Steve Goddard's History Wire

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Forgotten Country / Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die / Ships from the Depths / Democracy, Islam, & Secularism in Turkey

Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung, Riverhead Books '12, $26.95, 293 pages, ASIN

#1594488088.

It's one thing for a long-established author to score a literary trifecta -- starred reviews from Booklist, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews -- but it's quite another for an author to accomplish the same feat with her first novel. Catherine Chung's debut portrays two sisters in crisis and examines the complexities of family dynamics in Korea. In a brief Q&A, Chung discusses the writing of her book:

Q. Your book starts with two Korean-American sisters -- Janie, your narrator, and her younger sister, Hannah, a college student who suddenly disappears. Where does the story go from there?

A. The story is about what happens to the family in the aftermath of Hannah's disappearance: how they search for her, and how they try to come back together, but to get that story, we have to follow them into the past, and also through some folktales and into Korea as well.

Q. Math is a leitmotif in the novel and before you were a writer, you were on a path to a career in mathematics. Can you explain the switch? How does your background in math inform your writing?

A. In my writing, I try to say things as clearly and cleanly as possible, and that might have something to do with learning to write math proofs in college, or it might just be that I'm attracted to that kind of beauty and elegance in both disciplines. It seems to me that both writing and math are ultimately about learning how to make sense of the world, trying to organize the chaos and describe it, and hoping it turns out to be something very lovely.

Catherine Chung was born in Evanston, IL, studied math at the University of Chicago, and received an MFA in creative writing from Cornell University. Born to Korean immigrant parents and raised in New York, New Jersey and Michigan, she has also lived in Korea, Germany, and France.

Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die -- The Assassination of a British Prime Minister, Walker & Co., $26, 286 pages, ASIN #0802779980. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

Bookshelves are full of books on the War of 1812 between America and Britain but relatively little has been written about a key element in the run-up to that war: the assassination at close range of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in the lobby of Parliament.

Perceval self-confessed assassin was Liverpool businessman John Bellingham, who thought that his act was "a matter of justice" and that it would win public acclaim. Instead, within a week, even before his motives could be explored, Bellingham was tried, convicted, and hanged. While history has concluded he must have been insane, he insisted until the end that he was of sound mind.

Author Andro Linklater, drawing on Bellingham's personal records, reports of London's first detective agency and hitherto undiscovered correspondence, reveals his conclusion that Bellingham's action has "the outlines of a conspiracy." He sets forth in detail what, he believes, really happened.

Andro Linklater, who lives in England, has written three previous works, including two about American history.

Ships from the Depths -- Deepwater Archaeology by Fredrik Soreide, Texas A&M University '11, $45, 200 pages, in oversized format on glossy stock, ASIN #1603442189. Index, references, dozens of b&w and color glossy images.

From the back cover:

"Ships from the Depths: Deepwater Archaeology surveys the dramatic advances in technology over the last few years that have made it possible for scientists to locate, study, and catalogue archaeological sites in waters previously inaccessible to humans. Researcher and explorer Fredrik Soreide presents the development of deepwater archaeology since 1971, when Willard Bascom designed his Alcoa Seaprobe to locate and raise deepwater wrecks in the Mediterranean. Accompanied by descriptions and color photographs of deepwater projects and equipment, this book considers not only techniques that have been developed for location and observation of sites, but also removal and excavation methods distinctive to these unique locations, far beyond the reach of scuba gear.

"Thousands of shipwrecks and archaeological sites lie undiscovered in deep water. These sites contain important archaeological contributions to the knowledge of our maritime past. This makes deepwater archaeology an important and developing area of study and research. Fredrik Soreide's Ships from the Depths provides an introduction to and survey of the history, development, and potential of this exciting branch of nautical archaeology. Scholars and field archaeologists will appreciate this handy compendium of the current state of the discipline and technology, and general readers will relish this comprehensive look at the challenges and opportunities associated with locating and studying historical and ancient shipwrecks in some of the world's deepest waters.

Fredrik Soreide teaches archaeology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway from which he has a Ph.D. in marine engineering.

Democracy, Islam, & Secularism in Turkey, Edited by Ahmet T. Kuru & Alfred Stepan, Columbia UP '12 paperback. 216 pages, ASIN #0231159331. Index, bibliography, contributors, notes follow each essay.

From the back cover:

"While Turkey has grown as a world power, promoting the image of a progressive and stable nation, several choices in policy have strained its relationship with the East and the West. Providing historical, social, and religious context for this behavior, the essays in Democracy, Islam, and Securalism in Turkey examine issues relevant to Turkish debates and global concerns, from the state's position on religion to its involvement with the European Union.

Titles of the essays gathered by the editors are: Rethinking Ottoman Management of Diversity, The Historical Roots of Kemalism, Turkey -- Plural Society and Monolithic State, Laicite' as an 'Ideal Type" and a Continuum, A New Politics of Engagement, The Turkish Constitutional Court and Political Crisis, Turkey's Accession to the European Union and the Role of the Justice and Development Party, and The "Turkish Model" in the Matrix of Political Catholicism.

Editor Ahmet T. Kuru is associate professor of political science at San Diego State University. Alfred Stepan is the Wallace Sayre professor of government at Columbia University.

FOCUS: American History -- Grand Central's Engineer / Slavery's Ghost

Grand Central's Engineer -- William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan by Kurt C. Schlichting, Johns Hopkins UP '12, $49.95, 276 pages, ASIN #1421403021. Index, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text, no bibliography.

Kurt Schlichting's new book is a stellar example of the importance of university presses. It profiles the chief engineer of the New York Central Railroad, the man "who first presented his revolutionary plans for a completely new Grand Central and an underground electrified train yard to the president and board of the railroad in 1902."

Yet when new Grand Central Terminal on 42d Street was opened in 1913, "Wilgus was not only ignored....," the author writes. "He remains lost to history." Yet it was he who proposed "taking the railroad's aging Grand Central depot and train yard -- stretching from 42d to 56th Streets and from Lexington to Madison Avenues -- and placing the entire rail complex underground, and then building a new Grand Central." Together with Penn Station at 34th St., opened in 1912, New York City would boast the two largest and most elaborate rail passenger facilities in the world.

