Two articles on Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites's No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy ran this month, both of which cite the book for its controversial look at some of the most influential images of the last century, and how such images have radically changed the political and social landscape of America. An article in the November 29 London Review of Books (only available to subscribers) begins with a critique of "one of the most reproduced photographs in American history"—Joe Rosenthal's image of U.S. troops struggling to raise an American flag on top of Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima. The LRB's David Simpson writes:

The Pulitzer-prize winning photo of the Suribachi Summit… was actually of a second flag-raising, staged with a larger flag after the fighting had died down. Literally speaking it was not so much a struggle against military odds as a struggle against gravity. This was known at the time, and was a sufficiently sensitive issue for both Time and Life to refrain from publishing it until it had become so ubiquitous as to be beyond complex questioning. That happened very fast. The photo became more or less instantly a leitmotif of American popular culture and a key item in the manufacture of consent by politicians and advertisers alike.…

Debates about the authenticity of photographs, especially war photographs, have been commonplace since at least the American Civil War. In No Caption Needed Robert Hariman and John Lucaites are less concerned with these debates than the ways in which iconic images have been used to propose and renegotiate various kinds of 'democratic citizenship' and 'civic identity.' Here original truths matter less than accumulated traditions or assumptions.… For these authors the Iwo Jima flag works because it is aesthetically compelling, … because it converts military into civic action, and because it effaces the personalities of the soldiers in the service of a common and anonymous effort. …

The review continues:

The authors think we have a 'need' for these iconic images, and often suggest that democracy is better for them. But it is a fine line (if there is a line) between the vigorous, deliberative debate conducted by empowered citizens… and the consumption of patriotic propaganda.

A feature in the Chronicle of Higher Education also focused on the author's take on the powerful yet complicated impact of iconic images on American culture. You can read the Chronicle piece online at their website, read an excerpt from the book, or navigate over to the authors' blog where they frequently post provocative critiques of notable images in contemporary photojournalism.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Film and Media | History | Politics and Current Events | Reviews | Sociology
Posted by TXM at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pierre Laszlo's new book Citrus: A History has been featured in several articles this month, one in the November 22 issue of Nature and another in the November 25 issue of the UK's Sunday Times. Both articles praise Laszlo's book for its comprehensive historical account of the propagation of citrus fruits around the globe and both note that one of the most important reasons for its popularity is its medicinal value—an especially pertinent fact to keep in mind during these long winter months. From the Sunday Times:

[In Citrus] Laszlo, a retired French chemist, takes us on a journey from the orangeries of Versailles, via the limes of the Royal Navy to the citriculture of modern Florida. It was only in the 1920s, he tells us, that orange juice became "an integral part of the American breakfast", after the great flu epidemic of 1918-19. Laszlo shows that the citrus fruit "is a treasure trove of chemicals that are highly useful to humankind"—which also happens to taste wonderful.

And on a similar note from Nature magazine:

Citrus provides a colorful background of the literature, poetry and art associated with citrus fruits, as well as their pharmaceutical effects. Apparently, an ingredient of grapefruit juice deactivates an enzyme in the small intestine that destroys some medications before they can enter the bloodstream. Alternatively, the citrus component boosts the activity of certain drugs, such as sildenafil (better known as Viagra) and inhibitors of HIV-1 proteases.

You can read the rest of both articles online, or navigate to our special Citrus website where you can find out more about the book as well as download six tasty—not to mention healthy—citrus recipes.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Biology | Economics | History | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Power. Sex. Status. That's pretty much what human life boils down to: a vicious, grasping struggle to get ahead and stay there. We look out for number one, claw for every advantage, and aren't above using—and even betraying—friends and family to get what we want. So just what is it that separates us from the higher primates? Dario Maestripieri would argue that it's less than you may think, and with Macachiavellian Intelligence he draws readers deep into the social life of the world's most common monkey, the rhesus macaque, to show just how much we can learn from them about human life.

Writing with a biting, sardonic wit, Maestripieri draws on primatology, evolutionary biology, economics, politics, and literature to present a wry, rational, and wholly surprising view of our humanity as seen through the monkey in the mirror.

Read the press release.

Archived in Anthropology | Biology | Press Releases | Psychology
Posted by TXM at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ashley Gilbertson, author of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War recently joined fellow photographer Nina Berman on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show to discuss their recent projects documenting the lives of American soldiers in Iraq and how they manage to cope with their experiences after they come home. As Lopate reveals in his interview, both books offer a candid look into the horrors of modern warfare soldiers are forced to endure and the toll it takes on them both physically and emotionally. Navigate to the WNYC website to listen to archived audio from the show as well as view two photo galleries featuring a small sampling of each photographer's work.

