June Publications
Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest, an anthology edited by Lauren Berlant (The Anatomy of National Fantasy), English professor and director of the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago, and Lisa Duggan (Sapphic Slashers), associate professor of American Studies and History at New York University, "seeks a medium-range perspective—offering reflective, after-the-fact assessments by politically progressive journalists, scholars, and activists." A dialogue between academics Tyler Curtain and Dana D. Nelson on "The Symbolics of Presidentialism," Simone Weil Davis's essay on a pornographic satire of presidential philandering and Catharine Lumby's exploration of "the relationship between the phallus and the organ it represents" exemplify some of this rigorous cultural criticism of intersections between politics and sensationalism. (New York Univ., $55 340p ISBN 0-8147-9865-9; paper $18.95 -9864-0) Short stories, essays and poetry from "parts of the world where the Internet was not yet so strongly entrenched but where the human imagination most assuredly was" fill The Best of Gowanus: Writing from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, edited by Thomas J. Hubschman, who started the e-zine Gowanus in 1997. Norma Kitson of South Africa writes of being pressed into revealing to a cocktail party of white Zimbabweans that her husband was a member of the military branch of the African National Congress. Ly Lan contributes a short story about the somnambulistic, post-traumatic experience of an African-American man in Vietnam. And Abbas Zaidi shares an essay on "Ethnic Cleansing of the Kafirs in Pakistan." (Gowanus [www.gowanusbooks.com], $17.95 paper 252p ISBN 0-9669877-2-1)
"Prophecies about the return of the Jews to the Holy Land... classified the Witnesses in Nazi eyes as Zionists," writes Michael Berenbaum, president of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, in his introduction to The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nazis: Persecution, Deportation, and Murder, 1933—1945 by Michel Reynaud, founder of the publishing house Editions Tiresias, and deportation scholar Sylvie Graffard, trans. from the French by James A. Moorehouse. Approximately 5,000 Witnesses were "voluntary prisoners" in concentration camps—they could leave if they renounced their religion; most refused freedom. Many continued practicing their religion within the camps; one woman still free baked biblical passages into cookies to smuggle into Dachau. The previously untold history receives scholarly, sensitive treatment in this important addition to Holocaust studies. Photos. (Cooper Square [National Book Network, dist.], $27.95 302p ISBN 0-8154-1076-X)Milosevic and Markovic: A Lust for Power , a very timely biography of the despotic duo, comes from Yugoslavian journalist Slavoljub Djukic (He, She, and Us); who for 12 years, since leaving the Serbian press, he has studied the "second-rate politician"—turned—potentate. Djukic follows Milosevic from his childhood and adolescence through his toeing-the-line early administrative career and immediate co-dependence with Mirjana Markovic, his ascendance up the Communist Party ladder, his dictatorship and a milestone of his fall, October 7, 2000 (the 1999 Serbian edition has been updated for the English). Peppered with damning testimonies of both, this impassioned, well-wrought portrait deftly evinces Yugoslav outrage and bereavement. Trans. by Alex Dubinsky. (McGill-Queen's Univ. [CUP Services, dist.], $37.95 186p ISBN 0-7735-2216-6) Poets and scholars will delight in Intimate with Walt: Selections from Whitman's Conversations with Horace Traubel, 1888—1892, culled by Gary Schmidgall from 5,000 pages of Whitman verbosity (the first volume was published in 1906). Traubel, Whitman's trusty assistant late in his life, saw fit to transcribe much of what his esteemed and maligned boss said. On his accomplishments, Whitman is quoted as saying, "Have I done it? Have I fulfilled my ambition? God knows. Here I am about stepping out with the case still undecided." Dividing these selections into categories like "Views of America," "About Leaves of Grass," "Walt and His Boys" and "Peeves," Schmidgall has compiled an invaluable resource. Four b&w photos. (Univ. of Iowa, $49.95 432p ISBN 0-87745-766-2; paper $22.95 -7670) Who knew that Broadway was originally an Indian trail that ran north from the southern tip of Manhattan? In Naming New York: Manhattan Places & How They Got Their Names, Sanna Feirstein, a docent at the New-York Historical Society, draws on an impressive array of sources to produce a lively, informative reference to the people and histories behind Manhattan's varied streets. Though indexed and organized by neighborhood, the book lacks detailed maps. Illus. (New York Univ., $16.95 paper 208p ISBN 0-8147-2712-3) For connoisseurs of quirky, amusing British autobiographies, there's Playing for Time by Jeremy Lewis (Cyril Connolly: A Life). First published in Britain in 1987, this memoir covers the Bertie Woosterish author's adventures at school and Dublin's Trinity College, as well as his bumbling efforts at travel abroad (Greece, Central America) and finding a job. (Akadine [Trafalgar, dist.], $18.95 paper 245p ISBN 1-58579-013-3)
May Publications
In Conquistadors, journalist and filmmaker Michael Wood (In Search of the Trojan War) travels the routes of the Spanish explorers and conquerors (and often by the same means, including a homemade balsa raft on Coca River rapids) the length and breadth of South and Central America and some of North America as well. With photos, maps and illustrations adorning nearly every page, the book examines records of the conquests both by the invaders and the native peoples. A 1613 letter from Peruvian historian Waman Poma to the king of Spain appealing for humane treatment of Indians, Gonzalo Pizarro's catalogue of the infamous El Dorado misadventures, Cabeza de Vaca's account of crossing North America and Geronimo de Aguilar's diary of the Night of Tears (when Aztecs fought back and killed 600 Spaniards) are among the numerous firsthand accounts Wood presents. (Univ. of California, $27.50 288p ISBN 0-520-23064-7)
