October 2013, Issue #174

Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview by Henri Matisse, with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbaut, translated from the French by Chris Miller (Getty Publications)

In 1941 the Swiss art critic Pierre Courthion interviewed Henri Matisse while the artist was in bed recovering from a serious operation. Conducted during the Nazi occupation of France, it was an extensive interview, seen at the time as a vital assessment of Matisse’s career and set to be published by Albert Skira’s then newly established Swiss press. After months of complicated discussions between Courthion and Matisse and just weeks before the book was to come out – the artist even had approved the cover design – Matisse suddenly refused its publication. A typescript of the interview now resides in Courthion’s papers at the Getty Research Institute.
This conversation is published for the first time in Chatting with Henri Matisse, where it appears both in English translation and in the original French version.

Over several days, Matisse and Courthion discussed topics including the artist's early years as a student of Gustave Moreau in Paris; his relationship with Renoir, Cezanne, and Pissaro; his collaborations with Sergei Diaghilev; and his travels in Morocco and their impact on his work. Matisse unravels memories of his youth and his life as a bohemian student in Gustave Moreau’s atelier. He recounts his experience with collectors, including Albert C. Barnes. He discusses fame, writers, musicians, politicians, and, most fascinatingly, his travels. Chatting with Henri Matisse, introduced by Serge Guilbaut, professor of art history at the University of British Columbia, contains a preface by Claude Duthuit, Matisse’s grandson, and essays by Yve-Alain Bois and Laurence Bertrand Dorléac. The book includes unpublished correspondence and other original documents related to Courthion’s interview and abounds with details about avant-garde life, tactics, and artistic creativity in the first half of the twentieth century.

Just a few weeks before the book was slated to be released, Matisse blocked its publication, stating that he had conducted the interview while under sedation. Fortunately, the manuscript landed at the Getty Research Institute, where it was later discovered by art history professor Guilbaut (How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art), who has now published the complete interviews in English and French, along with reproductions of the original edited manuscript and transcript rejected by Matisse. Chatting with Henri Matisse is the first publication of an important and extensive interview with the artist. Matisse’s own proposed title, Bavardages (Chit-chat) captures the informal tone of the conversation. It includes two short, critical essays on Matisse as a traveler and on the artist's decision to remain in Nazi-occupied France, along with numerous photographs of the artist and reproductions of his work. These chats provide a glimpse into a fascinating era when, perhaps for the first time in history, ‘art reporting’ became possible.

Matisse was as happy to listen as to speak. And – this point can hardly be overstated – he loved life. He was drawn to people with intense, passionate interests. He communicated easily and frequently with many of them: Vignier, an aesthete whose antique business reflected his exquisite taste; Doucet, the elegant couturier and discriminating art collector; Poiret, another couturier, a magician with pleated fabrics, who was ruined by his luxurious lifestyle and by the parties that Matisse found so irresistible; and Aragon, a poet whose mind was as sharp as his aquiline profile. Matisse often sketched him during his visits.

Although by no means taciturn, Matisse belonged to the last generation for whom silence was golden. He led an unusual life. Born in a market town in Flanders, apparently doomed to an existence as a notary's clerk, he instead overthrew the conventional harmonies of the visual arts and traced an astonishing trajectory over the shores of the Mediterranean in his quest for the dazzling genesis of light.

Brief, timeless moments are the raison d'etre of Bavardages (Chatting with Henri Matisse). The narrative is utterly devoid of artifice. Some had the opportunity to share in Matisse's rare moments of relaxation. He would suddenly be overcome with the desire to tell stories about his youth. These would be punctuated with the images and sounds that had impressed him. He was a gifted mimic and delighted in repeating the cries of the craftsmen – the glaziers, knife grinders, and birdseed sellers – that had echoed through the courtyards and alleyways.

Eventually the comforting flow of his own conversation ceased to be relaxing for Matisse. It became everything that he wished to avoid, a distraction from the work that he had too long neglected and from his nagging fear of the blank canvas. With the passing of the years, Bavardages (Chatting with Henri Matisse) becomes ever more valuable. Through his encounters and the flowering of his oeuvre, Matisse straddles three centuries.

The story of the eight months begins with Matisse's discharge from the Lyon hospital after a serious operation and ends with his decision to discard the book project. It unfolds like a detective novel and involves suspense, double-talk, surprises, and the prospect of imminent death.

On 5 Apri1 1941, Courthion, invited by Skira, went to Lyon to interview Matisse, who was staying at the Grand-Nouvel-Hotel while recovering from a painful operation on a blocked intestine – an operation that almost cost him his life, as he noted humorously in a letter to his old friend, the painter Albert Marquet: "I came within a hair's breadth of dying."' This resurrection, as Matisse called it ("Foreword to the Bavardages"), gave him a new approach to life: a desire to live it plainly and forthrightly, focusing on its joys, which he would thereafter try to translate in his art. His delight at having survived was such that several months later he was still joking about it to Marquet: "Long live joy... and french fries!" Matisse was, according to Skira, talkative and even garrulous about his past life as an artist in Paris. Impressed by his volubility, Skira thought that this newly recovered energy could be recorded with the help of a stenographer and a typist, thus preserving Matisse's experience of Parisian bohemia along with his outpouring of private memories and historical details. It may have been a resurrection for Matisse, but things around him fell short of that condition. Indeed, at the time – with the occupation in full swing – it seemed imperative to save France's cultural memory. Occupied France was a depressing and dangerous place. Over the course of the year further anti-Semitic policies were imposed throughout the Occupied Zone (the north of France) while the Communist Party started to organize the Resistance nationwide. The savage bombings of London that spring cast a dark shadow. It is therefore unsurprising that an old, convalescent painter – confronted with this nightmarish situation and a series of questions about his career as a painter – should have shaken off his customary reserve. For several days, he dug into his past, remembering the struggles of his youth, the development of his craft, his conflicts with a very hidebound French establishment and a very bourgeois market, and his escapes to America, Morocco, and Tahiti.

The first raw transcript of the manuscript, hundreds of pages long, is a flow of reminiscences that cascaded through the pages as the floodgates of memory suddenly opened. These notes display a chronological narration with many asides – a cornucopia of details, gossipy observations, personal memories, and a wonderful exposition of his youthful desires, experiments, hopes, and ideas. In Chatting with Henri Matisse readers learn about the six years that he spent as a student of Gustave Moreau, his apprenticeship at the Eugene Carriere studio, and the extreme difficulty of surviving in absolute penury: "For us, the problem was simple; the buyer simply didn't exist. We were working for ourselves. We were in a trade that offered no hope at all" ("Third Conversation"). All this raw material – these random stories triggered by surges of feeling – had to be somehow organized and even categorized. That was Courthion's role. Courthion thought that in order to reproduce Matisse's outpouring in comprehensible fashion, he had to use a technique similar to that used in Matisse's pictorial work. Courthion had tried to discipline the self-expression of the artist, who had started with exuberant emotions and sensations, in order to attain stability and harmony while keeping intact our sense of the painter's warm intelligence. In the end, it proved almost impossible to attain that balance.

Chatting with Henri Matisse is and important book providing great insight into Matisse as an artist and individual, as well as into the journalist's interviewing and editing process. It is an extraordinary document; Matisse, in his own voice, speaking of this life as a painter. The conversation is rich and the critical essays on Matisse as a traveler and on the artist’s decision to remain in Nazi-occupied France are astute.

Audio / Science / New Age

The Book of Immortality: The Science, Belief, and Magic behind Living Forever, unabridged audiobook, 2 MP3-CDs, 16.5 hours by Adam Leith Gollner, read by Adam Verner (Tantor Audio)

The Book of Immortality: The Science, Belief, and Magic behind Living Forever by Adam Leith Gollner (Scribner)

What have we not done to live forever?

Former editor of Vice magazine, Adam Leith Gollner, the critically acclaimed author of The Fruit Hunters, in The Book of Immortality weaves together religion, science, and mythology in an exploration of the most universal of human obsessions: immortality.

Raised an atheist, Gollner was struck by mankind's tireless efforts to cheat aging and death. In a narrative that pivots between profundity and hilarity, he brings readers into the world of those whose lives are shaped by a belief in immortality. Combining immersive reporting, rigorous research, and lyrical prose, Gollner charts the rise of longevity science from its alchemical beginnings to modern-day genetic interventions.

Gollner questions priests, mystics, magicians, and scientists – diverse voices for the nearly universal yearning for eternal life. He contemplates religious doctrines defining death as a portal into eternity, and he reflects on martyrs’ steely faith in such doctrines. From a Jesuit priest on his deathbed to anti-aging researchers at Harvard, Gollner – sorting truth from absurdity – canvasses religion and science for insight, along with an array of cults, myths, and fringe figures. Gollner approaches a number of religions with respectful curiosity, Sufi Muslims, Hasidic Jews, and more to gain perspective on the nature of the afterlife.

To write The Book of Immortality Gollner journeys to David Copperfield's archipelago in the Bahamas, where the magician claims to have found ‘a liquid that reverses genes.’ He attends a costume party set in the year 2068 with a group of radical life-extensionists and soaks in the transformative mineral waters at the Esalen Institute. Looking to history, Gollner visits St. Augustine, Florida, where Ponce de Leon is thought to have sought the fountain of youth.

But as a skeptic, Gollner craves empirical proof. Yet in scrutinizing near-death experiences – including his own harrowing teenage brush with death – he finds only maddening ambiguities. The struggle to interpret these ambiguities carries readers into Freud’s theories, Swedenborg’s visions, and Whitman’s poetry. He tours cryonic facilities and wraps it up with a Buddhist Elixir of Life ceremony. He explores the symbolic representation of eternal life and its connection to water. Interlaced throughout The Book of Immortality is a compelling meditation on the nature of belief.

Part journalist, part detective, part scientist. – New York Post

In an effort as ambitious as it is (probably) impossible, former Vice editor Gollner (The Fruit Hunters) embarks on an epic quest to understand the nature of immortality. His exhaustive research leaves no fountain of youth untasted, no faith unexamined, and no pseudoscience unquestioned. This book is both a personal journey and an extensive overview of the ways in which humans cope with the idea of death and attempt to defy the aging process…. It's an engrossing, immensely fascinating tour of beliefs and attitudes about death, presented with a relatively unbiased, if skeptical, eye. There is no one true answer provided here; in fact, there may be too many answers. As Gollner puts it, We haven't yet found certainty. We can uncertainly state that we likely never will. His attempt may be the next best thing. – Michelle Tessler, Publishers Weekly, starred review

… Though his research identifies scientists exploring plausible medical strategies for maximizing longevity, Gollner skewers with barbed irony the credulous souls who believe they can actually defeat death with New Age mantras – or schedule the medical resurrection of their cryogenically preserved bodies. A probing inquiry into the most insistent of human hopes. – Bryce Christensen, Booklist starred review

An entertaining, well-researched account of the quest that brims with our fond hopes, foolishness and even desperation. – Kirkus Reviews

Adam Leith Gollner possesses a talent as rare and exotic as a coconut pearl…. Lustrous and exhilarating… The talents of a food writer, investigative journalist, poet, travel writer and humorist grafted onto one unusual specimen. Long may he thrive. – Mary Roach, New York Times Book Review

You'll delight in Gollner's globe-trotting adventures. – Entertainment Weekly

Highly enjoyable…. Gollner is a good sport and a fine wordsmith. Part Mary Roach, part Joe Strummer of the Clash, he injects punk energy and invention into the genre of quirky scientific nonfiction. Long may he write. – Wall Street Journal

Bold, entertaining, thought-provoking… The Book of Immortality is first-rate entertainment, a blast of intellectual stimulation and vivid reporting. – Shelf Awareness

Gollner in The Book of Immortality has written a rollicking and revelatory examination of the age-old notion of living forever. The gripping exploration moves between profundity and hilarity. The audio version is narrated by award-winning Adam Verner, a full-time narrator and voice talent with over one hundred titles recorded.

Family / Gender Studies / Biographies & Memoirs

My Brother My Sister: Story of a Transformation by Molly Haskell (Viking)

On a visit to New York, the brother of nationally recognized feminist film critic Molly Haskell dropped a bombshell: Nearing age sixty and married with children, he had decided to become a woman. In the vein of Jennifer Finney Boylan's She's Not There, a transgender memoir, Haskell’s My Brother My Sister explores a delicate subject, this time from the perspective of a family member.
Haskell chronicles her brother Chevey’s transformation through a series of psychological evaluations, grueling surgeries, drug regimens, and comportment and fashion lessons as he becomes Ellen. Despite Haskell’s liberal views on gender roles, she was dumbfounded by her brother’s decision. With candor and compassion, she charts not only her brother’s journey to becoming her sister, but also her own path from shock, confusion, embarrassment, and devastation to acceptance, empathy, and love.
Haskell widens the lens on her brother’s story to include scientific and psychoanalytic views. In an honest, informed voice, she reveals the controversial world of gender reassignment and transsexuals from both a personal and a social perspective. Through Chevey's transformation into Ellen, Haskell produces a cultural map of not only her sister's experience, but of gender roles and transsexualism in a world increasingly governed by notions of individual identity.

Throughout My Brother My Sister Haskell turns her critic's eye on herself, but also broadens her lens to include meditations on sexual anomalies in art and mythology; psychoanalytical and scientific research as well as explorations of previously published memoirs such as Jan Morris's classic Conundrum, in order to better understand her complicated reaction to the secret Chevey had kept so well for so long.

Well-known feminist film critic Haskell calls this a story of a transformation, which is accurate in a way, but on another level this is a story about emigration. Indeed, she refers to her sixty-something brother Chevey as a gender migrant after he tells her of his decision to leave his gender designation behind and travel through personally uncharted territory to become a woman. The decision meant he had to forsake not just his male organs via surgery but also all the familiar trappings and language of masculinity, to say nothing of his wife of two decades. And just as the family of any migrant must adapt to the idea of him in a new place, with a new aspect and language, Haskell had to either accept or reject Chevey’s sexual relocation, as it were. For the liberal-minded feminist, the adjustment wasn’t as easy as one might expect. Because if Chevey’s course was uncharted, hers felt like leaping into a black hole. Haskell eloquently chronicles the emotional torrent both siblings suffered as brother became sister. – Donna Chavez, Booklist

Molly Haskell has written a bracingly candid book about the mystery of sexual identity and the often indirect path we take to claiming it. This is a riveting account of the passion and tenacity it takes to go up against the constrictions and limitations society imposes on our deepest dreams of self. – Daphne Merkin, author of Dreaming of Hitler and Enchantment
In this gripping memoir, the author's feelings are parsed with a precision and candor that bring universal resonance to its seemingly singular subject. The wisdom and compassion that shine through on every page are as necessary as they are rare. – Phillip Lopate, author To Show and to Tell
Life’s losses and transitions – in this case, sex changes and death – are heartbreaking and enigmatic, yet Haskell confronts them honestly with tremendous courage, intelligence and love. A beautiful book. – Lily Tuck, National Book Award-winning author of The News from Paraguay
Beautiful and pitch perfect. A wonderfully personal story about family and relationships and secrets and evolution and how mysterious we remain even to ourselves and our closest relatives. – A. M. Homes, Women’s Prize-winning author of May We Be Forgiven
A remarkable and indispensable book. In My Brother My Sister, Haskell documents her sibling's amazing journey of transformation from male to female – but it's not about sex, it's about identity – about the price of belonging. Above all this is an achingly personal story. It takes courage for brother Chevey to become sister Ellen and for Haskell to confront her doubts. It also takes a great deal of love. – Patricia Bosworth, author of Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman
As the conversation surrounding... transgender continues, this work makes a significant contribution to its literature. – Publishers Weekly
With candor and sly humor, [Haskell] questions her ideas about womanhood and considers the relationship between gender and identity…. A discerning, vital memoir. – Kirkus

Feminist film critic Haskell has written a frank and moving memoir that pulls no punches in its exploration of a controversial, delicate subject. My Brother My Sister is tender, honest, informed, and at times humorous. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever struggled to discover who they really are.

Health & Fitness / New Age / Alternative Medicine / Reference

The Subtle Body Practice Manual: A Comprehensive Guide to Energy Healing by Cyndi Dale (Sounds True)

Cyndi Dale's The Subtle Body has become the go-to guide for anyone who wants to learn about the many varieties of energy healing. With The Subtle Body Practice Manual Dale, an internationally respected author and spiritual scholar, offers a practical instruction manual for putting energy healing into action. Filled with information, step-by-step guidance, diagrams, and insights, the book is an expansive how-to manual that covers practices from a vast range of holistic healing and energy medicine traditions, including:

The six core energy techniques.
Energetic diagnosis practices to determine which kind of modality will be most effective for specific health issues.
Setting strong and flexible energetic boundaries, with special guidance for those in the healing professions.
Techniques for working with the subtle aspects of the body, emotions, and the subconscious mind.
Practices for healing through the chakras, the meridians, chi, breathwork, auric fields, sacred geometry, acupressure, and music.

Dale, president of Life Systems Services, writes that all medicine is energy medicine – which is why subtle energy practices can be used to complement and enhance any approach to healing or self-care.

The Subtle Body Practice Manual gives readers a wealth of information about subtle energy healing. In part 1, they learn about energy medicine and the energetic anatomy, which is made of energy fields, channels, and centers. Part 2 prepares them for serving as subtle energy healers, whether they are laypersons or well-decorated professionals.

