The intriguing history of early America and Europe during the 17th and early 18th centuries is explored in history professor Arthur Williamson’s newest book. The collection of essays focuses on those two regions during the reign of the Stuarts in the United Kingdom, a dynasty that ruled England and Scotland from 1603-1714 and also combined the two thrones for the first time.

The Stuarts oversaw the expansion of the British Empire onto the Atlantic coast of America.

“These essays show the period to be one of collaboration as well as one of competition and conflict,” says Williamson. “They reveal far-re aching cultural, economic and ethnic interpenetration. The volume criticizes contemporary post-colonial theory by demolishing the easy patterns of colonial rule and America’s national identity.”

Williamson, who co-edited the book with Allan Macinnes of Aberdeen University in Scotland, sheds light on America’s early years, when it was known as “British North America” and the outcome of the European interaction and competition in settling the Atlantic Basin. Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands were tremendous influences on the cultural, social and economic systems in the British infiltration of America’s east coast.

“The Dutch claimed that commercial wealth and trade, rather than extracted minerals, led to great power,” says Williamson. He adds that the Dutch envisioned a great confederation of civic societies, or an “antiempire,” and the key to that strategy was an alliance with the Indians to defeat the Spanish power and achieve liberation. Thus, the Netherlands, as well as other European countries, had a much larger importance to the growth of American/European commerce and social development than is widely known and taught.

A long list of developing countries including China, India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have benefited from the modernizations that economic development brings. But one drawback is common in every developing country: the increase in youth crime.

Criminal justice professor Xin Ren connects the growth of juvenile crime with an increasing societal importance on individuality and materialism. “The juvenile crime rates of developing countries are not high, in comparison with the industrialized nations, but the growth of youthful offense and delinquency is a trend in most of those developing countries,” Ren says. “Economic competition has driven more people toward individualism. In turn, property and drug crimes have increased.”

Ren says that four reasons pinpoint the causes for the growth in reported juvenile crime, including the breakdown of traditional social control mechanisms such as family, church, school and work. Open displays of economic success have created competition for more material wealth. Drug abuse has boosted adolescent involvement in criminal offenses. And United Nations declarations mandating the establishment of a juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Just ice Syst ems in the No n-West ern World Edited by Xin Ren, professor of criminal justice (Criminal Justice Press, 2006, $37) justice system have added youth crime into official statistics.

“The family or tribal authority was traditionally in charge of controlling children’s mischief,” Ren says. “As more formal juvenile justice systems are being established, more law enforcement officers are hired to do the job traditionally done by family or the community.” She also says that in developing countries, protection of children from abuse and exploitation is more imperative, as opposed to industrialized countries in the West where dealing with juvenile delinquents is more important.

“In general, the book reaffirms the general etiological characteristics of delinquency that neighborhoods and economic status—combined with cultural emphasis of individualism and materialism—foster delinquency, while the values of community harmony and importance of family and the collective good inhibit delinquency,” Ren says.

Overexposed celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears might learn a thing or two about artistic subtlety from Barbara Carle’s new book of poems.

At times invoking the first-person voice of the Renaissance’s most popular female nude, Venus, Carle explores desire, loneliness and ultimately the importance of appreciating beauty in people, art and nature.

“If you asked Venus, I think the first thing she would say, of course, is ‘Don’t waste my beauty,’” says Carle. “It is something meant for us to preserve. We should be appreciating beauty and not throwing it away.”

Venus, originally based on the Roman Goddess of love, was prominent during Europe’s Renaissance period and a favorite of Italian artist Tiziano Do n’t Wast e My Beauty (No n guasta re la mia bellezza) Barbara Carle, professor of Italian (Armando Caramanica Editore, $8) Vecelli or Vecellio Titian, mostly referred to as just Titian.

In one pivotal example, Carle writes, “When I extinguish myself like a sunset, to whom shall I entrust, the glory of my colors.”

Carle was inspired to write about the value of beauty in art and nature soon after a 1993 Paris exhibition of Titian’s painting “Venus with Cupid and an Organist” (Venere con Cupido e organista in Italian). “That one in particular I thought was incredibly beautiful,” she says. The work is imprinted on her book’s cover.

The book offers readers a window into poetry’s interpretive foundation and is written in two languages, with facing pages in English and Italian. The sea and the rain forest are frequently represented, with the poems constantly moving from art to nature.

“For me it’s fundamental,” Carle says of appreciating beauty. “If we slow down and appreciate the beauty of art and our earth, we have less of a tendency to go and destroy peoples, countries and environments.”