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November-December 2000
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Off the Shelf |
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| From KAL Draws the Line (and a very good line it is). |
KAL Draws the Line: Political Cartoons by Kevin Kallaugher
(Baltimore Sun, $14.95, paper). When Kallaugher graduated from
Harvard College in 1977, he joined the Brighton Basketball Club
in England as a player and coach. The club hit financial hard
times, and Kallaugher began drawing caricatures of tourists. The
Economist hired him as resident cartoonist, and he still draws
three cartoons a week for that periodical although in 1988 he
came back across the pond and joined the Baltimore Sun.
He's wicked good.
[buy
this book]
Mean
Genes: From Sex to Money to Food, Taming Our Primal Instincts,
by Terry Burnham, Ph.D. '95, visiting scholar at Harvard Business
School, and Jay Phelan, Ph.D. '95 (Perseus Books, $24). We want
to be thinner, less greedy, more faithful, nicer, but our brains
and our best intentions don't see eye to eye. The authors survey
bankruptcy, alcohol, jalapeño peppers, gossip, road rage,
and other symptoms of the human condition, profess self-help,
and call theirs "the first book that converts the modern Darwinian
revolution into practical steps for better living."
[buy
this book]
The
Runaway Universe: The Race to Find the Future of the Cosmos,
by Donald Goldsmith '63 (Perseus Books, $25). Two rival groups
of astronomers (one of them based at "the self-proclaimed mightiest
of all universities") discovered that the universe is expanding
at an accelerating rate. Just what is the rate--and thus
the universe's age and fate? That is the burning question, and
Goldsmith explicates it with blessed clarity and flair.
[buy
this book]
Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival,
by Paul S. Grogan, Ed.M. '79, vice president for government, community,
and public affairs, and Tony Proscio (Westview Press, $25). The
efforts of residents, grassroots organizers, politicians, and
business people have led to the revitalization of America's inner
cities, say the authors, and that progress might be sustained.
[buy
this book]
Where
I'm Bound, by Allen B. Ballard, Ph.D. '62 (Simon & Schuster,
$24). More than 180,000 African Americans fought for the Union
in the Civil War. Ballard, who teaches history at the State University
of New York at Albany, builds this powerful novel around the actual
campaigns of the Third U.S. Colored Cavalry Regiment in Mississippi
and the struggles of one of its fictional sergeants to withstand
the tumult.
[buy
this book]
The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in
the United States, by Alexander Keyssar '69, Ph.D. '77 (Basic
Books, $30). Adults may exercise the hard-won right this year
on November 7.
[buy
this book]
