The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China
(2009, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)
by Jay Taylor, BA’52
Chiang Kai-shek set the stage for Taiwan’s evolution of a Chinese model of democratic modernization. Drawing on Chinese sources including Chiang’s diaries, Taylor provides penetrating insight into the dynamics of the past that lie behind the struggle for modernity of mainland China and its relationship with Taiwan. The book won the 2010 Lionel Gelber Prize.
Paris Under Water: How the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910
(2010, Palgrave Macmillan)
by Jeffrey H. Jackson, BS’93
Jackson’s book tells the story of the great Paris flood of January 1910. Following this disaster, the worst in the city’s modern history, Parisians rallied together to save their city despite decades of political, cultural, economic and religious division that could have torn the city apart.
Sleepwalking in Daylight
(2009, Mira)
by Elizabeth Brack Flock, BA’87
In Flock’s latest novel, Samantha Friedman finds that she and her adopted daughter, Cammy, are on parallel paths, each indulging in desperate, furtive escapism—for Sam, a heady affair with her supposed soul mate, fueled by clandestine coffee dates and the desire to feel something; for Cammy, a secretive search for her birth mother punctuated by pills, pot, and the need to feel absolutely nothing.
Nancy Batson Crews: Alabama’s First Lady of Flight
(2009, University of Alabama Press)
and
Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II
(2008, University of North Texas Press)
by Sarah Byrn Rickman, BA’58
Rickman won the Combs Gates Award given by the National Aviation Hall of Fame for these two biographies of women who played significant roles in the history of aviation: Nancy Batson Crews, one of the original members of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) during World War II, and her mentor, Nancy Love, who founded the WAFS and served as commander of the ferrying division of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).