Fall 2006 – Winter 2007 D I A P Permit #588 U.S. Postage Non-Profit Org. Non-Profit Binghamton, NY West 20th Street West 40 NY 10011-4211 York, New 0-521-92220-8 C ONTENTS Trade . 1 General Interest . 14 Cambridge Companions . 39 Featured Academic . 50 ESL . 87 Best of the Backlist . 88 Author Locator . 107 Index . 109 Trade Triumph Forsaken The Vietnam War, 1954–1965 Mark Moyar U.S. Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA rawing on a wealth of new evidence, Triumph DForsaken overturns most of the conventional wisdom on the history of the Vietnam War. Mark Moyar, an eminent military historian and expert on American diplomatic and intelligence history, demonstrates that American leaders and government officials were right to believe that the fall of South Vietnam would endanger the security interests of the United States. Until the November 1963 overthrow of South Vietnam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem, Moyar reveals that the South Vietnamese government was actually winning the war and that it had made tremendous, previously unappreciated, military and political gains between 1954 and 1963. After Diem's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson had at his disposal several aggressive policy options that could have enabled South Vietnam to continue the war without a massive U.S. troop infusion. However, in Moyar’s view, he ruled them out on the basis of faulty assumptions and inadequate intelligence. Other startling claims made in this provocative book include • National print publicity campaign • The much-maligned “domino theory”—whereby if one • 25 – Market radio satellite tour country in a region became Communist, its neighbors • National author tour would follow, like a falling row of dominoes—was • Extensive advertising campaign actually valid. • Co-op available • Henry Cabot Lodge, American ambassador to South Vietnam, instigated the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem against orders from President John F. Kennedy. • Famed journalists, David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan, caused great harm to South Vietnam in their coverage of the war. Contrary to the antiwar stance of many books on the Vietnam War, Triumph Forsaken shows that the United States could have won the war if our leaders had acted on the strength of realistic and accurate intelligence. The lessons drawn are especially relevant to our current debate about the legitimacy of the war in Iraq. History/Military 6 × 9 432 pp. October Mark Moyar is the author of Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The 10 halftones/1 maps CIA’s Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong (1997). He is an 0-521-86911-0 Hardback $30.00 ($34.95 CAD) A Associate Professor and Course Director at the U.S. Marine Corps 978-0-521-86911-9 University in Quantico, Virginia. 1 Trade Ho Chi Minh From Revolutionary to Icon Pierre Brocheux formerly University of Paris VII ne of the towering figures of the twentieth century, OHo Chi Minh is considered an iconic figure and “Father of the Nation” by many Vietnamese. In this revealing biography Pierre Brocheux negotiates the many twists and turns of Ho Chi Minh's life and his multiple identities from an impoverished beginning as a communist revolutionary, to his founding of the Indochina Communist Party and the League for the Independence of Vietnam, and, ultimately, to his leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and his death in 1969. Brocheux adroitly places the events of Ho’s life within the broader historical canvas of colonization, decolonization, communism, war, and nation-building. Ho Chi Minh’s life was centered in the internationalist communist revolution and in the two momentous confrontations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: The first between Eastern and Western cultures, and the • A unique account of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century second between the Soviet and the “Free World.” A and the founder of Vietnam mysterious personality, Ho was also a fervent Vietnamese • Engaging narrative is supported by rare patriot who dedicated his life to freeing his country from illustrations and maps foreign domination. • National print publicity campaign • How did Ho Chi Minh reconcile his strong patriotic feelings and his internationalist communist convictions? • Was he a despot like Stalin and Mao Zedong? • Was he progressively stripped of his power and of his moral influence by the party he founded in 1930? • At the time of his death, was he a powerless icon? These are some of the questions explored in this absorbing biography. Brocheux's vivid and convincing portrait of Ho Chi Minh goes further than any previous biographical work in explaining both the myth and the man, and the times in which he lived. Pierre Brocheux is retired as a Professor of History at the University of Paris VII–Denis Diderot. He is co-editor (with Gisele L. Bousquet) of Vietnam Exposé: French Scholarship on Twentieth-Century Biography Vietnamese Society (2002) and the author of numerous works 6 × 9 300 pp. February including The Mekong Delta: Ecology, Economy, and Revolution, 17 halftones/4 maps 1860-1960 (1995) and Indochine: La Colonisation Ambiguë, 0-521-85062-2 Hardback $35.00 ($40.95 CAD) A 1858-1954 (1990, 1995). 