From the Stacks: February 3, 2006

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Recently added to the Utne library, The Culture Struggle by Michael Parenti oscillates between deeply theoretical meditations on culture and cut-to-the chase diatribes against the political discourse of marriage. Along the way it serves as a primer for those who have heard such terms as "cultural relativism" and "dominant paradigm" but don't know exactly what they mean. Although less focused than his other books (such as Superpatriotism or To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia), The Culture Struggle reads like the perfect meal eats. The volume cleanses your palate with its machinations on objectivity and individualism while filling you up with indignation over institutionalized racism and rape. From Seven Stories Press (January 2006). -- Nick Rose

Princeton Architectural Press has done it again. The publisher of books about Chinese medicine labels, kaleidoscopic domes, quonset huts, lost pet posters, Mexican street art, and other overlooked categories of human design, has sent us two new books lately, Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing The American Photo Album and the mysteriously titled LaPorte, Indiana. The latter is a collection of black-and-white portrait photos culled by Found magazine co-creator Jason Bitner from a cache of 18,000 he discovered one day in a café in LaPorte. Dating from the 50s and 60s, the photos are at once a field guide to the Midwestern human phenotype, portrait of a city in a certain era, and mid-twentieth century history of fashion and portrait photography style. LaPorte opens the door to a past that's not so distant, but that seems somehow only a dream. (Bitner himself sent us issues #1 and #2 of his Dirty Found, a magazine devoted to street finds of sexy Polaroids, mash notes, erotic drawings, and other items guaranteed to provoke rolled eyes, "Ew!" comments, and wondering about human nature.) -- Chris Dodge

I was immediately struck by Work magazine when it came in (and not just because there is a picture of my ex-girlfriend's New York City apartment building on the back cover). The quarterly is about ... well... work, but broadly defined. Issue #2 profiles Californian porn workers, Argentinean trash recyclers, and a modern-day cowboy. The idea is to "improve the way that people consume, practice their trades, and live their lives through innovative approaches to work." -- Bennett Gordon

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