Hot Type

John Brady Kiesling ’79

Greek Urban Warriors
Lycabettus Press

Fluent in ancient and modern Greek and trained as an archaeologist and historian, Kiesling made headlines in 2003 when he resigned his diplomatic post to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Rebutting a deeply flawed official investigation, the Athens-based scholar untangles the history of notorious far-left Greek terror organizations 17N and ELA. The book’s chilling dedication—“to the innocent dead”—is a stark reminder of the cost of terrorism.

Sasha Issenberg ’02

Outpatients
Columbia Global Reports

Whether it’s Hungary for dentistry or South Korea for an organ transplant, increasingly, “patients with passports” book cheaper prices and shorter waits outside of their homelands. Medical tourism is big business, Issenberg finds, but at what cost? “At its best, medical tourism is a form of wealth transfer that could help to subsidize the most costly aspects of maintaining a modern health-care system,” he writes. “At its worst, medical tourism does not create new inequalities as much as magnify existing ones.”

Thomas Laqueur ’67

The Work of the Dead
Princeton University Press

Poetically, powerfully sweeping across human history, Laqueur explores what the rituals of caring for the departed reveal about the living. Their story is ours; their absence shapes art and architecture, communities and civilizations. In every era and every culture, Laqueur finds the dead body imbued with meaning. “This thing—this inanimate thing—that is always more than a thing, has been the stuff of our imaginations since the beginning,” he writes. “We need it. It does massive work for the living.”

Heather Rigney Shumaker ’91

It’s OK to Go Up the Slide
Tarcher Perigee Paperback

Sharing her “renegade rules for raising confident and creative kids,” Shumaker is the best kind of parenting ally: wise, wry, and unfailingly kind. She seeks to empower parents to question what’s truly best for their kids, whether it’s banning homework or skipping kindergarten. “This book is intended as a bridge between child development research and actions in everyday life,” she writes. “As we leap forward with new knowledge about children, we need to stay open to new ideas and be flexible.”