, a grieving nation and conspiracy theories."

Author and art historian Lindsay Porter has published widely on conspiracy theories and secret societies. She is the author of Who Are the Illuminati? and is a contributor to Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia.

 

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Defiant / By the Rivers of Water / The First Treatise on Museums

Defiant -- The POWs Who Endured Vietnam's Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned, by Alvin Townley, Dunne/St. Martin's '14, $27.99, 418 pages, ASIN #1250006538. Index, selected bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

        

While U.S. Sen. John McCain was his party's nominee for President in 2008, he is even better known as having lived six harrowing years as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam. McCain calls Defiant "a riveting tribute to the unyielding men who endured years of brutal captivity as POWs in Vietnam and the families they left behind."

From the dust jacket:

"During the Vietnam War, hundreds of American prisoners-of-war faced years of brutal conditions and horrific torture at the hands of North Vietnamese guards and interrogators who ruthlessly plied them for military intelligence and propaganda. Determined to maintain their Code of Conduct, the POWs developed a powerful underground resistance. To quash it, their captors singled out its eleven leaders, Vietnam's own 'dirty dozen,' and banished them to an isolated jail that would become known as Alcatraz. None would leave its solitary cells and interrogation rooms unscathed; one would never return.

"As these eleven men suffered in Hanoi, their wives at home launched an extraordinary campaign that would ultimately spark the nationwide POW/MIA movement. The members of these military families banded together and showed the courage not only to endure years of doubt about the fate of their husbands and fathers, but to bravely fight for their safe return. When the survivors of Alcatraz finally came home, one would go on to receive the Medal of Honor, another would become a U.S. Senator, and a third still serves in the U.S. Congress."

Author Alvin Townley of Atlanta, GA has written Legacy of Honor, Spirit of Adventure, and Fly Navy.

By the Rivers of Water -- A Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey by Erskine Clarke, BasicBooks '14, $29.99, 450 pages, ASIN #0465002722. Index of names, general index, notes, no bibliography, two groupings of b&w glossy images.

        

"By the Rivers of Waters is a history set in the midst of a 19th-century Atlantic world," explains historian Erskine Clarke in his Preface. "It is a story of a strange odyssey by a young white couple from the Georgia and South Carolina Lowcountry who left plantation homes and the elegant little city of Savannah and sailed ocean highways to West Africa.

"There they lived for 17 years, first in a cottage above the pounding surf at Cape Palmas and later in a cottage by the broad waters of the Gabon estuary. Odysseus-like, they sailed along what was for them an exotic coastline and sometimes ventured up great rivers and followed ancient paths.

"....By the Rivers of Water is the story of John Leighton Wilson and his wife, Jane Bayard Wilson, the best-known and most influential American missionaries in 'West Africa during the first half of the nineteenth   century."

Author Erskine Clarke is professor emeritus of American religious history at Columbia Theological Seminary and recipient of Columbia University's Bancroft Prize for his book, Dwelling Place. He lives in North Carolina.

The First Treatise on Museums -- Samuel Quiccheberg's Inscriptions 1565 by Samuel Quiccheberg, Translation by Mark A. Meadow and Bruce Robertson, Introduction by Mark A. Meadow, Getty Publications '13 paperback, on glossy stock, 145 pages, ASIN #1606061496. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w and color glossy images sprinkled through text.

        

From the back cover:

"In 1565, Samuel Quiccheberg published the Inscriptiones, the earliest known treatise on museums. In this work, he proposes a model for the ideal princely curiosity cabinet, or Wunderkammer. He shows how the collecting of objects offered nobles a means to produce practical knowledge that would be of direct utility in governing the state.

"In mapping out the collectability of the material world, he demonstrates how grouping objects and comparing them helps make the world intelligible. Concerned with the practicalities of operating a large museum, Quiccheberg situates the Wunderkammer within a network of workshops and laboratories that produce, maintain, and study the objects of the collection.

"The First Treatise on Museums makes this work available for the first time in English translation. Quiccheberg's program for early modern collections provides a point of origin for today's museums and an implicit critique of their aims, asserting the fundamental research value of collections."

 

FOCUS: British History -- Ian Fleming / The Melancholy Assemblage

Ian Fleming by Andrew Lycett, St. Martin's Press '13, $29.99, 486 pages, ASIN #1250037980. Index, bibliography, grouping of b&w glossy images.

        

British readers thought nothing remarkable when, in 1953, they picked up a novel called Casino Royale, created by intelligence agent Ian Fleming. Little did they know that he had just created an industry with one James Bond at its helm.

So much has been written about James Bond that the world may lose sight that it knows relatively little about his creator's life, an oversight that author Andrew Lycett aims to redress in his new book. "Educated at Eton and Sandhurst," writes the author, "Fleming joined Britain's Naval Intelligence Division at the start of the Second World War, masterminding many covert operations and liaising at the highest level with the American secret services."

