University Press Preview: Fall and Winter
By Margaret Heilbrun Jun 23, 2011Every few months I meet with representatives of many academic presses and, a glutton for learning, I come away excited—even feeling more intensely alive—by their offerings for the next season. Yet, as a serious general reader, I have small patience for academic jargon or pretentious language that excludes readers. Among the hundreds of books that are coming soon from university presses I've chosen these, below, that will entice, inspire, and enrich serious general readers as well as specialists. Most are non-fiction; almost all are available simultaneously in electronic format. They're an invigorating bunch, and remember: you can always seek out more from where these came!—Margaret Heilbrun, Senior Editor, LJ Book Review
ART | AUTOBIOGRAPHY | BIOGRAPHY | COOKING | ECONOMICS | FICTION | FILM STUDIES | HISTORY: AFRICAN | HISTORY: AFRICAN AMERICAN | HISTORY: AMERICAN | HISTORY: CIVIL WAR | HISTORY: WORLD WAR I | HISTORY: THE HOLOCAUST AND WORLD WAR II | HISTORY: VIETNAM WAR | LGBTQ | LITERARY STUDIES | MEDIEVAL, REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES | PERFORMING ARTS | PHILOSOPHY | POLITICAL SCIENCE | REFERENCE/READY REFERENCE | RELIGION | SCIENCE/MATHEMATICS/ANTHROPOLOGY | SOCIAL SCIENCES | SPORTS | CLASSIC RETURNS
Elizabeth Easton. Snapshot: Painters and Photography, from Bonnard to Vuillard. (Phillips Collection) Yale Univ. December. ISBN 9780300172362. $50.00.
With the introduction of the Kodak camera in 1888, photography became newly accessible to a wider range of people—including post-Impressionist artists of the time. Easton makes available for the first time the snapshots taken by 7 artists, juxtaposing the photographs with the paintings and prints they inspired.
The Eugene B. Adkins Collection: Selected Works. Univ. of Oklahoma. October. ISBN 9780806141008. $60. pap. ISBN 9780806141015. $29.95.
A major collection of Native American and Southwestern art, with 179 color illustrations.
The Image of the Black in Western Art. Vol. III: From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition. Part 2: Europe and the World Beyond. ISBN 9780674052628. Part 3: The Eighteenth Century. ISBN 9780674052635. Both volumes: Belknap: Harvard Univ. November. ed. by David Bindman & Henry Louis Gates, Jr. $95.00.
The lastest additions to a magnificent series, with stunning images.
Leslie Webster. Anglo-Saxon Art. Cornell Univ. November. ISBN 9780801477669. pap. $29.95.
The first introduction to the subject that includes the 2009 discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard. With 140 color illustrations. Looks like an essential, erudite, handsome and accessible volume.
Frank Clifford. Deep Trails in the Old West: A Frontier Memoir. Univ. of Oklahoma. October. Ed. by Frederick Nolan. ISBN 9780806141862, $29.95.
Cowboy and drifter Clifford (1860-1946) wrote this memoir in 1940, telling of how he crossed paths with the likes of Billy the Kid, Charlie Siringo, and the Colfax County vigilantes. Now published for the first time, with Nolan's edits providing context without ridding the memoir of its racial biases or harshness.
Nancy K. Miller. What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past. Univ. of Nebraska. September. ISBN 9780803230019. $24.95
Miller (English & comparative literature, Graduate Ctr., CUNY) found a small family archive among the possessions left to her after both her parents had died. Why so few? What do they mean? Why were these ones saved? A journey about what we can find and what is lost from life to life.
Roger E. Backhouse & Bradley W. Bateman. Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes. Harvard Univ. November. ISBN 9780674057753. $25.95.
Recent economic downturns have brought Keynes back to prominence. The authors point out his distinct approach to economics and what we can learn from it.
Louis Kraft. Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. Univ. of Oklahoma. October. ISBN 9780806142265. $34.95.
Wynkoop deserves attention. As a post-Civil War U.S. Indian Agent, he stood up for the rights of the Cheyenne-Sioux and Arapahos, rather than simply enforce U.S. aggression.