978-0-521-85062-9 2 Trade The Chronologers’ Quest The Search for the Age of the Earth Patrick Wyse Jackson Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland he often contentious debate over the age of the Earth Thas been ongoing for over two thousand years. It has pitted physicists against biologists, astronomers against geologists, and even theologians against scientists. Patrick Wyse Jackson recounts the fascinating story of humankind’s quest to determine the age of the Earth, beginning in antiquity and ending in the modern era. Wyse Jackson investigates the many novel methods used in the search for the Earth’s age over the centuries, featuring the ideas of • James Usher and John Lightfoot on biblical chronologies • Comte de Buffon and Lord Kelvin on the length of time for the cooling of the Earth • Edmond Halley and John Joly on the saltiness of oceans • Arthur Holmes on radioactivity in rocks • Clair Patterson on meteorites. All these investigations constituted important steps in the evolution of our understanding of the Earth’s age and are explored in The Chronologers’ Quest. • Engagingly tells the story of how the age of the Earth was determined With its engaging details of scientific rivalries, this • Illustrated with contemporary images that compelling account of the measurement of geological time enhance the story will appeal to aficionados of adventure stories and readers • National print publicity campaign intrigued by tales of scientific discovery. • Special promotion to science and natural history media venues Science 6 × 9 238 pp. October Patrick Wyse Jackson is a lecturer in Geology, and curator of the 31 halftones/24 line diagrams Geological Museum, at Trinity College, Dublin. He is the author and 0-521-81332-8 Hardback $30.00 ($34.95 CAD) A editor of several books including Geological Travellers 978-0-521-81332-7 (forthcoming), and The Building Stones of Dublin (1993). 3 Trade SuperFractals Michael Barnsley Australian National University, Canberra his groundbreaking book is the long-awaited successor Tto Michael Barnsley’s acclaimed Fractals Everywhere (1988, 2000). In his earlier work Barnsley popularized the type of fractal called Iterated Function Systems (IFS), a fractal made up of the union of several copies of itself. IFS produced astonishing and original images that mirrored complex structures found in nature, for example. This innovative volume details a new kind of geometry born from bringing together elements of randomness, geometry and computation. It brings the discussion of IFS up to date by introducing new mathematics and algorithms which open up a whole theory with potential applications in bioinformatics, economics, medical imaging and signal processing, among other subjects. In computer graphics superfractals enable vast improvement in the texture and variety of images than conventional computer graphics techniques currently used in games and films. • Explains how a new kind of geometry is Superfractals explains and illustrates mathematical ideas A born from a union of randomness, through a profusion of 250 full-color images. geometry and computation • Demonstrates mathematical ideas with the graphic aid of many full-color illustrations • National print publicity campaign • Special promotion to science media Currently at Australian National University, Michael Barnsley is one of the world’s foremost communicators in mathematics and information technology. Besides Fractals Everywhere, he is the Science author of numerous books including Fractals in Multimedia (2002). 6 7/8 × 9 3/4 456 pp. December In addition, Barnsley is the co-founder of Iterated Systems Inc., the 250 color figures company that later licensed fractal image compression technology to 0-521-84493-2 Hardback $35.00 ($40.95 CAD) A Microsoft. 978-0-521-84493-2 4 Trade The Monthly Sky Guide Seventh Edition Ian Ridpath Wil Tirion he Monthly Sky Guide offers a clear and simple Tintroduction to the skies of the northern hemisphere. In full color throughout, the seventh edition of Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion’s famous guide to the night sky is fully revised and updated for planet positions and forthcoming eclipses up to the end of the year 2011. The book contains a chapter on the main sights visible in each month of the year, and is an easy-to-use companion to the night sky. It will help observers to identify prominent stars, constellations, star clusters, nebulae and galaxies