My Books
American Sex Machines: The Hidden History of Sex at the U.S. Patent Office, 1996, Hoag Levins, Adams Media Corporation. The book’s cover and its title are unfortunate: they give this work the appearance of something steamy or sexually alluring, when in fact it is a carefully researched and serious work of great general interest about the Patent Office’s hundreds of inventions related to human sex organs and copulation. For instance, the history of the brassiere is detailed and concise; it breaks away from the urban myths and other nonsense pertaining to the invention of this device and presents and erudite account of the bra, from its early inception as a chest compression device to its current post-feminist status. The book is written with grace and humor and leaves the reader well informed, if not enlightened. (Amazon review)
Arab Reach: The Secret War Against Israel, 1983, Hoag Levins, Doubleday Books. This 1983 book essentially takes a closer look at Middle Eastern events since the 1973 Yom Kippur War when a coalition of Arab states launched an oil embargo against the United States in retaliation for its support of Israel during that conflict. The war and subsequent embargo changed both the dynamics of the region’s geopolitics and the economics of oil worldwide. It dramatically raised petroleum prices long term, providing enormous new inflows of cash to Islamic oil states. Those new resources were used over the next decade to create new avenues and webs of international influence as well as to begin the Arab world’s quest to develop nuclear weapons to offset Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
Asbestos Removal & Control, 1984, SourceFinders Books, Anthony Natale and Hoag Levins.
The first comprehensive reference source for architects, consultants, contractors, building owners, and government officials at all levels who must quickly familiarize themselves with all dimensions of this new national problem. This is a book of solutions. It includes narrative descriptions of all the procedures for sampling and analyzing suspected architectural asbestos materials as well as a step-by-step description of the methods for safely removing asbestos from a building. Included are 140 photographs illustrating every tool, technique, and piece of equipment utilized in a state-of-the-art asbestos removal project.
Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal, McGraw Hill, 1975, Freda Adler (Hoag Levins, field researcher and ghost writer) As the rising trend of feminism gained maximum traction in 1970s society, one consequence was a broad shift in the criminality of women. This work was the first to extensively explore the patterns of the rising female leadership in antisocial behavior as “new women” entered the major leagues of crime with top billings on the FBI’s list of most wanted criminals. Woman across the country broke out of the traditional limits of prostitution and shoplifting into grand larceny, embezzlement, bank robbery, and sky-rocketing crimes of violence that were increasing at rates six and seven times as great as those of men. The book was hailed by academic reviewers as “a landmark in the study of female crime.”
Songs That Made America, 1972, James Warner, (Hoag Levins, researcher and ghost writer), Grossman Publishers. Illustrated by photographer James A. Warner, this is a narrative of American songs that span the country’s and racial and ethnic diversity. It includes songs of descendants of the Europeans who colonized the region, African Americans who were brought here in chains, Native Americans who were banished from their ancestral lands and a range of other ethnic groups whose songs were fused into what became the nation’s rich and enormously diverse musical legacy.