Weekly Book List, September 19, 2011

Presents eight case studies from around the world of successful efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and improve energy security. Discusses a French plot to supply arms and ammunition to the Continental Army that was devised by the inventor, playwright, and spy Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, author of The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville. A study of Russian- and Yiddish-language authors, with a focus on Soviet Jewish writers' responses to World War II; identifies a largely unknown body of writings that as early as 1942 responded to Nazi mass killings of Jews. POLITICAL SCIENCE Breaking Through the Noise: Presidential Leadership, Public Opinion, and the News Media by Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha and Jeffrey S. Peake (Stanford University Press; 264 pages; $85 hardcover, $24.95 paperback).