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New Books
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American theocracy : the peril and
politics of radical religion, oil, and borrowed money in the
21st century
Author: Kevin Phillips
Call Number: E902.P47 2006b
This former Republican strategist has written several books on
the relationship between wealth and politics in this country,
including the New York Times0 best-sellers Politics of Rich and
Poor0 (1990) and Wealth and Democracy0 (2002). Phillips' abiding
theme is given a workout again in his new book, with his major
thesis spelled out on the first page of the preface: three
demons threaten the continued well-being of the U.S. These are
our "reckless dependency on shrinking oil supplies," a "milieu
of radicalized (and much too influential) religion," and a
"reliance on borrowed money" (domestic and international debt,
that is). His stiff--no harsh--words are aimed primarily at the
Republican Party for allowing these three trends to have gotten
out of control, but Democrats, without offering clear and
tangible alternatives, are not let off the hook. The author's
investigation into these three problems is set in a historical
context as he posits the undeniable fact that all previous world
economic powers have ultimately failed in continued strength
(each one, however, believing "they were unique and that God was
on their side"). Phillips is eloquent, absorbing, and
frightening, and this book will follow its predecessors onto the
best-seller lists. --Brad Hooper Copyright 2006 Booklist
The birth of Satan : tracing the
devil's biblical roots
Author: T.J. Wray, Gregory Mobley
Call Number: BS680.D56W73 2005
Where the devil did the devil come from? Wray, a Roman Catholic
who teaches religious studies at Salve Regina University, and
Mobley, a Protestant professor of Old Testament at Andover
Newton Theological School, suggest that the early Hebrews
struggled with the puzzle of a God who is the source of both
good and evil. As Israel continued to evolve toward a clearer
monotheism, it was considered prudent to cast off the negative
characteristics of the one true God-which the authors call
"repellant aspects of Yhwh")-and embody them in a personality
who would become the biblical "Satan." Beginning with Genesis,
the authors trace the development of "the devil" until he
appears fully formed in the New Testament, where his role is "to
serve as the cosmic scapegoat, saving God from blame for evil."
Wray and Mobley pay particular attention to the beliefs of many
of Israel's neighbors and their influence on her emerging faith
in a cosmic evil being. Ultimately, they reject the concept of a
personal Satan, but acknowledge its usefulness in dealing with
the idea of evil. Written at a popular level, this book offers
an interesting and challenging alternative to traditional
beliefs. (Oct. 5) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Brutal journey : the epic story of
the first crossing of North America
Author: Paul Schneider
Call Number:
E125.N3S36 2006
One of the best-known sagas in the history of the Spanish empire
in the Americas is that of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. He and
two other Spaniards and a Moroccan slave were the only survivors
of the disastrous expedition to Florida led by Panfilo de
Narvaez in 1528. Rather than find gold and souls to convert to
Christianity, Narvaez and most of his followers met their
deaths. The four remaining would-be conquistadors trekked across
the Gulf Coast into Texas, finally ending their ordeal by
reaching Spanish settlements in western Mexico in 1536. They had
stayed alive by successfully operating as healers of Indians
among the many tribes they encountered in their arduous journey.
Unlike most other treatments of this episode, Schneider's
devotes almost two-thirds of the narrative to the Narvaez
expedition. He based the work largely on Cabeza de Vaca's famous
account and the joint report of the survivors, supplemented by
information inferred from other Spanish sources and
anthropological evidence. Throughout this story of murder,
enslavement, looting, torture, and starvation, the author
maintains a breezy tone and consistently engages the reader.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. M. J.
Brodhead U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Copyright 2007 American
Library Association.
Chasing Hubble's shadows : the
search for galaxies at the edge of time
Author: Jeff Kanipe.
