Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2015 - Social & Behavioral Sciences — Education

War has played a central role in world history, but only a few scholars have sought to understand the evolutionary changes that armed conflict has wrought on humanity.  Chaliand (Nanyang Technological Univ., Singapore) has embarked on that task with this enlightening and aptly titled work.  His study adds immeasurably to the field by focusing on both Western and non-Western development, from the rise of the Assyrian Empire to the war on terrorism.  Nothing escapes Chaliands careful eye, including the grand strategy of the Byzantines and the complexities of asymmetrical war.  Readers interested in the military rise of Islam following the death of the Prophet to the contributions of the Ming dynasty will not be disappointed.  Chaliand believes that world power in time will shift by the rise of educational and economic growth.  More tellingly, he envisions that future strategists must contend with cultural and historical trends in the world community when formulating national strategic plans.  For those interested in war and peace studies, this is a must-have addition to any academic library seeking to expand its collection.Summing Up: Essential. All academic levels/libraries.

Blom has written a provocative, sweeping social and cultural survey that is certain to become a standard reference and teaching resource.  Many authors have examined this period, but Blom delivers fresh insights and shows how seemingly unimportant or insignificant events and developments dramatically influenced the events, culture, and social and intellectual perceptions of the 20th century.  Building upon his earlier The Vertigo Years(CH, Nov'09, 47-1644), a somewhat controversial survey of the period from 1900 through 1914, Blom takes readers from the immediate aftermath of WW I through the cataclysmic events of the 1930s, handily organizing his book into the postwar years (19191928) and the prewar years (19291938).  He devotes a chapter to each year, built around a seminal event, an individual, or a development.  Along the way, he offers trenchant observations on politics, cultural mores, science, technology, military and security developments, economics, and social patterns.  Blom's focus is upon Europe.  Consequently, its imperial and global relations, particularly the continents connections to the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, receive relatively little attention.  Elegantly written and argued, this is an important book, deserving a wide readership.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

This unique and important title offers researchers an interdisciplinary study of this genocide from a strong geographical and historical perspective that focuses on physical locations, times, and terrain.  The work is based on six case studies, authored by both geographers and historians, which delve into analyzing the locations where different distinctive events of the Shoah occurred.  The book aims to go beyond Holocaust atlases and/or other geographical studies that primarily focus on the location of events, Jewish ghettos, and SS concentration camps to focus "on the spaces and places that people created, occupied, passed through and enduredthe material landscapes that were essential to the implementation of the Holocaust and inseparable from people's experience of it."  Using scale as a primary tool of analysis, the work introduces readers to key concepts in human and physical geography and adds new dimensionality to Holocaust studies.  Employing techniques such as GIS and cartography, as well as fieldwork and spatial ideations that use graphic art and diagrams to depict data and time lines, this work offers readers new ways of studying the key sites and events of the Holocaust.  Both students and researchers will find this work to be immensely informative and innovative.Summing Up: Essential. All readership levels.

