Recommended New Books at UConn’s Greater Hartford Campus Trecker Library

1948:  A History of the First Arab-Israeli War.  Benny Morris.  HART DS 126.9.M67 2008.  “…Morris strives to give a balanced view of the conflict. The collapse of the Arab military effort caused a chain reaction of coups and assassinations that brought down many of the old regimes. Leaders were killed or discarded in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. ‘But 1948 has haunted, and still haunts, the Arab world on the deepest levels of collective identity, ego, and pride,’ Morris writes. ‘The war was a humiliation from which that world has yet to recover.’ Washington Post

Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for our Future. Jeffrey Bennett.  HART QH 327.B446 2008.  “Bennett walks us through the daunting calculations that lead to the conclusion that the existence of life elsewhere is not only possible, but highly likely. But as we wonder where else life exists and what forms it might take, scientists are forced back to more fundamental questions. What is the nature of life itself? Will we know it if we see it?…Bennett offers a host of lessons here not only about global warming and environmental degradation, but our place in the universe as well.”  Boston Globe

The Black Death:  A Personal History.  John Hatcher. HART PR 6108.A87 B57 2008.  “In an experimental narrative for an academic historian—blending some fiction with solid facts—Hatcher… helps readers understand the deep terror that prevailed…Especially affecting are accounts of the psychological agonies…This is a fine work that gives an intimate sense of the Black Death’s horrors.”   Publishers Weekly (Note:  This book, because it blends fact and fiction, has been classified in the literature section of the library’s collections).

The Coming Convergence:  Surprising Ways Diverse Technologies Interact to Shape Our World and Change the Future.  Stanley Schmidt.  HART T 14.5.S316 2008. “Imagine direct communication links between the human brain and machines, or tailored materials capable of adapting by themselves to changing environmental conditions, or computer chips and environmental sensors embedded into everyday clothing, or medical technologies that eliminate currently untreatable conditions such as blindness and paralysis. Now imagine all of these developments occurring at the same time…Author Stanley Schmidt-a physicist, a writer, and the editor of Analog: Science Fiction and Fact-explores these and many more amazing yet probable scenarios in this fascinating guide to the near future. He shows how past convergences have led to today’s world, then considers tomorrow’s main currents in biotechnology, cognitive science, information technology, and nanotechnology.”

Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming.  Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn. HART TJ 163.4.U6 K78 2008.  “Environmental Defense Fund president Krupp and journalist Horn proffer a business-centric prescription for alleviating climate change, coupling the market force of capitalism with technological innovation and entrepreneurial inventiveness.”  Publishers Weekly

The Future of the Internet:  And How to Stop It.  Jonathan Zittrain.  HART TK 5105.875.I57 Z53 2008. “The most compelling book ever written on why a transformative technology’s trajectory threatens to stifle that technology’s greatest promise for society. Zittrain offers convincing road maps for redeeming that promise.”-Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School  Amazon.com

How the States Got Their Shapes.  Mark Stein.  HART E180.S735 2008.  “…Reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.”

Ice, Mud and Blood:  Lessons from Climates Past.  Chris Turney.  HART QC 861.3.T87 2008. “Imagine a world of wildly escalating temperatures, apocalyptic flooding, devastating storms and catastrophic sea levels. This might sound like a prediction for the future…but it’s actually what occurred on earth in the past. In a day and age when worrying forecasts for future climate change are the norm, it seems hard to believe that such things happened regularly over time. Can humankind decipher the past and learn from it?…Chris Turney is a British geologist and currently holds a Chair in Physical Geography at the University of Exeter, UK.”

