Good evening, everyone. A fairly light week in nonfiction new books, but it hasn’t been a light week for me, so I don’t have any extra book news or my own reviews to add. Primary election day here in Arizona. Not a whole lot to decide on the Democratic ballot in my legislative district, with most of the candidates running unopposed, but we still cast our ballots as a show of election enthusiasm. The fireworks come in November. We can do this!
THIS WEEK”S NOTABLE NEW NONFICTION
- All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way, by Fred C. Trump, III. For the record…Fred Trump never asked for any of this. The divisive politics. The endless headlines. A hijacked last name. The heat-seeking uncle, rising from real estate scion to gossip column fixture to The Apprentice host to President of the United States. Fred just wanted a happy life and a satisfying career. But a fight for his son’s health and safety forced him onto a center stage that he had never wanted. And now, at a crucial point for our nation, he is stepping forward again. It’s a story of power, love, money, cruelty, and the unshakable bonds of family, played out underneath a glaring media spotlight. "While not as scathing as his sister Mary’s book, “All in the Family” still presents a dishy portrait of generations of the Trump family as chronically toxic, narcissistic, conniving and cruel." -- Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post
- Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere, by Rob Jackson. Climate change is here. From the millions displaced by the floods in Pakistan to Californian and Canadian towns incinerated by wildfires, we are experiencing the anguish that climate change causes. Fossil fuels are making the planet unlivable, and they are deadly. We know that we must cut emissions if we are going to limit the catastrophes, but is that enough? Jackson introduces us to the brilliant leaders and innovators behind some of the boldest and game-changing climate solutions under development. When it comes to greenhouse gas mitigation, our choices matter, because it is easier to stop emissions from happening than to remove greenhouse gases from the air later. But while mitigation is crucial, no number of solar panels, electric cars, and veggie burgers alone will be enough to halt climate change. Decades of inaction have convinced Jackson that we need to remove greenhouse gases from the air using everything from nature to cutting-edge technologies. “A fascinating look into some of the cutting-edge climate solutions—and for all its technical savvy, this book ends in the right place, with wonderful glimpses of activists like Rev. Lennox Yearwood and Rose Abramoff, who remind us that without movements, nothing can happen!” —Bill McKibben
- Nuclear is Not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change, by M.V. Ramana. The climate crisis
has propelled nuclear energy back into fashion. Its proponents argue we already have the technology of the future and that it only needs perfection and deployment. Nuclear Is Not the Solution demonstrates why this sort of thinking is not only naïve but dangerous. Even beyond the horrific implications of meltdown and the intractable problem of waste disposal, nuclear is not practicable on such a large scale. Any appraisal of future energy technology depends on two important parameters: cost and time. Nuclear fails on both counts. It is more costly than its renewable competitors wind and solar. And, importantly given the need for rapid transformation, it is slow. A plant takes a decade to come online. If you include permits and fundraising, this adds another decade. And we should not forget the deep roots it has in the defense industry. "This book is smart, terrifying, and indispensable. In lucid prose, Ramana cuts through the hype surrounding gen iv, modular, and other reactor designs that are squandering billions of dollars. Atomic energy is costly, dirty, dangerous, and not the solution to anything other than building bombs and contaminating the earth for millions of years."
—Thomas A. Bass author of Return to Fukushima
- The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America 1963-1973, by Clara Bingham. For lovers of both Barbie and Gloria Steinem, The Movement is the first oral history of the decade that built the modern feminist movement. Through the captivating individual voices of the people who lived it, The Movement tells the intimate inside story of what it felt like to be at the forefront of the modern feminist crusade, when women rejected thousands of years of custom and demanded the freedom to be who they wanted and needed to be. Bingham artfully weaves together the fragments of that explosion person by person, bringing to life the emotions of this personal, cultural, and political revolution. Artists and politicians, athletes and lawyers, Black and white, The Movement brings readers into the rooms where these women insisted on being treated as first class citizens, and in the process, changed the fabric of American life. "Clara Bingham has given the world an indispensable new book that belongs on the shelf of every American woman—part history, part encyclopedia of a time, and an absolute page-turning drama, all in one." —Sally Jenkins
- Beyond Policing, by Philip V. McHarris. his book tackles thorny issues with evidence, including data and personal stories, to uncover the weight of policing on people and communities and the patterns that prove police reform only leads to more policing.
