Booknotes

Items

• Leaving the bench : Supreme Court justices at the end

  Life appointments make Supreme Court justices among the most powerful officials in government and allow even dysfunctional judges to stay on long after they should have departed. For that reason, when a justice leaves the bench is often as controversial as when he's appointed. This first comprehensive historical treatment of their deaths, resignations, and retirements explains when and why justices do step down. It considers the diverse circumstances under which they leave office and clarifies why they often are reluctant to, showing how factors like pensions, party loyalty, or personal pride come into play. It also relates physical ailments to mental faculties, offering examples of how a justice's disability sometimes affects Court decisions.--BOOK JACKET."Ultimately, Atkinson shows just how human these people are and enhances our understanding of how the Court conducts its business. He also suggests specific ways to improve the present situation, weighing the pros and cons of mandatory retirement and calling for reform in the delegation of duties to law clerks - who in recent years have dominated the actual writing of many justices' decisions."--BOOK JACKET."As the current Court ages, how long might we expect justices to remain on the bench? Because our next president will likely make several appointments, now is the time to consider what shape the Supreme Court will take in the next century. Offering a wealth of information never before collected, Leaving the Bench provides substantial grist for that debate and will serve as an unimpeachable reference on the Court."--BOOK JACKET.
• Bowling alone : the collapse and revival of American community

  Putnam's work shows how social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction. For example, he reports that getting married is the equivalent of quadrupling your income and attending a club meeting regularly is the equivalent of doubling your income. The loss of social capital is felt in critical ways: Communities with less social capital have lower educational performance and more teen pregnancy, child suicide, low birth weight, and prenatal mortality. Social capital is also a strong predictor of crime rates and other measures of neighborhood quality of life, as it is of our health: In quantitative terms, if you both smoke and belong to no groups, it's a close call as to which is the riskier behavior.--BOOK JACKET.
• Creating equal : my fight against race preferences

  A story of the author's life and his struggles with "America's racial divide." As a member of the University of California Board of Regents, the author was drawn into the controversy surrounding affirmative action and "finally concluded ... that this phrase was merely a polite euphemism for an entrenched system of race preferences that psychologically damages its alleged beneficiaries and unjustly discriminates against its real victims."--Jacket.
• The disuniting of America : reflections on a multicultural society

  Examines the lessons of one polyglot country after another tearing itself apart or on the brink of doing so, and points out troubling new evidence that multiculturalism gone awry here in the United States threatens to do the same.
• How to overthrow the government

  How to Overthrow the Government, is Huffington's call to arms; a challenge to the average American to seize the government back from the special interests that now hold it hostage and restore control to the people themselves. From campaign finance reform to new voters' rights to grassroots Internet activism and civil disobedience campaigns, she calls for fresh and radical solutions to this national crisis and offers a directory of local and national activist groups to contact that can help make it happen.--Jacket.
• Mao : a life

  An unsentimental portrait of Mao explores the life of the peasant who rose to the position of "chairman" of China's communist party and absolute ruler of the country, overseeing both brilliant reform and terrible butchery during his long reign.
• Joseph McCarthy : reexamining the life and legacy of America's most hated senator

  Herman’s work reconsiders the career of Senator McCarthy, particularly with respect to his investigations of suspected domestic spies for the Soviet Union. Herman explains that a new understanding this issue has been gained from sources such as the Venona intercepts (which began to be made available in 1995). This information shows that McCarthy, though often harsh, inappropriate, and prone to exaggeration, might have been on the right track in terms of his suspicions of some Americans’ loyalties during the period.
• First they killed my father : a daughter of Cambodia remembers

  From a childhood survivor of Cambodia's brutal Pol Pot regime comes an unforgettable narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit.--Dust jacket.
• Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings : an American controversy