Inventing Niagara:  Beauty, Power and Lies.  Ginger Strand. HART F 127.N8 S825 2008.  “This book documents an obsession,” writes Ginger Strand in her entertaining study of the exploitation of Niagara Falls, both town and waterfall. Niagara’s history, she claims, is fraught with “falsification, prevarication and omission.” In Inventing Niagara, she sets out on a quest to cut through the cultural accretions of centuries and find the fundamental truth about Niagara.”  Washington Post

Life As It Is:  Biology for the Public Sphere.  William F. Loomis.  HART QH 333.L66 2008.  “Courting controversy, Univ. of Calif. biology professor (and former president of the Society for Developmental Biology) Loomis tackles the “biologically generated societal problems of our day” in this highly provocative book. He does not claim to be unbiased, but his treatment of hot-button issues like reproductive rights, genetic modification and the origins of human consciousness evades liberal and conservative labels.”  Publishers Weekly

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom.  Simon Winchester.  HART Q 143.N44 W56 2008.  “The great Sinologist Joseph Needham (1900-1995) is a legend for his Science and Civilization in China, an encyclopedic account of China’s achievements in science and technology. But it is the famous “Needham question,” which asks why the country failed to industrialize when Europe did, despite its prior achievements in printing, explosives, navigation, hydraulics, ceramics and statecraft, that may revive his legacy and compel re-reading of his 24-volume masterwork. As China transforms into an industrial powerhouse, we may ask the inverse question: Why is China now booming after centuries of relative stagnation, and on what traditions will it draw? In The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman, builds on his success in writing about eccentric British intellectuals. Needham makes a great subject.”  Washington Post

Mirroring People:  The New Science of How We Connect With Others.  Marco Iacoboni.  HART QP 363.I23 2008. “Marco Iacoboni, a leading neuroscientist whose work has been covered in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal, explains the groundbreaking research into mirror neurons, the “smart cells” in our brain that allow us to understand others. From imitation to morality, from learning to addiction, from political affiliations to consumer choices, mirror neurons seem to have properties that are relevant to all these aspects of social cognition. As The New York Times reports: ‘The discovery is shaking up numerous scientific disciplines, shifting the understanding of culture, empathy, philosophy, language, imitation, autism and psychotherapy.’ “

An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere.  Gabrielle Walker.  HART QC 855.W35 2007. “Science consultant Walker (Snowball Earth) presents a lively history of scientists’ and adventurers’ exploration of this important and complex contributor to life on Earth, from Galileo’s early attempts to show that it has weight to the explorations by 20th-century scientists Oliver Heaviside and Edward Appleton of the ionosphere, which acts as a giant mirror bouncing radio waves from one side of the globe to another.”  Publishers Weekly

The Oxford Companion to Cosmology.  Andrew Liddle and John Loveday.  HART REF QB 981.L535 2008.  “The Oxford Companion to Cosmology offers readers an engaging, state-of-the-art reference work on modern cosmology, the only such resource presently available. In more than 350 in-depth entries, Andrew Liddle and Jon Loveday–two authorities on theoretical and experimental cosmology–cover the entire scope of this cutting-edge field, from cosmic rays and dark energy to Higgs boson and neutrinos.”  (Note:  This is book is shelved in the Reference Collection and does not circulate).

Reinventing the Sacred:  A New View of Science, Reason and Religion.  Stuart A. Kauffman.  HART Q 175.32.C65 K38 2008. “In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman argues that the science of complexity provides a way to move beyond reductionist science to something new: a unified culture where we see God in the creativity of the universe, biosphere, and humanity. Kauffman explains that the ceaseless natural creativity of the world can be a profound source of meaning, wonder, and further grounding of our place in the universe. His theory carries with it a new ethic for an emerging civilization and a reinterpretation of the divine.”

What Would Martin Say? Clarence B. Jones and Joel Engle.  HART E 185.97 J577 2008.  “Jones seeks to ‘translate [Rev. Dr. Martin Luther] King for a modern audience.’ A gimmick? Absolutely not. The lengthy responses Jones fashions, each one based on his intimate knowledge of King’s vision, are well thought out and great material for discussion. “  Booklist

Note: Unless otherwise credited, all comments are from publishers.