Franco Mormando. Bernini: His Life and His Rome. Univ. of Chicago. November. ISBN 9780226538525. $35.00.
Bernini moved Rome into the Baroque age; Mormando calls his subject's life baroque as well.
Anne Salmond. Bligh: William Bligh in the South Seas. Univ. of California. October. ISBN 9780520270565. $39.95.
This one places the Mutiny on the Bounty captain—who after all was not actually Charles Laughton, Trevor Howard, or Anthony Hopkins—in his rightful place in the story of exploration and ethnography, not to mention his daring sea survival across 3,000 miles after being cast off the Bounty. P.S. He didn't look like any of those actors!
Ezra F. Vogel. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Belknap: Harvard Univ. September. ISBN 9780674055445. $39.95.
Deng deserves this doorstopper of a book, which expertly explores and explains his influence not merely upon the evolution of his country, but upon 20th-century world history generally.
Dining with the Washingtons: Historic Recipes, Entertaining, and Hospitality from Mount Vernon. Univ. of North Carolina. November. Ed. by Stephen A McCleod. ISBN 9780807835265. $35.00.
Not merely a cookbook, but culinary and social history, and 90 historic recipes adapted for today's cooking. With 230 color illustrations.
Sandra A. Gutierrez. The New Southern-Latino Table: Recipes that Bring Together the Bold and Beloved Flavors of Latin America and the American South. Univ. of North Carolina. September. ISBN 9780807834947. $30.00.
Gutierrez, who lives in North Carolina, grew up in the States and Guatemala. Her approach to cooking reflects the fusion of both cultures.
Robert H. Frank. The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good. Princeton Univ. October. ISBN 9780691153193. $26.95.
Frank, both a Cornell economics professor and New York Times columnist posits a Darwin economy, rather than one defined by Adam Smith, and then explains how such an economy can succeed. Hint: the solution includes taxes.
Tammy Horn. Beeconomy: What Women and Bees Can Teach Us about Local Trade and the Global Market. Univ. Press of Kentucky. November. ISBN 9780813134352. $29.95.
If you become the bee, you can't get stung. Actually, there's much more to it than that.
Walmart in China. Cornell Univ. November. ed. by Anita Chan. ISBN 9780801450204. pap. ISBN 9780801477317. $24.95.
The contributors are all academics, but don't let that turn you off from this significant topic. Seventy percent of what's on Walmart's U.S. shelves comes from China. Walmart itself is now in over 100 Chinese cities. Learn about the relationship between the retail and manufacturing behemoths.
Will Boast. Power Ballads. Univ. of Iowa. October. ISBN 9781609380427. pap. $16.00.
Boast, raised in both Ireland and Wisconsin, was awarded the 2011 Iowa Short Fiction Award for these ten linked stories with working musicians at their core, including a jazz drummer, a country singer, and a rock critic who doesn't play nice. Atmospheric work from a writer to look out for. He has a novel coming next.
Betsy Draine & Michael Hinden. Murder in Lascaux. Terrace: Univ. of Wisconsin. October. ISBN 9780299284206. $26.95.
A "cozy" mystery that takes place in the Dordogne region of France, famous for its Paleolithic painted Lascaux caves. Nora and husband Toby (the authors are also husband and wife) find themselves entangled in murderous doings. Doesn't sound any too "cozy" to me....
Terese Svoboda. Bohemian Girl. Bison: Univ. of Nebraska. September. ISBN 9780803226821. pap. $14.95.
Billed as "part Huck Finn, part True Grit," with Willa Cather mentioned as well, this in fact is sure to have a narrative voice all its own, and one worth waiting for.
Willard Wyman. Blue Heaven. Oklahoma Univ. Press. October. ISBN 9780806142180. $21.95.
With two Spur Awards under his belt, Wyman now takes readers to the start of the 20th century, presenting a prequel to High Country and the memorable Fenton Pardee.
Roman Gubern. Luis Bunuel: The Red Years, 1929-1939. Univ. of Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Film Studies). January 2012. trans. fr. Spanish by Paul Hammond. ISBN 9780299284749. pap. $34.95.