Gilbertson was also recently interviewed by Sandip Roy for NPR's UpFront radio to discuss Gilbertson's personal experiences as a photographer in Iraq. You can find a transcription as well as archived audio of their conversation online at the UpFront website.

Finally, don't miss the UCP's own Whiskey Tango Foxtrot website where you can read more about Gilbertson's book, place an order, and view our own video interview with Gilbertson.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Essays, Interviews, and Excerpts | History | Politics and Current Events
Posted by TXM at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal, reviewer John Desio delivers an interesting critique of Stephen E. Braude's new book The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations. While Desio, like most, might remain skeptical about the existence of the paranormal he applauds Braude's book for its open minded approach to the subject as it works both to confirm as well as debunk a variety of extraordinary parapsychological phenomena. Desio writes:

The world of the paranormal is such a magnet for hustlers and charlatans that any book on the subject might seem at first like just another attempt to separate the curious or the desperate from their cash. But The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations is not a memoir from "Miss Cleo" of 900-number fame or advice from "cold reading" specialist John Edward on how best to contact your late Aunt Sophie. It is a strange work by Stephen E. Braude, a philosophy professor at the University of Maryland who believes in the existence of paranormal abilities in human beings—but who also, thank goodness, goes out of his way to address the concerns of skeptics and to shoot down fakers who populate the field.

The paranormal, for Mr. Braude, includes the possibility of "postmortem communications" and extrasensory perception, but he is primarily interested in psychokinesis, he writes, because examples of the mind's power over matter is "observable" and "at least potentially easier to document"—and, presumably, to debunk. Mr. Braude does some of both in considering the five case studies that form the heart of The Gold Leaf Lady.

Read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Philosophy | Psychology | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

William Grimes had a roundup of books about maps and geography in the New York Times last Friday. "If 90 percent of life is showing up," said Grimes, "the other 10 percent is figuring out how to get there." That sounds about right, based on my excursion downstate over the holiday.

The books selected by Grimes range from a "throbbingly romantic novel" titled The Mapmaker's Opera to "two books that size up the topography of the United States." Since cartography is one of our publishing niches, we were not surprised—only relieved—to see that Grimes included Maps: Finding Our Place in the World edited by by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow Jr. in his piece, as well as Hard Road West: History and Geology along the Gold Rush Trail by Keith Heyer Meldahl. Plus, he lassoes Peter Whitfield's London: A Life in Maps which we distribute for the British Library.

If maps are often on your mind, you'll enjoy our web feature for Maps: Finding Our Place in the World. We also have an excerpt from Hard Road West. More books about maps are in our cartography and geography catalog.

Archived in Books for the News | Cartography and Geography | History
Posted by DB at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

David Shulman's Dark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine is currently being featured in a review for the December 6 issue of the New York Review of Books. A human rights activist and member of the peace group Ta'ayush, Shulman is an active participant in the group's efforts to address the conflict between Israel and Palestine through non-violent means. With Dark Hope Shulman aims to further the revolutionary humanitarian goals of the organization through a first hand account of his work with the group bringing aid, rebuilding houses, and engaging in Ghandian acts of civil disobedience. Detailing Shulman's unique approach to political activism. Israeli scholar Avishai Margalit writes for the NYRB:

Shulman attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.… His linguistic and cultural interests were mainly focused on South India. In 1987, when he was thirty-seven, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. He has published many translations of Indian poetry. Shulman's language in his diary is fresh and uncontaminated by the lazy clichés often used to describe the conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. By temperament and calling, Shulman is a scholar, not a politician. Recalling Auden's lines on Yeats, we may say that mad Israel hurt him into politics.

Into what sort of politics, one may ask. Shulman's work on India and its culture suggests that his politics—if this is the term—would draw on Gandhi's example. He writes, "We follow the classical tradition of civil disobedience, in the footsteps of Gandhi, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King.…"

Shulman advocates a Gandhian approach on moral grounds and perhaps also on practical grounds, and a large number of his activities would have pleased the Mahatma. But in my opinion he is trying to do something that can be accurately seen as part of the nonviolent struggle to alleviate the burdens of the occupation but is also different from it. Shulman is a moral witness…he makes an effort to observe and report on suffering arising from evil conduct. He may take risks in doing so, but he has a moral purpose: to expose the evil done by a regime that tries to cover up its immoral deeds. A moral witness acts with a sense of hope: that there is, or will be, a moral community for which his or her testimony matters.

Read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Biography | Politics and Current Events | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Ashley Gilbertson arrived in Iraq at the beginning of the U.S. invasion he was only twenty five years old and had no affiliation with any newspaper. Nevertheless, he was among the first photojournalists to cover the conflict for American audiences. Soon picked up as a freelance photographer for the New York Times, Gilbertson has since established himself as one of the most adept chroniclers of the conflict in the middle east.