The Reason for God. Timothy Keller. HART BT1103.K45 2008. “In this apologia for Christian faith, Keller mines material from literary classics, philosophy, anthropology and a multitude of other disciplines to make an intellectually compelling case for God. Written for skeptics and the believers who love them, the book draws on the author’s encounters as founding pastor of New York’s booming Redeemer Presbyterian Church. One of Keller’s most provocative arguments is that all doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs. Drawing on sources as diverse as 19th-century author Robert Louis Stevenson and contemporary New Testament theologian N.T. Wright, Keller attempts to deconstruct everyone he finds in his way, from the evolutionary psychologist Richard Dawkins to popular author Dan Brown. ” - Publishers Weekly

Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies: And Other Pricing Puzzles. Richard B. McKenzie. HART HB235 U6.M396 2008. “…unravels the pricing mysteries we encounter every day. Have you ever wondered why all movies, whether blockbusters or duds, have the same ticket prices? Why sometimes there are free lunches? Why so many prices end with “9″? Why ink cartridges can cost as much as printers? Why merchants offer sales, coupons, and rebates? Why long lines are good for shoppers? Why men earn more than women, around the globe and why they always will? How can these things be? If you think you know the answers, think again. Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies, And Other Pricing Puzzles shows you that the real reasons are sophisticated and surprising and in Professor McKenzie’s hands, both informative and entertaining.” - from Publisher

Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Naomi S. Baron. HART P 107.B37 2008. “My choice for most influential and seminal language book of the year is Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World, by Naomi S. Baron. She is a scholar who can write in real time with real words.” New York Times

Art & Today. Eleanor Heartney. HART f N 6490.H42 2008. “The history of contemporary art, writes Heartney (Postmodernism), a contributing editor to Art in America, offers a “tapestry of stories” in an innovative, intellectually vigorous and superbly illustrated survey. In this era of “anarchic pluralism,” master narratives are inappropriate, and Heartney thus organizes her vividly written study thematically (”Art and Time,” “Art and Narrative”) rather than chronologically, and artists range from Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and other “high kitsch” creators to the “participatory” works of artists such as Nam June Paik and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. ” Publishers Weekly

Technology, Values, and Society: Social Forces in Tehnological Change.  Mitra Das and Shirley Kolack.  HART T 14.5 .D28 2008.  “Technology is not value-free; nor does it exist in a vacuum. It needs a social basis—technology is affected by society and influences it. Technology, Values, and Society illustrates this using an examination of cross-cultural case studies representing simple, intermediate, and complex societies. Certain forms of technology exist when conducive values and structures sustain them. However, this relationship is not one-way. Technological changes do precipitate social and value changes. It is impossible to sustain egalitarian values in a society involving technology based on hierarchical relationships. Understanding this connection is vital if we are to keep some control over the way in which technology affects us. This revised edition brings the topic to life for both faculty and students.” - from Publisher 

An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming. Nigel Lawson. HART QC 981.8.G56 L39 2008. “In this well-informed and hard hitting response to the scaremongering of the climate alarmists, Nigel Lawson, former [British] Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Energy, argues that…global warming is not the devastating threat to the planet it is alleged to be.”

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century. Steve Coll. HART CS 1129.B552 2008. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Coll has produced a “meticulously researched…story of a single family who has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically varied ends.”

History of Mystic, Connecticut:  From Pequot Village to Tourist Town.  Leigh Fought.  HART F 104.M99 F68 2007.  “Former Mystic Seaport librarian Leigh Fought relates the compelling story of a picturesque coastal community” which played an important role in early New England history, turned into a quiet village,  became a “shipbuilding powerhouse”, declined,  and then later transformed itself into a significant tourist attraction.

The Music of Pythagoras: How an Ancient Brotherhood Cracked the Code of the Universe and Lit the Path from Antiquity to Outer Space. Kitty Ferguson. HART B 243.F47 2008. “Kitty Ferguson [Tycho & Kepler ]…evokes the ancient world of Phythagoras, showing the way ideas spread in antiquity and the Middle Ages, and chronicling the remarkable influence he and his followers have had on so many notable people — from Plato to Bertrand Russell — and events in the history of Western thought and science.”

One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. Michael Dobbs. HART E 841.D573 2008. “Veteran Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs [has produced]…the most authoritative book yet on the Cuban Missile Crisis. In his hour-by-hour chronicle of those near fatal days, Dobbs reveals some startling new incidents that illustrate how close we came to Armageddon.”

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. Tony Horwitz. HART E 101.H77 2008. “The best-selling author of Confederates in the Attic takes us on a thrilling ride through the forgotten first chapter of America’s founding…[and] uncovers the neglected story of America’s founding by Europeans.”

Note: Unless otherwise credited, all comments are from publishers.