McHarris challenges us to envision a future where safety is not synonymous with policing but is built on the foundation of community support and preventive measures. He explores innovative community-based safety models (like community mediators and violence interrupters), the decriminalization of driving offenses, and the creation of nonpolice crisis response teams. McHarris also outlines strategies for responding to conflict and harm in ways that transform the conditions that give rise to the issues. He asks us to imagine a world where people thrive without the shadow of inequality, where our approach to safety is a collective achievement. “In this visionary yet sober account, Philip V. McHarris marshals empirical data and personal stories to show that the police function not to keep all of us safe but to maintain racial and class order. A half-century of reform has done nothing to reduce police brutality, terror, wrongful deaths, or crime. Beyond Policing offers a new vision of public safety, one that recognizes social and economic security as safety issues. Even skeptics will agree: abolition may be the only viable path to a humane civil society.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams
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Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America, by Hasia R. Diner.
Popular belief holds that the various ethnic groups that emigrated to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century regarded one another with open hostility, fiercely competing for limited resources and even coming to blows in the crowded neighborhoods of major cities. One of the most enduring stereotypes is that of rabidly anti-Semitic Irish Catholics, like Father Charles Coughlin of Boston and the sensationalized Gangs of New York trope of Irish street thugs attacking defenseless Jewish immigrants. In Opening Doors, Hasia R. Diner, one of the world’s preeminent historians of immigration, tells a very different story; far from confrontational, the prevailing relationships between Jewish and Irish Americans were overwhelmingly cooperative, and the two groups were dependent upon one another to secure stable and upwardly mobile lives in their new home. “If you think you know how Jewish and Irish Americans have interacted in the past, think again: Hasia Diner has news for you in this wonderful and important new book. There’s a revelation on every page, it seems. The author’s expertise is breathtaking; the story she tells is surprising and exciting. This is a book only Hasia Diner could write. And thank goodness she did.”—Terry Golway, author of Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of American Politics
- The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity, by Timothy C. Winegard. The story begins more than 5,500 years ago on the windswept grasslands of the Eurasian Steppe; when one human tamed one horse, an unbreakable bond was forged and the future of humanity was instantly rewritten, placing the reins of destiny firmly in human hands. Since that pivotal day, the horse has carried the history of civilizations on its powerful back. Horses revolutionized the way we hunted, traded, traveled, farmed, fought, worshipped, and interacted. "In this epic saga of the horse and human history, Winegard has researched deeply, written vividly, and made new connections about trade, agricultural production, transportation, and war. The horse has been integral to every point in civilization, and this grand narrative blazes new trails for experts and readers." —Tim Cook, bestselling author of Vimy: The Battle and the Legend
- Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires, by David Chaffetz.
No animal is so entangled in human history as the horse. The thread starts in prehistory, with a slight, shy animal, hunted for food. Domesticating the horse allowed early humans to settle the vast Eurasian steppe; later, their horses enabled new forms of warfare, encouraged long-distance trade routes, and ended up acquiring deep cultural and religious significance. Over time, horses came to power mighty empires in Iran, Afghanistan, China, India, and, later, Russia. Genghis Khan and the thirteenth-century Mongols offer the most famous example, but from ancient Assyria and Persia, to the seventeenth-century Mughals, to the high noon of colonialism in the early twentieth century, horse breeding was indispensable to conquest and statecraft. “A fascinating, compelling, and scholarly history of horses, raiders, and rulers that brings the great horse-powered empires of Central Asia to life and places the horse at the center of world history where it belongs.” — Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity
- The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982, by Chris Nashawaty. In the summer of 1982, eight science fiction films were released within six weeks of one another. E.T., Tron, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior changed the careers of some of Hollywood's now biggest names—altering the art of movie-making to this day. Taken as a whole, these films show a precarious turning-point in Hollywood history, when baffled film executives finally began to understand the potential of high-concept films with a rabid fanbase, merchandising potential, and endless possible sequels. Expertly researched, energetically told, and written with an unabashed love for the cinema, The Future Was Now is a chronicle of how the revolution sparked in a galaxy far, far away finally took root and changed Hollywood forever. “A ripping narrative that takes you on a wild ride through the events, players, and surprising drama that culminate in a string of paradigm-shifting films. The Future Was Now is an indispensable resource for filmmakers and fans alike.” ―Eric Heisserer, Academy-award nominated writer of Arrival and creator of Netflix's Shadow & Bone
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