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a special piece in the Arts and Leisure featuring a selection of Gilbertson's photographs of the war, all of which can be found in his new book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer’s Chronicle of the Iraq War. Dexter Filkins prefaces Gilbertson's photos in the NYT saying:

Ashley Gilbertson, a freelance photographer for the New York Times, has followed the war in Iraq from its beginning through its most singular moments. In his new book… Gilbertson has compiled the best of those images, freezing the war's most intense and dramatic moments… The heart of the book, graphically and emotionally, is the battle of Falluja in November 2004, when 6,000 marines and soldiers went into what was then a contested jihadi stronghold. Those photos capture street-to-street fighting in all its manic ferocity.

But the most moving of these images are not of fighting and violence but of the moments in between: a group of soldiers sunning themselves during a pause in the battle, a child hurling himself down a slide at a Baghdad playground, an Iraqi man and son standing frozen before an American soldier. Moments like these remind us just how human the experience of war really is.

Check out the photographs from the New York Times piece on their website, then navigate to our web site for the book to view a fascinating interview with the photographer and hear him speak about his personal experiences photographing war.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Books for the News | History | Politics and Current Events
Posted by TXM at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Literary Review is currently running a piece on Simon Goldhill's new book, How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today. As the Review's Fiona Macintosh notes, with new productions of Greek drama flooding the world of theater, Goldhill's book makes a timely effort to address the challenges involved in updating these ancient masterpieces for the modern stage. Macintosh writes:

Since the 1960s there has been an explosion in the number of performances of ancient plays not just in Europe, but increasingly across the globe—in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. In many ways, Goldhill's new book is a response to this phenomenon. As he explains, directors or actors who are about to work with a Greek play regularly turn to scholars of ancient tragedy for assistance; and one frequent question concerns what they should read. Goldhill says his book grew out of one such query from Vanessa Redgrave, when she was having a difficult time in West End as the eponymous heroine of Euripides' Hecuba, with a director she couldn't abide and in a part which had just been played superlatively by Claire Higgins at the Donmar Warehouse…

The review continues:

As one would expect from Goldhill, author of a number of respected discussions of Greek tragedy, the sections on the individual plays are lucid and highly informative. There are also particularly important caveats for the theater practitioner.… However, it is not just the would-be practitioner who could benefit from reading this book: there are equally good nuggets for the seasoned scholar of Greek tragedy. None better, perhaps, than this one concerning the theatrical genre that has drained more ink down the centuries than any other: 'Tragedy is a genre of conflict, not only between people or between ideas, but also conflict about what words mean.' With a definition of tragedy as succinct and incisive as this one, some might even be tempted to adopt this definition and cast the notoriously open-ended Aristotelian one to the wind.

Archived in Classics | History | Literature | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The situation in our surveillance state is such that the government can monitor many of our daily activities, using closed-circuit TV, global positioning systems, and a wide array of other sophisticated technologies—without warning, and at any time. But despite the growing public awareness of these intrusions, our post-9/11 environment of fear makes people reluctant to question them. Yet, as Christopher Slobogin explains in Privacy at Risk, these shocking violations of privacy are often perpetrated by those in positions of power.

This ground-breaking book argues that courts should prod legislatures into enacting more meaningful protection against government overreach by applying the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. Slobogin demonstrates how we can thus preserve rights guaranteed by the Constitution—without compromising the government’s ability to investigate criminal acts—in a book that will intrigue anyone concerned about privacy rights in the digital age.

Read the press release.

Archived in Law | Politics and Current Events | Press Releases | Sociology
Posted by TXM at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sacramento Theatre Company reimagines Euripides' Electra as Electricidad, while off-Broadway's Signature Theatre puts on Iphigenia 2.0 and an Indian director stages Raja Oedipus, an adaptation of the famous Sophocles play featuring Karbi gods and goddesses in place of the original Greek deities: if you've seen any of these recent performances—or one of their countless counterparts on stages across the globe—you've experienced the timelessness, renewed popularity, and ever-broadening reach of Greek tragedy. But how are today's productions different from their ancient peers? What are the best strategies for interpreting these dramas on contemporary stages? In this follow-up to his acclaimed Love, Sex & Tragedy: How the Ancient World Shapes our Lives, renowned classicist Simon Goldhill responds to these questions (and many others) with his long-awaited guide How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today.

Read the press release.

Archived in Classics | Education | History | Literature | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's the late 1960s. You're nine years old, living in Bombay, and your family is a bit … complicated. Your mother was born in America, but she has fully adopted Indian dress, customs, and attitudes. Your Indian father, meanwhile, is cynical, worldly, and deeply suspicious of anything that smacks of mysticism or religion—which includes much of Indian culture. Then, out of the blue, your sixteen-year-old brother announces that he's leaving home to go live with a guru and become holy. How on earth are you supposed to go about the business of growing up in such a complicated family?

