Dartmouth Authors

Maurice E. Park '44 and Dorcas D. Park, Real Estate Law, 2nd ed. West Publishing Co., 1981. 745 pp. and 703 pp. A revision and expansion of the Parks's earlier work on conveyancing, these two volumes contain "a modern comprehensive review of all principles of law applicable to real estate transactions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with practical how-to-do-it advice. In addition to the discussion of all pertinent statutes and judicial decisions in this field, nationally and locally, extensive annotations have been made to current and past legal articles of interest."

Edward M. Potoker '53, ed., Ronald Firbank, "A Tragedy in Green" & "When WidowsLove": Two Stories. Enitharmon Press, 1980. 35 pp. A witty English novelist who carried over into the 20th century something of Oscar Wilde's talent for social satire, Ronald Firbank was forgotten by all but a small coterie of modern readers for the better part of four decades. His reputation has begun to revive, and Edward Potoker's handsome edition of the author's two earliest short stories confirms the conviction that Firbank was indeed one of modern England's most skillful satirists.

Nathaniel H. Karol and Sigmund G. Ginsburg '59, Managing the Higher Education Enterprise. Ronald Press, 1980. 372 pp. Written for upper-echelon university administrators presidents, deans, vice presidents, trustees this book presents a rational management strategy flexible enough, the authors say, to preserve traditional academic values on the one hand while remaining "totally attuned to the financial/market realities of the multibillion dollar enterprise higher education has become." Karol and Ginsburg analyze, always from a managerial standpoint, such general issues as changing enrollment patterns in higher education, the trend toward faculty unionization, the schism between faculty and administration, and changing patterns of higher education funding, but their analyses are directed toward solving some very untheoretic, pragmatic problems: securing sufficient revenue, cost analysis, academic planning, administration, and resources allocation. Ginsburg is vice president for finance and treasurer of the University of Cincinnati.

Clifford S. Russell '6O and Norman K. Nicholson, eds., Public Choice and RuralDevelopment. Resources for the Future, 1981. 299 pp. The printed proceedings of a conference sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development and held in Washington, D.C., in September 1979, which brought together experts in the fields of both rural development and public choice. The notion of applying theories of public choice to practical situations in rural areas of thirdworld countries seems, Russell concedes,"bizarresounding," but in the end, he concludes, "public choice is far from irrelevant to rural land development, and . . . while most of its lessons are negative, ... the theory also has some positive things to say." The contributors to this conference say them.

John White '61, A Practical Guide to Deathand Dying. Theosophical Publishing House, 1980. 171 pp. Author of many previous articles and several books in the fields of parascience and consciousness research, White here makes his contribution to the socalled "death education" movement. So far, he finds, the growing body of literature in death education seems only "to be telling us about someone else dying. . . . But no one has really, described systematically how we ourselves can begin to deal honestly and intellingently with the fear of our own nonbeing, annihilation, self-extinction. . . . This book will provide practical instructions and experiential situations — real 'how-to' learning conditions — in which to explore the biology, psychology and metaphysics of your own death. It will also provide intellectually satisfying information about life after death.

Information, inspiration, insight and per sonal experience are the keys offered here for unlocking the life, health and happiness so long imprisoned in so many people by their mortal terror of oblivion. You are going to turn your fear of death into the death of fear, and begin to really liveV

Eric M. Meyers '62 and James F. Strange, Archeology, the Rabbis, and EarlyChristianity. Abingdon, 1981. 207 pp. Designed primarily for scholars of ancient Judaism and early Christianity and written by two field archeologists, this book is the first to add archeological to epigraphic evidence in order to document "the diversity in early Palestinian Judaism" and to "trace the same diversity in early Palestinian Christianity"; to argue the case "for more contact between the two communities Jewish and Christian than ordinarily has been assumed possible"; and to present "a picture of early Jewish and Christian attachment to the land that is diametrically opposed to recent publications on this subject." Meyers is director of the graduate program in religion at Duke.