Subtle energy practitioners have special considerations that self-healers do not, and the book covers these unique concerns in part 2. For instance, in order to build and maintain a thriving practice as a subtle energy healer of any stripe, they must foster trust and confidence with clients and patients. They need to be well informed about modalities other than their own and be whole-heartedly willing to recommend complementary options when a situation calls for it. They must also follow a code of ethics that incorporates the sometimes unusual considerations of working with subtle energy, such as the use of intuition or spiritual energies. Dale gives readers an array of philosophies and tools that can help them with trust and ethics; using intuition, intention, and prayer; setting energetic boundaries; and even setting up an office and conducting a client session.

The ideas and techniques in part 2 of The Subtle Body Practice Manual are certainly vital to the subtle energy professional, but they're also applicable to the layperson. To hand out advice on herbs to friends is to wear the mantle of subtle energy practitioner. And so everyone is beholden to learn as much as they can about subtle energy protocol as well as the methods available for self- and other care.

Part 3 features hundreds of techniques available to the subtle energy healer for healing body, mind, and soul. The Subtle Body Practice Manual is the how-to reference for healing work, showcasing techniques from ancient to contemporary times, developed around the world. From homeopathy to gemstone healing, from meditation to using food as medicine, it's all here. Chapter 3 not only expands readers’ understanding of the art and science of subtle energy medicine, but also shows them how to apply that understanding using methods and techniques that are practical, accessible, effective, and fun.

Spiritual scholar Dale (The Subtle Body) offers a comprehensive guide for practitioners of energy healing. There’s a cornucopia of healing modalities and practices, she explains, ranging from Eastern and Western medicine to field-based healing and bodywork... Written in a clear and compassionate yet businesslike tone, this work will be a go-to guide for anyone considering energy healing as a vocation or avocation. – Publishers Weekly, June 2013
Cyndi Dale has accomplished something that I haven't yet seen done by any other author for this genre. She masterfully presents a very personable, understandable, and comprehensive exploration of the science and practice of energy medicine from ancient times through now. This is one of the most understandable explanations of how energy medicine therapies work that I have ever read. – Cynthia Hutchison, Director of the Healing Touch Program
The Subtle Body Practice Manual is pure, healing treasure – and everyone from doctors and healthcare practitioners to parents and teachers will find life-changing information and practices in these pages. An invaluable resource. – Christiane Northrup, M.D., OB/GYN physician and author of the New York Times bestsellers Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause
Cyndi Dale is clearly the 21st century expert on energy medicine – she takes the reader to the leading edge of this emerging, exciting field with her brilliant insight and intuition. This is the perfect encyclopedic guide to harnessing the energetic wisdom of both ancient and modern traditions in a hands-on way. Everyone – patients and practitioners – would benefit by having this book on their shelves for reference and for everyday living. – Deanna Minich, PhD, health expert and author of Chakra Foods for Optimum Health

Presented with Dale's thorough scholarship and clear writing style, The Subtle Body Practice Manual provides professionals and laypersons alike with an indispensable resource on the many varieties and applications of energetic care – so readers can begin using these practices in their own lives.

History / Europe / African Studies / Diaspora

Germany and the Black Diaspora: Points of Contact, 1250-1914 edited by Mischa Honeck, Martin Klimke and Anne Kuhlmann-Smirnov (Studies in German History Series: Berghahn Books)

The rich history of encounters prior to World War I between people from German-speaking parts of Europe and people of African descent has gone largely unnoticed in the historical literature – not least because Germany became a nation and engaged in colonization much later than other European nations. Germany and the Black Diaspora presents intersections of Black and German history over eight centuries while mapping continuities and ruptures in Germans' perceptions of Blacks. Juxtaposing these intersections demonstrates that negative German perceptions of Blackness proceeded from nineteenth-century racial theories, and that earlier constructions of ‘race’ were far more differentiated. The contributors to Germany and the Black Diaspora present a wide range of Black-German encounters, from representations of Black saints in religious medieval art to Black Hessians fighting in the American Revolutionary War, from Cameroonian children being educated in Germany to African American agriculturalists in Germany's protectorate, Togoland. Each chapter probes individual and collective responses to these intercultural points of contact.

Editors are Mischa Honeck, research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington; Martin Klimke, Associate Professor of History at New York University Abu Dhabi; and Anne Kuhlmann-Smirnov, research fellow in Russian history at the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States in Berlin. Germany and the Black Diaspora has 12 contributors.

According to the introduction, persons of African descent have been present in central Europe throughout the past millennium. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Africans crossed the Mediterranean to Spain, Sicily, and Italy or made their way to Europe via the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. In later centuries, transatlantic networks of trade, slavery, and migration brought black people from the different regions of the Americas to the European continent, while the rising tides of white colonization of the New World created additional sites of black-German contact. African ‘court Moors,’ many of them shipped in from distant slave markets and subsequently baptized, became ever more visible in aristocratic Europe during the early modern period and were an integral part of courtly representation. By the eighteenth century, a growing number of black Europeans worked and lived in the bourgeois households of merchants, retired colonial officials, and plantation owners. Others made an independent living as seamen or guild members. Over time, however, as slavery, emancipation, and colonialism transformed perceptions of black people throughout the Atlantic world, the image of blacks deteriorated. The traditional term used to address black Africans, ‘Moors,’ which always bore a certain fascination and kindled visions of brave warriors, Christian saints, and the riches of Africa, was replaced by that of the ‘Negro,’ which alluded instead to a trading commodity; a childish, cheap, and unskilled hand.

To map continuities and ruptures across eight centuries of perception and contact between blacks of diverse origins (the Americas, the Caribbean, Asia Minor, Africa, Europe) and people from the German-speaking parts of Europe, Germany and the Black Diaspora brings together scholars versed and trained in different eras and disciplines: history, art history, cultural studies, and literature. The essays collected in Germany and the Black Diaspora offer a correction to the view that black and German history rarely intersected before the twentieth century because of Germany's status as a latecomer to nation building and colonization. Putting together a book with the ambition of bridging such a vast chronological span is no claim to modesty, but it is needed to illustrate the full scope of and diversity in the long history of interactions between Africa and Germany. Moreover, if retracing major developments over a broad period of time calls for a transepochal and interdisciplinary approach, it also requires adopting a transcultural and transnational outlook. In recent years, transnational historians have successfully challenged monolithic concepts of national identity by emphasizing the interconnectedness of various regional developments, no longer treating them as separate entities. Unlike traditional international historians, they look beyond the governmental sphere to include a wider range of nonstate actors, a perspective that is also employed in Germany and the Black Diaspora.

Meticulously researched in previously ignored archives and obscure publications, the essays included in this volume range from black figures in medieval art and baroque drama to German translations of 18th- and 19th-century African and African American writers... to the fascinating account of the venture to start cotton plantations in Togo, undertaken by the German Colonial Committee with the help of Booker T. Washington. [They] reveal the many interactions of Africans and African Americans with the German-speaking world, thus offering fresh and suggestive interracial perspectives on German cultural history in broader contexts. – Werner Sotlors, Harvard University

The organization of the book is exemplary. The introduction presents a very important theoretical construct for this and future investigations of the phenomenon of race in the German-speaking world – the chapters assembled in this anthology are excellent – I have no doubt this volume will quickly become a vital part of the growing body of research on Afro-German interactions. – Leroy Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania

This is an important collection that takes a large step forward in advancing knowledge about people of the African Diaspora in Germany. – Sara Lennox, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Germany and the Black Diaspora will raise awareness about a long and often still neglected tradition of black presences in German society that has had and continues to have a place in the nation's sociopolitical fabric.

History / Military / Warfare / World War II / Europe

Operation Barbarossa: The German Invasion of Soviet Russia by Robert Kirchubel (General Military Series: Osprey Publishing)

Germany's surprise assault on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Operation Barbarossa, aimed at nothing less than the destruction of the Soviet Union. Three German Army Groups, supported by numerous European allies, poured across the Soviet border crushing all before them in a lightning campaign that threatened to eliminate all Soviet resistance and secure an easy victory.
The topic of Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s surprise assault on the Soviet Union in June 1941, remains the largest invasion in the history of warfare. Hitler regarded it as the last vital step in the establishment of Lebensraum for the German people in the East.

When Hitler ordered the start of Operation Barbarossa, millions of German soldiers flooded into Russia, believing that their rapid blitzkrieg tactics would result in an easy victory similar to the ones enjoyed by the Wehrmacht over Poland and France. But the huge human resources at the disposal of the Soviet Union, and the significant distances and overstretched supply lines that the Germans had to overcome, saw the seemingly invincible armored spearheads start to slow. Finally, in sight of Moscow, the German invasion ground to a halt. Hitler's dreams of a quick victory were shattered and the ensuing war of attrition was to bleed Germany white, robbing her of manpower and equipment in one of the bloodiest episodes in human history.

Fully illustrated with unique Osprey artwork, new maps, and contemporary photographs, Operation Barbarossa tells the story of one of the definitive campaigns of World War II and examines how the failure of the invasion contributed to the final defeat of Nazi Germany.

Retired US Army armor-branch lieutenant colonel Robert Kirchubel’s three-volume study of the Barbarossa campaign is the product of several years' work and research. Operation Barbarossa combines these, along with new material specifically created to tell the story of one of definitive campaigns of World War II. New material includes updates from recent scholarship, clarifications, additional maps, photographs, graphics plus sidebars to address topics not covered in detail elsewhere.

A major objective of Operation Barbarossa is to present Barbarossa in a more understandable manner for an audience perhaps not comfortable or familiar with it. Unfortunately some of the campaign's features that make it so fascinating can make it inaccessible to or unpopular with others: its chaos, complexity, massive scale, twists and turns, to name just a few. In terms of activity, chronology, geography, personalities, units, and other measures Barbarossa experienced constant peaks and valleys which can be hard to follow or make sense of. Significant combat by major units could be widely separated by time and distance. On the face of it, it may not be easy to see the relationship between events at opposite ends of the calendar or map. Immediately after the German invasion there was no longer a solid frontline running between the Baltic and Black Seas; often gaps of dozens of miles developed with nothing to fill them but a thin cavalry screen or a single division. Likewise, massive casualties during Barbarossa make Band of Brothers type micro-histories difficult; one would have trouble finding a company of von Kleist's panzer group where more than 50 percent of the men survived the five months from Poland to Rostov.

Kirchubel organizes this narrative along the lines suggested by the German Federal Military Archives and Soviet historians. Therefore the narrative is more thematic and less purely chronological. German sources for the new organization are the various Schlacht- and Gefechtsbezeichnungen while the Soviet sources are from David Glantz, Colossus Reborn. Kirchubel splits Barbarossa into four stages rather than the usual three. He includes introductions and summaries for each stage to help tie them together. A key innovation of Operation Barbarossa is the engagement and battle matrices in the Appendix.

Understanding the scale and complexity of Operation Barbarossa's many campaigns and battles has seldom been rendered more accessible or readable. Kirchubel's latest offering reflects both his expertise in the field and his skill as a historian. This is a masterful achievement. – Dr. David Stahel, author of Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941

The expanded length of Operation Barbarossa allows Kirchubel to put the politics and ideology of the day in their proper positions. The supporting graphics are dramatic.

History / Social / Health / Occupational

Child Workers and Industrial Health in Britain, 1780-1850 by Peter Kirby (People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History Series, Volume 2: Boydell Press)

Historians have long recognized the importance of child health during the Industrial Revolution, but few have explored the health of working children in any analytical detail. In this study, Peter Kirby, Professor of Social History and Director of the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare at Glasgow Caledonian University, places the occupational health of employed children within a broad context of social, industrial and environmental change during the period 1780 to 1850. Child Workers and Industrial Health in Britain, 1780-1850 explores the deformities, fevers, respiratory complaints, industrial injuries and physical ill-treatment which have long been associated with child labor in the factory workplace. The result is a more nuanced picture of child health and child labor during the classic 'factory age' which raises important questions about the enduring stereotype of the health-impaired and abused industrial child.

In recent decades, economic and social historians have produced a growing number of monographical studies exploring the complex problem of child labor during the Industrial Revolution. Historical demographers and medical historians, meanwhile, have offered increasingly detailed investigations of child health and welfare in early urban and industrial society. The subject of children's occupational health, however, has attracted little serious analysis. The poor health and ill-treatment of child laborers in mills and factories has long remained a seemingly incontrovertible feature of the historiography of British industrialization. Early labor historians such as the Hammonds argued passionately that poor working conditions, ill-health and violence were commonplace in large factories and mines and that such privations increased in intensity alongside the growth of modern industry. Children are portrayed as victims of avaricious employers and an inherently brutal system of production. Rarely have they been recognized as viable workers and earners in their own right. Such uncomplicated assumptions were rarely challenged in the twentieth century and few attempts have been made to explore the nature and causes of ill-health and poor treatment among working children. Skepticism has been expressed about the quality of evidence available for a critical study of health among early industrial child workers. The lack of any major monographical study of child industrial health provides the justification for Child Workers and Industrial Health in Britain, 1780-1850. The chronology of the research is also self-defining. In 1780, child industrial health was hardly recognized as a topic for discussion by governments and social commentators but by the mid-nineteenth century changes in social attitudes, structural transformations in the workplace and new forms of social investigation had resulted in a much greater social awareness of the plight of working children in large industrial enterprises. By 1850, the first attempts at protective legislation had been introduced as well as the first reasonably effective government inspectorates. Child Workers and Industrial Health in Britain, 1780-1850 therefore concentrates primarily upon the emergence of health as a central element in debates over the industrial employment of children during a crucial period of economic, social and epidemiological transition. The emergence of larger and more regulated factories, mills and mines forms a major subject of the inquiry, though at the core of the study lies the complex and often diffuse relationship between children's occupational health and the changing urban manufacturing environment.

The evidence of early nineteenth-century medical men is a highly unreliable basis for any serious inquiry into the health of industrial children. Any such study must look beyond the largely partial and theoretical medical testimony elicited from metropolitan doctors by avowed opponents of the factory system. Such was the remoteness and inaccuracy of early medical commentary on the health of child workers that the evidence of non-medical observers almost always proves of much greater value with regard to the internal working environments of mills and spatial descriptions of incidents such as industrial accidents. Child Workers and Industrial Health in Britain, 1780-1850, therefore, does not focus primarily upon medical commentary but upon evidence from a wider range of industrial contexts. The analysis employs findings of recent research in occupational medicine together with studies of the health of child workers in modern developing economies to produce insights to the possible medical conditions suffered by child workers in the past. The book commences with an examination of the broad environmental context of child health in manufacturing districts and develops a number of related case studies of specific hazards such as child deformity, the effects of raw materials, industrial injuries and ill-treatment. The investigation also examines the effects of work and environment on the physical growth of child industrial workers and draws inferences from significant differences in height and strength among children working in different industrial occupations.

Ultimately, the absence of a coherent body of medical evidence relating to the causes of occupational ill-health, together with the deficiency of longitudinal statistical series of occupational mortality and morbidity during the Industrial Revolution, render simplistic assumptions about the health of early industrial child workers untenable. However, as early as the second decade of the nineteenth century, factory-employed children were clearly better off in terms of both income and overall health compared with child workers in domestic occupations and by contrast with the average urban child dweller. This may well have been a result of their higher industrial earnings which allowed them to command a greater share of food and other household resources. With the important exception of industrial injuries, the child workers who staffed the mills and factories of the Industrial Revolution were at no greater risk of poor health than those in other occupations. Such a conclusion clearly presents a major challenge to the predominantly pessimistic historiography of industrial child employment.

Child Workers and Industrial Health in Britain, 1780-1850 delivers a comprehensive and analytical overview of the factors bearing upon the health and industrial working conditions of children in the context of the major occupational and epidemiological transitions of the Industrial Revolution. The book concentrates chiefly on the experiences of children in large industrial processes. Still needed is study of the comparative health of child workers in areas such as domestic service, workshop production and agriculture.

Humanities / Philosophy / Politics & Social Sciences / Methodology / Epistemology

Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (Bloomsbury Revelations Series: Bloomsbury Academic)

Truth and Method is a landmark work of 20th century thought which established Hans Georg-Gadamer as one of the most important philosophical voices of the 20th Century. In this book, Gadamer established the field of ‘philosophical hermeneutics': exploring the nature of knowledge, the book rejected traditional quasi-scientific approaches to establishing cultural meaning that were prevalent after the war. In arguing the ‘truth' and ‘method' acted in opposition to each other, Gadamer examined the ways in which historical and cultural circumstance fundamentally influenced human understanding. It was an approach that would become hugely influential in the humanities and social sciences and remains so to this day in the work of Jurgen Habermas and many others.

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) was the author, most notably, of Truth and Method, and, more recently, of The Beginning of Philosophy and The Beginning of Knowledge.

Truth and Method is one of the two or three most important works of this century on the philosophy of humanistic studies. Published when Gadamer was sixty, the book gathers the ripe fruit of a lifetime's reading, teaching, and thinking. Because it is immersed in German philosophy and scholarship, the book is especially challenging for American readers. An emerging body of commentary in English as well as the many shorter essays Gadamer lived to write and which are increasingly available in translation provides additional means of access to his thought. Truth and Method, however, remains his comprehensive statement of his reflections.

The first edition of 1960 was revised and the footnotes updated for the second and again for the third edition, and then for the last time for inclusion in Gadamer's ten-volume Gesammelte Werke. An English translation based on the second edition appeared in 1975. Gadamer showed readers that the idea of a perfect translation that could stand for all time is entirely illusory. Even apart from the inevitable mistakes that reflect limits of erudition or understanding, a translation must transpose a work from one time and cultural situation to another. Over the past decade, both philosophical and literary study have become increasingly interested in the thinkers and issues that figure prominently in Gadamer's work. This altered situation presents difficulties, but also opportunities for bringing Gadamer's thought more fully into the contemporary cultural dialogue. The editors have undertaken a thorough revision of the earlier translation of Truth and Method, based on the German text for the Gesammelte Werke, but using the fourth edition to correct some obvious errors.

