Reviews Archives - Fulbright Chronicles

Tree of Humanity, Tree of Food

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 3 (September 2026) AuthorDavid A. Taylor Breadfruit: Three Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree by Russell Fielding, who was a Fulbright Scholar in Canada, 2005-2006. Thirty years ago, as an editor on a US AID-funded project on tropical deforestation based in Bangkok, I sometimes joined the scientists walking through farmlands,…

Bhutan: Contemporary Issues Beyond the Stereotypes

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 3 (September 2026) AuthorVijay Prakash Singh In the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon: Happiness, History, and Environment in a Changing Bhutan by Betsy Bolton who was a Fulbright Scholar to Morocco in 2013-2014 and Bhutan 2017-2018. One picks up a book on Bhutan expecting to find a sort of Shangri-La…

Beyond the Menu: Food’s Place in History, Power, and Belonging

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 3 (September 2026) AuthorSwayam Sampurna Panigrahi What We Eat, A Global History of Food, ed by Pierre Singaravélou and Sylvain Venayre. Translated by Stephen W. Sawyer who was a Fulbright Scholar in Paris from 2000-2001. Food is more than merely nourishment, and What We Eat: A Global History of Food…

Bears Loom Large

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 3 (September 2026) AuthorErika J. Waters Bear by Julia Phillips, who was a Fulbright Scholar to Russia, 2011-2012. While bears appeared in early nineteenth-century European fairytales as enchanted, kindly creatures, it was Teddy Roosevelt who shaped the image of bears in the popular imagination when he refused to shoot an…

More Than a Drink: The Global Journey of Yerba Mate

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 2 (2026) AuthorBenjamin Junge The Book of Yerba Mate: A Stimulating History by Charles Folch, who had a Fulbright Dissertation Research Grant to Paraguay, 2008-2009. Across Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and southern Brazil, it is as common to see people cradling a cuia (gourd) and bomba (metal straw) as it is…

Handel’s MESSIAH and the Librettist Who Inspired It

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 2 (2026) AuthorJames E. Crimmins Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah by Charles King who was a Fulbright Scholar in 2013 to Zambia. We know a good deal about Handel’s life and career as the preeminent composer of the age, while Jennens has virtually…

Hear Them Speak

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 2 (2026) AuthorCynthia Smith The Diary Keepers: World War II in the Netherlands Written by the People Who Lived Through It by Nina Siegal, who had a Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing in 2014. In The Diary Keepers, author Nina Siegal taps into the importance of first-person contemporary narratives during…

Exposing Biases in AI

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 1 (2025) AuthorMariofanna Milanova Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines by Joy Buolamwini who was a Fulbright Scholar in 2013 to Zambia. As a Professor of Computer Science and Fulbright Scholar, I found Dr. Joy Buolamwini’s book Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect…

The Ideal Entry Point

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 4, Number 1 (2025) AuthorKhadija Ouajjani Introduction to Machine Learning (Revised 4th Edition) by Ethan Alpaydin who was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar to the Computer Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, 1997-1998. I first stumbled upon Alpaydin’s Machine Learning while compiling a concise yet solid reading list for managers and…

Today’s Crisis, Yesterday’s News

Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 3, Number 3 (2025) AuthorJoyce Bennett Everyone Who is Gone is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer, who was a Fulbright Scholar to Spain in 2010. Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis is…