Dartmouth Authors
Richard A. Parker '30, Jean Leclant, and Jean-Claude Goyon The Edifice at Taharqaby the Sacred Lake of Karnak Brown University Press, 1979. 95 pp. Illustrated, 44 plates. Begun in 1939 when Parker first transcribed the texts from the walls of the ruined building of Taharqa between the Sacred Lake of Karnak and the Great Temple, this study combines the findings of three noted Egyptologists who attempt to interpret one of the most puzzling monuments of ancient Egypt. Though all three concede that the purpose of the edifice still remains obscure, they subscribe to Goyon's temtative hypothesis that the building was used to celebrate the oneness of the reigning pharaoh with the gods Amun and Re and that "the ritual acts described in the edifice at Taharga" therefore "have a direct connection with the coronation and with the confirmation and maintenance of royal power."
Shepard Robinson '49, How to Turn Around aTroubled Company. Ingleside 1979. 100 pp. "A well motivated manager can turn around an ailing company if he or she thoroughly understands and controls the company's finances, utilizes the company's existing facilities, realistically appraises the market as a basis for growth, and uses incentives to encourage employees." Robinson devotes several chapters to each subject and explains in detail how each can be accomplished.
David Brion Davis '50, ed., AntebellumAmerican Culture: An InterpretiveAnthology. D. C. Heath, 1979. 472 pp. A collection of 150 primary source documents intended mainly for students and dealing with "aspects of political, economic, legal, and social life that illuminate central patterns of antebellum American culture." Since historical documents alone are never entirely self-evident, Davis of course supplies the customary editorial data on who, when, where, why, what. But he also takes an unusual further step in adding "another and somewhat antiquated 'W': wherefore." To answer that question he appends to the documents a series of unusually full headnotes in which he interprets, among other things, the three major intellectual and historical forces which, in his view, largely shaped the perceptions of pre-Civil War Americans: their concern for union and disunion at all levels "ranging from the family to the nation at large"; their firmly held belief in progress, material, moral, and intellectual; and their faith in their nation's world destiny, "the ideal of America as a redeemer nation." Sterling Professor of History at Yale, Davis has won numerous awards for his previous studies in American history, including a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and Bancroft Prize.
David R. Godschalk '53, David J. Brower Larry D. McBennett, Barbara A. Vestal, Daniel C. Herr Constitutional Issues of Growth Management. Planners Press, 1979. 476 pp. The 2nd edition of a book first published in 1977, this study takes into account recent, court decisions regarding "efforts by local governments to influence the rate, type, location, amount, or quality of growth in their jurisdictions." Underlying the authors' analyses "is a value premise based on the social responsibility of the growth manager" which requires him not "simply to design and operate growth management programs that are legally defensible," but to "go beyond the narrow question" and consider "the full range of regional, racial, socio-economic, and environmental impacts" that such programs may create.
Edward G. Klima '53 and Ursula Bellugi TheSigns of Language. Harvard University Press, 1979. 417 pp. Illustrated. An analysis by the two principal authors, with the help of ten colleagues, of the results of seven years of research into American Sign Language (ASL) conducted at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies. The original aim was "to study the way in which young deaf children acquire the visual-gestural language of their deaf parents, in order to compare language learning in a visual mode with language learning in an auditory mode," but when they concluded that too little was known about the nature of ASL itself the authors redirected their research toward more nearly fundamental questions about the basic differences between ASL and spoken languages, the inherent structure of sign language, the linguistic morphology of ASL, and the special uses of ASL "in linguistic play and in poetry." Contrary to previously held assumptions, they found sign language to be a "separate full-blown language," complete with its own grammar, syntax, and morphology.
Joseph F. Sackett '62 M.D., and Charles M. Strother M.D., eds., New Techniques inMyelography. Harper & Row, 1979. 233 pp. Illustrated. A collection of articles by 11 world-wide experts on the indications for the use of metrizamide and other water-soluble media as well as the techniques employed in their clinical application in the radiological diagnosis of pathological disorders of the spinal and Intercranial subarachnoid spaces.
Henry J. Binder '57 M.D., ed., Mechanismsof Intestinal Secretion. Liss 1979. 299 pp. A collection of 22 articles by physiologists comprising the only full-length book devoted exclusively to a detailed examination of this subject. It "provides an in-depth review of the present state of knowledge of intestinal secretory processes" and discusses "all of the major areas that are important to an understanding of intestinal secretion."
Stuart C. Belkin '67 M.D., and Henry H. Banks M.D., What You Can Do about BackAches. Arandel 1978. Illustrated. 26 pp. This paperback pamphlet aims at giving the general reader an explanation of the causes of back pain, what can be done about it, and some methods whereby it can be avoided. Clearly, it will not lack readers: At one time or another in their lives, the authors say, 80 per cent of us "suffer enough back pain to see a doctor." In lay language and by diagrammatic illustrations the book explains the structure of the lower back; such causes of back pain as musculoskeletal disorders and disc disease; treatment of back disorders; protection of the back in such activities as siting, driving, sports, and lifting; and exercises designed to maintain muscle strength and thus protect the back.