The Age of Reagan:  A History, 1974-2008.  Sean Wilentz.  HART E 839.5.W535 2008. “Distinguished Princeton historian Wilentz-winner of a Bancroft Prize for The Rise of American Democracy-makes an eloquent and compelling case for America’s Right as the defining factor shaping the country’s political history over the past 35 years.” Publishers Weekly

Archimedes to Hawking:  Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them.  Clifford A. Pickover. HART Q 175.32.R45 P53 2008. “BOYLE, Biot, Beer and Bernoulli: these are just four of the scientists associated with eponymous laws whom Pickover has chosen to cover in this book. For each law, he breaks down the underlying scientific principles and explores the personality behind it, along with the social environments that spawned the likes of Hooke, Heisenberg and Ohm.”  New Scientist

Awaiting the Heavenly Country:  The Civil War and America’s Culture of Death.  Mark S. Schantz. HART E 468.9.S33 2008. “Schantz … makes a compelling case that Americans’ experiences with, and ideas about, death before the Civil War made it possible for them to understand and even celebrate death caused by the war…When read in tandem with Drew Gilpin Faust’s recent This Republic of Suffering, we learn that for 19th-century Americans the “unifying power of death” defined how one must live, and when the war came, it also made it easier to kill and to die. A sobering assessment for anyone who imagines war as a purifying process.”  Library Journal

Fall of the Roman Empire:  A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Peter Heather. HART DG 311.H43 2007. “Like a late Roman emperor, Heather is determined to impose order on a fabric that is always threatening to fragment and collapse into confusion; unlike most late Roman emperors, he succeeds triumphantly.” London Times

Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America.  Steven Waldman.   HART BL 640.W35 2008. “Detailed, incisive, and ambitious in scope, this work, more a history of religious freedom than a biography of the founders, enables readers to grasp the beauty and perplexity of the founders’ individual journeys and understand how their spiritual states of mind helped to redefine the relationship between religion and government.”  Library Journal

God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World.  Walter Russell Mead. HART E 183.7.M47154 2007. “Ingenious . . . Mead enlivens the text with numerous amusing and illustrative anecdotes, artful literary allusions and helpful invocations of great historians and philosophers. A remarkable piece of historical analysis bound to provoke discussion and argument in foreign-policy circles.” Kirkus Reviews

Negro With a Hat:  The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey. Colin Grant. HART E 185.97.G3 G73 2008. “Grant’s strength lies in his ability to re-create political moods and offer compelling sketches of colorful individuals and their organizations…. Negro With a Hat is an engaging and readable introduction to a complicated and contentious historical actor who, in his time, possessed a unique capacity to inspire devotion and hatred, adulation and fear.” Chicago Tribune

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.  Rick Perlstein.  HART E 855.P47 2008. “There is so much literature about various aspects of Richard Nixon — his foreign policy, his domestic policy, his rise to power, his time in power, his fall from power, his comeback, his relationship with Vice President Spiro Agnew, his trip to China — that it would seem difficult to find an original approach to the man. But, in Nixonland, Rick Perlstein has come up with the novel and important idea of exploring the relationship between Nixon and the 1960s counterculture, a rebellion of mostly young people against society’s conventions and authority in general. Perlstein is quite right in identifying this rebellion — and the reaction against it — as critical to Nixon’s rise and his strange hold on the American people. One might even consider Perlstein’s book to be primarily about the counterculture and only secondarily about Nixon, since he devotes nearly half of it to a brilliant evocation of the ’60s.”  Washington Post

The Sixties Unplugged:  A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade.  Gerard J. DeGroot. HART D 1053.D4 2008. “DeGroot deconstructs virtually all key icons of the era–Woodstock (’a festival, yes; a nation, no’), the Beatles, Dylan, student radicals, Haight-Ashbury, the sexual revolution and even Muhammad Ali–finding that their legends loom far larger than their realities. One might disagree, but DeGroot’s book comprises a fascinating revisionist polemic.” Publishers Weekly