Not only did the James Bond saga make Fleming's life remarkable but the fact that "his life was peopled with such luminaries as Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Noel Coward, Evelyn Waugh, Sean Connery, and Bond film producer Albert R. 'Cubby' Broccoli." Adding spice to this mix is the fact that Fleming's life was set in such varied locations as Jamaica, Switzerland, and England as well as the United States.

Author Andrew Lycett is an English biographer and journalist. He has written biographies of Rudyard Kipling, Dylan Thomas, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Wilkie Collins. He lives in London.

The Melancholy Assemblage -- Affect and Epistemology in the English Renaissance by Drew Daniel, Fordham '14 paperback. $28, 309 pages, ASIN #0823251284. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w and color images sprinkled through text.

        

From the back cover:

"This book considers melancholy as an 'assemblage,' as a network of dynamic, interpretive relationships between persons, bodies, texts, spaces, structures, and things. In doing so, it parts ways with past interpretations of melancholy. Tilting the English Renaissance against the present moment, Daniel argues that the basic disciplinary tension between medicine and philosophy persists within contemporary debates about emotional embodiment.

"To make this case, the book binds together the paintings of Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, the drama of Shakespeare, the prose of Burton, and the poetry of Milton. Crossing borders and periods, Daniel combines recent theories that have until now been regarded as incongruous by their respective advocates. Asking fundamental questions about how the experience of emotion produces community, the book will be of interest to scholars of early modern literature, psychoanalysis, the affective turn, and continental philosophy."

Author Drew Daniel is assistant professor of English at Johns Hopkins University.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Citizen Explorer / The Queen's Dwarf / The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti

Citizen Explorer -- The Life of Zebulon Pike by Jared Orsi, Oxford UP '14, $29.95, 392 pages, ASIN #0199768722. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

In his Introduction, historian Jared Orsi sets a suspenseful table for his saga, drawing in his readers with cliff-hanging (sorry) drama about soldier and explorer Zebulon Pike and his team, as they struggled through mountainous terrain after days without food:

"In January 1807, deep in the snows of the Rocky Mountains, Captain Zebulon Montgomery Pike faced a wrenching decision. He was the commander of an American military expedition to explore the southwestern reaches of the Louisiana Purchase, and he had become badly lost. Since early December, the men had trudged through snow drifts and sloshed across streams. When the horses gave out, they hefted 72-pound packs into the teeth of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

"By January the party was desperate -- too weak to go on, too imperiled not to. On the 17th, several men got wet crossing Grape Creek, and by evening privates John Sparks and Thomas Daugherty were hobbling on frozen feet. Pike wrote in his journal that the men faced 'every possibility of losing them.' Further travel for the two young men was clearly impossible, and yet to leave crippled men in the wilderness promised them almost certain death. Furnishing them with as much food and ammunition as he could spare, and promising to return when he could, he left them."

Author Jared Orsi is associate professor of history at Colorado State University.

The Queen's Dwarf -- A Novel by Ella March Chase, Dunne/St. Martin's '14, $26.99, 372 pages, ASIN #1250006295.

     

From the dust jacket:

"It's 1629, and King Charles I and his French queen, Henrietta Maria, have reigned in England for less than three years. Young dwarf Jeffrey Hudson is swept away from a village chambles and plunged into the Stuart court when his father sells him to the most hated man in England -- the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham trains Jeffrey to be his spy in the household of Charles's seventeen-year-old bride, hoping to gain intelligence that will help him undermine the vivacious queen's influence with the king.

"Desperately homesick in a country that hates her for nationality and Catholic faith, Henrietta Maria surrounds herself with her 'Royal Menagerie of Freaks and Curiosities of Nature- -- a 'collection' consisting of a giant, two other dwarfs, a rope dancer, an acrobat/animal-trainer, and now Jeffrey, who is dubbed 'Lord Minimus.'"

Author Ella March Chase earned her bachelor of arts degree from Augustana College, Rock Island, IL. She is author of The Virgin Queen's Daughter and Three Maids for a Crown, a story of the Grey Sisters.

The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti -- Amarna and its People by Barry Kemp, Thames & Hudson '14, in oversized format on glossy stock, $29.95, 320 pages, ASIN #0500291209. Index, further reading, notes, dozens of b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

The ancient site of Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt was the capital of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten and his chief consort, Nefertiti. "Occupied for around 16 years in the 14th century BC," writes author Barry Kemp, "the city lay largely abandoned and forgotten until excavations over the last 100 years brought it back into prominence."