This innovative book takes on the continuing problem of the often terrible treatment of prisoners of war in the wars of the 20th century, but not in the usual case study or qualitative type of approach to which most military historians are accustomed.  Wallace (political science, Rutgers Univ.-New Brunswick) uses quantitative analysis as a methodological approach to asking and answering why and how prisoners were abused in terms of policies and practices of states, not individuals.  Essentially, the author deals with the Golden Rule by creating a mathematical code to identify state-sponsored abuse, including murder, starvation, and retaliation, and then applies it to a long list of wars and parts of wars.  His expert treatment of the Soviet Unions Katyn Forest massacres of Polish officers in 1940 is especially revealing.  In addition to a multitude of quantitative studies, Wallace uses history and legal sources expertly.  The research sparkles with primary and secondary sources; the bibliography is a rich collection of hard work, and the writing flows extremely well.  One finds few studies that are as richly documented for non-mathematical audiences.  A wonderful contribution to both POW and war studies.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Saler (history, Univ. of California, Davis) has put together a prodigious, strikingly thorough collection of essays focused on the period around 1900.  The volume opens with an 8-page introduction to first-, second-, and  third-wave fin-de-siècle studies (carrying the research to a global or worldwide dimension); the 45 brief essays (each runs to 15 pages or fewer) are arranged in 8 thematic sections and take up a wide variety of sometimes-overlapping topics.  This overlappingof the political, national, imperial, social, cultural, intellectual, scientific, spiritual, and artisticis a good thing because it demonstrates the interactions between the various aspects of fin-de-siècle culture.  A reader could hardly ask for a better one-volume treatment of current research.  This collection of essays deserves the intense attention of anyone interested in the fin-de-siècle or in a broad understanding of cultural and global history of the near past.  Nonspecialists will particularly appreciate the thorough index.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Pedersen (Columbia) provides an enlightening, insightful, richly textured exposé of the Mandates Commission from birth to transformation under the United Nations.  Her multi-archival, international, superbly footnoted, and, at its core, personality driven narrative brings alive an institution wedded to great power retention that professes something very different.  However, with its Mandates Commission, the League helped make the end of empire imaginable, enlivening subjugated peoples and bringing to light the very meaning of sovereignty.  Making full use of individual and governmental archives, Pedersen weaves primary and secondary sources into a highly readable assessment of the major concepts relative to the relationship between nations and policy makers: beneficial, controversial, detrimental, and, in the end, uncontrollably transformative.  The author presents an incredibly cogent explanation of what happens when an international body attempts to balance empire decline and settler interests with native paramountcy.  This provides a starting point for readers to assess the travails of negotiating a Middle East peace and creating a liberalistic international order and to understand what Osama bin Laden meant when, in 2001, he lectured the world to look back 83 years.  Despite 406 pages of narrative, the author's highly engaging narrative style makes the book fly by as if it were a summer beach read.  Extremely readable, richly informative, and boldly argued.Summing Up: Essential. Most levels/libraries.

Noted British academic Overy (Univ. of Exeter, UK) has burnished his impeccable reputation as a WW II scholar with his latest edited collection.  Do we really need another illustrated history of WW II?  Yes, we do, especially this volume, which combines a breadth and depth not seen in much military history writing.  The skillful analysis of each chapter does not sacrifice narrative ability to address topics ranging from the German, Italian, and Japanese conduct of the land, sea, and air wars to the political intricacies of the Grand Alliance, scientific innovation, and the cultural history of the war.  Overy's three chapters in no way overshadow the contributions of the 11 other scholars, mainly from the UK and Canada, who synthesize the most current research.  Special note goes to Richard Bessel's chapter titled "Unnatural Deaths," a grim yet fascinating discussion of the almost limitless ways civilians died in the war and how these deaths continue to shape understanding of the war.  Such a short review cannot do justice to the excellent scholarship and narrative abilities of the 12 scholars on display.  Did this reviewer mention the illustrations?  Astounding.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

The Sámi (Saami) of Scandinavia and Russias adjacent Kola Peninsula can be characterized as world famous yet poorly understood at the same time.  This comprehensive treatment of Sámi societies will familiarize a broad audience with all aspects of the complex Sámi historical experience.  Beginning with archaeological reflections of deep prehistory, Kent (Cambridge) charts the origins of Northern Europes oldest surviving indigenous culture through millennia of continuity and change.  He chronicles diverse Sámi peoples speaking distinct languages, ranging from the critically endangered Ter Sámi in the east to the robustly spoken Northern Sámi in western Scandinavia.  Kents painstaking historiography traces Europes evolving awareness of the Sámi.  Meticulously researched and extensively referenced, this book captures how each Sámi group interacted with neighboring peoples and identifies recurrent themes among the vicissitudes of local differences.  The last two centuries and their profound effects upon every Sámi group receive the lions share of attention.  The books thoroughgoing historical context enriches its authoritative assessment of todays Sámi across four countries.  The emergent picture illuminates a nation with a rich past, a dynamic present, and a future awaiting more scholarly attention.  A true foundation for a wide readership.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.