Dolores Flamiano

Science on the Air: Popularizers and Personalities on Radio and Early Television by Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008, 314 pp. Reviewed by Steven Phipps Maryville University, St. Louis, Missouri

Press, 2008, 314 pp. who were responsible for early science-related radio programming: Austin Hobart Clark of the Smithsonian and popular writer Thornton By Marcel Chotkowski Lafollette Burgess. The discussion of the contributions of these men is fascinating and insightful, but the reader is left to wonder to what extent the focus Reviewedby StevenPhipps is justified. Maryville University, St. Louis, Missouri The author briefly refers to a number ofother scientific broadcasting endeavors around this period, but without details. We are not told whether Clark and Burgess are singled out because they are more significant or simply because the author hadample primary source material at his disposal. We are not even told whether the experience of these two men was in any way representative. In the third chapter, the author immediately dives into discussing the contributions of an entity called Science Service, but without explaining what that was until several pages into the chapter. Science Service, we eventually learn, was an organization designed to bring scientific findings to the masses, backed by newspaper magnate Edward Willis Scripps. Science Service, Clark, and Burgess dominate the books discussion for the first six of its ten chapScience on theAir: Popularizers andPersonalities on Radio andEarlyTelevision

Sports Journalism: Context and Issues by Raymond Boyle Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2006, 211 pp. Reviewed by David W. Bulla Iowa State University

Opinion and cliche-filled writing highlight sports writing in the United Kingdom. British sports journalists also rely more on observation than on direct quotations from the participants. Yet these stereotypes of British sports writing-and, by implication, the notion that American sports journalism is somehow qualitatively better because it has more direct quotes and less opinion-are really beside the point in todays media environment. Sports journalists are no longer merely fans with typewriters trying to impose a narrative framework on the games they cover, selecting which plays and strategies matter most. Indeed, Raymond Boyles new study delves into the larger questions facing contemporary sports journalism, particularly the growth of professional sports into a formi-

Assignment Shanghai: Photographs on the Eve of Revolution Photographs by Jack Birns, Edited by Carolyn Wakeman and Ken Light. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. 130 Pp.

From December 1947 through May 1949, Lift photographer Jack Birns covered the decisive final years of the twenty-year battle between Chinas ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Traveling with writer Roy Rowan, Birns photographed gritty, often startling scenes of refugees, prostitutes, beggars, urban protesters, and street executions. Most of the one hundred photographs in Assignment Shanghai are published here for the first time after being buried for decades in the TimeLift archives. Many of the photographs reveal a nation suffering under Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-sheks corrupt and oppressive regime. Lift Publisher Henry R. Luce, born in China to missionary parents, was among the staunchest supporters of Chiang, a Christian convert and fervent anti-Communist. Lijes cover featured Chiang on several occasions, as well as his Wellesleyeducated wife Madame Chiang. Luces influential magazines, including Time, Lift, and Fortune, regularly disseminated his belief that Chiang was Chinas only hope for salvation against the Communist menace. In stark contrast to Lucespro-Nationalist ideology, Birnssphotographs reveal a country on the brink ofcollapse. As a result, they were rejected by the magazines editors. Two ofthe books most disturbing photographs show childrens corpses piled in a wooden coffin awaiting collective cremation and the severed head of an executed Communist nailed to a wall. These grim photographs tell an emotional story of human suffering. They also provide a glimpse into why so many Chinese embraced a revolutionary movement. Lighter images reveal the extremes oflife in Shanghai: westernized and Chinese, modern and traditional, wealthy and destitute. Rita Hayworth and LanaTurner adorn billboards advertising cigarettes and soap, while pedicabs travel alongside cars on congested streets. The outstanding photographs by Birns are the heart and soul of Assignment Shanghai. In addition to seeking out difficult and often dangerous scenes, Birns captures a great range and depth ofemotion, from the reckless gaiety ofAmerican soldiers and Chinese prostitutes in a bar to the rage of striking cotton mill workers to the fear in the facesofa family fleeing Shanghai on the eve of Communist victory. Birnss pictures are enhanced by me technical excellence ofAssignment Shanghai, with its large-scale, high-quality photographic reproductions, including several dramatic overleafimages. The books vivid showcasing of Birnss photographs serves as a potent reminder of me visual nature of Lift, and of that publications status in the 1940s as a shaper ofpublic opinion about national and international events.