Fallows has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic for over 25 years, based in Washington DC, Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and now Beijing. You can read his “Voices” blog entries on the Atlantic site. In 2003 he won a National Magazine Award for his article “The Fifty-First State?” (The Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 2002, vol. 290:no.4, pp. 53-64), which talked about “the effects of military victory of the United States in the Iraq War.”

His work has appeared in many other publications as well. Search the article databases such as Academic Search Complete and MasterFILE Premier (Ebsco) to find some of his articles (try the search au fallows james).

His book, Postcards from Tomorrow Square, is available in Andersen Library’s 3rd-floor Main Collection (DS706 .F3 2009), or UWW students and staff may request it from other UW libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested materials arrive in 2-4 weekdays.

Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

Charles Wheelan is a faculty member at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and a former Midwest correspondent for The Economist. He writes Yahoo! Finance’s “Naked Economics” column, and he also has written for various publications such as the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.

His 2003 book, Naked economics: Undressing the dismal science, attempts to make economics more accessible for nonexperts. UWW students and staff may borrow it from other UW libraries via the free Universal Borrowing service. The article “Of pies and men” (Across the Board, Jan/Feb 2004, vol. 41:no.1, pp. 7-8) provides a brief excerpt from the book.

Chris Abani has gone from being a teenager imprisoned by the Nigerian government for his writings to being professor of creative writing at the University of California-Riverside. Honors he has received include the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, Prince Claus Award (2001), Lannan Literary Fellowship (2003), California Book Award silver medal for fiction (2004), a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, PEN Beyond the Margins Award (2008), and the PEN Hemingway Book Prize. He is a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction. Three of his books, The Virgin of Flames, Becoming Abigail, and Song for Night, were New York Times Editor’s Choices.

Best African American fiction 2009 (Andersen Library’s 3rd-floor Main Collection, PS647.A35 B47 2009) contains “Albino crow” by Abani. UWW students and staff may borrow other titles by Chris Abani from other UW campus libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested items arrive in 2-4 weekdays.

“Alma Guillermoprieto is considered an authority on the cultural and political life of Mexico and South America, especially as they relate to the United States. For the last thirty years, she has traced the history of Latin America incorporating her personal experiences.” She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, won the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 2000, and she is a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Three of her books are available in Andersen Library:

• Looking for history: Dispatches from Latin America, 2001 (3rd-floor Main Collection, F1414.2 .G773 2002)
• The heart that bleeds: Latin America now, 1994 (3rd-floor Main Collection, F1414.2 .G77 1994), and
• Dancing with Cuba: A memoir of the revolution, 2004 (3rd-floor Main Collection, F1765.3 .G85 2004).

If Andersen Library’s copies are checked out, UWW students and staff may borrow titles from other UW libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested titles arrive in 2-4 weekdays.

Alma Guillermoprieto also writes frequently for publications such as the New Yorker and National Geographic. Search article databases such as Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) for au Guillermoprieto to find her articles, including “Days of the dead” (New Yorker, 11/10/2008, pp. 44-51) on the violence of the illegal drug trade in Mexico and its social repercussions.

Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

UWW’s Andersen Library has some of his books, including Ringlingville USA: The stupendous story of seven siblings and their stunning circus success (3rd-floor Main Collection, GV1821.R5 A66 2005) and Cheese: The making of a Wisconsin tradition (3rd-floor Main Collection, SF274.U6 A66 1998).

UWW students and staff also can get Apps’ titles from other UW libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service, which brings requested materials here in 2-4 weekdays. Among the titles available are
Living a country year: Wit and wisdom from the good old days and Every farm tells a story: A tale of family farm values .

Please ask a librarian if you would like assistance with finding and requesting materials.

Anna Balzer is a Jewish-American graduate of Columbia University, a Fulbright scholar, granddaughter of Holocaust refugees and an award-winning lecturer, author and activist for Palestinian rights who has appeared on television and at over 300 universities, schools, churches, mosques and synagogues around the world. She recently traveled through Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Her “Anna’s Eyewitness Reports from Palestine” blog has more info, photos, and sample pages from her book, Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. UWW students and staff may request the book from other UW libraries via the free Universal Borrowing service.

Andersen Library has materials on Palestine. Search the HalCat library catalog to find titles such as The case for Palestine: an international law perspective (3rd-floor Main Collection, DS119.7 .Q7219 2005) and Culture and customs of the Palestinians (3rd-floor Main Collection, GN635.P19 F37 2004).

Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

If you are interested in reading his work, Andersen Library has his memoirs Angela’s Ashes (3rd-Floor Main Collection, E184.I6 M117 1997) as well as the movie adaptation (2nd-Floor Browsing DVDs, Feature Film, Ang).

The continuation of his memoirs, ‘Tis, is available from other UW campus libraries to UWW students and staff via the free Universal Borrowing service, as well as being available in area public libraries including the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library in Whitewater.

More information about Frank McCourt is available from the Biography Ref Bank Select database (WilsonWeb): his entry in Current Biography 1998 (select the “Biography Ref Bank Select” database and then search for McCourt, Frank).

The gist of the predictions we’ve heard before: “Scientists predict that by 2020, global catastrophes may well begin to accelerate. The human population is expected to explode and animal species may be dying off at a rapid rate.” In addition, climate change will lead to water shortages in some places, while other locations such as New York City will be desperately trying to protect themselves from rising sea levels by building large walls. Populations will shift in response to water stresses and other changes.

The experts interviewed made several thought-provoking statements. I was struck by the notion that Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in which at least half the species on the planet disappeared, all caused by natural disasters such as massive volcanic eruptions and rapid climate changes. Now some scientists say we are in a sixth extinction, this time caused by us.

“Every society that collapsed thought it couldn’t happen to them,” says Joseph Tainter, an expert in anthropology and societal collapse. “The Roman Empire thought it couldn’t happen. The Maya civilization thought it couldn’t happen. Everyone thought it couldn’t happen to them. But it did.”

I hope to track down some of the experts’ publications, including Joseph Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies (3rd-Floor Main Collection CB311 .T245 1988). Another interviewed expert was Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us (2nd-floor Reserves/Circulation Desk GF75 .W455 2007), who was a speaker on campus in October 2008.

It’s hard to believe, but some practices you think are merely historical, like piracy, still exist today. The forward to Skinner’s 2008 book, A Crime So Monstrous, states

Of course, we all know what slavery is. We’ve read about it in countless history books, seen it in documentaries and movies. Slavery is awful. Slavery is inhuman. Slavery is dead.

But that last point isn’t true. In fact, slavery is very much alive on every continent. In fact, as Ben Skinner points out, there are more slaves in the world today than ever before…

Andersen Library does not own a copy of Skinner’s book, but UW-W students and staff may borrow it from other UW campus libraries using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested items arrive in 2-4 weekdays. A search of the Library Catalog for keywords such as slavery or “human trafficking” will find other titles available locally, such as The war on human trafficking: U.S. policy assessed (3rd-floor Main Collection HQ125.U6 D47 2008).

A copy of Driftless is in Andersen Library’s 3rd-floor Main Collection (PS3568.H55 D75 2008). If UWW’s copy is checked out UWW students and staff can request copies available from other UW campus libraries using the free Universal Borrowing service (online video of how to do it).