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These papers on reading research in the socialist countries were delivered at a conference held in Budapest, Hungary, in October of 1974. Included are the text of the introductory address and papers on the following topics: (1) the library and society; (2) the library as it relates to students, teachers, and engineers; (3) the role and effectiveness of the library; (4) the reading of non-fiction; and (5) the reading and reception of literature. (EMH)

This document presents the proceedings of the 27th Annual Research Forum held June 29, 2023, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are the following fifteen action research papers: (1) The Effects of Real-World Mathematics Activities on High School Students' Attitudes (Alexa Altizer); (2) An Investigation of the Effect of Explicit Spatial Reasoning Instruction on Student Self-Efficacy in High School Chemistry (Emma Armstrong); (3) The Influence of Goal Setting on Student Motivation for English Learners (Anna Bush); (4) Having Fun & Learning Deeply: Constructivist Assessments in a Social Studies Classroom (Molly Dwyer); (5) "Why Is There a Cage in Central Park?": The Impact of Political Art on Engagement and Understanding in Civics (Elena Ecelbarger); (6) The Privilege of Wonder (Courtney C. Fadley); (7) Have You Heard?: The Impact of Auditory Sources on Student Engagement and Achievement in Secondary Social Studies (Connor Flaherty); (8) Influence of Creative Portfolios on Students' Engagement with Grammar (Bailey Inama); (9) Arts Integration in the Elementary Math Classroom (Ashlyn John); (10) The Influence of the CRAAP Test and the SIFT Method on University Students' Understanding of Credibility of Information Online (Amanda Kaufman); (11) The Effect of Music Integration on Student Engagement with Novels (Caroline Pope); (12) Dedicated Social Studies Instruction in Elementary Schools: A Case Study (Kathleen Rainey); (13) The Impact of Reflection Activities on High School Student's Math Identity (Allie Rice); (14) The Influence of Humor on Student Engagement with Nonfiction Texts (Lily Richards); and (15) The Influence of Authentic Letter Writing on Students' Attitudes toward Writing in the Secondary English Classroom (Luke Tatum). Individual papers contain references, tables, and figures. [For the 2022 Research Digest, see ED621431.]

High school students writing research papers face the problem of finding audiences for their work, especially today when the consensus is that any kind of good writing requires some hypothetical audience or reader. Unless students are in a composition class where they write to someone special, they have difficulty grasping the idea of audience. Discussing the opening lines of Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" helps students grasp the idea that Hemingway creates his readers along with his story. To make the transition from Hemingway's fiction to their own research projects, students need to study contemporary nonfiction to see how these writers create audiences. Choices abound for good nonfiction, among them John Madson's "Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie," or"Telling Lives: The Biographer's Art" and "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century," by Barbara Tuchman. For other students, audiences can be created through the use of "The Journal of Popular Culture." Students can assume they are writing their paper to be "published." By finding an appropriate audience, students can write lively, informative papers. (HOD)

There is an identified and growing need for a levelled diagnostic basic facts assessment tool that provides teachers with formative information about students' mastery of a broad range of basic fact sets. The Individual Basic Facts Assessment tool has been iteratively and cumulatively developed, trialled, and refined with input from teachers and students to meet that need. The development of the tool, results from test trials, and our next steps are described in this article. IBFA Fact Sets are appended.

The present study investigates the use of authentic texts (fiction and non-fiction) in 180 video-recorded language arts lessons across 46 secondary classrooms in Norway. It assesses how the texts are used and what kind of language arts-related activities and discourses students are engaging in. The study finds that a majority of the lessons do not contain instruction that systematically probes students' active use of texts; it also provides evidence about high quality text-based instruction by systematically mapping what happens in the lessons where such instruction does occur. Further, the study offers new insight into how some teachers successfully combine an emphasis on reading and writing when working with authentic texts.