  Rumors of Thomas Jefferson's sexual involvement with his slave Sally Hemings have circulated for two centuries. It remains, among all aspects of Jefferson's renowned life, perhaps the most hotly contested topic. With Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Annette Gordon-Reed promises to intensify this ongoing debate as she identifies glaring inconsistencies in many noted scholars' evaluations of the existing evidence. She has assembled a fascinating and convincing argument: not that the alleged thirty-eight-year liaison necessarily took place but rather that the evidence for its taking place has been denied a fair hearing.--BOOK JACKET. "Possessing both a layperson's unfettered curiosity and a lawyer's logical mind, Annette Gordon-Reed writes with a style and compassion that are irresistible. Her analysis is accessible, with each chapter revolving around a key figure in the Hemings drama. The resulting portraits are engrossing and very personal. Gordon-Reed also brings a keen intuitive sense of the psychological complexities of human relationships - relationships that, in the real world, often develop regardless of status or race. The most compelling element of all, however, is her extensive and careful research, which often allows the evidence to speak for itself."--BOOK JACKET.
• Completing the revolution : a vision for victory in 2000

  The conservative pundit and television personality maps out a strategy for the Republican nominee to win the 2000 Presidential election.
• River-horse : the logbook of a boat across America

  The author sets out from New York City to sail his boat across the United States.
• The Cornel West reader

  The best work of an always compelling, often controversial and absolutely essential philosopher of the American experience, modernity, and the human condition.
• The great republic : a history of America

  The Great Republic' is Sir Winston Churchill's personal vision of American history, from the arrival of the first European settlers to the dawn of the Cold War, edited by his grandson, the historian and journalist Winston S. Churchill. The book is a magnificent retelling of the American story, including some of the best short histories of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War ever written. The bulk of this book, America's history up to the twentieth century; has until now been found only within Churchill's much longer four-volume 'A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953. The chapters on America from that larger work have been knit together into a whole, and to them Winston S. Churchill has added essays and speeches of his grandfather's, many never before published in bok form, to bring the book up to the mid-twentieth century....
• Empire express : building the first transcontinental railroad

  Chronicles the events that took place in the thirty years it took to complete the first transcontinental railroad, profiling the key players in its development, the major setbacks the workers faced, and the public objections to the railroad's completion.
• A great wall : six presidents and China : an investigative history

  Studies how America's relationship with China has changed from 1969 to 1999, focusing on how American presidents have dealt with China's rulers.
• Rostenkowski : the pursuit of power and the end of the old politics

  For thirteen years, during a time of Democratic congressional dominance in Washington, Dan Rostenkowski became one of the most influential American legislators of the twentieth century. As chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the congressman from Illinois left his mark on the nation's tax laws, international trade, Social Security, health care, welfare programs, and a good many other policies that affected most Americans. He practiced old-school politics; he passed out political favors liberally; he could be gruff and abrupt. But the route for important legislation ran through Rostenkowski's office.--BOOK JACKET."Richard Cohen's scrupulous political biography of Rostenkowski follows his rise to power from modest origins in the Democratic ward politics of Chicago's Polish northwest side, through his national legislative triumphs, and ultimately to his criminal conviction and imprisonment for abuses of House practice."--BOOK JACKET. "Mr. Cohen's story offers much more than Rostenkowski's personal tragedy; it is a tale of the transformation of American political life. Because he served so many years in Congress (1959-1995), Rostenkowski's career illuminates the changing nature of both the institution and the Democratic party."--BOOK JACKET.
• The great shame : and the triumph of the Irish in the English-speaking world

  In the nineteenth century, Ireland lost half of its population to famine, emigration to the United States and Canada, and the forced transportation of convicts to Australia. The forebears of Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List, were victims of that tragedy, and in The Great Shame Keneally has written the full story of the Irish diaspora with the narrative grip and flair of a novel. Based on unique research among little-known sources, this book surveys eighty years of Irish history through the eyes of political prisoners - including Keneally's ancestors - who left Ireland in chains and eventually found glory, in one form or another, in Australia and America.--BOOK JACKET.
• Dow 36,000
• Flu : the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it

  Unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Kolata tracks the race to recover the live pathogen and probes the fear that has impelled government policy. She delves into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, profiles the experts hot on the trail and the amateurs woefully misguided, and details the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease. -- Jacket.
• My first 79 years

