Ashgate Publishing Co.

Air transportation; a management perspective, 6th ed.

Consultant Wensveen completely updates this edition with the latest on regulation, deregulation, practices and the effects of politics and current events and includes chapter summaries, key objectives of each chapter, review questions, key terms and lists of suggested readings. He provides an overview of the aerospace industry and an historical perspective along with comprehensive material on regulators and associations, the general aviation industry, and the structure and economics of the airline industry and the economic characteristics of airlines. His chapters on managerial aspects of airlines cover organization, forecasting methods, airline passenger marketing, pricing, demand, output determination, air cargo, airline scheduling, fleet planning and the aircraft selection process, airline labor relations, airline financing, and international aviation. This works as either a text or a reference. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Art and the Augustinian order in early Renaissance Italy.

The "mendicant thesis" argues that the rise of the mendicant orders — the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, Servites, and Augustinians — brought about the first shifts in the visual arts of the Renaissance. In this examination of the mendicant thesis, ten international academics contribute 11 chapters to the first detailed study of the visual culture of the Augustinian Hermits, whose churches were decorated with works by notable artists from Simone Martini to Raphael. The text focuses on the first two centuries of Augustinian history, in central and northern Italy, where the order first emerged and where the early history of the Augustinians coincided with important shifts in the style and content of the visual arts. The essays are presented in roughly chronological order, each addressing questions raised by a particular painting or sculpture to explore how much the order was responsible for artistic change. Illustrated in b&w. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Between Islam and Byzantium; Aght'amar and the visual construction of medieval Armenian rulership.

Medieval Armenian art and architecture has been treated as anomalous in style and content from other works of the same era. In fact, as Jones (art history, Florida State U.) demonstrates in this notable publication, the Armenians were keenly aware of the artistic monuments of their powerful Islamic and Byzantine neighbors and adapted their artistic vocabularies to their own use. Focusing her study on the architectural and painted decoration of the church of Aght-amar, and employing an in-depth reading of contemporary documents that describe church ceremony, Jones recreates the original meaning and use of the church and its decoration and provides the reader with a vivid sense of the Armenians' political and religious identity and role in a highly complex political arena. The volume is copiously illustrated with b&w plates. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Child workers in England, 1780-1820; parish apprentices and the making of the early industrial labour force.

In the latest addition to Ashgate's Studies in Labour History Honeyman (history, Leeds) focuses on the lives and fate of children sent by their parishes to work in textiles mills. The children were apprenticed to the mill owners instead of being sent to the parish work house. Honeyman does not ignore the harshness of their lives, as chapters on neglect and abuse highlight. But she also notes that the parishes did make an attempt to follow up on the treatment of their wards and that allegations of abuse were usually investigated. She also places the practice of child labor within the context of social beliefs of the time and economic necessity. Examples of the experiences of individual children make this study both poignant and compelling. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Communicating strategy.

Jones, a strategy and performance management analyst, demonstrates effective ways to communicate strategy in the corporate world by concentrating on delivery and generating enthusiasm among co-workers and subordinates. The author shows how tools, language techniques and practical information can be combined to communicate a strategy that co-workers will find compelling and easy to understand. Methods for circumventing stifling corporate policies are also discussed. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The criminal law of genocide; international, comparative and contextual aspects.

The editors (both of Nottingham Trent U., UK) present 21 papers resulting out of an eponymous research initiative aiming to place the criminal law of genocide within historical, political, and social contexts. Opening papers address the historical development of genocide and the criminal law of genocide, providing discussion of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and the treatment of genocide at the Nuremberg trials. Case studies discussing the role of the state policy element in determining whether genocide has been committed in Darfur and the role of the major powers during the genocide in Rwanda come next, followed by papers addressing such questions as the schism between the legal and the social concept of genocide in light of the responsibility to protect, whether emerging jurisprudence on complicity in genocide before international ad hoc tribunals constitutes a moving target in conflict with the principle of legality, remedies for genocidal sexual violence against women, and the jurisdiction of incitement laws. Six papers then examine national and international instruments for prosecuting genocide and the final four contributions discuss prevention, alternative justice solutions, and sentencing. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Defending royal supremacy and discerning God's will in Tudor England.

Lawyer Christopher St. German (1460-1541) and churchman Richard Hooker (1554-1600) essentially negated the condition that one must obey God before human law, says Eppley (religion, Thiel College, Pennsylvania), by allowing the authors of human law the authority to pronounce definitively regarding God's will. He points out that this position set them apart from most defenders of Tudor defenders of royal ecclesiastical supremacy. The study served as his dissertation for a PhD in religious studies at University of Iowa. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Design and science; the life and work of Will Burtin.

Remington and Fripp present the first monograph on German-born Will Burtin (1908-1972), who pioneered important contributions to international typography and visual design. The text covers Burtin's leadership in five fields over five periods: using graphics to illustrate science and information (pre-war); corporate identity (from the mid-1940s); multimedia (which he called "Integration", from 1948); large-scale scientific visualization in 3-D (from 1958); and, with others, promoting Helvetica in North America. Illustrated throughout with b&w and color photographs and diagrams, some of which have never before been published. For design professionals and general readers interested in design, visualization, imaging, and information technologies. Remington teaches graphic design at Rochester Institute of Technology; Fripp is a writer and producer who worked as a junior assistant to Burtin and is married to his daughter. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Dominican women and Renaissance art; the Convent of San Domenico of Pisa.

It is said the "Anonymous" was a woman. Roberts (art history, Lake Forest College) proves that for some Renaissance art, this is certainly true. She has traced the production of a number of known works to a Dominican convent in Pisa, Italy. The convent was also known for its patronage of artists, and Roberts demonstrates how and why this came to be. By concentrating on one house, rather than generalizing about a sampling, the reader sees the life of a specific group of women in 15th-century Italy and the art that surrounded them. Appendices give an inventory of the art, a list of the names of the nuns in residence and letters written by and about the nuns. The book is copiously illustrated with b&w photographs of the art objects. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Festivals and plays in late medieval Britain.

