Gun Guys: A Road Trip

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"To explore America's gun culture, Baum, a former staff writer for the New Yorker and author of Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans, traverses the country talking to gun owners, shooting instructors, gun advocates, gun control supporters, and even a former gang member who used a gun to kill someone. As a "stoop-shouldered, bald-headed, middle-aged" Jewish Democrat, Baum isn't your typical gun owner, but he admits to having an "obsession" with guns and has one on his person for much of his road trip. Crisscrossing America he finds a lot of inconsistencies, like gun owners who think the government is coming for their guns despite the fact that "guns laws were getting looser everywhere" or gun control groups pushing for new legislation without understanding how guns work or the historical ineffectiveness of gun control. Though he tries to find diversity among the gun owners he interviews, many just spout antiliberal dogma or "play the role of victim, " so these encounters become repetitive. It's when the tone of the book shifts from travelogue to narrative, with stories like those of Tim White, who "used a gun in his criminal undertakings"; Rick Ector, an industrial engineer who turned gun carrier after a mugging; and Brandon Franklin, a young New Orleans man who was shot while trying to defend the mother of his children, that Baum's skill as a writer and journalist is revealed. Overall, this is a very balanced accounting of both sides of America's gun issue, and while Baum doesn't have all the answers, his solution that both sides come together to promote gun safety is both admirable and prudent. Baum can be lauded for trying to find an accommodating solution to the problem of guns, but no doubt gun lovers and gun haters both will vehemently disagree with him."  (Publishers Weekly)

After Bin Laden: Al Qaeda, the Next Generation

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"An al-Qaida watcher lends some farsighted insight into the group's motivation and direction. Editor-in-chief of the London newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi, Atwan (A Country of Words: A Palestinian Journey from the Refugee Camp to the Front Page, 2009, etc.) has evidently been studying the terrorist organization for decades (he interviewed Osama bin Laden twice). Here, he presents a wealth of strategic information and cleareyed assessment that casts American efforts in a fairly naive light. There are some essential givens about the group that need to be grasped before an effective approach can be tendered: that the organization has only grown horizontally since the killing of bin Laden, so much so that the elimination of one leader only leads to martyrdom and replacement by others; the group is inextricably linked to the Taliban and will probably be present as the Taliban moves back into Afghanistan with the vacuum of American withdrawal; and the group has anticipated the fall of the Arab dictators and the re-establishment of an Islamic Caliphate across the Arab world, which looks something like the Arab Spring. Indeed, senior leaders such as Ayman Al-Zawahiri have been preaching this philosophy for some time. Atwan offers a chilling narrative that covers the group's activity in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, where it hopes for its strongest toehold; Iraq and Afghanistan, as the U.S. departs; the Maghreb, Africa, Indonesia, China and even ex-Soviet Muslim states; and an increase in "lone wolf" jihadist attacks in the West. Moreover, the group has cunningly adapted the Internet for its ideological spread. A sobering, intensive report."  (Kirkus Reviews)

The Parent App: Understanding Families in the Digital Age

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"Media critic Clark (dir., Estlow International Ctr. for Journalism & New Media, Univ. of Denver; "From Angels to Aliens") suggests ways to enable parents to negotiate their children's engagement with the Internet, social media, and mobile technology. Over 11 years, Clark and her research team conducted extensive interviews with dozens of families of different economic means in urban, suburban, and rural areas of the United States to learn about the impact of digital media on family life. Most of the book comprises an intriguing analytical narrative developed from the interviews. Clark finds that, generally, middle- and upper-middle-class parents respond to media use in terms of its utility for their children's self-expression and advancement, while parents with lower incomes prioritize the ways media use reinforces family closeness and mutual respect. VERDICT Clark notes that while new technology has brought significant change, including constant connectedness and a persistent trail of information, it has not changed the basics of teen development or heightened the dangers facing children. She concludes with a cogent set of recommendations--some at the family level and some at the policy level--addressing parenting behavior, inequitable access to technology, and the problems of a consumption-oriented society. Clark's treatment reflects her dual role as researcher and mother and will be of interest to both scholars and parents"  (Library Journal)

Undaunted: The Real Story of America's Servicewomen in Today's Military

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"Biank (Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives, 2006) analyzes the increasingly important role played by women in the military. The author, whose first book was developed into the popular TV series Army Wives, follows the military career of four women currently playing a vital role in today's integrated armed forces: Brig. Gen. Angela Salinas, the Marine's first Hispanic female general; 2nd Lt. Bergan Flannigan, a military policewoman in Afghanistan; Sgt. Amy Stokley, who drives recruits at Parris Island; and Maj. Candice O'Brien, who struggles through deployment to Afghanistan with a strained marriage and two children back at home. Biank shows forcefully how this commitment to service still runs up against sexism and prejudice. Three of the four served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet nonsensically, by law, women are still prevented from deployment in combat. Women in the armed forces train to the same standards of excellence as their male colleagues who qualify for combat, and they must maintain the same levels of physical fitness and endurance. In Iraq, when Stokley was a driver, her truck came under attack, and one of her passengers died. Flannigan lost her leg to a roadside booby trap when working to train the Afghan National Police. Biank follows the careers of the four individuals over time, as they advance in their chosen spheres. Salinas chose to continue to serve when she was told by a corporate headhunter that she "would not find what you have in the Marines here....You're not going to find loyalty or camaraderie here like you're used to." An eye-opening account of a military in transition."  (Kirkus Reviews)

