Bookshelf

Alumni Authors

Zeppelin! Germany and the Airship 1900-1939
Guillaume de Syon, A87
The John Hopkins University Press

De Syon, associate professor of history at Albright College and history research associate at Franklin and Marshall College, offers an in-depth look at the history of the zeppelin. Although the airships moved slowly, there was no mistaking their exciting-or ominous-potential. Friends of the machine believed that they would revolutionize commerce, carry scientists to otherwise inaccessible places and deliver bombs with great accuracy. Before the airship proved its reliability and superior practicality-and before the fiery crash of the Hindenburg in 1937-zeppelins made the strongest impressions of any flying machine on Europe's collective memory, especially Germany.

From the airship's development and production to its impact on German culture and society, de Syon chronicles the various ways in which the airships were used-transport, war, exploration and propaganda-and details the attempts by successive German governments to co-opt Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin's invention. Between 1900 and 1939, Germans saw the zeppelin as a symbol of national progress, and de Syon uses the airship to better understand the dynamics of German society and the place of technology within it. Though few people actually flew in any of the 119 zeppelins built, the rigid airship captivated universal attention: for Germans, it was the wonder of the age.

Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power
Sheila Blair, J70, and Jonathan Bloom
Yale University Press

Blair and Bloom, the Norma Jean Calderwood University Professors of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College, examine the rise of Islam, the life of Muhammad, and the Islamic principles of faith. They describe the golden age of the Abbasids, the Mongol invasions, and the great Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires that emerged in their wake. The book is the companion to the PBS documentary Islam: Empire of Faith.

Cambridge on the Charles
Alan Seaburg, A54, G57, Thomas Dahill and Carol Rose
Anne Miniver Press

Seaburg, Curator of Manuscripts Emeritus at the Divinity School of Harvard University, along with Dahill and Rose, tells the story of the peoples who have made their homes beside the Charles River in what we know as Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is the first popular history of the community in more than a generation and it is the first to be illustrated in color. Beginning 180 million years ago when the land was part of the African continent, the book travels through Cambridge's history, from the Pilgrims to the current-day cyber experts at MIT.

Guide to Judicial Management of Cases in ADR
Randall E. Ravitz, A93, Robert J. Niemic and Donna Stienstra
Federal Judicial Center

Ravitz, an attorney with Brown Rudnick Freed & Gesmer, and attorneys Niemic and Stienstra, offer guidance to federal trial and bankruptcy courts on when and how to refer appropriate cases to ADR and how to manage cases referred to ADR. The book identifies areas where there may be disagreement and also alerts readers to emerging trends.

The Peasant Cotton Revolution in West Africa: Cote d'Ivoire 1880-1995
Thomas J. Bassett, A76
Cambridge University Press

The literature on Africa is dominated by accounts of crisis, doom and gloom, but this book presents one of the few long-running success stories. Bassett, a geographer well known in the field of development, tells an unusual story of the growth of the cotton economy of West Africa, where change was brought about by tens of thousands of small-scale peasant farmers. Employing the case of Cote d'Ivoire, he shows agricultural intensification to result from the cumulative effect of decades of incremental changes in farming techniques and social organization.

Sea Soup: Zooplankton
Mary Cerullo, J71
Tilbury House, Publishers

Sea Soup Teacher's Guide
Betsy Stevens, J63
Tilbury House, Publishers

Writing for grades 3-7, Cerullo, the associate director of the marine environmental organization Friends of Casco Bay, and Stevens, the retired director of the Sandy Point Discovery Center on the Great Bay Estuary in New Hampshire, explore the sea and a wide variety of drifting marine life-from the tiny copepod, which is the fastest animal in the world, to comb jellies that glow in the dark, to a sea wasp whose sting will kill you in minutes.

Cover Yourself: Adventures in the Rag Trade from Start-Ups to Stars
Sue Pekarsky Gray, G61
GarmentoSpeak

Gray, a partner/owner of a consulting firm for sewn product manufacturers, offers a trade book that incorporates the stories, from interviews, of 45 Americans involved in all aspects of the clothing industry, from fashion illustrator to space suit designer for NASA. Addressing both the personal and technical, the book gives a full picture of the rag business, from the fashion photographer who gets into her clients' psyches to relax them to the married co-owners of a hat manufacturing company who discuss mixing business with personal issues.

