This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!-In America's Gilded Capital

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"Washington, DC: it's a hell of a town. Just ask Leibovich, a "New York Times"political feature correspondent based there. In this muckraking tell-all, which would be as darkly funny as it's billed to be if it weren't all true, Leibovich depicts a shameless place where funerals are for networking, disgraced aides come out ahead, and getting one's name in print is what matters. Embargoed until publication date, after which Leibovich will have to get out of town. ."   (Library Journal)

Act of Congress: How America's Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn't

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"A financial reform bill reveals the troubled machinery of American democracy in this intricate, incisive study of law-making. Washington Post correspondent Kaiser (So Damn Much Money) chronicles the journey of the Dodd-Frank act, a complex package of banking and market regulations passed in 2011 that few voters paid attention to. The story's charismatic protagonist is Democratic House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank but his low-key, diplomatic cosponsor, Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, pulls off the greater political coup by avoiding a threatened filibuster. While the bill was moving through Congress, Kaiser had access to lawmakers of both parties and their staffs, executive-branch officials, and lobbyists; he finds the drama in arcane parliamentary procedure and paints extraordinary fly-on-the-wall scenes of legislative sausage making. ("Okay, Cam, it's just you and me, what's it going to take?" Frank horse-trades, seeking support from bankers in a down-and-dirty meeting with their lobbyist.) Kaiser salutes a landmark bill while laying bare the process dysfunctions that menaced it: partisan intransigence; monkey-wrenching by pols seeking turf and publicity; cynical budgetary shenanigans; general ignorance of finance on the part of legislators; the influence of money and clout especially auto dealers' clout. His absorbing true-life political saga exposes the good, the bad, and the ugly in Congress."  (Publishers Weekly)

The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels

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"Given the recent widespread alarms about global warming, any added anxiety on the part of coastline residents about rising sea levels is entirely understandable, especially when most pessimistic scenarios put the extra elevation at three feet by this century's end. In this fascinating, if occasionally unnerving, overview of the long and tempestuous relationship between shore-hugging cities and their neighboring oceans, best-selling author and anthropology professor Fagan (Beyond the Blue Horizon, 2012) charts coastline measurements as far back as 15,000 years ago, when watery disasters at sparsely settled seaside villages were rare. Today, with major population centers clustering near harbors and beaches, superstorms like last year's East Coastravaging Hurricane Sandy, which Fagan points to as a prime example of modern society's vulnerability, are far more devastating. In three absorbing, well-crafted sections, the author recounts some notable past storm surges and tsunamis, and predicts likely damages from future ocean-borne disasters. More than just another nervous admonition about climate change, Fagan's account relies on hard data to warn cities and governments worldwide to act now and forestall otherwise inevitable catastrophic flooding"  (Booklist)

The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East

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"Arab public opinion, newly codified and relevant. In the wake of President Barack Obama's recent exhortation to young Israelis to look at the world through Palestinians' eyes, this work holds a prescient message at how recent changes in the Middle East have certainly opened the eyes of many Arabs, as well as favorably altered American attitudes toward them. The methodology of the polling undertaken by political scientist Telhami (Peace and Development/Univ. of Maryland; The Stakes: America in the Middle East, 2002) is key. After establishing his own credentials, he explains in detail how the polling was gathered over the last 20 years, then combined with significant changes over the last two years when the authoritarian screens in many of the countries were lifted. As the author writes, "it was obvious that the Arab governments' near monopoly of the media was crucial to limiting public discontent." He focuses mainly on six Arab countries as representative and in which to track public opinion--Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan and United Arab Emirates--and divides the narrative into thematic areas of inquiry--e.g., Arab identity, the use of the Internet, the sense of empathy with others, the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, the Arab uprisings, opinion of the United States, Israel and Iran, and shifting attitudes about religion, women and democracy. Arab identity has been deeply shaped in relation to long humiliation by Israel and the West, and the "prism of pain" among all the Arab respondents was the enduring Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Hence, Arabs are still deeply suspicious of Western motives, choose France or Turkey in terms of model countries, and don't necessarily believe that the clergy should have a political role. An intriguing, revealing study of Arabs' changing views of themselves and the world as their countries open up--deserves a wide audience"  (Kirkus Reviews)

