Medicine is complicated, drug regulation necessary, and transnational studies useful in challenges assumptions. This is a solid and well-selected examination of differences in regulatory styles between the US and Germany, but the theoretical constructs are not entirely powerful enough to organize the subject area. Daemmrich uses theoretical cultures, the relations of doctors, pharmaceutical companies, regulatory bodies, and patients, to describe how drugs are regulated in the US (generally: transparent, statistical, 'objective' population risk) and Germany (insular, qualitative, expert medical judgment) through case studies on a variety of drugs. Culture isn't a bad construct per se, but in this case, culture seems too vague to describe the activities of pharmacology.

Actor-Network Theory is used to describe science, but not in a particularly sophisticated way. More should be done on the politics of what Jasanoff calls 'regulatory science' in a pharmacological context. The difference between local and 'translatable' facts is not fully explored, nor the effort required to turn the general practitioner's office or hospital into a clinic, an extension of a scientific rather than therapeutic endeavor.

What to say about this book? Nothing good, definitely. It starts with a fairly serious if whimsical question, "What is it like to be a thing?" (shades of Thomas Nagel), but loses itself in a cavalcade of irrelevant philosophical flatulence.

As an STS scholar, I take the equivalence of human beings and things seriously. Bruno Latour's Parliament of Things actually sounds like an interesting idea. But even if we erase the divide between human and non-human, there still seem to be some bifurcations in the world: things and signs, atoms and bits, entities with intentional stances and those capable solely of reaction. A philosopher should examine these common-sensical distinctions, and the ways in which they are wrong. A true unitary theory would be a wonder. That is not in this book.

I'd hoped to see an approach by which we might approach the existence and quality of things: objects, technologies, artifacts, and so-called nature. Instead, Bogost throws out a few sparkling bon-mots in a sea of disconnected anecdotes and generally sloppy thinking. A subject that should be approached with immense care is treated with disrespect.

The only reason I finished this book was to honestly describe how bad it was.

Solid meh. All I can say is that this book exists, and provides a decent overview to methods in biomedical ethics. The problem with the book is deeper: Are there actually any methods in medical ethics? This book does a good job covering the major differences between prescriptive philosophy and descriptive social science, but if you actually want to *do* any of this stuff at a graduate level, you'll need a lot more education. And if you want to do bioethics in a clinical setting--well, that's an entirely different conversation.

I paid just $5 for this book, and I feel ripped off. It's basically a dozen magazine articles stapled together, with no larger pattern of organization, context, or critique. The book gives people who probably don't need another soapbox a place to ramble on about 'digital disruptions' and how their idea about ceap-accredited digital courses is going to totally reshape the academy, without any kind of questioning or response. I'm not sure what the purpose of Rebooting the Academy is, but I can guarantee it fails at it.

That said, Kathleen Fitzpatrick's work on reorienting the MLA towards digital humanities is interesting, as well as John Wilkin's HathiTrust digital library. But 2 out of 12 is not a good reason to buy or read this book.

While this book is subtitled "A LRP's Recollection" (Long Range Reconnaissance), and the Vietnam War makes up the heart of the book, it is only a small fraction of what Foley writes about, as he describes the complete arc of his military career, from an electronics tech in West Germany, to Officer Candidate School at Ft Benning, and then as the commander of Tiger Force under David Hackworth in Vietnam, and finally as a Ranger teacher. Combat and the physical demands of patrolling are not the main topics of the book, perhaps because those subjects are nearly impossible to write about, but Foley provides a vivid depiction of an army in transformation, and how soldiers are trained and lead. He humbly dedicates this book to his comrades in arms, but Foley is also an exceptional soldier and author.

Prescribed is a stand-out in the genre of academic collections. Organized thematically around the prescription in the second half of the 20th century, each chapter takes on issues of authority, boundaries, surveillance, use and misuse of these complex and contested artifacts. The papers are universally strong, with Tobell's, Herzberg's, and Greene's conclusion being particularly excellent.

Written during the middle of Season 3, Creating Babylon 5 is an interesting, if hagiographic take on the show, and the work of the effects departments, actors, and above all JMS' vision and organizational talents. There's nothing here that hardcore fans won't already know 20 years after the series ended, but this book is a pleasant journey back in time, with a few interesting tidbits.

In Governing the Soul, Rose ably uses Foucauldian theory to examine the creation of the modern citizen. A person with desires, neuroses, and ambitions, at once an autonomous being and the target of technical interventions from a wide range of psychological and para-psychological experts working at the behest of the state, corporations, and schools. Each of the chapter is rather brief and very Anglo-centric, but in total they offer a rather full and complex picture of Foucauldian subjectivity, and that key characteristic of the modern lifestyle, "the obligation to be free."

Mao's book is a classic on guerrilla warfare, ably translated and contextualized by General Samuel B Griffith. This book mainly covers the theoretical and strategic aspects of guerrilla warfare, the need for complete political clarity at all levels, strict ethical codes and internal discipline for the men, and the proposed use of guerrillas against a qualitatively superior but numerically inferior force tasked with occupation and pacification. This book won't teach you about how to set an ambush and not starving to death in the woods, but it will cover the basic steps between an isolated an ineffective movement and the fall of a government.

There might be a little bit of mismatch between what I want (how do you do a focus group?) and what this book is about. Barbaour and Kitzinger have collected quite the group of British academics, and each one tells a little story about how they used focus groups in their research. The book assures us again and again that focus groups are great for researchers looking at marginalized groups, anxious to capture issues in the words of the community rather than sterile language of academia, and feminist consciousness raisers, not just consumer researchers seeking the best shade of pistachio for their new product. I believe all that, but I still have no clue how to do focus groups, or what to do with the data to turn it into research.