What was playing on stage at a medieval or early modern festival was not always a matching accessory. Its content may not reflect the appropriate feast day, for example, or its manner of presentation may include unexpected or untraditional elements, such as local history. Further, documentation of such plays as presented is hard to come by and sometimes ambiguous. However, Davidson (English and medieval studies emeritus, Western Michigan U.) produces fascinating insights from lean material, explaining why such anomalies and ambiguities, resulting from tenets of faith and sheer practicality, became essential to communication of secular power and belief. In doing so he reviews the "landscape" of playing at such festivals and then focuses on two examples of medieval drama, the symbolic engagement with the suffering of the Christ in the York Corpus Christi plays and the mystical and meditative traditions invoked by the Bodley Christ's Burial and Christ's Resurrection. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Financing development; the G8 and UN contribution.

Fratianni (Indiana U., US), Kirton (U. of Toronto Canada), and Savona (LUISS U., Italy) present a collection of 16 research papers that has been assembled to address four issues: the performance of the Group of Eight (G8) countries and the United Nations in financing development, especially at and after the Gleneagles G8 Summit of 2005; the appropriateness of G8 and UN approaches to financing development in Africa; the relationship between official development assistance, trade liberalization, and debt relief in financing development; and recommendations for policy reform in international institutions and national governments. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Folk women and indirection in Morrison, Ní Dhuibhne, Hurston, and Lavin.

Fulmer (U. of California, Berkeley) finds remarkable links between African American and Irish women writers, tracing an intellectual genealogical line from Lavin to Ní Dhuibhne and from Hurston to Morrison, showing how they attained free expression through the indirection that was long a tool of folk lore to deflect controversy. She examines such issues as the ways of folk women against authority and the parallel methods of women faced with censorship and condescension, the use of "otherworld" women in commentary on sex and religion, and the particular place and responsibilities of the wise woman. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The gendered score; music and gender in 1940s melodrama and the woman's film.

Laing, a freelance writer on film music, uses four films of the 1940s to demonstrate her theory that the scores of these films emphasize a perception of excessive female emotionality. The best known of these is Now, Voyager starring Bette Davis and Paul Henreid. Laing examines how the themes associated with the female characters reflect cultural norms of the time. She suggests that her methods can be employed to analyze changing attitudes to gender in any era. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

How Britain got the blues; the transmission and reception of American blues style in the United Kingdom.

How did a musical form restricted by studios and distributors to African American artists and markets from the 1920s to the 1950s land within earshot of 1960s British teens? Schwartz (historical musicology, U. of Kansas) traces the trans-Atlantic path of the blues from American tradition to English mid-century subculture, complete with critical responses. Her work on the influential inter-war exile recordings is fascinating, as is Britain's early perception of blues as a jazz form. She ably builds a foundation of analysis of the blues revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, artist by artist, nationality by nationality, so her examination of British master practitioners of the 1970s and beyond makes perfect sense. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Human rights in education, science, and culture; legal developments and challenges.

Although the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights entered into force in 1978, about 40 members of the United Nations (UN) are still not parties to either one or both. In an effort to promote these rights, the UN has made responsible organizations stronger and more flexible, and these essays reflect the issues those organizations have found to be significant. Subjects range from independence and the indivisibility of human rights to experiences and problems with the adjudication, the development of indicators for access, the applicability of human rights between private parties, the right to education and its obstacles, the legal framework of the right to participation in cultural life, and the current status of the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific and technological progress. Copyright is held by UNESCO and also published under ISBN 978-92-3-104073-3. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The idea of nature in Disney animation.

Whitley (English, U. of Cambridge) examines decades of Disney's animated children's films and the ways they reflected or promoted often complex attitudes about the natural world that changed with the times. Subjects he addresses include: human and animal nature in Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, Bambi and the idea of conservation, conflicting values of power and the environment in Pocahontas, and instable tropical ecologies as portrayed in Tarzan and Finding Nemo. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Intentionality, deliberation, and autonomy; the action-theoretic basis of practical philosophy.

For centuries, philosophy of action helped clarify such concepts as action, intention, premeditation, and autonomy, but has been slacking off since the 1960s. Here scholars of philosophy from the US and Europe give it a good talking to. They discuss such aspects as how the content of intentions can contribute to causing actions, the grounds and structure of reasons for action, and autonomy for real people. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Journalism as practice; MacIntyre, virtue ethics, and the press.

Borden (Western Michigan U.) uses examples from the modern media to confront current ethical standards in journalism, and how the international demand for higher standards transcend personal opinions and beliefs. This book, which is part of the Ashgate Studies in Applied Ethics series, looks at ethics in journalism from a philosophical, historical and legal perspective. Aimed equally at students of media, journalism and philosophy, this volume also looks at the growing influence of the Internet, and how media has become part of the corporate landscape. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Judging a book by its cover; fans, publishers, designers, and the marketing of fiction.

The image, typography, and puff prose that surrounds the written contents of a book really do matter, say these scholars of English, communication, and popular culture, because in fact people do judge books by their covers. They discuss approaches to studying book covers, what makes a book popular, cultural industries and intertextuality, and moving audiences and the marketing of books. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Just culture; balancing safety and accountability.

What once were considered accidents due to human error by doctors, pilots, and organizations are now criminalized. Through examples, decision tree questions, and solution alternatives, Dekker (human factors and flight safety, Lund U., Sweden) argues for a systems view of human error as a symptom rather than a cause of incidents and presents ways to be just rather than retributive in terms of accountability and risk management. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)