Librarian Review
The Cambridge History of Latin America is an eleven-volume collection of high-level essays on a wide range of subjects from the early 16th century through mid-1990’s. In addition to essays in individual volumes, volume eleven contains extensive bibliographic essays on individual countries as well as politics and international relations, economics, religion, literature and intellectual life, science and so on.

It has earned exceptional reviews in International Affairs, Hispanic American Historical Review, Journal of Latin American Studies, Journal of Economic History, American Historical Review, Church History, and Library Journal, to name a few.

Leslie Bethell, Director of the Centre for Brazilian Studies (University of Oxford) and Emeritus Professor of Latin American History at the University of London, is general editor. Fédéric Mauro, John Murra, J.H. Elliot are perhaps the best-known of its highly regarded contributors.

Its essays are original scholarly treatments, many dealing with subjects not treated in previous general histories of Latin America. Others address more or less familiar subjects in new ways. ~Bret Heim

From the dust Jacket:
"No other work offers as broad an account of Einstein's views on the relationship between science and religion or brings together all of the facets of the topic in one short, easily accessible account. 'Einstein and Religion' also offers a badly needed critique of some of the many misinterpretations and misuses of Einstein's views. Professor Jammer is a noted scholar, science historian, and philosopher with the credentials to write authoritatively on this subject." --David Cassidy--

From the Dust Jacket:

"Drawing on autobiographies, literary works, ethnographic accounts, and life-history interviews, The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology offers the first comprehensive summary of psychological writings on the region, reviewing works by psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists that have been written in English, Arabic, and French. Rejecting stereotypical descriptions of the "Arab mind" or "Muslim mentality," Gary Gregg adopts a life-span-development framework, examining influences on development in infancy, early childhood, late childhood, and adolescence, as well as on identity formation in early and mature adulthood. He views patterns of development in the context of recent work in cultural psychology, and compares Middle Eastern patterns less with Western middle-class norms than with those described for the region's neighbors: Hindu India, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Mediterranean shore of Europe. The research presented in this volume suggests that the region's strife stems much less from a stubborn adherence to tradition and resistance to modernity than from widespread frustration with broken promises of modernization - with the slow and halting pace of economic progress and democratization." "The Middle East provides students, researchers, policy makers, and all those interested in the culture and psychology of the region with invaluable insight into the lives, families, and social relationships of Middle Easterners as they struggle to reconcile the lure of Westernized lifestyles with traditional values."
All Rights Reserved (Blackwell)

From the cover:

Covering both the center and the margins of American religious life, this volume devotes extended attention to how issues of politics, race, gender, and sexuality have influenced the religious mainstream. . .The documents are grouped by theme . . .and arranged chronologically therein. Each chapter features an extensive introduction providing context for and analysis of the critical issues raised by the primary sources.

From Publishers Weekly:
Scholars Harvey and Goff bring together a rich collection of primary sources that tell the story of religion in post–World War II America. Here, we find many cultural themes rendered fresh and revealing by firsthand accounts: second-wave feminism's intersection with theology is captured by Judith Plaskow's 1983 reflection "The Right Question Is Theological," for example, and freedom songs like "We Shall Overcome" take readers to the front lines of the Civil Rights movement. Perhaps most important is the chapter that focuses on the way new immigrant communities have reshaped the American religious landscape—here is D. T. Suzuki explaining Zen in 1959, Muslim writers on human rights and women's rights in American Islam and Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor reflecting on what Christians could learn from Hindus. The editors' introductions and the few secondary sources included, such as an excerpt from Harvey Cox's study of Pentecostalism, usefully contextualize the primary sources.
Copyright © 2005 Reed Business Information.

From Library Journal [April 1, 2005]
With a goal to help explain how democracy, free enterprise, and religious faith are intertwined, Harvey (history, Univ. of Colorado) and Goff (religious studies, Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ.) follow up their previous collaboration, Themes in Religion and American Culture, with this documentary history of American religious life from 1945 to the millennium. A collection of nearly 100 primary documents organized according to broad conceptual categories-among them, manifestos, speeches, articles, Supreme Court decisions, pastoral letters, song lyrics, and poems-the book illuminates the changing nature of religious practices and beliefs in the latter half of the 20th century and showcases the multiplicity of American culture. Covering everything from Jerry Falwell to "Goths for Jesus," the book is centered on the belief that a variety of social trends that seemed disconnected emerge on parallel paths for unity in American religions. In "Hindu-Americans: An Emerging Identity in an Increasingly Hyphenated World," for example, Aditi Banerjee says, "I have reinterpreted my religion to adapt to the society and lifestyle I have adopted as my own."
Copyright © 2005 Reed Business Information

Kozol's Bio from Wikopedia
Jonathan Kozol (born 1936 in Boston, Massachusetts ) is a non-fiction writer, educator, and activist, best known for his books on public education in the United States . In the passion of the civil rights campaigns of 1964 and 1965, Kozol moved from Harvard Square to a poor black neighborhood of Boston ( Roxbury, Massachusetts ) and became a fourth grade teacher in the Boston Public Schools . It was after he was fired from the Boston Public Schools for reading Langston Hughes poetry to his class that he was thrust into the limelight and became a more prominent figure on the Boston civil rights scene. After being fired from BPS he was offered a job to teach for Newton Public Schools, the school district that he had attended as a child, and did so for several years before becoming more deeply involved in social justice work and dedicating more time to writing.