Call Number: QB500.262.K36 2006
There are at least 127 billion
potentially observable galaxies in the universe, according to
science journalist Kanipe (A Skywatcher's Year). The Hubble
Space Telescope allows scientists to penetrate the distant
shadows of the readily observable and to uncover traces of the
earliest galaxies' birth. Kanipe follows in the footsteps of the
great astronomer Edwin Hubble and his successors in this deeply
enjoyable book, which is part memoir and part scientific
detective story. Kanipe chronicles the development of deep space
astronomy, traveling, for example, to the 10-meter telescopes
atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and observing a galaxy in the making
with astronomer Richard Ellis, who has already discovered at
least 12 previously unobserved galaxies. By 2011, NASA will be
able to probe the universe's dark ages when it launches the
James Webb Space Telescope, which will offer the chance to gaze
180 million years back, to the births of many galaxies and
stars. Kanipe's breathless writing conveys his own excitement
over the revelations that new advances in astronomy can tell us
about our planet and our place in the universe. 8 pages of color
illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Regula Noetzli. (Feb.) Copyright
2005 Reed Business Information.
Doing nothing : a history of
loafers, loungers, slackers and bums in America
Author: Tom Lutz
Call Number: BJ1498.L88 2006
Motivated to examine what drives
the slackers and loafers of America by the jolting realization
that his 18-year-old son is a practitioner of "doing nothing,"
popular historian Lutz (Crying: A Natural and Cultural History
of Tears), himself an admitted quasi workaholic, studies the
lives and ideas of 18th- and 19th-century American and British
figures who helped shape the work ethic and the rebellion
against it (e.g., Oscar Wilde and Theodore Dreiser). He then
romps through the 20th century, citing the opinions of such
figures as Thorstein Veblen, Bertrand Russell, and George W.
Bush, whom Lutz calls our "slacker president." Throughout, he
refers to mass media representations of the worker v. slacker
issue, (e.g., Seinfeld), eventually concluding that the
societies with the strongest work ethic (e.g., Japan, the United
States) are precisely those societies that breed the strongest
slacker culture. And, indeed, after the long struggle to write
this book, Lutz now looks forward to doing nothing (while his
slacker son, ironically, works 14-hour days). Although marred by
an overload of supporting cultural and historical references,
this is an entertaining, enlightening, and engaging history.
Recommended.-Jack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib. Copyright
2006 Reed Business Information
The end of Iraq : how American
incompetence created a war without end
Author: Peter W. Galbraith.
Call Number:
DS79.76.G335 2006
Galbraith, former Senate staffer
and Clinton's ambassador to Croatia, here compiles his
influential articles from the New York Review of Books into a
scathing critique of Bush's Iraq policy. Given the source, the
chapters are necessarily somewhat journalistic and anecdotal;
but this skilled writer offers a fine introduction, as well as
the added benefit of his personal experience with Iraq. The
author has deep knowledge of Iraq's Kurds, whose leaders he
knows well. Galbraith earlier documented the genocidal Anfal
campaign against the Kurds and reviews it here. A host of
mistakes are discussed. The Bush neoconservatives were ignorant
and arrogant in supposing they could impose a US-style federal
democracy on Iraq's ethnoreligious groups. The Coalition
Provisional Authority was staffed with inexperienced amateurs
who knew nothing of Iraq. Galbraith charges that the head of the
Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, botched the job by
dismantling the entire Iraqi government, leading to chaos and
the likely breakup of Iraq, hence the book's title. If Iraq
fractures, Galbraith urges pulling US forces back to friendly
Kurdistan. The author implies that the right policies and
personnel could have stabilized Iraq, but the project may have
been inherently unfeasible. Summing Up: Recommended. General
readers and undergraduates. M. G. Roskin Lycoming College.
Copyright 2006 American Library Association.
Grande expectations : a year in the
life of Starbucks' stock
Author: Karen Blumenthal.
Call Number:
HG4910.B595 2007
Blumenthal, a business journalist with more than 25 years of
experience, puts her prodigious talents to work distilling a
solid drama from the 2005 stock performance of steaming-hot
coffee company Starbucks. Having been given access to the
Starbucks' corporate office, the annual shareholders' meeting
and other inner sanctums, Blumenthal (Let Me Play: The Story of
Title IX) provides an outside expert's colorful, considered
viewpoint on the caffeinated personalities behind the company's
success, and the stock they propel, during a particularly
tumultuous year: Hurricane Stan in Central America, a Starbucks
stock split and the IPO of rival Caribou Coffee. Alongside
prescient data analysis, Blumenthal provides intriguing glimpses
of the culture: "Shareholders huddled around tables bulging with
stacks of muffins... and lined up ten deep at espresso bars.
