On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines - And Future

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By Karen Elliot House
"Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and then foreign editor of the "Wall Street Journal", House has been familiarizing herself with Saudi Arabia over 30 years. Here she draws on her access to the ruling Al Saud family to paint a portrait of a country central to Middle East politics and America's future--it's our second largest oil supplier."  (Library Journal)

The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West?

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By Doug Saunders
"A controversial rejoinder to the excessive fears of an Islamic threat that threatens our basic values. Offering a brave challenge to these ideas, Saunders debunks popular misconceptions about Muslims and their effect on the communities in which they live."
(Publisher Description) 

The End of Men: And the Rise of Women

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"Global and U.S. macroeconomic changes over the past several decades have affected men and womenand people in two broad classesquite differently, Rosin argues. As jobs shifted focus from brawn to brains, women adapted and expanded their work options (retaining many home responsibilities), while men (particularly the 70 percent who lack college degrees) often didn't adapt. (Rosin's shorthand for this split is Plastic Woman and Cardboard Man. ) Among college grads, she suggests, this produces seesaw marriages, with both spouses on attractive career paths and alternating the allocation of family responsibilities. For couples without degrees, women's adaptability and pursuit of education frequently leave their spouses (or potential spouses) far behind. Rosin explores gender-role and business-organization theories but enlivens her analysis with close observation of individual cases (including a cross-cultural look at similar issues in Asia). An Atlantic senior editor, Rosin has written for top newspapers and magazines; founded Slate's DoubleX women's section; authored God's Harvard (2008), a study of Evangelical Christian Patrick Henry College; and won a 2010 National Magazine Award."  (Booklist)

The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court

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" Having laid bare the workings of the Supreme Court in his prize-winning "The Nine", Toobin returns to assess how the Court--and, specifically, Chief Justice John Roberts--stack up against President Obama. From the moment that Roberts blew administering the Oath of Office at Obama's inauguration, he and the administration have been ideologically at odds. Toobin argues that the two men are both charismatic and ambitious, though Obama's actually the conservative one; he aims for step-by-step change, building on the past, while Roberts wants to unstitch everything accomplished by the New Deal."  (Library Journal)

Mexico: Democracy Interrupted

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"An insightful firsthand examination of Mexico from 2000 to the present. Based in Mexico City, foreign correspondent Tuckman looks at the political and economic arenas of Mexico since the overturn in 2000 of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), its long-term ruling party. When the National Action Party (PAN), led by Vicente Fox, took power, many Mexicans viewed this as a breath of fresh air, bringing change and hope to the country. However, Tuckman reveals that the ensuing 12 years have not lived up to that optimism, with the wheels of democracy slow to move in a country riddled with corporate greed, political corruption and escalating drug wars. The author's concentrated inspection gives readers a close look at the lawlessness of the numerous powerful drug cartels instilling fear in locals, migrating workers and even mainstream media with daily kidnappings and murders of those who stand in their way. Tuckman delves into racial discrimination, global warming and environmental concerns regarding Mexico's large oil fields, as well as the rise in floods and clean-water issues in Mexico City. She also examines the revolutionary actions of the Zapatistas in Chiapas and a flare-up in Oaxaca in 2006 that bears comparison to the uprisings seen recently in the Middle East. Not all is lost, however, as recent presidents have attempted to "regreen" deforested areas, tourism continues to rise, and Mexican food products are found around the world thanks to trade agreements. With the upcoming presidential election, Mexicans are once again hoping for a political leader who can "kick-start the levels of growth required to transform the country from a bastion of poverty and inequality into a burgeoning middle-class nation." An important investigation of Mexico's recent political, economic and social past--and its possibilities for the future"  (Kirkus Reviews)

Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work -

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" In this thoroughly entertaining study of what some people do that other people would never do, journalist Laskas (The Balloon Lady and Other People I Knew) makes her subjects sing. She homes in on jobs that the rest of us take for granteda or deny exista interviewing the people who perform and even like onerous tasks: coal miners, Latino migrant laborers, La Guardia air traffic controllers, Arizona gun dealers, Texas ranchers, Alaska oil-rig roughnecks, a rare female long-hauling trucker, and California landfill workers. Refreshingly, Laskas eschews sentimentality but imbues her portraits with humanity and authenticity: guided by veteran landfill workers, for example, she confronts a mountain of rubbish and learns all about the wonders of alternative electricity and recycling. Waddling through Hopedale Mining Company's Cadiz, Ohio coal tunnels, she gets lessons on pride in accomplishment from such workers as Pap, Ragu, and Foot. The Ben-Gal cheerleaders are shown to be disciplined professional women who, in their other lives, attend school and toil as single moms. Laskas's depictions are sharply delineated, fully fleshed, and enormously affecting."  (Publishers Weekly)

Who Stole the American Dream?