It is the ancient city that Kemp describes: "A city of temples, royal palaces, civic offices and elite tombs, and simultaneously a city of small-scale mud-brick dwellings. Amarna was an 'urban village,' where most of its citizens were only two or three steps removed in the social scale from the king himself. Barry Kemp evokes the unique character of this famous capital, bringing to life its people -- from Akhenaten, Nefertiti and the royal family to priests and craftsmen -- in this brilliantly written and imaginatively conceived account of the mysterious Amarna interlude."

Author Barry Kemp is emeritus professor of Egyptology at Cambridge University and has been conducting research and excavations at Amarna since 1977.

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Smart Cities / Crab Monsters / Killing Machine

Smart Cities -- Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia by Anthony M. Townsend, Norton '13, $28.95, 384 pages, ASIN #0393082873. Index, notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

     

A telling indication of the timeliness of the urban experience comes at the beginning of Anthony Townsend's new book, in which he uses a whole page for a quotation from Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Coriolanus: "What is the city but the people?" What, indeed. Could Jane Jacobs disagree?

"Stroll through any neighborhood today and your body sets in motion machines of every kind," writes the author in his Preface. "Approach a building and the front door slides open. Enter an empty room and a light flicks on. Jump up and down and a thermostat fires up the air conditioner to compensate for the warming air around you. Roam at will and motion-sensing surveillance cameras slowly turn to track you.

"Day after day, these automatic electromechanical laborers toil at dumb and dirty jobs once done by people. At the fringe of our awareness, they control the world around us. At times they even dare to control us. Yet they are now so familiar, so mundane, that we hardly notice." Enticed? Read on.

Author Anthony M. Townsend is an advisor to industry and government at the Silicon Valley-based Institute for the Future and directs urban research at New York University's Rudin Center for Transportation. He lives in Hoboken, N.J.

Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses, Roger Corman: King of the B Movie by Chris Nashawaty, Introduction by John Landis, Abrams '13 in oversized text on glossy stock, $35, 247 pages, ASIN #1419706691. Scores of b&w and color images sprinkled within text.

     

Don't pick up this book!! Not unless you're prepared to spend (some might say waste) previous time in B movie lore, and lurid photos ranging from an open coffin in Ray Milland's The Premature Burial to three naked actresses on the back cover flap. Not a B movie afficionado myself, I nevertheless found it difficult to skip over such low-budget cult classics such as Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) and Galaxy of Terror (1981), all produced by Roger Corman, the self-proclaimed king of the B movie.

From the front cover:

"As told by Corman himself and by the showbiz legends that got their starts alongside him, Crab Monsters provides a comprehensive oral history of more than six decades of American cinema. Renowned directors and actors including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, and Peter Bogdanovich candidly recount working with Corman in the years before their big breaks, as if trading anecdotes at a Hollywood cocktail party." Novelist Stephen King writes that "I think it would be impossible to love 20th-century film and not love this book."

Author Chris Nashawaty is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. John Landis, who wrote the introduction, directed such classic films as Animal House, The Blues Brothers, and Coming to America.

Killing Machine -- The American Presidency in the Age of Drone Warfare by Lloyd C. Gardner, The New Press '13, $26.95, 289 pages, ASIN #159558918X. Index, notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

     

From the dust cover:

"With Obama's election to the presidency in 2008, many believed the United States had entered a new era: Obama came into office amid high expectations that he would end the war in Iraq and initiate a new foreign policy that would establish American values and the United States' leadership role in the world.

"In this shattering new assessment, historian Lloyd C. Gardner argues that, despite cosmetic changes, Obama has simply built on the expanding power base of presidential power that reaches back across decades and through multiple administrations. The new president ended the 'enhanced interrogation' policy of the Bush administration but did not abandon the concept of preemption. Obama withdrew from Iraq but has institutionalized drone warfare -- including the White House's central role in targeted assassinations. What has come into view, Gardner argues, is the new face of American presidential power: high-tech, secretive, global, and lethal."

Author Lloyd C. Gardner, now retired, taught history at Rutgers University and has written or edited more than a dozen books. He lives in Newtown, PA.

 

FOCUS: History of Wearable Printed Fabrics -- Wearable Prints, 1760-1860

Wearable Prints, 1760--1860 -- History, Materials, and Mechanics by Susan W. Greene, Kent State University Press '14, in oversized format on glossy stock, $100, 568 pages, ASIN #1606351249. Index, bibliography, nine appendices, glossary, notes follow each chapter, scores of b&w and color images.

     

"Wearable  prints are not only a decorative art form but also the product of a range of complex industrial processes and an economically important commodity," writes author/collector Susan W. Greene. "But when did textile originate, and how can we identify the fabrics, inks, dyes, and printing processes used on surviving historical examples?"

Married to a fiberartist myself, I can testify to the intensity and scope of interests of this cohort. In the author's words, "Historians, students, costumers, quilters, designers, curators, and collectors will find it an essential resource."