William Turner (Hoover's FBI), a journalist and former FBI agent who has devoted his attention to U.S. domestic intelligence affairs for 50 years, revisits his biggest stories in Rearview Mirror: Looking Back at the FBI, the CIA and Other Tails, with a foreword by Oliver Stone. After 10 years in "the dark alleys of the intelligence agency underworld," says Turner, "I decided to decamp... on my own terms, petitioning for a congressional probe of Hoover's administration." Afterwards he became a senior editor at Ramparts magazine. His accounts of "The Untimely Death of RFK," "The Stealth War Against Cuba," "The FBI Propaganda Machine" and more obscure events are as riveting now as decades ago. Lush, sometimes sensational conspiracy theories abound in this compelling collection. B&w photos not seen by PW. (Penmarin [Midpoint, dist.], $24.95 340p ISBN 1-883955-21-1) In an age when many households are veritable kinder-doms, and teenagers have become a major market force, many parents feel confused by the sturm, drang und hyperactive telephone use of their teenagers. Here to help fathers stay afloat during their daughters' adolescence is humor columnist W. Bruce Cameron with 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, and Other Tips from a Beleaguered Father (Not That Any of Them Work). In a chapter called "It's Her Party and I'll Cry if I Want To," he explains that teen parties are unnecessary because "[y]our daughters do not need to be made any more excited than they already are. They do not need to meet or dance with boy particles." If nothing else, the book will prove a welcome distraction. (Workman, $18.95 324p ISBN 0-7611-2314-8) In Walking on the Land, a third chronicle of the embattled, exiled Ihalmiut people of the Arctic, Farley Mowat (Never Cry Wolf) aims "to help ensure that man's inhumane acts are not expunged from memory, thereby easing the way for repetitions of such horrors." After reading Mowat's The Desperate People, an Ihalmiut woman raised after the 1957 removal of her people from their home sought him out for further information, resulting in this account of the Ihalmiut's tragic plight. His earlier reports of Ihalmiut culture and the "unwitting genocide" waged on them by government, commerce and missionaries were received with accusations of falsity, denials that the Ihalmiut existed or dismissive silence. Mowat's typically lively, sensitive, plainspoken book traces responsible and victimized parties through devastating misunderstanding and mistreatment. (Steerforth, $14 paper 208p ISBN 1-58642-024-0)
Over 12 years, Terry Osborne came to terms with his depression while exploring the valley behind his house in Vermont. Osborne, who teaches English and environmental studies at Dartmouth College, compares the psychological landscape to forests and wild animals in Sightlines: The View of a Valley Through the Voice of Depression. "Our deepest interior is probably as unpolished and wild as the land's." Though we come to know the valley far better than we do Osborne, his marvelous description of finding peace in nature's "fluidity" brings a peaceful close to his account. (Univ. Press of New England/Middlebury College, $26 272p ISBN 1-58465-083-4)
Local legend says that Boston's winding streets were the result of errant cows. But the reality—the city was patterned on a medieval village—is equally fascinating. In The Hub: Boston Past and Present by Thomas H. O'Connor (Building a New Boston), the Boston College emeritus professor of history and noted local historian synthesizes standard references on the city's development, from its 1630 founding through the 1960s desegregation battles and today's redevelopment. His comprehensive narrative is shorter on sociohistorical context than on economic analysis of such civic efforts as the Big Dig, the current construction of new bridges, tunnels and park, running a billion dollars over budget. (Northeastern Univ., $24.95 308p ISBN 1-55553-474-0) No one will remain unmoved by psychotherapist Martha Wakenshaw's This Child of Mine: A Therapist's Journey, an account of extremely disadvantaged children who have been failed by their parents, the child welfare system or both. In careful, heartrending descriptions, Wakenshaw recounts scenarios like a possibly schizophrenic four-year-old's endless play enactments of saving children in distress, and indicts Washington State's welfare system for simplistic treatment of abuse cases. Despite some passages about her own recovery from childhood traumas that are tinged with self-indulgence, social workers will find this sad, at times lovely book full of insight. (Harbinger, $12.95 paper 208p ISBN 0-9674736-0-8) Ranging from snapshots of pre-Holocaust life to survival in disguise and portraits of "the virtuous and the vicious," 92 vignettes by Holocaust survivors who participated in writing workshops at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh are gathered in Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood During the Holocaust, edited by Anita Brostoff, a retired Carnegie-Mellon University professor, with Sheila Chamovitz, a filmmaker. In "The Last Hiding Place," Libby Stern recounts watching from her home as German troops surrendered to the Russian Army. Hermine Markovitz tells of being saved by nuns in "The Convent in Marseille." A final section collects stories by American liberators. (Oxford, $27.50 384p ISBN 0-19-513871-6) In a "modest attempt to bridge the chasm between science and philosophy," Roy J. Mathew, a Syrian Christian from southern India and a professor of psychiatry and associate professor of radiology at Duke University, presents The True Path: Western Science and the Quest for Yoga. Mathew, the clinical director of the Duke Addictions Program, recounts stories involving death or drug addiction and recovery, and transformative spiritual experience, known in India as yoga. He draws on his extensive neuroscience research to explore such matters as "[w]hether a meditative trance is neurally mediated." This balanced, readable take on the neuroscientific underpinnings of spirituality will appeal to scientists, philosophers, religious folk, addicts and addiction workers of every stripe. Illus. (Perseus, $25 296p ISBN 0-7382-0458-7)
