Book Review

Review by Peter Eberhardt

"Prairie Fire"
Author: Dan Armstrong
Publisher: iUniverse

Despite all that’s gone wrong, we’ve got something big going for us right now,” says National Grange President Forest Mahan to a grange hall full of angry farmers in response to a grain harvest shortfall in Asia that has the wheat they sold cash-advance in January for $4.50 a bushel selling at $12 in June. “The grain reserves are down to almost nothing. Meaning what we have in the field right now in wheat and corn represents a sizeable portion of what’s available worldwide.

Review by M. Shahid Kamal

“A Necessary Engagement”
Author: Emile A. Nakhleh
Publisher: Princeton University Press

A Necessary Engagement” is a very timely and comprehensive book on the subject of examining and analyzing global terrorism and Islamic radicalism, as well as reinventing America’s relations with the Muslim world. The author, Emile A. Nakhleh, is very well versed and qualified on the subject.

Review by By George W. Neubert

“American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870–1940”
Co-editors: Patricia Cox Crews and Marin F. Hanson
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870–1940” is an important recent publication produced by the International Quilt Study Center (IQSC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that examines quilt making in the United States from the Civil War to World War II from both an artistic and historic perspective.

Design for Democracy: Ballot and Election Design
Author: Marcia Lausen
Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Review by DiAnna Schimek

The flawed process of the 2000 presidential election triggered the examination of the election process in the United States. As a result, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed by Congress in 2002 to encourage states to revise their voting systems, and financial incentives were made available to states to implement the provisions of the act. Most states have now adopted either the optical scan or the DRE (touch-screen computers) systems and have abandoned the punch card machines with their “hanging chads” and difficult-to-interpret ballots.

Review by Jerry Petr

“The Crisis of American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the Twenty-first Century”
Authors: G. John Ikenberry, Thomas J. Knock, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Tony Smith
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press

This slim volume (117 pages plus notes) is interesting on a couple of levels, and to at least two audiences. It is a collection of four essays by “big think” foreign policy experts, who wrestle over whether or not the Iraq War can be understood as an extension of Wilsonian foreign policy ideas and who proffer thoughts about Wilsonianism extended into the post-Iraq 21st century. Foreign policy specialists can salivate over the contest between the academic titans; the rest of us get a front-row seat at a sharp but civil and provocative exchange on foundational concepts underlying U.S. foreign policy.

Review by John Berrout

“In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto”
Author: Michael Pollan
New York: The Penguin Press

In response to the many readers of his “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” who asked, “OK, but what should I eat?” Michael Pollan wrote “In Defense of Food,” his manifesto as an eater concerned with the health of his body and the land. Pollan’s answer: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Though this simple response remains the core of the novel, Pollan’s discussion touches on many subjects, including the rise of processed foods, the advent of the food industry and the imperfect science that have grown out of our desire to manipulate and refine the foods we eat, much to our harm.

Review by Gene Bedient

“A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599”
Author: James S. Shapiro
New York: Harper Collins

This was a fascinating read for me in the field of “not my job.” A friend mentioned the book and, being a life-long Shakespeare devotee, I asked if I could borrow it.

Review by Chris Beutler

“Mayor Helen Boosalis: My Mother's Life in Politics”
Author: Beth Boosalis Davis
Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press

Mayor Helen Boosalis, My Mother’s Life in Politics” is the story of a woman successful in politics at a time when societal prejudices made it difficult for a woman to be successful in a great many careers. First elected to the Lincoln City Council in 1959 (and reelected three times), Helen’s involvement in the political life of our state of Nebraska and the country stretched forward for nearly half a century. In 1975, she became the first woman to serve as mayor of Lincoln (and only the second woman nationally to serve as mayor of a city larger than 100,000). She served for eight eventful years. During that period, she impressed not only her local constituency but a national constituency. In 1980, she became the first woman ever elected president of the prestigious U.S. Conference of Mayors. The book details her activities in all of these roles.