These studies are concerned with the problem of hermeneutics. According to Gadamer in the introduction to Truth and Method, the phenomenon of understanding and of the correct interpretation of what has been understood is not a problem specific to the methodology of the human sciences alone. There has long been a theological and a legal hermeneutics, which were not so much theoretical as corollary and ancillary to the practical activity of the judge or clergyman who had completed his theoretical training. Even from its historical beginnings, the problem of hermeneutics goes beyond the limits of the concept of method as set by modern science. The understanding and the interpretation of texts is not merely a concern of science, but obviously belongs to human experience of the world in general. The hermeneutic phenomenon is basically not a problem of method at all. It is not concerned with a method of understanding by means of which texts are subjected to scientific investigation like all other objects of experience. It is not concerned primarily with amassing verified knowledge, such as would satisfy the methodological ideal of science – yet it too is concerned with knowledge and with truth. In understanding tradition not only are texts understood, but insights are acquired and truths known. But what kind of knowledge and what kind of truth?

Truth and Method starts with a critique of aesthetic consciousness in order to defend the experience of truth that comes to us through the work of art against the aesthetic theory that lets itself be restricted to a scientific conception of truth. But the book does not rest content with justifying the truth of art; instead, it tries to develop from this starting point a conception of knowledge and of truth that corresponds to the whole of our hermeneutic experience. Just as in the experience of art we are concerned with truths that go essentially beyond the range of methodical knowledge, so the same thing is true of the whole of the human sciences: in them our historical tradition in all its forms is certainly made the object of investigation, but at the same time truth comes to speech in it. Fundamentally, the experience of historical tradition reaches far beyond those aspects of it that can be objectively investigated. It is true or untrue not only in the sense concerning which historical criticism decides, but always mediates truth in which one must try to share.

These studies on hermeneutics, which start from the experience of art and of historical tradition, try to present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its full extent. It is a question of recognizing in it an experience of truth that not only needs to be justified philosophically, but which is itself a way of doing philosophy. The hermeneutics developed in Truth and Method is not, therefore, a methodology of the human sciences, but an attempt to understand what the human sciences truly are, beyond their methodological self-consciousness, and what connects them with the totality of our experience of world. If we make understanding the object of our reflection, the aim is not an art or technique of understanding, such as traditional literary and theological hermeneutics sought to be.

In this way Truth and Method reinforces an insight that is threatened with oblivion in our swiftly changing age. Things that change force themselves on our attention far more than those that remain the same.

The philosophical endeavor of Gadamer’s day differs from the classical tradition of philosophy in that it is not a direct and unbroken continuation of it. Despite its connection with its historical origin, philosophy today is well aware of the historical distance between it and its classical models. Since then, the continuity of the Western philosophical tradition has been effective only in a fragmentary way. We have lost that naive innocence with which traditional concepts were made to serve one's own thinking. Since that time, the attitude of science towards these concepts has become strangely detached, whether it takes them up in a scholarly, not to say self-consciously archaizing way, or treats them as tools. Neither of these truly satisfies the hermeneutic experience. The conceptual world in which philosophizing develops has already captivated us in the same way that the language in which we live conditions us. If thought is to be conscientious, it must become aware of these anterior influences. A new critical consciousness must now accompany all responsible philosophizing which takes the habits of thought and language built up in the individual in his communication with his environment and places them before the forum of the historical tradition to which we all belong. Truth and Method meets this demand by linking as closely as possible an inquiry into the history of concepts with the substantive exposition of its theme.

The volume is Gadamer’s magnum opus, the comprehensive and integrated statement of his rich and penetrating reflections. The translators have rendered Truth and Method with accuracy, which helps contemporary American readers understand Gadamer more fully. The material is powerful, exciting, but undeniably difficult. The translation is readable and often powerfully eloquent as Gadamer's German, providing a bridge, not an obstacle, between Gadamer and his readers.

Truth and Method is part of the Revelations Series, a new series, bringing together books and thinkers that have opened up startling new ways of looking at the world. This is an essential library of thinkers who have fundamentally shaped the way we see the modern world. Some other books in the Revelations series include:

Time for Revolution by Antonio Negri
To Have or to Be? by Erich Fromm
The Politics of Aesthetics by Jacques Rancière
The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact by Jean Baudrillard
Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy by Manuel Delanda.

Home & Garden / Antiques & Collectibles

Moto Guzzi Motorcycles: Since 1921 by Jan Leek and Wolfgang Zeyen, translated from the German by David Johnston (Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.)

There are many ways of designing a motorcycle, but it takes a great deal of artistic sensitivity to create a legend from only two cylinders. That is exactly what Moto Guzzi, the prestige manufacturer in Mandello del Lario, has done. Active in motorcycle construction since 1920, particularly in the years after 1945, it created motorcycles that made history, especially those with the powerful V-twin engine installed lengthwise in the chassis. For forty years the V-twin four-stroke engine has been the Italian company's flagship.

The fine Italians, Le Mans, and California types, and the small 125s, 250s and 350s are described in Moto Guzzi Motorcycles with accuracy and detail. This volume describes all models and technical details. As is their style, authors Jan Leek and Wolfgang Zeyen also provide background information about the company and the industry. It is not all about machines and horsepower, but also the people who put their stamp on the operations.

Translated from the German by David Johnston, the original book Moto Guzzi: Motorräder seit 1821 was published by Motorbuch Verlag in Stuttgart.

A book about Moto Guzzi is also a book about almost 100 years of motorcycle history.

History also means stories, and no one could tell stories about Moto Guzzi better than Umberto Todero, who joined Moto Guzzi at the end of the 1930s and died in Mandello del Lario in February 2005 after a life in and for Moto Guzzi.

Leek and Zeyen say that the hours they spent with Todero are some of their fondest memories associated with motorcycles. His enthusiasm for the brand, for motorcycles in general was infectious, simply thrilling. Writing Moto Guzzi Motorcycles stirred all their memories of Todero, and not just for this reason they dedicate a chapter in this book to him.

Leek and Zeyen say they hope that they have created a factual history of Moto Guzzi. They told the story the way Todero told it to them – perhaps it is not entirely faithful to the truth, but his version is entirely worth retelling. They express their hope that Moto Guzzi is not history, and that the brand will live on, something that has not always seemed certain in recent years. Under the direction of the Piaggio concern, however, the future seems assured.

Comprehensive, Moto Guzzi Motorcycles says everything there is to say about model changes and technical backgrounds. The book is not only a treat for fans of serious technical information, but a gripping story as well.

Home & Garden / Crafts & Hobbies

The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs: Techniques for Creating 80 Yarns by Sarah Anderson with a foreword by Judith MacKenzie (Storey Publishing)

Readers explore the exciting possibilities in wool and wheel with Sarah Anderson, well known spinning teacher, as she in The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs invites readers into her yarn library and demonstrates how to spin everything from classic fat and fine singles to dozens of boucle variations and one-of-a-kind novelty yarns. Featuring step-by-step instructions on making 80 distinctive yarns, this is the primer every spinner can use to begin building a unique collection of luscious yarns.

64 unique reference cards appear throughout The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs to illustrate step-by-step the singles and twist combinations that comprise each yarn. A second set of the cards, in a handy take-along format, is packaging in a separate envelope at the back of the book.

Beyond the making of yarns, Anderson reminds spinners of the basics: twist and balance, woolen vs. worsted, washing fleece and a section on fiber prep carding (hand and drum) and combing. Throughout the book, she talks about a sock knitting experiment she carried out while writing the book. There are tips scattered throughout that focus on tricky bits of some of the yarn structures and invaluable tips for knitting with different types of yarns.

Anderson in The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs says that fiber and the arts that use fiber have held a lifelong fascination for her. For the past few years, she has been collecting ideas for different yarn constructions and spinning skeins that represent some of these variations. These skeins have become her personal yarn library. This collection goes with her to workshops and classes to be used as examples not only of what attendees are learning in the class but also as examples of what can be done beyond plying two strands together.

Because her focus is on the construction of the yarn, Anderson says she made the samples all in white (or mostly white). Color is a whole separate, fantastic subject, but because here she us focusing on construction, she feels color can be a distraction. As the library grew (there are now more than 70 examples), she was pleased to see spinners' reactions to the white smorgasbord of skeins. Most of the yarns she uses every day in projects are simple 1-, 2-, or 3-ply constructions. These are bread-and-butter yarns – sometimes it's fun to make something different or unusual. As readers take the time to learn the new techniques required to make them, their skill levels grow, improving every yarn they create thereafter, from the simple singles to the most ambitious novelty.

The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs isn't meant to teach readers how to spin. It is for spinners who want to learn more about spinning and try something different. It is not the definitive word on the subjects it covers, but it's her experience and opinion in book form. It is meant to be a resource for readers to draw from as they grow in proficiency.

Anderson says her goal in The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs is to put together a collection that will inspire and encourage spinners. Because yarn is the foundation of almost all of the fiber crafts, any innovation spinners make will most certainly have a ripple effect that will spread throughout the fiber arts world. The opening chapter covers basic fiber preparation and spinning techniques. Chapters on singles, the spinner’s basic building block, detail techniques for stand-alone singles and singles for plying; subsequent chapters cover spiral yarns, opposing plies, boucles, cable, crepe, coil, and novelty yarns. Delicious varieties such as spiral ‘flame yarn,’ ‘bubble crepe,’ ‘cloud yarn,’ and distinctive ‘pigtail yarn’ are detailed. Beautiful illustrations and clear step-by-step diagrams are offered for each of the 80 yarns that are discussed, and pop-out boxes with tips, tricks, and food for thought (for example, “lace knitting: two-ply versus three-ply”) pepper each chapter. The pages have thoughtful side tab labels to make finding the right section easy.

Cover to cover, this book is wonderful. Beautiful, well-written, and fantastically comprehensive. – Jacey Boggs, spinner and author of Spin Art

An invaluable and comprehensive resource. – Susan B. Anderson, author, Spud and Chloe at the Farm and the Itty-Bitty knitting books

What Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Pattern books are to knitters, The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs will be to spinners. – Jillian Moreno, Knitty.com

This inspired resource for spinners details the dizzying array of techniques and tactics that turn fleece into yarn. Veteran spinner Anderson has created a veritable spinner’s cookbook, detailing 80 lovely concoctions and confections, with suggestions for variations and further exploration. … Inventive, accessible, and fun, this book is an invitation to spinners of all skill levels to venture into uncharted territory and try out something new. This beautiful reference is an essential addition to any spinner’s library. – Publishers Weekly

The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs is the spinning book every spinner will rush out and buy this fall. This book doesn't teach readers to spin – it teaches them the potential of their spinning. Anderson guides spinners through the making of 80 different yarns, each building on the techniques of the yarn before it. The writing style is concise and at the same time thorough and inspiring, and the illustrations are beautiful.

Humanities / Literature & Criticism

A Brighter Word Than Bright: Keats at Work by Dan Beachy-Quick, with series editor Robert D. Richardson (Muse Books: The Iowa Series in Creativity and Writing Series: University of Iowa Press)

The Romantic poet John Keats, considered by many as one of the greatest poets in the English language, has long been the subject of attention from scholars who seek to understand him and poets who seek to emulate him. Bridging these impulses, A Brighter Word Than Bright is neither historical biography nor scholarly study, but instead a biography of Keats’s poetic imagination. Here the noted award-winning poet Dan Beachy-Quick, associate professor of English at Colorado State University enters into Keats’s writing – both his letters and his poems – not to critique or judge, not to claim or argue, but to embrace the passion and quickness of his poetry and engage the aesthetic difficulties with which Keats grappled.

Combining a set of biographical portraits that place symbolic pressure on key moments in Keats’s life with a chronological examination of the development of Keats-as-poet through his poems and letters, Beachy-Quick explores the growth of the young man’s poetic imagination during the years of his writing life, from 1816 to 1820.

This book on inspiration and imagination in Keats is nothing if not itself inspired and imaginatively backed up by example and original analysis. Dan Beachy-Quick brings Keatsian depth and texture to his study, which is as much a poetry biography as it is an incredibly close reading of the major poems. – Stanley Plumly

A Brighter Word Than Bright ingeniously traces Keats’s development and ethos as a writer, from the ‘erotic effort’ of the poem and the ‘great silence of the Grecian urn’ to the ‘abyss in all its varieties.’ We are deftly escorted to a molten realm, where, through drone of bee and webs finely wrought we enter into intimations of Keats’s vision. Dan Beachy-Quick writes: ‘Sometimes I think a poetic presses down upon the poet’s mind as does a seal upon the soft wax that closes a letter.’ With exquisite delicacy and ardent quiescence, this text impresses renewed and intricate paths upon which the reader may traverse and inhabit the texts of one of the most beloved of poets. – Laynie Browne, author of Roseate, Points of Gold

In a series of lined meditations that are also incantations, Dan Beachy-Quick explores the lyrical richness of Keats’s poetry. With the eye of an artist, the ear of a musician, and the precision of a scholar, Beachy-Quick takes us on a journey through the many contradictions and innovations of Keats’s process. – Debbie Lee, author of Romantic Liars

In A Brighter Word Than Bright Beachy-Quick enters the poems and the mind that wrote them, exploring and mining Keats’s poetic concerns and ambitions. The book is a mimetic tribute to the poet’s life and work, a brilliant enactment that is also a thoughtful consideration.

Law / Criminal / Social Sciences / Sociology / Criminology

Crime and Justice: Learning through Cases, 2nd edition by Carolyn Boyes-Watson, with contributions by Susan T. Krumholz and Aviva M. Rich-Shea (Rowman & Littlefield)

Crime and Justice offers a comprehensive introduction to the U.S. criminal justice system through nineteen historical and contemporary case studies. Each chapter opens with a case, followed by an explanatory chapter that teaches core concepts, key terms, and critical issues. The second edition has been revised and updated throughout. The volume features new chapters on terrorism, the war on drugs, and gender. It also expands coverage of white-collar crime and victims' issues. New cases include Enron, the O. J. Simpson trial, Barbara Sheehan and the battered woman's defense, and the story of Al Capone. Features of Crime and Justice include:

The casebook approach encourages critical thinking and class interaction, whether in person or online.
Cases explore race, class, gender, and power while teaching the law and processes of the justice system.
Each chapter includes key objectives, a running glossary, review and study questions, and web resources.

According to the author, Carolyn Boyes-Watson, one of the pleasures of teaching this subject is the central importance of justice to our lives as human beings and as citizens. Crime and justice is inherently fascinating to students. Few topics elicit such strong opinions. Because the topics covered matter so much, teachers have a powerful opportunity to introduce students to forms of critical analysis that can influence their thinking throughout their college years and beyond. At the same time, students must be systematically exposed to a near encyclopedic range and volume of information drawn from criminology, legal studies, sociology, anthropology, psychology, forensics, education, philosophy, and political science.

Boyes-Watson is professor of sociology and director for the Center for Restorative Justice at Suffolk University. Contributors include Susan T. Krumholz, professor and chair of the Department of Crime and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and Aviva M. Rich-Shea, associate professor of criminal justice at Massasoit Community College.

Crime and Justice: Learning through Cases is an effective pedagogy and a popular teaching format for students. For the student, the case is the ‘hook.’ Students become invested in the case that has been purposely designed to raise critical questions rather than provide answers. Cases empower students to think independently and to actively utilize the concepts presented in the chapter. As students become engaged in the dramatic narrative, the critical-thinking questions invite students to view the administration of justice through multiple lenses and to raise critical questions about the meaning of justice in a broad sense and in the events connected to their own lives. Abstract issues of law, criminology, political science, sociology, and criminal justice administration come alive as students grapple with the concrete dilemmas raised by each case.

The casebook approach used in Crime and Justice also creates a lively interactive classroom environment based on discussion and dialogue among students and instructors. Students remain focused and interested in the drama of the cases, are better able to apply the concepts, become active participants in the learning process, and have a deeper understanding of the issues presented in lectures and the text. Students enjoy the class because this approach builds upon what is of most direct interest to them: the drama of actual people who are facing, reacting to, and ‘doing’ justice.

Each case serves the core learning objectives within each chapter; the narrative form of the case holds student attention and provides historical, sociological, political, and legal context for each case, which provides rich detail for class discussion, analysis and assignments. Key questions provide the basis for critical analysis of the case. The instructor's manual provides detailed suggestions for in-class assignments and exercises such as mock trials, debates, role-plays, individual, and small-group exercises using the case material adaptable to different size classrooms and pedagogic styles.

Thematically, Crime and Justice emphasizes justice studies and the process of social change within the criminal justice system. Throughout the text, students are encouraged to see the justice system as a ‘work in progress’: the meaning and administration of justice has evolved historically and is continuing to do so, influenced by forces within the broader society.

Crime and Justice adopts a justice studies approach to the criminal justice system suitable for students in a wide range of institutions, from community colleges to highly competitive four-year institutions. The central question "What is justice?" is the primary focus. The text analyzes the criminal justice system in the context of wider issues of social justice and structural inequality based on race, gender, class, and corporate power through historical and contemporary analysis. The text also provides full coverage of victims' issues and restorative justice throughout. All of the chapters in the casebook focus on the ongoing struggle for equality before the law for all members of American society. Issues of race, class, and gender inequality are raised through multiple cases, emphasizing legal and policy developments that have resulted from various social movements. Students are encouraged to consider their own role in shaping the future of the criminal justice system.

Substantial new material has been added to the second edition of Crime and Justice. Five new cases cover neglected but complex issues of corporate crime, civil rights cold cases, the war on drugs, and terrorism. Three new chapters focus on the legacy of gender injustice, the issue of drug prohibition, and the impact of 9/11 on the structure of domestic law enforcement.