The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent

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"A 2012 "ECONOMIST" BOOK OF THE YEAR
Many of the United States' most innovative entrepreneurs have been immigrants, from Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, and Charles Pfizer to Sergey Brin, Vinod Khosla, and Elon Musk. Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies and one-quarter of all new small businesses were founded by immigrants, generating trillions of dollars annually, employing millions of workers, and helping establish the United States as the most entrepreneurial, technologically advanced society on earth.
Now, Vivek Wadhwa, an immigrant tech entrepreneur turned academic with appointments at Duke, Stanford, Emory, and Singularity Universities, draws on his new Kauffman Foundation research to show that the United States is in the midst of an unprecedented halt in high-growth, immigrant-founded start-ups. He argues that increased competition from countries like China and India and US immigration policies are leaving some of the most educated and talented entrepreneurial immigrants with no choice but to take their innovation elsewhere. The consequences to our economy are dire; our multi-trillion dollar loss will be the gain of our global competitors.
With his signature fearlessness and clarity, Wadhwa offers a concise framework for understanding the Immigrant Exodus and offers a recipe for reversal and rapid recovery."  (Publisher Marketing)

With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give

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"In this provocative expose, the former CEO and COO of National Public Radio takes a critical view of today's nonprofit world, calling for reform and a redefinition of what constitutes a charity. For anyone who has given time or money to not-for-profits, Stern's critique will prove both disturbing and thought-provoking; he questions the value and efficacy of the more than 1.4 million not-for-profit organizations in the U.S., asserting that this industry is beholden to anecdotes rather than the rigorous study of results, leaving "little credible evidence that many charitable organizations produce lasting social value." Stern systematically cites the failures and foibles of organizations like the Red Cross, as well as calling out college bowl games and college sports as multimillion-dollar organizations with charitable status. In addition, he discusses fraud, excessive compensation, and the lack of oversight from regulators. Donors, Stern argues, are frequently uninformed, give reactively, and often unintentionally create more harm than good. Stern's praises organizations like the Gates Foundation, which have created a culture of accountability and measurement, and devotes a short chapter to what is necessary for reform to occur. An engrossing read, this look at the evolution and current state of the charitable world is sure to stimulate debate"  (Publishers Weekly)

The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change

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"Almost a decade ago, Al Gore was presented with a question, "what are the drivers of global change?" Unable to immediately answer the question in full, he has continued to revisit the query, and over the last two years has researched, analyzed and produced a complex and comprehensive map of the forces that are shaping our world. The result is "The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change." While mapping the future is a risky undertaking, perhaps the only thing riskier is doing nothing"  (Publisher Description)

Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons

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"A compelling, plainspoken piece of advocacy in which the author maintains that everything we think we know about nuclear weapons is wrong. Though Wilson stops just short of making the case for immediate and unilateral nuclear disarmament, he builds a methodical, step-by-step argument that the very notion of such weapons as a deterrent is fallacious, based on a misunderstanding of when and why Japan decided to surrender in the wake of the bombing of Hiroshima. What makes his case so convincing (though not all will be convinced) is that he makes it not in the spirit of Utopian idealism, but fact-facing pragmatism. He argues that most of the support for nuclear weaponry is in fact irrational, based on the misconception that mankind has no control over the future--that, having opened the Pandora's box of nuclear technology, we live in fear of apocalypse. The fallacy begins with the bombing of Japan, where "the danger is that we have overinflated their value [of nuclear weapons] by misinterpreting that one event." The threat of Russian invasion, not the nuclear bombing, forced Japan's hand--"the atomic bomb swept all mistakes and misjudgments under the rug." If it didn't end a war, as generally perceived, neither has it stood as a deterrent, with Wilson citing the Cuban missile crisis as a sign of recklessness that actually pushed us closer to war. Yet even if one agrees with every one of his points, the author admits that "I am not sure what can and should be done with nuclear weapons." He offers the plea that "the wisest scholars need to be enlisted to go back over the problem." A provocative reframing of a problem that still awaits a solution."  (Kirkus Reviews)

The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe

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"Shore's Europe is populated with prostitutes and pimps, street urchins and skinheads; the landscape is "cold and gray... burnt to ashes and rebuilt in Stalinist architecture." The National Jewish Book Award winner's newest (after Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation's Life and Death in Marxism, 1918 1968) begins and ends with the suicide of a friend, an emigre who returned to Prague only to find that the city he remembered no longer exists, and many of the characters who fill its pages are ghosts refugees of time and ideology, unable to make peace with the capitalist theme park that replaced their homelands. A historian of the Holocaust and of communism, Shore journeys through Eastern Europe probing the wounds left by the twin disasters of the 20th century. A mix of memoir, travelogue, and philosophical treatise, her book is above all an anthropological study of a people living in a world obscured by cobwebs, more mindful of yesterday than today, where the future cannot be realized until the deaths of all those who witnessed the abyss. The one who makes such observations can only be an outsider, or in the words of one of Shore's interlocutors one who knows "too much and not enough, and nothing." Challenging and sometimes maddening, but also warm and compassionate, the resulting work is an examination of what it means to live in a society where "the realm of the not possible expansive" and where history, "proceeding inexorably and inevitably, " shapes identity."   (Publisher's Weekly)