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September 11, 2001

International
• Iraq
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Books for Understanding is a free, easy-to-use resource to help you find books on current events. New bibliographies are compiled when a major news story breaks or public debate heats up. For more information, click here.

The Supreme Court

The recent Kagan confirmation hearings have been a masterful example of how to not reveal much, scholarship on the United States Supreme Court and the individuals who have donned its robes can tell us quite a bit about what to expect when the second Obama nominee is confirmed to the Court later this summer.

Go to: • Book List • Press Release

Sample Contents:

In The Appointments Process:
Strategic Selection: Presidential Nomination of Supreme Court Justices from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush by Christine L. Nemacheck

In Justices and Clerks of the Supreme Court:
John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life by Bill Barnhart and Gene Schlickman

In Studies of Supreme Court Cases:
The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions edited by Kermit Hall and James W. Ely, Jr.

Oil

The massive BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is producing devastating effects of which the impact will be felt in the environment, industry, and by governments for a very long time.

Go to: • Book List • Press Release

Sample Contents:

In Oil in International Relations:
Oil, Profits, and Peace: Does Business Have a Role in Peacemaking?, by Jill Shankleman

In Oil and Economic Development:
British Petroleum and Global Oil 1950–1975: The Challenge of Nationalism, by James Bamberg

In Oil and the Environment:
Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters, by Leslie Irvine

Mining

In the wake of terrible mine disasters, in West Virginia and China, this online resource offers information on more than 100 relevant titles from 25 AAUP member presses.

Go to: • Book List • Press Release

Sample Contents:

In Miners: Labor & Activism:
Killing for Coal, by Thomas G. Andrews

In Mine Disasters:
Goodbye Wifes and Daughters, by Susan Kushner Resnick

In Policy, Land Rights, and Environmental Impact:
Bringing Down the Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal on Southern West Virginia, by Shirley Stewart Burns

New Updates:
Global Climate Change updated 7/7/10
Same-Sex Marriage updated 7/7/10
Space Flight updated 7/7/10
Immigration updated 7/1/10
Mexico updated 7/1/10

Iran

The U.N. approved new sanctions against the Iranian regime on June 9, seeking to halt Iran's nuclear program. History does not give much hope forthe direct effectiveness of these sanctions. Read more from university presses.

Go to: • Iran Book List

Gaza Flotilla Raid

On May 31, Israeli commandoes boarded ships carrying aid and humanitarian activists to Gaza, killing 9 aboard. Precise details of what happened during the raid are hard to pin down, but it has greatly increased international tensions in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

Go to: • Israel-Palestine Book List

Immigration Issues in Arizona

The passage of new laws in Arizona regarding immigration has caused a great deal of controversy.

Go to: • Immigration Book List • Mexico Book List

African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World’s Game

Peter Alegi
Ohio University Press, 2010

Just in time for World Cup 2010, Alegi explores how Africans adopted soccer for their own reasons and on their own terms. Styles of play and rituals of spectatorship distinct from that of European football have emerged. South Africa's World Cup tournament will bring these further onto the world stage (or, rather, playing field).
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A Single Man

Christopher Isherwood
Minnesota, 2009

Isherwood's 1964 novel is a frank and moving examination of a gay man in midlife. Minnesota has reissued the novel as a tie-in to fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut, opening this December. Starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, the film has already won critical acclaim. While mainstream attention is returning to Isherwood's fiction and life, the University of Minnesota Press has kept many of his best works in print.
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Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia

S. Ann Dunham
Duke UP, 2009

Duke University Press has published the work that President Obama's mother was not able to revise from dissertation form before her early death. The work reflects Dunham's more than 10 years of research among rural Javanese metalworkers and her commitment to helping small-scale village industries survive. The American Anthropological Association dedicated a session to the book's idea at their December 2009 conference.
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