Overall, the text offers a unique and engaging approach to crime and justice issues via the case study method. I like the mixture of classic and contemporary case study selections. – Danielle McGurrin, Portland State University
An extraordinarily effective textbook that, by bringing to life a series of key criminal justice cases, provides students with an in depth understanding and appreciation of the role of law in attempting (not always successfully) to achieve justice in the United States. As was the case with the first edition, Boyes-Watson once again has written a book that will challenge and fully engage the best students while remaining fully accessible to all students. It is, in my opinion, an indispensable teaching tool for courses in Crime and Politics. – William P. Schaefer, Hofstra University
At our busy community college my colleagues and I have successfully used the case studies in Carolyn Boyes-Watson’s Crime and Justice for several years. The exciting new cases and enhanced materials in this second edition will strengthen our ability to relate the chapters to actual criminal justice experiences. Case studies bring together our traditional students and the working professionals in our classes in active discussions and peer teaching. Learning through cases works particularly well for me in my online sections. – Henry DiCarlo, Massasoit Community College
I created the Ethics in Criminal Justice course at the University of Louisville over a decade ago and have used virtually all of the most used texts, including the first edition of Carolyn Boyes-Watson’s text. I am delighted to see this second edition. My students find the case study much more useful than the traditional approach to textbooks in the field. I think this has to do with the fact that they find it more interesting and relevant. This approach certainly improves their class participation in the discussion at hand. – J. Price Foster, University of Louisville
Crime and Justice is clearly constructed around sound pedagogical principles, including the use of case studies, learning objectives, key concepts, and avenues for students to learn more about topics of particular interest. Most chapters conclude with readings, websites, or videos that students can access to learn more about the case. This structure is consistent with sound pedagogical principles for college student learners. The authors did an excellent job of choosing case studies that not only introduce and illustrate key concepts, but also raise questions without clear answers. I want my students to understand that the criminal justice system is messy; that it is built around time- and place-specific answers to moral questions, and that decisions made daily by criminal justice actors involve moral judgments. Using the case studies as an integral part of the book’s architecture is an effective way to highlight the complicated nature of the system. – Sara Steen, University of Colorado-Boulder

Crime and Justice offers all the tools instructors need to successfully apply the case method approach to a traditional classroom. Each chapter covers the core knowledge required for an overview of the criminal justice system that prepares students for higher-level courses on the justice system. Written in a highly accessible, compelling, and concise prose, this engaging text is suitable for a first-level course in a wide range of institutions.

Professional & Technical / Medicine / Clinical / Internal / Pediatrics / Radiology

Caffey's Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging, 2-Volume Set: Expert Consult – Online and Print, 12th edition with editor-in-chief Brian D. Coley MD (Elsevier Saunders)

Since 1945, radiologists have turned to Caffey's Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging for the comprehensive coverage and unparalleled guidance in all areas of pediatric radiology. Continuing this tradition of excellence, the completely revised 12th edition – more concise yet still complete – focuses on the core issues clinicians need to understand new protocols and sequences, and know what techniques are most appropriate for given clinical situations.

With Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging clinicians are able to:

Determine the best modality for each patient with state-of-the art discussions of the latest pediatric imaging techniques.
Grasp the fundamentals they need to know through a more precise, streamlined format, reorganized by systems and disease processes, as well as "Teaching Boxes" that highlight key points in each chapter.
Apply the latest pediatric advances in clinical fetal neonatology techniques, technology, and pharmacology.
Achieve accurate diagnoses as safely as possible. Increased coverage of MRI findings and newer imaging techniques for all organ systems emphasizes imaging examination appropriateness and safety.
Benefit from the latest neuroimaging techniques including diffusion tensor imaging, fMRI, and susceptibility weighted imaging.
Keep current with the latest pediatric radiological knowledge and evidence-based practices. Comprehensive updates throughout include new and revised chapters on prenatal imaging; newer anatomic and functional imaging techniques (including advances in cardiac imaging); disease classifications and insights into imaging disease processes; and advanced imaging topics in neurological, thoracoabdominal, and musculoskeletal imaging.
Compare their findings to more than 10,000 high-quality radiology images.
Access the full text online at Expert Consult including illustrations, videos, and bonus online-only pediatric imaging content.

Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging has 178 contributors. Editor-in-Chief is Brian D. Coley, MD, Professor, Departments of Radiology and Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Radiologist-in-Chief, Department of Radiology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati. Associate Editors are D. Gregory Bates, MD, Clinical Associate Professor of Radiology, Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, Assistant Chief, Chief Clinical Operations and Section Chief, Fluoroscopy, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus; Eric N. Faerber, MD, Professor of Radiology and Pediatrics, Drexel University College of Medicine, Director, Department of Radiology, St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, Philadelphia; Marta Hernanz-Schulman, MD, Medical Director, Diagnostic Imaging, Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, Professor of Radiology and Pediatrics Director, Pediatric Radiology, Radiology Vice-Chair for Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville; J. Herman Kan, MD, Associate Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Section Chief, Musculoskeletal Imaging, E.B. Singleton Pediatric Radiology, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston; Edward Y. Lee, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Radiology, Chief, Division of Thoracic Imaging, Director, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Departments of Radiology and Medicine, Pulmonary Division, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston; Ashok Panigrahy, MD, Radiologist-in-Chief, Associate Professor of Radiology, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Pittsburgh; and Cynthia K. Rigsby, MD, Professor of Radiology and Pediatrics, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Division Head, Body Imaging and Vice Chair, Medical Imaging, Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago.

The twelfth edition of Caffey's Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging reflects the evolution of a powerful educational tool. It is shorter as a book but infinitely longer when one includes the many online images, videos, and supplemental text. Chapters on prenatal imaging first formally appear with this edition. Through the years the authorship has grown from Dr. John Gaffey alone to Drs. Caffey and Silverman to literally more than 100 hundred experts. This is important because the authors are not only pediatric radiologists, but also superb pediatric subspecialists and scientists in the technical aspects of multimodality imaging. This mix has brought the editors back to their clinical roots.

Caffey's Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging is more than an imaging text. The twelfth edition reflects the evolution of pediatric radiology and pediatric medicine. The initial section, "Radiation Effects and Safety," expresses the editors’ concern for the safety of patients in the broad context of radiation, use of magnetic resonance imaging, and contrast effects.

Neonatal and perinatal imaging has been incorporated into organ system chapters to emphasize the continuum of an abnormality throughout the patient's life. The concept of ‘the best test’ has allowed elimination of the modality approach, and each test is discussed when appropriate in the disease state. Interventional radiology has been incorporated into those chapters when it is useful.

The twelfth edition of Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging reflects the conflict and state of flux in publishing. There is a physical book. There are more explanatory diagrams and illustrations with better use of color, and Coley says he has tried to continue the work of Dr. Slovis in updating and improving the images. This edition adds a significant online and electronic presence. Additional images, animations, and videos are available online to supplement the print volume and to allow those who prefer electronic media to take advantage of the material in an alternate way.

The authors and section editors have contributed significant updates regarding newer imaging modalities, the understanding of disease processes, imaging appropriateness, and the importance of minimizing radiation exposure. As with the last edition, there has been input from many clinical specialists, providing perspective on the important role of imaging in the care of children.

Chapters of Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging and their authors include:

VOLUME I

SECTION 1 Radiation Effects and Safety

Radiation Bioeffects, Risks, and Radiation Protection in Medical Imaging in Children – DONALD P. FRUSH AND THOMAS L SLOVIS
Complications of Contrast Media – GAURAVI K. SABHARWAL
Magnetic Resonance Safety – JEAN A. TKACH

SECTION 2 Head and Neck

PART 1 ORBIT

Embryology, Anatomy, Normal Findings, and Imaging Techniques – ERIC N. FAERBER
Prenatal, Congenital, and Neonatal Abnormalities – ASHLEY J. ROBINSON, ANGELA BYRNE, AND SUSAN BLASER
Orbit Infection and Inflammation – JOHN P. GRIMM
Orbital Neoplasia – TAMARA FEYGIN AND AVRUM N. POLLOCK

PART 2 NOSE AND SINUSES

Nose and Sinonasal Cavities – DIANA P. RODRIGUEZ

PART 3 EAR AND TEMPORAL BONE

Embryology, Anatomy, Normal Findings, and Imaging Techniques – KORGUN KORAL
Congenital and Neonatal Abnormalities – TIMOTHY N. BOOTH
Infection and Inflammation – TIMOTHY N. BOOTH
Neoplasia – KORGUN KORAL

PART 4 NECK

Embryology, Anatomy, Normal Findings, and Imaging Techniques – VERA R. SPERLING
Prenatal, Congenital, and Neonatal Abnormalities – TAMARA FEYGIN
Infection and Inflammation – LISA H. LOWE AND CHRISTOPHER J. SMITH
Neoplasia – CAROLINE D. ROBSON

PART 5 THYROID AND PARATHYROID

Thyroid and Parathyroid – HOLLIE A. JACKSON

SECTION 3 Neuroradiology

PART 1 CRANIUM AND FACE

Embryology, Anatomy, Normal Findings, and Imaging Techniques – THOMAS L. SLOVIS AND MOIRA L. COOPER
Prenatal Imaging – ASHLEY JAMES ROBINSON, SUSAN BLASER, AND A. MICHELLE FINK
Craniosynostosis, Selected Craniofacial Syndromes, and Other Abnormalities of the Skull – THOMAS L. SLOVIS, ARLENE A. ROZZELLE, AND WILLIAM H. MCALISTER
Neoplasms, Neoplasm-like Lesions, and Infections of the Skull – THOMAS L. SLOVIS AND WILLIAM H. MCALISTER

PART 2 MANDIBLE

The Mandible – THOMAS L. SLOVIS

PART 3 SKULL AND FACIAL TRAUMA

Traumatic Lesions of the Skull and Face – THOMAS L. SLOVIS

PART 4 BRAIN

Embryology and Brain Development – MARVIN D. NELSON JR AND THOMAS L. SLOVIS
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Positron Emission Tomography – ASHOK PANIGRAHY, SUNHEE KIM, AND STEFAN BLUML
Diffusion-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Principles and Implementation in Clinical and Research Settings – JESSICA L. WISNOWSKI, RAFAEL C. CESCHIN, AND VINCENT J. SCHMITHORST
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging – JAMES LEACH
Perfusion Imaging and Magnetoencephalography – ARASTOO VOSSOUGH
Prenatal Imaging – DOROTHY BULAS
Neonatal Brain Injury – ANDRE D. FURTADO, JESSICA L. WISNOWSKI, MICHAEL J. PAINTER, ASHOK PANIGRAHY, AND P. ELLEN GRANT
Congenital Brain Malformations – NANCY ROLLINS
Hydrocephalus – GIULIO ZUCCOLI AND GAYATHRI SREEDHER
Inherited Metabolic and Neurodegenerative Disorders – GIULIO ZUCCOLI, HANNAH CROWLEY, AND KIM M. CECIL
Infection and Inflammation – AVRUM N. POLLOCK, STEPHEN M. HENESCH, AND LUCY B. RORKE-ADAMS
Pediatric Brain Neoplasms – SANJAY P. PRABHU AND TINA YOUNG POUSSAINT
Cerebrovascular Disorders – RICHARD L. ROBERTSON AND AMY R. DANEHY
Stroke – P. ELLEN GRANT AND KATYUCIA DE MACEDO RODRIGUES
Neuroimaging in Pediatric Epilepsy – ELKA MILLER AND ELYSA WIDJAJA
Trauma – ANDRE D. FURTADO, AJAYA R. PANDE, AND VERA R. SPERLING

PART 5 VERTEBRAL COLUMN AND SPINAL CORD

Embryology, Anatomy, and Normal Findings – LISA H. LOWE, PETER WINNINGHAM, AND SAMI ABEDIN
Spinal Cord Imaging Techniques – PAUL THACKER AND LISA H. LOWE
Prenatal Imaging – ERIN SIMON SCHWARTZ AND DAVID M. MIRSKY
Congenital Abnormalities of the Spine – KEVIN R. MOORE
Infections of the Spine and Spinal Cord – AVRUM N. POLLOCK AND STEPHEN M. HENESCH
Spinal Tumor and Tumorlike Conditions – LISA H. LOWE AND SETH GIBSON
Vascular Lesions – SARAH S. MILLA AND LISA H. LOWE
Trauma – LISA H. LOWE AND PETER WINNINGHAM

SECTION 4 Respiratory System

PART 1 OVERVIEW

Embryology, Anatomy, and Normal Findings – MARY P. BEDARD, ERIC L. EFFMANN, AND EDWARD Y. LEE
Imaging Techniques – HYUN WOO GOO, LAURA A. DRUBACH, AND EDWARD Y. LEE
Prenatal Imaging and Intervention – DOROTHY BULAS AND EDWARD Y. LEE

PART 2 AIRWAY

Upper Airway Disease – BERNARD F. LAYA AND EDWARD Y. LEE
Lower Large Airway Disease – EDWARD Y. LEE, RICARDO RESTREPO, AND PHILLIP M. BOISELLE

PART 3 LUNGS

Congenital Lung Anomalies – MONICA EPELMAN, PEDRO DALTRO, GLORIA SOTO, CELIA M. FERRARI, AND EDWARD Y. LEE
Pulmonary Infection – SJIRK J. WESTRA, BRENT ADLER, ALI YIKILMAZ, AND EDWARD Y. LEE
Neoplasia – WINNIE C.W. CHU, MONICA EPELMAN, DAVID A. MONG, AND EDWARD Y. LEE
Diffuse Lung Disease – EVAN J. ZUCKER, R. PAUL GUILLERMAN, MARTHA P. FISHMAN, ALICIA M. CASEY, CRAIG W. LILLEHEI, AND EDWARD Y. LEE
Systemic Conditions with Lung Involvement – JULIE CURRIE O'DONOVAN, EDWARD Y. LEE, AND ERIC L. EFFMANN

PART 4 MEDIASTINUM

The Mediastinum – GERALD G. BEHR, RICARDO RESTREPO, AND EDWARD Y. LEE

PART 5 CHEST WALL, PLEURA, AND DIAPHRAGM

The Chest Wall – RICARDO RESTREPO, DONALD A. TRACY, AND EDWARD Y. LEE
The Pleura – RICARDO RESTREPO AND EDWARD Y. LEE
The Diaphragm – RICARDO RESTREPO, KARUNAMOY DAS, AND EDWARD Y. LEE

SECTION 5 Heart and Great Vessels

PART 1 OVERVIEW

Introductory Embryology – JAMES RENE HERLONG
Cardiovascular Anatomy and Segmental Approach to Imaging of Congenital Heart Disease – RAJESH KRISHNAMURTHY

PART 2 IMAGING TECHNIQUES

Pediatric Echocardiography – JAMES RENE HERLONG
Chest Radiography in Pediatric Cardiovascular Disease – J.A. GORDON CULHAM AND JOHN B. MAWSON
Pediatric Cardiothoracic Computed Tomographic Angiography – DONALD P. FRUSH
Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Congenital Heart Disease – SADAF T. BHUTTA AND S. BRUCE GREENBERG
Nuclear Cardiology – S. TED TREVES AND JAN STAUSS
Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization and Electrophysiology – JOHN F. RHODES AND RONALD J. KANTER
Surgical Considerations for Congenital Heart Disease – ASVIN M. GANAPATHI AND ANDREW J. LODGE
Prenatal Imaging and Therapy of Congenital Heart Disease – ANITA KRISHNAN AND MARY T. DONOFRIO

PART 3 CONGENITAL AND CARDIOVASCULAR ABNORMALITIES

Abnormal Pulmonary and Systemic Venous Connections – CYNTHIA K. RIGSBY, ANGIRA PATEL, BRIAN REILLY, AND GRACE R. CHOI
Septal Defects – JOSHUA D. ROBINSON, CYNTHIA K. RIGSBY, AND DARSHIT THAKRAR
Right Heart Lesions – ANDRADA R. POPESCU, DARSHIT THAKRAR, STANLEY T. KIM, EMMA E. BOYLAN, R. ANDREW DEFREITAS, AND CYNTHIA K. RIGSBY
Left Heart Lesions – CYNTHIA K. RIGSBY, JOSHUA D. ROBINSON, AND DARSHIT THAKRAR
Conotruncal Anomalies – MARYAM GHADIMI MAHANI, PRACHI P. AGARWAL, JIMMY C. LU, AND ADAM L. DORFMAN
Congenital Anomalies of the Thoracic Great Arteries – FRANDICS P. CHAN
Coronary Artery Disease in Children – FRANDICS P. CHAN
Syndromes and Chromosomal Anomalies – BEVERLEY NEWMAN, ALEXANDER J. TOWBIN, AND FRANDICS P. CHAN

PART 4 ACQUIRED CARDIOVASCULAR ABNORMALITIES

Myocardial, Endocardial, and Pericardial Diseases – ANA MARIA GACA, CHARLES M. MAXFIELD, AND BEVERLEY NEWMAN
Cardiac and Pericardial Tumors – S. BRUCE GREENBERG AND CATHY MACDONALD
Cardiovascular Involvement by Systemic Diseases – BEVERLEY NEWMAN, ALEXANDER J. TOWBIN, AND FRANDICS P. CHAN
Acquired Diseases of the Thoracic Great Vessels – FRANDICS P. CHAN