Dennis M. Kratz '63, Mocking Epic:"Waltharius," "Alexandreis," and theProblem of Christian Heroism. Studia Humanitas, 1980. 171 pp. The author explicates two Christian Latin epic poems, both written between the 9th and 12th centuries, in order to answer "the question of how a medieval poet transforms a classical literary genre into a vehicle for the expression of a Christian theme." Both poets, Kratz concludes, adapt the classical tradition to Christian purposes by using irony to achieve "the mockery of outmoded pagan heroic values." Kratz teaches at the Ohio State University Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Dale F. Eickelman '64, The Middle East, AnAnthropological Approach. Prentice-Hall, 1981. 336 pp. Designed for the general reader as well as the professional anthropologist and based on Eickelman's Middle East anthropological seminar for CBS-TV's "Sunrise Semester," this book serves both to introduce the reader to Middle Eastern anthropology and to indicate "the contributions which the study of the Middle East is making to the main currents of anthropology, especially those which relate to the analysis of complex societies." Four major topics are studied: the means by which Islam strives to maintain its vitality in a changing world; how ethnic, religious, and kin groups assert their collective identities; the social and cultural impact of new economic developments in the area; and changing interpretations of Middle Eastern societies. Eickelman teaches at N.Y.U.

Peter S. Cleaves '66 and Martin J. Scurrah, Agriculture, Bureaucracy, and MilitaryGovernment in Peru. Cornell, 1980. 329 pp. Beginning in 1968, when they seized control of the government, the military leaders of Peru initiated one of the most radical and thorough-going programs of agricultural reform in the Western Hemisphere. Drawing on their own experience as longtime residents of the country, on interviews with more than 130 Peruvian leaders, and on more traditional scholarly sources and documents as well, Cleaves and Surrah analyze all aspects of the reform, including such areas as the agrarian court system, the attempt to eliminate the middleman in the food-production chain, the effect of international loans on Peruvian irrigation schemes, and the encouragement of new peasant interest groups. Cleaves is representative of the Ford Foundation for Mexico and Central America.

Tom Wilson '67, ed., Home Remedies: AGuidebook for Residential Retrofit. MidAtlantic Solar Energy Association, 1981. 253 pp. Thinking of remodeling your home to conserve energy? Of going solar maybe? The technicians call it retrofitting. Whatever the name, here's your book. It brings together for the first time the information necessary to permit an informed choice among the various options available for retrofitting your home. Four major topics are covered: evaluating energy consumption in the home, "closing the building envelope to minimize heating and cooling energy losses, . . . opening it to maximize solar energy gain," and assessing the implications of retrofitting.

William Jaspersohn '69, The Ballpark: OneDay Behind the Scenes at a Major LeaguePark. Little Brown, 1980. 120 pp. A Day inthe Life of a Television News Reporter. Little Brown, 1981. 96 pp. These two photographic essays, the second and third volumes respectively in Jaspersohn's A Day in the Life of. . . series, are designed for older children with broad interests and well-developed reading skills. That's a tough audience to write for, but Jaspersohn succeeds uncommonly well precisely because he respects their intelligence. He does not write down to them; he makes them stretch, which is no doubt one reason why Ballpark has been nominated for this year's Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award. Though for his ballpark Jaspersohn chooses venerable Fenway, home of the Red Sox, and for his news reporter Dan Rea of WBZ-TV, Boston, the appeal of his books is not New-England parochial. He manages to suggest that his day at Fenway and Dan Rea's at WBZ are typical of any number of other days in any of a number of other cities across the country.

Neville Frankel '7l, The Third Power. Beaufort Books, 1980. 267 pp. Genre: fiction thriller. Sub-genre: Doomsday scenario. Category: How World War 111 begins. The formula is familiar. It is the assumptions on which Frankel's fiction rests that chill the blood, for each one seems an all-too-probable possibility in a world where terrorism is a daily occurrence and peace is maintained only by the precarious, knife-edge threat of mutual annihilation. Frankel launches his fiction on p. 1 with the assassination of the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe; he concludes on p. 267 as the commander of a submerged Soviet submarine off the Atlantic Coast launches the first nuclear missile into the continental United States. In between, step by fateful step, miscalculation by miscalculation, plot by political plot, error compounded on error, what began as a terrorist assassination escalates inexorably into a confrontation between the two superpowers, and the world slips irretrievably over the edge. Given Frankel's initial assumptions, it's all terrifying credible. A fascinating read but not the cheeriest one in the world.