ANTHROPOLOGY

Gary Downey, director of the Center for Science and Technology Studies, examines the body/machine interface in The Machine in Me: An Anthropologist Sits Among Computer Engineers.

Downey examines humanity's association with machines, which he says makes us seem part machine and machines part human. One reviewer noted, "he provides a refreshing critique of contemporary social studies of technology and society, moving beyond networks, impacts, agents, and actors to author a most compelling story."

The book is published by Routledge, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001.

BIOGRAPHY

History professor Albert Moyer has written a biography of Joseph Henry, prominent 19th-century American scientist and first director of the Smithsonian Institute. In Joseph Henry: The Rise of an American Scientist, Moyer reconstructs the early phases of Henry's career, particularly his achievements in electricity, magnetism, and telegraphy. Moyer describes the ways in which Henry influenced and was influenced by the young nation's scientific and cultural currents, illuminating the place of science in the 1800s.

The book is available from the Smithsonian Institution Press, 470 L'Enfant Plaza, Suite 7100, Washington, D.C. 20560.

HISTORY

Amelia Earhart's Daughters: The Wild and Glorious Story of American Women Aviators from World War II to the Dawn of the Space Age, by Virginia Tech English instructor David Toomey and Leslie Haynsworth, tells of the experimental Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, who logged more than six million miles in all kinds of aircraft as World War II raged on two fronts. After the war, the women pilots were pushed aside to make room for male pilots looking for civilian jobs. Then in 1961 a new crop of women aviators were called up for NASA's "Women in Space" program, although they were never allowed on an actual space mission. The book uses intimate portraits and historically precise details to pay tribute to two generations of women aviators all but forgotten by history.

The book is published by William Morrow & Co., New York, NY.

MOTIVATIONAL

Rita G. Giles (student personal services M.A. '90; Ed.D. '95) introduces her readers to positive and inspiring thoughts for youth in her book, In Your Face: Words and Encouragement for Youth. The book is an extended glossary of 118 terms that define life during adolescence. These words, Giles says, offer you "a means to feel good about yourself, accept responsibility for yourself, and to be more sure of yourself." Some should be on a need-to-know list for teensÑrespect, diligent, survival. Not all are warm and fuzzy terms, however. Giles also includes the words which are too familiar in a tough worldÑworry, peer pressure, dismay.

The book is published by GiRo Consulting Co., P.O. Box 8961, Falls Church, VA 22041.

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

Virginia Tech geography professor Lawrence Grossman personalizes his story of agrarian change with portraits of the communities that are home to contract banana farms in The Political Ecology of Bananas: Contract Farming, Peasants, and Agrarian Change in the Eastern Caribbean. Employing the framework of political ecology, he discusses issues such as declining food production, food-import dependency, the misuse of pesticides, and the loss of skills among of the peasant laborer force.

The book is published by the University of North Carolina Press.

If you are an alum, faculty member, or staff member and have written or edited a book that you would like to have considered for review in the Virginia Tech Magazine, send an e-mail to vtmag@vt.edu. Please include your name, the book title and publisher, and let us know how we can obtain a copy (include name and phone number of person who can get us a review copy.)