Other Works by Jonathan Kozol
Death at an Early Age | Free Schools | The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home | Children of the Revolution | On Being a Teacher | Illiterate America | Rachel and Her Children | Savage Inequalities | Amazing Grace | Ordinary Resurrections

Beautifully illustrated and wonderfully written, the perfect holiday break reading for anyone interested in literature or history.

From the cover:
:"Ackroyd brings to his biographical reading the imaginative insights of a gifted poet and novelist, along with the passions of a scholar. . Vivid and capacious, a life study worthy of its subject."
. . . . Bryce Christensen. Booklist

From the New York Times:
Ackroyd, though not a professional Shakespeare scholar, is a novelist, poet, critic and, above all, prolific biographer, with books on Chaucer, Thomas More, Blake, Dickens, Pound and T. S. Eliot, some of whom he aptly brings in here. Comparisons with Dickens, who was, in a way, the Shakespeare of the novel, are particularly suggestive; but Ackroyd, fruitfully, quotes many foreign opinions, old and new, as well. Especially effective is the brevity of his chapters, each dealing with a specific matter, and with a title slyly drawn from Shakespeare's words. That the endnotes are purely bibliographical, and everything else is right in the text, is also laudable.
. . . .John Simon. The New York Times,October 23, 2005 Sunday, Final edition.

In the world of sports, the question is now cliche: "Who came second?'. In the world of natural history, the answer is A.R. Wallace, co-discoverer of evolution and a the leading scientist in the field of natural history in the 19th century. This is an important biography, well worth the read.

From Library Journal
October 1, 2002

Wallace is nearly unknown today, but he was revered as one of the preeminent naturalists of the Victorian age. Accorded the rank of "co-discoverer" of the theory of natural selection (ranking second only to Charles Darwin), Wallace spent twice as much time as Darwin collecting specimens during ocean voyages and in remote jungles. What he didn't do was devote years formulating his observations into evolutionary theory; instead, he started with the theory of natural selection and then set about finding the data to prove it. It was his initial draft that spurred Darwin to publish, without further delay, his first paper outlining the theory of evolution. This new biography details the distinct differences in their viewpoints of natural selection. Despite Wallace's tremendous intellect and contributions to science, his foray into and support of spiritualism, seances, and phrenology tarnished his credibility and standing. Shermer is founding publisher and editor in chief of Skeptic magazine, the author of several popular science books, and considered an authority on the heretical personality. His expertise in analyzing the life and paradoxical beliefs of this complex man elevate "the last great Victorian" to a position of prominence as one of the significant leaders in modern science. Highly recommended for all academic and larger public library science collections. [See also Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology, reviewed in LJ 8/02. Ed.]Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll. Lib., Kansas City, MO Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

From Kirkus Reviews
July 1, 2002

A scholarly appraisal of the curious life and work of the naturalist who, some insist, was the true father of the theory of evolution. Against them, Shermer, the founder and editor of Skeptic magazine, observes that nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds, and neither does science: "On close examination, most great scientific revolutions are more like gradual evolutions." Thus Wallace (1823-1913), a careful reader of the literature of his day, followed Charles Darwin on a parallel course toward the conclusion that species and environments changed in time and that some force of nature somehow steered that change. Though it shocked Darwin to realize that he'd been beaten to a scientific scoop, he recognized Wallace's great contributions to evolutionary theory, and, as did Wallace, "recognized the gain to be had through cooperative interaction." History, of course, remembers it as Darwin's theory, which was just fine by the self-effacing Wallace and his descendants; in this regard, Shermer quotes one of his subject's grandsons, who wrote, "none of us desire to call it Wallace's theory of natural selection,' but many of the Darwin people seem defensive about it." The author enumerates some of the reasons that Wallace did not attain the same fame as Darwin, one of them being Wallace's later devotion to a kind of spiritualism that attributed the movement of natural selection to an "Overruling Intelligence," a quasi-scientific appeal to the divine that dismayed Darwin and his materialist-minded followers. Along with the basic facts of Wallace's life and thought, Shermer explores the process of creative thought, the politics of science, and the sociology of scholarly communication, all of which should be of much interest to students of science, regardless of how they view Wallace's work. A useful companion to Wallace's-and Darwin's-own writings, and a fine contribution to the history of science.