Covering the years of Bunuel's career that have been least studied, including his propaganda work in support of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.
Emily W. Leider. Myrna Loy: The Only Girl in Hollywood. Univ. of California. October. ISBN 9780520253209. $34.95.
Leider's previous film biography, of Rudolph Valentino, seemed more workmanlike than relevatory to this Rudy expert, but maybe this bio will be more energetic and enlightening. Loy deserves only the best.
Sean O'Sullivan. Mike Leigh. Univ. of Illinois. September. (Contemporary Film Directors). ISBN 9780252036385. $65.00. pap. ISBN 9780252078194. $22.00.
Walter Raubicheck & Water Srebnick. Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie. Univ. of Illinois. October. ISBN 9780252036484. $65.00. pap. ISBN 9780252078248. $22.00.
Forget that Tippi Hedren (in two of these films) was not the most gifted line reader and consider the great scripts.
Brian Taves. Thomas Ince: Hollywood's Independent Pioneer. Univ. Press of Kentucky. (Screen Classics Series). December. ISBN 9780813134222. $39.95.
In those glorious early years of film, when intrepid men and women headed west to make movies—acting, writing, and directing—Ince (1882-1924) was a pioneer of the Western film, and influenced U.S. film culture in several ways. The first full biography of him.
Tim Jeal. Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure. Yale Univ. October. ISBN 9780300149357. $32.50.
Jeal won the National Book Critics Circle award for his biography of Stanley. This is sure to be another superb narrative.
Raymond Jonas. The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire. Belknap: Harvard. November. ISBN 9780674052741. $29.95.
In 1896 an Ethiopian army defeated invading Italians, a forerunner to African struggles for independence and an event with influences beyond Africa.
Brad Asher. Cecelia and Fanny: The Remarkable Friendship Between an Escaped Slave and Her Former Mistress. Univ. Press of Kentucky. October. ISBN 9780813134147. $30.00.
One of my two picks for fall, to be noted in the July issue of LJ. A Kentucky slave escapes to Canada and years later writes her former mistress. Do they ever see each other again? How do their lives progress?
David Margolick. Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock. Yale Univ. September. ISBN 9780300141931. $26.00.
Two personal journeys intersect, move apart, come back together, move apart, perhaps to join again. An instructive and inspiring story of transformation. See my fall picks in July's LJ.
Sydney Nathans. To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker. Harvard Univ. February 2012. ISBN 9780674062122. $29.95.
An escaped North Carolina slave and her attempts from up North to be reunited with the children she left behind. Based on a rich trove of correspondence and diaries.
An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp. ed. by Kelly J. Dixon & others. Univ. of Oklahoma. October. ISBN 9780806142104. $34.95.
New archaeological and scientific approaches to the Donner Party's 1846-47 winter in the Sierra Nevada, including study of Washoe Indian narratives about the Donner Party.
Freedom Rights: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement. Univ. Press of Kentucky. ed. by Danielle L. McGuire & John Dittmer. November. ISBN 9780813134499. $40.00.
New scholarhip on the Civil Rights movement, embracing today's cross-disciplinary approaches.
Donald R. Hickey & Connie D. Clark. The Rockets' Red Glare: An Illustrated History of the War of 1812. Johns Hopkins Univ. October. ISBN 9781421401553. $39.95.
Good title, since this is the war that brought us our national anthem. For some reason, its causes, conflicts, and results are elusive to many today. With lots of images and maps (some in color) this should be a good book for clarifying the situation from military, diplomatic, and domestic perspectives, so we're all in the know for the bicentennial.
William Howard Taft. My Dearest Nellie: The Letters of William Howard Taft to Helen Herron Taft, 1909–1912. Univ. Press of Kansas. September. ed. by Lewis L. Gould. ISBN 9780700618002. $39.95.
Will and Nellie Taft were a close couple, as shown in these 113 letters, mostly not previously published. As primary sources, letters are innocently insightful of the era that produces them—and of their correspondents, even those dwelling in the Executive Mansion.
David W. Blight. American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era. Belknap: Harvard Univ. September. ISBN 9780674048553. $27.95.