VOLUME II

SECTION 6 Gastrointestinal System

PART 1 OVERVIEW

Embryology, Anatomy, and Normal Findings – MARY P. BEDARD
Imaging Techniques – MARTA HERNANZ-SCHULMAN, STEPHANIE E. SPOTTSWOOD, AND SHREYAS S. VASANAWALA
Prenatal Gastrointestinal and Hepatobiliary Imaging – CHRISTOPHER I. CASSADY
The Abdominal Wall and Peritoneal Cavity – SUMIT PRUTHI, SUDHA P. SINGH, AND MELISSA A. HILMES

PART 2 HEPATOBILIARY SYSTEM

Congenital Hepatobiliary Anomalies – JOSHUA Q. KNOWLTON AND LISA H. LOWE
Acquired Biliary Tract Disease – BRENTON D. READING AND LISA H. LOWE
Parenchymal Liver Disease – ADAM ZARCHAN, KRISTIN FICKENSCHER, AND LISA H. LOWE
Infectious Causes of Liver Disease – BRENTON D. READING AND LISA H. LOWE
Neoplasia – JOSEE DUBOIS AND LISA H. LOWE
Vascular Abnormalities of the Liver – DOUGLAS C. RIVARD AND LISA H. LOWE
Liver Transplantation in Children – DOUGLAS C. RIVARD AND LISA H. LOWE

PART 3 SPLEEN

The Spleen – STEPHANIE E. SPOTTSWOOD AND MARTA HERNANZ-SCHULMAN

PART 4 PANCREAS

The Pancreas – PARITOSH C. KHANNA AND SUMIT PRUTHI

PART 5 ESOPHAGUS

Congenital and Neonatal Abnormalities – JAYNE M. SEEKINS, WENDY D. ELLIS, AND HENRIQUE M. LEDERMAN
Disorders of Swallowing – JAYNE M. SEEKINS AND HENRIQUE M. LEDERMAN
Acquired Esophageal Disorders – ALEXANDER J. TOWBIN AND LINCOLN O. DINIZ

PART 6 STOMACH

Congenital and Neonatal Abnormalities – NANCY R. FEFFERMAN AND SUDHA P. SINGH
Hypertrophic Pyloric Stenosis – MARTA HERNANZ-SCHULMAN
Acquired Disorders – RICARDO RESTREPO AND DIANA V. MARIN

PART 7 DUODENUM AND SMALL INTESTINE

Congenital and Neonatal Abnormalities – MARTA HERNANZ-SCHULMAN
Acquired Abnormalities – MARTA HERNANZ-SCHULMAN
Acquired Lesions of the Small Intestines – GRACE S. PHILLIPS AND SUMIT PRUTHI

PART 8 COLON

Congenital and Neonatal Disorders – MARTA HERNANZ-SCHULMAN
Inflammatory and Infectious Diseases – KIMBERLY E. APPLEGATE AND NANCY R. FEFFERMAN
Intussusception – KIMBERLY E. APPLEGATE
Tumors and Tumorlike Conditions – JEFFREY TRAUBICI AND ALAN DANEMAN

PART 9 ABDOMINAL TRAUMA

Abdominal Trauma – GEORGE A. TAYLOR AND CARLOS J. SIVIT

SECTION 7 Genitourinary System

PART 1 OVERVIEW

Embryology, Anatomy, and Variants of the Genitourinary Tract – MARY P. BEDARD, SALLY WILDMAN, AND JONATHAN R. DILLMAN
Imaging Techniques – AMY B. KOLBE, LARRY A. BINKOVITZ, M. BETH MCCARVILLE, J. DAMIEN GRATTAN-SMITH, AND BRIAN D. COLEY
Prenatal Imaging and Intervention – TERESA CHAPMAN

PART 2 UPPER URINARY TRACT

Congenital and Neonatal Abnormalities – JONATHAN R. DILLMAN AND D. GREGORY BATES
Acquired Abnormalities (Stone Disease and Infection) – ROBERT G. WELLS
Renal Neoplasms – D. GREGORY BATES AND KATE A. FEINSTEIN
Vascular Conditions – ROBERT G. WELLS
Renal Failure and Transplantation – HARRIET J. PALTIEL

PART 3 LOWER URINARY TRACT

The Ureter – D. GREGORY BATES AND MICHAEL RICCABONA
Vesicoureteral Reflux – D. GREGORY BATES AND MICHAEL RICCABONA
Bladder and Urethra – D. GREGORY BATES

PART 4 ADRENAL AND RETROPERITONEUM

Congenital and Neonatal Conditions – OSCAR M. NAVARRO AND ALAN DANEMAN
Acquired Conditions – OSCAR M. NAVARRO AND ALAN DANEMAN

PART 5 TRAUMA

Genitourinary Trauma – GEORGE A. TAYLOR

PART 6 REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS

Disorders of Sex Differentiation – HARRIS L. COHEN AND VIRENDERSINGH K. SHEORAIN
Abnormalities of the Male Genital Tract – HARRIS L. COHEN AND VIRENDERSINGH K. SHEORAIN
Abnormalities of the Female Genital Tract – HARRIS L. COHEN AND ANAND DORAI RAJU
Amenorrhea and Abnormalities of Puberty – HARRIS L. COHEN AND ANAND DORAI RAJU

SECTION 8 Musculoskeletal System

PART 1 OVERVIEW

Embryology, Anatomy, and Normal Findings – J. HERMAN KAN AND PETER J. STROUSE
Imaging Techniques – J. HERMAN KAN AND PETER J. STROUSE
Prenatal Musculoskeletal Imaging – CHRISTOPHER I. CASSADY

PART 2 CONGENITAL MALFORMATIONS

Congenital Anomalies of Bone – TAL LAOR AND J. HERMAN KAN
Skeletal Dysplasias and Selected Chromosomal Disorders – JERRY DWEK AND RALPH LACHMAN

PART 3 DISORDERS IN ALIGNMENT

Alignment Disorders – PETER J. STROUSE
Scoliosis – SUMIT PRUTHI
Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip – SABAH SERVAES

PART 4 ARTHRITIDES AND OTHER INFLAMMATORY DISORDERS

Arthritis and Differential Inflammatory Joint Disorders – ANDREA SCHWARZ DORIA AND PAUL BABYN

PART 5 INFECTION

Musculoskeletal Infections – J. HERMAN KAN AND E. MICHEL AZOUZ

PART 6 TUMORS AND TUMORLIKE CONDITIONS

Soft Tissue and Bone Tumors – MAHESH M. THAPA, SUE CREVISTON KASTE, AND JAMES S. MEYER

PART 7 METABOLIC AND ENDOCRINE DISORDERS

Metabolic Bone Disease – RICHARD M. SHORE
Endocrine Disorders – RICHARD M. SHORE

PART 8 SYSTEMIC DISEASE

Skeletal Manifestations of Systemic Disease – ROBERT C. ORTH AND R. PAUL GUILLERMAN

PART 9 TRAUMA

Skeletal Trauma – DEEPA R. PAI AND PETER J. STROUSE
Child Abuse – PETER J. STROUSE AND DANIELLE K. B. BOAL
Sports Medicine – J. Herman Kan

Caffey's Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging has proven its lasting value and importance over almost six decades. It offers the most comprehensive coverage and unparalleled guidance in all areas of pediatric radiology. The completely revised 12th edition, now more concise yet still complete, focuses on the core issues clinicians need to understand new protocols and sequences, and know what techniques are most appropriate for given clinical situations. Readers apply all the latest pediatric advances in clinical fetal neonatology techniques, technology, and pharmacology, reap the fullest benefit from the latest neuroimaging techniques, and keep current with the latest pediatric radiological knowledge and evidence-based practices. Comprehensive updates throughout include new and revised chapters on prenatal imaging and newer anatomic and functional imaging techniques.

Professional & Technical / Medicine / Clinical / Internal / Emergency Medicine / Reference

Roberts and Hedges' Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine: Expert Consult – Online and Print, 6th edition with editor-in-chief James R. Roberts MD FACEP FAAEM FACMT (Elsevier Saunders)

Emergency medicine is a remarkable specialty. Comprising literally 24/7 nonstop action, anything can come in the door and you have to know how to deal with it – from the newborn who needs an umbilical line, to the 90-year-old who needs a suprapubic catheter, to the 8-year-old who needs jet ventilation or her parents will never see that perfect smile again. This is your job. Do it well. Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine will help you to be confident and competent in one of the three fundamental aspects of your work. "Read it, learn it, be one with it; it is the best, most practical book in emergency medicine!” – Mel Herbert, MD, MBBS, BMedSci, FACEP, FAAEM, from the foreword

Roberts and Hedges' Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine continues its long tradition of being the most well-known and trusted procedures manual in emergency medicine. The newly revised 6th edition of this classic medical reference has been thoroughly updated with step-by-step Review, Procedure, and Ultrasound Boxes covering the latest equipment, devices, drug therapies, and techniques you need to know for effective practice of emergency medicine. Clinicians can access complete and detailed guidance on exactly when, how, and why to perform all of today's common and uncommon procedures and get the best results. This edition is now available electronically on such devices as the Kindle and iPad and is still fully searchable online.

With Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine clinicians are able to:

Understand the ins and outs of every procedure clinicians are likely to consider, in addition to other emergency procedures that may be an option.
Review the entire contents online, including new videos of common and complex procedures at Expert Consult.
See entire procedures at a glance with the addition of new Procedure Boxes, with step-by-step visual instruction on over 250 emergency techniques. Ideal for point-of-care reference, these Procedure Boxes also serve as a comprehensive mini atlas and are useful for less-encountered procedures or those that require complex equipment.
Apply the latest emergency ultrasound techniques through new Ultrasound Boxes, which are illustrated with photographs of the technique as well as screen captures of the US images.
Master today's new procedures including ultrasound for diagnosis of pneumothorax, loop abscess drainage, pediatric fluid resuscitation, and video-assisted intubation.
Visualize all emergency procedures with a complete overhaul of figures, nearly all in full color; new diagnostic images representing multiple modalities; and online-only procedural videos demonstrating key techniques.

Editor-In-Chief is James R. Roberts, MD, FACEP, FAAEM, FACMT, Professor of Emergency Medicine, Vice Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine, Senior Consultant, Division of Toxicology, The Drexel University College of Medicine, Chairman, Department of Emergency Medicine, Director, Division of Medical Toxicology, Mercy Catholic Medical Center, Philadelphia. Senior Editor is Catherine B. Custalow, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Retired, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, Virginia. Associate Editors are Arjun S. Chanmugam, MD, MBA, Associate Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore; Carl R. Chudnofsky, MD, Chairman, Department of Emergency Medicine, Albert Einstein Medical Center, Professor, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia; Peter M.C. DeBlieux, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans; Amal Mattu, MD, Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore; and Stuart P. Swadron, MD, FRCPC, Associate Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Assistant Dean for Pre-Health Undergraduate Studies, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine has 114 contributors.

The sixth edition of Roberts and Hedges' Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine continues the book's original concept of providing complete, detailed, and up-to-date descriptions of many common, and some uncommon, procedures encountered during emergency medical practice. The goal is to describe clinical procedures – from simple Steri-Strip application, to loop drainage of an abscess, to skull trephination – as though each were the nascent clinician's first exposure to the concept, but with a depth and attention to detail that the seasoned operator would also deem helpful.

In previous editions it was difficult to find figures or photographs that conveyed the details or elucidated the vagaries to the extent one might want. The newly added color photographs, mostly digital quality, and a cornucopia of additional figures were a much needed update and morphed this edition into an obvious improvement over previous iterations. To make the text more user friendly, procedure boxes have been created, comprising a mini-atlas that allows clinicians to see the entire procedure at a glance. One can even bring the text to the bedside, viewing a single page of sequential images, the quintessential teaching tool for house staff and students.

There are, of course, many ways to approach any patient or any procedure, so this text is not a dictum. Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine does not attempt to define standard of care. It is a compendium of self-proclaimed techniques – some tried and some true, but occasionally prospectively tested – practical hints, and successful tactics gleaned from the literature and by years of practice, adeptly described by skilled clinicians.

Many new authors have been added, as well as a number of new concepts and approaches. All procedures have been tweaked. Trigger point injection has been resurrected, as well as skull trephination; both were mistakenly removed from the previous edition.

Mastering procedural skills is what Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine is all about. Learning the motor skills necessary to actually perform the procedures late at night under very stressful conditions is what formal training is for. Being good at the entire range of procedures affects the poise, confidence, and job satisfaction of the emergency medicine professional. It is a cornerstone of the life of an emergency practitioner. Fear of doing procedures can destroy an otherwise great doctor. Knowing the myriad causes of bradycardia will not help clinicians when they need to drop an IV pacemaker in a dying patient at 3 am. Clinicians need to know how to do it, immediately, without hesitation.

Chapters of Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine and their authors include:

SECTION I Vital Signs and Patient Monitoring Techniques

Vital Sign Measurement – Diane L. Gorgas and Jillian L. McGrath
Devices for Assessing Oxygenation and Ventilation – Joshua Nagler and Baruch Krauss

SECTION II Respiratory Procedures

Basic Airway Management and Decision Making – Robert F. Reardon, Phillip E. Mason, and Joseph E. Clinton
Tracheal Intubation – Robert F. Reardon, John W. McGill, and Joseph E. Clinton
Pharmacologic Adjuncts to Intubation – Richard B. Schwartz and Greene Shepherd
Cricothyrotomy and Percutanous Translaryngeal Ventilation – Randy B. Hebert, Sudip Bose, and Sharon E. Mace
Tracheostomy Care – John C. Greenwood and Michael E. Winters
Mechanical Ventilation – Jairo I. Santanilla
Thoracentesis – Erik H. Adler and Barbara K. Blok
Tube Thoracostomy – Thomas D. Kirsch and Jordan Sax

SECTION III Cardiac Procedures

Techniques for Supraventricular Tachycardias – Bohdan M. Minczak
Defibrillation and Cardioversion – Bohdan M. Minczak
Assessment of Implantable Devices – James A. Pfaff and Robert T. Gerhardt
Basic Electrocardiographic Techniques – Richard A. Harrigan, Theodore C. Chan, and William J. Brady
Emergency Cardiac Pacing – Edward S. Bessman
Pericardiocentesis – Haney A. Mallemat and Semhar Z. Tewelde
Artificial Perfusion during Cardiac Arrest – Benjamin S. Abella, Mariana R. Gonzalez, and Lance B. Becker
Resuscitative Thoracotomy – Russell F. Jones and Emanuel P. Rivers

SECTION IV Vascular Techniques and Volume Support

Pediatric Vascular Access and Blood Sampling Techniques – Genevieve Santillanes and Ilene Claudius
Arterial Puncture and Cannulation – Hyung T. Kim
Peripheral Intravenous Access – Shan W. Liu and Richard D. Zane
Central Venous Catheterization and Central Venous Pressure Monitoring – Christopher R. McNeil, Salim R. Rezaie, and Bruce D. Adams
Venous Cutdown – Veronica Vasquez and Pablo F. Aguilera
Indwelling Vascular Devices: Emergency Access and Management – Scott H. Witt and Diann M. Krywko
Intraosseous Infusion – Kenneth Deitch
Alternative Methods of Drug Administration – Steven J. Bauer and Carl R. Chudnofsky
Autotransfusion – Mark J. Neavyn, Margarita E. Pena, and Charlene Irvin Babcock
Transfusion Therapy: Blood and Blood Products – Diane L. Gorgas and Colin G. Kaide

SECTION V Anesthetic and Analgesic Techniques

Local and Topical Anesthesia – Douglas L. McGee
Regional Anesthesia of the Head and Neck – James T. Amsterdam and Kevin P. Kilgore
Nerve Blocks of the Thorax and Extremities – Mark Spektor and John J. Kelly
Intravenous Regional Anesthesia – James R. Roberts and Sharon K. Carney
Systemic Analgesia and Sedation for Procedures – Baruch Krauss and Steven M. Green

SECTION VI Soft Tissue Procedures

Principles of Wound Management – Richard L. Lammers and Zachary E. Smith
Methods of Wound Closure – Richard L. Lammers and Zachary E. Smith
Foreign Body Removal – Daniel B. Stone and David J. Scorch
Incision and Drainage – Liam C. Holtzman, Eveline Hitt, and Jeffrey Harrow
Burn Care Procedures – Anthony S. Mazzeo, Leigh Ann Price, and Kevin B. Gerold

SECTION VII Gastrointestinal Procedures

Esophageal Foreign Bodies – David W. Munter
Nasogastric and Feeding Tube Placement – Leonard E. Samuels
Balloon Tamponade of Gastroesophageal Varices – Michael E. Winters and Edward A. Panacek
Decontamination of the Poisoned Patient – Christopher P. Holstege and Heather A. Borek
Peritoneal Procedures – Michael S. Runyon and John A. Marx
Abdominal Hernia Reduction – Michael T. Fitch and David E. Manthey
Anorectal Procedures – Wendy C. Coates

SECTION VIII Musculoskeletal Procedures

Prehospital Immobilization – Anne Klimke and Molly Furin
Management of Amputations – Dean Moore II
Extensor and Flexor Tendon Injuries in the Hand, Wrist, and Foot – Peter E. Sokolove and David K. Barnes
Management of Common Dislocations – Amanda E. Horn and Jacob W. Ufberg
Splinting Techniques – Carl R. Chudnofsky
Podiatric Procedures – Douglas L. McGee
Treatment of Bursitis, Tendinitis, and Trigger Points – Jason P. Becker and Joshua E. Markowitz
Arthrocentesis – Stewart O. Sanford
Compartment Syndrome Evaluation – Merle A. Carter

SECTION IX Genitourinary, Obstetric, and Gynecologic Procedures

Urologic Procedures – Jonathan E. Davis and Michael A. Silverman
Emergency Childbirth – George H. Lew and Michael S. Pulia
Culdocentesis – G. Richard Braen
Examination of the Sexual Assault Victim – Carolyn Joy Sachs and Malinda Wheeler