The current trend in adult nonfiction is to incorporate greater and greater amounts of fiction into what is marketed as nonfiction. This trend is mirrored in today's nonfiction for children. Sometimes fictional characters are introduced and their stories are meant to serve as a vehicle for keeping the young reader's interest; sometimes stretches of undocumented dialogue are included; sometimes liberties are taken with chronology. An idea that frequently emerges during discussions of fictionalizing is that fiction somehow provides a "higher truth" that can only be achieved when writers are not constrained by facts. A different way of seeing the changes in nonfiction is as a catalyst, as a means of deepening a reader's understanding of information. Even when telling the truth, authors can use storytelling notions. Rhoda Blumberg's "What's the Deal? Jefferson, Napoleon, and the Louisiana Purchase" (1998) taps the reader's understanding of the well formed story by providing five scenarios which could have happened but did not, and similarly, in "Joan of Arc" (1998), Diane Stanley uses the power of story to ask readers to imagine what it was like living during the Hundred Years' War. In evaluating the changes in nonfiction for children it has to be determined whether intermingling fact and fiction is a catalyst or a catastrophe. (Cites 5 children's books and contains 16 references.) (NKA)

A study examined how well children in grades K-5 comprehended expository texts. Subjects for the study were 54 elementary children in a northeastern Ohio elementary school, 9 in each grade--3 of high ability, 3 of average ability, and 3 of low ability. Data collection was by 30 preservice elementary education majors in a reading methods class. Results showed that average and high ability children of all grade levels were able to retell the children's nonfiction books they heard. Approximately half of the low ability readers were unable to retell their books, but this latter result varied from one grade level to another. While the ability to infer beyond the text and relate the text to personal life varied among the subjects, most of them were able to sequence the text, identify main ideas and details and summarize to the extent that they received a score of 3 or better on the Irwin and Mitchell scale (1983). The retellings of less able children generally contained fewer details and fewer instances of inferences beyond the text or attempts to relate the texts to their own lives. The majority of children at all grade levels were able to review the text after completing their reading. Future research should examine the role of background knowledge and whether the expository structure of the text impacts children's ability to retell. (Contains five tables of data and a "richness of retellings" scale.) (TB)

Samuel Yette's "The Choice: The Issue of Black Survival in America" belongs to an honorable tradition of African American writing, a tradition which draws attention to a necessary distinction between the promise of freedom and democracy and what people actually experience in their everyday lives in the United States. Yette's language comes from the practice of journalism, the first draft of history (as writing). "The Choice" is written in plain and vigorous standard English. Determining something about the language of honesty in "The Choice" is connected with pragmatics (the systematic relations between structures of text and context) in the reading process. The book functions as a model of how to read/study the text of America as a democratic experiment. The language of Yette's book refers ultimately to the deep structures of the struggle for "Lebensraum" in the United States. (RS)

Through personal investigative reporting and compelling writing, H. G. Bissinger in "Friday Night Lights" (1991) explores the culture of high school football from a variety of perspectives including: students, parents, coaches, teachers, school boards, local politicians, community values regarding race, gender and education, regional history and the economy. Through powerful and evocative writing, he develops in depth the compelling issues and the personal sense of empathetic involvement with the players and coaches. This book represents a useful tool which teachers can use to provide students in high school with reading content with which they can identify, discuss, and write about in their journals or research in their own communities. (NH)