Slavery By Another Name:  The Re-enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II.  Douglas A. Blackmon.  HART E 185.2.B545 2008. “Wall Street Journal bureau chief Blackmon gives a groundbreaking and disturbing account of a sordid chapter in American history—the lease (essentially the sale) of convicts to commercial interests between the end of the 19th century and well into the 20th…Blackmon’s book reveals in devastating detail the legal and commercial forces that created this neoslavery along with deeply moving and totally appalling personal testimonies of survivors. Every incident in this book is true, he writes; one wishes it were not so.” Publishers Weekly

Moral Clarity. Susan Neiman. HART BJ 71. N45 2008. “The seemingly endless contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is, among other things, a referendum on that perennial question: what ails the American left? To this stale discussion Susan Neiman brings a new thought: the problem with our liberal elites, she insists, is a lack of philosophical nerve. The task Neiman sets herself is to rescue today’s political left from its own handicaps. Neiman is a subtle and energetic guide to the unjustly maligned Western canon (who) writes with verve and a sometimes epigrammatic wit….Moral Clarity is a plea for renewal, an argument for re-engaging with the moral vocabulary of the country.” Wall Street Journal

No Atheists in Foxholes: Prayers and Reflections from the Front. Patrick McLaughlin. HART BV 4897.W2 M35 2008. “It’s not true, of course: there are atheists in foxholes, and the horrors of war are as likely to shatter faith as to reinforce it. But the importance of this book is that it bears witness from the Iraq front from the perspective of a minister. McLaughlin is a Lutheran pastor who has served as a navy chaplain since 1992; this is a collection of prayers, reflections, memories, and observations from that increasingly unpopular military front. A crucial contribution to religious and spiritual perspectives on the current war on terror.” Library Journal

Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age. Arthur Herman. HART DA 47.9.I4 H47 2008. “The rivalry between Winston Churchill and Mohandas Gandhi could hardly have been played for higher stakes. The future of British India hung upon the outcome of their 20-year struggle…. As one might expect from the author of To Rule the Waves, a fine history … Mr. Herman has researched Gandhi & Churchill meticulously and written it fluently.”  Wall Street Journal

“Socialism Is Great”: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China.  Lijia Zhang.  HART DS 779.29.Z42 A3 2008. “The 1980s were a heady and befuddling time of change in China. The Communist Party never acknowledged the pain inflicted by Mao’s internecine political struggles and mass mobilizations. But after his death in 1976, it eased its grip and opened up the economy just enough that some of the urban youth could start earning enough to focus on their own desires. Lijia Zhang is a child of the 1980s. In “Socialism Is Great!,” her coming-of-age memoir, that decade is to her what the 1960s were to American baby boomers…Autobiographical accounts by people who have endured the political crusades and intense psychological dramas of Communist China abound…Because of the popularity of such books, Zhang’s memoir, with its arc of resistance and personal struggle, at first feels familiar. But Zhang’s tale, written in fluent English peppered with dated Chinese idioms, begins where those older memoirs leave off.”  New York Times

A Splendid Exchange:  How Trade Shaped the World.  William J. Bernstein. HART HF 352.B473 2008. “A prominent twentieth-century European historian once asserted that an examination of merchants’ ledger sheets could tell him more about history than a study of the lives and deeds of kings and politicians. In that spirit, Bernstein, a historian and financial theorist, has written a fascinating and surprisingly exciting survey of human exchange of goods and services from primitive barter in ancient Mesopotamia to today’s global marketplace…timely and informative. “  Booklist

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments.  George Johnson.  HART Q 182.3.J65 2008. “Award-winning science writer Johnson (A Fire in the Mind ; Strange Beauty ) calls readers away from the “industrialized” mega-scale of modern science (which requires multimillion-dollar equipment and teams of scientists) to appreciate 10 historic experiments [Galileo, Harvey, Newton, Lavoisier, Galvani, Faraday, Joule, Michelson, Pavolv & Millikan] whose elegant simplicity revealed key features of our bodies and our world…these experiments toppled contemporary dogma with their logic and clear design as much as with their results. With these 10 entertaining histories, Johnson reminds us of a time when all research was hands-on and the most earthshaking science came from… a single mind confronting the unknown.” Publishers Weekly

Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II. Stanley G. Payne. HART D 754.S6 P39 2008. “If Benito Mussolini had sustained Italy’s neutrality in the second world war, instead of jumping aboard Hitler’s bandwagon in June 1940 in anticipation of sharing the pillage of Europe, he could have profited mightily. It is unlikely that the Nazis would have invaded his country. The victorious allies would have heaped rewards on Italy, fascist or no, for staying out. “Musso” might have continued to tyrannise his own country to a ripe old age.
This was indeed the experience of his fellow dictator General Francisco Franco, a monster with more blood on his hands than Mussolini. The Spaniard persisted with the wholesale murder of his defeated civil-war enemies all through the second world war, and indeed afterwards. He sustained his tyranny until dying in his bed in 1975.
To this day, imbecile right-wing pundits…pay homage to Franco’s statesmanship and the “sound” governance of his country. In truth, as Stanley Payne’s book emphasises, Spain’s abstention from the second world war was the product of clumsy diplomacy rather than of wisdom…Payne, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, obviously knows a great deal about Spain…the story that he tells deserves to be more widely known, not least by “useful idiots” of the right who continue to think well of Franco.” London Times

A History of Connecticut’s Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe. Charles Brilvitch. HART E 99.P292 B75 2007. “Like all of New England’s indigenous people, western Connecticut’s Paugussett tribe has suffered injustice and fought determinedly to preserve their cultural identity…Charles Brilvitch passionately chronicles the tribe’s struggles and fascinating history through the Victorian era to the present and traces their traditions and ongoing determination to preserve an irreplaceable and vanishing culture.” Publishers’ note

Hyper-Border: The Contemporary U.S. - Mexico Border and Its Future. Fernando Romero. HART F 787.R57 2008. “This book examines the border between Mexico and the US from a multidisciplinary perspective, using interviews from academics as well as those involved in the day-to-day problems of implementing national border policies. The author compares the border issues facing the US and Mexico with those that have confronted North and South Korea, Israel and Palestine, and several European countries. Romero’s work transcends the usual debate on immigration issues. He casts a broad analytical net and examines health, economic development and trade, drug trafficking, border security, transportation, energy, and environmental policies.” Choice

Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors. Lisa Appignanesi. HART RC 451.4 W6 A66 2008. “It seems that as soon as society relinquished witchcraft as the crime for which to punish an overtly liberated woman, it settled on madness as the reason to incarcerate her. As Appignanesi observes, ‘Patients could well find themselves the victims of a doctor’s prejudice about what kind of behavior constituted sanity: this could all too easily work against women who didn’t conform to the time’s norms of sexual behavior or living habits.’
That diagnoses conceived by male doctors would be subject to men’s changeable views of women — romantic, patronizing, idealistic, misogynistic: the choices are limited only by the imagination — comes as no surprise; it’s the meticulous and exhaustive account of these theories offered in Mad, Bad and Sad that is sobering. Victorian women who weren’t locked up for falling victim to lypemania (melancholy), monomania, homicidal monomania or ‘moral insanity’ were at risk of neurasthenia, a ‘mirror image of rebellion’ in which their ‘nervous depletion’ was explained as the result of their ‘incursion into the masculine sphere of intellectual labor,’ a strain that constitutions formed for tender sentiment couldn’t be expected to support. And then came hysteria, which ‘best expresses women’s distress at the clashing demands and no longer tenable restrictions placed on women in the fin de siècle.’ ” New York Times

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Harriet A. Washington. HART R 853.H8 W37 2006b. “Although medical experimentation with human subjects has historically involved vulnerable groups, including children, the poor and the institutionalized, Washington enumerates how black Americans have disproportionately borne the burden of the most invasive, inhumane and perilous medical investigations, from the era of slavery to the present day…And with the experimental research burden shifting from Americans of African descent to Africa itself (which Washington calls a “continent of subjects”), Asia, and Latin America, where some cavalier researchers are seeking more plentiful and pliant subjects, readers may be more convinced than ever of the durability of the medical color line.” Washington Post

White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters. Robert Schlesinger. HART E 176.1.S345 2008. “Schlesinger (political reporting, Washington Journalism Ctr., Boston Univ.), son of the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., has penned a detail-packed volume chronologically covering presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt through the current Bush administration, with extensive insight into how these leaders have had their messages crafted and packaged…While some presidents utilized more speechwriters than others, and some accepted their writers’ speeches as merely an “outline” from which to ad lib, all recognized the necessity of the speechwriter position.” Library Journal