SECTION X Neurologic Procedures

Management of Increased Intracranial Pressure and Intracranial Shunts – Jessica L. Osterman and Megan L. Rischall
Spinal Puncture and Cerebrospinal Fluid Examination – Brian D. Euerle
Special Neurologic Tests and Procedures – J. Stephen Huff

SECTION XI Ophthalmologic, Otolaryngologic, and Dental Procedures

Ophthalmologic Procedures – Kevin J. Knoop and William R. Dennis
Otolaryngologic Procedures – Ralph J. Riviello
Emergency Dental Procedures – Kip R. Benko

SECTION XII Special Procedures

Procedures Pertaining to Hypothermia and Hyperthermia – Heather M. Prendergast and Timothy B. Erickson
Ultrasound – Christine Butts
Bedside Laboratory and Microbiologic Procedures – Anthony J. Dean and David C. Lee
Standard Precautions and Infectious Exposure Management – Peter E. Sokolove and Aimee Moulin
Educational Aspects of Emergency Department Procedures – Amita Sudhir and Jennifer Avegno
Physical and Chemical Restraint – J. Michael Kowalski and Adam K. Rowden
Noncardiac Implantable Devices – Paul Jhun and Eduardo Borquez
Radiation in Pregnancy and Clinical Issues of Radiocontrast Agents – Denis J. Dollard

Appendix 1 Commonly Used Formulas and Calculations – Brian C. Kitamura, Eric D. Katz, and Brent E. Ruoff

Appendix 2 Medications and Equipment for Resuscitation – Micelle Haydel

… Roberts and Hedges' Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine is still the best book in emergency medicine. It is a remarkable piece of practical wisdom wrapped in an academic blanket. Standard procedure texts give you the usual list of indications and contraindications, a written description of how to perform the procedure and a few pictures. The Roberts and Hedges book goes far beyond this with clear, in-depth literature reviews, finely crafted illustrations, and images that are packaged in a seamless flow. The chapters include approaches to the various procedures, including the pharmacology of sedation and analgesia, historical perspectives, and the philosophical underpinning of what, when, and how to act in the chaos of the emergency department. – Mel Herbert, MD, MBBS, BMedSci, FACEP, FAAEM

If I am asked 'what is the best text on how to do procedures?' There is only one answer, Roberts and Hedges... I highly recommend that everyone involved in Emergency Medicine, whether clinical, teaching, pre-hospital care, or research, have access to this book. – Journal of Emergency Medicine, review of 4th edition

Required reading for any medical student or intern about to perform their first anything: laceration repair, incision and drainage, or central line. Even the more seasoned practitioner can find alternative techniques to reduce a stubborn shoulder or brush up on the anatomy for superficial nerve blocks... With its easily readable style, far-reaching subject matter, and versatility, Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine is an essential in every ED. – Annals of Emergency Medicine, review of 4th edition

The newly revised 6th edition of this classic medical reference is thoroughly updated. All the associate editors portray and embody the pinnacle of emergency medicine excellence. The novice may find the discussions and figures devoted to the many procedures somewhat daunting or overwhelming at first; but it is hoped that most will eventually appreciate the simple discussion and complex verbiage contained in the text.

Using Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine, clinicians access complete and detailed guidance on exactly when, how, and why to perform all of today's common and uncommon procedures and get the best results. They easily apply the latest emergency ultrasound techniques through new Ultrasound Boxes, all of which are expertly written and richly illustrated with photographs of the technique as well as screen captures of the images. All emergency procedures are visualized with a complete overhaul of figures, nearly all in full color; new diagnostic images representing multiple modalities, blend amazing original art and electronic and digital prowess with equally impressive clinical medicine expertise. The addition of the ultrasound-guided sections, presented in easily found and readily deciphered boxes represent a gargantuan effort. One of the greatest achievements of Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine is the addition of a video procedures library. Only wished for in past editions, many sections now reference online content that allows readers to view videos of the procedures actually being performed.

Religion & Spirituality / African American Studies

From Every Mountainside: Black Churches and the Broad Terrain of Civil Rights edited by R. Drew Smith (SUNY Press)

It has become popular to confine discussion of the American civil rights movement to the mid-twentieth-Century South. From Every Mountainside contains essays that refuse to bracket the quest for civil rights in this manner, treating the subject as an enduring topic yet to be worked out in American politics and society. Individual essays point to the multiple directions the quest for civil rights has taken, into the North and West, and into policy areas left unresolved since the end of the 1960s, including immigrant and gay rights, health care for the uninsured, and the persistent denials of black voting rights and school equality. In exploring these issues, From Every Mountainside's contributors shed light on distinctive regional dimensions of African American political and church life that bear in significant ways on both the mobilization of civil rights activism and the achievement of its goals.

Editor R. Drew Smith is Scholar-in-Residence in the Leadership Center at Morehouse College. He is the editor of several books, including Freedom's Distant Shores: American Protestants and Post-Colonial Alliances with Africa and Long March Ahead: African American-Churches and Public Policy in Post-Civil Rights America.

As told in the introduction to From Every Mountainside, in both popular and academic understandings of the American Civil Rights Movement, the emphasis has generally been on the heroic activism mobilized from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s against the segregationist juggernaut of the American South. It was on this historical stage that black churches were spotlighted for their substantial role in the black freedom epoch unfolding at the time – and it was a role that shifted perceptions in the minds of many about the potential political significance of black churches. This association between black churches, civil rights activism, and the mid-twentieth century South has become mutually reinforcing. When mentioning black churches and civil rights activism, one thinks of the mid-twentieth century South; when mentioning civil rights activism and the mid-twentieth century South, one thinks of black churches.

A related orthodoxy has been that where civil rights activism may have occurred in the North and the West it was "secondary to the real struggle taking place in the South." While the conception of civil rights activism outside the South as less urgent, less central, and less effective has been strongly challenged by recent scholarship, 'fewer studies exist that counter the view of black church civil rights activism as an almost exclusively mid-twentieth century southern phenomenon.' From Every Mountainside adds to existing scholarship in emphasizing sociocultural and ecclesiastical factors specific to local contexts of civil rights activism in the North and West, while also examining ways local and national activism fed off each other within these contexts. With respect to the latter, as shown by an important study of black religion, not enough attention has been paid within scholarship on black churches to intersections between southern and northern black religious life, especially those occurring as a result of early- to mid-twentieth century black migration to northern cities.

From Every Mountainside also joins with other studies that have resisted a popular bracketing of the Civil Rights Movement which confines it largely to the South, from the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott to the passing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The chapters do not treat the quest for civil rights in America only as an historical theme, but also as an enduringly relevant framing of social injustices yet to be worked out within American polity and social practice. What the chapters do is point to multiple directions the quest for civil rights has extended beyond the mid-twentieth century southern movement – into the North and West during the Movement, and into policy areas left unresolved by the Movement, including immigrant rights, gay rights, health care entitlements, and persistent denials of black voting rights and school equality. In exploring these issues the volume's contributors shed light on distinctive regional dimensions of African American political and church life that bear in significant ways on both the mobilization of civil rights activism and the achievement of its goals.

Each section of From Every Mountainside explores ways the struggle for civil rights was broadened and functioned conceptually to mobilize black church activism as it moved geographically and chronologically beyond the Jim Crow South. The first section examines mid-twentieth century civil rights activism in northern and western cities, where black grievances were expressed and heard within contexts somewhat less singularly absorbed with race matters than in the South. Chapters in this section outline challenges black clergy and lay leaders had in adapting civil rights activism to local arenas of struggle in Chicago, New Haven, Philadelphia, New York, and the Bay Area. Several of these chapters emphasize black church concerns over what they perceived to be ideological or methodological radicalism by activist leaders who advocated black power, economic development, socialism, disruptive protest, female leadership, and close collaborations with government.

The second and third sections of From Every Mountainside explore black clergy responses to various public policy concerns within the post-Civil Rights Movement context that extend and broaden conceptions of civil rights prevailing within the Movement. The four chapters within section two explore expectations about the extension and enforcement of rights within a post-movement context marked by expanded black and minority claims on government capital. As these chapters point out, those expectations of government, and of a continuous and systematic pursuit of rights by black churches, have produced achievements along with many frustrations. This mixed assessment comes through clearly in the chapters on educational fairness, on voting rights, and on health reform, while the chapter on religious groups' hiring rights points to tensions in some instances between conceptions of social rights and conceptions of religious freedom.

That ‘civil rights’ is not a completely uncontested idea, even in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, is at the heart of the analysis in chapters within the final section of the volume. The chapter on black church burnings, for example, draws attention to continued racist assaults on civil rights symbolism in the form of black church buildings. Most of the chapters in this section though document black church reluctance and sometimes refusal to embrace civil rights causes which they view to be at cross-purposes with their religious convictions or with African Americans' historic race-centered civil rights agenda. Examples of this covered within the chapters include immigrant rights, gay rights, rights of religious minority groups, and concern for persons with HIV/AIDS.

Chapters throughout From Every Mountainside show that there are critical social justice issues within the post-Movement context where the potential or, at least, the need, exists for persons of all racial groups, faith traditions, and political perspectives to find common cause. Although the discussions in the book make evident that there is yet distance to travel toward the goal of commonly applied inalienable rights, a supposition and hope underlying this volume is that pointing out persistent social justice needs and potential for responsiveness increases prospects for realizing humanity’s common cause.

Religion & Spirituality / Bibles / Hermeneutics

Word and Image: The Hermeneutics of The Saint John's Bible by Michael Patella, OSB, with a contribution by Benjamin C. Tilghman (Liturgical Press)

The story of the creation of The Saint John s Bible, the first commissioned, handwritten Bible in five hundred years and the first Bible of this magnitude written in English using a contemporary translation has been told elsewhere. In Word and Image, Fr. Michael Patella focuses not on how it was made but on how, now that it is finished, it can be read, viewed, and interpreted.

Patella, OSB, SSD, professor of New Testament at the School of Theology-Seminary of Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota and seminary rector, considers the centuries-long tradition of illuminated Bibles and also the fascinating ways this Bible reflects third-millennium concerns. He seeks to rekindle interest in sacred art by allowing The Saint John's Bible to teach its readers and viewers how to work with text and image. As an accomplished Scripture scholar, a monk of the abbey that commissioned the Bible, and the chair of the Committee on Illumination and Text that provided the vision to the artists who created it, Patella may be the only one who could write Word and Image with such insight, expertise, and love.

Back in 1996 when the millennium was fast approaching, the monastic community at Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville pondered how to mark this great turning point in Christian history. The desire was to find something that could draw on the fifteen-hundred-year-old Benedictine tradition while simultaneously vivifying the Christian imagination in its service to the future. Sponsoring a handwritten and illuminated Bible seemed to fit both criteria. Just as the biblical account of divine revelation was the source of artistic inspiration for previous centuries, there was hope among the monks that it could once again proclaim the glory of God by reigniting the fires of artistic imagination. Doing so was no easy task. One of the biggest obstacles was trying to make clear for themselves, as well as for others, why, in an age when even the commercial printing press faces an uncertain tomorrow, anyone would want to embark on a project using vellum, ink, and goose quills to produce something that could be obtained by the click of a button.

Word and Image functions as a guide to and a study of The Saint John's Bible. Divided into four parts, it discusses the many areas that have influenced the composition, art, reading, and interpretation of the first handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine abbey since before Gutenberg invented the printing press.

PART I: WORD AND IMAGE: A HERMENEUTICAL MATRIX. The hermeneutical key for understanding The Saint John's Bible lies with reading, viewing, and reflecting upon it as an experience and encounter with the Word in a sacramental form. It is a treasury of the church's rich tradition of prayer, faith, and thought as well as a repository of beauty and a promoter of social justice. Part 1 draws from the tradition of biblical interpretation as well as develops a way to keep the Word of God dynamic, challenging, and life-changing.

PART 2: WHY THIS ENGLISH TEXT. The Bible has played a tremendous role in the formation of civilization in both the East and West, and that influence, though changed, was not diminished when it was translated from Latin to the vernacular, in this case, English; its role in the development of the thought and culture of the English-speaking world is a case in point. This English edition of the Bible is a noble work in its own right; no other English translation could have sufficed for this project.

PART 3: THE SAINT JOHN'S BIBLE: PART OF AN ARTISTIC AND MONASTIC LINEAGE. Benjamin C. Tilghman, assistant professor of art history at Lawrence University and former curatorial fellow at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, examines several distinct moments in which monasteries and others reflecting on the ecclesiological goals of reformers sponsored the handwriting of Bibles. He demonstrates what readers can learn from history about a monastery's use of artists and scribes of the highest caliber to write the Bible and related works. The Saint John's Bible, by employing an ancient method for a contemporary age, reinforces the continuity of the faith tradition.

PART 4: HERMENEUTICAL GUIDE. As the largest section of Word and Image, these chapters feature material from the deliberations of the Committee on Illumination and Text (CIT), the artists at the Scriptorium in Wales, and discussion on the images themselves.

In studying Word and Image, readers must keep in mind some assumptions upon which the hermeneutics of The Saint John's Bible rest: Throughout The Saint John's Bible, art and theology are not separate entities. Indeed, the word written in calligraphy and the accompanying images expressing a salient point are both art. In its best moments and pieces, the art functions as a window into the divine.

By working with both word and image, The Saint John's Bible utilizes two human senses – hearing and sight. The Bible is meant to be read aloud, preferably within a community at prayer and worship together. Images, on the other hand, are meant to be seen, and the fullness of their interpretation comes from the Christian context which inspired them, even as that context is broadly construed. Word and image have a symbiotic relationship with each informing the other, and together they give rise to Sacred Scripture's polyvalence.

The Saint Johns Bible is a magnificent memorial of two millennia of Christianity. This volume by Fr. Michael Patella and his collaborators provides a useful framework for understanding both the project as a whole and the art that illuminates the biblical text. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the intersection of Scripture and the visual arts. – Harold W. Attridge, Sterling Professor of Divinity, Yale Divinity School

Word and Image guides readers through The Saint John's Bible. By reading, pondering, and meditating on the Bible, and by using Word and Image to assist the effort, readers may come to greater experience and understanding of the Word of God and its transformational power. Readers should not be surprised if they find that their engagement with The Saint John's Bible opens their imaginations, hearts, souls, and intellect to new ways of conceiving God. In addition, they may also find themselves entering a deeper relationship with God.

Religion & Spirituality / Christianity / Mysticism / Philosophy

Giving Up god to Find God: Breaking Free of Idolatry by Kerry Walters (Orbis Books)

This is a book about idolatry, both the disease and its treatment.

Giving Up god to Find God is an exploration of the ways in which we genuflect to false gods, and what happens when we let them go and open ourselves to the experience of Love and Wisdom.
Award-winning author, Episcopalian deacon and peace activist, Kerry Walters, who teaches philosophy and peace and justice studies at Gettysburg College, unmasks the golden calves we have been taught to worship and enlightens readers living in presence of Spirit. The false gods are:

Genie god
Big Brother god
Patriot god
We Can Do It! God
By-the-Book god
My god
Church god
Designer god
Sunday School god
Egghead god

The more idols we remove from our interior shrines the more space we open up for the real God and spiritual values that make a difference in our lives. The tools are detachment and discrimination, alert attentiveness, patience, and trust. The benefit of reading Giving Up god to Find God is spiritual clarity and assurance.

According to Walters in the preface to Giving Up god to Find God, whenever we succumb to idolatry, or the worship of false gods, we fall victim to a kind of spiritual insanity that puts a brand-new twist on the old Greek maxim that the gods first make mad whom they would destroy. In the case of idolatry, our own madness creates the gods who wind up destroying us.

Driven by anxieties and lusts we clutch at false deities who can, we tell ourselves, give us everything we want without requiring anything from us in return. Even if the idols we tailor bestow a false sense of security in the short run, they betray us sooner or later. Then the very gods we hoped would protect and serve us become demons who drag us ever further away from what our hearts really desire but our timidity forgets: a relationship with the sometimes elusive, always mysterious, utterly unmanageable, and forever transformative presence of God.

As with all maladies, the first step in overcoming idolatry is learning to recognize both its causes and symptoms. So in Chapter 1 Walters provides a clinical etiology that traces idol worship back to its root causes. Although much more ancient than the Hebraic golden calf, idolatry is a cunning disease that easily accommodates itself to the historical and cultural specifics of each generation. Chapters 2 through 11 offer diagnostic descriptions of the ten most common ways idolatry afflicts us today. Although Walters suggests therapeutic tips along the way for coping with these various forms of idolatry, his full prescription is reserved for the concluding Chapter 12.

One of his claims in Giving Up god to Find God is that contemporary American culture is an especially fertile medium for the growth of idolatries.

As readers read this book, they may recognize a particular form of idolatry that they recall suffering from in the past or perhaps feel themselves slipping into now. They may even have firsthand familiarity with more than one of the various kinds of idolatry Walters describes. Looking at his own life, for example, Walters says he is pretty sure that he has fallen into a good one-third of the idolatries he discusses in Giving Up god to Find God.

When it comes to treating idolatry, Walters says the goal isn't to make it vanish – that's too unrealistic to take seriously – so much as to control and contain it. The key is recognition that our essential frailty as humans, although always frightening, is also a blessing, because it can lead to a grateful and awe-filled awareness of dependency on God's grace.

