The Union Bookshelf regularly features new books written by (or about) alumni 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 your book as well as your publisher's news release. Our address is Office of Communications, Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. 12308.
Lawrence Baldassaro '65
The American Game: Baseball and Ethnicity, coedited by Lawrence Baldassaro '65
and Richard A. Johnson, is a collection of essays that chronicles the lasting contributions of minorities in the majors. The essays provide
an engaging history detailing prejudices endured and triumphs achieved by members of ethnic groups as they attempted to realize the American Dream by playing professional baseball.
The American Game: Baseball and Ethnicity provides the first ethnic and racial profile of American baseball. Baldassaro is a professor of Italian and comparative literature and director of the university honors program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. To obtain a copy, go to
www.amazon.com.
Robert E. May '65
Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America uncovers the surprising and tragic story of America's once notorious but now forgotten “filibusters”-the reckless freebooters and adventurers who in the years before the Civil War defied their own government and
the military might of the European powers by launching private military expeditions against foreign countries. Robert May explores the changing
conditions in America that influenced these filibusters, how they were financed and organized, and why the U.S. government had little control over them. May is a professor of history at Purdue University whose previous books include
The Union, the Confederacy, and the Atlantic Rim and the prize-winning John A. Quitman: Old South Crusader. To obtain a copy, go to
http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-5432.html.
Richard Triumpho '74
Wait 'Til the Cows Come Home: Farm Country Rambles With a New York Dairyman is the tale of country life on family farms in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. These sketches combine humor and pathos, with each vignette providing a window into the family farm mind and heart. From 1980 to 1992, Triumpho was a contributing editor to
Hoard's Dairyman magazine. He is the author of No Richer Gift, published by W.D. Hoard & Sons, Wisconsin, and
The Round Barns of New York, his book on historical vernacular farm architecture, is awaiting publication at Syracuse University Press. Richard lives near St. Johnsville, N.Y., on the family dairy farm where he was born. To obtain a copy, go to
www.amazon.com.
Kerrie M. (Ticknor) Droban '87
Kerrie Droban has recently published two murder mysteries with New Concepts Publishing:
In the Company of Darkness and The Watchman's Circle. The Watchman's Circle won the Daphne Du Maurier Award and the Claras Award for Mystery Writing Excellence. Droban heads her own criminal defense firm in Phoenix, Ariz., where she lives with her husband and two sons. Her practice specializes in capital litigation and appellate work, and she is the co-author of a brief that challenged Arizona's capital sentencing scheme. She won the case, and the decision is expected to affect nine states and more than 800 inmates on death row.
In the Company of Darkness and The Watchman's Circle can be purchased from
www.newconceptspublishing.com, under thrillers, in both e-format and in paperback.
Katherine Goldman '97
and Martha Huggins
Citizens of Fear: Urban Violence in Latin America, edited by Susana Rotker in collaboration with Katherine Goldman, includes a contribution from Professor Martha Huggins of Union's Sociology Department. The book examines urban violence in Latin America from multiple perspectives, including testimonies from victims and journalists as well as essays exploring the implications of fear for both thought and behavior. Goldman writes, “In 1999 Dr. Susana Rotker asked me to be her research assistant for a project on violence, citizenship, and culture in Latin America. The goal was to host a colloquium in Cuernavaca, Mexico (where I did a term abroad through Union in 1995) to bring together well-known scholars from various fields. We chose four countries (Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela) and invited renowned scholars, including Union's own Martha Huggins.” The Spanish-language version of the book,
Ciudadanias del miedo, was published in 2000. It is now available in English from Rutgers University Press. (Goldman co-edited the English version and coordinated the translation.) To obtain a copy, go to
www.amazon.com.
-By Jill Warner