Review by Dick Herman

“The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism”
Author: Andrew J. Bacevich
New York: Metropolitan Books

These words of review were composed before we knew the results of the 2008 elections. It was generally assumed some seriously major changes in national leadership would be the consequence if ballot results favored Barack Obama. There was also a parallel hypothesis. Just by themselves, recent financial tidal waves could be shock treatment severe enough to work lasting changes in the American future. Those economic and cultural changes ultimately may be more historically important to the country than the identity of the incoming president.

Review by Don Hanway

“The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics With an 18th-Century Brain”
Author: George Lakoff
Viking Penguin, 2008

If you have found the past seven years of American political life puzzling and frustrating—or if, on the other hand, you have been thrilled at how easily our current president has managed to establish the unitary executive under the rationale that we are a nation at war with terrorism—this book will help you understand how fundamental changes in the American system of government have been accomplished.

Review by Dick Herman

“The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule”
Author: Thomas Frank
New York: Metropolitan Books (Macmillan)

At the end of this narrative, Thomas Frank and a friend are having lunch “at one of those restaurants where the suits and the soldiers get together.” There, members of the Washington lobbying industry feel politically comfortable, if not a tad unassailable. Money and influence wash each other’s hands. “So you think all of this is just going to go away if Obama gets in?” the author’s friend muses. Not likely. What the conservatives accomplished in recent times now has a tough structural character. It has an air of permanency. Nonetheless, to fight back is worth the candle, Frank suggests.

Review by Don Hanway 

“The Post-American World”
Author: Fareed Zakaria
New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

My attention was piqued by an abbreviated version of “The Post-American World,” the new book by Fareed Zakaria; it was titled “The Rise of the Rest” and appeared in the May 12, 2008, issue of “News­week Magazine.” So I read the unabridged version, and I was not disappointed.

Fareed Zakaria is in a wonderful position to give us a current view of America’s changing place in the world. As the editor of “Newsweek International,” he has wide-ranging contacts. Further, he is equipped by his own history to offer both an insider’s view and an outsider’s view of America as a player on the world stage. He grew up in India and came to the U.S. to attend college. He has stayed and become an appreciative citizen of this country, while also continuing his education and broadening his global perspective.

Review by Jack L. Kennedy

“Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World”
Author: Rev. Michael Dowd
Tulsa, Okla.: Council Oak Books 

Sometimes, you can tell a book by its cover. That is evident from the moment you spy the dust jacket for “Thank God for Evolution,” with the subtitle “How the marriage of science and religion will transform your life and our world.”

By Gene Bedient

“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” This is a typical quote from the book of memoirs of the most enduring chairman of the Federal Reserve. It was an unlikely read for me. However, upon hearing an interview with Greenspan promoting the book, I was intrigued by his praise of Presidents Ford and Clinton in the same breath, as well as his obvious intellect. In the end, I found the book to be an enlightening and worthy read.

By Bob Kerrey

Philip Shenon’s “The Commission” is a well-researched and written account of the deliberations of the “9/11 Commission” which investigated the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Mr. Shenon was a reporter who covered the deliberations of the commission from its creation on November 27, 2002, through the August 21, 2004, expiration of the federal law that gave the commission the legal authority to do its work. He had a front-row seat on the political process that created the commission, the firestorms that often surrounded it, and the largely favorable response to the commission’s report, which was released on July 21, 2004.

I was a member of the commission. Reading Mr. Shenon’s book was both illuminating, because I discovered things I did not know, and disconcerting, because his view of our performance is not always favorable. I always find it much easier to feel good when somebody else’s work is criticized than I do when it is mine being examined.

Review by Daniel G. Deffenbaugh

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
Richard Louv
Algonquin Books

Review by Paul L. Hedren

The Niobrara: A River Running Through Time
Paul A. Johnsgard
University of Nebraska Press

Review by Kelly Helm Smith

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Timothy Egan
Houghton Mifflin Company

Review by Don Hanway

Hippes of the Religious Right
Preston Shires
Baylor University Press

Review by Jack L. Kennedy

Eisenhower Republicanism: Pursuing the Middle Way
Stephen Wagner, Ph.D.
Northern Illinois University Press