The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
by Stephanie Coontz
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
The Speed of Dark
by Elizabeth Moon
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
by Chris Hedges
A Fire Upon The Deep (Zones of Thought)
by Vernor Vinge
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
by Chip Heath, Dan Heath
The Sociopath Next Door
by Martha Stout
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The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
by Stephanie Coontz
Did you ever wonder about the historical accuracy of those
"traditional family values" touted in the heated arguments that insist
our cultural ills can be remedied by their return? Of course, myth is
rooted in fact, and certain phenomena of the 1950s generated the Ozzie
and Harriet icon. The decade proved profamily--the birthrate rose
dramatically; social problems that nag--gangs, drugs,
violence--weren't even on the horizon. Affluence had become almost a
right; the middle class was growing. "In fact," writes Coontz, "the
'traditional' family of the 1950s was a qualitatively new phenomenon.
At the end of the 1940s, all the trends characterizing the rest of the
twentieth century suddenly reversed themselves." This clear-eyed,
bracing, and exhaustively researched study of American families and
the nostalgia trap proves--beyond the shadow of a doubt--that Leave It
to Beaver was not a documentary.
Gender, too, is always on Coontz's mind. In the third chapter ("My
Mother Was a Saint"), she offers an analysis of the contradictions and
chasms inherent in the "traditional" division of labor. She reveals,
next, how rarely the family exhibited economic and emotional
self-reliance, suggesting that the shift from community to nuclear
family was not healthy. Coontz combines a clear prose style with bold
assertions, backed up by an astonishing fleet of researched,
myth-skewing facts. The 88 pages of endnotes dramatize both her
commitment to and deep knowledge of the subject. Brilliant,
beautifully organized, iconoclastic, and (relentlessly) informative
The Way We Never Were breathes fresh air into a too often
suffocatingly "hot" and agenda-sullied subject. In the penultimate
chapter, for example, a crisp reframing of the myth of black-family
collapse leads to a reinterpretation of the "family crisis" in
general, putting it in the larger context of social, economic, and
political ills.
The book began in response to the urgent questions about the family
crisis posed her by nonacademic audiences. Attempting neither to
defend "tradition" in the era of family collapse, nor to liberate
society from its constraints, Coontz instead cuts through the kind of
sentimental, ahistorical thinking that has created unrealistic
expectations of the ideal family. "I show how these myths distort the
diverse experiences of other groups in America," Coontz writes, "and
argue that they don't even describe most white, middle-class families
accurately." The bold truth of history after all is that "there is no
one family form that has ever protected people from poverty or social
disruption, and no traditional arrangement that provides a workable
model for how we might organize family relations in the modern world."
Some of America's most precious myths are not only precarious, but
down right perverted, and we would be fools to ignore Stephanie
Coontz's clarion call. --Hollis Giammatteo
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
From School Library Journal
YA?A compelling anthropological study. The Hmong people in America are
mainly refugee families who supported the CIA militaristic efforts in
Laos. They are a clannish group with a firmly established culture that
combines issues of health care with a deep spirituality that may be
deemed primitive by Western standards. In Merced, CA, which has a
large Hmong community, Lia Lee was born, the 13th child in a family
coping with their plunge into a modern and mechanized way of life. The
child suffered an initial seizure at the age of three months. Her
family attributed it to the slamming of the front door by an older
sister. They felt the fright had caused the baby's soul to flee her
body and become lost to a malignant spirit. The report of the family's
attempts to cure Lia through shamanistic intervention and the home
sacrifices of pigs and chickens is balanced by the intervention of the
medical community that insisted upon the removal of the child from
deeply loving parents with disastrous results. This compassionate and
understanding account fairly represents the positions of all the
parties involved. The suspense of the child's precarious health, the
understanding characterization of the parents and doctors, and
especially the insights into Hmong culture make this a very worthwhile
read.