On the book's back cover, the author has compiled "a comprehensive guide to early methods of printing dress fabrics," which are discussed in the pages of this doorstop volume:

                                           "The India Trade

                             The first printed cottons in Europe

                                    The role of printed calicos

                Bleach, singe, brush, wash, rinse, soak, cleanse, clear

               Muslim, calico, linen, fustian, wool, delaine, challis, silk

                           Discharge, resist, blotch, pad, cover, dip

                      Fugitive, fast, mordant, direct, substantive, vat

       Spirit colors, steam colors, mineral colors, pigment colors, organic

colors" -- And, believe it or not, that's just a sampling!

Author Susan W. Greene is a collector, museum consultant, and independent scholar. Her collection of 18th and early 19th-century items now resides at the Genesee County Village and Museum in Mumford, N.Y.

                            

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- A Most Dangerous Book / The Lumiere Autochrome

 A Most Dangerous Book -- Tacitus's Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich by Christopher B. Krebs, Norton '11, $25.95, 303 pages, ASIN #0393062651. Index, notes, no bibliography, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the dust jacket:

"When, at the height of the Roman Empire, the historian Tacitus wrote a none-too-flattering book about the German tribes, he could not have foreseen that it would be distorted into claiming Germanic superiority and, ultimately, become the perfect vehicle for Nazi ideology.

"....According to Tacitus, although the German people were loyal and physically strong, they were uncultured and unsophisticated, almost primitive. Inaccurate and largely speculative, his narrative lay dormant for centuries. When the manuscript was rediscovered in the fifteenth century, however, a new reading started to emerge, focusing on his mentions of Germanic purity, loyalty, and strength.

"Over the next 500 years, the Germania was reinterpreted and misinterpreted, invoked and manipulated to promote political agendas. Meanwhile, the manuscript itself took on talismanic significance, leading scholars, nobles, and even the pope to attempt to buy or steal it."

Author Christopher B. Krebs, a classics professor at Harvard University, received numerous fellowships to pursue research for this book.

The Lumiere Autochrome -- History, Technology, and Preservation by Bertrand Lavedrine and Jean-Paul Gandolfo, the Getty Conservation Institute '13 in oversized format on glossy stock, 386 pages, ASIN #1606061259. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w and color glossy images.

     

    From the front cover:

"Although Auguste and Louise Lumiere are best known in the United States for their seminal role in the invention of cinema, their most important contribution to the history of photography was the autochrome, a technique that in the first decade of the 20th century made color photography accessible to amateurs for the first time.

"Simple in its essentials -- the autochrome plate is basically a layer of dyed starch granules covered with a black-and-white photographic emulsion -- the material is extremely complex in its detailed structure, and its commercial release in 1907 came only after a decade of research and development during which its creators sought out solutions to the problems of industrial-scale production.

"The knowledge they gained was carefully protected from competitors by a network of patents and by a policy of strict secrecy in the Lumiere factory at Monplaisir, on the outskirts of Lyon, Indeed, while the aesthetics of the autochrome have been thoroughly studied, the precise steps that led the Lumiere brothers to perfect the manufacturing process have never been fully documented or understood -- until now."

About the authors:

Bertrand Lavedrine is a professor at the Museum National d'histoire naturelle and director of the Centre de recherche sur la conservation des collections (CRCC) in Paris. Jean-Paul Gandolfo teaches at the Ecole ationale supericure Louis Lumiere in Paris.

 

 

FOCUS: American History -- Journalism's Roving Eye / Ida McKinley

Journalism's Roving Eye -- A History of American Foreign Reporting by John Maxwell Hamilton, Louisiana State UPress '09, 655 pages, ASIN #0807134740. Index, note on sources, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

From the back cover:

"John Maxwell Hamilton's Journalism's Roving Eye has quickly become the definitive history of American foreign reporting. This edition includes a new preface and updated text, reflecting current developments in foreign reporting.

"Beginning with the colonial era, the book focuses on underlying factors -- such as technology and public opinion -- as well as a cavalcade of personalities who bring the narrative to life in arresting detail, making this an indispensable resource for anyone eager to understand the evolution of foreign newsgathering."

John Maxwell Hamiltion, the Hopkins P. Breazeale Foundation Professor of Journalism, was the founding dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University and currently is the university's executive vice chancellor and provost.

Ida McKinley -- The Turn-of-the-Century First Lady through War, Assassination, and Secret Disability by Carl Sferrazza Anthony. Kent State UPress '13, 376 pages, ASIN #1606351524. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

Although she died more than a century ago, the subject of Carl Sferrazza Anthony's new book is the first full-length biography of the first lady and wife of William McKinley from 1897 to 1901. Unfortunately, this talented woman has been overshadowed in the years since she suffered from epilepsy, a disease that is eminently treatable today but in Ida's day was believed to be a first cousin to mental illness.

