HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century; SCIENCE / History; TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / History.

Why have nuclear weapons not been used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945? Nina Tannenwald disputes the conventional answer of 'deterrence' in favour of what she calls a nuclear taboo - a widespread inhibition on using nuclear weapons - which has arisen in global politics. Drawing on newly released archival sources, Tannenwald traces the rise of the nuclear taboo, the forces that produced it, and its influence, particularly on US leaders. She analyzes four critical instances where US leaders considered using nuclear weapons (Japan 1945, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War 1991) and examines how the nuclear taboo has repeatedly dissuaded US and other world leaders from resorting to these 'ultimate weapons'. Through a systematic analysis, Tannenwald challenges conventional conceptions of deterrence and offers a compelling argument on the moral bases of nuclear restraint as well as an important insight into how nuclear war can be avoided in the future.

This spirited history of public television offers an insider's account of its topsy-turvy forty-year odyssey. James Day, a founder of San Francisco's KQED and a past president of New York's WNET, provides a vivid and often amusing behind-the-screens history. Day tells how a program producer, desperate to locate a family willing to live with television cameras for seven months, borrowed a dime—and a suggestion—from a blind date and telephoned the Louds of Santa Barbara. The result was the mesmerizing twelve-hour documentary An American Family. Day relates how Big Bird and his friends were created to spice up Sesame Street when test runs showed a flagging interest in the program's "live-action" segments. And he describes how Frieda Hennock, the first woman appointed to the FCC, overpowered the resistance of her male colleagues to lay the foundation for public television. Day identifies the particular forces that have shaped public television and produced a Byzantine bureaucracy kept on a leash by an untrusting Congress, with a fragmented leadership that lacks a clearly defined mission in today's multimedia environment. Day calls for a bold rethinking of public television's mission, advocating a system that is adequately funded, independent of government, and capable of countering commercial television's "lowest-common-denominator" approach with a full range of substantive programs, comedy as well as culture, entertainment as well as information. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995.

With the 1989 release of Everybody Counts by the Mathematical Sciences Education Board (MSEB) of the National Research Council and the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the "standards movement" in K-12 education was launched. Since that time, the MSEB and the NCTM have remained committed to deepening the public debate, discourse, and understanding of the principles and implications of standards-based reform. One of the main tenets in the NCTM Standards is commitment to providing high-quality mathematical experiences to all students. Another feature of the Standards is emphasis on development of specific mathematical topics across the grades. In particular, the Standards emphasize the importance of algebraic thinking as an essential strand in the elementary school curriculum. Issues related to school algebra are pivotal in many ways. Traditionally, algebra in high school or earlier has been considered a gatekeeper, critical to participation in postsecondary education, especially for minority students. Yet, as traditionally taught, first-year algebra courses have been characterized as an unmitigated disaster for most students. There have been many shifts in the algebra curriculum in schools within recent years. Some of these have been successful first steps in increasing enrollment in algebra and in broadening the scope of the algebra curriculum. Others have compounded existing problems. Algebra is not yet conceived of as a K-14 subject. Issues of opportunity and equity persist. Because there is no one answer to the dilemma of how to deal with algebra, making progress requires sustained dialogue, experimentation, reflection, and communication of ideas and practices at both the local and national levels. As an initial step in moving from national-level dialogue and speculations to concerted local and state level work on the role of algebra in the curriculum, the MSEB and the NCTM co-sponsored a national symposium, "The Nature and Role of Algebra in the K-14 Curriculum," on May 27 and 28, 1997, at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

One of the founders of the posthumanities, Donna J. Haraway is professor in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Author of many books and widely read essays, including the now-classic essay "The Cyborg Manifesto," she received the J.D. Bernal Prize in 2000, a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Social Studies in Science. Thyrza Nicholas Goodeve is a professor of Art History at the School of Visual Arts.