Emergency medical personnel actually tended to an older man who
appeared to be having heart problems." Blumenthal's transition
between statistics and scenes of corporate color can be abrupt,
but the intimate detail into which she delves makes this book
stand out from the business-profile pack, and it's got enough
narrative finesse to make it a fun read for both committed
investors and the NYSE-curious. Copyright © Reed Business
Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.
Lost mountain : a year in the
vanishing wilderness : radical strip mining and the devastation
of Appalachia
Author: Erik Reece
Call Number: TD195.S75R43 2006
Criminal. That's the word that
comes to mind upon reading Reece's excoriating expose of the
coal industry's pernicious rape of the mountains of eastern
Kentucky. Once the site of the oldest and most ecologically
diverse forest in the country, now this stretch of Appalachian
wilderness has gone from being a verdant North American rain
forest to a bleak and dismal lunar landscape, thanks to the
severely destructive strip-mining process known as mountaintop
removal. Under this radical form of coal retrieval, ore is mined
by literally blasting away tops of mountains, dumping waste into
the valleys below, burying streams, polluting wells, undermining
buildings, and altering fragile ecologies. Reece spent a year
intimately observing and chronicling the demolition of the
ironically named Lost Mountain, hiking to its summit, fording
its streams' headwaters, interviewing its residents, and
visiting cemeteries to pay respect to those who ultimately
succumbed to the pollution and violence perpetrated in the name
of energy efficiency and economic viability. The tale of
Kentucky's mutilated environment is one that, like the mountain,
has been lost. Resounding kudos to Reece for vividly bringing
this critical story to light. --Carol Haggas Copyright 2006
Booklist
Thomas Hardy
Author: Claire Tomalin.
Call Number: PR4753.T58 2007
Respected British biographer
Tomalin (whose Samuel Pepys was 2002's Whitbread Book of the
Year) sticks to the substantiated facts of Hardy's life
(1840-1928) in her finely honed biography, dismissing the
speculative claims of other Hardy scholars as she charts the
great British novelist and poet's rise from humble rural origins
to bestselling author and literary eminence. Tomalin captures
the awkwardness of Hardy's conduct in high society following his
literary success, brilliantly highlighting the snobbishly
mocking diary entries of upper-class observers. At the heart of
Tomalin's narrative is a gripping account of Hardy's long,
troubled marriage to Emma Gifford in which Tomalin carefully
shows how a heady courtship waned into disappointment and
bitterness on both sides. Tomalin damns neither party, evoking
Emma's eccentricities and frustrations along with Hardy's
infatuations with other women. She also treats, with great
sensitivity and insight, Hardy's poetic outpourings after Emma's
death, in which he imaginatively returned to an image of her as
his beloved muse. "The wounds inflicted by life never quite
healed over in Hardy," writes Tomalin, although she avows she
cannot completely fathom the underlying cause of his acute
sensitivity to humiliation. A feat of distillation and mature
judgment, Tomalin's biography artfully presents Hardy in his
intimate and social world, offering succinct and insightful
readings of his work along the way. Illus., map. (Jan. 15)
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Twelve days : the story of the 1956
Hungarian Revolution
Author: Victor Sebestyen
Call Number: DB957.5.C49S43 2006
Fifty years ago, the Hungarians
rose in spontaneous revolt against their Soviet overlords and
the inept and brutal hacks governing their country. Sebestyen, a
London-based journalist, uses previously unreleased documents
from Hungarian and Russian archives and eyewitness accounts and
diaries to reassess what he characterizes as "the least
organized revolution in history...no leaders, no plans." Its
causes were multiple, including Soviet Premier Krushchev's
relaxation of control over Eastern-bloc countries, communism's
triumph in Poland, and hatred of the Rakosi government in
Hungary. Radio Free Europe had incited Eastern Europeans to rise
up, but when the uprising started, President Eisenhower delayed
acting until the time for action was past: his attention was on
the Suez Canal instead. The Soviets attacked the vastly
outnumbered and poorly equipped freedom fighters. Sebestyen's
conclusion is discouraging but indubitably correct: "The
revolution was the defining moment of the Cold War when the
Soviet Union showed...it was prepared to use barbaric measures
to keep its empire, and the West was content to let it do so."
Recommended for all libraries. David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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