From the dust cover:

"Born in Canton, OH, Ida Saxton was the eldest of three children. Throughout her youth, Ida was remarkably independent and energetic. She was interested in art, architecture, and current events, and she was sensitive to the plight of working women. In 1871, she married lawyer and Civil War veteran William McKinley. Following the deaths of their two daughters and her mother, Ida's physical condition deteriorated.

"Throughout William's 1896 presidential campaign, delegations came to the McKinley home in Canton to hear the candidate speak from the front porch. Occasionally, Ida was healthy enough to speak with and meet political figures; sometimes she simply sat to hear his speeches; at other times she was entirely absent....Author Carl Sferrazza Anthony shows that despite her frail health, Ida was determined to fulfill as much of her role as First Lady as she could. She made keen and accurate political observations -- particularly in assessing the motives of those ambitious for appointments -- and her unrelenting lobbying on behalf of Methodist missionary efforts factored into the president's decision to retain the Philippine Islands for the United States.

Author Carl Sferrazza Anthony has written several books and articles and is considered an expert on the subject of the political and social power of presidential wives and families.

 

FOCUS: American History -- The Kennedy Years / Freedom National / William Wyler

The Kennedy Years, from the pages of The New York Times by Richard Reeves, general editor, foreword by Jill Abramson, Abrams '13, in oversized format on glossy stock, $40, 376 pages, ASIN #1419708554. Dozens of b&w and color images sprinkled through text.

     

Given the momentous occasion -- the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination -- it's likely that many of our readers have given or received one or more of the commemorative volumes published about the Kennedy years.

If you're not among them, here's your chance. Noted author Richard Reeves has acted as general editor for a volume of news and opinion about the Kennedy days and the highlights of JFK's administration. Stories by such notable Times journalists as Tom Wicker, David Halberstam, Seymour Topping, and Max Frankel chronicle such historic events as the Bay of Pigs invasion, Nikita Khrushchev's bullying of the young president in Vienna, America's fledgling space program, and his negotiation in bringing about the first nuclear test ban treaty.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard Reeves, has written several books, including President Kennedy: Profile of Power, which was named the Best Nonfiction Book of 1993 by Time. He was also a chief correspondent for Frontline on PBS.

Freedom National -- The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 by James Oakes, Norton '14 paperback.  $18.95, 595 pages, ASIN #0393347753. Index, notes, credits, no bibliography, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

From the back cover:

"This groundbreaking history upends the consensus view that the main purpose of the North in fighting the Civil War was to restore the union, with emancipation adopted only when it became necessary to Union victory.

"Freedom National shows instead that these goals were intertwined from secession to abolition. The result is a fresh view of the Civil War and the definitive history of emancipation."

Howell Raines of The Washington Post, in his review, asks: "Was Lincoln really a 'Reluctant emancipator? Freedom National....answers that question eloquently and...fully....Oakes argues that Lincoln, from the moment of his inauguration, began using every political and military means at his disposal to wipe out slavery forever."

Author James Oakes teaches history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He wrote one previous book, on Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

William Wyler -- The Life and Films of Hollywood's Most Celebrated Director by Gabriel Miller, UKentucky Press '13, $39.95, 512 pages, ASIN #0813142091. Index, selected bibliography, notes, filmography, grouping of b&w glossy images.

     

In spite of widespread critical acclaim and popularity, the work of film director William Wyler "has never been extensively studied," writes author Gabriel Miller, who sets out in his new book to correct that. The reader should come away from this book with an appreciation of the breadth of Wyler's work, with successful and seminal films in nearly every genre, including social drama, melodrama, and comedy.

From the dust cover:

"During his 45-year career, William Wyler (1902-1981) pushed the boundaries of filmmaking with his gripping storylines and innovative depth-of-field cinematography. With a body of work that includes such memorable classics as Jezebel (1938), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Ben-Hur (1959), and Funny Girl (1968), Wyler is the most nominated director in the history of the Academy Awards and bears the distinction of having won an Oscar for Best Director on three occasions. Both Bette Davis and Lillian Hellman considered him America's finest director, and Sir Laurence Olivier said he learned more about film acting from Wyler than anyone else."

Author Gabriel Miller, professor of English at Rutgers University, is the author or editor of numerous books and lives in New Jersey.

 

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Packing for Mars / We Band of Angels / Night Passages

Packing for Mars -- The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach, Norton '10 paperback. $15.95, 334 pages, ASIN #0393339912. Bibliography, timeline, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

Mary Roach is, simply put, one of a kind -- a writer who combines scientific knowledge with an outsized sense of humor, to create thoroughly enjoyable and informative reading. Here's a sample of Roach's writing, drawn from  Packing for Mars:

"To the rocket scientist, you are a problem. You are the most irritating piece of machinery he or she will ever have to deal with. You and your fluctuating metabolism, your puny memory, your frame that comes in a million different configurations. You are unpredictable. You're inconstant. You take weeks to fix.