Albert Castel with Brooks D. Simpson. Victors in Blue: How Union Generals Fought the Confederates, Battled Each Other, and Won the Civil War. Univ. Press of Kansas. November. ISBN 9780700617937. $34.95.
The Union's generals were complicated men, riddled with weaknesses—and yet they beat their Confederate counterparts. Go along with these authors to learn how and why.
Mark A. Lause. A Secret Society History of the Civil War. Univ. of Illinois. December. ISBN 9780252036552. $35.00.
We've read a lot about the number of Founding Fathers who were Masons. Lause points out the influence of various political secret societies and clandestine groups with influence over such men as John Brown and John Wilkes Booth.
Brian McGinty. The Body of John Merryman: Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus. Harvard Univ. October. ISNB 9780674061552. $29.95.
Seeing the Civil War as a legal conflict, as much as a military, political, and social one, McGinty uses Lincoln's 1861 suspension of habeus corpus as his filter.
Mark E. Neely, Jr. Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War. Univ. of North Carolina. November. ISBN 9780807835180. $35.00.
A Pulitzer Prize winning historian explains how the Constitution was one of the victors in the Civil War.
Sean McMeekin. The Russian Origins of the First World War. Belknap: Harvard Univ. November. ISBN 9780674062108. $29.95.
Distinct in its approach to World War I history from the Eastern, rather than Western European, perspective.
David Stevenson. With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918. Belknap: Harvard Univ. September. ISBN 9780674062269. $35.00
History: The Holocaust and World War II
Rebecca Boehling & Uta Larkey. Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust: A Jewish Family's Untold Story. Cambridge Univ. ISBN 9780521899918. $29.99.
A recently discovered archive of letters and diaries (bulk 1933-48) of the Kaufmann-Steinberg family shows its members' wrenching decisions and actions before, during and after World War II.
Stephen G. Fritz. Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East. Univ. Press of Kentucky. October. ISBN 9780813134161. $39.95.
Albert Jærn. And Then Came the Liberators. Borderland: Univ. of Wisconsin. illus. by the author. trans. fr. Norwegian by Solveig Schavland. ed. by Richard Quinney. ISBN 9780981562070. $30.00.
A journal, with woodcuts, created by Jaern during the Nazi occupation of Norway. This is the first English translation of the 1945 Norwegian edition. All the more fascinating in light of the graphic novel format today.
John Nelson Rickard. Advance and Destroy: Patton as Commander in the Bulge. Univ. Press of Kentucky. October. ISBN 9780813134550. $34.95.
H. Lee Barnes. When We Walked Above the Clouds: A Memoir of Vietnam. Univ. of Nebraska. September. ISBN 9780803234482. $29.95.
Barnes served as a Green Beret at A-107, Tra Bong, Vietnam. His memoir reminds readers of the tedium and the wearing down of the spirit in the midst of carrying the weight of war on one's shoulders.
Thomas P. McKenna. Kontum: The Battle To Save South Vietnam. Univ. Press of Kentucky. September. ISBN 9780813133980. $34.95.
Windy City Queer: LGBTQ Dispatches from the Third Coast. Univ. of Wisconsin. ed. by Kathie Bergquist. ISBN 9780299284046. pap. $24.95.
An anthology of queer Chicago's contributions to LGBTQ literature, including pieces by Edmund White, Carol Anshaw, and David Trinidad.
Harold Bloom. The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible. Yale Univ. September. ISBN 9780300166835. $28.00.
The great literary critic shows readers the glories of the King James Version of the Bible, urging us to read and comprehend it as magnificent literature.
Samuel Becket. The Letters of Samuel Becket. Vol. 2: 1941-56. Cambridge Univ. October. ed. by George Craig & others. ISBN 9780521867948. $50.00.
Here are Becket's letters during the fruitful period when he wrote Molloy, Malone Dies, and Waiting for Godot. Letters he wrote in French are presented both in the original and in translation. When readers see that Becket often signed off as "Sam," they'll feel closer to this elusive genius.
