As the assault on organized labor continues in Madison, protesters and observers alike have had great difficulty in explaining why many members of the state's working class voted for Scott Walker back in November—and why some still support him even...

The novels of Jane Austen and other authors of that time period were denounced by the era's cultural elite, including poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who claimed that reading their work "occasions in time the...

The "security barrier" Israel erected during the past decade to separate itself from West Bank Palestinians has diminished terrorist strikes and thwarted the opportunity for lasting peace. Aside from its physical ugliness, the wall violated internationally recognized boundaries by zigzagging across the land to protect...

Just in time for Major League Baseball's Opening Day, retired UW-Milwaukee faculty member Lawrence Baldassaro provides readers with a story of America's national pastime by exploring the role that Italian Americans have played throughout the history of the game. Casual baseball fans, and probably even...

The revival of traditional music in America by young, urban singer/scholars began in the postwar years and peaked in the early to mid-'60s. Even as we have come to another revival...

Astronomers have been sweeping the sky with radio telescopes since 1960, listening for signals from alien civilizations. In his provocative study The Eerie Silence, astrobiologist Paul Davies asks probing questions about the preconceptions behind SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence): Why would we assume...

Austin is well situated as the site for one of the world's most important music festivals. The weather is warm, the students are numerous and PBS's "Austin City Limits" called attention to its thriving outlaw country scene. But the South By Southwest festival had no assurances of success in its early years. As recounted...

Jack Anderson, witty and sharp-eyed poet and dance writer, has childhood roots in Milwaukee. Anderson was born in 1935 and, though he has long been a resident of New York City, often writes of his boyhood...

Forgetting is easy. But not forgetting lies in a curious and complex place, journalist Joshua Foer tells us in Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything (Penguin), a beguiling exploration of the manifold aspects of memory and memorizing...

The original "Tea Party Patriots" have entered American folklore as defiant rebels against tyranny, striking a blow against taxation without representation. Harlow Giles Unger is not entirely impressed. In American Tempest, the prolific biographer of America's founders finds much to criticize about the Boston merchants...

Maritime Milwaukee (Arcadia Publishing), by the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society

"Unique," "unusual" and "hilarious" only begin to describe TheOatmeal.com, where wry observations and innocent-looking drawings on the absurdities of life have garnered millions of laughs since the site's debut in 2009. Site creator Matthew Inman, a 28-year-old web designer turned web cartoonist, has seen...

Even if part of the fault lies with the abstruseness favored by some of its practitioners, the decline in respect for philosophy during the last century leaves an unfortunate gap in social discourse. We live in times when practicality and productivity are valued above all else, and the search for meaning is often relegated to...

Two fresh entries in Arcadia Publishing's "Images of America" series give readers a peek into Wisconsin history through vintage movie theaters and turn-of-the...

Leonard Cohen may be the only important singer-songwriter who arrived on the music scene already recognized as a significant poet and novelist. But as shown in Anthony Reynolds' biography, Leonard Cohen: A Remarkable Life (Omnibus Press), the singer-songwriter label, suggesting saccharine...

Cecil B. DeMille gave us the Ten Commandments by grace of Charlton Heston's descent from Sinai. He parted the Red Sea for us, as graphically pictured on the dust jacket of Scott Eyman's carefully detailed new...

With a lifelong career of cruelty to American Indians and his role in the genocidal Trail of Tears, which forced the Cherokees from their towns and farms in Georgia to the badlands of the West, Andrew Jackson is perhaps the U.S. president most likely to face a human rights tribunal had he lived today. And yet he still...

Decades before environmentalism emerged as a leading social issue, wilderness preservationist Aldo Leopold was professing his "land ethic" philosophy that encouraged the public to live in harmony with the physical world through greater reverence toward the land. Leopold's innovative ideals of eco-protection and...

It wasn't but a few times after seeing his face that he became etched in the mind of Michael O'Brien. The year was 1975 and O'Brien's job as photographer for the Miami News was to circle the city in a company car with a police radio until he found a story to snap. While on his work errands he became...

The Civil War wasn’t fought in Wisconsin but the Badger State contributed many men—and some women—to the Union cause. The latest titles in the Badger Biographies Series for young readers, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society, focus on two prominent state residents from that era.

When the Killing’s Done is a timely and socially conscious look at 21st-century idealism and the asperities people surmount in order to live up to the values they espouse. This powerful new novel by T.C. Boyle spotlights...

Producer culture in American popular music took off with Rick Rubin, who restored or recreated Johnny Cash as the folk-singing Man in Black. Rubin failed to entirely reinvent Neil Diamond and Kris Kristofferson, but with his imprimatur those artists received some kind of renewed pretense regarding...

The title of Academy Award-winning actor Alan Arkin's new memoir, An Improvised Life, is slightly misleading. The book isn't so much about Arkin's life as it is about improvisation, a theatrical art form he encountered upon landing a gig at the nascent Second City in Chicago. It's clear that Arkin is, well, smitten...

In 1983 Lisa Paul, a Russian studies major, accepted a job in Moscow as a nanny for an American executive with Caterpillar. She looked forward to an exciting, yearlong paid vacation...

Frank: The Voice (Doubleday), James Kaplan’s terrific new look at the most iconic singer of the 20th century, is a refreshing example of how an upscale celebrity biography can remain stylishly objective—reading like good fiction while capturing the vernacular pungency that humanizes...