Friends of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, Tadeusz Kościuszko, and Agrippa Hull (A Tale of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions, and a Tragic Betrayal of Freedom in the New Nation). Gary B. Nash and Graham Russell Gao Hodges. HART E 206.N36 2008. “Thomas Jefferson’s betrayal of a loyal friend, the great Polish patriot Tadeusz Kosciuszko, is at the center of this book by Nash (The Unknown American Revolution) and Hodges (Anna May Wong). Jefferson had promised to use Kosciuszko’s American estate to free some of his slaves. He reneged on that pledge, torn as always between his principles, his benefits from slavery and his debts…All in all, this is a wonderful book, an outstanding example of how a scholarly monograph can be readable, moving and sobering all at once.” Publishers Weekly

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. Max Hastings. HART D 767.H353 2008. “Hastings is a military historian in the grand tradition, belonging on the shelf alongside John Keegan, Alistair Horne and Rick Atkinson. He is equally adept at analyzing the broad sweep of strategy and creating thrilling set pieces that put the reader in the cockpit of a fighter plane or the conning tower of a submarine. But he is best on the human cost of war.” New York Times

The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. Parag Khanna. HART D 863.K53 2008. “Khanna, a widely recognized expert on global politics, offers an study of the 21st century’s emerging geopolitical marketplace dominated by three first world superpowers, the U.S., Europe and China. Each competes to lead the new century, pursuing that goal in the third world: select eastern European countries, east and central Asia, the Middle East Latin America, and North Africa…The final pages of his book warn eloquently of the risks of imperial overstretch combined with declining economic dominance and deteriorating quality of life. By themselves those pages are worth the price of a book that from beginning to end inspires reflection.” Publishers Weekly

Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877. Walter A. McDougall. HART E 338.M38 2008. “McDougall’s…attitude toward the Civil War and its aftermath may elicit several gigabytes worth of academic controversy. He has no patience for the view that the fight to preserve the Union was justified because it led to the emancipation of four million African-Americans. In his view, zealots on both sides stoked an inferno of mistrust, as “each section’s rational measures of self-defense looked to the other like mad provocations.” The messy, incomplete Reconstruction that followed a war in which more than 600,000 died only increased the hatred white Southerners felt toward their former slaves. McDougall scoffs at those who praise Reconstruction as “a simple morality play” between crusaders for racial equality and their enemies. Instead, he compares it to the American invasion of Iraq, an adventure that began with high ideals and may end as an embarrassing failure.” New York Times

Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West. Anthony Pagden. HART D 21.3.P33 2008. “In the pessimistic words of the ancient historian Herodotus, there will ever be perpetual enmity between the globe’s two halves. Pagden (Peoples and Empires), a professor of political science and history at UCLA, tackles the immense sweep of 2,500 years of bad blood and seeks to explain the feud’s continuing existence despite the increasing erosion of national differences…Pagden is convinced that in fact East and West are separated more by values and culture than by anything else—democratic vs. authoritarian rule, secular vs. theocratic and, later, Christian vs. Muslim. Though some readers might cavil at Pagden’s reductionist assertion that religion has caused more lasting harm to the human race than any other single set of beliefs, his book is an accessible and lucid exploration of the history of the East-West split, concluding with a nuanced look at the divisions and misapprehensions that continue to the present time. Fans of Jacques Barzun and Jared Diamond will be most impressed by Pagden’s big picture perspective.” Publishers Weekly

The Forger: An Extraordinary Story of Survival in Wartime Berlin.  Cioma Schönhaus. HART D 811.5.S343713 2008. “This memoir of a Jewish man’s experience in wartime Berlin is less a tale of suffering than of courage. By 1942, Schönhaus’s family had been deported; the 20-year-old was spared because he worked in an arms factory. In that year, he began using his graphics background to forge IDs for Jews in hiding, and eventually went underground himself. His efforts, aided by anti-Nazi Germans, saved the lives of hundreds of Jews…While adding to our knowledge about wartime Berlin, this work also tells us something about how the human spirit can thrive amid destruction and tragedy.” Publisher’s Weekly