"The engineer must worry about the water and oxygen and food you'll need in space, about how much extra fuel it will take to launch your shrimp cocktail and irradiated beef tacos. A solar cell or a thruster nozzle is stable and undemanding. It does not excrete or panic or fall in love with the mission commander. It has no ego. Its structural elements don't start to break down without gravity, and it works just fine without sleep.

Author Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers; Spook: Science tackles the Afterlife; and Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. She lives in Oakland, CA.

We Band of Angels -- The Untold Story of the American Women Trapped on Bataan by Elizabeth M. Norman, Random House '13 paperback. $16, 333 pages, ASIN #0812984846. Index, bibliography, notes, two appendices, grouping of b&w images, other b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

From the back cover:

"In the fall of 1941, the Philippines was a gardenia-scented paradise for the American Army and Navy nurses stationed there. War was a distant rumor, like a routine of easy shifts and dinners under the stars. On December 8, all that changed, as Japanese bombs began raining down on American bases in Luzon, and this paradise became a fiery hell. Caught in the raging battle, the nurses set up field hospitals in the jungles of Bataan and the tunnels of Corregidor, where they tended to the most devastating injuries of war, and suffered the terrors of shells and shrapnel.

"But the worst was yet to come. After Bataan and Corregidor fell, the nurses were herded into internment camps, where they would endure three years of fear, brutality, and starvation. Once liberated, they returned to an America that at first celebrated them, but later refused to honor their leaders with the medals they clearly deserved. Here, in letters, diaries, and riveting firsthand accounts, is the story of what really hapapened during those dark days, woven together in a deeply affecting saga of women in war."

Elizabeth M. Norman, Ph.D., RN, is a professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. She is the author or co-author of two previous books.

Night Passages -- Philosophy, Literature, and Film by Elisabeth Bronfen, Columbia UP '13 paperback. $35, 452 pages, ASIN #0231147996. Index, bibliography, no notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

From the back cover:

"Elizabeth Bronfen investigates the nocturnal spaces in which extraordinary events unfold, and casts a critical eye into the darkness that enables the irrational exploration of desire, transformation, ecstacy, transgression, spiritual illumination, and moral choice. She begins with an analysis of classical myths depicting the creation of the world and then moves through night scenes in Shakespeare and Milton, Gothic novels and novellas, Hegel's romantic philosophy, and Freud's psychoanalysis.

"Bronfen also demonstrates how modern works of literature and film, particularly film noir, can convey that piece of night the modern subject carries within. From Mozart's 'Queen of the Night' to Virginia Woolf's oscillation between day and night, life and death, and chaos and aesthetic form, Bronfen renders something visible, conceivable and comprehensible from the dark realms of the unknown."

Author Elisabeth Bronfen teaches English and American studies at the University of Zurich and has written numerous previous books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- The Everything Store / One Simple Idea / The Pagan Lord

The Everything Store -- Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone, Little Brown '13, $28, 372 pages, ASIN #0316219266. Index, notes, appendix, no bibliography, grouping of b&w and color glossy images.

      

Readers seen to have an unquenchable desire to learn how today's geniuses -- such wizards as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Zuckerberg -- earned their spurs. Rather than discovering a universal template for success, they find stories as varied as the subjects themselves.

In his new book, Internet journalist Brad Stone relates the saga of a boy named Tim, better known to general readers as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who many know as the online bookseller. He'd earn a place in history if that were all, "But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in much the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing -- with a ruthlessness that is matched by a commitment to delivering superior customer experience."

A decade or so ago, I was in attendance when Bezos received an honorary degree from the University of Hartford after delivering a spellbinding address. Displaying his little-boy side when university bigwigs hung a ribbon around his neck, Bezos began giggling like a kid on Christmas morning, saying, "This is just SO COOL!"

Particularly fascinating is Stone's probing into what makes the Seattle-based Amazon empire tick, with such traditions, described in his Prologue, as abandonment of PowerPoint decks or slide presentations in favor of six-page written narratives to unveil proposals (who says the written word is dead?).

Brad Stone has covered Amazon and technology in Silicon Valley for 15 years for such publications as Newsweek and the New York Times. He lives in San Francisco.

One Simple Idea -- How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life by Mitch Horowitz, Crown '14, $24, 338 pages, ASIN #0307986497. Index, note on sources, footnotes, unillustrated.

     

From the dust jacket:

"The power of positive thinking. It is a cultural axiom that has so deeply infiltrated the American consciousness -- from Oprah to The Secret to prosperity ministries -- that people rarely consider its foundations. One Simple Idea is the first definitive history of how this New Age tenet seeped into mass modern belief from an expert in the field -- Mitch Horowitz, publishing executive and noted spirituality historian.