If idolatry is the father and foundation of all sins, no one names this evasive yet invasive sin better than Kerry Walters. Full of spiritual wisdom and theological depth, this book unmasks the subtle yet destructive idolatries that rest comfortably in our everyday religious belief and practice. – Donald Cozzens, author of Notes from the Underground: The Spiritual Journal of a Secular Priest

An insightful and challenging look at the many types of `false gods' that can distract us from finding authentic freedom in the worship of the one real God. Walters describes the many kinds of idols pervasive in our time... Best of all, he shows how the true God of love and mystery calls us away from our idols into genuine liberation. This is a necessary book on a vitally important subject. – Carl McColman, author of The Big Book of Christian Mysticism and Answering the Contemplative Call

Religion & Spirituality / Inspirational

99 Psalms by SAID, translated from the German by Mark S. Burrows (Paraclete Press)

SAID’s 99 Psalms are poems of praise and lament, of questioning and wondering. In the tradition of the Hebrew psalmist, they find their voice in exile, in this case one that is both existential and geographical.

The author, SAID, was born in Tehran, and immigrated as a seventeen-year-old student to Germany; since then, he has lived in Munich. A prominent figure in the German literary scene, he’s been honored with the coveted Goethe-Medal as well as the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize. His publications include eight volumes of poetry and five collections of essays, all in German, as well as children’s books and two memoirs. Mark S. Burrows has worked with SAID since the two met in Munich in 2009. He is professor of theology and literature, a scholar of mysticism and poetry, and a historian of medieval Christianity.

SAID’s decision in 99 Psalms to include 99 in this collection recalls the ancient Muslim tradition that ascribes 99 names to Allah, though the ‘lord’ whom this psalmist addresses is not bounded by this or any other religious tradition. As psalms that turn to the ‘lord’ with a lover’s vulnerability, they avoid every trace of sentimentality. Rather, they seek to open readers to the mystery of human life, warning them of the difficulties they face in their attempts to live peaceably together in the midst of their differences.

These psalms sound the urgent need for revelation, implying a strong corrective to our modern material life. It is a joy to witness the vision of such an arresting poet. – Maurice Manning, recipient of the 2009 Hanes Poetry Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and author of The Gone and the Going Away

Seldom have I found prayers such as these – that bypass the usual clichés to speak in an immediate, compelling, living way. SAID is surely the beneficiary of true spiritual encounter! Here you will find insight, daring honesty, and the kind of love that sees clearly because it has allowed itself to be seen. – Fr. Richard Rohr, oFM, author of Falling Upward, and founding director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque

Mark Burrows has delivered into powerful and moving English a profound work of poetry as prayer. – Scott Cairns, poet and author of Compass of Affection

These are prayers for passionate seekers and confounded believers alike, Muslim, Jewish or Christian. Taut-lined cries to God evoke the Hebrew psalms, yet their voice is from our world – speaking fiercely to what our current world forces upon us: the pierced and anguished heart in exile, wrestling Jacob-like with God while taking human flesh seriously to call our religious clichés into account. I know of no other prayer collection that propels us to such intimacy with the absence and presence of God. – Don E. Saliers, Wm. R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Theology and Worship, Emory University

The lovely, moving words in 99 Psalms transcend secular specifics, leading one to wonder if he is a Sufi.

Religion & Spirituality / Judaism / Mysticism

The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians: A Guide to the Sephiroth by Anita Kraft, with a foreword by Lon Milo DuQuette (Weiser Books)

The Qabalah is not a belief system, It’s a way of looking at things. It’s a way of organizing your universe so neatly that you eventually discover your own place in it. – Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford

For the practicing magician or metaphysical student, the Qabalah teachings can be elusive. Yet the lessons of the Qabalah are key to unlocking mysteries that, for the magical worker, can make all the difference between studying magic and being a magician.

The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians is a guide for the practicing magician who wants a greater understanding of Qabalah concepts and practice. Created by Anita Kraft, one of the world's most respected Qabalist teachers, this workbook teachers readers how to practice Qabalah using tarot, plants, stones, perfumes, the zodiac, and other magical sources. Kraft shows readers how to work through the Sephiroth – the ten attributes or emanations of Qabalah – for greater understanding and illumination.

Kraft is a Bishop in the Ecclessia Gnostica Catholica as well as a 20-year initiate of the Ordo Templi Orientis. She has spent more than twenty years creating and perfecting a method by which "Qabalah is experiential as is mysticism and magick. If all you do is read, you are not a mystic, magician, or Qabalist. You must do!" writes Kraft.

According to Kraft, drawing on occult works, including those of Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, and Lon Milo DuQuette, as well as dozens of Hebrew texts and manuscripts, the practicing magician can understand the Tree of Life and`other Qabalistic concepts.

According to Kraft in the introduction to The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians, when she first began to study Qabalah, she started with the usual material available. Finally, she took an excellent class at Indiana University on Jewish mysticism, in which she explored the distinction between theoretical Qabalah and practical Qabalah. She had been studying the theory; now it was time for the practice. Unfortunately for her, there really weren't a lot of books on how to be a practical Qabalist.

Magick depends heavily on written texts to transfer information and to teach. Unfortunately, this method of instruction is not the best way to learn. Most people learn primarily from doing something; reading books and hearing lectures are secondary modes of learning.

With her training skills, Kraft was able to translate the written material into active ‘doing’ material for herself. She decided to try to do this for others and started teaching classes on how to do, not just how to read, Qabalah. Each time she taught the class, she was encouraged to write a book based on her material.

She decided she would write a workbook that gave tactile and practical exercises to accompany the written material, focusing on Chicken Qabalah with a few other primary texts. The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians is the culmination of that decision.

Many people who have studied Qabalah will think this is not for them, or that they already ‘get it.’ Doing, not just reading – getting outside of Hod – and experiencing Qabalah with this workbook will greatly enhance readers’ understanding of the material.

Qabalah means ‘tradition’ and the tradition that is Qabalah is change. Every Qabalist has made changes and helped with the evolution of the understanding of God and subsequently of the universe. At times, men have come along and discouraged changes in Qabalah – unfortunately so, in her view. Kraft feels that it is part of being a Qabalistic teacher to encourage students to make Qabalah their own. So much goes into understanding existence – culture, history, perceptions, language, just overall experiences – that it is improbable that any two people will use the exact same symbols to represent their universe. All Qabalists must make changes.

With that said, however, there can be common ground. The Sephiroth are what they aren They are specific and defined. Yet her experience, vision, view, and encounters with each will be different from anyone else's. This difference is what makes up the tradition of Qabalah. It is what makes the universe of the Qabalah alive and vibrant. It is both a personal and a common shared experience. It's magick.

Qabalah can be as simple or as complex as readers want to make it. It can be as simple as the Sephiroth and the Paths. The Sefer Yetzirah, the text from which we get the Sephiroth and Paths, is a short work. It doesn't contain Gematria, Notariqon, or elaborate correspondences. It is the creation of the universe using the Hebrew alphabet and ten Sephiroth. In Kraft’s opinion, this is all one needs to learn in order to become a practicing Qabalistic magician.

Qabalah contains four worlds, each associated with one of the four elements – Fire, Water, Air, Earth. Each world builds upon the previous world. Exploring the four worlds in greater detail is the topic for an entire book in itself, but a basic understanding of this concept is necessary for The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians. The four worlds are Atziluth (The World of Emanation, associated with Fire), Briah (The World of Creation, associated with Water), Yetzirah (The World of Formation, associated with Air), and Assiah (The World of Physical Manifestation, associated with Earth).

The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians starts with the world of Assiah (Earth) and the world of Yetzirah (Air). The world of Assiah is the material world. It's the world where all things physical exist. It is also the location of animalistic needs and tendencies – the world of eating, sleeping, and base animal functions.

The world of Yetzirah is Air. It's the world where instincts are transformed into action, where humans begin to transcend the instinctual world and move to the intellectual and formative world. It's important to ground understanding of Qabalah in these two worlds so that one can ascend into the worlds of intuition and spiritual attainment – Briah and Atziluth. The exercises in The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians are designed to develop the physical and intellectual foundation of each Sephirah.

Ms. Kraft is the rarest of hermetic scholars: a Qabalist raised and vivified by the strong meat of traditional Hebrew Kabbalah; a practicing magician who for decades has applied that knowledge to achieving the greatest magical act, her own illumination; and a writer with the wit, skill, and subtlety to make simple sense of it all. – Lon Milo DuQuette, author of The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford

The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians is the perfect guide for the practicing magician who wants a greater understanding of Qabalah concepts and practice. Grounded in educational principles and written by a trainer, the book puts readers to work using its concepts.

Religion & Spirituality / Poverty / Public Policy

The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution by Barry Asmus and Wayne Grudem, with a foreword by Rick Warren (Crossway)

Don’t just read this book. Study it! Reread it and make notes, then put it into practice and teach it to others. It could change the world. – Rick Warren, from the foreword

Barry Asmus and Wayne Grudem believe we can win the fight against global poverty; we just need a better way forward.

Economist Asmus and theologian Grudem in The Poverty of Nations work together to outline a path to national prosperity and long-term stability – setting forth a sustainable solution for addressing the poverty of nations. Grudem is research professor of theology and biblical studies at Phoenix Seminary and the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society and Asmus is a senior economist at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

The whole world has a stake in the war against poverty and leaders across the globe are looking for a permanent solution. That, they say, is why Asmus and Grudem have teamed up to outline a robust proposal for fighting poverty on a national level. These two experts believe the solution lies in a comprehensive development plan that integrates the principles of a free market system with the Bible’s teachings on social ethics. Speaking to the importance of personal freedom, the rule of law, private property, moral virtue, and education, The Poverty of Nations offers a path for promoting economic prosperity and safeguarding a country’s long-term stability – a sustainable solution for a world looking for the way forward.

Rick Warren in the foreword says that there are more than two thousand verses about the poor and poverty in the Bible, yet most evangelical pulpits are strangely silent on a subject that God cares about so deeply. He says he is both shocked and saddened to admit that although he attended a Christian college and two seminaries, he cannot recall ever hearing a single message about God's plan for the poor, except that we ought to be personally generous with them. Unfortunately, due to this shortage of clear, biblical teaching on economics, many believers have, without thinking, subscribed to the most common unbiblical approaches to poverty, economic justice, and wealth.

"Why is Africa so poor?" asked the woman from Kenya. "Are we under a curse?" She and her husband were successful business owners in Nairobi, but the continuing poverty in their nation troubled them deeply. Grudem says he had no answer. After a stunned silence, he had to say, "I'm sorry; I don't know." But the question continued to trouble him.

Eventually, he talked about it with his friend Barry Asmus. He had some helpful insight, but no complete answer. Then, as they continued to talk, they discovered that they had a combination of academic resources that might enable them to find a much more complete answer and a solution.

They say their subsequent conversations led to a rewarding several-year project to combine the findings of modern economics with the teachings of the Bible in an attempt to solve the age-old problem of world poverty. They increasingly found that, despite their vastly different academic backgrounds, the conclusions from their two fields of study matched quite closely, giving the overall solution greater clarity and persuasiveness.
At first, they found just a handful of factors that will lead to prosperity or poverty in a nation. After more study, they had a list of thirty‑seven factors. Further research and feedback from seminars in Albania and Peru added more factors, and they began to make presentations on "fifty factors within nations that will lead to wealth or poverty." The Poverty of Nations concludes with a composite list of seventy-eight distinct factors within nations that, they believe, will enable any poor nation to overcome poverty.

I became an economist because I fell in love with the idea that a nation’s choices could determine whether citizens faced wealth or poverty. Thirty years of research has led me to believe that wealth comes from a choice to support freedom and limited government. I became a Christian because I fell in love with Jesus Christ. The Bible says we were created in God’s image and that while we should love our neighbor, we are also meant to be creators ourselves. I never thought these were mutually exclusive beliefs. In fact, I believe biblical truth and free markets go hand in hand. I have searched far and wide for a book that melds these two worldviews. Asmus and Grudem have done it! A top-flight economist and a renowned theologian have put together a bulletproof antidote to poverty. It’s a tour de force. The church and the state will find in this book a recipe for true, loving, and lasting justice. – Brian Wesbury, Chief Economist, First Trust Advisors LP; Former Chief Economist, Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress

God entered the earth by joining a poor family. He spent a lot of time with the poor and taught a lot about the poor. In this book, practical and insightful global solutions are offered to help the poor as Jesus wants us to love and serve the poor. – Mark Driscoll, Founding and Preaching Pastor, Mars Hill Church, Seattle, Washington; Founder, Resurgence; Co-founder, Acts 29; New York Times #1 best-selling author

Grudem and Asmus show how the science of economics can be combined with a morality rooted in religious belief to help us understand why some nations are rich and others poor. – John C. Goodman, President and CEO, National Center for Policy Analysis

The religious leaders of the world wonder why poor countries remain poor. Key figures from Billy Graham to Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama have often urged the rich of the world to care for the poor – but how to do it? How to organize government and business to ‘remember the poor’? Now, theologian Wayne Grudem and economist Barry Asmus bring forward a book to explain how free enterprise and, crucially, biblical teaching combine to illuminate the path to progress for the poor. Every legislator – every voter – needs to read this. – Hugh Hewitt, nationally syndicated radio talk show host; Professor of Law, Chapman University

Grudem and Asmus provide a comprehensive set of principles for reducing poverty around the world. Seldom does one find such a complete and thoughtful integration of sound economics with good theology. The Poverty of Nations is strongly recommended for anyone concerned with world poverty. – P. J. Hill, Professor of Economics Emeritus, Wheaton College; Senior Fellow, Property and Environmental Research Center, Bozeman, Montana

The authors have written clearly that the sustainable solution to the poverty of nations is the free-market system – the most moral and successful economic arrangement and the only one capable of enabling people to produce their way out of poverty and to personal well-being. – Jon Kyl, Former U.S. Senator from Arizona

There are not many Christian books on this subject. Even less those that integrate a Christian worldview with economic systems, free markets, freedom, and prosperity, besides poverty. Grudem and Asmus offer a thorough analysis of several economic systems that went wrong and offer a plausible defense of the biblical basis for the free-market solution and how it could change a nation. There may be some question as to whether such a system would work for Latin American countries. But because of the underlying biblical principles, this book should be translated and studied in other parts of the world besides America. It will help Christians engage the social, economic, and political issues of today in a more significant and effective way. – Rev. Augustus Nicodemus Lopes, Professor of New Testament, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, Brazil

Many excellent authors over the past dozen years have felt the elephant’s trunk, legs, and tail. Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus are the first to show the whole behemoth. They explain clearly and simply what we must know to love truly those in need. The Poverty of Nations should be required reading at every Christian college. – Marvin Olasky, Editor in Chief, World News Group

There are many secular books on poverty, and there are many books on the Christian response to poverty. But Wayne Grudem, a theologian, and Barry Asmus, an economist, have done something far less common and far more valuable. They have successfully integrated Christian ethics and theology with sound economics. The result is a comprehensive and deeply satisfying synthesis. If you want to understand and help alleviate poverty, rather than merely supporting feel-good policies that may do more harm than good, you should read this book. – Jay W. Richards, PhD, author, Money, Greed, and God; Visiting Scholar, The Institute for Faith, Workl and Economics; Senior Fellow, the Discovery Institute

Relying upon a thoughtful combination of objective economic history, a clear understanding of human nature, accurate economic analysis, and a moral code based on personal freedom and the pursuit of happiness, Asmus and Grudem in The Poverty of Nations delve into means for alleviating the poverty of nations. The writing style is highly approachable and draws readers into a realm of ideas that envisions hope for the downtrodden if government authority is properly exercised. Readers will find this book both enlightening and persuasive.

Religion & Spirituality / Theology

A Theology of Alterity: Levinas, von Balthasar, and Trinitarian Praxis by Glenn Morrison (Duquesne University Press)

For centuries, but especially under Heidegger's influence in the twentieth century, Christian theology has consistently approached its inquiry through the language of ontology and within the framework of Being. These attempts to find a rational way to articulate religious life and the mystery of God, making spiritual praxis secondary to theory, not only run the danger of reducing God to a set of propositions, but also risk condoning violent indifference to inter-human relations.

In response, Glenn Morrison, senior lecturer in theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Fremantle, in A Theology of Alterity suggests that Emmanuel Levinas's philosophical corpus, which puts into question Heidegger's fundamental ontology, can serve as a valuable resource for developing new theological language that unites theory and praxis. Building on previous attempts to appropriate Levinas to Christian thought, Morrison critiques thinkers such as Michael Purcell, David Ford, Michael Barnes, and Graham Ward for hesitating to go beyond ontotheology. A Theology of Alterity strives to more radically utilize Levinas's philosophical framework, bringing it into conversation with the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, to construct a post-ontotheological account of theology that coincides with ethical behavior. In looking at these two thinkers in relation to each other, Morrison brings out the drama of Eros that is often hidden in Levinas's texts, and he points the way toward a less mystical, more ethical, and more metaphysically transformative reading of von Balthasar. In allowing Levinas's Judaism to challenge von Balthasar's Catholicism, Morrison develops a perspective that is both theologically rich and philosophically provocative.

Following Levinas's demand that we think Being 'otherwise,' Morrison explores the implications of alterity in both systematic and practical theological matters such as the paschal mystery, Christ's person and mission, pastoral care, mental health, forgiveness, prayer, and Jewish-Christian friendship. Reflecting on central articles of the Christian faith through the language of alterity, such as Christ's death and resurrection, he describes the work of an ethically grounded theology that inspires a 'Trinitarian praxis'; wherein theology is driven by a kenotic, self-giving love, a radical gift of passivity, and the desire to encounter Christ in the face of the other person.