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"Remarkably comprehensive and coherent analysis of and prescriptions for America's contemporary economic malaise by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Smith (Rethinking America, 1995, etc.). "Over the past three decades," writes the author, "we have become Two Americas." We have arrived at a new Gilded Age, where "gross inequality of income and wealth" have become endemic. Such inequality is not simply the result of "impersonal and irresistible market forces," but of quite deliberate corporate strategies and the public policies that enabled them. Smith sets out on a mission to trace the history of these strategies and policies, which transformed America from a roughly fair society to its current status as a plutocracy. He leaves few stones unturned. CEO culture has moved since the 1970s from a concern for the general well-being of society, including employees, to the single-minded pursuit of personal enrichment and short-term increases in stock prices. During much of the '70s, CEO pay was roughly 40 times a worker's pay; today that number is 367. Whether it be through outsourcing and factory closings, corporate reneging on once-promised contributions to employee health and retirement funds, the deregulation of Wall Street and the financial markets, a tax code which favors overwhelmingly the interests of corporate heads and the superrich--all of which Smith examines in fascinating detail--the American middle class has been left floundering. For its part, government has simply become an enabler and partner of the rich, as the rich have turned wealth into political influence and rigid conservative opposition has created the politics of gridlock. What, then, is to be done? Here, Smith's brilliant analyses turn tepid, as he advocates for "a peaceful political revolution at the grassroots" to realign the priorities of government and the economy but offers only the vaguest of clues as to how this might occur. Not flawless, but one of the best recent analyses of the contemporary woes of American economics and politics." (Kirkus Reviews)

The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns

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By Sasha Issenberg
"How political campaigns have mastered marketing tools to profile the electorate. In his second book, Monocle Washington correspondent Issenberg (The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy, 2007) incorporates his experiences covering the 2008 election for the Boston Globe. He provides anecdotes gleaned from interviews with leading political consultants and a historical overview of the integration of computer technology and behavioral psychology into social marketing, and he traces the increasing sophistication of modern campaigns to the Kennedy campaign. Confronting prejudice against Catholics, JFK's advisors recommended tackling the issue head-on after subdividing the electorate into specific demographic categories. Issenberg explores the parallel development of the application of behavioral psychology and the recognition that many voting decisions are heavily influenced by emotion rather than rational choice. He tracks the influence of a group of academics from top universities like Yale, who influenced the shape of the modern election campaigns. They developed a finely tuned approach to profiling voters by using a series of criteria such as the magazines they subscribe to, the liquor they drink and their answers to surveys with loaded questions intended to reveal biases. An integral part of this process involved breaking down the population into subcategories--rather than looking at whether precincts customarily vote for a specific party--and directing targeted messages to them, as well as exposing different population clusters to different messages in order to scientifically determine response patterns. This enables an election campaign to efficiently micromanage get-out-the-vote operations in order to focus on the most likely voters for its candidate. Issenberg illuminates how modern elections exploit marginal advantages..."  (Kirkus Reviews)

A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution

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By Samar Yazbek
"Haunting memoir of an unwanted season in the hellish combat of civil war. Syrian writer and filmmaker Yazbek, a member of the literary movement called the Beirut39, will be new to most readers outside the Middle East. Both beautifully written--sometimes incongruously so, given the subject matter--and relentless, her narrative opens with the heady days of the Arab Spring, when the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt were giving way to popular uprisings and the edifice of Syria's security state was being shaken by an awakened people. "They could not and would not believe that this army of slaves, whom they called 'insects' or 'rats, ' could ever rise up against them," writes the Syrian-German novelist Rafik Schami in his foreword of the stunningly corrupt Assad regime. But on March 15 of last year, the "slaves" did revolt. The regime hit back hard, spraying crowds of unarmed, peaceful demonstrators with bullets. As Yazbek writes, almost by way of prelude to this terrible chronicle of events experienced firsthand, "Death is no longer a question. Death is a window we open up to our questions." Death is also a constant, grim companion in these pages; it drew close as undercover agents interrogated and harassed Yazbek, receding as, eventually, she fled the country. The images she paints are indelible, pictures of "men on their stomachs in handcuffs, humiliated and insulted," and of youngsters defiantly baring their chests to the security police before being gunned down. "Sure, I was panicked," she writes, "but through that panic I learned how to cultivate a dark patch in my heart, a zone that no one can reach, one that remains fixed, where not even death can penetrate." An essential eyewitness account, and with luck an inaugural document in a Syrian literature that is uncensored and unchained."  (Kirkus Reviews)