The Making of Americans by E. D. Hirsch Jr. '50 (Yale)
The Making of Americans by E. D. Hirsch Jr. '50 (Yale)
The literary theorist and bestselling author of Cultural Literacy points out American students' lack of civic and general knowledge and makes the case for a common curriculum in elementary schools to promote social mobility and cohesion. "If we want students to read and write well we cannot take a laissez-faire attitude to the content of early schooling," Hirsch argues. "Practical improvement of our public education will require intellectual clarity and depolarization of this issue. Left and right must get together on the principle of common content."
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore, MFA '82 (Knopf). Soon after twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin arrives at a Wisconsin college, she begins an affair with Reynaldo, a boy in her Sufism class, and babysits for the adopted biracial daughter of a restaurateur and her husband, an emotionally distant scientist. Tassie discovers secrets about the couple and her boyfriend that force her to return home. In this coming of age novel, Moore's first book since her short story collection Birds of America, she writes about the aftermath of 9/11 and how a series of mistakes can ruin the lives of a Midwestern family.
A World Without Ice by Henry N. Pollack '58 (Avery Books). Pollack, science adviser to former Vice President Al Gore and contributor to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize-winning report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, shows how the loss of ice will have a dramatic effect on human life. Mountain glaciers provide drinking and agricultural water for a quarter of Earth's population, he notes, and the shrinking of the polar ice caps could cause rising sea levels that displace millions of people. "Ice is nature's best thermometer," writes Pollack. "It is not burdened by ideology. It just melts."
Dawn Light by Diane Ackerman, MFA '73, PhD '79 (Norton). From the chorus of birds singing the sun up in Palm Beach to Monet's thirty-one paintings of Rouen Cathedral in early morning light to a winter sunrise in Ithaca, the naturalist and poet Diane Ackerman investigates the phenomenon of dawn with what Nabokov called "the passion of the scientist and the precision of the artist." Structured around the seasons of the year, these thoughts on the character of light evolve into meditations on the nature of time. "We can't enchant the world, which makes its own magic; but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention."
Imperial by William T. Vollmann '81 (Viking). Vollmann takes risks for a story. He has chronicled his attempt to join the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan (An Afghanistan Picture Show) and reported from the front lines of the war in Bosnia. In this exhaustive documentary on the economic and environmental breakdown of Imperial County, the poorest in California, he encounters smugglers, migrant workers, immigration officers, and border crossers in search of a better life. His first-hand research on the effects of agribusiness, chronic water shortages, the drug war, and pollution paints a sobering picture of a neglected border region.
Recently Published
Fiction
Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut '44 (Delacorte). Fourteen previously unpublished short stories that show a young Vonnegut finding his voice.
Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have by Allen Zadoff '89 (Egmont). Andrew Zansky's weight makes him feel like an outsider at school, but his life changes when he joins the high school football team.
The Departments by Edward Ryder '51 (Two Harbors). A battle erupts between departments at a small university on how to fill a faculty position in plant science.
Evacuation Day by Stanley Harris '55 (Critical Choices). A young boy travels back in time to the Revolutionary War era to help free a friend's father from a British prison. Will he succeed and return to 2007, or will he be trapped in 1776?
Non-Fiction
America's Cold War by Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall (Belknap). A Cornell history professor and his co-author argue that even though the United States was successful in containing the Soviet Union by 1949, the reason the Cold War lasted much longer was because of U.S. domestic politics rather than external threats.
Subprime Nation by Herman M. Schwartz, PhD '86 (Cornell). A professor of politics at the University of Virginia examines the steps that led to the recent housing bubble and the effect on the international economy of the U.S. failure to regulate the financial industry.
Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty by Paul A. Rahe '71 (Yale). The author of Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift reexamines liberal democracy through the lens of Montesquieu's political philosophy.
Edwin Howland Blashfield edited by Mina Rieur Weiner '57 (Norton). An assessment of the artistic career of Blashfield, an American muralist and painter whose work was prominent from the 1880s to the 1920s.
Molière, the French Revolution, and the Theatrical Afterlife by Mechele Leon, PhD '01 (Iowa). An associate professor of theatre and film at the University of Kansas shows how the revolution transformed Molière's reputation from an upholder of the Old Regime to a cultural icon of republican France.
Reproductive Health and Human Rights edited by Laura Reichenbach and Mindy Jane Roseman '82 (Penn). Researchers in the fields of human rights and population growth assess international efforts to reduce poverty, gain equality for women, improve reproductive health, and promote human rights in the fifteen years since the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development.
The Culture of Efficiency edited by Sharon Kleinman, PhD '98 (Peter Lang). In such chapters as "Mind over Multitasking," "Procrustean Pedagogy," and "Efficiencies of Pregnancy Management," experts ponder the implications of new technologies in our daily lives.
Children's
Nugget on the Flight Deck by Patricia Newman '81 (Walker). A young boy experiences what it's like to be a jet pilot on an aircraft carrier.