With My Family and Other Saints, Kirin Narayan shows us how. Her funny, touching memoir tells the story of her brother's quest and its effects, revealing a family full of love, yet always on the verge of disintegration. As their house becomes a waystation for the army of hippies, gurus, and charlatans flooding India, Narayan also brings late-60s Bombay to life, taking us back to a time and place when nearly everyone, it seemed, was embarked on some sort of spiritual quest and Western seekers were obsessed with all things Indian, from yoga to transcendental meditation. Deeply moving, yet frequently hilarious, My Family and Other Saints is a poignant reminder of both the power and the frailty of family bonds in turbulent times.

Read the press release. Also read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Anthropology | Literature | Press Releases | Religion
Posted by TXM at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maps are universal forms of communication, easily understood and appreciated regardless of culture or language. This truly magisterial book introduces readers to the widest range of maps ever considered in one volume. A companion to the most ambitious exhibition on the history of maps ever mounted in North America, Maps will challenge readers to stretch conventional thought about what constitutes a map and how many different ways we can understand graphically the environment in which we live. Collectors, historians, mapmakers and users, and anyone who has ever "gotten lost" in the lines and symbols of a map will find much to love and learn from in this book.

Read the press release. Also see a special website for the book.

Archived in Anthropology | Art and Architecture | Cartography and Geography | History | Press Releases | Religion
Posted by TXM at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Daniel S. Greenberg's Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism received a positive review in this month's BBC Focus magazine. Greenberg's book is a detailed study of the relationship between academia and the commercial sector—a relationship which some critics argue has corrupted the quality of academic inquiry, especially in the sciences. But as reviewer Steve Fuller notes, Greenberg's penetrating new book reveals that campus capitalism might, in fact, not be as nearly as bad as commonly thought. Fuller writes:

Greenberg's story is framed by the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act by the US Congress in 1980, which allowed universities and other non-profit institutions to seek intellectual property rights without seeking prior government approval.… The nation as a whole would presumably benefit from the commercial availability of such privately protected science.

However this 'neo-liberal' turn in US science policy has led to a host of allegations. These range from big business trying to buy large biomedical science departments to a breakdown in the peer review process through undetected cases of research fraud. Greenberg's verdict is that while such cases do exist, their rarity is even more striking.

Greenberg provocatively argues that overblown claims about the capitalist corruption of academia may turn out to be self-defeating. Universities already provide an array of free or low-cost service for business, from training potential employees to researching potentially lucrative fields. Moreover such activities are bound to increase in the coming years. In that case, it might be in academia's own interest to cultivate more explicit ties with the commercial sector, if only to ensure that business pays its own way.

Archived in Biology | Economics | History and Philosophy of Science | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The age of the earth—as well as the age of the stars and the universe—is the subject of great debate. Young Earth Creationists, citing biblical evidence, believe the Earth is between six thousand and 10,000 years old. Scientists, on the other hand, estimate the solar system is much older, around 4.5 billion years. But how do scientists determine the ages of things, especially those which formed so long before human history?

In The Age of Everything, Matthew Hedman lays bare the tricks of the scientist’s trade, revealing how archeologists, biologists, geologists, physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists all reconstruct the distant past. Explaining how scientific inquiry has determined everything from the dates of climate changes to human migration patterns to the age of the universe, The Age of Everything covers a wide range of timescales, from the relatively recent reign of the Mayans to the far-distant birth of stars. A provocative and far-ranging look at the power of modern science to put us in touch with the ancient past, The Age of Everything will be indispensable for anyone with an interest in popular science—and time travel.

Read the press release.

Archived in Biology | History | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Economist recently ran an interesting story on the evolution of American counterinsurgency tactics to meet the demands of the current war in Iraq. Drawing on Lt. Col. John A. Nagl's Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam the Economist piece begins by citing the history of Western counterinsurgency operations and how they obviate the need for improvements in military strategy:

Given the difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, American officers are relearning the history of their own interventions in Latin America and, more important, the lessons of British imperial policing. Why, American experts asked, did Britain succeed against communist revolutionaries in Malaya in the 1950s, whereas America failed to defeat the communists in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s?

In his 2002 book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, John Nagl, an American lieutenant-colonel, concluded that British soldiers were better than the Americans at learning from their mistakes. General Sir Gerald Templer, the British high commissioner in Malaya, argued that "the shooting side of the business" was only a minor part of the campaign. Coining a phrase, he suggested that the solution "lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the people." In contrast, says Colonel Nagl, the Americans in Vietnam remained wedded to "unrestrained and uncontrolled firepower," despite some work with small units that were deployed in border villages and civil-military reconstruction projects.