This volume of a 1991 conference proceedings contains the conference's addresses and awards, a listing of the panels and workshops, and abstracts of those papers which were withdrawn from the proceedings to be published elsewhere. Among the papers in this document are: "Reading and Literacy: a Lifetime Work" (N. Bagnall); "The Image of the Child in the Picture Books of Ezra Jack Keats" (W. Nikola-Lisa); "Contemporary Childhood: Terror, Containment, Community" (A. Moss); "Literacy and Empowerment" (L. Pope); "Secret Garden II: 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' as Palimpsest" (J. A. Plotz); "Two Images of the Victorian Child: Stevenson's and Rossetti's Differing Views" (C. C. Amelinckx); "Kate Douglas Wiggin's Portraits of the Artist as a Girl" (P. Bixler); "The Illustrated Postmodern" (G. R. Bodmer); "Images of Hawaii for Children: Cultural Deprivileging and Reprivileging" (S. Canham); "The Blue Tortoise Tattoo: The Quixotic Reader in 'Jacob Have I Loved'" (J. D. Chaston); "The Image of the Child in Lindgren's 'Pippi Longstocking'" (S. Erol); "'We Dance to the Music of Our Own Time': Reflected Images of Granddaughters and Grandmothers" (S. W. Gravitt); "'Every Mother's Dream': Cynthia Voight's Orphans" (B. Greenway); "Faulkner's 'The Wishing Tree' as Children's Literature" (N. D. Hargrove); "The Child Is Mother of the Woman: 'Heidi' Revisited" (L. Hendrickson); "The Image of the Child as Artist and Aesthete" (M. H. Holden); "The Suffering Child's Plea for Peace in Japanese Picture Books" (A. M. Hotta); "Images of Contemporary Japanese Children by Japanese-American Immigrants" (K. N. Hoyle); "The Legacy of Peter and Wendy: Images of Lost Innocence and Social Consequences in 'Harriet the Spy'" (J. G. John); "The Image of the Child in Chinese Folktales" (J. V. Lechner); "Pippi Longstocking: Images of an Iconoclast" (Y. Lindholm-Romantschuk); "The Image of the Curious Child" (G. D. Little); "The Spy and the Poet: Young Girls as Writers in 'Harriet the Spy' and 'Anastasia Krupnik'" (J. Q. McMullen); "The Image of the Child in Picture Books: Adult/Child Perspectives" (J. Nist); "Reflected Images: The Child in Modern Children's Literature" (R. Pauly); "The Baroque Child" (J. Perrot); "Playing Oz: The Bridge from Page to Stage" (P. A. Rooks); "The Image of Children as Daydreamers in Marie-Louise Gay's Picture Books" (C. H. Sibley); "Notes from a Dark Side of the Nursery: Negative Images in Alphabet Books" (M. A. Taylor); "A Nostalgic Image of Childhood: Nancy Ruth Patterson's 'The Christmas Cup'" (M. Usrey); "In the Image of Young America: Girls of the New Republic" (L. M. Vallone); "Images of the Child in French Literature" (F. Van de Poel-Knottnerus); "The Fable Child's Image in Words and Pictures" (W. Van Goor); and "Hansel and Gretel as Abandoned Children: Timeless Images for a Postmodern Age" (V. A. Walter). Abstracts are presented of papers by A. Allison, L. R. Kuznets, R. McGillis, and E.-M. Metcalf. (NKA)

Book-length works of nonfiction prose are seldom the object of study when college English teachers, rhetoricians, or theorists are engaged in practicing their profession. Phyllis Frus McCord (in "Reading Nonfiction in Composition Courses: From Theory to Practice" 1985) proposes that the goal should be "to break down the hard line between literature...and nonliterary texts." One way of doing this is by analyzing nonfiction prose by explicating such elements as character and image. In Tracy Kidder's book "House," the interaction between character and image moves the reader from the world of the actual to the mythic, imaginative world of archetypal symbols, the shaping principle of this literary work. The house functions as a symbol in the meaning it assumes for each individual: traditions, control, status, new beginnings, making a mark, rebellion, good-will, artistic, aesthetic, and accomplishment. The house functions as a symbol in what it means as the representation, on a more universal level, of the notion of continuity: homeownership, orientation, art, rituals, celebration and ceremony, and the spiritual flow of creativity. (Author/RS)

The paper points out that while literature is primarily for enjoyment, this does not exclude concomitant learning of information, attitudes, and appreciations. It indicates that many children's books that are well-written contain an underlying ethic or moral or leave the reader with a feeling of awe and wonder at the natural and created phenomena being considered. The paper then briefly describes more than 40 books and poems for children that help the reader understand problems of life through historical novels; biographies; books of natural history, conservation, and physical science; science fiction; books of fantasy; and poetry. (TJ)

This paper discusses a contemporary literary movement, "New Nonfiction." New Nonfiction is described as a reaction against the hermeticism of the modern novel, the abstractions of historical scholarship, and the impersonal, sensational, and formulaic reports of the mass media. It is a written narrative that connects private sensibility with public event. The progenitors of the New Nonfiction, like the novel, can be traced back at least to the time of Defoe, when journalism, fiction, and history were difficult to tell apart. This paper, while focusing on the works of Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson, lists other authors whose works can be classified under the subgenre New Nonfiction; it also discusses developments, in journalism and in the novel, that precipitated the New Nonfiction. The rise of the popular press and its expansion of focus, the inward turn of the novel and its subsequent decline during the first half of the twentieth century, and the complexity and accelerated rate of change in modern civilization are cited in this paper as factors contributing to the development of the New Nonfiction in literature. (RL)

This paper uses the term "informational books" in place of the label "nonfiction" and proposes that the difference in connotation might promote a change in students' attitudes toward content reading. Several examples of informational books and their use are provided, showing classroom teachers and librarians how to enhance learning while providing students with reading pleasure. (RL)

