“Polling dictates virtually every aspect of election campaigns, from fund-raising to electoral strategy to news coverage. And, after our representatives are elected, polling profoundly shapes the political context in which they make public policy. Whatever its faults and limitations, and they are many, polling matters.” In this thoughtful overview, David W. Moore traces the rise of polling from the nascent Gallup Poll’s challenge to the famed Literary Digest poll in 1936 to the presidential election of 1994. Moore profiles pollster personages George Gallup and Lou Harris, as well as lesser-known (although probably more influential) figures such as presidential pollsters Pat Caddell and Richard Wirthlin. Media pollsters are also considered, as in the ways in which the wording of questions and presentation may influence outcome. As vice president and managing editor of the Gallup Poll, Moore himself is hardly unbiased, and readers are treated to less than complimentary descriptions of main rival Lou Harris’ personality and techniques. Nevertheless, The Superpollsters will help individuals understand how polling came to its current place of dominance in the American political process. LP

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
Paperback: 426 pages

The premier drag queen of Manhattan from the ‘40s until the ‘80s bares all, from Superfly pimp-lovers who were secretly into “rough trade,” to the inside line on the Ecclesiastical hierarchy… “Most of the archbishops of New York—the last four, who were cardinals—now we don’t talk about the dead, but Cardinal Spellman was an old closet queen. Personally, I never saw him sucking a cock or whatever he was given to doing. But I heard rumors in the homophile world that he was called ‘Fanny’ Spellman. That he liked ‘seafood.’ Sailors. For soldiers, one would say ‘K-rations.’ Well, old Fanny, prince of the church, was gossiped about all over town.” SS

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
Paperback: 179 pages
Illustrated

Selections from Revolution for the Hell of It, Woodstock Nation, Steal This Book and new writings. The essential anthology from the man (one of the few from the ‘60s) who never stopped fighting. AK

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
Paperback: 421 pages
Illustrated

A point-by-point refutation of The Secret Relationship Between Blacks And Jews authored anonymously and published by the Nation Of Islam. Not surprisingly, the author concludes that Jewish slave owners were no better or worse than the average Christian of the period. In fact, according to rabbinical laws, a Jewish slave holder was technically prohibited from having sexual relations with slave girls—causing amazement among Old World Arabs that the Jews didn’t use slave girls for sex. SC

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
Paperback: 160 pages

In 1974, at the age of 53, Joseph Beuys first set foot in the United States and his “Energy Plan for the Western Man,” a performance piece which consisted of a series of talks in New York, Chicago and Minneapolis, was his introduction to this country. Beuys presented his inclusive ideas, including the notion that “Every man is an artist,” to audiences with decidedly mixed results,. Reactions ranged from frequent attacks on his past as a Stuka pilot for the Luftwaffe during World War II to tremendous interest in his peculiar brand of conceptualism and the “Free University” he had helped found in Germany. The talks provided the impetus for Beuys most famous “action” in America, “I Like America and America Likes Me,” in which the artist lived in a gallery wrapped in felt and carrying only a cane while sharing the space with a wild coyote. This book presents a number of previously unpublished writings and several interviews in which Beuys discusses his best-known projects in both America and Europe. AP

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
Paperback: 274 pages
Illustrated

An associate professor of statistics looks at the taxman’s auditing system and finds it wanting. “After analyzing thousands of tax returns from around the country, [the author] has finally broken the secret statistical code the IRS uses.” From this research, he “can predict with a high degree of accuracy which of more than 100 million returns filed annually will be audited and which will be spared.” Find out how to prepare taxes in a way that will lessen the chances of an audit. And, if audited, how to deal with the intimidation process the IRS teaches its field agents. Aczel should know, his nightmare audit took two years! GR

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
Paperback: 191 pages
Illustrated

“Make war on machines, and in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them. The duty of a revolutionary is to make love, and that means staying alive and free. That doesn’t allow for cop-outs. Smoking dope and hanging up Che’s picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps.” Both an amazingly time-warped radical period piece and a still-usable nuts-and-bolts urban-guerrilla, underground survival manual. While some of Abbie’s leads seem a little far-fetched (i.e., scarfing free food at bar mitzvahs while on the lam), the International Yippie Currency Exchange for burning vending machines still applies. Definitely the finest writing on the subject of riots from the well-equipped rioter’s point of view (trashing the pigs in their own trough, MAAAN!!). SS

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
Paperback: 308 pages
Illustrated