Stanford Magazine > March/April 2003

SHOWCASE

	Shelf Life
Confronting the Veil: Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, 1919-1941 Jonathan Scott Holloway, ’89 University of North Carolina Press, 2002 $18.95	The “veil” was a metaphor coined by pioneering social scientist W.E.B. Dubois to symbolize America’s racial divide. In this study of black intellectuals, Holloway explores the lives of three radical scholars who broke from NAACP orthodoxy to advocate class-based remedies to problems that until then were considered racial. The assistant professor at Yale also provides a historical portrait of Howard University, where his three subjects taught, and of Washington, D.C., in the first half of the 20th century.
Grains of Sand Marion Patterson, ’55 Stanford University Press, 2002 $60	Photographer Patterson studied and worked with some of the greats, including Ansel Adams. These 57 black-and-white studies of driftwood, sand, waterfalls, rocks—shot on the Central California coast, in the Sierra and in Southwestern deserts—exude a mystical aura. “I make photographs because I want to share experiences that take me out of my limited self and allow me to touch the eternal and infinite,” she writes in an afterword.
On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11: A Story of Loss and Renewal Tom Barbash HarperCollins, 2003 $25.95	All of Cantor Fitzgerald’s 658 employees who were at their desks in the World Trade Center on September 11 perished, and the company seemed doomed. But president Howard Lutnick and surviving employees pulled off the unlikely feat of simultaneously mourning their dead, comforting the living and keeping the company afloat. Barbash, a 1991-93 Stegner fellow who teaches creative writing at Stanford, tells how.
Delivering the Goods: The Art of Managing Your Supply Chain Damon Schechter, ’94, MS ’94, with Gordon Saner John Wiley & Sons, 2002 $29.95	There’s a reason why Sears, Roebuck and Co. hired the Gulf War’s chief logistician as senior vice president of supply chain: logistics are as crucial to business as to battle. Schechter, a logistics consultant, analyzes successful military operations through the millennia and looks at businesses from the South Sea Company to Wal-Mart, then presents his “tri-level view” of management.
The Nose: A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival Gabrielle Glaser, ’86, MA ’86 Atria Books, 2002 $24	The author suffered sinus troubles that resulted in a two-year loss of her sense of smell but also inspired her to conduct far-ranging research into all things olfactory. In a detail-packed historical account encompassing science and superstition, commerce and popular culture, Glaser demonstrates the surprising importance of an organ that remains only partially understood.
In the Electric Eden Nick Arvin, MS ’96 Penguin, 2003 $14	Arvin trained as an engineer and worked in product development before pursuing his MFA in creative writing, and his practical side shows in this debut collection. While the 10 short stories delve into the complexities of human relations, they also explore how people interact with such trappings of progress as hot-air balloons, electricity, radios, cell phones and SUVs.
Major Smith’s Box Kurt S. Brauer, ’71 Xlibris Corp., 2002 $31.99	Brauer’s experience as an Air Force officer attached to Belgian forces in the 1970s lends authenticity to this novel’s portrayal of life and love in a Cold War setting. Protagonist Peter Neuhart’s romance with a Dutch sculptress unfolds in tandem with his involvement in secret missions behind the Iron Curtain—missions whose every detail stays metaphorically locked in a box until he revisits the past, 20 years later.
Vietnam and Beyond: A Diplomat’s Cold War Education Robert Hopkins Miller, ’49 Texas Tech University Press, 2002 $36.50	In a Foreign Service career spanning nearly 40 years, Miller’s assignments took him to Europe and included ambassadorships in Malaysia and Côte d’Ivoire. But his experiences during the Vietnam War—in Washington and Saigon, and at the Paris peace talks—form the crux of his memoir, a candid inside view of America’s most disastrous Cold War entanglement.
Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools Amy J. Binder, ’86 Princeton University Press, 2002 $35	USC sociologist Binder examines school board battles involving blacks demanding that the history curriculum reflect their heritage, and Christian conservatives protesting the teaching of evolution as an assault on their religious beliefs. Her comparative analysis of seven specific cases gives broader insights into why challenges to the status quo succeed or fail.