But more recently, Nagl, along with the likes of David Petraeus, has had the chance to influence American military strategy much more directly as part of the think-tank that produced The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual—one of the most important contemporary military documents on modern counterinsurgency published. Nevertheless skeptical about the progress of the war in Iraq the Economist glosses the manual in saying:

The American army and marines have produced a new counterinsurgency manual. One of its authors, General David Petraeus, is now in charge of the "surge" in Iraq. It may be too late to turn Iraq round, and Afghanistan could slide into greater violence. But the manual offers some comfort: it says counter-insurgency operations "usually begin poorly," and the way to success is for an army to become a good "learning organization."

But can we learn fast enough to turn around the failing war in Iraq? To find out more about the book and the changes in counterinsurgency tactics it proposes, read Nagl's foreword and "Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations" from the first chapter.

Also, Sarah Sewall, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, and another major contributor to the Manual, is currently taping a piece for PBS's Charlie Rose show to discuss the book in the context of the current situation in Iraq. Check the Charlie Rose website for air times.

Archived in Books for the News | History | Politics and Current Events
Posted by TXM at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sherry Buchanan's new book Vietnam Zippos: American Soldiers' Engravings and Stories has been receiving attention from some very different sources recently. This month both Playboy magazine and a magazine called The Armchair General are running reviews of the book. Yet despite the two magazine's obvious disparities, both seem to agree that Vietnam Zippos offers a unique medium of expression for the often marginalized voices of the American GI's that served in Vietnam. From Playboy magazine:

For American soldiers in Vietnam, the Zippo lighter was an essential talisman; its chrome casing was also a convenient canvas on which fighters expressed their anger and frustration. In Vietnam Zippos, edited by Sherry Buchanan, these unique artifacts tell the story of a war gone sour. Lyndon Johnson's observation that "ultimate victory will depend upon the hearts and minds of the people" inspired the gleeful savagery of "Give me your hearts and minds or I will wreck your f—ing huts."… Later, as enthusiasm for the war ebbed, lighters feature such deep thoughts as "When the power of love is as strong as the love of power, then there will be peace."

Also be sure to check out the Armchair General article online here.

Archived in Art and Architecture | History | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Marcia Lausen's new book Design for Democracy: Ballot + Election Design was recently featured in two articles this week. A review posted today on Newsweek's website and another yesterday on the Fast Company blog both focus on Lausen's book as an attempt to ensure that 2007 is not a repeat of the irregularities created by the poorly designed ballots used in Florida in 2000. Causing mass confusion and sparking the infamous recount, as Newsweek's Rolf Ebeling notes, there is no better example to demonstrate the importance of well designed election materials. Ebeling writes:

Graphic designers encounter a fair amount of eye-rolling—some of it deserved—when they champion the necessity of their work outside their professional choir. Passionately defending color palettes, rattling off obscure rules of proper typography—these things often come off as superficial and fussy to the unconverted.… But, but, but … intelligent application of type, line and color does provide a service beyond visual appeal. It can clarify complexity. And I can prove it.

Look no further than the new book Design for Democracy: Ballot + Election Design, by Marcia Lausen, an elegant examination of how to improve the utility of our nation's varied—and, in some cases, shockingly bad—voter materials. In reaction to the problems brought to national attention in the 2000 elections—when Americans learned all about the troubles with "butterfly ballots" and "hanging chads"—a group of designers led by Lausen (a professor of graphic design at the University of Illinois at Chicago) developed a comprehensive visual system for everything from voter registration pamphlets to instructions for setting up ballot-counting tables. The emphasis here is on a system: their work was not intended to set a national standard but to act as a guideline adaptable to the unique requirements of state and local elections. Working with election officials, they have, since 2000, already put some of their ideas to work in Illinois and Oregon elections.

Read the rest of the Newsweek article on their website. The Fast Company article is also online here.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Books for the News | Politics and Current Events
Posted by TXM at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With his book tour now in full swing Ashley Gilbertson, author of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War has been making so many appearances lately we can barely keep track of him. From prime time TV interviews, to high school classrooms, here's our attempt to catch up with Gilbertson's most recent events:

Last Tuesday Gilbertson was interviewed on Philadelphia NPR affiliate WHYY's Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane. Archived audio from the show is available on the WHYY website in real-audio format .

Wednesday saw Gilbertson appearing in Boston for a slightly surreal interview on local FOX TV morning news. They've also put the video online at their website.

Yesterday, however, Gilbertson took some time out to speak with a group of high school students from Millis, MA. The interview was recorded for the Millis Middle/High School's Studio 103, a student-run production facility for a local access TV channel, and should appear on their blog soon as well.

