New Books at PEOSTA

Reviewed: CHE 23 Apr. 2017

Reviewed: NYT/BR 28 May 2017 p. 20
Description: Cathal J. Nolan … systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls “short-war thinking,” the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 3 Feb. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: TLS 16 June 2017 p. 27

Reviewed: FA Jan./Feb. 2017 p. 156

Reviewed: Choice Jun 2017 vol. 54 no. 10 (Essential; Recommended for Community College Libraries)

Reviewed: FA 96(3) May/June 2017 p. 121; TLS 5 May 2017 p. 25; Choice Aug 2017 vol. 54 no. 12 (Highly Recommended; Recommended for community college library collections)
Description: “Americans …should not fear conflict but rather embrace it: handled properly, it permits the best ideas to win out, guards against the tyranny of the majority, and helps prevent special interest groups from gaining too much power. Moss makes this argument in his brilliant introductory and concluding chapters, while the core of the book consists of 19 cases from throughout U.S. history that exemplify the complexity of political conflict. Moss, a professor at Harvard Business School, brings the case-study teaching method to history.” (FA)

Reviewed: TLS 5 May 2017 p. 26
Description: Ancient Greece first coined the concept of “democracy,” yet almost every major ancient Greek thinker–from Plato and Aristotle on-wards–were ambivalent or even hostile to democracy in any form. The explanation is quite simple: the elite perceived majority power as tantamount to a dictatorship of the proletariat. … [The author] holds out three unique research aims: a proper understanding of the origins and variety of ancient Greek democracies; a detailed account of the fate of democracy–both the institution and the word–in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds from the fifth century BCE to the 6th century CE; and a nuanced exploration of the ways in which all ancient Greek democracies differed from all modern so-called “democracies.” (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice Nov 2016 vol. 54 no. 3 (Essential; Outstanding Academic Title)

Reviewed: TLS 12 May 2017 p. 16

Reviewed: CHE 14 Oct. 2016

Reviewed: CHE 24 Mar. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: NYRB 24 Nov. 2016 p. 56; TLS 25 Nov. 2016 p. 11 (2016 Best Books of the Year).
Note: Winner of the 2016 Baillie Gifford Prize (UK) for Non-Fiction.

Access Note: Also available online at either the Publisher's Website or via the US GPO.

Reviewed: Choice Nov 2016 vol. 54 no. 3 (Essential; Recommended for Community College Libraries)
Contributor Note: James Aho is Professor Emeritus at Idaho State University where he has taught for over forty years. Recognized as a Distinguished Researcher and Teacher, he is author of many books, including Body Matters: A Phenomenology of Sickness, Disease and Illness (co-written with his son, Kevin) and Sociological Trespasses: Interrogating Sin and Flesh. Aho is also author of two award-winning studies of religiously-motivated political violence, The Politics of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism and This Thing of Darkness: A Sociology of the Enemy.

Note: Originally published as: Les Droites Extrêmes en Europe (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2015).

Reviewed: NYRB 25 May 2017 p. 8

Holdings: Copy at Calmar; call no. 323.443 Shi

Description: Those who think that today's young adults are so mesmerized by social media that they cannot think broadly about the public good should think again. Here are a bevy of young radicals who offer powerful critiques of the state of our society today, and offer radical alternatives. They cover a wide range of issues, from education and policing to economic policy, but the common theme is thinking about how to make the United States a genuine democracy. At a time of frozen, unresponsive politics, these are voices that deserve a hearing. (publ./Eric Foner, author)

Reviewed: NPR (& everywhere else).

Reviewed: CHE 21 May 2017 (new books); Choice Sep 2017 vol. 55 no. 1 (Recommended)

Reviewed: CHE 14 Oct. 2016

Reviewed: NPR
Note: Discussed on NPR program, “Goats and Soda” 19 Jan. 2017: Thinking About Going To A Rally? Read This Activist’s Advice First.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 4 Dec. 2016 p. 26 (100 Notable Books 2016); FA Jan./Feb. 2017 p. 160; NYRB 9 Mar. 2017 p. 19

Reviewed: CHE 24 Mar. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: Choice Feb 2017 vol. 54 no. 6 (Essential)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 28 May 2017 p. 14; TLS 12 Jan. 2018 p. 7.
Note: 2017 is 50th anniversary of the Israel-Arab War (“The Six Day War”) & also the centenary of the British “Balfour Declaration” that first promised a Jewish national home in Palestine.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 28 May 2017 p. 21; Choice Aug 2017 vol. 54 no. 12 (Recommended)

Reviewed: NYRB 25 May 2017 p. 8

Reviewed: Choice Nov 2016 vol. 54 no. 3 (Essential; Top 75 Titles Recommended for Community Colleges)

Reviewed: Choice May 2016 vol. 53 no. 9 (Essential; Outstanding Academic Title; Top 75 Titles Recommended for Community College Libraries)
Holdings: Copy at Calmar Campus; call no. 305.8 Gje.

