Making Campaign Finance Reform Work  

The Day After Reform: Sobering Campaign  
Finance Lessons from the American States  
Michael J. Malbin and Thomas L. Gais 
194 pages, $38.95, The Rockefeller Institute Press 

     Periodically, the nation debates the pros and cons of campaign finance reform. For this comprehensive work, Albany political science professor Michael J. Malbin and Thomas L. Gais, who directs the Federalism Research Group at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, surveyed campaign finance laws in all 50 states. The authors suggest strategies to facilitate that reform while restoring accountability and restraining the direct financial relationship between office-holders and contributors. The writers acknowledge that a fifth goal—“improving the content and character of political campaigns”—is “too grand for campaign finance law to achieve.” However, Malbin and Gais add, “all of these goals can be attained, or at least approached, with a much simpler set of laws than the ones needed to achieve regulated equality.” 

The Death Penalty: Relevant or Relic? 

America’s Experiment with Capital Punishment: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of the Ultimate Penal Sanction  
James Acker, Robert M. Bohm, and 
Charles S. Lanier, editors 
592 pages, $35, Carolina Academic Press 

     James Acker, who teaches at the School of Criminal Justice, Albany Ph.D. student Charles S. Lanier, and Robert M. Bohm, a University of Central Florida professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies, edited and contributed their own writings to America’s Experiment with Capital Punishment. In Chapter 3, “Beyond Human Ability?” Acker and Lanier trace a brief history of capital punishment in the United States from colonial times to the present, noting that, over the past two centuries, the death penalty has been applied for crimes ranging from counterfeiting and burglary to rape and murder. They predict that “the public will come to appreciate and accept that the remaining vestiges of capital punishment are both unnecessary and ill-advised,” and that, in time, “the death penalty will wither, die, and be removed from the American legal landscape.” 

How Domestic Policy Shapes Foreign Interests – and Vice Versa  

Building the Cold War Consensus: The Political Economy of National Security Policy, 1949-1951  
Benjamin Fordham 
Approx. 275 pages, approx. $45, University of Michigan Press 

     In Building the Cold War Consensus, political science professor Benjamin Fordham examines the Truman-era relationships among the U.S. military budget, the national health care system and other social welfare programs, and the rise of McCarthyism. Unlike many political scientists, who explain the emerging national security policy of the time in terms of leaders’ reactions to international events, Fordham argues that conflicting interests in the American political economy shaped the politics of Cold War foreign policy. He also gives the reader valuable background for understanding the intricate political workings that have helped to form U.S. policy both at home and abroad in the decades since. 

More Faculty Books 
Abba Hillel Silver and American Zionism, Mark A. Raider, Judaic Studies, Jonathan D. Sarna, and Ronald W. Zweig, eds., 136 p., $37.50 cloth, $19.50 paper, Frank Cass Publishers. 

Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach, 2nd ed., David H. Barlow and V. Mark Durand, Psychology, 832 p., $64.95, Brooks/Cole. 

Basic Legal Research for Criminal Justice and the Social Sciences, James R. Acker, Criminal Justice, and Richard Irving, Dewey Graduate Library for Public Affairs and Policy, 426 p., $24, Aspen Publishers. 

Cell Physiology: Molecular Dynamics  
(a textbook on the Web: ), Henry Tedeschi, Biological Sciences, $20 individual, $100 library or class, Minerbi Enterprises. 

East, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, Steven A. Leibo, History, 230 p., $11.50, Stryker-Post Publications. 

Electronic Resources: Use and User Behavior, Hemalata Iyer, Information Science and Policy, ed., 145 p., $39.95, The Haworth Press, Inc. 
Geometric Constructions, George E. Martin, Mathematics and Statistics, 206 p., 
$35, Springer. 

Holomorphic Functions and Integral Representations in Several Complex Variables, R. Michael Range, Mathematics and Statistics, 388 p., $54.95, Springer-Verlag. 

Identity and Power: Puerto Rican Politics and the Challenge of Ethnicity, José E. Cruz, Political Science and Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 276 p., $59.95 cloth, $22.95 paper, Temple University Press. 

Lilacs in Spring: Book of Poems, Leonard A. Slade, Jr., Africana Studies and English, 
100 p., $14.95, McGraw-Hill Companies. 

Mergers and Acquisitions of CPA Firms: A Guide to Practice Valuations, Nicholas J. Mastracchio, Jr., Accounting, 158 p., $44, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. 

Northern Passage: Ethnography and Apprenticeship Among the Subarctic Dene, Robert Jarvenpa, Anthropology, 210 p., Waveland Press. 

Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 2, Jerome Rothenburg and Pierre Joris, English, eds., 
912 p., $24.95, University of California Press. 

Res Maritimae: Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, Stuart Swiny, Institute for Cypriot Studies, Robert L. Hohlfelder, and Helena Wylde Swiny, eds., 372 p., $74.95, Scholars Press. 

Social Learning from Broadcast Television, Karen Swan, Carla Meskill, and Steven DeMaio, Educational Theory and Practice, eds., $18.95, Hampton Press. 
Structure, Motion, Interaction and Expression of Biological Macromolecules, vols. 1 (298 p.) and 2 (296 p.), R.H. Sarma and M.H. Sarma, Chemistry, $130 each, Adenine Press. 

Symbolism in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick: From the Satanic to the Divine, Leonard A. Slade, Jr., Africana Studies and English, 103 p., $15.95, Mellen Press. 

Thinking About Race, Naomi Zack, Philosophy, 140 p., $20, Wadsworth Publishing Co. 

VODOU: Visions and Voices of Haiti, Phyllis Galembo, Art, $19.95, Ten Speed Press. 
Wandering Heart: The Work and Method of Hayashi Fumiko, Susanna Fessler, East Asian Studies, $59.50 cloth, $19.95 paper, State University of New York Press. 

What’s Right with Public Education in New York State: A Resource Manual, Frederick L. Dembowski, Educational Administration and Policy Studies, ed., 85p., The Educational Conference Board.