Nonfiction

In Higher Education? the teacher-writer duo of Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus wade into the conversation on the decline of the American university system.  It is fitting, then, that Mary Refling, a professor steeped in the knowledge of the debate, takes on this latest academic salvo.

Muslims of Metropolis traces the experiences of three Muslim immigrant experiences in the West: a Turk in Germany, a Palestinian in England, and a Bangladeshi in the United States. They may share the same religion, but the experiences in their new countries are hardly the same. M. Junaid Levesque-Alam reviews the intimate portraits sketched by Kavitha Rajagopalan.

Putin's Oil has all the makings of a thriller novel: conspiracies, Kremlin politics, double agents, corporate espionage, mysterious deaths, and exile to Siberia. Except this is the true story of how then-president Vladimir Putin wrestled control of  the oil giant Yukos, once one of Russia's most successful companies, from Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Ed Hancox delves into the machinations that landed a one-time billionaire in a Siberian prison.

With the world in a frenzy over the World Cup tournament, Lauren Young re-visits the newly re-issued How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer. Despite the books grandiose title, "its beauty is that it does not make a specific argument—by recognizing the messy heterogeneity of soccer’s effect on people, it very clearly shows the game’s power to drive right to the heart of a cultural or economic phenomenon." Read on...

Sebastian Junger's gripping reportage from the frontlines of Afghanistan is adrenaline-fused war reporting at its best. Shaun Randol reviews the harrowing account of a platoon of American soldiers battling a ferocious enemy in the Korengal Valley, the most dangerous part of the war-torn country. A philosophical rumination on war it is not, but War is as addictive as the fighting it portrays.

Out of sight, out of mind; so the saying goes. In the United States, prisons are often located away from urban centers and curious eyes. Thus, the prisoners inside are even more obscured. In this review of a collection prison writing, Eric Anthamatten argues that the prison and the treatment of prisoners is reflective of society at large. If they are silenced, what does it say about us? A short photo exhibit accompanies the essay.

For the first time, the American National Security Strategy will focus on homegrown extremists "radicalized" on American soil. The focus represents a key plank of the country's global security policy. The White House would do well, then, to read Ed Husain's The Islamist, a memoir of a London Muslim who nearly became "radicalized," only to see the error of his ways. Lisa Allen reviews this timely portrait.

Necessity is the mother of all invention, so the saying goes. In a rural village in Malawi, William Kamkwamba needed electricity. So, he figured out how to build a windmill to generate power. It's a small idea, but the results were huge. Ed Hancox reviews William's story, as told in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

In Half the Sky, the husband-and-wife team of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn team up to shed light on the plights of many women around the world. Along the way, they offer up stories of courage and success, while also dishing out solutions to help those less fortunate. In this review, Ruthie Ackerman draws on her experiences working with women in Africa, applying doses of reality to the well-intentioned, often sunny outlooks presented by the authors.