"From Ronald Reagan's 'Nothing is impossible' to President Obama's 'Yes, we can,' political messaging taps into the pervasive idea that positive thought can break down barriers to success. Slogans such as the U.S. Army's 'Be all you can be' and Nike's 'Just do it' transform positive thinking into the cultural zeitgeist. Positive thought is at the root of studies on the placebo effect, the 12-step approach to overcoming addiction, and the mind-body connection in treating illness.

"For all its influence across popular culture, religion, politics, and medicine, this psycho-spiritual movement remains a maligned and misunderstood force in modern life. In response, One Simple Idea corrects several historical misconceptions about the positive-thinking movement, rescues its pioneers from obscurity, and explores the lives of its most dramatic personalities, including Napoleon Hill and Norman Vincent Peale."

Author Mitch Horowitz is vice president and editor in chikef at Tarcher/Penguin, the division of Penguin dedicated to metaphysical literature.

The Pagan Lord -- A Novel by Bernard Cornwell, Harper '14, $27.99, 299 pages, ASIN #0061969702.

     

 Veteran novelist Bernard Cornwell has written more novels than nearly anyone writing today, including nearly two dozen books in a series he calls The Sharpe Novels. In his latest work, the writer The Wall Street Journal calls the most prolific and successful historical novelist in the world today "returns to his Saxon tales saga with the epic story of divided loyalties, bloody battles, and the struggle to unite Britain. In a brief Q&A with blogger Terri-Lea Laurie, Cornwell discusses the writing of his new book:

Q. When you sit down to write a book in the Warrior Chronicles, do you have to revisit any UK settings in the flesh? Do you need to stand beneath the walls of the real Bamburgh (or similarly sited structure) to reignite that drive Uhtred has to take back his ancestral right?

A. I certainly don't need to reignite Uhtred! He has enough drive already. I just let him out of his box. And yes, I do visit the places that feature heavily in the stories -- I do that for just about every book. I call it 'research,' but really it's a pleasure.

Q. Is there any particular story within the sagas and Norse culture that has been a source of inspiration or contemplation for you and if so, why?

A. The biggest influence is Old English poetry, of which we have a lot. Why? Because it's a glimpse into how they thought.

Author Bernard Cornwell is the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers 1356 and Agincourt among many others. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod and in Charleston, S.C.

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That: My Crazy Century / Piero's Light / The Discipline of Philosophy

My Crazy Century -- A Memoir by Ivan Klima, Grove Atlantic '13, $30, 534 pages, ASIN #0802121705. Grouping of b&w glossy images. 

     

Czech writer Ivan Klima's latest book grows out of a suggestion posed by one of his colleagues that Klima's readers would be interested in his observations about his several-year membership in the Communist Party. "For quite a long time now," writes the author in his Prologue, "I have considered the Communist Party or, more precisely, the Communist movement, a criminal conspiracy against democracy. And it is not pleasant to remember that, even though it was for only a short period, I had been a member of this party."

In reflecting on the proposed premise for the book, Klima noted that Communism today is largely forgotten. "Its revolutionary theories have been refuted by practice. These days people are threatened much more by international terrorism; instead of battling Marxism, democracy is battling radical branches of Islam.

"Perhaps this attempt of mine to recount and analyze what took place in my life might have meaning even for those who consider communism a long-dead idea. In my account, I mainly concentrate on the circumstances that, in this crazy century, often led mankind astray, sometimes with fatal consequences."

Ivan Klima, born in Prague in 1931, has written more than 30 plays, essay collections, and novels.

Piero's Light -- In Search of Piero Della Francesca: A Renaissance Painter and the Revolution in Art, Science, and Religion.by Larry Witham. Pegasus '14. $28.95, 367 pages, ASIN #1605984949. Index, notes, no bibliography, grouping of color glossy images.

     

In his latest work, author Larry Witham demonstrates "how art, religion and science came together at the dawn of the modern world in the works of one remarkable artist of the early Italian Renaissance -- Piero della Francesca."

A brief preview from the dust jacket:

"In the heart of Tuscany, Piero della Francesca became a painter and mathematician at the dawn of the Renaissance, revealing his innovative mind in some of the best known images from that period and in his unusual writings on geometry. Yet as a personality, Piero remains a mystery. He leaves an enigmatic legacy that ranges from the merging of religion and mathematics to his use of perspective to make painting 'a true science.'

"In this engaging narrative, Larry Witham transports us to Piero's tumultuous age, a world of princes and popes, soldiers and schisms. Piero's Light also reveals how he was part of the philosophical revival of Platonism, an ancient worldview that would shape the transition of art, religion, and science toward modernity. Just sixteen of Piero's paintings survive, but these images and his writings would fuel some of the greatest art history debates of all time."