The effects of an advance organizer, a preview of text structure, and two different arrangements of reading material on prose learning and on delayed retention were investigated. The textual material was preceded by an advance organizer, a preview of structure, or a neutral control passage. The narrative text, which concerned the economic geography of the Soviet Union, had either a hierarchical or a hierarchical and categorical structure. Subjects were 120 high school seniors from a Catholic girls' school. Results indicated that groups reading the advance organizer and either textual structure showed greater learning than control subjects; this effect was replicated eight days later for advance organizer plus hierarchically and categorically structured text, but not for advance organizer plus hierarchically structured text. The preview of reading text structure significantly affected learning for students reading hierarchically and categorically structured text. Results also indicated that students learned and retained significantly more superordinate than subordinate concepts. (Author/GDC)

Children's "information books" are usually illustrated books on one topic, typically identified by the title. For example, "Squirrels" tells all about the characteristics and behaviors of squirrels. An exploration of what does or does not constitute an information book using five specific questions about the genre yields an outline of the structure with six global elements present, as follows: (1) topic presentation--an obligatory element that announces the topic of the book; (2) description of attributes--also obligatory, this element describes attributes of the class of animal, object, etc., that the book is about; (3) characteristic events--an obligatory element that is usually the longest element in the book; (4) category comparison--a frequent but optional element that discusses the different members of the category; (5) final summary--a frequent optional element that is a summary statement about the information covered and that always follows the information; (6) afterword--an optional, infrequent element (preferred by certain authors), always at the very end of the book adding extra information about the topic. The variable order and interspersion of elements in the text may be relevant factors regarding children's learning about information books in general. (Data tables are included.) (NKA)

Three quotes are presented as "Peter Parley's Message to Teachers." (1) "Students wish to participate in their own learning. Begin with the child's present location in time and space, then help the child make connections with the content which you are addressing." (2) "Students are interested in stories and pictures. Children's literature addresses those interests by exploring people, places, historic times, cultures, and social concerns with appealing stories and illustrations." (3) "Students like repetition. Important information needs to be repeated if it is to be remembered over a long period of time, perhaps varied methods of repetition." These quotes are followed by a 66-item annotated bibliography of sources for teaching geography. The items are divided as to geographic area, and an indication is given as to appropriate student level. The document concludes with a poem by Peter Parley. (JB)

A study examined how the relative familiarity of a social group described in a message may affect the impact of ostensibly fiction and nonfiction messages on subsequent beliefs about social groups. The 24 paid subjects each received one of four sets of prose excerpts. Each set consisted of four excerpts that were labelled as fiction or nonfiction and were manipulated to refer to either a familiar or unfamiliar social group. Interactions between group familiarity and fiction/non-fiction status on beliefs about group member attributes and on confidence in belief estimates were found. It is concluded that fictional messages about unfamiliar groups of people may well have equal or greater impact on readers' beliefs than do nonfictional messages. The results of the study also highlight the contexts in which cultivation and dependency theory are more applicable. (One table and two figures are included, and 41 references are attached.) (MG)

Although whole language teachers say they no longer consider readability evaluation (in the sense of measuring word and sentence length) in the selection of literature for their classrooms, they do have criteria for matching the readers or prospective readers in their classroom to literary materials. Teachers in whole language classrooms see the following factors as being important to the readability of the literature which they select: (1) print size; (2) illustrations; (3) repetition; (4) vocabulary; (5) predictability; and (6) interest. Nonfiction reading materials can also be evaluated for typographic clues (bold type or italics), presence of graphs and charts, and a variety of other aids to comprehension and clarity. (RS)

The usefulness of intact (topic outline format) and embedded (positioned within text) headings as processing aids to facilitate recall was examined, using a 2,500-word passage from introductory science textbooks. Prior studies were subject to criticisms which this study attempted to correct, specifically: (1) use of non-optimal dependent measures; (2) use of short, artificial prose; (3) emphasis on immediate testing; (4) lack of training and practice on the use of headings as processing aids; and (5) failure to examine intact and embedded headings presented in combination. Results indicated no advantage to training, possibly because of the amount of training and time available to students for integrating training with their existing study habits. Compared to a text-without-headings group, however, students provided with intact and embedded headings had superior recall. The text-with-headings group recalled 11 percent more information at immediate testing, and 44 percent more information at five-day delayed testing than their counterparts. Results suggest that headings are more useful for retreival than for comprehension. It is concluded that textbooks should include headings and students should use them extensively as study aids. (The post experiment questionnaire on student study habits is appended). (Author/CP)

