Reediana Briefs

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Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics, by Robert J. Hardy ’56 (Wiley, 2014). Bob and colleague Christian Binek have published a new book on thermal physics. Like Newtonian mechanics, quantum mechanics, and electromagnetism, the macroscopic and microscopic theories of thermal physics are based on small sets of postulates about the physical world. Many texts merge the two aspects of the subject and select the approach used according to the result being sought. Scientists investigating new phenomena often mix concepts from different theories in this way, but this is not a good approach when teaching, since it tends to leaves students with a hodgepodge of ideas instead of a coherent understanding of the concepts. The presentation of thermodynamics is unusual in how it preserves the elegant logic developed in the 19th century by Rudolf Clausius and Lord Kelvin, before the atomic-level structure of matter was fully understood, while utilizing the modern student’s knowledge of atomic-level phenomena.

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Educating Across Cultures: Anatolia College in Turkey and Greece, by Bill McGrew ’56 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). Bill chronicles a remarkable educational undertaking that spanned two continents, survived three wars, and continues to flourish today. It began with Anatolia’s 19th-century Boston-based founders, who hoped to bring Calvinist Christianity to the diverse peoples of the Ottoman Empire but gradually shifted their emphasis to educational goals. While seeking to enrich the lives of the inhabitants of Asia Minor and beyond the college’s campus south of the Black Sea, Protestant educators encountered rampant ethnic strife and loss. Most memorable was the pursuit on horseback across Turkey’s plains by two American women to save 50 Armenian girls otherwise destined to perish at the hands of the Turks. After WWI, renewed violence forced Anatolia to relocate from Turkey to Thessaloniki, Greece. The book follows Anatolia over the decades as it embraced a society experiencing an often-violent trajectory, including Nazi occupation and civil war. Close collaboration between Greek and American educators enabled Anatolia to become today one of Greece’s most outstanding institutions. Bill served as president of Anatolia College for 25 years, during which time he drew upon values gained at Reed when shaping a new liberal arts college at Anatolia. The book is dedicated in part to Prof. Richard H. Jones [history 1941–86], who visited Anatolia and offered wise counsel. Bill also wrote Land and Revolution in Modern Greece, 1800–1880.

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The Never-Ending Feast: The Anthropology and Archaeology of Feasting, by Kaori O’Connor ’68 (Bloomsbury, 2015). Throughout human history, and in all parts of the world, feasts have been at the heart of life. Why were they important and what purpose did they serve? Kaori’s pioneering work draws on anthropology, archaeology, and history to look at the dynamics of feasting among the great societies of antiquity renowned for their magnificence and might. The focus shifts beyond the medieval and early modern periods in Western Europe, eastwards to Mesopotamia, Assyria and Achaemenid Persia, early Greece, the Mongol Empire, Shang China, and Heian Japan.

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DaVinci’s Baby Boomer Survival Guide: Live, Prosper, and Thrive in Your Retirement, by Barbara Rockefeller ’68  (a DaVinci guide published by Newsmax, 2015). Barbara and cowriter Nick Tate provide a comprehensive guide to financial, health care, and lifestyle issues for those anticipating retirement. Barbara is the founder of the foreign exchange forecasting firm Rockefeller Treasury Services and has written several books.

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Interplay: Traditional Tunes, Classical Elegance, by Terry Boyarsky ’70, piano, and Oleg Kruglyakov, balalaika, is a compilation of 13 tracks, everything from French baroque to tango to folk tune to film score. A review on clevelandclassical.com calls Interplay a “must-have” CD.

“The Hidden Wonders of the Musée des Arts et Métiers—Paris’ Museum of Art and Invention,” by Gary Rogowski ’72, was published in Craftsmanship in spring 2015.

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True Tales from a Physician Assistant, by Seth Wittner ’73 (Chimney Rock Books, 2015). “Physician assistants [PAs] are an important, albeit too little recognized part of the American healthcare system,” writes Seth. “I felt it was time for the profession to have a book of its own.” Unlike most physicians, PAs often enter medicine after working in other fields. Seth has gathered these memorable anecdotes— intriguing, disturbing, or inspiring—during his 15 years as a PA.

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Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789–1848, by Sven-Erik Rose ’91 (Brandeis University Press, 2014). Sven-Erik’s book illuminates the extraordinary creativity of Jewish intellectuals as they reevaluated Judaism with the tools of a German philosophical tradition fast emerging as central to modern intellectual life. While previous work emphasizes the “subversive” dimensions of German-Jewish thought or the “inner antisemitism” of the German philosophical tradition, Sven-Erik shows the tremendous resources German philosophy offered contemporary Jews for thinking about the place of Jews in the wider polity. Offering a fundamental reevaluation of seminal figures and key texts, he emphasizes the productive encounter between Jewish intellectuals and German philosophy.

Susan Lynch ’10 has published the  poem “A Brief Explanation of the Fourth Dimension” in Bombay Gin (41st issue, 2015).