Shelves of books have been written about J.P. Morgan, a member of the railroad's board of directors, but nary one article about the man whose vision produced a facility which draws many thousands of visitors a full century after its construction. Wilgus would continue to languish in obscurity had not Johns Hopkins University Press chosen to showcase him by printing his biography.

Kurt C. Schlichting is a professor of sociology and the E. Gerald Corrigan '63 Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Fairfield University. He has written one other book about the Grand Central Terminal.

Slavery's Ghost by Richard Follett, Eric Foner, and Walter Johnson, Johns Hopkins UP '11 paperback. $19.95, 119 pages, ASIN #1421402351. Index, guide to further reading,

notes, unillustrated.

Schoolchildren for generations have been taught the promise of freedom and equal rights that President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation vouchsafed them in 1863. But, as three essayists argue in this new collection, there's a darker side to the story -- the "dire, debilitating, sometimes crushing effects of slavery on race relations in American history."

In this new tome, three prominent historians ask these challenging questions: "How did slaves and freedpeople respond to the promise and reality of emancipation? How committed were white Southerners to the principle of racial subjugation? And in what ways can we best interpret the actions of enslaved and free Americans during slavery and Reconstruction?" Collectively, the essays probe the realities of local political power, the determinants of individual choices, and the discourse that shaped and defined the history of black freedom.

Richard Follett is a Reader in American history at the University of Sussex, England. Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and author of the 2011 Pulitzer-Prize winner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. Walter Johnson is the Winthrop Professor of History and professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

FOCUS: Cultural History -- The Lost One / Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian

The Lost One -- A Life of Peter Lorre by Stephen D. Youngkin, UKentucky Press '12 paperback. $27.95, 613 pages, ASIN #0813136067. Index, bibliography, notes, appendix, grouping of b&w glossy images.

Few movie actors have given rise to more quotable quotes than the iconic Peter Lorre. Samples: "You know, Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust." -- Casablanca. "Might I remind you Mr. Spade that you may have the falcon, but we certainly have you." -- The Maltese Falcon.

Stephen D. Youngkin, a specialist in Lorre's life, not only profiles his subject's memorable life but, in the process, comes up with some memorable trivia: That as a young man in Vienna, he was a student of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. That his distinctive voice gave Lorre a second career as a radio actor. That he was the very first James Bond villain; he played Le Chiffre in a 1954 version of Casino Royale on the TV show "Climax!"

Stephen Youngkin is co-author of The Films of Peter Lorre and Peter Lorre: Portrait des Schauspielers auf der Flucht. He also appeared on A&E's Biography tribute to Peter Lorre.

Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian -- Contested Representation in the Global Era by Matthew Krystal. UColorado Press '12, $70, 360 pages, ASIN #1607320967. Index, works cited, notes at end of each chapter, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the dust jacket:

"Focusing on the enactment of identity in dance, Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian is a cross-cultural, cross-ethnic, and cross-national comparison of indigenous dance practices.

"Considering four genres of dance in which indigenous people are represented -- K'iche Maya traditional dance, powwow, folkloric dance, and dancing sports mascots -- the book addresses both the ideational and behavioral dimensions of identity. Each dance is examined as a unique cultural expression in individual chapters, and then all are compared in the conclusion, where striking parallels and important divergences are revealed. Ultimately, Krystal describes how dances and audiences work to construct and consume satisfying and meaningfuul identities through dance by either challenging social inequality or reinforcing the present social order."

Matthew Krystal is an assistant professor of anthropology at North Central College iin Naperville, IL.

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- The Real Mad Men / Fanny Hill in Bombay / Hell Above Earth / The Spanish Holocaust

The Real Mad Men -- The Renegades of Madison Avenue and the Golden Age of Advertising by Andrew Cracknell, foreward by Sir John Hegarty, introduction by Fred Danzig, Running Press '11, oversized format, $28, 224 pages, ASIN #0762440902. Index, bibliography, b&w and color images sprinkled through text.

There's no better way to date a book about '50s and '60s America than to put a hand holding a cigarette on the cover. While that carries a negative connotation today, ironically it sent out positive vibes in the ad world of the era (think "Marlboro Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should.)" Veteran ad-man Andrew Cracknell gives a nod to the TV series Mad Men but says "Where it falls short is in telling the real story of the decade: the passion, madness, and mayhem that was all part of the Creative Revolution.

In trying to do so, the author profiles such "larger-than-life" players as David Ogilvy and Mary Wells, describes "how the growth of the influence of Jews, Italians, and women in the workforce took shape, and the accompanying growth in 'colorful' behavior;" explains the new business models industry leaders created and the legacy they left behind; how ads themselves changed to become more exciting, witty, and candid; and reveals who was the most successful and glamorous woman ever in U.S. business history.

Among the vignettes readers can feast on is "How an agency sold 'a Nazi car in a Jewish town,' (Volkswagen), only 13 years after the Holocaust; the duel of ads between competing car rental agencies, Avis and Hertz; and "how an anonymous Texas airline was completely taken apart by a style conscious young woman and rebuilt in a swirl of scintillating colour and fabric--and became the most famous in the country."

Andrew Cracknell started his advertising career as a copywriter in the 1960s with Collett Dickerson Pearce in London. Since then, he's "worked on both sides of the Atlantic in a variety of agencies of varying size and quality, in capacities from copywriter to chairman and worldwide creative director."

Fanny Hill in Bombay -- The Making & Unmaking of John Cleland by Hal Gladfelder, Johns Hopkins UP '12, $54.95, ASIN #1421404907. Index, bibliography, notes, appendix, unillustrated.

In his latest book, author Hal Gladfelder profiles one of "the most scandalous figures in British literary history, both celebrated and attacked as a pioneer of pornographic writing in English." He positions John Cleland as a central figure in the development of the novel and in the construction of modern notions of authorial and sexual identity in 18th century England.

Early on, Gladfelder explains that he's not writing a traditional biography. Rather, Fanny Hill in Bombay presents "a case history of a renegade authorial persona, based on published works, letters, private notes, and newly discovered legal testimony." It retraces Cleland's career from his youth as a colonial striver with the East India Company in Bombay through debtors' prison and estrangement from collaborators and family, "shedding light on his paradoxical status as literary insider and social outcast."

