AltWeeklies Wire
'How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamites,' Reviewednew
When the financial tailspin of 2008 forced Alan Greenspan to confess that he was mistaken about the unshakable rationality and self-correcting nature of the economy, it was as if a Roman Catholic cardinal publicly doubted the divinity of Christ.
Shepherd Express |
David Luhrssen |
02-26-2010 |
Nonfiction
‘The Poisoner’s Handbook’: Tracking Murder Through Forensic Sciencenew
The storytelling skills of Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, show no diminishment in The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Penguin Press).
Shepherd Express |
Roger K. Miller |
02-12-2010 |
Nonfiction
Milwaukee Marched for Justicenew
Anyone living in Milwaukee in the '60s and old enough to be aware will recall a time of sharp tension. This story is recounted with lucid scholarship in The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee.
Shepherd Express |
David Luhrssen |
05-15-2009 |
Nonfiction
Animals in Art: Surveying American Wildlifenew
Some people have dismissed wildlife art as sentimental kitsch fit only for hotel lobbies or illustrating bird-watcher's handbooks. David J. Wagner might just change that perception with American Wildlife Art, a magisterial volume lavishly illustrated with more than 300 pictures, most in color.
Shepherd Express |
David Luhrssen |
02-13-2009 |
Nonfiction
'Awaiting the Heavenly Country' Examines the American Death Cultnew
With generous illustrated examples, Professor Mark S. Schantz depicts an America preoccupied with death. In this America, Shakespeare and militaristic Greek classicists like Herodotus were popular reading, and families of the 1830s and 1840s treasured photographic portraits of the freshly dead, including infants and children.
Shepherd Express |
Eric Beaumont |
11-10-2008 |
Nonfiction
Erik Darling: A Life in Folk Musicnew
A virtuoso banjo and guitar player, Darling also founded and performed with two other leading folk groups, the Tarriers (with Alan Arkin, then just a little-known singer) and the Rooftop Singers.
Shepherd Express |
Martin Jack Rosenblum |
09-19-2008 |
Nonfiction
A Look at Who Lead Belly Was and Wasn'tnew
Lead Belly: A Life inPictures is not merely a picture book at all, but is rife with brilliant essays and era-specific memorabilia that portray the complexity of the man who just might be America's finest folksinger – because he sang anything and was no purist.
Shepherd Express |
Martin Jack Rosenblum |
08-01-2008 |
Nonfiction
Cokie Roberts Looks Back on the Women Who Shaped Americanew
Without the patriotism of women on the home front, Roberts says, the colonies could well have lost the Revolutionary War.
Shepherd Express |
Rex Rutkoski |
05-30-2008 |
Nonfiction
Tony Horwitz Shows Folks What They Didn't Know in 'A Voyage Long and Strange'new
The book's chief attraction, even more than its historical revelations about discovering North America, lies in armchair traveling with a personable, entertaining companion.
Shepherd Express |
Roger K. Miller |
05-09-2008 |
Nonfiction
'Travel Italia' Surveys Commerical Artistsnew
By the 1920s, high-end travel by ship, train and airplane had become a thriving business the world over, promoted by colorful posters of great artistry.
Shepherd Express |
David Luhrssen |
02-22-2008 |
Nonfiction
Tyrant of the Screennew
Foster Hirsch uses personal background only as determining antecedents in the context of Otto Preminger's role as a director, giving the reader juicy insights where it matters most -- his relationships with his actors and the fascinating skirmishes on-set.
Shepherd Express |
Steve Spice |
02-15-2008 |
Nonfiction
Before the Nazis, a Germany on the Brinknew
More so than previous works, Weitz's ably written and thoroughly researched book examines the politics of Weimar and explains how the republic segued into Nazi tyranny.
Shepherd Express |
Roger K. Miller |
01-25-2008 |
Nonfiction
Our Way or No Way?new
Noam Chomsky opens his latest book, What We Say Goes, with fists flying.
Shepherd Express |
David Luhrssen |
01-18-2008 |
Nonfiction
Saved or Not?new
Crazy for God is largely an account of Frank Schaeffer's 1960s childhood in Switzerland where his parents, the Calvinist theologians Francis and Edith Schaeffer, ran a community based on their interpretation of Christian ideals.
Shepherd Express |
David Luhrssen |
01-11-2008 |
Nonfiction
Johnny Cash: Master of Mainstream Countrynew
Michael Streissguth's Johnny Cash: The Biography distinguishes itself as a portrayal of a man who was not ahead of his time, though he sure lived that way, but associated with those who were.
Shepherd Express |
Martin Jack Rosenblum |
12-14-2007 |
Nonfiction