Author Larry Witham has written more than 12 books and lives in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The Discipline of Philosophy and the Invention of Modern Jewish Thought by Willi Goetschel, Fordham UPress '13, 270 pages, ASIN #0823244962. Index, notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

     

From the front cover:

"Exploring the subject of Jewish philosophy as a controversial construction site of the project of modernity, this book examines the implications of the different and often conflicting notions that drive the debate on the question of what Jewish philosophy is or could be. The idea of Jewish philosophy begs the question as such. But 'Jewish philosophy' does not just reflect what 'philosophy' lacks. Rather, it challenges the project of philosophy itself.

"Examining the thought of Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Margarete Susman, Herman Levin Goldschmidt, and others, the book highlights how the most philosophic moments of their works are those in which specific concerns of their 'Jewish questions' inform the rethinking of philosophy's disciplinary in principal terms.

"The long-overdue recognition of the modernity that informs the critical trajectories of Jewish philosophers from Spinoza and Mendelssohn to the present emancipates not just 'Jewish philosophy' from an infelicitous pigeonhole these philosophers so pointedly sought to reject but, more important, emancipates philosophy from its false claims to universalism."

Author Willi Goetschel is professor of German and philosophy at the University of Toronto.

 

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Double Down / Play it Again / The Disuniting of America

Double Down -- Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, Penguin '13, $29.95, 499 pages, ASIN #1594204403. Index, no bibliography or notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

     

"With so much at stake," write co-authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their Prologue, "the 2012 election had the feel of a big casino, as the players took on the complexion of compulsive gamblers, pushing more and more chips into the center of the table. On the right, a phalanx of millionaires and billionaires doubled down on Romney even after his flaws were all too clear, pouring gargantuan sums into his campaign and conservative super PACs.

"The Republican nominee, in turn, not only doubled down on the orthodoxies of the right but on his own controversial statements and positions. On the left, the Obamans were engaged in their own doubling down: on the coalition that had elected their man in 2008; on their pioneering use of new technology; on their grassroots get-out-the-vote machine. But no doubt the biggest wager they placed was on Obama."

About the authors:

Mark Halperin is an editor at large, a senior political analyst for Time magazine and a senior political analyst for MSNBC. John Heilemann is national affairs editor for New York magazine and a political analyst for MSNBC. 

Play it Again -- An Amateur Against the Impossible by Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux '13, $28, 403 pages, ASIN #0374232911. Index, further reading, score and commentary, b&w images sprinkled through text.

     

When a radiologist friend of mine retired, he took on the unbelievably arduous task of writing a symphony, fortunately gaining the assistance of a symphony conductor along the way. Some might say that author Alan Rusbridger's challenge was greater, some not as great, "to fluently learn Chopin's magnificent Ballade No. l in G minor, arguably one of the most difficult Romantic compositions in the repertory. With pyrotechnic passages that require feats of memory, dexterity, and power, the piece is one that causes alarm even in battle-hardened concert pianists. He gives himself a year.

If this task were to fall to a veteran concert pianist, that would be challenge enough. But instead, it fell to Alan Rusbridger, for the past 18 years the editor of the Guardian, one of London's foremost newspapers. His description of mastering the Ballade "is hugely engaging, yet his subject is clearly larger than any one piece of music. Play it Again deals with focus, discipline, and desire but is, above all, about the sanctity of one's inner life in a world dominated by deadlines and distractions."

Northern Rhodesia-born Rusbridger was educated at the University of Cambridge and lives in London. 

The Disuniting of America -- Reflections on a Multicultural Society by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Norton '92, $15.95, 160 pages, ASIN #0393045803. Index, notes on sources, unillustrated.

     

Few American political historians have had the influence and insights of Dr. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. No one would ever dare call Schlesinger a conservative; he earned his spurs on the staff of President John F. Kennedy and, with it, cemented a reputation along with Prof. John Kenneth Galbraith as two of the foremost liberals of the second half of the 20th century.

From the dust cover:

"In this powerfully argued essay, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. considers what it means to be an American.

"The promise of America has always been a fresh start on equal footing, and the classic image of the republic is that of the melting pot, where differences of race, wealth, religion, and nationality are submerged in the pursuit and exercise of democracy. But today the idea of the melting pot is under attack, and a new orthodoxy describes America, past and present, as a nation of self-interested groups. The idea of assimilation into the mainstream is giving ground to the celebration of ethnicity.

"The upsurge in ethnic awareness has had some healthy consequences, including long-overdue recognition of the achievements of women, black Americans, Indians, Hispanics, and Asians, among others. But the cult of ethnicity has its price, observes Schlesinger, and, pressed too far, poses this danger: 'the fragmentation, resegregation, and tribalization of American life."

Not one -- but two -- Pulitzer Prizes have come to Harvard Prof. Arthur M. Schlesinger during his political and writing career. His numerous books include A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. He taught history at Harvard as far back as 1946, and he taught for many years at the graduate school at University Center of City University of New York.