Hal Gladfelder is a senior lecturer of English and American studies at the University of Manchester and has written and edited previous works.

Hell Above Earth -- The Incredible Story of an American WWII Bomber Commander and the Copilot Ordered to Kill Him by Stephen Frater, St. Martin's Press '12, $25.99, 302 pages, ASIN #0312617925. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

If you like nonfiction books that read like novels, you may want to put this book on your list. From the dust jacket:

"The U.S. air battle over Nazi Germany in World War II was hell above earth. It lasted three years and cost the lives of 125,000 Allied airmen, including 26,000 Americans from the U.S. Army's Eighth Air Force in England. For bomber crews, every day they flew was like D-Day, exacting tremendous accounts of emotional uncertainty and trauma. Some men, such as twenty-year-old U.S. Captain Werner Goering, accepted this, even thrived on and welcomed the adrenaline rush.

"They knew that death could come in a variety of ways: an unlucky flak burst, Luftwaffe fighters that could appear anywhere at any time, or pilot error while flying less than twenty feet apart. Werner Goering was an exceptional pilot. He was also the nephew of Hermann Goring, leading member of the Nazi party and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe."

Stephen Frater was a staff writer and columnist for The Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is currently an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island's Harrington School of Communication and Media.

The Spanish Holocaust -- Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain by Paul Preston, Norton '12, $35, 700 pages, ASIN #039306476X. Index, notes, appendix, glossary, no bibliography, grouping of b&w glossy images.

From the back cover:

"From the world's foremost historian of Spain comes the first fully fledged examination of the country's darkest period, when hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children were systematically wiped out at the hands of General Franco and his loyal henchmen. It is a riveting work with international repercussions, one that sheds crucial light on one of the most unexamined and horrific eras of modern European history....The Spanish Holocaust finally provides the missing link to our complete understanding of the historical atrocities perpetrated in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century."

Author Paul Preston is Principe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish History at the London School of Economics and the author of 10 previous books. He lives in England.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- American Showman / A Bomb in Every Issue / Memories of Chekhov

American Showman -- Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry by Ross Melnick, Columbia '12, 538 pages, ASIN #0231159048. Index, bibliography,

notes, grouping of b&w images.

In the few instances in which a book crosses our desks containing 100 or more pages of notes, we usually can be sure it addresses a serious scientific, literary or historic subject and may have a high boredom quotient. But it's more than rare to find such a phenomenon in an accessible biography dealing with the entertainment industry.

In his new work, cinema studies professor Ross Melnick writes of film exhibitor/stage producer/radio broadcaster, musical arranger/ theater manager/ war propagandist Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel: "He helped engineer the integration of film, music, and live performance in silent film exhibition; scored early Fox Movietone films such as Sunrise (1927); pioneered the convergence of film, broadcasting, and music publishing and recording in the 1920s; and helped movies and moviegoing become the dominant form of mass entertainment between the world wars."

In so doing. Melnick says, Rothafel drew on legitimate theater, opera, ballet, and classical music "to attract multiclass audiences." He says that "Roxy" was "regularly cited as one of the twelve most important figures in the film and radio industries."

Ross Melnick is assistant professor of cinema studies at Oakland University, having received his Ph.D. in Cinema and media studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is co-author of another book on film.

A Bomb in Every Issue -- How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America by Peter Richardson, The New Press '09, $25.95, 247 pages, ASIN #B003167U8S. Index, sources, notes, grouping of b&w images.

In writing of the iconic Ramparts Magazine, Journalist Peter Richardson argues that the San Francisco lefty publication "captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s, repeatedly scooped the New York Times, and changed American journalism forever." The dramatis personae is a trip back in time: Eldridge Cleaver, Todd Gitlin, Tom Hayden, Brit Hume (Hey, who let this right winger in?); Noam Chomsky, Seymour Hersh, Susan Sontag, Jessica Mitford, Marty Peretz, and Hunter Thompson.

In an especially valuable section called "After Remnants," the author spends a sentence or two explaining what each contributor did with the years since Ramparts folded in 1975. And lest we get too serious here, his entry for Henry Luce simply reads "sank into obscurity."

Richardson argues that even though Ramparts folded after only 13 years, it left an important legacy. Its former staffers founded Rolling Stone and Mother Jones and "Ramparts's combination of high audacity and solid reporting influenced a generation of progressive writers.

Peter Richardson is editorial director at PoliPoint Press, chair of the California Studies Association, and a lecturer at San Francisco State University.

Memories of Chekhov -- Accounts of the Writer from His Family, Friends and Contemporaries, Edited and translated by Peter Sekirin, foreword by Alan Twigg, McFarland '11 paperback, $45, 223 pages, ASIN #0786458712. Index, annotated bibliography, appendix, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the rear cover:

"This revelatory documentary biography of Anton Chekhov (1860--1904), one of the world's best playwrights, collects more than 100 written recollections of Chekhov's close friends, family and collage writers and artists, such as Ivan Bunin, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Maxim Gorky. Drawn from rare periodicals and obscure archival sources from the 1880s to the 1930s, these accounts, few of which have ever before been translated to English, address his affairs with female admirers, his passions and hobbies, his visits to shelters for the homeless, his support of aspiring writers, as well as his advice to theater directors, actors and writers. A complement to the wealth of scholarly material on Chekhov, this work offers new discoveries for both specialists and general enthusiasts."

Peter Sekirin has translated two of Tolstoy's works, A Calendar of Wisdom, Divine and Human; and Wise Thought for Every Day, and lives in Ontario, Canada.

FOCUS: History of Science -- The Story of Earth / Imagine

The Story of Earth -- The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet by Robert M. Hazen, Viking '12, $27.95, 306 pages, ASIN #0670023558. Index, timeline, no bibliography or notes.

"Combining astrobiology with the natural world as we know it," writes author Robert M. Hazen, "The Story of Earth advances two controversial claims: that life evolved from rocks, and that most of the planet's minerals derive from life. ( By extension, finding these minerals elsewhere in the universe would signal extraterrestial life). Second, organic molecules reacting with minerals crystals may have generated life."

