NONFICTION
Released: May 26, 2013
"A dispassionate, academic account supported by reasoned facts in place of political passions."
Two University of Washington political science professors offer a rigorous scholarly investigation of the tea party.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 28, 2013
"Perhaps too detailed, but a useful contribution to an already rich literature."
A thoroughgoing, sometimes plodding account of the first major federal bailout of New York, one met with happier tidings than the equivalent of that old headline reading, "Ford to City: Drop Dead."
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NONFICTION
Released: May 28, 2013
"Carlson has taken full advantage of abundant material to deliver a vivid chronicle of two working Civil War reporters and their spectacular odyssey."
A rollicking story of imprisonment and escape during the Civil War seems a stretch, but journalist Carlson accomplished a similar feat with a Soviet premier in
K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist (2009), and this is another entertaining, occasionally gruesome account.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 28, 2013
"Scholarly essays packed with closely reasoned arguments from the author and fellow academics, plus extensive historical analyses of thinkers from Aristotle to Spinoza to Malcolm Gladwell. Patient readers with a taste for philosophy will find that reading this book is a stimulating experience."
Why do some people behave honorably and others badly? This has been a core question since the dawn of philosophy, and Ravven (Religious Studies/Hamilton Coll.; co-editor:
Jewish Themes in Spinoza's Philosophy, 2002) discusses the possibilities.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 28, 2013
"A frustrating mixture of incontrovertible facts and dubious speculation. Proceed with caution."
A nationally syndicated conservative columnist explores the extent and impact of the Soviet Union's penetration of the United States government.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 1, 2013
"A valuable survey of U.S. golf history, but a bit too dry and academic for casual readers."
Moss (History, Emeritus/Colby Coll.;
Eden in the Pines: A History of Pinehurst Village, 2005, etc.) presents a study of golf's development in the United States.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 1, 2013
"Seriously funny, humorously serious, scholarly, witty and wise."
A survey and analysis of Jewish humor, from the Bible to Larry David and Sacha Baron Cohen.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 1, 2013
"While the legal principles presented remain sound, the commentary on controversies that were topical in the 1980s and '90s too often sounds dated and suggests that Abrams is largely serving warmed-over material from an illustrious past."
Vigorous, principled defenses of freedom of expression from a long career in the legal trenches.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 3, 2013
"A useful, engaging primer for anyone wishing to understand the politics, precedent and procedures that have shaped the Senate."
Two longtime observers of our government in action offer a multidimensional study of the history, traditions and culture of the United States Senate.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 3, 2013
"An intriguing addition to a centuries-long geopolitical adventure story."
Day (Research Fellow/La Trobe Univ., Melbourne;
Conquest: How Societies Overwhelm Others, 2008, etc.) examines the strange history of Antarctica, "a continent of many claimants and no owners."
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NONFICTION
Released: June 3, 2013
"Of possible interest to Jesse James and/or Civil War buffs, but not to a wider audience."
A Missouri legal historian's well-researched but lackluster answer to the question of whether Jesse James was "the last great rebel of the Civil War or the first notorious robber after [it]."
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NONFICTION
Released: June 4, 2013
"A touching, fairly uncomplicated portrayal of rowing legends."
The long, passionate journey of the University of Washington rowing team to the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
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