An interview and multimedia slide show with a sampling of the photo's from Gilbertson's book was also featured last Thursday on the online news magazine Alternet.

And tonight Gilbertson will be seen on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 in a rebroadcast of Cooper's show on the battle for Falluja, called "The Anvil of God"—Gilbertson was recently awarded the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club for his coverage of the U.S. invasion of Falluja.

Finally, Gilbertson's talk and signing at the Washington DC area Borders was recently filmed by CSPAN-2's Book TV—who will broadcast it this Sunday night at 7:00 pm eastern time, 6:00 pm central.

But despite all these interviews with major media moguls, his recent interview with Press senior editor Alan Thomas of course offers by far the most interesting examination of Gilbertson's work. You can see footage from the interview online at the press's special website for the book.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Books for the News | History | Politics and Current Events
Posted by TXM at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's Chicago Reader is running a front page story on Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan's new book Chicago under Glass: Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News. The book is the result of years spent digging through the Chicago History Museum's archives to collect over 250 images from the Chicago Daily News—one of the major newspapers circulating in the Chicago area in the first three decades of the twentieth century, and one of the first newspapers to feature black and white photography. As Michael Miner notes in his Chicago Reader review, their time and effort has resulted in a fascinating photo journey into the city's history:

The Daily News went under in 1978, long before it could have created its own online archive. So the writing in this famously literary paper is largely lost, but the photography survives, and now an anonymous photographer's strange, wonderful picture of a group of blind children stroking a circus elephant deservedly finds a spotlight as the cover of Chicago Under Glass. It's a fitting introduction to the book, expressing the idea of reaching out to touch something most alive in the imagination.

The Reader article also points to the Chicago History Museum's online archive of thousands more photographs from the early days of the Chicago Daily News. Click on the link to check them out.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Books for the News | Chicago | History
Posted by TXM at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Kirin Narayan's new book My Family and Other Saints is the author's captivating memoir of growing up in a culturally diverse household in India. With an American mother eagerly attempting to adopt an Indian lifestyle and an Indian father who is skeptical of it, Narayan's memoir focuses on her family's attempt to find peace of mind even while torn between the often conflicting ideologies of east and west. Narayan's story revolves around her brother's decision to quit school and leave home to seek enlightenment with a guru. As a recent review in Shelf Awareness notes, Narayan "sees this event (which bemused rather than alarmed her family) as setting the entire family in a slow-forward motion along their own spiritual journeys."

The review continues:

She describes the next few years with fine impressionistic prose, weaving together her parent's disintegrating marriage, her father's descent into alcoholism and her brother's departure for the U.S. with visits to ashrams, friendhips with gurus and tales from her paternal grandmother, Ba, who was regularly visited by Hindu dieties.… Some of their stories end sadly or without resolution ("Who knows why I became a drunkard?" her father asks at the end of his life), but Narayan, a cultural anthropologist, finds the wonder and joy in her family's journey and presents it to us with insight and grace.

Read the rest of the review online or see an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Anthropology | Biography | Religion | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In an article appearing in the "Burning Questions" column in today's edition of Newsday Erica Marcus cites Pierre Laszlo's new book Citrus: A History to help her answer one reader's burning question about the origins of orange juice. From Newsday:

I can't drink cold orange juice first thing in the morning, but I am curious as to when and where this practice began. I don't think it's European. —Rhoda Greenberg, Islip

Drinking orange juice at breakfast is indeed a peculiarly American custom, one whose story recalls those quintessentially American values: marketing and technological innovation.

In his just-published book, Citrus: A History, retired chemistry professor Pierre Laszlo recounts the providential hook-up of the California Fruit Growers Exchange (an organization that was later to become Sunkist) with advertising copywriter Albert D. Lasker.

In the early years of the 20th century, oranges were consumed principally as fresh, whole fruit. In 1916, when California growers were stuck with an overabundance of oranges, Lasker came up with the slogan: "Drink an orange." This, according to Laszlo, was the moment at which juice consumption began to outstrip fruit consumption.

Read the rest of the article on the Newsday website. Also, see our special Citrus site that includes six tasty citrus recipes from Laszlo's book.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Biology | Books for the News | Economics | History
Posted by TXM at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Caitlin Zaloom's Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London was recently given an interesting review in the November 1 London Review of Books. Writing for the LRB, Donald Mackenzie begins with a description of his own experiences on the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade in 2000—while they were still bustling with traders, runners, and clerks vying for bids:

At the Board of Trade, orders were still carried to the pits on pieces of paper by runners and clerks, and then shouted out by traders or 'flashed' to others in the pit using the hand signal language known as 'arb'—an abbreviation for arbitrage, the exploitation of discrepancies in prices.…

But as Mackenzie's article notes, at the turn of the millennium the digital age was already poised to radically transform the way that modern traders conduct business.

