Dartmouth Authors
Lawrence Treat '24, editor and contributor. A Special Kind of Crime. Doubleday, 1982. 186 pp. This year's anthology of short stories compiled by the Mystery Writers of America consists of 16 tales, all of which bring into play out-of-the-way specialized knowledge of one kind or another. So if you want to combine an interest in detective stories with the opportunity to find out something about, for example, kite flying in Bangkok or the Mexican garotte, this book will surely fill the bill.
Edward Peary Stafford '42, Sun Earthand Man. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1982. 76 pp. A beautifully illustrated introduction to what the subtitle calls "The Quest for Knowledge of Sun-Earth Relations," this book should have particular appeal for the bright young reader. It makes vividly clear how swiftly humanity's store of information about the sun has been growing since Sputnik changed everything, and how exciting the future of space studies must be.
John E. Kramer Jr. '56, The AmericanCollege Novel: An Annotated Bibliography. Garland, 1981. 286 pp. One doesn't often recommend bibliographies to the general reader. This one is different. Like any proper bibliography, of course, it lists things, in this case 425 American college novels published from 1828 through 1979. Kramer's research is impeccable: Each entry is annotated with a plot summary, identification of the setting, the protagonist's academic discipline, and, where possible, biographical and academic information about the author. All of which adds up to a significant contribution to literary scholarship. But it's the annotations that commend the book not just to scholars but to general readers in the genre as well. Kramer's plot summaries and critiques are perceptive, masterfully written, witty, and amusing. Whatever their tone, they make good reading in and of themselves.
John Obert Voll '58, Islam, Continuityand Change in the Modern World. Westview Press, 1982. 397 pp. A timely and thoroughgoing analysis of the place of Islam in the changing international scene, taking up the story in the 18th century and following it, in increasing detail, up to the present day. The author's three-dimensional approach balancing local conditions, the relationship of Islam to the basic dynamics of modern history, and the continuity of the Islamic tradition makes for a sophisticated textbook.
Professor John C. Baird '60, editor and contributor, with Anthony D. Lutkus, Mind Child Architecture. University Press ofNew England, 1982. 208 pp. Nineteen seventy-nine was celebrated by the United Nations as the International Year of the Child, and in October of that year a fourday gathering in Newark, New Jersey, of architects, psychologists, educators, artists, and designers examined the relationships among the three factors in the title of the conference and of the book which has come out of it. The three principal sections deal with Perception and Orientation, Preference and Aesthetics, and Cognition and Design.
David Steinberg M.D. '61, Anemia. Saunders Press, 1982. 226 pp. Chief of the Hematology Section at the Lahey Clinic and a member of the faculty of the Harvard Medical School, Doctor Steinberg has written, in an admirably straightforward style, a guidebook for the intelligent layman. He starts from the premise that anemia a deficiency of hemoglobin in one's blood is,like fever, a signal of disease, and that finding anemia is only a first step, not a final diagnosis. With case histories from his own experience, he leads the reader through descriptions of the illnesses of which anemia is a symptom and of what can be done about them.
Guy C. Z. Mhone '68, The Political Economy of a Dual Labor Market in Africa. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982. 254 pp. A scholarly examination by a professional economist of the impact on the copper industry of Zambia of "the dual labor market," a practice whereby laborers were employed, at differing rates of pay, on the basis of their being ethnic Africans or Europeans, not necessarily for their skill or ability. The "major structural legacy of Zambia's colonial past," this practice, Mhone finds, has resulted in "increased redundancy of African labor, and perhaps that of capital, the undermining of the cost competitiveness of the copper industry, and the continued dependence of the industry on external sources of material supplies."
Philip B. Nelson '73, Corporations in Crisis. Praeger, 1981. 206 pp. An analysis of recent bankruptcy cases designed to reveal the underlying causes of corporate bankruptcy, to study the ways in which corporations have reacted to bankruptcy crises, and, in light of those findings, to analyze current bankruptcy law. "The treatment," writes Professor Richard Nelson in the foreword, "is balanced and sensible. All in all, this is a fascinating study of an important institution and phenomenon." Nelson is deputy assistant director for economic evidence at the Federal Trade Commission.
Robert L. Bloomfield M.D. '73 and E. Ted Chandler, Mnemonics, Rhetoric and Poetics for Medics. Harbinger Press, 1982. 222 pp. What an eye-opener for the nonmedic! The things that doctors have to remember (and all in the right order) and the aids they come up with to help the memory are quite staggering. Using BITEM to remember the five muscles involved in mastication is child's play; when one gets to the drugs that potentiate Coumadin, the inexpert reader may well, need a mnemonic for the mnemonic. But medics will doubtless be glad to have this compendium in such handy form.
Gregory L. Aftaridilian '79, Armenia, Vision of a Republic. Charles River Books, 1981. 79 pp. The author quotes Herbert Hoover as saying, "Probably Armenia was known to the American school child in 1919 only a little less than England," and goes on from there to show that it made very little difference to the work of the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia in its struggle from the end of the First World War to its demise in 1927. In spite of the backing of a formidable array of Eastern Establishment figures, its story is one of an increasingly desperate attempt to get through a maze of conflicting interests in an increasingly isolationist America. It makes sad reading for any Armenophile.