Reviewed: CHE 24 Feb. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: CHE 7 Apr. 2017 (new books)
Contents: Poverty – Immigration – Campaign finance – Affirmative action – Religious exemptions from secular public policies.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 28 May 2017 p. 14
Note: 2017 is 50th anniversary of the Israel-Arab War (“The Six Day War”) & also the also the centenary of the British “Balfour Declaration” that first promised a Jewish national home in Palestine.
Description: The author advances the argument that it has been confrontation, not negotiation, that has brought the greatest movement toward compromise between Israel and Palestine. American and other peace negotiations, it’s argued, “have created the illusion that a solution is at hand, lessened Israel’s incentives to end its control over the West Bank and Gaza and undermined Palestinian unity.” (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice Dec 2016 vol. 54 no. 4 (Essential; Recommended for Community College Libraries; Outstanding Academic Title)

Reviewed: CHE 28 Apr. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: FA Jan/Feb 2017 p. 148
Note: “…will stand among the definitive accounts of the United States’ approach to national security and law over the past decade and a half.” (FA)

Reviewed: NPR
Note: Author interview 20 Feb. 2017 on program, Fresh Air, with Host Terry Gross. “Uncovering Presidential Secrets, from Washington to Trump.”
Description: The author tracks the rise in governmental secrecy that began with surveillance and loyalty programs during Woodrow Wilson’s administration, explores how it developed during the Cold War, and analyzes efforts to reform the secrecy apparatus and restore oversight in the 1970s. Chronicling the expansion of presidential secrecy in the Bush years, Graham explains what presidents and the American people can learn from earlier crises, why the attempts of Congress to rein in stealth activities don’t work, and why presidents cannot hide actions that affect citizens’ rights and values. (publ.)

Participants: Ossie Davis, Denise Nicholas, Albert Jones, Erik Laray Harvey, Darnell Williams, Jeffrey Nash, Sharif Rasheed, & Stephen Rea.
Description: The USS Mason entered WWII on a presumably doomed mission. The all African-American crew overcame the harsh realities of war abroad and segregation at home, and was finally honored for its heroism in 1994.
Note: Based on the book, Proudly We Served: The Men of the USS Mason, by Mary Pat Kelly (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1995).

Reviewed: Economist 15 Apr. 2017 p. 70; TLS 28 Apr. 2017 p. 25; LR May 2017 p. 41; WSJ 6 Sept. 2017 p. A13; Economist 9 Dec. 2017 p. 82 (2017 Books of the Year)

Note: Print & E-book available from publisher free of charge (government doc.).
Access: URL https://usmcu.edu/sites/default/files/MCUPress/RethinkingTheDroneWar.pdf

Reviewed: FA Mar./Apr. 2017 p. 181

Reviewed: CHE 24 Mar. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: NPR “Fresh Air” 6 Apr. 2017 (by John Powers); NYT/BR 30 Apr. 2017 p. 12; TLS 28 Apr. 2017 p. 26; LRB 15 Aug. 2019 p. 13.
Note: Originally published as: Los Niños Perdidos: Un Ensayo en Cuarenta Preguntas (Coyoacán, Ciudad de México: Sexto Piso, 2011).
Description: Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin-American children facing deportation, her book humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction of the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants with the reality of racism and fear—both here and back home.

Reviewed: NPR.org (Etelka Lehoczky; 31 Mar. 2017).
Description: On December 9, 2014, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a report that strongly condemned the CIA for its secret and brutal use of torture in the treatment of prisoners captured in the “war on terror” during the George W. Bush administration. This deeply researched and fully documented investigation caused monumental controversy, interest, and concern, and starkly highlighted both how ineffective the program was as well as the lengths to which the CIA had gone to conceal it. In The Torture Report, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón use their celebrated graphic-storytelling abilities to make the damning report accessible, finally allowing Americans to lift the veil and fully understand the crimes committed by the CIA.

Reviewed: TLS 5 May 2017; FA 96(5) Sept./Oct. 2017 p. 197
Description: Eritreans fought for their freedom from Ethiopia for thirty years, only to have their revered leader turn on his own people. Independent since 1993, the country has no constitution and no parliament. No budget has ever been published. Elections have never been held and opponents languish in jail. International organizations find it next to impossible to work in the country. Nor is it just a domestic issue. By supporting armed insurrection in neighboring states it has destabilized the Horn of Africa. Eritrea is involved in the Yemeni civil war, while the regime backs rebel movements in Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Martin Plaut is the former BBC World Service Africa editor, and helped administer the referendum in which Eritreans voted for independence.

Reviewed: Choice Dec. 2017 vol. 55 no. 4 (Recommended for community college libraries)

Reviewed: NYT 19 Feb. 2017 (op./ed. author)

Reviewed: FA Jan./Feb. 2017 p. 162.

Reviewed: TLS 2 Dec. 2016 p. 12

Reviewed: TLS 27 Jan. 2017 p. 14