New Book List

September 5, 2002

NonFiction

Raising the Dead: Organ Transplants, Ethics, and Society - Munson, Ronald

Munson's book should rouse productive discussion of some controversial aspects of transplant medicine. Broadly experienced in academic, governmental, and commercial medical ethics programs, Munson uses case histories to set ethical questions in practical contexts, and he doesn't refrain from taking a stand. - Booklist

World History of Film - Sklar, Robert

Sklar tackles the daunting task of encapsulating more than a century of cinema within the pages of a single, admittedly massive volume, and he succeeds impressively. Beginning with such precursors of cinema as the magic lantern and such pioneer filmmakers as the Lumieres and Griffith, Sklar thereafter chronicles the rise of Hollywood, the development of genres, the advent of sound, and modern developments, right up to Pixar and the Farrelly brothers. As accomplished as Sklar's treatment of American film is, it is his genuinely global reach that distinguishes the book. Here are lengthy sections on European and Soviet silents, Italian neorealism, and the French New Wave, and timely accounts of today's vital Iranian and Chinese cinemas. Chapters on documentaries and the avant-garde and thorough coverage of the business side of the industry also bespeak Sklar's broad perspective. Well-selected photos profusely enhance the incisive text. - Booklist

Intelligent Design: Creationism and its critics.

The last decade saw the arrival of a new player in the creation/evolution debate -- the intelligent design creationism (IDC) movement, whose strategy is to act as "the wedge" to overturn Darwinism and scientific naturalism. This anthology of writings by prominent creationists and their critics focuses on what is novel about the new movement. The book contains articles previously published in specialized, hard-to-find journals, as well as new contributions.

Black Men: In Their Own Words - Hinds, P. Mignon

Black men who have succeeded in a variety of arenas from music to law to sports to business to politics offer insights on many issues, including manhood, family, passion, the civil rights movement, and success. Among the nearly 100 essayists are Bill Cosby, Chinua Achebe, Julian Bond, Eric Michael Dyson, Branford Marsalis, Jesse Jackson Jr., and Gordon Parks. These essays reflect the recent history of African Americans through the prism of personal perspective. The book includes brief biographies and striking photographs of the essayists in an inspiring collection. -Booklist

Fugitives: Evading and escaping the Japanese - Stahl, Bob

Stahl's short, agreeable book adds considerably to knowledge of the World War II experience of American expatriate civilians in the Philippines. When the Japanese came, mining engineer Jordan A. Hamner was on an island so isolated that it was months before the invaders bothered to occupy it permanently. By then, Hamner, a faithful diarist, was determined not to become a prisoner, and with two other Americans and two Filipinos evaded the Japanese until the five men found a small boat that could be made seaworthy. In that converted lifeboat, Or Else, the five motored, sailed, and rowed through 1,500 miles of Japanese-held waters to Northern Australia. Later, Hamner returned to the Philippines to work with guerrillas there. Stahl fills his recounting of Hamner's adventure with details of wartime life but not with either pure heroes or villains, and he proves informative and balanced on the ways Filipinos responded to their unenviable situation. Booklist

How Democratic is the American Constitution? - Dahl, Robert Alan

Dahl highlights those elements of the American system that are most unusual and potentially antidemocratic: the federal system, the bicameral legislature, judicial review, presidentialism, and the electoral college system. The political system that emerged from the world's first great democratic experiment is unique-no other well-established democracy has copied it. How does the American constitutional system function in comparison to other democratic systems? How could our political system be altered to achieve more democratic ends? To what extent did the Framers of the Constitution build features into our political system that militate against significant democratic reform? Refusing to accept the status of the American Constitution as a sacred text, Dahl challenges us all to think critically about the origins of our political system and to consider the opportunities for creating a more democratic society.

Strange Death of American Liberalism - Brands, H. W.