Hazen employs eye-witness accounts of key 20th century moments to let his readers "meet nomadic meteorite-hawkers in the Sahara, gun-toting feds guarding NASA's mantle." The author shows how "those advances have paved the way for a new century of explorers: through initiatives like the Deep Carbon Observatory, young scientists' dispatches from Earth's harshest landscapes are fusing geology, chemistry, and biology to revolutionize our understanding of Earth and its place in the cosmos."

Author Robert M. Hazen is a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, the executive director of the Deep Carbon Observatory, and the Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science at George Mason University. He has written more than 350 articles and numerous books.

Imagine -- How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer, HMH Publishers '12, $26, 279 pages, ASIN #0547386079. Index, no bibliography, endnotes and footnotes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

In his new book, Rhodes Scholar Jonah Lehrer offers 5 tips for his readers to reach their creative potential:

1) Get Stumped. "The act of being stumped is essential to the creative process because we need to be convinced that there is no solution, that we will never solve our problem, never invent the next big thing, or finish writing the novel. We need that feeling of frustration because it leads us to a moment of eventual insight."

2) Stick With It. "Although giving up when you're feeling frustrated and stumped seems like a good idea, perseverance and working through the problem is crucial to the left brain transfering activity to the right brain, which hopefully will result in a creative breakthrough."

3) Take a Break. "Although persistence is key to creative breakthroughs, sometimes taking a break, backing off and refocusing can help alter your mood and help you achieve a more creative state of mind."

4) Become an Outsider. "Studies show that travel is one way to enhance creativity because it encourages thinking outside of your normal self. Even little things like not knowing whether to tip a waiter or how to say 'thank you' stimulate the mind and make you more observant of what is outside of what you already know."

5) Channel Your Inner Seven-Year Old. "In a recent study, a psychologist assigned a few hundred undergraduates to two different gropus. The first group was given the following instructions: 'You are seven years old, and school is cancelled. You have the entire day to yourself. What would you do? Where would you go? Whom would you see? The second group was given the exact same instructions, except the first sentence was deleted..... Interestingly, the students who imagined themselves as young kids scored far higher on the creative tasks, coming up with twice as many ideas as the other groups."

Jonah Lehrer, author of two previous books, is a contributing editor at Wired and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- It's Even Worse Than It Looks / Pinstripe Empire / Music Makes Me / What They Saved

It's Even Worse Than It Looks -- How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Orenstein, BasicBooks '12, $26, 226 pages, ASIN #0465031331. Index, notes, no bibliography, a few b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

In the polarized climate of this era's politics and government in America, the authors are about as close to moderates as one can find, although some would say Thomas E. Mann shades a bit to the left and Norman J. Orenstein shades a bit to the right. Each of them has more than 40 years under his belt and both are seasoned authors and analysts, eagerly sought after for political comment and learned reflection.

Orenstein and Mann begin their book with a stunning example of why the current Congress has descended through the rabbit hole with Alice. In 2009, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John McCain issued a clarion call for Congress to curb entitlement spending and declared that a bipartisan plan to get debt and spending under control "deserves support from both sides of the aisle." Yet by Jan. 26, 2010, the Senate blocked the same resolution, with the support of Senators McCain and McConnell. "Why did they do so?," the authors ask. "Because President Barack Obama was for it, and its passage might gain him political credit."

Such an anecdote won't surprise anyone following recent American politics. But, you ask, what will happen to break the gridlock in November's pivotal election? If Obama is re-elected but faces either a divided Congress or Republican control of both houses of Congress, "there is little reason to expect a new modus vivendi in which the president and GOP leaders are able to find reasonable compromises in areas like budget policy, health reform and financial regulation."

But if Obama is re-elected along with a Democratic Congress, "Republicans will have suffered an unexpected and devastating defeat, and some Republican Senators may decide the time has come to put the all-out opposition strategy aside and to re-engage in the legislating process."

Thomas E. Mann is a former American Political Science Assn. Congressional Fellow and its former executive director. He's now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of a weekly column for Roll Call.

Pinstripe Empire -- The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss by Marty Appel, Bloomsbury '12. $28, 620 pages, ASIN #1608194922. Index, bibliography, footnotes, appendix, two groupings of b&w and color glossy images.

It's not without some pain that a Red Sox fan agrees to write a comment on what its owner calls the Evil Empire. All right, I'll say it: The Yankees have won 40 American League pennants, 27 World Championships, and nearly 40 Hall of Famers. OK, are you happy now?

"It's been nearly seventy years since Frank Graham wrote the last narrative history of the Team," writes author Marty Appel, the Bronx Bombers' PR director during the 1970s. On the dust jacket of this doorstop of a book, Appel "illuminates the team in its hundred-plus years of glory: clever, maneuvering owners; rowdy, talented players; and, of course, forty pennants." Appel heard war stories from old-timers like Bob Shawkey, Waite Hoyt, Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, and Whitey Ford, and has remained close to the organization ever since.

"A historian, writer, and raconteur, he gives life to the team's history, from the demise of Hilltop Park in the 1900s to the evolution of today's team as an international brand," writes Appel's publisher. "Loaded with over a century's worth of great stories, folklore, and photos, this is a treasure trove for lovers of sports, the Yankees, New York history, and America's game."

Author Marty Appel has written numerous books, including the bestseller Munson. He has also been a TV producer and director of his own PR firm.

Music Makes Me -- Fred Astaire and Jazz by Todd Decker, UCalifornia Press '11 paperback, 375 pages, ASIN #0520268881. Index, references, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

The cover of Todd Decker's new paperback is arresting: Fred Astaire is clearly visible, but he isn't dancing with Ginger Rogers or sister Adele; rather, he's playing a set of drums, accompanying a jazz combo, letting the readers know from the get-go that this is a profile of a diversified Fred, one you may never have heard of before. From the back cover:

"Is Fred Astaire one of the great jazz artists of the twentieth century? Astaire is best known for his brilliant dancing in the great musicals of the 1930s, but in Music Makes Me, Todd Decker argues that Astaire's work as a dancer and choreographer -- particularly in the realm of tap dancing -- made a significant contribution to the art of jazz.

