Editor’s Note: The following books have been published by the U-M Press.
Religion and the Authority of the Past, edited by Tobin Siebers, professor of English. This is the second book in the series Ratio: Institute for the Humanities. In Religion and the Authority of the Past, distinguished scholars from the fields of history, religion, classics, art and Asian studies show, in a fascinating variety of ways, how religious doctrine, interpretation, behavior and expression are affected by those in power.
The Enduring Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Child Development: Birth Through Seven Years by Ann P. Streissguth, professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Child Development/Mental Retardation Center, and director, Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit, University of Washington; Fred L. Bookstein, distinguished research scientist, U-M; Helen M. Barr, researcher, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington; and Paul D. Sampson, researcher, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, University of Washington. This is the latest volume in the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities Monograph Series. Alcohol is the most common neurobehavioral teratogenic drug used by pregnant women. Its effects are particularly harmful if consumed during the fetus’s early gestation period. This volume reports the results of a study of the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on 500 children followed from gestation for seven years.
Cold Running River by David N. Cassuto, instructor, Department of English and School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University. Cold Running River is an ecological biography of a river that healed itself. River follows the miraculous course of the Pere Marquette—from its tumultuous glacial birth to its devastation in the 19th century by unsustainable logging practices—and its later recovery due to benign neglect. Conservationists, anglers, canoeists, landowners, government and local watershed authorities all view the Pere Marquette through the filter of their individual needs. Cassuto demonstrates how squaring these demands is the paramount challenge of natural resource management.
Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals by Stephen Banfield, the Elgar Professor of Music and head of the School of Performance Studies, University of Birmingham, England. Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals is the first book to take an in-depth look at Stephen Sondheim’s work for the Broadway stage. Banfield examines each of Sondheim’s musicals for Broadway, from West Side Story and Gypsy-—for which he wrote only lyrics—to the 1987 musical Into the Woods, as well as Sondheim’s other work.
Confessions, Truth, and the Law by Joseph D. Grano, Distinguished Professor of Law, Wayne State University. In the 1960s the U.S. Supreme Court imposed new restrictions on police interrogation, thus making it more difficult for the prosecution to rely on confessions as evidence of guilt. As the leading critic of the Warren Court’s so-called revolution in American criminal procedure and the predominant critic of the Miranda Act, Grano presents a sophisticated analysis of both the relevant Supreme Court cases and the philosophical underpinnings of the concept involved.
