Basic Books
The cigarette century; the rise, fall and deadly persistence of the product that defined America.
This work by Brandt (history of medicine, Harvard Medical School) is a cultural, scientific, political, and legal history of the American cigarette industry in the 20th century. Treating each of these aspects in relative isolation, Brandt describes the corporate campaigns to build the cigarette market, the growing scientific understanding of the links between tobacco and cancer, and political and legal battles over cigarette marketing and the harms to public health caused by cigarettes. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Into the minds of babes; how screen time affects children from birth to age five.
Guernsey spent ten years reporting on education and technology for the New York Times before the birth of her two children inspired her to research the effects of media on its youngest consumers. To find answers to questions about the positive effects of educational videos and the potential negative effects of screen time in general, she visited infant-perception labs and child development centers, interviewed parents, cognitive scientists, and media researchers, and talked with programming executives at Disney, Nickelodeon, and Sesame Workshop. Much of what she found flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Parents, teachers, and psychologists will be relieved to learn positive approaches to using videos with young children and tips for balancing screen time with creative play and family bonding. Appendices list Web sites that review children's movies and interactive media, and compile resources on the use of electronic media with children who have special needs. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Original knickerbocker; the life of Washington Irving.
In this day he would be a powerhouse multi-tasker; in his own he was merely an accomplished man of letters who thrived when his nation was still fairly raw. Irving is now best known as the author of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle," both of which are considered children's fare but in fact contain biting social commentary, and we forget he wrote significant and influential biographies and travelogues. He was also the US ambassador to Spain and was admired by Longfellow, Hawthorne, Poe and Henry James, not only because he was the first American to make a living at writing. Burstein (history, U. of Tulsa) gives a reason for America to put Irving back into eminence on every page, and places him within an incredibly rich political and historical context, which bridged the gap between Jefferson and Dickens. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The silence of the rational center; why American foreign policy is failing.
Halper (senior fellow, Centre of International Studies, Cambridge U., UK) and Clarke (senior fellow, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs) argue that foreign policy debates in the American public sphere are unusually susceptible to what they call Big Ideas, such as "Manifest Destiny," the "Domino Theory," and "Axis of Evil" that are amplified in the 24-7 media landscape and serve to obscure and silence the reservations of the "rational center," which includes career professionals, scholars, and analysts working in government, think tanks, and academia, as well as political activists and journalists with experience on the ground. This problem exists even in calm periods but is exacerbated in times of crisis, as they aim to demonstrate in historical discussion of the Spanish American War, the Vietnam War, and other crises. Their main focus is on current US foreign policy, which has been led astray by the silence of the rational center, and they call for these figures to reassert themselves in the public square. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The Tao of deception; unorthodox warfare in historic and modern China.
Since being articulated by Sun-tzu in The Art of War, the concept of ch'i or the "unorthodox" has been a foundational idea in Chinese military thinking and it remains a core element of contemporary Chinese military theory. In this volume, Sawyer (Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, U. of Calgary, Canada) collects and translates Chinese language sources concerned with ch'i from the Chinese theoretical military corpus. The materials include accounts of historical battles deemed illustrative of the "unorthodox," followed by more theoretical discussions of the strategic nature of ch'i. Throughout, Sawyer provides accompanying contextual and analytical commentary. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