"Decker examines the full range of Astaire's work in filmed and recorded media, from a 1926 recording with George Gershwin to his 1970 blues stylings on television. A fascinating chronicle of Hollywood at work, Music Makes Me illuminates the mechanics of creating musical numbers during the heyday of the studio era and casts new light on the intersection of music, dance, film, and race in American popular culture."

Todd Decker is assistant professor of music at Washington University in St. Louis.

What They Saved -- Pieces of a Jewish Past by Nancy K. Miller, Nebraska UPress '11, $24.95, 238 pages, ASIN #080323001X. Sources, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the dust jacket:

"After her father's death, Nancy K. Miller discovered a minuscule family archive: a handful of photographs, an unexplained land deed, a postcard from Argentina, unidentified locks of hair. These items had been passed down again and again, but what did they mean? Miller follows their traces from one distant relative to another, across the country, and across an ocean. Her story, unlike the many family memoirs focused on the Holocaust, takes us back earlier in history to the world of pogroms and mass emigrations at the turn of the twentieth century."

Nancy K. Miller is professor of English and comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has written or edited more than a dozen books.

FOCUS: Wartime History -- I Fear I Shall Never Leave This Island / The Blood of Heroes

I Fear I Shall Never Leave This Island -- Life in a Civil War Prison by David R. Bush, UPress of Florida '11, $34.95, 224 pages, ASIN #0813037441. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w

images sprinkled through text.

Ken Burns's PBS series on the Civil War included heart-wrenching letters from soldiers in battle -- some of them dying -- to their loved ones at home. Now anthropologist David R. Rush has a different slant in his compilation of correspondence between Confederate soldiers imprisoned in the Ohio at Johnson's Island and their kin at home.

The heart of Rush's book is the correspondence between Captain Wesley Makely, who was captured shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg, and his wife Kate, at home in Virginia. A sample, written on Nov. 23, 1864:

"Dear Kate,

I received your letter on the 11th some days ago. I expect you wonder why I am so long about answering it. I should have answered it sooner, but I thought I would write to Jack last mail day, and besides there is so little to write about here that I hate to write at all. Kate you speak of having some Federal Capts name who is prisoner at Danville, and is very anxious to get a special exchange, and say you are going to try and have me exchanged for him. Unless he has friends that have some influence at Washington, and will go and try to have it effected his name will not be of much service towards getting me exchanged. My health is very bad, and I am anxious to get home. I have almost given out all hopes of getting a Special exchange. Tell jack I have just received a receipt for twenty five dollars. I have not received any letter yet, though I suppose it must be from him. I will send the jewelry I am having made for you just as soon as it is finished. Give my love to father and mother. Yours affectionately, W. Makely."

David R. Bush teaches anthropology at Heidelberg University in Ohio and is chairman of the Friends and Descendants of Johnson's Island Civil War Prison.

The Blood of Heroes -- The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo -- And the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation by James Donovan, Little Brown '12, $29.99, Index, bibliography, notes, two

appendices, grouping of b&w glossy images.

In a brief Q&A, author James Donovan discusses the writing of his new book:

Q. Why is the battle of the Alamo so famous, after all of this time?

A. It is perhaps the most iconic and famous battle of all time -- it's known worldwide, in virtually every culture and nation. And of course military "last stands" are always fascinating, particularly when the odds are so high (about ten-to-one, attackers vs. defenders) and when the defenders all perish.

Q. There were some colorful characters on the rebel side: James Bowie, Davy Crockett, William Barret Travis....Do you have a favorite? Why?

A. All three are fascinating men, but Davy Crockett was a genuinely nice guy -- just about everyone loved him, except for President Andrew Jackson and his circle. (Crockett had admired and supported Jackson until he came to believe that Jackson, as the first nonaristocratic president, had betrayed his promise to the common people.) Crockett was funny, witty (not the same thing), and intelligent. He was also compassionate and fairminded -- as a U.S. congressman, he voted against Jackson's 1830 Indian Removal Act, which resulted in the Trail of Tears, even though his grandparents had been massacred by Creek Indians...."

Dallas native James Donovan is the author of the bestseller A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn -- the Last Great Battle of the American West.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Queen of the Conqueror / Tinderbox / A Military History of China

Queen of the Conqueror -- The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I by Tracy Borman, Bantam '12, $30, 295 pages, ASIN #0553808141. Index, bibliography, notes, family trees, b&w images including maps sprinkled through text, grouping of b&w and color glossy images.

"Around the year 1049, William, Duke of Normandy and future conqueror of England, rode furiously to the palace of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, in Bruges," writes historian Tracy Borman. "Upon reaching it, he encountered the object of his rage as she was leaving the palace chapel: Matilda, the count's only daughter. This headstrong girl had dared to refuse his offer of marriage, haughtily declaring that she would not lower herself so far as to accept a mere bastard."

"Without hesitation, the young duke dragged her to the ground by her hair and beat her mercilessly, rolling her in the mud and ruining her rich gown. Then, without another word, he mounted his horse and rode back to Normandy at full speed. Shaken and humiliated, Matilda was helped to her feet by her terrified ladies and carried home to bed. A few days later, she shocked her family, the court, and most of Europe by declaring that she would marry none but William, saying 'He must be a man of great courage and high daring' to have ventured to 'come and beat me in my own father's palace.' Thus began one of the most turbulent marriages in history."

Wait. Are you sure this isn't a novel? Well, it certainly reads like one. This tiny (4 foot, 2 inches) woman went on to bear nine children by William and is portrayed by the author as "passionate, steadfast, and wise." While books on the Tudors and later eras of British history abound, the author breaks fresh ground in her portrayal of this transformative period. Tracy Borman, who received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Hull, is chief executive of the Heritage Education Trust and has written several other books. She lives in London.

Tinderbox -- How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It, Penguin '12, $29.95, 421 pages, ASIN #159420327X. Index, additional suggested reading, notes, appendix, b&w images sprinkled through text.

In what may become a controversial thesis, the authors argue the "Western colonial powers unwittingly sparked the AIDS epidemic and then fanned its rise.....Western powers were key actors in turning a localized outbreak into a sprawling epidemic as bustling new trade routes, modern colonial cities, and the rise of prostitution sped the virus across Africa. Christian missionaries campaigned to suppress polygamy but left in its place fractured sexual cultures that proved uncommonly vulnerable to HIV."