High school students in vocational education programs can be challenged in their English classes with more than a basic diet of programmed instruction, worksheets, and tests. In between the drill and the practice required to strengthen communication skills there should be activities designed to motivate and encourage students to think beyond their eight-hour days and to develop positive attitudes toward their prospective adult lives. A variety of techniques to develop the basic skills of listening, spelling, and vocabulary comprehension, map-reading ability, and job-finding methods can involve and stimulate student creativity. Poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama could also be included in the basic English class. Moreover, being in a basic English class should not preclude students from enjoying the experience of legitimate theatre. (AEA)

Biography is a form of nonfiction that, when well-researched and well-written, can be as enjoyable and as engaging as the best of novels. The quality of these books can be judged by the quality of writing and by the honesty and accuracy in the presentation of the subject. There has to be in the text or in supporting materials some assurance that the writer has researched the subject adequately. Although biography means literally "life writing," no biographer presents a complete portrait of an individual's life. Some biographers work from firsthand experiences with their subjects, as in the case of James Boswell's recording the "life" of Samuel Johnson. Truth remains a vital element of biography of any kind, though this has not always been practiced. For example, Parson Weems endowed George Washington with legendary honesty through the cherry tree episode. Publishers have much to say about the nature of the biographies they publish for young readers. Biography may also be found in the comic book realm, and some receive a special boost through the success of films. Biographies can be a deeply felt and deeply thoughtful reading experience. (HOD)

An advanced writing course that does not repeat freshman English materials and techniques can encourage a variety of students to become enthusiastic about writing. One such course focuses on three writing modes: the poetic, the informative, and the persuasive. For the poetic mode, students write informal essays; for the informative mode, they write reviews; and for the persuasive mode, they write articles. These three types of nonfiction are prose forms that students will use in their adult lives, when they read and write for both pleasure and information. The course content relies heavily on the ideas of James Britton and James Kinneavy, who underscore the need for presenting discourse theory that describes communication as it is actually practiced, developing the relationship between the writer, the audience, their world, and the message. (RL)

Conflicting information has made it necessary to examine the key factors involved in submitting magazine nonfiction for publication in order to provide better insight into the mechanics of magazine acceptance. A preliminary study tested the applicability of the market systems approach from the perspective of the magazine editor. Subjects, 28 editors of major United States magazines, were interviewed and their remarks were coded by content analysis. Thirty trade books on freelance writing were also examined. Findings suggest that (1) existing information on magazine freelancing is unreliable; (2) magazine freelancing is best viewed as a business enterprise; and (3) an appropriate and complete approach to investigations of freelancing is one derived from business research, the market systems approach. (Seven tables of data are included, and 38 references are appended.) (MS)

