Public Affairs

Library Bookwatch, Dec, 2004

Public Affairs

250 West 57th St. #1321, NY, NY 10107

www.publicaffairsbooks.com

Three important new titles provide very different coverages and are powerful, recommended picks for college-level collections. General Wesley K. Clark's Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, And The American Empire (1586482777, $15.00) appears in paperback with a new preface to tackle issues surrounding Iraq, terrorism and world wars. Clark is not only a good leader and politician: he's a surprisingly good writer and provides strong insights into military operations and campaigns overseas. Peter Charles Hoffer's Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Frauds--American History From Bancroft And Parkman To Ambrose, Bellisles, Ellis, And Goodwin (1586482440, $26.00) provides an intriguing social history of the U.S. focusing on fictions, fraud, and ironies of American history. The focus on how history omits or chooses one perspective over another and how such omissions have occurred in popular American history makes for a volatile set of revelations which are intriguing stories of how history is made, represented, and how the historians involved are made or broken in the process. James Lilley and Jeffrey Lilley's China Hands: Nine Decades Of Adventure, Espionage, And Diplomacy In Asia (1586481363, $30.00) tells of family fortune and a family long steeped in Chinese history and experience. James Lilley's father began selling kerosene for Standard Oil in China in 1917: Lilley spent his childhood in China, the family fled when World War II arrived, and Lilley found himself at Yale being groomed for a career in intelligence which would return him to China as an adult. His nearly 30 years in the CIA in Asia and his experiences with espionage and diplomacy between America and Asia during and after the Cold War make for enlightening, powerful reading blending memoir and social history.