Chicago's open-outcry trading, a way of life stretching back to the grain futures pits of the 19th century, was on the brink of disappearing when I visited the Board of Trade in 1999 and 2000. There were already signs that technology was encroaching: headsets were increasingly used instead of runners to communicate between the pits and the booths where customer orders arrived, and a few traders carried hand-held computers. Since 2000, Chicago's pits have emptied, and those who still stand in them focus less on the people around them than they do on their computers, which are no longer an adjunct to trading but essential to it. Chicago remains central to the world's financial markets—its recent merger with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has made the Board of Trade part of the world's largest exchange—but as the hub of electronic networks, not as a set of huge rooms crowded with bodies.

Despite the role it has played in shaping today's world, there are few observational studies of financial trading to compliment the thousands of econometric studies of price fluctuations. Zaloom's superb book is a double-site ethnography. She first worked as a runner on the Chicago Board of Trade, like any good anthropologist learning the local language — she's proficient in 'arb.' Then she moved to London, where open out-cry trading has now vanished, … and where she was trained in and then practiced the very different skills of an electronic trader.

A first-hand account of the changing face of the contemporary marketplace, Out of the Pits delivers an unprecedented exploration of how the digital age has transformed economic cultures and the craft of speculation.

Read an excerpt.

Archived in Anthropology | Chicago | Economics | Reviews | Sociology
Posted by TXM at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1849 triggered the largest overland migration in the world since the Crusades. Overnight, it seemed like everyone was heading west. Though they knew next to nothing about what they’d find along the way, or even at their destination, thousands of families piled their belongings onto wagons and set out, dazzled by visions of a life of wealth and ease.

As Keith Meldahl recounts in Hard Road West, it didn’t take long before the trail disabused the settlers of those notions. Drawing heavily on the diaries and letters of the emigrants, Meldahl reveals their astonishment at their first encounters with the harsh, breathtaking Western landscape, so much less hospitable than the Eastern forests or Midwestern prairies. Meldahl marries that historical and personal perspective to the equally dramatic underlying story of the geology of the West, peeling back the layers of sediment and history to show how centuries of geological activity had a direct effect on the routes taken by the travelers—and the resources and aid available to them along the way.

Read the press release or an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Biology | History | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our entire voting process, from registering to vote to following instructions at the polling place, can be almost as confusing as those infamous Florida ballots. Tackling this grave problem head-on, Design for Democracy presents adaptable design models that can improve almost every part of the election process by maximizing the clarity and usability of ballots, registration forms, posters and signs, informational brochures and guides, and even administrative materials for pollworkers. This handsome volume also lays out specific guidelines—covering issues like color palette, typography, and image use—that anchor the comprehensive election design system devised by the group of specialists from whose name the book takes its title. Part of a major AIGA strategic program, this group’s prototypes and recommendations have already been used successfully in major Illinois and Oregon elections and, collected here, are poised to spread across the country.

Read the press release.

Archived in Film and Media | Politics and Current Events | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So long, Chicago,“ read the headline when the Daily News ran its last edition on March 4, 1978. Winner of thirteen Pulitzers, the Chicago Daily News launched the careers of Carl Sandburg, Ben Hecht, and Mike Royko, just to name a few. It was also one of the first dailies to incorporate eye-catching illustrations, and soon thereafter, black-and-white photography.

Chicago under Glass: Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News is the breathtaking collection of photographs from those early years, 1901 to 1930. During those three decades, Chicago and America witnessed the invention of the airplane, the repeal of prohibition, and the Great War. Photographers at the Daily News covered these scenes, and then went beyond, capturing news as it broke in front of them.

Read the press release.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Chicago | History | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alex Chadwick interviewed Ashley Gilbertson a few days ago for the NPR radio program Day to Day. The interview is not only about Iraq and the photographs that Gilbertson took there, but also about the ways that events in Iraq changed him, aged him, matured him—especially when he "crossed the line" in Falluja.

The NPR site also has a brief gallery of Gilbertson's Iraq photos. More photos are available in a feature that recently ran in the New Statesman. Gilbertson's own website offers plenty of photos, too.

But what better way to experience these dramatic images than in person? An exhibit of his Iraq photographs opened two weeks ago in New York. For more Gilbertson events see our author events page.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War not only includes over two hundred photographs, but also is a searing memoir of a photographer's experiences documenting the military, political, and human dimensions of the conflict in Iraq.

For an extended conversation about all these issues, see our video interview with Gilbertson online at our Whiskey Tango Foxtrot website.