Texas A & M historian Brands ponders "the unsolved mystery of American politics . . . : Who killed liberalism?" Brands' conviction that the U.S. has been "a nation of skeptics" about the federal government throughout its history is central to his answer. Brands' first two chapters trace that skepticism, attributing all exceptions--periods of expanding federal power--to the nation's wars. But after World War II, Brands argues, the cold war demanded that Americans continue to empower the federal government, and concern about national security justified a wide spectrum of "liberal" programs, from highway construction and education funding to civil rights legislation and the War on Poverty. When this cold war consensus supporting federal action collapsed in the face of Vietnam, Watergate, and political lies, Americans' traditional skepticism about government reasserted control of the political arena. – Booklist

What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States - Simon, James F.

Simon (a former Time editor, now a law professor at NYU) examines the decades of conflict between the states' rights views of Thomas Jefferson and the federalist beliefs of John Marshall. Ultimately, as Simon demonstrates, Marshall prevailed. Simon usefully narrows his focus to a handful of key decisions by the Marshall Supreme Court, showing how the justice's concept of what kind of nation the U.S. should be progressively swept aside Jefferson's belief that state and federal governments were equal sovereigns. Simon's book illuminates the origins of a national political debate that continues today. – Publisher’s Weekly

 

 

Fiction

9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories to Remember - DC Comics

                    A graphic novel of moving stories of 9/11/01, interspersed with fictional stories.

The heat of the day - Bowen, Elizabeth

London, World War II: many people have fled the city, and those who stayed behind find themselves thrown together in an odd intimacy born of crisis. Stella Rodney is one of those who chose to stay. But for her, the sense of impending catastrophe becomes acutely personal when she discovers that her love interest, Robert, is suspected of selling secrets to the enemy, and that the man who is following him wants Stella herself as the price of his silence. Caught between these two men, not sure whom to believe, Stella finds her world crumbling as she learns how little we can truly know of those around us.

"Imagine a Graham Greene thriller projected through the sensibility of Virginia Woolf." —The Atlantic Monthly. "[Bowen] startles us by sheer originality of mind and boldness of sensibility into seeking our world afresh. . . . Out of the plainest things--the drawing of a curtain--she can make something electric and urgent." --V. S. Pritchett

Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe - Poe, Edgar Allan

                    All Poe, all the time.

Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou - Angelou, Maya

                    Lots of Angelou.

Reference

Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, chronologically arranged - Stearns, Peter N.

The "Langer Encyclopedia," as the professional academics call The Encyclopedia of World History originally edited by the late William L. Langer, is basically a history of everything--and an outstanding reference volume. Want to know why the English called their 10th-century king Ethelred "the Unready"? See page 181. Or what the Ottoman Empire's constitution of 1876 said? See page 531. Or when women in Honduras got the vote? See page 955. This sixth edition, completely updated and revised by a team of scholars led by George Mason University's Peter N. Stearns, packs all it can into a year-by-year and region-by-region chronicle of human life on planet Earth. The book is big, the type is small, and the maps and genealogical tables are excellent. Stearns has added more material on women, leisure activities, and demographics to this edition, and the sections on Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America are much different from the previous version. As if this weren't enough, the book comes with a CD-ROM featuring the complete text and fantastic search capabilities. – Amazon.com

Insider's Guide to the Colleges - The Staff of the Yale Daily News

The Insider's Guide to the Colleges is the perennial favorite reference book among the country's high school seniors. Honest, forthright, and sometimes irreverent, it is a compilation of thoroughly researched reports on every aspect of college life-from cafeteria food to academics to campus social life. Unlike any other guidebook out there, The Insider's Guide to the Colleges gives prospective college applicants the straight scoop from actual students. Rather than rattling off generic information, these students offer the un-hyped portrait of life at their respective colleges. – from the book cover

Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements - Emsley, John

All of the elements are covered, from actinium to zirconium to an element thought to exist but not yet synthesized (element 119). The alphabetically arranged entries range in length from two (Actinium) to nine pages (Hydrogen). Following brief information on the element's name and pronunciation, each entry is arranged into several sections addressing specific uses or roles. A distinguishing feature of this work is the inclusion of unusual facts that should appeal to the general reader with little science background. - Booklist

Profiles of American Colleges - Barron's Publishing

                        Facts and figures at your fingertips.