Book Hints

The publisher of Nathaniel Branden's recent book, The Psychology of Romantic Love, has just released a single volume containing three of Branden's previously published books (The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Breaking Free, and The Disowned Self) called, simply, A Nathaniel Branden Anthology (Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1980, 752 pp., $17.50). Also newly available is a paperback edition of The Squeeze by James Dale Davidson (New York: Pocket Books, 1980, 281 pp., $2.95), favorably reviewed by Tom Bethell in our October 1980 issue, you might recall. Yet another reissue of previously published work is The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader: The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Fiction (New York: Pantheon, 1980, 256 pp., $10.95 cloth, $5.95 paper). It contains a novel, nine short stories, and excerpts from four novels and three "utopias." In 1979, Pantheon successfully reissued another Gilman work, Herland, reviewed here (Jan. 1980) by Susan Love Brown.

Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1980, 264 pp., $11.95/$6.95) is the latest in a series of do-it-yourself legal guidebooks by Attorney Ralph Warner and Nolo Press (How to Change Your Name, Planning Your Estate with Wills, Probates, Trusts, and Taxes, among many others). A handy appendix lists state-by-state small claims court rules. A little pamphlet that may be useful (although somewhat clumsily printed) is Economical Fallout Shelters That Work (Thiensville, Wise.: Zoe Helix Co-op, 1980, 19 pp., $3.00 paper). It comes complete with diagrams and instructions on how to cope with a number of atomic fallout situations. On the subject of atomic energy, Dr. Petr Beckmann has produced a new pamphlet, The Radiation Bogey (Boulder, Colo.: Golem Press, 1980, 20 pp., $2.00 paper). Beckmann argues that most people are antagonistic toward nuclear energy simply because of fear of the unknown, and he sets about explaining the basics of radioactivity in simple though not condescending terms.

Now that the privatization of what is usually thought of as government duties and programs is gaining some popularity, a book called Privatization: Theory and Practice (Vancouver, Canada: Fraser Institute, 1980, 221 pp., $12.95 paper), by T.M. Ohashi and T.P. Roth, offers analyses of the Canadian experiments in various sorts of denationalization schemes such as Employee Stock Ownership Plans and General Stock Ownership Plans. Private Contracting, on the other hand, is the subject of a collaboration between Robert Steiner and R.S. Radford (Washington, D.C.: Taxpayers' Foundation, 1980, 25 pp., $7.95), and it goes into advantages and examples of contracting out government services to the private sector.

On another front, some REASON readers. might like to delve into some recent philosophic discussions of reason. Responding to concerted efforts to undermine confidence in the role of human reason in scientific investigation, Roger Trigg has produced Reality at Risk (Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble, 1980, 216 pp., $26.50). This is a follow-up to Trigg's earlier work, Reason and Commitment, reviewed by Douglas Rasmussen in Reason Papers No. 2. Renford Bambrough, on the other hand, explores whether we can have confidence in reason when it comes to moral conclusions. In Moral Skepticism and Moral Knowledge (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1979, 166 pp., $13.75), Bambrough also considers an issue of special concern to those who love liberty: If moral knowledge is possible, is coercion thereby permissible—that is, if someone's action is known to be morally wrong, does that permit others to stop the person from so acting?