University of California Press Blog

Know Before You Go

Do you remember those dark days when well-read travelers were forced to learn about their future destinations from brisk summaries in the backs of geography books and ominous-looking brochures that appeared in the mail? Be prepared to forget.

On September 24, the Travel Magazine section of the New York Times ran an article on how to spend 24 hours in the “real” Los Angeles. The piece aimed to point naive out-of-towners towards the best of old Hollywood as well as some of the newer locales favored by celebrities. It also gave a suggested reading list for those wanting to freshen up on their LA history. Among such classics as You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again and City of Quartz, UC Press’s new title Pop LA: Art and the City in the 1960s was listed at number two.

Two more recently released UC Press titles join Pop LA in seeking to educate travelers beyond ordinary guidebooks. Designed for the international art tourist, Destination Art is the first comprehensive look at more than two hundred major modern and contemporary art sites around the world. In addition to listing practical information, such as directions to the sites and admission fees, this lushly illustrated book includes essays exploring fifty key destinations in depth.

Those more history-inclined travelers who are heading to Rome might want to grab the upcoming Rome and Environs: An Archaelogical Guide, which brings the masterful native scholarship of Filippo Coarelli to an English-language audience for the first time, complete with plenty of maps.

Being an educated tourist will never be the same.

New Film Quarterly Editor

UC Press Journals and Digital Publishing welcomes Rob White as the new editor of Film Quarterly. From 1995 to 2005, Rob was Editor of Books at the British Film Institute, where he was responsible for the three BFI Classics series As a writer, he was for many years a regular contributor to Sight and Sound magazine, including a spell as a columnist. He has also written journalism for the U.K. Spectator as well as scholarly essays for Angelaki, Oxford Literary Review, and the Journal of European Studies. He is the author of the 2003 BFI Film Classic on The Third Man.

Rob takes over from Ann Martin to become only the third editor in Film Quarterly's nearly 50 year history. The upcoming volume for Film Quarterly promises to be an exciting one with both new features and special issues, including one devoted to examining Brokeback Mountain from a variety of critical perspectives in March 2007.

Doping: Old News Is New Again

Lance Armstrong. Floyd Landis. Barry Bonds. Just as one doping scandal begins to cool, it seems another one emerges to inflame the headlines. And it’s not just a boys’ club: the still-bubbling story of Marion Jones’s alleged steroid use has garnered the most international attention to female athletes’ doping since the controversy over the 1976 East German Olympic team.

What is happening in the sports world that drugs are becoming so ubiquitous? Is it spectators’ demand for extreme entertainment? The pressure for athletes to prove they’re worth their extravagant salaries? Or is it that—although using testosterone as a performance enhancer has been a staple of athletic prowess for some time—doping’s constant presence is only now being brought to light because of the scientific arms race between hard-to-detect new performance enhancers and clever new ways of testing for them?

As University of California Press authors John Hoberman (Testosterone Dreams) and Christopher Thompson (Tour de France) know, steroid use in sports is actually old news. Testosterone has been synthesized in labs and touted as a miracle elixir since the 1930s, and Hoberman claims that the current doping “epidemic” has actually been spreading since the 1960s.

What does the future hold? Home runs every at-bat, or a return to more wholesome sport? That depends on the fans. Thompson points out that, in 1978, when the East German scandal was still on sports fans' minds and the Tour de France’s greatest doping drama to date was about to unfold, only 53 percent of fans said they “would cease to respect and admire a great champion convicted of doping.” One has to do only a quick scan of the public, adorned with Barry Bonds jerseys and yellow Livestrong bracelets, to guess the results of such a poll today.

New Website for Journals and Digital Publishing Division

Marking the beginning of many improvements to the usability of its websites, the Journals and Digital publishing Division recently launched http://ucpressjournals.com. This new site is the home for general information for over 50 journals available both in print and online. Visitors can subscribe, purchase back issues, join or renew their membership to societies, search and get easy access to online editions of journals, or learn about various publishing services provided.

The new site was developed in cooperation with 4Site Solutions, LLC of Oklahoma City, OK.

"Trickle Up" Leadership

by David Carle, author of Introduction to Air in California

California's new law to control greenhouse gas emissions will join a long list of "trickle-up" approaches to air quality management, where the entire nation benefits, again, from California's leadership. This new law will set limits to the state's greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, refineries, and all other emitters of heat-trapping gases.

Opposition from certain business interests sounded familiar, including dire warnings that the targets could never be met and that economic ruin would result. Back in 1966, California adopted auto tailpipe emission standards, the first of their kind in the nation, and required catalytic converters—forcing new technology to meet the new standards. American automakers loudly predicted disaster, arguing that the devices could not be built, would make cars far too expensive, and might even force a catastrophic shutdown of the nation's auto industry.

Recognizing this state's leadership and particular need for air quality solutions, the Federal Air Quality Act of 1967 granted California a unique waiver to set and enforce its own emission standards for vehicles. Although our state laws became more protective than the federal government's, manufacturers and retailers continued to make handsome profits in the gigantic California auto market, despite the earlier warnings.

Now that concerns are focused on global climate change, California's status as the world's twelfth largest emitter of greenhouse gases demands a meaningful response. Some opponents to this new effort declare that no single state should take independent action, that only a unified federal response is appropriate. Yet, our current federal administration seems to have its head firmly inserted into the sand about this topic.

The "trickle-up" approach, with this state fostering innovation and new economic opportunities, has served the entire nation in the past. This latest effort should, once again, show the way for other states, and for the nation.