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Books: Text Books: History and Surveys
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestorsby Nicholas Wade List Price: $24.95 Available from Amazon $15.72 On 7-21-2006 
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly Scientists are using DNA analysis to understand our prehistory: the evolution of humans; their relation to the Neanderthals, who populated Europe and the Near East; and Homo erectus, who roamed the steppes of Asia. Most importantly, geneticists can trace the movements of a little band of human ancestors, numbering perhaps no more than 150, who crossed the Red Sea from east Africa about 50,000 years ago. Within a few thousand years, their descendents, Homo sapiens, became masters of all they surveyed, the other humanoid species having become extinct. According to New York Times science reporter Wade, this DNA analysis shows that evolution isn't restricted to the distant past: Iceland has been settled for only 1,000 years, but the inhabitants have already developed distinctive genetic traits. Wade expands his survey to cover the development of language and the domestication of man's best friend. And while "race" is often a dirty word in science, one of the book's best chapters shows how racial differences can be marked genetically and why this is important, not least for the treatment of diseases. This is highly recommended for readers interested in how DNA analysis is rewriting the history of mankind. Maps. (Apr. 24) Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Genetics has been intruding on human origins research, long the domain of archaeology and paleoanthropology. Veteran science journalist Wade applies the insights of genetics to every intriguing question about the appearance and global dispersal of our species. The result is Wade's recounting of "a new narrative," which also has elements of a turf war between geneticists and their established colleagues. He efficiently explains how an evolutionary event (e.g., hairlessness) is recorded in DNA, and how rates of mutation can set boundary dates for it. For the story, Wade opens with a geneticist's estimate that modern (distinct from "archaic") Homo sapiens arose in northeast Africa 59,000 years ago, with a tiny population of only a few thousand, and was homogenous in appearance and language. Tracking the ensuing expansion and evolutionary pressures on humans, Wade covers the genetic evidence bearing on Neanderthals, race, language, social behaviors such as male-female pair bonding, and cultural practices such as religion. Wade presents the science skillfully, with detail and complexity and without compromising clarity. Gilbert Taylor Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved |
The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modernby Carol Strickland and John Boswell List Price: $22.95 Available from Amazon $14.92 On 7-21-2006 
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Church History: An Essential Guide (Essential Guides)by Justo L. Gonzalez List Price: $15.00 Available from Amazon $9.75 On 7-21-2006
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Writing History: A Guide for Studentsby William Kelleher Storey Available from Amazon $14.95 On 7-21-2006
See Item's Page Book Description Bringing together practical methods from both history and composition, Writing history provides a wealth of tips and advice to help students research and write essays for history classes. The book covers all aspects of writing about history, including finding topics and researching them, interpreting source materials, drawing inferences from sources, and constructing arguments. It concludes with three chapters that discuss writing effective sentences, using precise wording, and revising. Using numerous examples from the works of cultural, political, and social historians, Writing History serves as an ideal supplement to history courses that require students to conduct research. The second edition includes expanded sections on plagiarism, interviewing, and topic selection, as well as new sections on searching and using the Internet. |
Getting Away with Murder (Jane Addams Honor Book (Awards))by Chris Crowe List Price: $18.99 Available from Amazon $12.34 On 7-21-2006 
See Item's Page From School Library Journal Grade 7 Up-"The Emmett Till case was not the sole cause of the civil rights movement, but it was the final indignity that caused the flood of outrage to overflow the dam of racial injustice." Mainstream history has all but forgotten about this 14-year-old African American from Chicago who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi for making "ugly remarks" to one of their wives. The men were acquitted, and several months later, they were interviewed by Look magazine and publicly confessed to the crime. The event galvanized black Americans, and even many of the whites who had supported the defendants were appalled at their national confession. Four months after Till was killed, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, and the wheels of the civil rights movement were set in motion. Crowe's research is extensive and his writing is well suited to his audience. The black-and-white photographs add tension and realism to the story. The picture of the boy in his casket originally published in The Chicago Defender is a graphic, powerful testament to the brutality of the crime. This book is a mandatory addition to all libraries because of the impact and importance this crime had on our history. Lynn Evarts, Sauk Prairie High School, Prairie du Sac, WI Copyright 2003 Reed business Information, Inc. From Booklist Gr. 7-12. Most American history books don't include Emmett Till, the black 14-year-old from Chicago who was brutally murdered while visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta in 1954. But the gruesome, racially motivated crime and the court's failure to convict the white murderers was a powerful national catalyst for the civil rights movement. Crowe, the author of Mississippi Trial (2002), a YA novel about Till's story, begins this nonfiction account with the events that led to the murder: on a dare, Till allegedly flirted with a local white woman; several days later he was kidnapped by the woman's husband and other men. In accessible, succinct, and sometimes colloquial language, Crowe details what happened on the horrible night, the court proceedings, and how the nation responded-- the "aftershocks" of the unbelievable ruling. Crowe is particularly successful in placing the murder within its larger historical context, detailing life both in the segregated Jim Crow South and in Emmett's less volatile but still segregated Chicago, and he doesn't shy away from the horrifying details (there's a shocking black-and-white photo of Emmett's disfigured corpse among the illustrations). Crowe's occasional re-creations of events are vivid, but like the rest of the text, they would have been better served with more extensive source notes; only a few in-text references and a concluding bibliography are provided. But Crowe's powerful, terrifying account does justice to its subject in bold, direct telling, supported by numerous archival photos and quotes from those who remember, including Emmett's mother, who wrote on her son's gravestone: "A little nobody who shook up the world." A time line and a list of further resources conclude. Gillian Engberg Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved |
Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativityby David W. Galenson List Price: $29.95 Available from Amazon $19.77 On 7-21-2006
See Item's Page David Honigamann, Financial Times "Can one be both conceptual and experimental? Can artists reinvent themselves". Lucy Sussex, Sunday Age "When people cross disciplines, they can bring insights to old problems. Galenson is an economist with an interest in art". |
The History of Russia: Seventh Revised Edition (Meridian S.)by John T. Lawrence List Price: $15.95 Available from Amazon $11.16 On 7-21-2006
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History of Philosophy, Volume 4 (Modern Philosophy)by Frederick C. Copleston List Price: $18.95 Available from Amazon $12.32 On 7-21-2006 
See Item's Page Book Description Conceived originally as a serious presentation of the development of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume A history Of Philosophy has journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaimas the best history of philosophy in English. Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangled with A.J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity with most of history's great thinkers was reduced to simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to redress the wrong by writing a complete history of Western philosophy, one crackling with incident and intellectual excitement - and one that gives full place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a beautifully rounded manner and showing his links to those who came after him. Publisher Description Conceived originally as a serious presentation of the development of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume A history Of Philosophy has journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaimas the best history of philosophy in English. Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangled with A.J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity with most of history's great thinkers was reduced to simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to redress the wrong by writing a complete history of Western philosophy, one crackling with incident and intellectual excitement - and one that gives full place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a beautifully rounded manner and showing his links to those who came after him.
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