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In the iconography of "the people," images of the tough but jolly soldier and his devoted lady held great appeal. |
The French in Love and War: Popular Culture in the Era of the World Wars, by Charles Rearick, Ph.D. '68 (Yale University Press, $35). Seeking consolation in painful years, the French embraced an image of themselves, fed by the media, that posed a peculiarly French way of coping. Songs and movies spotlighted ordinary people sustained by ordinary pleasures-- Paris in the spring, young love, wine, a song. The author is professor of history at the University of Massachusetts. He seasons his text with pictures of Josephine Baker, Maurice Che-valier, poster boys and girls, and more.
Riddle of the Ice: A Scientific Adventure into the Arctic, by Myron Arms, M.T.S. '69 (Anchor Books, $22.95). Arms has a degree in divinity, lives on a farm overlooking the Sassafras River in Maryland, and is a Coast Guard-licensed ocean master. In 1994 he and a small crew sailed his 50-foot boat above the Arctic Circle into the bleak waters of Baffin Bay off Greenland. In this science mystery, presented as a captain's log, he teaches about the complex forces involved in Arctic ice production and warns of our vulnerability as a species in the face of processes that science is only beginning to understand.
Johannes Brahms: A Biography, by Jan Swafford '68 (Knopf, $35). "Truly revelatory," opined Publishers Weekly. "Swafford's study, clearly a labor of profound affection, is a model biography: eloquent, clear-sighted, and often moving."
Crabcakes: A Memoir, by James Alan McPherson, LL.B. '68 (Simon & Schuster, $23). McPherson's first book since he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1978 and a MacArthur Prize in 1981 is, he says, "an accumulation of soundbites, oral recollections, letters, thoughts, and experiences" of the past 20 years of his life. It comes in two distinct pieces, like a pair of Maryland crabcakes. The first centers around his time in Baltimore, Virginia, and Iowa; the second is a letter to a Japanese friend about McPherson's experiences in the Far East. Mostly the book concerns a hunger for community.
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James Printer: A Novel of Rebellion, by Paul Samuel Jacobs '64, M '68 (Scholastic Press, $15.95). For young adults, here's an engaging novel with a Harvard setting. James Printer, a Nipmuck Indian, was raised in the household of President Henry Dunster, who kept a printing press in the parlor and had two printers on his payroll. Later, the press was moved to what had been the Indian College. James served much of his apprenticeship under Samuel Green, the first of a line of important printers, but during King Philip's War, he fled to join Philip and the other insurgent Indians in rebellion against the English settlers he had known all his life. He survived the war, in time anger faded, and as an old man, he joined Bartholomew Green, in 1709, to print a book of psalms, in English and Algonquian, compiled by Experience Mayhew, A.M (hon.) 1720.
Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts, and Its Legacy, by Arnold R. Isaacs '61 (Johns Hopkins Press, $25.95). Just after the Gulf War ended, George Bush asserted that "The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian Peninsula." Isaacs, a war correspondent for the Baltimore Sun in Vietnam, doesn't think so.
Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA's Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong, by Mark Moyar '93 (Naval Institute Press, $29.95). Moyar dissects the various attempts to eradicate the Viet Cong infrastructure--chief among them the CIA's misunderstood Phoenix Program--and analyzes the effectiveness of each. "Whether or not one believes that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and military forces should help other countries fight insurgencies," he writes, "we need to understand how these organizations can intervene most effectively because they will continue to do so."
The Fire within the Eye: A Historical Essay on the Nature and Meaning of Light, by David Park '41 (Princeton University Press, $29.95). "The history of light is a long story which I intend to make longer still with many digressions," writes Park. An emeritus professor of physics at Williams College and a prizewinning science writer, he considers the physical, aesthetic, and spiritual aspects of light, starting with the Greeks.
Sumner Welles, FDR's Global Strategist: A Biography, by Benjamin Welles '38 (St. Martin's, $35). The aristocratic Sumner Welles '14, fresh out of Harvard, began work for the State Department, where he soon showed an aptitude for the delicacies of international negotiation. As under secretary of state for FDR, his main achievement was the development of U.S. relations with Latin America. In 1940 the President and his cabinet traveled by train to attend the funeral of the Speaker of the House. On the return journey, Welles allegedly propositioned a Pullman car porter, and that was the end of his career. This first biography of the man is by his son Benjamin, a retired journalist.
Men Giving Money, Women Yelling, by Alice Mattison, Ph.D. '68 (Morrow, $22). Fifteen stories about an agreeable cast of characters in and out of each others' lives in the vicinity of New Haven.
Legends of the American Desert: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest, by Alex Shoumatoff '68 (Knopf, $30). This wonderful book bursts with astonishing facts and intriguing reflections about the refugees, fugitives, and utopians who people the Southwest, about the formation of the deserts, chile addiction, Mojave evil spirits, the diffusion of horses, Yale-educated cowboys, and life.
Reaper, by Ben Mezrich '91 (HarperCollins, $22). Nine lawyers drop dead during a conference call in Boston. That's only the beginning. The culprit: a biological virus that's spread electronically. Mezrich's techno-thriller is scheduled for production as a TV movie.
Portraits of Discovery: Profiles in Scientific Genius, by George Greenstein (Wiley, $24.95). A portion of this book, about astronomy professors Margaret Geller and John Huchra, appeared in slightly different form in this magazine. Greenstein also profiles earlier Harvard astronomers Annie Jump Cannon and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Ph.D. '25.
Attention Authors: Danny O. Snow '78 advises that he "has been retained as lead communications consultant by Advanced Marketing Technologies, parent company of the world's leading distributor of 'virtual books.'" The firm "is actively seeking new titles in all genres." Visit the site at "www.1stbooks.com". Reach him at "dosnow@post.harvard.edu" or dial (800) 484-8247 and enter security code 2586 at the prompt.