Whatever the origin of AIDS, most readers would probably agree that more important is how to overcome the AIDS epidemic. The authors -- one a journalist, one an epidemiologist -- address this issue in their appendix. They explain a number of modalities to prevent and treat AIDS: Abstinence, condoms, HIV testing and counseling, male circumcision, microbicides, multiple sexual partnership reduction, pre-exposure prophylaxis, preventing mother-to-child transmission, regulatory, legal, gender-based, and economic approaches; screening the blood supply, treatment of other sexually transmitted infections, and treatment-as-prevention.

Craig Timberg, The Washington Post's deputy national security editor, is the former Johannesburg bureau chief for the paper. Dr. Daniel Halperin is an epidemiologist and medical anthropologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

A Military History of China, Edited by David A. Graff and Robin Higham, UKentucky Press '12 paperback. $25, 344 pages, ASIN #0813135842. Index, contributors, notes and/or suggested reading follow each essay, b&w images sprinkled through text.

The editors have gathered essays from experts in the field, including historians, military historians, political scientists, and an independent scholar in their sweeping survey of China's military history. "Although traditional Chinese Confucian philosophy favored peaceful solutions and showed contempt for brute military force," they write, "the military was influential in most Chinese states."

The scope of their work, updated from the original, covers the first millenium B.C.E. to the present and focuses on recurring patterns of conflict rather than traditional campaign narratives. It also employs comparisons between Chinese and Western approaches to war. In the modern era, they recount such events as the Opium War of 1839 to 1844 and the rebellion of the Taipings from 1850 to 1864 to the establishment of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1927 and the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989.

Editor David A. Graff is associate professor of history and director of the East Asian Studies program at Kansas State University. Editor Robin Higham is professor of history emeritus at Kansas State University.

FOCUS: Historical Fiction -- Bring Up the Bodies / The Sins of the Father

Bring Up The Bodies -- A Novel by Hilary Mantel, Holt '12, $28, 432 pages, ASIN #

0805090037.

She's written nine novels, a few which have had critical success but none of which could really pay the rent. Should I just pack it in?, she asks you. Before you answer, consider the example of Britain's Hilary Mantel. In 2009, she published number ten,

Wolf Hall, which rocketed up the best-seller lists, won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Three years after publication, it ranks #56 among the three million-plus books listed on Amazon.

Can Hilary repeat her hard-won success? With the gruesome title of Bring Up The Bodies, the author's latest work explores the downfall of Anne Boleyn, one of the string of wives wooed and butchered by Britain's King Henry VIII. Anne, you may recall, committed the cardinal sin of failing to give Henry a son, "and her sharp intelligence and strong will have alienated his old friends and the noble families of England."

"At a word from Henry," Mantel writes, "Thomas Cromwell (Henry's chief minister, who lived long before Oliver) is ready to bring her down. Over a few terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally himself with his enemies. What price will he pay for Anne's head?"

The Sins of the Father -- A Novel by Jeffrey Archer, St. Martin's Press '12, $27.99, 339 pages, ASIN #1250000971.

Veteran novelist Jeffrey Archer could call himself Lord Jeffrey, by virtue of his 20 years service in Britain's House of Lords. But the descendants of Lord Jeffery (a/k/a Jeffrey) Amherst might be miffed, so to his credit, Archer has ditched the honorific. His latest work is the second in an ambitious, multi-generational, five-part series, called The Clifton Chronicles.

From the dust jacket:

"Only days before Britain declares war on Germany, Harry Clifton, hoping to escape the consequences of long-buried family secrets, and forced to accept that his desire to marry Emma Barrington will never be fulfilled, has joined the Merchant Navy. But his ship is sunk in the Atlantic by a German U-boat, drowning almost the entire crew. An American cruise liner, the SS Kansas Star, rescues a handful of sailors, among them Harry and the third officer, an American named Tom Bradshaw. When Bradshaw dies in the night, Harry seizes on the chance to escape his tangled past and assumes his identity.

"But on landing in America, he quickly learns the mistake he has made, when he discovers what is awaiting Bradshaw in New York. Without any way of proving his true identity, Harry Clifton is now chained to a past that could be far worse than the one he had hoped to escape."

Oxford-educated Jeffrey Archer also served five years in Britain's House of Commons and has written numerous novels and short story collections. He lives with his family in London and Cambridge.

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Funny Insults & Snappy Put-Downs / Roman Republican Legionary 298-105 BC / Fortress Monasteries of The Himalayas

Funny Insults & Snappy Put-Downs by Joseph Rosenbloom, illustrations by Joyce Behr, Sterling 1981 paperback. $3.95, 128 pages, ASIN #0806976446. Index, b&w images sprinkled through text.

.Reviewing a book of funny insults and snappy put-downs is really impossible. So let's have a bit of fun together by flipping through the book and picking out assorted samples:

It was fun visiting your neighborhood -- I enjoy slumming.

You're such a sourpuss that when you suck a lemon, the lemon makes faces.

You're such a bore, even my leg falls asleep when you talk.

Do you know "The Road to Mandalay?" I don't mean sing it -- take it.

Your personality is so repulsive, even an echo wouldn't answer you.

Are you really leaving, or are you just trying to brighten my day?

No wonder you've never been kissed. Your mouth has never been still long enough.

I know a perfect restaurant for you. They serve soup to nuts.

Roman Republican Legionary 298-105 B.C. by Nic Fields, illustrated by Sean O'Brogain, Osprey '12 paperback in oversized format on glossy stock, $18.95, 64 pages, ASIN #1849087814. Index, glossary, dozens of b&w and color photos sprinkled through text.

From the back cover:

"From the last great war with the Samnites (298--290 BC) to the height of republican glory in the 1st century BC, the power of Rome was expressed through the might of her legions. The men who fought in them did so out of obligation owed to the state, not professional necessity, and it was this militia army that conquered the peninsula of Italy, defeated the magnificent Hellenistic kingdoms and destroyed the mercantile empire of Carthage. By the end of the period all of the Mediterranean basin was within the imperium of Rome; some of it organized into provinces governed by Roman Magistrates, the rest reduced to client status. This title examines the background, training and development of the men who carved out Rome's great empire -- the Roman Republican Legionary."

