February Reviews

AWARD NEWS
Denman Ross and American Design Theory by Marie Frank ($39.95 Paperback, 978-1-61168-025-6, $37.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-012-6, UPNE) is winner of the Victorian Society’s Hitchcock Award.

The Weir Family, 1820–1920: Expanding the Traditions of American Art edited by Marian Wardle ($49.95 Hardcover, 978-1-61168-021-8) is winner of the Victorian Society’s Fischelis Award.


ON THE AIR
John Bessler, author of Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment ($39.95 Hardcover, 978-1-55553-716-6
$27.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-717-3, NUP), will be a guest on Maryland Public Radio’s ‘Midday’ on March 6 and Minnesota’s ‘The Kolars Conversation’ on KTOE on March 12.

 REVIEW
In Search of Sacco and Vanzetti: Double Lives, Troubled Times, and the Massachusetts Murder Case That Shook the World
Susan Tejada
$27.95 Hardcover, 978-1-55553-730-2, $18.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-778-4, NUP
“This is a terrific reexamination of the Sacco and Vanzetti case by journalist Tejada, whose lively writing and reporter’s eye offer a fresh, invigorating perspective on otherwise familiar characters and historical episodes. She brings the suspense and engagement of a good thriller to the events surrounding the April 1920 murders of a Massachusetts paymaster and security guard. This now relatively obscure incident
precipitated a years-long legal battle that became a cause célèbre and set off a governmental response to radicalism not unlike that seen in recent times to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. When they were arrested, neither Sacco nor Vanzetti was even questioned about the murders; they were picked up as “suspicious characters” and asked if they were communists or anarchists, who they knew, and what societies they belonged to. As Tejada demonstrates, the fact that bothfelt compelled to lie in response—and that they were both armed—helped to make the case against them. Her examination of the case and her “alternative theory” of their guilt or innocence are both compelling. Tejada set out to write “a double biography,” one that attempts to “decouple Sacco from Vanzetti,” to get a look at who they were as individuals. In the process, she has also written a very entertaining and perceptive history of early twentieth-century radicalism, anarchism, the Wobblies, and the American Labor Movement.” –Booklist (starred review)


Granny D’s American Century
Doris Haddock, Dennis Michael Burke
$27.95 Hardcover, 978-1-61168-234-2, $18.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-235-9, UNH
“Haddock’s early experiences shaped her innate sense of fairness and freedom and infused her with an intrepid belief in both herself and her country. Written with an unfetteredease (and help from her longtime coauthor Burke) that belied her 100 years,Haddock’s reflections on a life lived to the fullest is a galvanizing and gratifying portrait of a true public servant.” --Booklist

Strikingly nonjudgmental . . . but also a vital life force, Haddock contrasts the 1920s with the early 2000s through anecdotes, as she surrounds herself with colorful artists, reformers, and struggling families in both eras even as she meets with TV’s Matt Lauer and calls Jimmy Carter for a favor. Her amusing exploits in a sputtering van during a political junket highlight her faith in government’s potential to help the misfits, immigrants, and the underserved. . . .  [An] entertaining historical and political memoir.”  --Publishers Weekly


The Men’s Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World
Elana Maryles Sztokman
HBI Series on Jewish Women
$29.95 Paperback, 978-1-61168-079-9, $27.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-080-5, Brandeis
"The author describes the little-discussed subject of life on the men’s side of the divider."  --Jerusalem Post

"It’s a story about tension, identity and dialogue. About living on the borders of a culture, yet still navigating within them. About negotiating, pushing back, and yes, acceptance. It’s tale is particular, yet so universal that scholars and laymen all over the world are picking up Elana Sztokman’s new work." --Times of Israel

"Sztokman's book made me realize that we may both be suffering from the same ambivalence between justice for women and the needs of men as Orthodox Jews do, although the ambivalence takes different forms within the two groups. At any rate, keep your eye out for anything that she writes because Sztokman has much to teach us about the natures of both women and men in this fast changing world." --South Florida Sun-Sentinel


Moses Mendelssohn: Writings on Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible
Michah Gottlieb, ed.
Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry and The Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought
$26.00 Paperback, 978-1-58465-685-2, $19.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-214-4, Brandeis
"Gottlieb has chosen outstanding texts to include in this volume, which are certain to be of interest to anyone with even a passing interest in Mendelssohn or the Enlightenment. Indeed, I suspect this work will become the new standard volume for those teaching Mendelssohn. He provides helpful introductions and annotations to the works in question, making even Mendelssohn's more technical works on Jewish exegesis accessible to philosophers with no training in Jewish Studies. . . . A volume such as this is long overdue, and hopefully a new appreciation of Mendelssohn will follow in its wake." --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade
Siân Rees
$27.95 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-980-8, $14.99 Ebook, 978-1-61168-017-1, UNH
"The good news is that trafficking in persons today is probably less profitable than slavery was in the 19th century or drugs are in the 21st. . . . We can reasonably hope to see modern-day slavery dramatically diminished in our lifetime, but we need the sobriety that Sweet Water and Bitter provides."--Books and Culture

Equality with a Vengeance: Men's Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash
Molly Dragiewicz
Northeastern Series on Gender, Crime, and Law
$26.00 Paperback, 978-1-55553-739-5, $19.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-756-2, NUP
"The Victimization of Women aims to dissect what happened when a grassroots feminist movement was transformed into a federally funded, service-provision system. . . . It remains to be seen whether this book will in fact be read by the policy makers to whom it is addressed. . . . Still, even if it only reaches the eyes of students looking for an introduction to a social-policy and criminal-justice conundrum, it will still make an important mark." --Women's Review of Books