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The Speed of Dark
by Elizabeth Moon
Amazon.com
Corporate life in early 21st-century America is even more ruthless
than it was at the turn of the millennium. Lou Arrendale, well
compensated for his remarkable pattern-recognition skills, enjoys his
job and expects never to lose it. But he has a new boss, a man who
thinks Lou and the others in his building are a liability. Lou and his
coworkers are autistic. And the new boss is going to fire Lou and all
his coworkers--unless they agree to undergo an experimental new
procedure to "cure" them.
In The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon has created a powerful, complex,
and believable portrayal of a man who varies radically from what is
defined as "normal." The author insightfully explores the nature of
"normality," identity, choice, responsibility, free will, illness and
health, and good and evil. The Speed of Dark is a powerful, moving,
illuminating novel in the tradition of Flowers for Algernon, Forrest
Gump, and Rain Man . --Cynthia Ward
From Publishers Weekly
"If I had not been what I am, what would I have been?" wonders Lou
Arrendale, the autistic hero of Moon's compelling exploration of the
concept of "normalcy" and what might happen when medical science
attains the knowledge to "cure" adult autism. Arrendale narrates most
of this book in a poignant earnestness that verges on the
philosophical and showcases Moon's gift for characterization. The
occasional third-person interjections from supporting characters are
almost intrusive, although they supply needed data regarding subplots.
At 35, Arrendale is a bioinformatics specialist who has a gift for
pattern analysis and an ability to function well in both "normal" and
"autistic" worlds. When the pharmaceutical company he works for
recommends that all the autistic employees on staff undergo an
experimental procedure that will basically alter their brains, his
neatly ordered world shatters. All his life he has been taught "act
normal, and you will be normal enough"-something that has enabled him
to survive, but as he struggles to decide what to do, the violent
behavior of a "normal friend" puts him in danger and rocks his faith
in the normal world. He struggles to decide whether the treatment will
help or destroy his sense of self. Is autism a disease or just another
way of being? He is haunted by the "speed of dark" as he proceeds with
his mesmerizing quest for self-"Not knowing arrives before knowing;
the future arrives before the present. From this moment, past and
future are the same in different directions, but I am going that way
and not this way.... When I get there, the speed of light and the
speed of dark will be the same." His decision will touch even the most
jaded "normal."
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American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
by Chris Hedges
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The f-word crops up in the most respectable quarters
these days. Yet if the provocative title of this exposé by Hedges (War
Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning)—sounds an alarm, the former New York
Times foreign correspondent takes care to employ his terms precisely
and decisively. As a Harvard Divinity School graduate, his
investigation of the Christian Right agenda is even more alarming
given its lucidity. Citing the psychology and sociology of fascism and
cults, including the work of German historian Fritz Stern, Hedges
draws striking parallels between 20th-century totalitarian movements
and the highly organized, well-funded "dominionist movement," an
influential theocratic sect within the country's huge evangelical
population. Rooted in a radical Calvinism, and wrapping its
apocalyptic, vehemently militant, sexist and homophobic vision in
patriotic and religious rhetoric, dominionism seeks absolute power in
a Christian state. Hedges's reportage profiles both former members and
true believers, evoking the particular characteristics of this
American variant of fascism. His argument against what he sees as a
democratic society's suicidal tolerance for intolerant movements has
its own paradoxes. But this urgent book forcefully illuminates what
many across the political spectrum will recognize as a serious and
growing threat to the very concept and practice of an open society.
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A Fire Upon The Deep (Zones of Thought)
by Vernor Vinge
Amazon.com
In this Hugo-winning 1991 SF novel, Vernor Vinge gives us a wild new
cosmology, a galaxy-spanning "Net of a Million Lies," some finely
imagined aliens, and much nail-biting suspense.
Faster-than-light travel remains impossible near Earth, deep in the
galaxy's Slow Zone--but physical laws relax in the surrounding Beyond.
Outside that again is the Transcend, full of unguessable, godlike
"Powers." When human meddling wakes an old Power, the Blight, this
spreads like a wildfire mind virus that turns whole civilizations into
its unthinking tools. And the half-mythical Countermeasure, if it
exists, is lost with two human children on primitive Tines World.
