New Publications
The Grand Turk, by John Freely (265 pages, October 2009), is a modern biography of Mehmet II, the Ottoman Sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453, effectively destroying the Byzantine Empire. Over the next 27 years, Mehmet’s army overran Serbia and Bosnia, besieged Belgrade and Rhodes, conquered Athens and the Crimea, captured Otranto in Italy, suppressed a rebellion in Albania, and transformed his new capital into the Islamic city of Istanbul. Freely, who has lived in Istanbul since 1960, describes the city’s still-extant mosques and monuments built during Mehmet’s reign. $29.95. Overlook. 978-1-59020-248-7.
The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt: War through a Woman’s Eyes, 1939–1940, by Rulka Langer (467 pages, September 2009), was first published in the United States in 1942, not too long after Pearl Harbor. However, World War II started on September 1, 1939, when German troops and warplanes launched their assault on Poland. Warsaw, the city whose coat of arms is a mermaid wielding a sword, was besieged and finally succumbed on September 28. Langer, a working housewife with two children, was in the city waiting for an opportunity to join her husband Olgierd, who was working for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Philadelphia. Her description of the blitz, the siege, and the occupation is personal, moving, laced with grim humor, and accessible to a modern audience. The only narrative like it is the long out-of-print The Mask of Warriors by Marta Korwin-Rhodes (Libra, 1964). This edition has added more than 100 black-and-white photos and maps, explanatory footnotes, a timeline, and an epilogue by Langer’s son George, who lives in Colorado. $29.95. Aquila Polonica. 978-1-60772-000-3.
Photographs of the Past: Process and Preservation, by Bertrand Lavédrine (352 pages, August 2009), first published in France in 2007, offers an excellent tutorial on predigital photography. Lavédrine classifies each type of image (positive or negative, the type of support, black-and-white or color, and process) then for each provides a definition, history, an explanation of its fabrication and use, typical deterioration and recommended care, identification, structure, and sensitivity. Numerous sample images are shown. A section on conservation discusses types of deterioration, digital imaging as a conservation tool, and disaster recovery. $50.00. Getty Conservation Institute. 978-0-89236-957-7.
An essential companion for digital curators is The Digital Print: Identification and Preservation, by Martin C. Jürgens (310 pages, August 2009), which describes the numerous processes for printing digital images (with magnified examples of each) and recommends conservation techniques. Included is a handy poster-chart showing clues (color misregistration, dot placement, sheen) to identify specific types of print. $60.00. Getty Conservation Institute. 978-0-89236-960-7.
Pluto Confidential, by Laurence A. Marshall and Stephen P. Maran (221 pages, August 2009), reviews Pluto’s status as either a planet or a dwarf planet, with each astronomer-author taking a different side. The bulk of the book looks at other planetary identity crises such as the status of the large asteroids, the intramercurial planet Vulcan, planets outside our solar system, and the discovery of the Kuiper Belt that ultimately led to Pluto’s demotion in 2006. $14.95. Benbella. 978-1-933771-80-9.
For an easy-to-read summary of why Pluto should not be considered a planet, read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet (Norton, January 2009). The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference, by Alan Boyle (Wiley, October 2009), argues convincingly that the lack of consensus on what constitutes a planet should keep Pluto in the family for a while longer. Perhaps the New Horizons space probe, scheduled for a close approach in 2015, will provide more data.
QFinance: The Ultimate Resource (2,160 pages, September 2009) should prove an invaluable one-stop reference for MBA students and business faculty alike. This giant volume is divided into nine major sections—advice about best practices on everything from cash fl ow to venture capital, more than 200 pages of checklists, numerous calculations and ratios, profiles of 57 financial leaders (Galbraith and Greenspan are here, but so are Joseph Stiglitz and Mohammad Yunus), a finance library of recommended books, country and sector profiles, an extensive bibliography of financial resources both online and in print, subject-arranged quotations, and a glossary. The Q in the title stands for the Qatar Financial Centre Authority, the business arm of the Qatar government, which conceived of this project as a sequel to Bloomsbury’s Business: The Ultimate Resource (2d ed., 2006) and accounts for the volume’s global outlook. Accompanied by a frequently updated Web site (www.qfinance.com). $250.00. Bloomsbury. 978-1-84930-000-1.