  For sixty-four years, Isaac Stern has been a great - and greatly loved - performing artist, famous for his profound music-making, his gusto for life, his passionate dedication to sharing his knowledge and wisdom with younger musicians, and his determination in a good cause. "Brought to America from Russia when he was ten months old, Stern grew up in San Francisco and was quickly recognized as an extraordinary talent. He began performing publicly while still very young, and was soon touring across the country and around the world. His fame escalated when he led the fight to save Carnegie Hall, and again when he was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary film From Mao to Mozart." "In this book he shares with us both his personal and his artistic experiences: the story of his rise to eminence; his feelings about music and the violin; his rich emotional life; his great friendships and collaborations with colleagues such as Leonard Bernstein and Pablo Casals; his background as an ardent supporter of Israel; his ideas and beliefs about art, life, love, and the world we live in."--Book Jacket.
• All souls : a family story from Southie

  The anti-busing riots of 1974 forever changed Southie, Boston's working class Irish community, branding it as a violent, racist enclave. Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up in Southie's Old Colony housing project. He describes the way this world within a world felt to the troubled yet keenly gifted observer he was even as a child: [as if] we were protected, as if the whole neighborhood was watching our backs for threats, watching for all the enemies we could never really define.""--BOOK JACKET."But the threats - poverty, drugs, a shadowy gangster world - were real. MacDonald lost four of his siblings to violence and poverty. All Souls is heart-breaking testimony to lives lost too early, and the story of how a place so filled with pain could still be "the best place in the world.""--BOOK JACKET.
• Extraordinary minds : portraits of exceptional individuals and an examination of our extraordinariness

  In Extraordinary Minds, a book as riveting as it is new, Gardner poses an important question: Is there a set of traits shared by all truly great achievers - those we deem extraordinary - no matter their field or the time period within which they did their important work? "In an attempt to answer this question, Gardner first examines how most of us mature into more or less competent adults. He then examines closely four persons who lived unquestionably extraordinary lives - Mozart, Freud, Woolf, and Gandhi - using each as an exemplar of a different kind of extraordinariness: Mozart as the master of a discipline, Freud as the innovative founder of a new discipline, Woolf as the great introspector, and Gandhi as the influencer." "What can we learn about ourselves from the experiences of the extraordinary? Interestingly, Gardner finds that an excess of raw power is not the most impressive characteristic shared by superachievers; rather, these extraordinary individuals all have had a special talent for identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, for accurately analyzing the events of their own lives, and for converting into future successes those inevitable setbacks that mark every life." "Gardner provides answers to a number of provocative questions, among them: How do we explain extraordinary times - Athens in the fifth century B.C., the T'ang Dynasty in the eighth century, Islamic Society in the late Middle Ages, and New York at the middle of the century? What is the relation among genius, creativity, fame, success, and moral extraordinariness? Does extraordinariness make for a happier, more fulfilling life, or does it simply create a special onus?"--BOOK JACKET.
• American culture, American tastes : social change and the 20th century

  Americans have a long history of public arguments about taste, the uses of leisure, and what is culturally appropriate in a democracy that has a strong work ethic. Michael Kammen surveys these debates as well as our changing taste preferences, especially in the past century, and the shifting perceptions that have accompanied them. "Focusing on our own time, Kammen discusses the use of the fluid nature of cultural taste to enlarge audiences and increase revenues, and reveals how the public role of intellectuals and cultural critics has declined as the power of corporate sponsors and promoters has risen. As a result of this diminution of cultural authority, he says, definitive pronouncements have been replaced by divergent points of view, and there is, as well, a tendency to blur fact and fiction, reality and illusion."--BOOK JACKET.
• A history of the American people

  Paul Johnson's work is a reinterpretation of American history spanning from the first colonial settlements to the Clinton administration.
• America in so many words : words that have shaped America

  In chronological order, Barnhart and Metcalf give the history and usage of words and phrases that Americans have added to the English language, from canoe and skunk in the 1500s to soccer mom, Ebonics, and millennium bug in the 1990s.