Amy L. Blair. Reading Up: Middle-Class Readers and the Culture of Success in the Early Twentieth-Century United States. Temple Univ. November. ISBN 9781439906675. $76.50. pap. 9781439906682. $28.95.
Applying 21st-century critical approaches to the phenomenon of "reading up," in part by studying Hamilton Wright Mabie's influence as book columnist for the Ladies' Home Journal before World War I, Blair notes that readers could be led to certain literary works, but their interpretations remained their own.
Martin T. Buinicki. Walt Whitman's Reconstruction: Poetry and Publishing between Memory and History. Univ. of Iowa. January 2012. (The Iowa Whitman Series). ISBN 9781609380694. pap. $25.95.
After years as a nurse and clerk during the Civil War, Whitman undertook his own reconstruction, lasting until his death in 1892. Buinicki shows the evolution of Whitman's poetry, prose, and politics over the latter half of the century. Blurbed as "blessedly jargon-free," this is for all of us eternally fascinated by "the good gray poet" who was so much more.
Michael Dirda. On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling. Princeton Univ. November. ISBN 9780691151359. $19.95.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic introduces readers to the Conan Doyle beyond Holmes. Awarded investiture into the Baker Street Irregulars, Dirda lets us in on the work of that famous group.
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist. Belknap: Harvard. October. ISBN 9780674050037. $29.95.
Dickensians can never get enough of their man. Now Douglas-Fairhurst reminds us that the ambitious London journalist might never have become a novelist—but when he did, both he and the novel form were changed forever. 2012 will mark the bicentennial of Dickens's birth. (For those who'll take that over the bicentennial of the War of 1812, look out also for a major new Dickens biography, not within the purview of this list!)
Jonathan R. Eller. Becoming Ray Bradbury. Univ. of Illinois. September. ISBN 9780252036293. $34.95.
Bradbury scholar Eller had access to his subject's papers as he explores the early influences upon Bradbury, and how he became the writer we know and love.
Denise Gigante. The Keats Brothers: The Life of John and George. Belknap: Harvard Univ. October. ISBN 9780674048560. $35.00.
A revisionist study that redefines "scoundrel" George Keats, two years younger than John, but destined to live 20 years longer, as a man closely bonded to his brother, and intent upon supporting him. Gigante's approach includes new analysis of John Keats's poems.
Ernest Hemingway. The Letters of Ernest Hemingway; Vol. 1, 1907–1922. Cambridge Univ. October. (The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway). ed. by Sandra Spanier & Robert W. Trogdon. ISBN 9780521897334. $40.00.
The first volume in the authorized full edition of Hemingway's letters arrives 50 years after his death. Although Hemingway letters have been published before, there are indeed newly available ones here. This volume takes Hemingway up to his arrival in Paris.
Simon Goldhill. Freud's Couch, Scott's Buttocks, Brontë's Grave. Univ. of Chicago. (Culture Trails: Adventures in Travel). September. ISBN 9780226301310. $22.50.
Are you a literary tourist? Goldhill amusingly travels to sites in the UK, using Victorian conveyances when possible, and ponders the abiding power of such sites both to the famous occupants and to us now.
Patricia Meyer Spacks. On Rereading. Belknap: Harvard Univ. November. ISBN 9780674062221. $26.95.
Spacks asks why children love to have the same story read and re-read to them, and why as adults many of us continue to go back to favorite books, not caring that we already know the plot. What is the pleasure, what the need, while so much else remains unread?
Margot Peters. Lorine Niedecker: A Poet's Life. Univ. of Wisconsin. October. ISBN 9780299285005. $34.95.
Described at her death in 1970 as "the most interesting woman poet America has yet produced," Niedecker at last gets her deserved attention, and from a gifted biographer.
Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance. Univ. of Illinois. November. ed. by Steven C. Tracy. ISBN 9780252036392. $50.00.
Contributors enlarge our understanding of the "post-Harlem" years of cultural abundance in Chicago's "Black Belt" from the 1930s through the 1960s, including literature, art, music, theater, and periodical work.
Medieval, Reformation, and Renaissance Studies
Brad S. Gregory. The Unitended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. Belknap: Harvard Univ. January 2012. ISBN 9780674045637. $39.95.