African Americans in Global Affairs: Contemporary Perspectives
Michael L. Clemons, ed.
$35.00 Paperback, 978-1-55553-722-7, $27.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-731-9, NUP
"[African Americans in Global Affairs] offers a collection of essays primarily by political scientists, which reflect the more theoretical interests of that discipline as well as the inevitably varied quality of twelve different scholarly pieces." --The Historian

Young Tel Aviv: A Tale of Two Cities
Anat Helman; Haim Watzman, trans.
Schusterman Series in Israel Studies
$55.00 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-893-1, $29.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-890-0, Brandeis
"Young Tel Aviv is undoubtedly one of the most important works published in this field and has already paved the way for further studies on the manifold manifestations of urban life and culture in Tel Aviv and other cities during the British Mandate period. . . . The publication of Helman's book in English will undoubtedly serve the ever-growing interest in Israel Studies in North America, and now also in Britain, and the constant need for worthy publications in English for students and scholars alike." -- Journal of Israeli History Book Reviews

Parks and People: Managing Outdoor Recreation at Acadia National Park
Robert E. Manning, ed.
$49.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-791-0, $39.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-881-8, UVM
"Parks & People is a well-organized and clearly presented compendium of many years research into the social science aspect of park management at Arcadia National Park. The depth of the research topics prove how crucial management of visitors is to a park as heavily used as this one." --Natural Areas Journal Book Reviews

Evangelicals at a Crossroads:Revivalism and Social Reform in Boston, 1860–1910
Benjamin L. Hartley
Revisiting New England
$39.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-929-7, $37.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-941-9, UNH
“Hartley's book provides a welcome addition to the previously unexplored role of New England Methodists in the holiness movement and their strong anti-Catholic stance at the end of the nineteenth century as well as an expansion of the social reform efforts of such persons as Henry Helms, Eben Tourjee, Amanda Clark and others, including the role of both students and professors at Boston University School of Theology. Evangelicals at the Crossroads is well researched and well documented, yet is written in language than can easily be grasped by all readers. It is an important book both for those interested in the history of evangelicals as well as those interested in New England Methodism.”--Methodist History

Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography
Ada Cohen, ed.; Steven E. Kangas, ed.
$40.00 Paperback, 978-1-58465-817-7, UPNE
“This volume will reward the careful reader with a lively ongoing debate about the significance and meaning of the figures and motifs featured in these more “static” Assyrian reliefs. The New England reliefs, and the repeated sacred figures in general, have heretofore been neglected in favor of those illustrating active narratives such as hunts and warfare, and this volume helps to remedy this omission. The general reader will be rewarded with an interesting and up-to-date account of how Assyrian motifs have figured in the visual, historical, and religious life of the United States, from New England all the way to the Los Angeles malls.” --American Journal of Archaeology

Glorious, Accursed Europe
Jehuda Reinharz, Yaacov Shavit
Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
$39.95 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-843-6,$24.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-913-6, Brandeis
“[A]s a kind of encyclopedia of responses [to Jewish thinkers], [Glorious, Accursed Europe] is an extremely useful bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and it is unsurpassed. When readers have finished, they will have moved beyond old generalities to a finely detailed portrait of Jewish intellectuals wrestling with European culture, their own Western heritage (such as it was), and the moral implications of it all. This is a fully satisfying work, and belongs on the bookshelf of every scholar of the modern European Jewish experience.” –H-JUDAIC

Continuing Medical Education
Looking Back, Planning Ahead
Dennis K. Wentz, MD, ed.
$99.00 Hardcover, 978-1-58465-988-4, $99.00 Ebook, 978-1-61168-020-1, Dartmouth
"Given the current rapid evaluation of continuing medical education, this book is a must-read for anyone with responsibility for, or a keen interest in, continuing medical education." --JAMA

German City, Jewish Memory The Story of Worms Nils Roemer
Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
$35.00 Paperback, 978-1-58465-922-8, $34.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-947-1, Brandeis
"The millennium of an iconic Jewish community German City, Jewish Memory tells is thus one of preservation, restoration and innovation. One of the great additional services of the book is that it shows how these three processes characterize the negotiation of the Jewish legacy of Worms even after the otherwise unbridgeable break of the Holocaust." --European Review of History

An American Body | Politic
A Deleuzian Approach
Bernd Herzogenrath
Re-Mapping the Transnational: A Dartmouth Series in American Studies
$39.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-933-4, $37.99 Ebook, 978-1-58465-942-6, Dartmouth
"The strength of this book lies in its theoretical contributions, which are illuminating, invigorating and highly suggestive. An American Body/Politic is a profound and important work that is recommended heartily." --Journal of American Studies

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Musicals
Scott Miller
$24.95 Paperback, 978-1-55553-743-2, $19.99 Ebook, 978-1-55553-761-6, NUP
"Ferocious theatrical intelligence" --American Theatre

Excavating the Sutlers’ House
Artifacts of the British Armies in Fort Edward and Lake George
David R. Starbuck
$24.95 Paperback, 978-1-58465-818-4, UPNE            
'Excavating the Sutlers' House' is a well-written volume and should appeal to professional and vocational archaeologists, re-enactors, military historians, and indeed anyone hoping to learn more about British military artifacts of the 18th century. Starbuck's interpretations are sound and the photography is superb. This book will be an important addition to the libraries of historical archaeologists throughout the Northeast."