COUNSELOR: A Life At The Edge Of History
By Ted Sorensen, Harper Publishers
"At a time when Americans are cynical about politics, this gripping, candid memoir illuminates a revered era in American history, stoking our idealism and rekindling our imagination about what this country can achieve when we're summoned to a common purpose."
------ President Barack Obama
Hitler's Beneficiaries: How The Nazis Bought The German People
By Gotz Aly, Translated by Jefferson Chase Verso, 448 pp; 19.99 British Pound Sterling
"Aly asks at the outset what drove ordinary Germans to tolerate and commit historically unprecedented crimes against humanity, in particular the murder of millions of European Jews?' His answer is that ordinary Germans cooperated in Genocide because they benefited from it in material terms. According to Aly, the Nazi dictatorship was built not on terror but on a mutual calculation of interest between leaders and people. This claim entails a further shift in our understanding of the regime; not only did it serve the welfare of the common people, but if there was fear, it was the fear the regime felt of the people, not the other way round. Top Nazi leaders worried that their regime would be toppled by popular unrest if the people's mood soared; their 'satisfaction had to be purchased everyday."
------ John Connelly, London Review of Books, 27 August 2009
Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health
Edited by Peter A. Hall and Michelle Lamont; Cambridge University Press
"...Forces us to challenge common modes of reasoning. This book is wonderful piece of collaborative public intellectuals.' It should be read all over the academy and by the general public."
------ Peter Gourevitch, UC, San Diego
Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer's Life
By MJichael Greenberg, Other Press Publishers
"Michael Greenberg regales us with his take on the life of a writer trying to practice his craft or simply stay alive. He creates poignant subtexts involving fundamental human values and emotions like love, desire, honesty, and malice..."
------ Kirkus Review
Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan: A Critical Reader
Edited by Salah M. Hasan and Carina E. Ry. Foreward by Andrea Eshete; 522 pp $39.95, Cornell University Press
"Incorporating Sudanese voices, the book is a comprehensive discusiion of the many dimenssions of Darfur and will certainly challenge preconceived and oversimplified narratives about the war."
------ Ahmad Sikainga, The Ohio State University
Inventing The Job Of President: Leadership Style From George Washington To Andrew Jackson
By Fred Greenstein, Princeton University Press, $19.95
"Captivating, inventing the job of president teaches about the past so that old events take on a contemporary significance. It is a book that introduces readers to the wonders -- and good fortune -- of this nation's first decades. Greenstein is handsdown the best, most careful, and wisest presidential scholar."
------ William Ker Muir, Jr.
Transforming Toxic Leaders
By Alan Goldman; Stanford University Press, $24.95
"The swollen literature on good leadership is gradually being tempered by the growing literature on bad leadership. This correction is both necessary and long overdue -- which is why Alan Goldman's book constitutes a contribution to the cause. He explores some bad leaders in some considerable depth, and provides pragmatic possibilities to remediation."
------ Barbara Kellerman, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight For Civil Rights and Economic Power
By Dvid T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito; University of Illinois Press
"Civil rights crusader, surgeon enterpreneur, big game hunter, promoter of spectacles, self help champion. Without T.R.M. Howard, we may have never heard of Medgar Evans, Fnnie Lou Hamer, and Rosa Parks. Long before Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard organized successful boycotts against Juim Crowe,publicly took J. Edgar Hoover, fought for truth in Emmett Till's murder, provided affordable health care to the poor, and helped kick off the modern civil rights movement. Black Maverick tells the story of an American renaissance man."
------ Harpers Online
Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
By Gerad Provier, Oxfor University Press, 529 pp $27.95
The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa
By Rene Lemarchand, University of Pennsylvania Press, 377 pp... $59.95
The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality
By Thomas Turner, Zed Books Publishers; 243 pp..., $32.95
Evangelicals and Democracy in America Vol 1: Religion and Society
By Steven Brint and Jean Reith Schrordel, editors. Russell Sage Foundation Publishers; $49.95
"The sociologists and political scientists assebled for this project are first rate; what they write may be, collectively, the wisest words yet published on the character of 'the new Christian right."
------ Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame.
Letters To My Father: William Styron
Edited by James L.W. West III; Foreword by Rose Styron
"These informative letters to an encouraging father provide a touching portrait of the earnestness and dedication of a budding master and place Styron squarely in the war years during which he came of age."
------ Philip Roth, Southern Literary Studies
For The Thrill Of It: Leopold, Loeb, And The Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago
By Simon Baatz; Harper
"Mr Baatz... has done meticulous research, and he writes extremely well. His book on the Leopld and Loeb case is the best we'll have for a long, long time."
------ New York Times
Beginning To End Lord Jesus Christ: From Alpha To Omega
By Rev. Doris M. Malone; Xlibris
"From Alpha To Omega: Beginning To End Lord Jesus Christ is the result of thirty five years of prayer and the study, prompted by the rise of flwed doctrine on the second advent of Christ to the determent of even some elect. Its central theme is about the miraculaous relationship of God using the tribulation to cleanse and purify of the Church 1 Peter 4: 17-20. Readers will find inspirational poems that answer countless prayers laced with varied references from the Holy Bible. Ultimately, this richly-layered release strongly emphasizes the core values of Christianity."
------ Biblical View
Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race and American Politics
By Peter Goodwin Heltzel; Forewod by Mark A. Noll; Yale University Press
"With this head-turning first book, Peter Helzel emerges as the most provocative new interpreter of American evangelism. Jesus and Justice will change the way we think about Christianity and politics."
------ Charles Marsh, University of Virginia
The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays
By Chinua Achebe; Alfred A. Knopf, 192 pp, $25.95
"The idea that personal narrative is too small, too inward, too individual to reflect our grander collective concerns, is a variation on an attitude that Achebe once observed among critics of fiction. Because the drama in some African novels depended upon the fate of a group, not an individual, these works were dismissed as being too local in their reach..."
------ Eula Biss, Columbia Journalism Review
Recommendations on further reading:
Damage: The Personal Costs of Political Change in Zimbabwe
Edited by Iren Stauton; 542 pp; Weaver Press
Millennium Development Goals: Achievements and Prospects of Meeting the Targets in Africa
Edited by Francis Nwonwu
This book reviews the progress, prospects and challenges of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa. Each chapter corresponds with one of the eight goals of the Millennium Declaration. The introduction sets the stage for the discourse contained in the main text while the conclusion forms an opinion from the findings and prescribes the way forward. The goals, in sequence, include:
• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for development.
