feb12b.indd C&RL News February 2012 110 George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, e-mail: geberhart@ala.org N e w P u b l i c a t i o n sGeorge M. Eberhart Modotti. $39.95. J. Paul Getty Museum. 978- 1-60606-070-4. Deadly Powers: Animal Predators and the Mythic Imagination, by Paul A. Trout (325 pages, November 2011), argues that human imagination, language, storytelling, and re- ligion developed in the Pleistocene as fear- reduction responses to the constant threats posed by numerous large animals (cave bears, saber-toothed cats, short-faced hy- enas, crocodilians) that fed on them. Animal predators, Trout writes, were anthropomor- phized and mythologized at the dawn of human consciousness into monsters, gods, benefactors, and role models, a system of control and acculturation that transformed fearful, helpless primates into the “alpha predator of the planet.” Narratives about dangerous animals and monsters gave early civilizations a cohesive set of rules for sur- vival and methods for controlling fear that persist in contemporary horror films about rampaging monsters (Jaws, Alien) and hu- man predators (Manhunter, Wolf Creek). Trout’s logical, well-referenced thesis turns upside-down Joseph Campbell’s conjecture that myth developed from the psychological tensions of the hunt. $26.00. Prometheus. 978-1-61614-501-9. John Milton’s Paradise Lost: A Reading Guide, by Noam Reisner (165 pages, August 2011), offers students a conceptual outline and structural overview of Milton’s epic poem that will make it a more rewarding and less intimidating read. An annotated bibliography and helpful suggestions for teaching the poem follow Reisner’s critical commentary and analysis of the major pas- sages with substantial extracts from the text. $30.00. Edinburgh University. 978-0-7486- 4000-3. The Martians Have Landed!, by Robert E. Bartholomew and Benjamin Radford (248 Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles, by Beth Gates Warren (382 pages, Novem- ber 2011), is a me- ticulously insightful account of the decade of col- laboration b e t w e e n s o u t h e r n California p h o t o g - r a p h e r s E d w a r d W e s t o n ( 1 8 8 6 – 1958) and Margrethe Mather (1886–1952), an interval little examined by art historians because Weston—in an attempt to reinvent himself—destroyed his early journals and belittled his own work from 1913 to 1923, “a period in which I was trying to be ar- tistic.” But photographic historian Warren spent ten years of her own life scrutiniz- ing every scrap of documentation for these lost years, a period in which photography evolved from mere portraiture into a new aesthetic. Mather is revealed as Weston’s model, lover, and studio partner, as well as a creative artist in her own right whose concepts Weston readily adopted as his own. The backdrop for this tale is equally fascinating, as Mather and Weston’s circle of friends included many artists, poets, silent film stars, anarchists, pacifists, and eccentrics who either lived in or passed through early 20th-century Los Angeles, among them Charlie Chaplin, Max East- man, Florence Deshon, Emma Goldman, Carl Sandburg, Johan Hagemeyer, and Tina February 2012 111 C&RL News bors, and ports. Two chapters are devoted to the transportation of trade goods, as this was one of the primary reasons for traveling in the Middle Ages. Vacations in the modern sense were nonexistent, but in addition to pilgrims, warring knights and men-at-arms, and missionaries, the era also featured trav- eling doctors, couriers, itinerant poets and minstrels, beggars, and lepers who took to the roads. $39.95. McFarland. 978-0-7864- 4535-6. The Vineyard at the End of the World: Mav- erick Winemakers and the Rebirth of Mal- bec, by Ian Mount (350 pages, December 2011), tells the story of the Argentine wine industry and the world’s r e d i s c o v e r y of an often u n d e r r a t e d , d a r k - p u r p l e variety of grape known as Malbec. Al- though Malbec cuttings were brought to the Andean prov- ince of Men- doza in 1853, it wasn’t until the early years of the 21st century that Ar- gentine vintners recognized the grape’s po- tential, especially in wines exported to the expanding U.S. market. The book focuses largely on the pioneering work of Nico- lás Catena, hailed by many as the Robert Mondavi of Argentina, whose moderniza- tion of winemaking techniques in the 1980s brought Argentine Chardonnays and Caber- nets to international prominence but who was a latecomer to Malbec. Mount writes with clarity, passion, and a thorough knowl- edge of his subject, gleaned from many hours of interviews with Catena and dozens of other winemakers, viticulturists, distribu- tors, and oenologists. $26.95. W. W. Norton. 978-0-393-08019-3. pages, October 2011), surveys the numerous media-induced panics and hoaxes that are sprinkled throughout history, from the New York Sun’s infamous Moon Hoax of 1835 to recent organ-theft panics and killer-vac- cine scares. Although the authors provide little analysis of why these outbreaks occur (other than a combination of bad journal- ism, vested interests, and the lack of critical thinking), the cumulative effect is a caution- ary tale for information consumers. Many more examples are found in Bartholomew’s Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordi- nary Social Behavior, coauthored with Hil- ary Evans (Anomalist Books, 2009). $40.00. McFarland. 978-0-7864-6498-2. The Tell-Tale Art: Poe in Modern Popular Culture, by Christine A. Jackson (202 pages, October 2011), examines the enduring lega- cy of Edgar Allan Poe’s detective and horror fiction in current novels, movies, television, and video games, often in unexpected ven- ues. Though it’s easy to grasp that the dire, haunted prison setting of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island (2010) has motifs traceable to Poe, Jackson also shows that the imagery and obsession in “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) are reflected in Alfred Hitch- cock’s psychodrama Vertigo (1959) and that the elements of suspense and story struc- ture in “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842) are mirrored in the Food Network’s culinary reality show Chopped (2009– ). Even the current wave of zombie and vampire films have precursors in “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842) and “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845). $40.00. McFarland. 978-0-7864-6318-3. Travel and Trade in the Middle Ages, by Paul B. Newman (241 pages, April 2011), looks closely at the motives and methods of the medieval traveler. Newman describes every conceivable detail of traveling by land or sea, including horses, wheeled vehicles, roads, fords and bridges, food and shelter, hazards, guidebooks and maps, disease, wa- tercraft, canals, navigation tools, tolls, har-