Dr. Nic Fields has a BA and PhD in Ancient History at the University of Newcastle. He is a freelance author and researcher based in south-west France.

Fortress Monasteries of the Himalayas -- Tibet, Ladakh, Nepal and Bhutan by Peter Harrison, illustrated by Peter Dennis.

From the back cover:

"From the 7th century AD Buddhism has been influential in the mountain kingdoms of the Himalayas, a region stretching from China, the Tibetan Autonomous Region, through Bhutan and Nepal to norther India. The cultural and architectural unity of this region is expressed in the fortified monasteries that dominate the landscape. This title recreates the dramatic and colorful fortifications created in these mountain kingdoms, and recounts their operational history through the foreign incursions, religious conflicts and civil wars that litter their history, right through to the Tibetan uprising and flight of the Dalai Lama from the Potala Palace in Lhasa in 1959."

Peter Harrison is a retired medical practitioner with a lifelong interest in military architecture and has written 11 papers over the past 15 years on diverse subjects for the Fortress series.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Soviet Baby Boomers / Wood -- A History / The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin

Soviet Baby Boomers -- An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation by Donald J. Raleigh, Oxford '12, $34.95, 420 pages, ASIN #0199744343. Index, bibliography, notes.

Hundreds, nay thousands, of books have been written about the effect of the Western post-World War II societal transformation. But imagine being born in 1950 in the Soviet Union, living (if it can be called that) under communism until the approach of middle age, and then seeing your life turned upside down as Russia becomes a modern, highly literate, urban society.

That's the tale historian Donald J. Raleigh seeks to tell through the testimony of 60 1967 graduates of two magnet secondary schools that offered intensive instruction in English, one in Moscow and one in provincial Saratov. "Part of the generation that began school in 1957," Raleigh writes, "the year the country launched Sputnik into space, they grew up during the Cold War, but in a Soviet Union increasingly distanced from the excesses of Stalinism."

The author has created "an extraordinarily rich composite narrative and embedded it in larger historical themes of the Cold War, de-Stalinization, 'overtaking' the United States, opening up to the outside world, economic stagnation, dissent, emigration, the transition to a market economy, the transformation of class, ethic, and gender relations, and globalization."

Donald J. Raleigh teaches history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has written several other books about Russia.

Wood -- A History by Joachim Radkau, Polity '12, 399 pages, ASIN #0745646883. Index, references and bibliography, in-text notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the dust cover:

"Otzi the iceman could not do without wood when he was climbing his Alpine glacier, nor could medieval cathedral-builders or today's construction companies. From time immemorial, the skill of the human hand has developed by working wood, so much that we might say that the handling of wood is a basic element in the history of the human body. The fear of a future wood famine became a panic in the eighteenth century and sparked the beginnings of modern environmentalism.

"This book traces the cultural history of wood and offers a highly original account of the connection between the raw material and the human beings who benefit from it. Even more, it shows that wood can proviide a key to a better understanding of history, of the peculiarities as well as the varieties of cultures, of a co-evolution of nature and culture, and even of the rise and fall of great powers."

Joachim Radkau teaches modern history at Bielefield University.

The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin, Edited by Archie Burnett, Farrar, Straus & Giroux '12, $40, 729 pages, ASIN #0374126968. Index of titles and first lines, unillustrated.

In a starred review, Booklist writes the following about The Complete Poems:

"The Most popular poet of his time in England, Larkin (1922-85) bids fair to becoming the best-loved English poet of the latter twentieth century. To 116 pages of work published in his lifetime, this complete edition of his poetry adds 203 pages of poems he chose not to publish. Such inclusiveness often gives us too much of a good thing; that is hardly the case here. Keenly intelligent and knowledgeable, a master of formal poetry, given to the epigrammatic, yet undogmatically modernist in choosing to write of observable common life, his own and what he saw of others', both of his class and, quite often, not -- Larkin never restrained his negative emotions but was not overpowered by them.

"He's no male Dorothy Parker, despite his possibly most famous line, 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad.' He realized there are no alternatives to the lives we have, and he did find bravery and joy in them (see 'The Whitsun Weddings'). Editor Burnett follows the poems proper with 339 pages of textual notes, tracing just about every source Larkin definitely drew upon or, even half-consciously, might have drawn about. Except by citing Larkin's own remarks in letters and conversation, these are informative, not critical, notes. Make this the one Larkin collection to have and hold. -- Ray Olson.

Philip Larkin was born in 1922 and grew up in Coventry, England. In 1955, he became librarian of the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, a post he held until his death in 1985. Editor Archi Burnet is co-0director of the Editorial Institute and teaches English at Boston University.

FOCUS: American History -- Iroquois Art, Power, and History / Hollywood's Copyright Wars

Iroquois Art, Power, and History by Neal B. Keating, Oklahoma UP '12 in oversized format on glossy stock, $55, 360 pages, ASIN #0806138904. Index, bibliography, notes, two appendices, three groupings of b&w and color glossy images..

Everyone seriously interested in the evolution of Native America ought to have Neal Keating's new, lush work about the Iroquois people on his/her bookshelf. Its scope covers more than 5,000 years, "from its emergence in ancient North America to the early twenty-first century.

One fascinating focus of Keating's work is his revelation "how they have continuously used visual expression to adapt creatively to shifting political and economic environments." From the 17th to 19th century, they were victims of xenophobia, with European and Euro-American writers classifying "Iroquois works not as art but as culturally lower forms of expression," and 20th century Western critics rejected contemporary Native art "both as art and as an 'inauthentic' expression of Indianness." Keating seeks to debunk those theories by exposing false assumptions underlying such perceptions.

Keating, who draws on archival research and fieldwork with Iroquois artists and communities, particularly emphasizes painting, which he conceptualizes broadly, "to include writing, incising, drawing, tattoo, body painting, photography, videography, and digital media." These are supported by more than 100 color and black and white images.

Neal B. Keating teaches cultural anthropology at the College of Brockport, SUNY.