Serious complications follow. One paranoid alien alliance blames
humanity for the Blight and launches a genocidal strike. Pham Nuwen,
the man who knows about Countermeasure, escapes this ruin in the
spacecraft Out of Band--heading for more violence and treachery, with
500 warships soon in hot pursuit. On his destination world, the
fascinating Tines are intelligent only in combination: named
"individuals" are small packs of the doglike aliens. Primitive doesn't
mean stupid, and opposed Tine leaders wheedle the young castaways for
information about guns and radios. Low-tech war looms, with
elaborately nested betrayals and schemes to seize Out of Band if it
ever arrives. The tension becomes extreme... while half the Beyond
debates the issues on galactic Usenet.
Vinge's climax is suitably mindboggling. This epic combines the flash
and dazzle of old-style space opera with modern, polished
thoughtfulness. Pham Nuwen also appears in the nifty prequel set
30,000 years earlier, A Deepness in the Sky. Both recommended.
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Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
by Chip Heath, Dan Heath
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Unabashedly inspired by Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling
The Tipping Point, the brothers Heath—Chip a professor at Stanford's
business school, Dan a teacher and textbook publisher—offer an
entertaining, practical guide to effective communication. Drawing
extensively on psychosocial studies on memory, emotion and motivation,
their study is couched in terms of "stickiness"—that is, the art of
making ideas unforgettable. They start by relating the gruesome urban
legend about a man who succumbs to a barroom flirtation only to wake
up in a tub of ice, victim of an organ-harvesting ring. What makes
such stories memorable and ensures their spread around the globe? The
authors credit six key principles: simplicity, unexpectedness,
concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. (The initial letters
spell out "success"—well, almost.) They illustrate these principles
with a host of stories, some familiar (Kennedy's stirring call to
"land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth" within a
decade) and others very funny (Nora Ephron's anecdote of how her high
school journalism teacher used a simple, embarrassing trick to teach
her how not to "bury the lead"). Throughout the book, sidebars show
how bland messages can be made intriguing. Fun to read and solidly
researched, this book deserves a wide readership.
From Booklist
Based on a class at Stanford taught by one of the authors, this book
profiles how some ideas "stick" in our minds while the majority fall
by the wayside. Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and compelling
advertising make up much of the intrinsically interesting examples
that the Heaths profile that qualify for "stickiness." This book
explores what makes social epidemics "epidemic" and, as the Heaths
cite from Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point (2000), defines the secret
recipe that makes an idea viral. The principles of stickiness are
examined--an unexpected outcome, lots of concrete details that we
remember, emotion, simplicity, and credibility--all packaged in an
easily told story format. Taking these five stickiness attributes, the
book offers numerous examples of how these properties make up the
stories we are all familiar with--the urban legend about kidney theft
and the razor blades supposedly lurking in Halloween candy. Exercises,
checklists, and other tools are sprinkled throughout the book to help
the reader understand and test how stickiness can be applied to their
ideas, whether they are teachers, parents, or CEOs.
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The Sociopath Next Door
by Martha Stout
From Publishers Weekly
[Dr.] Stout says that as many as 4% of the population are
conscienceless sociopaths who have no empathy or affectionate feelings
for humans or animals. As Stout (The Myth of Sanity) explains, a
sociopath is defined as someone who displays at least three of seven
distinguishing characteristics, such as deceitfulness, impulsivity and
a lack of remorse. Such people often have a superficial charm, which
they exercise ruthlessly in order to get what they want. Stout argues
that the development of sociopathy is due half to genetics and half to
nongenetic influences that have not been clearly identified. The
author offers three examples of such people, including Skip, the
handsome, brilliant, superrich boy who enjoyed stabbing bullfrogs near
his family's summer home, and Doreen, who lied about her credentials
to get work at a psychiatric institute, manipulated her colleagues
and, most cruelly, a patient. Dramatic as these tales are, they are
composites, and while Stout is a good writer and her exploration of
sociopaths can be arresting, this book occasionally appeals to
readers' paranoia, as the book's title and its guidelines for dealing
with sociopaths indicate.