A fascinating approach, pointing out the secular outcomes of breaking away from the Catholic Church—not necessarily what Luther, et. al., had in mind.
Mark A. Peterson. Galileo's Muse: Renaissance Mathematics and the Arts. Harvard Univ. October. ISBN 9780674059726. $28.95.
Near as I can tell, the muse in question is mathametics—but it's more complicated than that: Renaissance artists were crucial to the process.
Clark Terry with Gwen Terry. Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry. Univ. of California. October. ISBN 9780520268463. $34.95.
Jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer, and educator Terry is now 90 years old. This is his story and, in the process, the story of jazz and jazz greats.
Marty Godbey. Crowe on the Banjo: The Music Life of J.D. Crowe. Univ. of Illinois. (Music in American Life). September. ISBN 9780252078255. pap. $19.95.
A bluegrass pioneer gets his first biography.
Annette C. Baier. The Pursuits of Philosophy: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of David Hume. Harvard Univ. October. ISBN 9780674061682. $24.95.
For Hume's 300th birthday, this small and handsome volume reminds us of his import.
Stephen Nadler. A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age. Princeton Univ. November. ISBN. 9780691139890. $29.95.
Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise, was published in 1670 and here is its biography, not simply illuminating its enormous influence upon such men as Jefferson and Paine, but noting its effect upon the secular and democratic world to this day.
A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Univ. Press of Kentucky. September. ed. by Alan M. Levine & Daniel S. Malachuk. ISBN 9780813134321. $40.
Elizabeth Foley. The Tea Party: Three Principles. Cambridge Univ. February 2012. ISBN 9781107011359. $27.99.
The author defines herself as a "recovering liberal"; depending on your response to that phrase, this book may or may not be your cup of tea. Either way, the three principles will not surprise, but the author's academic and legal credentials lend reason to the primer.
Liu Xiaobo. No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems. Belknap: Harvard Univ. November. Foreword by Vaclav Havel. ISBN 978067406147. $29.95.
A collection of two decades of writings by the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, including his statement at his 2009 trial on charges of inciting to subvert state power, quoted in the title.
Michael Barone & Chuck McCutcheon. The Almanac of American Politics 2012. Univ. of Chicago. September. ISBN 9780226038070. $110.00. pap. ISBN 9780226038087. $85.00.
Kirsten Down & Thomas E. Downing. The Atlas of Climate Change: Mapping the World's Greatest Challenge. Third Edition. Univ. of California. January 2012. ISBN 9780520268234. pap. $21.95.
Fully updated to reflect the latest research and impacts of this global phenomenon. With color illustrations, maps, and some black-and-white photographs.
John Haywood. The New Atlas of World History: Global Events at a Glance. Princeton Univ. November. ISBN 9780691152691. $49.50.
With 350 color illustrations and over 50 full-color maps, designed for easy comprehension and comparisons, both regionally and chronologically.
In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers. Cornell Univ. November. ed. by Martha White. ISBN 9780801449550. $22.95.
In the Words of Frederick Douglass: Quotations from Liberty's Champion. Cornell Univ. January 2012. ed. by John R. McKivigan & Heather L. Kaufman. ISBN 9780801447907. $22.95.
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Vol. 18: Media. ed. by Allison Graham & Sharon Monteith. September. ISBN 9780807834015. $47.50. pap. ISBN 9780807871430. $26.95. Vol. 19: Violence. ed. by Amy Louise Wood. November. ISBN 9780807835227.$45.00. pap. ISBN 9780807872161. $24.95. Both: Univ. of North Carolina in assoc. with the Ctr. for the Study of Southern Culture, Univ. of Mississippi.
The latest volumes in this multi-year, multi-dimensional, and unprecedented series.
Robert N. Bellah. Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Belknap: Harvard Univ. September. ISBN 9780674061439. $39.95.
Carl W. Ernst. How To Read the Qur'an: A New Guide, with Select Translations. Univ. of North Carolina. December. ISBN 9780807835166. $30.00
A compact introduction and readers' guide for both Muslims and non-Muslims, reflecting the latest scholarship.