How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region

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" Americans often imagine that an "economic miracle" is taking place across all of Asia, a region of vast internal differences and contradictions. The truth is more complex and tentative. In his latest book, journalist Studwell (The China Dream), founder of the China Economic Quarterly, surveys nine nations: China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. At a time when ideas of "geographic pre-destination" and "nothing-can-be-done'" developmental thinking abound, Studwell reports on the striking differences between these nations. Taiwan, for one, "gives us a powerful reminder that geography is not destiny in development." The book first reviews land policies, then considers basic manufacturing, including autos, cement, fertilizer, steel, and textiles. Studwell writes gripping country-by-country profiles of companies that together provide ample evidence of the brutality with which economic development is conducted. Dwelling on Hyundai, Studwell admires the "extraordinary success of Korea's manufacturing development policy" and the prospects for trade there. He concludes with a lucid review of China's confusing economic policies, arguing that the country remains mired in government inefficiencies and slow institutional development. Readers will find Studwell's informative and balanced report eye-opening.
"  (Publishers Weekly)

The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption

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" Journalist and Religion Dispatches associate editor Joyce (Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, 2009) broadens the understanding of adoption's conundrums, not only within the United States, but also internationally, with deep investigations of children from Liberia, Ethiopia, Korea, Rwanda, Haiti and China. Perhaps the least publicized development within the adoption realm during the past few decades is the aggressive involvement of evangelical churches. Parishioners, even those with multiple biological children, are adopting orphans from overseas, as well as many children who have been wrenched from biological mothers (and sometimes fathers) as part of for-profit schemes. Some of the church members see adoption as a faith-based mission--as an alternative to abortion but also part of a biblical mandate to care for the oppressed and impoverished while simultaneously saving souls. Joyce explains that although such adoptions might seem like a win-win solution, in fact, birth mothers and families, especially in third-world countries, are torn apart by the international transactions. Joyce studied academic treatises and traveled widely across the U.S. and to locales in other nations rarely visited by tourists. The number of compelling anecdotes and case studies is impressive. Whenever ethically defensible, Joyce uses real names and normally indicates fictitious names when she saw no moral alternative. Although the overall picture is grim despite tsunamis of good intentions, the grimness is occasionally relieved by righteous individuals and institutions trying to do better. One of the relatively upbeat case studies focuses on the megachurch of celebrity pastor Rick Warren. He admits his evangelical members involved in international adoptions have not always proceeded perfectly, but Joyce suggests that he is sincere about learning from mistakes in a drastically shifting landscape. Groundbreaking investigative and explanatory reporting."  (KIrkus Reviews)

Down the Up Escalator: How the 99 Percent Live in the Great Recession

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"Americans cope with the fallout from 40 years of dwindling prospects in this quietly harrowing mosaic of economic decline. Journalist Garson (All the Livelong Day) focuses on the basics jobs, homes, money and the people who have lost them since the 2008 financial crisis: a group of middle-aged New Yorkers who comfort each other as their layoffs turn into long-term unemployment; California homeowners, some facing immediate eviction, while others cynically game the foreclosure system; elderly pensioners who suddenly find their nest eggs crushed. Through their stories, she weaves lucid explanations of the mortgage bubble and financial speculations that wrecked the system, situating them within a larger analysis of the generations-long post-Vietnam economic transformation that replaced middle-class jobs with low-paid contingent labor, widened the gulf between the rich and the rest, and forced workers to take on ever more debt to keep their heads above water. Garson's vivid, shrewd, warmly sympathetic profiles show the resilience with which ordinary Americans respond to misfortune, but also the enduring costs as they abandon hopes for a fulfilling career, an extra child, or a secure retirement. The result is a compelling portrait of an economy that has turned against the people"  (Publishers Weekly)