I am convinced that with this work Morrison offers a substantial contribution to the conversation between the Jewish thinker, Emmanuel Levinas, and Christian theology, which not only is distinct from what other thinkers have presented, but also goes farther and is more radical. – Roger Burggraeve, University of Leuven

Science / History / Public Policy / Energy / Technology

Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy, revised edition by John Perlin, with a foreword by Amory Lovins (New World Library)

Let It Shine shows how today’s renewable revolution builds on the tenacious efforts of countless generations of innovators whose vision we may finally be privileged enough to bring to full flower. – from the foreword by Amory Lovins, cofounder and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute

Unprecedented gas prices, heat waves and droughts, climate change, Solyndra – all make ‘alternative’ sources of energy contemporary areas of activism, controversy, lobbying, and legislation. Yet few know that the ancient Chinese, Greeks, and Romans used solar energy in their architecture; that Galileo and da Vinci both planned uses for the power of the sun; and that by 1918, there were more than 4,000 solar water heaters in California. Few realize that the first photovoltaic array appeared on a New York City rooftop in 1884, or that engineers in France were using solar power in the 1860s to run steam engines, or that in 1901 an ostrich farmer in Southern California used a single solar engine to irrigate three hundred acres of citrus trees. Fewer still know that during the Renaissance Galileo and his contemporaries planned the construction of sun-focusing mirrors as the ultimate weapon to burn enemy fleets and towns, that Leonardo da Vinci planned to make his fortune by building half-mile-long mirrors to heat water, or that the Bronze Age Chinese used hand-sized solar-concentrating mirrors to light fires the way we use matches and lighters today.

In this definitive history of solar technology, science writer and historian, John Perlin tells a story that goes back more than six thousand years to when the Stone Age Chinese built their homes to make maximum use of the sun's energy in winter.

The history of solar architecture and energy technologies in Let It Shine gives readers an epiphany-producing sense of its future. Detailing a realistic alternative to fossil fuels, in illustrations the New York Times called ‘especially fine,’ and prose Library Journal termed ‘highly readable,’ Let It Shine shows that there is nothing – and plenty – new under the sun.

Let It Shine profiles the fascinating characters who made the solar revolution possible, revealing a group of unknown pioneers, like Gustav Vorherr, who opened up the first school of solar architecture in the 1820s, as well as solar advocates known for other accomplishments, such as Socrates, who 2,500 years ago gave a detailed discourse on designing passive solar homes.

With thirteen new chapters, Let It Shine is a fully revised and expanded edition of A Golden Thread, Perlin's classic history of solar technology, detailing the past forty years of technological developments driving today's solar renaissance.

Let It Shine is the solar bible. Thank you, John Perlin! – Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute
John Perlin is the historian of solar energy. He now takes the history back thousands of years to early Chinese architecture and the yang-sui, the little bronze mirrors boys used to start the family fire, to nineteenth-century inventors who feared that coal supplies were about to run out, to modern passive solar buildings and today’s falling costs and growing use of photovoltaics. He does all this with a penchant for the diverse characters along the journey and with remarkable illustrations that vividly capture the six-thousand-year story of solar energy. – Daniel Yergin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World and The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
With remarkable depth, breadth, and precision, John Perlin lays out humankind’s long reliance on the sun before the carbon era and points the way to a healthy, comfortable, productive, resilient solar-powered world. There is more intelligence and common sense in this volume than in all the federal reports on energy of the last quarter-century combined. – Denis Hayes, former director of the federal Solar Energy Research Institute and founder of the Earth Day Network

The authoritative background story behind the worldwide solar revolution, Let It Shine is a story of human ingenuity and perseverance told with clarity and depth. The next chapter is ours to write. – David W. Orr, professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College and author of Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse
Let It Shine makes it abundantly clear that solar energy has a long and glorious past – a prologue, in fact – that is as bright and diverse as its future will be. Far from being a disruption of the current energy economy, solar power can be harnessed in thousands of ways, making it easy to embrace and integrate into our future, as this book brilliantly demonstrates. – Daniel M. Kammen, distinguished professor of energy at the University of California, Berkeley

Let It Shine, a unique and compelling compendium of humankind's solar ideas, tells the fascinating story of how our predecessors throughout time, again and again, have applied the sun to better their lives – and how readers can too.

Social Sciences / Archaeology / History / Ancient

The First Farmers of Central Europe: Diversity in LBK Lifeways edited by Penny Bickle and Alasdair Whittle (Cardiff Studies in Archaeology Series: Oxbow Books)

The First Farmers of Central Europe is about uniformity and diversity in lifeways, as approached through a study of isotopes, osteology and archaeology. The contributors focus on the early Neolithic of central Europe – the Linearbandkeramik or ‘LBK’ – but as an interdisciplinary study combining bioarchaeology and grave good analysis, and as a more general reflection on difference and commonality within `cultures ' – this work may be of wide interest to those who are thinking through similar problems in other areas and for other times.

The editors are Penny Bickle and Alasdair Whittle, both of the Department of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University. The First Farmers of Central Europe has 36 contributors.

From about 5500 BC to soon after 5000 BC, the lifeways of the first farmers of central Europe, the LBK culture, are seen in distinctive practices of longhouse use, settlement forms, landscape choice, subsistence, material culture and mortuary rites. Within the five or more centuries of LBK existence a dynamic sequence of changes can be seen in, for instance, the expansion and increasing density of settlement, progressive regionalization in pottery decoration, and at the end some signs of stress or even localized crisis. Although showing many features in common across its very broad distribution, however, the LBK phenomenon was not everywhere the same, and there is a complicated mixture of uniformity and diversity.

The First Farmers of Central Europe is a major study taking a strikingly large regional sample, from northern Hungary westwards along the Danube to Alsace in the upper Rhine valley, and addressing the question of the extent of diversity in the lifeways of developed and late LBK communities, through a wide-ranging study of diet, lifetime mobility, health and physical condition, and the presentation of the bodies of the deceased in mortuary ritual. It uses an innovative combination of isotopic (principally carbon, nitrogen and strontium, with some oxygen), osteological and archaeological analysis to address difference and change across the LBK, and to reflect on cultural change in general.

There are various ways in which different readers may wish to tackle The First Farmers of Central Europe. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the LBK and positions the main questions and approach of the project within the framework of current research on the European early Neolithic, and in relation to debate in anthropology about the concept of culture. Chapter 2 introduces the methods employed. Chapters 3-8 cover the six regions defined in the project, and as well as providing more general sections on the archaeological background, each gives a detailed site-by-site account of the data they have generated and how they have been interpreted; readers coming to the LBK for the first time could take any one of these on its own. These are complemented by selected individual lifeways, presented after each regional chapter. Chapter 9 contains a more synthetic discussion of overall patterns across the study area, drawing strongly on the detailed arguments presented in the regional overviews. Finally, Chapter 10 returns to the implications of the work for wider discussion of different social scales.

The First Farmers of Central Europe presents the results of a study of early Neolithic lifeways in central Europe, focusing on the interplay between uniformity and diversity. To this end, the contributors analyzed hundreds of isotopic samples of humans and animals from cemeteries and settlements of the LBK culture, dating from c. 5500-4900 BC, in Hungary, western Slovakia, Moravia (Czech Republic), Austria, southern Germany and Alsace (France). They approached questions of mobility (using strontium and oxygen isotopes), diet (investigating carbon and nitrogen isotopes, and assessing the potential of calcium), and health (based on osteoarchaeological study of selected assemblages). They incorporated the data from these varied analyses into a reassessment of the burial evidence (including burial location, rite and grave good provision). They then identified recurrent patterns and variability at different geographical and social scales, from the individual interment to groups of burials, single sites, regions and finally the study area as a whole, and from individuals through households, clans or lineages to wider dimensions of community, network and meshwork.

LBK dietary practices were strikingly similar throughout the study area. There were also recurrent patterns in the strontium data, suggesting that the majority of the people whom the study sampled died in or close to the localities where they were born; that has made it possible to identify obvious outliers, born and raised elsewhere, and there are also recurrently detectable differences between male and female strontium ratios. The strontium data can thus be taken to suggest patrilocality as a frequent choice in post-marital residence patterns, and potentially also point to a correlation between inheritance of land and those men buried with a polished stone adze. Nevertheless, there is also variability at many social scales, from broad east west differences in the proportion of animal protein in the diet, and regional patterning in the importance of adhering to strict body positions and orientations in the grave, right down to myriad individual ways in which people could stand out from the wider burial community around them through rite, grave good assemblage, physical condition, diet and mobility.

Chapter 1 in The First Farmers of Central Europe introduces the background and rationale for the study by summarizing approaches to uniformity and diversity within the LBK, set in the context of anthropological discussions of culture as performative and flexible. The chapter offers a detailed account of how mortuary practices have been studied, discussing especially the definition of a `normative' burial rite and the identification of social status as two important research foci. Coming to terms with diversity, at multiple social scales remains a significant challenge.

Chapter 2 outlines the methodological background for the different analytical approaches (with details of the protocols for the isotopic analyses carried out at the RLAHA, Oxford, and at Durham University) and discusses important earlier work, with particular emphasis on studies of LBK material. The emphasis is on exploring variation within the dataset and finding patterns between groups of burials, which could then be interpreted further. They also briefly outline the results of pilot studies of oxygen isotopes (which can track mobility by reflecting differences in groundwater) and calcium (which relates to dairy consumption). The chapter summarizes how various aspects of the burial rite have previously been related to gender, status, ethnic identity and other avenues of diversity. For the archaeological analysis, based on over 3000 individuals, they selected burial location, body position and orientation, and grave good assemblages as the key variables..

The main part of The First Farmers of Central Europe is formed by six regional case studies set out in Chapters 3-8. Regions were pragmatically defined in accordance with previous research foci and modern political boundaries, but further integration of all results is provided in Chapters 9 and 10. In order to maximize statistical robustness, sites within regions were selected on the basis of the number of individuals, as well as the accessibility of remains.

Each of the regional chapters provides an overview of research history and of the main features of LBK archaeology, detailing in particular the arrival and development of the LBK, subsistence patterns, material culture networks and regional burial practices. After this, the results of their analyses are presented site by site, beginning with osteological data (where obtained) and leading on to the stable isotopes and strontium. These are then connected to archaeological data to provide an initial interpretation for each site. At the end of each chapter, these local narratives are compared to highlight the main conclusions from each region. This is followed by the presentation of two individual lifeways, each based on a burial selected from the regional sample, which highlight the interplay between individual biographies and wider research themes.

Throughout the discussions in The First Farmers of Central Europe, it is stressed that different potential avenues for distinction (for example, those revealed by isotopes and those expressed in the grave rite) do not correlate in straightforward ways. While there is a tendency for individuals who stand out in one aspect to also appear atypical in another, one can normally also find counterexamples. Instead, what the contributors see is the creative recombination of many potential modes of divergence in locally embedded ways.

The results for all the different regions are interpreted together in Chapter 9. The greatest part of the variation in the stable isotope measurements relates to the relative importance of Continental and Atlantic influences in the climate, and possibly also differential forest cover. This means that the LBK dataset is remarkably uniform in terms of diet, although husbandry and cultivation practices may have varied in detail. Further detailed modeling shows that the data are consistent with plausible suggestions for Neolithic diets, but also draws out a tendency for more meat/milk to be consumed in western as opposed to eastern areas of the project. In the east, sex-based differences in diet are also more marked. The strontium isotope pattern across central Europe confirms that the isotopic ranges for women are wider than those for men, interpreted as an indication of patrilocal residence. In addition, males buried with adzes fall within a tighter range than those without, and it is suggested that this reflects inheritance of land across the generations, with household or lineage heads or other such important figures marked out by polished tools. At an individual level, strontium outliers are often also distinguished through other aspects of burial treatment, for instance through a right-crouched position or a minority orientation. Residence at birth therefore had an impact on treatment in death, suggesting differentiation in LBK society along the lines both of sex and perhaps household, lineage or other membership. The former at least is also confirmed through osteoarchaeological analysis, as females more often suffer from caries and cribra orbitalia than males, and gendered activity patterns existed. Nevertheless, general health did not vary much across the distribution (with the notable exception of more stress markers in the Austrian sample), and more work is needed further to fill in the gaps.

Finally, in The First Farmers of Central Europe the archaeological analysis of burial location, grave rite and good assemblage (with specific reference to lithics, pottery, ornaments and ochre) showed the consistent marking out of children between seven and 13 years of age, and the contributors suggest that this was an important threshold between childhood and a full adult identity. They confirm the special importance of males buried with adzes, which show the most formalized patterns, but also stress that other goods and practices, most notably the provision with personal ornaments, were explicitly employed in the presentation of varying identities at personal, local and regional scales.

Chapter 10 addresses the many different social scales and kinds of performance which are relevant to a consideration of LBK lifeways. As well as the individual scale, the authors note the importance of households and their potentially flexible composition, as also argued by recent discussions of `house society' models in Neolithic archaeology, and the evidence for lineages or clans both in their isotopic data and in other studies; this raises the puzzle of the relative invisibility of households as such in cemeteries, and the whole question of the basis on which individual people were selected for burial in cemeteries.

There is a continued tension between practices shared over large areas on the one hand, and the potentialities for differentiation which were exploited in locally and chronologically contingent ways on the other. This pattern of inconsistent commonality does not apply to the LBK only, but is evident in many other examples of geographically extensive archaeological phenomena. The First Farmers of Central Europe contributes to wider archaeological and anthropological debate about culture by suggesting ways in which conflicting theoretical foci on coherent values and contingent practice, on shared identity and individual diversity, can be bridged, through its interpretive emphasis on scale and performance. As an interdisciplinary study combining bioarchaeology and grave good analysis, and as a reflection on uniformity and diversity within `cultures ', The First Farmers of Central Europe will be of wide interest to those who are thinking through similar problems in other areas and for other times.

True Crime / Law

Flood of Lies: The St. Rita's Nursing Home Tragedy by James Cobb Jr. (Pelican)

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the nation reeled in shock as the story of St. Rita's Nursing Home unfolded in a flood of constant, garish – and often wildly misleading – media coverage. Sal and Mabel Mangano were vilified for allegedly causing the deaths of 35 residents of the nursing home in low-lying St. Bernard Parish. Flood of Lies, written by the lawyer who defended them, reveals the story behind the couple's heartrending decision not to evacuate and their persecution at the hands of the government sworn to protect them.

In the media storm that followed Hurricane Katrina, this gruesome story captivated a horrified nation: thirty-five elderly residents drowned when a wall of water hit the home like a bomb. Rumors abounded that the Manganos tied residents to their beds and left them to drown, then bloat and rot in the Louisiana heat. News reporters and talk-show hosts spewed a constant stream of sensationalized reports based on incomplete information and hearsay. Almost no one believed that the Manganos could be innocent. Louisiana lawyer James A. Cobb, Jr., had made his career out of defending deep-pocketed corporate clients, easing his troubled conscience with martinis. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Cobb and his family lost everything. Amid the ruins, Cobb met the Manganos and was convinced not only of their innocence but also of their selflessness and courage on that fateful August day when they, too, lost everything. Cobb agreed to defend the Manganos against near-insurmountable odds. His decision was the start of an inner journey toward self-realization.

In Flood of Lies, the true story of a family blamed for the wrongs of the government that prosecuted them, Cobb finds unexpected heroism, unrewarded devotion, and personal redemption. A trial lawyer since 1978, Cobb is a native New Orleanian. He graduated with honors from Tulane University Law School, and has since tried more than 130 cases to verdict across the Gulf South. Cobb has been a respected professor at Tulane Law School's trial advocacy program for more than thirty years and is a two-time recipient of the Monte M. Lemann Distinguished Teaching Award. He has been a visiting professor at many institutions, including Harvard Law School. He is a member of the bar in Louisiana, Texas, and Florida.

In Flood of Lies, Cobb takes us deep inside a horrific personal and professional journey... a tale of personal sacrifice that often pitted responsibility to family against professional duty. Flood of Lies is one of those rare books that takes us behind the scenes of a gut-wrenching, international story.... It is a great ... story of personal and professional triumph. – Richard Angelico, retired WDSU investigative reporter

When an elderly couple is charged with murder in the drowning deaths of thirty-five bed-ridden residents of St. Rita's Nursing Home, an emotional edge-of-your-seat thriller takes off like a shot! The players: a wily and profane defense lawyer, a ferocious prosecutor, devastated families of the victims, and a ravenous media that brands the defendants 'Monsters of Hurricane Katrina.' My advice – block out enough time to read this wonderful book in one sitting. – John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

What Jim Cobb captures better than any writer I've read is how deeply the media's pre-trial feeding-frenzy shaped public perceptions about the St. Rita's nursing home tragedy. When Sal and Mabel Mangano entered the St. Francisville courtroom facing multiple charges of murder, they also faced a near-universal presumption of guilt. Cobb's brash, brilliant storytelling takes you behind the scenes of an important test for the American system of justice. – Ken Bode, former national political correspondent, NBC News

As if the story covered in this book were not passionate enough, the author gives readers unrestricted access to his heart, soul, and the passion he experienced as his life was consumed by defending the operators of St. Rita's Nursing Home after Hurricane Katrina. The story is gripping, the details revealed are amazing, but the emotional link that emerges between the reader and the author – a key character in the story – makes this one of the most extraordinary stories ever told. – Dennis S. Mileti, PhD, director emeritus, Natural Hazards Center

This is more than a story about Katrina. It is that, told from an original perspective, but it's also a story of abuse of power, of political ambition, of survival, and of a trying to make life ordinary again – when ordinariness amounts to triumph. – John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America and Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty

Cobb defends Hurricane Katrina's most notorious couple, telling the true story behind the tragedy in Flood of Lies, a powerful account of loss, devastation, and the relentless pursuit of justice.