From Kirkus Reviews
A damningly detailed rundown on the predatory conspirators whose willful violations of securities law and ethical standards gave Wall Street a deservedly bad name during the takeover frenzy of the 1980's. Wall Street Journal editor Stewart (The Partners, The Prosecutors) was a beat reporter for much of the dirty decade. As one result, he has firsthand knowledge of the carriage-trade criminals who made a mockery of free enterprise during one of the century's greatest bull markets.

From Publisher's Weekly:
This is a compelling work of popular science and ecological conjecture, buttressed smartly by an observant cultural, political, agricultural and economic history of 19th-century frontier America.

From Books-in-Print:
'Locust' tells the dramatic story of an extradordinary insect, eloquently recounted by the scientist who solved the mystery of its extinction in America.

From the Publishers page:
Sephardic Jews trace their origins to Spain and Portugal. They enjoyed a renaissance in these lands until their expulsion from Spain in 1492, when they settled in the countries along the Mediterranean, throughout the Ottoman Empire, in the Balkans, and in the lands of North Africa, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, mixing with the Mizrahi, or Oriental, Jews already in these locations. Sephardic Jews have contributed some of the most important Jewish philosophers, poets, biblical commentators, Talmudic and Halachic scholars, and scientists, and have had a significant impact on the development of Jewish mysticism.

From Book News:
Zohar (Florida International U.) and contributors introduce important aspects of the history, culture, and thought of Sephardic Jews (descendants of Jews from Spain and Portugal) and Mizrahi Jews (of Middle Eastern or North African origins). The book is organized along chronological and thematic lines, and scholarly essays address subjects such as the origins of Sephardic Jewry in the Medieval Arab world, Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah in Spain, Judeo- Arabic heritage, Safed Kabbalah and the Sephardic heritage, Jewish women in the Ottoman Empire, and early modern Sephardim and Blacks: contact and conflict between two minorities.

The author of The Way to Rainy Mountain, House Made of Dawn, and The Ancient Child (all available in the library), offers up an exploration of language, which he calls the “context of our experience.” He meditates on the differences between oral traditions and written ones. Read “The Arrowmaker” and you will want to read everything else by this Pulitzer Prize winning author.

Read a review from the Atlanta Constitution (Proquest Newspapers online)

The Woman Who Watches Over the World: A Native Memoir

A powerful, often poetic remembering by a recipient of an American Book Award. Read the contents page: Water: A Love Story, Silence is My Mother, Bones, and other Precious Gems – and be prepared to be amazed. She writes. . . “I come from warriors / Yet I can hardly speak. / That's why I write this.”
And that is why it should be read.

From The Book jacket:

"I sat down to write a book about pain and ended up writing about love," says award-winning Chicksaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan. In this book, she recounts her difficult childhood as the daughter of an army sergeant, her love affair at age fifteen with an older man, the legacy of alcoholism, the troubled history of her adopted daughters, and her own physical struggles since a recent horse accident. She shows how historic and emotional pain are passed down through generations, blending personal history with stories of important Indian figures of the past such as Lozen, the woman who was the military strategist for Geronimo, and Ohiesha, the Santee Sioux medical doctor who witnessed the massacre at Wounded Knee. Ultimately, Hogan sees herself and her people whole again and gives an illuminating story of personal triumph.

The penultimate volume of the Gonzo Papers series, the essays in this book range across four decades and spare change. Killer Drunks, Ralph Steadman, Hells' angels, Nixon, Reagan, Dukakis: the usual smorgasbord of suspects lined up against the wall for target practice by the master of “never apologize, never explain”. If you missed HST's ashes being recently blasted into the air from an 11 story tower, then be sure to pick up this belated addition to the library's collection.

For current SHC a Book in Print synopsis.

A Review From Historical New York Times (Proquest Historical NYT)

A timely book for these times. An engaged look at the long-term legacy of influence left by the Puritans on this country.

From the Book Jacket:
The American Constitution firmly separates church and state. Yet religion lies at the heart of American politics. How did America become a nation with the soul of a church? In Hellfire Nation, James Morone recasts American history as a moral epic. From the colonial era to the present day, Americans embraced a Providential mission, tangled with devils, and aspired to save the world. Moral fervor ignited our fiercest social conflicts-but it also moved dreamers to remake the nation in the name of social justice. Moral crusades inspired abolition, woman suffrage, and civil rights, even as they led Americans to hang witches, enslave Africans, and ban liquor. Today these moral arguments continue, influencing the debate over everything from abortion to foreign policy. Written with passion and deep insight, Hellfire Nation tells the story of a brawling, raucous, religious people. Morone shows how fears of sin and dreams of virtue defined the shape of the nation.

Last Update:
September 2005