New Books April 2024: Home

As we continue to live through a pandemic, all eyes are on microbes: an imperceptible and pervasive threat that hangs heavy on the air and clings to surfaces. But the reality of micro-organisms is far more diverse and life-sustaining than such a notion would have us believe (hence the title of this book). Not only are they omnipresent, but we are highly attuned to their workings - both in the world at large and right here within our own bodies. Meanwhile, cutting-edge microbiome research is changing our understanding of reality, challenging fundamental concepts of free will and individuality. Threaded through everything are microbes: the very glue that holds ecosystems together. This topical, engaging and original book counters the prevailing narrative of microbes as the bane of society, along the way providing much-needed clarity on the overwhelmingly beneficial role they play. We discover how the microbiome is highly relevant to environmental and social equity issues, while there's also discussion about how microbes may influence our decisions: even the way we think about how we think may need to be revisited. Invisible Friends introduces the reader to a vast, pullulating cohort of minute life - friends you never knew you had.

Teacher Shortages and the Challenge of Retention was written to address the need to transform many teaching conditions in schools today.

Learn how to engage students in investigating the past. Lesh provides research-based guidance to help teachers (grades 6-12) develop and use questions that guide historical inquires, align assessment to inquiry, and incorporate difficult histories. Each chapter uses a specific lesson, framed by student work, to illuminate approaches in real classroom scenarios.

As a World War II tour director for thirty-five years, David Harper has repeatedly heard the same questions from an extremely varied American and British audience. These questions and many more are addressed in Exposing the Reich. The book promotes an understanding of how the devastation and tragedy of the war and the concurrent genocide could happen. It studies the lethal blend of inciting hatred, ongoing indoctrination, justification for drastic action, and the complete control of all media. Few know about the early political and ideological influences on Hitler's worldview, such as those instigated by his little-known mentor. Who has ever heard about Hitler's "second book," in which he revealed his major foreign policy plans, a manuscript that remained secret? How many realize that Hitler's regime planned on replacing Christianity with its own "religion" and substituting Mein Kampf for the Bible? Why did Hitler name his regime the "Third" Reich, and why did he choose the swastika as its logo? Why did the fine arts enjoy such an honored status during the Reich? What were the lesser-known original purposes of the concentration camp system established in Germany just weeks after Hitler seized power? From young students to well-informed history buffs, readers will gain a wealth of new insights into Hitler and his regime of terror.

This book examines the history, governmental and private responses, and future prospects of this intractable challenge. Stephen Eides explains why homelessness persists in America and offers concrete recommendations for how we can do better for the homeless population.

This book shines a light on the unsung women of the Civil Rights Movement, women who overcame enormous odds to fight for the rights of Black Americans.

The book provides individual Diné/Navajo examinations and understandings of Níhi Kéyah, Navajo homeland. These examinations and understandings represent a distinctive lens of Diné/Navajo peoples and way of life.

An exploration of Latin America's political history, this book profiles fifty-two of the region's most influential figures-from dictators and reformers to artists and priests-who, for better or worse, have shaped its character and destiny from the Spanish Conquest to the present day.

Would you read this book if a computer wrote it? Would you even know? And why would it matter? Today's eerily impressive artificial intelligence writing tools present us with a crucial challenge: As writers, do we unthinkingly adopt AI's time-saving advantages or do we stop to weigh what we gain and lose when heeding their siren call? To understand how AI is redefining what it means to write and think, linguist and educator Naomi Baron leads us on a journey connecting the dots between human literacy and today's technology. From nineteenth century lessons in composition, to mathematician Alan Turing's work creating a machine for deciphering war-time messages, to contemporary engines like ChatGPT, Baron gives readers a spirited overview of the emergence of both literacy and AI, and a glimpse of their possible future. As the technology becomes increasingly sophisticated and fluent, it's tempting to take the easy way out and let AI do the work for us. Baron cautions that such efficiency isn't always in our interest. As AI plies us with suggestions or full-blown text, we risk losing not just our technical skills but the power of writing as a springboard for personal reflection and unique expression. Funny, informed, and conversational, Who Wrote This? urges us as individuals and as communities to make conscious choices about the extent to which we collaborate with AI. The technology is here to stay. Baron shows us how to work with AI and how to spot where it risks diminishing the valuable cognitive and social benefits of being literate.

This book will provide librarians with tools to adapt current open access (OA) guidelines and workflows or create new ones that are suited to the needs of their libraries.

Starr Sackstein is back with an updated road map for educators to hack grading and assessment. Readers will learn about the flaws of traditional assessment systems and how to make immediate changes so students can better advocate for themselves as learners. Begin by addressing your mindset about grading, and learn how to help your community buy into the shift to go gradeless. Bravely change the systems that aren't serving your students.

This book unpacks what happens to our brains and our behaviors each time we click 'Like' or even just scroll for new content on social media. Through interviews with top influencers, the latest studies, and pop-culture anecdotes, and Dr. Boxer Wachler's own expertise as both a scientist and an influencer himself, he reveals how influence works.

Spring 1936. The Holy Land erupted in a rebellion that targeted both the local Jewish community and the British Mandate authorities that for two decades had midwifed the Zionist project. The Great Arab Revolt would last three years, cost thousands of lives, and cast the trajectory for the Middle East conflict ever since. The revolt to end Zionism had instead crushed the Arabs themselves, leaving them crippled in facing the Jews' own drive for statehood a decade later. Zionist leaders began to abandon illusions over Arab acquiescence, and faced the prospect that fulfilling their dream of sovereignty might mean forever clinging to the sword. Kessler shows that today, eight decades on, the revolt's legacy endures. When Washington promotes a "two-state solution," it is invoking a plan with roots in this same pivotal period.

Progressive and libertarian, anti-Communist and revolutionary, Democratic and Republican, quintessentially American but simultaneously universal. By the late 1980s, rock music had acquired a dizzying array of political labels. These claims about its political significance shared one common thread: that the music could set you free. Rocking in the Free World explains how Americans came to believe they had learned the truth about rock 'n' roll, a truth shaped by the Cold War anxieties of the Fifties, the countercultural revolutions (and counter-revolutions) of the Sixties and Seventies, and the end-of-history triumphalism of the Eighties. How did rock 'n' roll become enmeshed with so many different competing ideas about freedom? And what does that story reveal about the promise-and the limits-of rock music as a political force in postwar America?