The New York Police Department is an iconic symbol of one of the world’s most famous cities. The blue uniforms of the men and women who serve on the force have long stood for integrity and heroism in the work to serve and protect the city’s residents. And yet, as in any large public organization, the NYPD has also suffered its share of corruption, political shenanigans, and questionable leadership. In The NYPD’s First Fifty Years Bernard Whalen, himself a long-serving NYPD lieutenant, and his father, Jon, consider the men and women who have contributed to the department’s past, both positively and less so. Starting with the official formation of the NYPD in 1898, they examine the commissioners, politicians, and patrolmen who during the next fifty years left a lasting mark on history and on one another. In the process, they also explore the backroom dealings, the hidden history, and the relationships that set the scene for the modern NYPD that so proudly serves the city today.

Michael Jacobs is a pioneer in the development of psychodynamic counselling. While his writing is praised for its lucidity in explaining difficult concepts, and as well illustrated with case examples from his own work, he has rarely said much about his own history as a psychodynamic psychotherapist and counsellor. In this personal account, concerned mainly with both his professional life as a therapist, writer and teacher and with the developments of counselling generally in Britain, in which he has played a major part, Jacobs presents his own past. It is one that surprisingly for so experienced a therapist, started with no formal training, but which has gone on to be an influence on the training of hundreds of counsellors and therapists. Jacobs traces the development of BACP and UKCP and his part in the formation of both organizations, the development of training in counselling in Britain, much of which with regard to psychodynamic counselling was pioneered by him, and finally his writing and teaching career. The book concludes with a critique of the present state of counselling and psychotherapy in Britain today.

This memoir of forty years of international humanitarian service and lessons learned along the way is a great book for young men and women who are attracted to a career in the ecumenical world church or those desiring careers in relief and service ministries. Working for Church World Service (CWS), Mr. Swartzendruber served in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. (307pp. color illus. Masthof Press, 2012.)

During the Second World War over 1.5 million of women found themselves thrust into a male working world, having to learn new skills within a matter of weeks. Their contribution to the war effort often remains unheralded, but it is without doubt that these women played a central role in an Allied victory. Kathleen Church-Bliss and Elsie Whiteman were two such women, who volunteered for war work and after a training course in engineering found themselves in an aircraft components factory. Thrown into a whole new world of industrial work, they kept a joint diary providing a unique insight into life in a wartime factory. It tells the tale of the poor conditions suffered on the factory floor, as well as the general disorganisation and bad management of this essential part of the war effort. They also describe how war work opened up a whole new world of social freedom for many women. This diary, tragic and humorous, brings women's war work vividly to life.