Review

Fall 2004

Global Media: Menace or Messiah?

Revealing the answer to the question posed by the title of this book by David Demers, associate professor of communication at Washington State University, will not deprive anyone of a reason to read it. Global media, the planet-embracing corporations like Time Warner and Disney that bring us information and entertainment, are neither menace nor messiah. Few prospective readers would suspect the latter. The book’s value lies in its refutation of the former, a charge popularized by Noam Chomsky and other Jeremiahs of the left.

The charge—that the corporatization and consolidation of media organizations lead inevitably to their uncritical acceptance of powerful institutions and failure to … » More …

Summer 2005

Genes and DNA: A Beginner's Guide to Genetics and Its Applications

Evelyn Fox Keller, a well-known social critic and professor of philosophy of science at MIT, termed the 20th century the “Century of the Gene.” Five years into the 21st century, it can be easily argued that we are in for another century full of genetic wonder, hope, frustration, and fear.

It is impossible to read a newspaper or watch the news without hearing about the discovery of a gene that will affect all of our lives. Recently, genes have been reported to be responsible for problems ranging from compulsive shopping, obesity, and alcoholism to breast and prostate cancer. How do nonscientists wade through the hype … » More …

Winter 2002

Gardening in the Inland Northwest

If you are a gardener just embarking upon the horticultural journey of growing vegetables or fruit in the Inland Northwest, this book is quite simply the best reference you can find. Tonie Jean Fitzgerald starts out with the basics that every gardener should know about the unique soils and climate of the region. Next she gets down to the specifics of planning and planting a vegetable garden, including how to raise transplants from seed and what varieties perform best in area gardens.

She follows up with a chapter on pest control from pesky insects to damaging diseases, providing sound advice on how to limit the … » More …

Fall 2006

The Dozier-Jarvis-Young Quartet: You Guys From Around Here?

The photo of the Moscow/Pullman highway which graces the cover of the Dozier-Jarvis-Young Quartet’s debut CD release, You Guys From Around Here? brought the memories flooding back, as I settled down to listen to the opening track, “Homecoming.” You see, I’m able to easily answer that particular query, since I was from “around there” for a little over eight years. In one of the group’s earlier incarnations—the Dozier-Jarvis-Jensen Quartet—I performed regularly at Roger Johnson’s venerable Pullman music establishment, Rico’s, and at clubs and concert halls throughout the Pacific Northwest. My objectivity as a reviewer having now been fully compromised, let us forge ahead with a … » More …

Summer 2007

Panda Diaries

In Panda Diaries, Alex Kuo’s latest novel, a panda mailman chastises his improbable cohort, Ge, for buying into its pop image. “You’re supposed to be in intelligence. You’ve seen me smoke. If I relied only on that bamboo diet, we’d all be extinct by now. That’s just a story our lobbyists invent for the foreign journalists in Beijing when they have nothing else to write about.” And unlike the surly postal carriers of America, this zoological civil servant is, in many ways, more contemplative and human than Ge can claim to be. A colonel in the Chinese secret service, Ge has been exiled to Changchun, … » More …

Fall 2006

Writing Pauline: Wisdom from a Long Life

Gail Stearns’s biography, Writing Pauline: Wisdom from a Long Life, is the story of an ordinary eastern Washington woman who came to some extraordinary conclusions in the twilight of a long and often frustrated life. Stearns, director of the Common Ministry and an adjunct faculty member in Women’s Studies and the Honors College at Washington State University, wrote the biography based on notes, journals, and oral interviews with Spokane native Pauline Thompson, an educator, nurse, veteran, and activist who died in 2000 at age 95. Stearns notes in Chapter One that “one cannot understand Pauline without acknowledging paradox.” Paradox is a constant theme throughout Pauline’s … » More …

Winter 2006

American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett

What most baby boomers know about the legendary frontier figure David “Davy” Crockett has been gleaned from the Walt Disney movie and television series starring Fess Parker. In American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett, WSU English professor Buddy Levy presents a fuller profile of the man who made Tennessee famous in the early 1800s. It’s not just a master heroic outdoorsman who emerges; the consummate politician and ferocious fighter for underdog causes shines through as well. Born August 17, 1786, Davy Crockett found his independent spirit and developed his frontier skills on the open road at the age of 14, when he ran … » More …

Summer 2006

WSU Military Veterans: Heroes and Legends

With three engines lost on a B-29 bombing run over Tokyo December 3, 1944, pilot Robert Goldsworthy and his crew bailed out. For the next nine months, he would endure brutal beatings as a Japanese prisoner of war. Far worse, he said, was the cold and starvation. Goldsworthy and his older brother, Harry E. Goldsworthy Jr., both flew World War II combat missions. They retired as Air Force generals with five stars between them. Their contributions to the war are among the 120 case studies chronicled in C. James Quann’s new book, WSU Military Veterans: Heroes and Legends. The author relates military experiences of former … » More …

Spring 2002

Essentials of the American Constitution

Essentials of the American Constitution examines five closely integrated components that make up the fundamental law: the compact, separation of powers, federalism, representation, and the Bill of Rights. The interaction among these components gives the constitution its dynamism. Landmark decisions handed down by the Supreme Court involve two or more of them.

The book’s unique approach shows how these components often work together, assisting, explaining, or reinforcing one another. Author Charles H. Sheldon provides an overview of the fundamental principles of the American Constitution and gives a firm foundation for readers interested in American government and politics, constitutional law, or civil liberties.

A member of … » More …

Spring 2008

Disturbance-Loving Species

Much has been made of the supposed decline of short fiction in recent years. But Peter Chilson’s intelligent, gripping, and emotionally complex new book, Disturbance-Loving Species, winner of the prestigious Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for fiction, defies that doomsday thinking.The one novella and four short stories that make up this collection throb with the life of Africa, from a market “like a great pond-based ecosystem, billowing with hierarchies of species and teeming with predators and parasites, opportunists and victims” to a taxi ride in which “the driver sped across a crowded city, slowing for no person, no camel or donkey, no pothole . . . … » More …