The Union Bookshelf regularly features new books written by alumni authors and other members of the Union community. If you're an author and would like to be included in a future issue, please send us a copy of the book as well as your publisher's news release. Our address is Office of Communications, Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. 12308-3169.
David Martin '50
David Martin, associate professor emeritus and retired academic vice president at the State University of New York at Albany, has compiled and edited two volumes in the series of historical reference books, Sources for the History of Cyprus. English Texts: Frankish and Turkish Periods attempts to collect the English texts written by visitors to Cyprus from the early fifteenth century to 1878, during the time that the Franks and Turks ruled the island. English Texts: British Period to 1900 contains the accounts of visitors to the island writing in English after the coming of the British in 1878. Illustrations for this volume were obtained from original copies of The Illustrated London News, 1878-79, held in Schaffer Library.
Martin's association with Cyprus began in 1970, when he and his family lived on the island while he consulted with the government on its teacher education college. He was director of the University at Albany's Institute of Cypriot Studies from 1972 to 1988 and spent ten summers in Cyprus as a member of the university's archeological team. The books are available through the Greece and Cyprus Research Center, Inc., 1 Wallace Lane, Altamont, N.Y. 12009.
Edward Landreth '55
For some reason, church congregations and boards have trouble with the idea that it's acceptable to raise money for a church business using some of the strategies that would be followed in any other business. Fundraising With a Vision: A Canvass Guide for Congregations is the product of Edward Landreth's post-engineering pastime, church consulting. He developed expertise in the area of fundraising and led training courses at the Unitarian Universalist Association. His book is used throughout the denomination as a motivational tool. The book is available through the Unitarian Universalist Association, 25 Beacon St., Boston, Mass. 02108.
Richard Anker '65
Richard Anker, an internationally-known researcher with a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan, has two recent publications. The first, Economics of Child Labour in Hazardous Industries of India, is written in collaboration with three other authors. It is a collection of papers on the economics of industries that hire child laborers and examines the role played by child laborers in these industries. The book argues that the elimination of child labor would cause only a small increase in the cost of production — almost always below five percent.
The second book, Gender Equality and Occupational Segregation in Nordic Labour Markets, co-authored with the secretary for international affairs at the Finnish Ministry of Labor, examines the model for gender equity of Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
Anker is a senior economist with the International Labor Office, working on globalization issues. He has lived and worked in many countries, and is the author of many books and articles on labor, population, and development issues. He lives in Switzerland.
Richard Russell '83
Rick Russell, of Sterling, Va., has a new book, George F. Kennan's Strategic Thought: The Making of an American Political Realist. Kennan's ideas were instrumental in the formulation of the American grand strategy of containment of the Soviet Union. His worldview included principles for the use of force to achieve national interests, and his ideas are still in play in guiding American foreign policy. This book is described as an important study for scholars, policymakers, and people interested in international relations. The author lectures on American national security policy at the Washington Center of the University of California, Berkeley. His book is available through Praeger Publishers, Westport, Conn.
Arthur Joseph Lynch
George Fairbanks, Class of 1839, and his brother, Samuel, Class of 1838, wrote letters back and forth diligently. When Arthur Joseph Lynch married George Fairbanks's great-granddaughter, he inherited the letters and found them so fascinating he decided to write the biography of George Rainsford Fairbanks: A Man of Many Facets. George graduated from Union at age nineteen and went to St. Augustine, Fla., in 1842 to become clerk of the Territorial Court and then state senator, and, later, mayor of St. Augustine. He wrote several histories of Florida and a history of the University of the South, and he was Union's representative at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the University of Alabama. The book is available from Shambles Press, 520 Benvenue Ave., Los Altos, Calif. 94024-4009.
James Baar '49
The Careful Voter's Dictionary of Language Pollution: Understanding Willietalk and Other Spinspeak by James Baar '49 is now available in paperback. The author says that once common-sense language is being manipulated “to obscure the negative and enhance the undesirable.”