Hollywood's Copyright Wars from Edison to the Internet by Peter Decherney, Columbia '12, 287 pages, ASIN #0231159463. Index, no bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the dust cover:

"Copyright law is important to every stage of media production and reception. It helps determine filmmakers' artistic decisions. Hollywood's corporate structure, and the varieties of media consumption. The rise of digital media and the internet has only expanded copyright's reach. Everyone from producers and screenwriters to amateur video makers, file sharers, and internet entrepreneurs has a stake in the history and future of piracy, copy protection, and the public domain."

Decherney's scope is impressive, beginning with Thomas Edison's "aggressive copyright disputes" and ending with recent lawsuits against YouTube. He bores in on Hollywood's reliance on self-regulation. Historically, Hollywood has eschewed the use of the American legal system to settle copyright disputes, keeping arguments "in house" and turning to talent guilds and other groups for solutions.

Peter Decherney teaches cinema studies, English, and communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He is author of Hollywood and the Culture Elite: How the Movies Became American.
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FOCUS: World War II History -- Crossing the Borders of Time / Divided Memory

Crossing the Borders of Time -- A True Story of War, Exile, and Love Reclaimed by Leslie Maitland, Other '12, $27.95, 494 pages, ASIN #1590514963. Selected bibliography, family tree, b&w images sprinkled through text.

Safely aboard one of the last ships to escape France before the Nazis choked off its ports, 18-year-old Janine Gunzburger discovered a letter that her Catholic French boyfriend had slipped in her pocket just as the couple was pried apart on a pier in Marseilles. Unfolding it anxiously, she read:

"Whatever the length of our separation, our love will survive it, because it depends on us alone. I give you my vow that whatever the time we must wait, you will be my wife. Never forget, never doubt." Lovely sentiment but unrealistic. Or was it? As the decades passed, the two young lovers built lives of their own. As life would have it, Janine's daughter grew up to be an accomplished investigative reporter and became determined that her mother's lifelong dream would come true before the end of her life.

In a nonfiction narrative that is the stuff of novels and film, daughter Leslie Maitland not only limns an improbable love story but recounts the saga of her mother, who endured a harrowing flight from the Nazis that took her through Casablanca, Jamaica, and Mexico to internment in Cuba before finding a fresh start in New York City in the emigre' community of Manhattan's "Fourth Reich." But did Janine and her lost love ever find each other? What do you think?

Leslie Maitland is an award-winning former New York Times investigative reporter and national correspondent, who covered the Justice Department.

Divided Memory -- French Recollections of World War II from the Liberation to the Present by Olivier Wieviorka, translated by George Holoch, Stanford UP '12, 206 pages, ASIN #0804774447. Selected bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

From the book's jacket:

"France's experience of World War II was not primarily one of armed conflict, but rather of occupation, collaboration, resistance, and persecution. Since the end of the war, France has struggled with how to understand and remember that experience. In Divided Memory, Olivier Wieviorka recounts the role that the memory of the Occupation and the Resistance has played in shaping the sense of the past held by various segments of French society. He explores the way in which memory can focus political and social conflict. Each administration since the war has taken a different approach to responding to these memories and has attempted to steer public opinion through them. Charles de Gaulle tried to overwrite Vichy's collaboration by promoting the story of a French military victory over Germany. Others focused on memorializing victims or attempted to forget this painful time altogether. Wieviorka shows that, disparate as they are, none of these approaches has worked, and France remains divided by its memories of resistance and collaboration."

Olivier Wieviorka is Professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan and Senior Fellow at the Institute Universitaire de France. He has written several previous books.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- The Newlyweds / Secret Lives of Ants / Making Animal Meaning

The Newlyweds -- A Novel by Nell Freudenberger, Knopf '12, $25.95, 337 pages, ASIN #0307268845.

I must admit that a term that has clattered around the literary blogosphere for the past several years eluded me completely until I picked up Nell Freudenberger's second novel, The Newlyweds. She's been on the "Best Young" lists of Granta and The New Yorker in recent years as well as cadging a hefty advance for a novel, and being beautiful to boot. All of which set on edge the teeth of those young writers, laboring in attic garrets and filling file boxes to the top with rejection notices.

Suffice it to say that the long knives are out for young Nell, and not a little effort goes into collectively wishing her ill with her new novel. The term adopted for those harboring such envy has become "Schadenfreudenbergers." Some will groan, having heard this again and again. But the term is so delicious that it bears repeating over and over. The irony is that its repeated use only redounds to the benefit of Brooklynite Nell Freudenberger. Go Nell!

The Secret Lives of Ants by Jae Choe, foreword by Jane Goodall, photographs by Dan

Perlman. Johns Hopkins UP '12 on glossy stock. 156 pages, ASIN #1421404281.

An ordinary scientist of the ant world could hardly expect favorable reviews from luminaries such as Choe has garnered. In her foreword, Jane Goodall writes, "It is his passion for the natural world that Jae brings to the study of ant biology. I congratulate my friend on writing a truly fascinating book."

And E.O. Wilson of Harvard (there is no greater authority on the ant world) writes: "Secret Lives of Ants is one of the best (and most readable) books ever written on these important insects. The author, who is intimately familiar with the scientific facts, provides a charming and personalized story that will appeal to a broad readership in every country."

Jae Choe is a university chair professor at Ewha Womans University, where he is also director of the Natural History Museum and the Research Institute of EcoScience.

Making Animal Meaning, Edited by Linda Kalof and Georgina M. Montgomery, The Animal Turn Series, Editor Linda Kalof. Michigan State University Press '11, in oversized format on glossy stock, 197 pages, ASIN #1611860164. Index, contributors, bibliography, notes follow each essay, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the dust jacket:

"An elucidating collection of ten original essays, Making Animal Meaning reconceptualizes methods for researching animal histories and rethinks the contingency of the human-animal relationship. The vibrant and diverse field of animal studies is detailed in these interdisciplinary discussions, which include voices from a broad range of scholars and have an extensive chronological and geographical reach.

"These exciting discourses capture the most compelling theoretical underpinnings of animal significance while exploring meaning-making through the study of specific spaces, species, and human-animal relations. A deeply thoughtful collection -- vital to understanding central questions of agency, kinship, and animal consumption -- these essays tackle the history and philosophy of constructing animal meaning."

Linda Kalof teaches sociology at Michigan State University. Georgina M. Montgomery, an award-winning educator, teaches history at Michigan State University.