Science As a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate, by Stephen H. Schneider (304 pages, December 2009), details the past 40 years of the author’s efforts to model future climate trends and convince other scientists, the public, and governments around the world that human activity is having a serious impact on the environment. This extraordinary and intelligible tale of disinformation, delay, and distortion by the media and public-policy skirmishing at scientific meetings is a textbook study of how controversies in science play out. Schneider finishes up with a strategy to mitigate climate change in preparation for the United Nations Climate Change conference that takes place in Copenhagen this month. $28.00. National Geographic. 978-1-4262-0578-1.
Waging The War of the Worlds, by John Gosling (237 pages, May 2009), examines Orson Welles’s historic Martian invasion broadcast of October 30, 1938, that apparently caused a sizable, widespread reaction of fear and anxiety in listeners—even among those who sensed it had something to do with the regular Mercury Theatre on the Air show. Gosling takes a look at the extent of the panic, whether Welles actually intended this reaction, author H. G. Wells’s original War of the Worlds novel, the role of Howard Koch’s original radio script (reprinted in the book), and most importantly, the panics that occurred later in other places—Chile (1944), Ecuador (1949), Brazil (1954 and 1971), Portugal (1958, 1988, and 1998), Buffalo (1968), and Providence (1974)—after the broadcast of an updated Martian scenario. Finally, he covers references to the 1938 incident in film, in print, and on TV, and asks ominously whether a similar scare could happen today. $45.00. McFarland. 978-0-7864-4105-1.
Article Views (By Year/Month)
| 2026 |
| January: 3 |
| 2025 |
| January: 0 |
| February: 7 |
| March: 7 |
| April: 10 |
| May: 16 |
| June: 15 |
| July: 20 |
| August: 18 |
| September: 18 |
| October: 14 |
| November: 22 |
| December: 28 |
| 2024 |
| January: 2 |
| February: 0 |
| March: 10 |
| April: 9 |
| May: 6 |
| June: 6 |
| July: 3 |
| August: 1 |
| September: 3 |
| October: 0 |
| November: 7 |
| December: 6 |
| 2023 |
| January: 2 |
| February: 2 |
| March: 0 |
| April: 4 |
| May: 1 |
| June: 1 |
| July: 1 |
| August: 0 |
| September: 1 |
| October: 8 |
| November: 1 |
| December: 3 |
| 2022 |
| January: 2 |
| February: 0 |
| March: 0 |
| April: 3 |
| May: 1 |
| June: 2 |
| July: 6 |
| August: 2 |
| September: 2 |
| October: 1 |
| November: 1 |
| December: 0 |
| 2021 |
| January: 0 |
| February: 4 |
| March: 0 |
| April: 6 |
| May: 0 |
| June: 1 |
| July: 0 |
| August: 1 |
| September: 0 |
| October: 2 |
| November: 2 |
| December: 0 |
| 2020 |
| January: 3 |
| February: 1 |
| March: 1 |
| April: 5 |
| May: 2 |
| June: 0 |
| July: 2 |
| August: 1 |
| September: 3 |
| October: 1 |
| November: 2 |
| December: 3 |
| 2019 |
| January: 5 |
| February: 3 |
| March: 2 |
| April: 2 |
| May: 4 |
| June: 6 |
| July: 2 |
| August: 6 |
| September: 1 |
| October: 4 |
| November: 0 |
| December: 4 |
| 2018 |
| January: 2 |
| February: 3 |
| March: 3 |
| April: 4 |
| May: 2 |
| June: 2 |
| July: 0 |
| August: 2 |
| September: 4 |
| October: 3 |
| November: 3 |
| December: 2 |
| 2017 |
| April: 0 |
| May: 1 |
| June: 2 |
| July: 2 |
| August: 6 |
| September: 5 |
| October: 5 |
| November: 2 |
| December: 5 |