Parents as Spiritual Guides
Roberta Nelson, J58, and Christopher Nelson
Unitarian Universalist Association

Based on the belief that children's religious education should not be restricted to Sunday school, Roberta Nelson, a Unitarian Universalist minister, and Christopher Nelson have devised a program to bring spiritual growth into the home, where the communion and rituals of family life can support the "dynamic process of faith development." Each session is structured to include goals, necessary materials, preparation, the session plan and a handout.

Office-Based Infertility Practice: Practice and Procedures
Dr. David B. Seifer, A77, and Dr. Robert L. Collins, editors
Springer-Verlag

Seifer, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and Collins present a resource for all physicians treating infertile couples. The text emphasizes the practice of treating infertility in the office setting, reflecting the current trend away from the hospital into the outpatient environment. The most current and advanced therapies available are discussed by recognized experts in the field.

Overcoming the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Young Women
Monica L. Greene, J90, Freeman A. Hrabowski, Kenneth I. Maton & Geoffrey L. Greif
Oxford University Press

Statistics indicate that African American females, as a group, fare poorly in the United States. Many live in single-parent households-either as the single-parent mother or as the daughter. Many face severe economic hurdles. Yet despite these obstacles, some are performing at exceptional levels academically. Based on interviews with many of these women, Greene, a faculty research associate in psychology at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the other authors provide a wealth of information about how and why they have succeeded-what motivates them, how their backgrounds and family relationships have shaped them.

Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors
Barbara Delinsky, J67
Pocket Books

Delinsky, the author of more than 65 novels, has created the book she wished had existed when she went through treatment for breast cancer. Uplift is a collection of anecdotes and advice told in the words of everyday women of all ages who are part of the ever-growing sisterhood of breast cancer survivors. There is neither medical advice nor technical discussions in the book but words from friends and family members of survivors who share how they felt as they helped the women in their lives through it all.

Aleph-Bet Yoga: Embodying the Hebrew Letters for Physical and Spiritual Well-Being
Steven A. Rapp, E86
Jewish Lights Publishing

By blending traditional hatha yoga postures and the forms of the Hebrew aleph-bet, yoga teacher Rapp shows readers how they can use this ancient health practice to deepen their Jewish spirituality. Included are lessons on integrating the meaning of each Hebrew letter with the common name of the corresponding hatha yoga pose, connecting all 27 Hebrew letters with hatha yoga poses that correspond to the shapes of the letters, and weaving together the meaning of each Hebrew letter with the Sanskrit word for the yoga pose and a biblical phrase in meditation.

Faculty Authors

Print Culture and Music in Sixteenth-Century Venice
Jane A. Bernstein
Oxford University Press

Bernstein, the Austin Fletcher Professor of Music, has written a spin-off of her award-winning Music Printing in Renaissance Venice: The Scotto Press (1539-1572) on the commerce of music and its connection to the printing and publishing industry in mid-16th century Venice. While the book incorporates much of the material presented in the former study, it presents a broad portrayal of the Venetian music book trade and explores business strategies that music printers followed in the marketing of musical repertoires.

The Specter of Speciesism: Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals
Paul Waldau
Oxford University Press

Waldau, a clinical assistant professor at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at the Veterinary School, looks at how non-human animals have been viewed in the Buddhist and Christian religious traditions. The concept of speciesism, coined in 1970 as an analogy to racism, is used to explore very basic questions about which animals, human or otherwise, were significant to early Buddhists and Christians. Drawing on scriptures and interpretive traditions in Christianity and Buddhism, Waldau argues that decisions about human ethical responsibilities in other religions are deeply rooted in ancient understandings of the place of humans in the world and our relationships with other animals in an integrated cosmos.

Art in the Medieval West and Its Audience
Madeline H. Caviness
Ashgate Publishing

Caviness, the Mary Richardson Professor of Art and Art History, explores a set of issues that have concerned art historians in relation to medieval works of art-questions of patronage and viewing community, formal and aesthetic codes, and modern reception history. Two studies examine ways in which Neoplatonic and Aristotelian tenets informed different modes of representation, and the visionary mode is later addressed in the context of the works of Hildegard of Bingen. Revisionist pieces include articles on aesthetic and political factors that impacted the modern formation of a canon of medieval works in Europe and the United States.

Seeking the Path of God's Justice: An Analysis of the U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter on Economic Justice
Rev. David M. O'Leary
The Catholic Center at Tufts University

O'Leary, the Catholic chaplain at Tufts and lecturer in comparative religions, gives a detailed reading of the U.S. Bishops' letter on economic justice. The book, which grew out of a course O'Leary taught on world religions and economic justice, explores the concept of biblical justice and Catholic social teaching.

top