At midnight on January 24, 1954, the last step was taken in the armistice to end the war in Korea. That night, the neutral Indian guards who had overseen the prisoner of war repatriation process abandoned their posts, leaving their charges to make their own decisions. The vast majority of men allowed to choose a new nation were Chinese and North Koreans who elected the path of freedom. There were smaller groups hoping that the communist bloc would give them a better life; among these men were twenty-one American soldiers and prisoners of war. “We Fight for Peace” tells their story.

The Special Activities Group (SAG) and its subordinate companies have received little attention from historians, despite being an elite combat unit and participating in highly classified and dangerous missions in Korea. Rarely receiving more attention than a footnote, their story usually begins and ends on the night of September 12, 1950, with an amphibious raid near Kunsan. Until their inactivation on March 31, 1951, SAG simply disappears from most Korean War histories. Spare Not the Brave corrects this omission.

With the box office successes of movies based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, familiarity with J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth is growing. Unfortunately, scholarship dealing with Middle-Earth itself is comparatively rare in Tolkien studies, and students and scholars seeking greater insight have few resources. Similarly, although public concern for the environment is widespread and “going green” has never been trendier, ecocriticism is also an underserved area of literary studies. Arda Inhabited fills a gap in both areas by combining ecocritical and broader postmodern concerns with the growing appreciation for Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.

Many Americans associate the House of David with its bearded barnstorming baseball teams of the 1920s and ’30s. Others may recall the sex scandal associated with the group, a scandal that gave newspapers during the first years after World War I some added spice. Still, others may know it as a religious communal society founded in 1903, which has a few adherents today.

The remote farming community of Murdock, Nebraska, seemed to be the least likely setting for one of the heartland’s most ruthless and bloody double murders in decades. In fact, the little town had gone more than a century without a single homicide. But on the night of Easter 2006, Wayne and Sharmon Stock were brutally murdered in their home. The murders garnered sensational frontpage headlines and drew immediate statewide attention. Practically everybody around Murdock was filled with fear, panic, and outrage. Who killed Wayne and Sharmon Stock? What was the motive? The Stocks were the essence of Nebraska’s all-American farm family, self-made, God-fearing, and of high moral character. Barely a week into this double murder investigation, two arrests brought a sense of relief to the victims’ family and to local residents. The case appeared to fall neatly into place when a tiny speck of murder victim Wayne Stock’s blood appeared in the alleged getaway car.

Hauptmann’s Ladder is a testament to the truth that counters the revisionist histories all too common in the true crime genre. Author Richard T. Cahill Jr. puts the “true” back in “true crime,” providing credible information and undistorted evidence that enables readers to form their own opinions and reach their own conclusions.

To his neighbors on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, Anthony Sowell was a quiet and helpful former Marine who played chess and hosted summer barbeques in his front yard. But there was a dark side to Sowell—and a horrific secret inside his house. In mid-2007, Crystal Dozier, 38, made plans to visit Sowell. She was never seen again. Over the next two years, ten more Cleveland women disappeared. Their families filed missing persons reports. Police say their search efforts were hampered by the women’s transient lifestyles. But the families say police considered their loved ones “disposable” and didn’t take their disappearances seriously.

Few naval battles in American history have left a more enduring impression on America’s national consciousness than the Battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813. This splendid collection celebrates the bicentennial of the American victory with a review of the battle and its consequences. The volume is divided into three sections.

Upon discovering that her great-great aunt was the victim and central figure in one of Illinois’s most notorious crimes, author Susan Elmore set out to learn more. She uncovered a perplexing case that resulted in multiple suspects, a lynch mob, charges of perjury and bribery, a failed kidnapping attempt, broken family loyalties, lies, cover-ups, financial devastation, and at least two suicides.

Revised to stimulate and engage an undergraduate student audience, Feinberg’s updated account of Anuta opens with a chapter on his varied experiences when he initially undertook fieldwork in this tiny, isolated Polynesian community in the Solomon Islands. The following chapters explore dominant cultural features, including language, kinship, marriage, politics, and religion—topics that align with subject matter covered in introductory anthropology courses. The final chapter looks at some of the challenges Anutans face in the twenty-first century. Like many other peoples living on small, remote islands, Anutans strive to maintain traditional values while at the same time becoming involved in the world market economy. In all, Feinberg gives readers magnificent material for studying the relations between demography, environment, culture, and society in this changing world.