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BOOKS 1777: TIPPING POINT AT SARATOGA by Dean Snow, professor emeritus of anthropology In the autumn of 1777, near Saratoga, New York, an inexperienced and improvised American army led by General Horatio Gates faced off against the highly trained British and German forces led by General John Burgoyne. The British strategy was to separate rebellious New England from the other colonies. Despite inferior organization and training, the Americans ultimately handed the British a stunning defeat, and, for the first time in the war, confirmed that independence from Great Britain was all but inevitable. Assimilating the archaeological remains from the battlefield along with the many letters, journals, and memoirs of the men and women in both camps, Dean Snow’s 1777 provides a richly detailed narrative of the two battles fought at Saratoga over the course of thirty-three tense and bloody days, an intimate retelling of the campaign that tipped the balance in the American War of Independence.
THE GRASS LABYRINTH by Charlotte Holmes, associate professor of creative writing and women’s studies A successful artist is expected to give his or her all for “the work.” The linked stories in The Grass Labyrinth challenge the reader to determine if the artist’s work is worth the pain often visited on those who share an artist’s life. Whether in a college town in Pennsylvania, a loft in Brooklyn, or a ramshackle cottage on the Carolina coast, these stories explore, over a thirty-year span, how the choices made by these characters—a family of visual artists and poets—end up shaping those they love in ways they never anticipate, down through the generations. By turns ironic, hopeful, and wry, Charlotte Holmes paints a surprising portrait of one family’s intimate struggle to find the paths that will carry them to the work they want to do, the lives they want to lead, and the people they can’t help but love.
DIRE PREDICTIONS: Understanding Climate Change by Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, and Lee Kump, Dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences
Research | Penn State Fall 2017
In this second edition of their important book, Michael Mann and Lee Kump address important questions about global warming and climate change, diving into the information documented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and breaking it down into clear graphics that explain complex climate questions in simple illustrations that present the truth of the global warming problem clearly. These experts take scientific findings about climate change and use analogies, striking images, and understandable graphics. Dire Predictions shows the evidence and the causes that respected scientists have documented in IPCC findings and climate change studies. This powerful book is updated with the latest IPCC information and is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding climate change and in joining the debate over the best way to combat it.
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