Randall J. Stephens & Karl W. Giberson. The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age. Belknap: Harvard Univ. October. ISBN 9780674048188. $29.95.
The authors are evangelicals, a historian and a physics professor, who here take a stand against false prophets within the evangelical movement, men who isolate it from scientific understanding and intellectual engagement.
Hugh B. Urban. The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion. Princeton Univ. September. ISBN 9780691146089. $27.95.
Telling the story of L. Ron Hubbard's church from 1950s America to today, Urban, who teaches religious studies, places the religion in the context of America's evolving character over the last 50-plus years, and asks how we have, and should have, defined religion. (Janet Reitman's Inside Scientology comes out from Houghton Harcourt in July.)
Science/Mathemetics/Anthropology
Robert Asher. Evolution and Belief: Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist. Cambridge Univ. February 2012. ISBN 9780521193832. $90.00. pap. ISBN 9780521180535. $26.99.
Don't confuse Darwin with God, says Asher. Darwin defined how evolution occurred, not the powers behind it. There is no conflict in believing in Darwin and God.
Guy Consolmagno & Dan M. Davis. Turn Left at Orion: Hundreds of Night Sky Objects To See in a Home Telescope—and How To Find Them. 4th edition. Cambridge Univ. September. ISBN 9780521153973. $28.99.
New to this edition of a book that has sold over 100,000 copies is its spiral binding, making it a handier take along, as well as further assistance, showing objects as seen through the kind of telescope amateurs may have. With updated tables and improved directions.
Dean Falk. The Fossil Chronicles: How Two Controversial Discoveries Changed Our View of Human Evolution. Univ. of California. November. ISBN 9780520266704. $34.95.
When I majored in biological anthropology, no one ever described the 1924 discovery of the "Taung child" as "controversial." See what another 30 years can do to a two-million year old fossil? The other controversy here is the Hobbit woman. The controversy should be over her nickname. All avid fossil buffs and specialists will want to read this.
Thomas Hockey. How We See the Sky: A Naked-Eye Tour of Day and Night. Univ. of Chicago. October. ISBN 9780226345765. $60.00. pap. ISBN 9780226345772. $20.00.
Unlike Consolmagno and Davis, above, the only special equipment required here is your eyesight. Hockey introduces you to today's language of astronomy and the essentials about our celestial globe as we encounter it every day-and night.
John MacCormick. Nine Algorithms That Changed The Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers. Princeton Univ. February 2012. ISBN 9780691147147. $27.95.
The publisher claims this is written "in language anyone can understand." But I wasn't in the focus group.
Andrew Shryock & Daniel Lord Smail & others. Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present. Univ. of California. November. ISBN 9780520270282. $29.95.
An anthropologist and a historian, with a team of other specialists, present a new approach that crosses the humanities and the sciences to understand history from the eras before the invention of writing.
Rik Smits. The Puzzle of Lefthandedness. Univ. of Chicago. September. ISBN 9781861898739. $35.00.
Paul McCartney, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, several LJ editors, my twin brother. Why not me?
Ian Bogost. How To Do Things with Videogames. Univ. of Minnesota. September. ISBN 9780816676460. $57.00. pap. ISBN 9780816676477. $18.95.
No, they're not just for slackers. Bogost shows the import and influence of computer gaming, and its increasing potential for positive impacts upon many parts of our lives.
Roderic Ai Camp. Mexico: What Everyone Needs To Know. Oxford Univ. September. ISBN 9780199773879. pap. $16.95.
An essential guide to a fellow North American country we all must know and understand better.
Julia A. Ericksen. Dance With Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy. New York Univ. November. ISBN 9780814722664. $27.95.
The author, both a professor of sociology and a competitive ballroom dancer takes readers inside the hyper-competitive world she knows so well, exploring the attractions of "safe" eroticism and examining ballroom dancing's approach to gender roles. DWTS fans may want to give this a look!
Alice Fahs. Out on Assignment: Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space. Univ. of North Carolina. November. ISBN 9780807834961. $37.50.