Update: Monday, Nov. 5: Julia Keller reviewed Whiskey Tango Foxtrot in the Chicago Tribune yesterday.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Books for the News | Politics and Current Events
Posted by DB at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On a hot summer day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer led the Seventh Cavalry to the most famous defeat in U.S. military history.The Seventh Cavalry lost more than half of the 400 men who rode into the Indian camp, and every soldier under Custer’s direct command was killed.

It’s easy to understand why this tremendous defeat shocked the American public at the time. But in Custerology, Michael A. Elliott tackles the question of why the battle retains such power for Americans today. Weaving vivid historical accounts of Custer at Little Bighorn with contemporary commemorations that range from battle reenactments to the unfinished Crazy Horse memorial, Elliott reveals a Custer and a West whose legacies are still vigorously contested. He takes readers to each of the important places of Custer’s life, from his Civil War home in Michigan to the site of his famous demise, to show how more than a century later, the legacy of Custer still haunts the American imagination.

Read the press release. Also read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in History | Press Releases | Sociology
Posted by TXM at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Now available in paperback—Optimists believe this is the best of all possible worlds. And pessimists fear that might really be the case. But what is the best of all possible worlds? How do we define it? Is it the world that operates the most efficiently? Or the one in which most people are comfortable and content? Questions such as these have preoccupied philosophers and theologians for ages, but there was a time, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when scientists and mathematicians felt they could provide the answer.

This book is their story. Ivar Ekeland here takes the reader on a journey through scientific attempts to envision the best of all possible worlds. He begins with the French physicist Maupertuis, whose least action principle asserted that everything in nature occurs in the way that requires the least possible action. This idea, Ekeland shows, was a pivotal breakthrough in mathematics, because it was the first expression of the concept of optimization, or the creation of systems that are the most efficient or functional.

Tracing the profound impact of optimization and the unexpected ways in which it has influenced the study of mathematics, biology, economics, and even politics, Ekeland reveals throughout how the idea of optimization has driven some of our greatest intellectual breakthroughs.

Read the press release.

Archived in Economics | History | Mathematics and Physics | Philosophy | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As troops returning from Iraq begin to tell their harrowing stories of mindless violence, civilian casualties, and lives changed forever by the horrors of war, our society is reminded—yet again—of the psychological battle scars that endure long after a deployment ends. Although Edmund Blunden’s memoirs were first published in 1928, his unforgettable account of World War I trench warfare has never been more relevant.

In steely-eyed prose as richly allusive as any poetry, Blunden tells of the endurance and despair found among the men of his battalion, including the harrowing acts of bravery that won him the Military Cross. Undertones of War, which also includes a selection of Blunden’s war poems that unflinchingly juxtapose death in the trenches with the beauty of Flanders’s fields, deserves a place on anyone’s bookshelf between The Naked and the Dead and The Things They Carried.

Read the press release.

Archived in Biography | History | Press Releases
Posted by TXM at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow, November 2, as part of the three month long Festival of Maps, the Field Museum will open the exhibit, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World. On display will be some of the most fascinating cartographic artifacts ever shown. And just in time for opening day, the Press has released a companion volume of the same name edited by exhibit curators James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr. Like the exhibit, the book surveys a huge range of cartographic sources to explore the many ways that maps have changed our lives and helped us understand the environment in which we live. From a review in Discover magazine:

From religious pilgrimages and vacation road trips to depictions of the ocean floor and the magical landscapes of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, maps chart both physical and imaginary worlds. As geographer Denis Cosgrove explains, "world' is a social concept … a flexible term, stretching from physical environment to the world of ideas, microbes, of sin. Arguably, all these worlds can be mapped." And they are in this compelling and very readable companion volume to the current exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago.

To find out more about the book, see this special website where you can view a sampling of images organized by theme from just of few of the many fascinating maps in the book.

And if you're planning a day out tomorrow to go see some of these maps in person, you can check out the Field Museum's exhibition highlights online at their website which includes ticket sales, a list of special events, and a primer on what you can expect too see if you go.

In addition to the exhibit at the Field Museum many other Chicago institutions including the Newberry Library and the Chicago History Museum are participating in the Festival of Maps over its three month time span, making it one of the most ambitious celebrations of maps ever. For those looking for a more comprehensive rundown of the entire Festival, navigate to the Chicago Tribune's festival website which includes a guide to the Festival's various venues, video presentations by the Tribune's Patrick Reardon, and even a special blog with reviews and commentary on the Festival's many exhibits. The Tribune also links to the Festival's official website where you can find an indispensable map (of course) of the Festival of Maps and other online features.

Archived in Anthropology | Art and Architecture | Author Events | Cartography and Geography | History
Posted by TXM at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)