Paper roots in the literary-historical research on the Romany literature for children and youth in Slovakia, which documents its footing in the Slovak literature for children and youth. Simultaneously, it points out quantitative increase and generic variety of the Romany literature (folder books, collections of poems and songs, collections of Romany folklore, Romany folk-tales anthologies, collections of modern Romany folk-tales, short stories, novels, romans, non-fiction literature genres, text-books, and spelling-books), while the dominant literary genre is Romany folk-tale, which in its poetry keeps the archetype of the Romany identity until today. With the generalised view on the occurrence of specific characteristics of Romany identity in the Romany literature genres the paper offers interesting picture of generally valid identity of Roma people rendered in the authentically portrayed fates of Romany literary protagonists in their characteristics, images from lives, interpersonal relations, and spiritual world. Renewal and preservation of Roma identity in the literature for children and youth is considered as manifestation of self-identification and emancipation efforts of Roma people, which can contribute to understanding, acceptation, and tolerance of the otherness of Romany ethnic group members in Slovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At World Economic Forum in Davos a new list of skills required for the future jobs has been devised. According to the Forum report, rapid changes and unprecedented advancement in science and technology will inevitably cause the shift in the recruitment criteria throughout the world - from focus on stand-alone problem solving skills with people management skills towards the complex comprised of problem solving and critical thinking skills, creativity, and emotional intelligence. The Forum report has unwittingly voiced the new educational objectives, which now have to be implemented in the educational process and will doubtless affect the organization of the educational process. The aforementioned new set of skills brought into focus is thought by the authors to be the integral components of sophisticated thinking which, in its turn, doesn't develop on its own but needs conscious enhancing by teachers and students. The authors have long been studying how developed sophisticated thinking impacts a person's self-identity and the enhancement of their professional skills. The current study is attempting to find evidence which confirm a hypothesis that the ability to recognize and regulate one's own feelings as well as the emotions of others and the capacity to apply this information to the process of thinking and problem solving is an indispensable constituent of sophisticated thinking. The paper presents the provisional results of the ongoing multi-staged project. For the purpose of the first five-month stage, which is being described in the paper, a qualitative study has been conducted. The participants of this study were the second-year students of RUDN University of Russia. They were divided into two groups: throughout their English classes the first group was required to do reading and watch short videos with follow-up discussion tasks without prior development of their disposition towards emotional intelligence, while the second group had to carry out the tasks aimed at the enhancement of their emotional intelligence before they went on to perform the same tasks that the first group did. The choice of materials for the designed tasks was based on the deepening distrust and growing prejudice of many Russians and European people against Muslims in light of the atrocities against non-Muslims committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, commonly known as ISIS. Among the materials used, there were articles from The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, the Independent and many others. The results collected from the study indicate that the students with developed emotional intelligence showed more willingness to understand and, to some extent, accept the fact that the worldview of the Muslims is shaped by their religious denominations while the European view is affected by their ethnicity, which accounts for the difference in their traditions and customs, their behaviour and way of thinking. Such awareness is expected to provide for the unbiased approach to addressing problems, which will doubtless foster the development of sophisticated thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine trends in the popularity of religious and spiritual nonfiction books over the past nine decades. We not only find considerable variation in the number of these books appearing on best-seller lists over time, but also in the content and themes of the books. We make use of an innovative technique for coding cultural objects, by applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis to map the changing configurations of ideas contained in religious and spiritual best-sellers. Preliminary analysis indicates that characteristic themes emerge during different time periods. For example, the 1990's saw the emergence of spiritual or religiously themed books which sought to address the material concerns of their audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fluctuation of aesthetic and artistic values in contemporary art implies the need to shape the aesthetic sensitivity of children from an early age. The authoress focused on the analysis of the way, how Slovak non-fiction for children with the theme of visual arts contributes to this task. The reason for choosing the topic was the fact about visualization of contemporary culture as well as the fact that illustration is an integral part of children’s books and a dominant component of picture books, which are becoming increasingly popular. The introduction briefly outlines the presence of this topic in the Slovak context. In three parts of the study, three original elaborations of the topic in Slovak children’s literature are analysed. The book My first gallery motivates the recipient via text-psychograms to immerse into the visual image, which frees his gaze from the sediment of conventional perception of visual arts by releasing his imagination. The book How painters see the world gives children information about art techniques in an experiential and interactive way, about their diversity and function, and through revealing the secrets of painting techniques and via stimulating their own productive activities, the book forms children’s ability to understand fine arts. Publication Where is Ester N? via the means of almost detective search initiates the reader into the functioning and work of the institution, which manages the artefacts(art gallery). Finally the fact is emphasized, that these publications, each in their own way, inspire and instruct the reader to find a way to perceive visual arts. At the same time, they respect the recipient’s freedom of reception, the fact, that everyone is an original personality, who cannot be imposed on any obligatory receptive practices and approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A roundtable on the book There's Something Happening Here: The New Left, the Klan, and FBI counterintelligence, by David Cunningham (University of California Press, 2004). This book looks inside the FBI's COINTELPRO against white hate groups and the New Left. In a painstaking analysis, Cunningham focuses on the complex organizational dynamics that generated thousands of COINTELPRO actions. His account shows how the workings of the programs led to outcomes that often seemed to lack any overriding logic. Cunningham extends his analysis to the FBI's often controversial recent actions to show the influence of the COINTELPRO legacy on contemporary debates over national security and civil liberties. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS, Dubois invites readers to explore the "strange meaning of being black" in the 20th Century. Drawing upon Dubois’ biography, and the various hauntings of hybridity expressed in his SOULS, I consider the contested terrain of black identity in post-Civil Rights America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews several books including "Failures in Concrete Structures: Case Studies in Reinforced and Prestressed Concrete," by Robin Whittle, "Flood Risk: Planning, Design and Management of Flood Defence Infrastructure," edited by Paul Sayers, and "The Strategy Book," by Max McKeown.

The article reviews the books "Ireland's Civil Engineering Heritage" by Ronald Cox and Philip Donald, "Bridge Design and Evaluation: LRFD and LRFR" by Gongkang Fu, and the 2nd edition of "Reliability of Structures" by Andrzej Nowak and Kevin Collins.