A century ago, there was a rich network of women journalists among the country's abundant newspapers. They forged new identities both for themselves and for the print culture they created. They have long deserved this exploration. I'm hoping the academic jargon is at a minimum.
Daniel S. Hamermesh. Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful. Princeton Univ. September. ISBN 9780691140469. $24.95.
An economics professor takes a statistical approach (natch) to confirm and explain what we already knew from non-scientific observation: that more attractive men and women (I wonder how he defines "attractive") are paid better, get more favorable loans, promotions, and rack up lots of benefits that the less attractive miss.
Donna Hicks. Dignity: The Essential Role it Plays in Resolving Conflict in Our Lives and Relationships. Yale Univ. September. ISBN 9780300163926. $27.50.
With a foreword by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
Katherine L. Lehman. Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture. Univ. Press of Kansas. September. ISBN 9780700618088. $29.95.
The single girl on TV didn't, of course, start with Carrie Bradshaw. Here we're reminded of That Girl herself (remember her first name?), The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Police Woman, and others, in movies and other media as well. Do we understand what we learned from these women?
Catherine C. Robbins. All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos). Univ. of Nebraska. October. ISBN 9780803239739. $26.95.
Journalist Robbins, through interviews and up-to-date historical context, reminds readers of the complexity of Native American life in contemporary America.
The Social Media Reader. New York Univ. March 2012. ed. by Michael Mandiberg. ISBN 9780814764053. $75.00
This promises to be a pioneering collection of pieces that document, analyze, explore, and exemplify today's Internet culture in all its guises. Much anticipated.
Peter Lorge. Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge Univ. January 2012. ISBN 9780521878814. $29.00.
This is the book for those who want to see the roots of Chinese Martial Arts, extending way back before Bruce Lee! The size of early Chinese armies meant that more Chinese knew martial arts than could read. Lorge shows the practice's relation not just to the military, but to religion, medicine, and gender roles.
John Schulian. Sometimes They Even Shook Your Hand: Portraits of Champions Who Walked among Us. Bison: Univ. of Nebraska. ISBN 9780803237766. pap. $19.95.
A collection of veteran sportswriter Schulian's portraits of great sports stars, from Willie Mays to Muhammad Ali to Joe Montana and Pete Maravich-back when a sportswriter could get close to the big athletes and meet them as human beings.
Jane Austen. Persuasion. An Annotated Edition. ed. by Robert Morrison. Belknap: Harvard Univ. November. ISBN 9780674049741. $35.00
This will be a handsome volume, with Morrison's annotations running alongside Austen's text. And like Harvard's previous annotated Austen, Pride and Prejudice, it will be replete with color illustrations. An annotated edition of Persuasion is also coming this October from Anchor:Random House, a paperback for $16.95, withannotations by David M. Shapard. He is a historian, rather than a literary scholar, so these editions will complement each other, with Harvard's the more impressive physical presentation.
William F. Cody. The Life of Honorable William F. Cody, Known as Buffalo Bill. Bison: Univ. of Nebraska. October. ed. by Frank Christianson. Leather edition ISBN 9780803236196. $75.00. pap. ISBN 9780803232914. $27.95.
Buffalo Bill (1846-1916) originally published his autobiography in 1879—when he was 33. Morrison adds images and historical sources on Cody, whom we've all heard of, but know little about.
Homer. The Iliad. Oxford Univ. October. trans. by Anthony Verity. ISBN 9780199235483. $29.95.
A new translation that hews to the verse format of the orally transmitted poem and its conventions of repeated phrases and descriptions, with close reference to the original line numbers. It reads with robustness and unvarnished eloquence.
Homer. The Iliad of Homer. Univ. of Chicago. September. trans. by Richmond Lattimore. Newly updated with an introduction and notes by Richard Martin. ISBN 9780226470481. $35.00. pap. ISBN 9780226470498. $15.00.
Richmond Lattimore's translation—the one Gregory Nagy assigned us non-Classicists at Harvard—is moving and handsomely lyrical, here simply amended with a capacious introduction and notes by Martin. I'd be hard-pressed to spurn it for another translation!
| Author Information |
| Margaret Heilbrun is Senior Editor, LJ Book Review |
