ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

New Publications

George M. Eberhart

George M. Eberhart is associate editor of American Libraries; e-mail: geberhart@ala.org

The Atlas of Archaeology,by Mick Aston and Tim Taylor (208 pages, October 1998), is another of those irresistibly illustrated DK titles that is both well-organized and informative. The arrangement is by period, from the age of hunter-gatherers to the industrial age, with sites from each selected for comparison. More than 60 pages of atlas and gazetteer describing noted archaeological sites rounds out this excellent introductory study. $29.95. DK Publishing. ISBN 0-7894-3189-0.

A related title by John Bowker. The Complete Bible Handbook (544 pages, November 1998), covers the historical, literary, and religious aspects of both testaments. The author, former dean of Trinity College, has taken care to ensure that major variations in interpretation are represented, amplified by recent scholarship and discoveries. $39.95. DK Publishing. ISBN 0-7894-3568-3.

Creating a Power Web Site,by Gail Junion-Metz and Brad Stephens (200 pages, November 1998), offers library-related examples of HTML and PERL coding, tables, image maps, frames, and forms. Sample coding for a library card application, interlibrary loan request, and purchase order is found on the accompanying CD-ROM, along with Mapedit and PERL software. This is a good intermediate book for Webmasters who haven’t revised their sites in a while. $125.00. Neal-Schuman. ISBN 155570-323-2.

Hard Target: The United States War Against International Drug Trafficking, 1982-1997,by Ron Chepesiuk (353 pages, January 1999), critiques the U.S. drug policy since Ronald Reagan declared war on drugs in 1982. After a detailed examination of the operations of “hard targets” (criminal organizations involved in the drug trade) and their impact on international political and socioeconomic cohesion, Chepesiuk declares that the American antidrug strategy has failed and offers 12 practical options for the United States to adopt in order to proceed successfully (not necessarily including decriminalization, but an open debate about alternative measures). The author’s meticulous documentation of the logistics of drug trafficking in several countries gives credence to his recommendations. $46.50. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0507-4.

John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty,by C. Bradley Thompson (340 pages, November 1998), examines the writings of America’s second president, reevaluating his political philosophy as a champion of liberty and democratic realist. Unlike his contemporaries Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Franklin, the political essays of John Adams have not been scrutinized or even reprinted for many years. Thompson rescues Adams’s philosophy of government from the mire of Toryism that engulfed his administration during the era of the Quasi-War with France, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the suppression of pro-democratic thought. Adams’s ideas on the separation of powers and balanced government are particularly cogent in these latter days of the Clinton administration. $39.95. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-0915-6.

For an alarmingly negative view of the Adams administration, read the disturbing portrait of Adams and other Federalists depicted in the contemporary newspaper, the Philadelphia Aurora, in Richard N. Rosenfeld’s American Aurora (988 pages, May 1997). Adams and his supporters may have crafted the first postcolonial witch hunt by going after anyone sympathetic to the French Revolution and the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. $39.95. St. Martin’s. ISBN 0-312-15052-0.

Lincoln: The Road to War,by Frank van der Linden (387 pages, November 1998), retells the story of Lincoln’s election and the early days of secession from a different perspective. Van der Linden makes a weak case for the notion that the Civil War could have been avoided if Lincoln had let Fort Sumter and the Confederacy go. Not a reactionary neo-Confederate, the author has also written biographical studies of Jefferson, Polk, Nixon, and Reagan. This critique of Lincoln is controversial but subdued and serves as a reminder of what unrestrained partisan politics can do to a nation. $29.95. Fulcrum Publishing. ISBN 1-55591-4209.

Mammals of the Eastern United States,by John O. Whitaker Jr. and William J. Hamilton Jr. (583 pages, 3d ed., November 1998), presents detailed information on the 121 mammalian species east of the Mississippi. Almost entirely rewritten, this edition provides zoological information as well as anecdotes, field notes, illustrations, range maps, reading lists, and a glossary. $50.00. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3475-0.

Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain,by Alison Winter (464 pages, December 1998), demonstrates the pervasiveness of mesmeric exhibitions and experiments in Britain from the 1830s to the 1860s, in universities as well as town halls, pubs, and hospitals. Other volumes on mesmerism focus on its marginal role in the protohistory of hypnotism or psychoanalysis, but this examines what Victorian men and women actually thought mesmerism could accomplish for the human psyche. Winter looks at an astonishing number of mesmeric applications, including anesthesia, clairvoyance, medical diagnosis and cure, magnetic therapy, and altered states of consciousness. In so doing, she uncovers a much long-neglected history of the development of scientific authority in modern society. $30.00. ISBN 0-226-90219-6.

Native Americans: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Peoples,by Barry M. Pritzker (868 pages, 2 vols., October 1998), brings together historical and contemporary information about North American Indian groups. Pritzker, who has written about the photography of Ansel Adams, Matthew Brady, and Edward Curtis, sprinkles historical photographs throughout these volumes, which are arranged by region and subdivided by tribe. This is a good place to start looking for information on particular groups, although the bibliography is sparse. $150.00. ABC-Clio. ISBN 0-87436-836-7.

Anyone interested in the question of Indian population figures in 1492 will enjoy Numbers from Nowhere‚ by David Henige (532 pages, May 1998), which challenges the high estimates of recent historians. $47.95. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-80613044-X.

Saucer Movies: A UFOIogical History of the Cinema,by Paul Meehan (373 pages, November 1998), is a clever analysis of how UFO sightings and speculation were ultimately responsible for the genre of alien-contact films, which “deal with the philosophical implications of the first encounter between human beings and alien cultures.” Though not a ufologist, Meehan has done some first-rate research in exploring the intertwinings of fly-ing-saucer history and film conventions. A bare-bones filmography of about 270 features appears as an appendix, but the heart of the book is its excellent chronological overview of 100 years of contact films from Meliès’s short The Astronomer’s Dream (1898) to Starship Troopers (1997). $55.00. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-3573-8.

The Sax and Brass Book: Saxophones, Trumpets and Trombones in Jazz, Rock and Pop,by Brian Priestley, et al. (120 pages,October 1998), traces the history of brass instruments and saxophones in popular music from 1920s jazz to contemporary revivalists. Peppered throughout with images of musicians, albums, classic saxophone models, and advertisements, this book makes a strong argument for sax and brass sounds as an essential component of modem American music. A comprehensive directory of instrument makers and their models will appeal to aficionados. $24.95. Miller Freeman Books. ISBN 0-87939-531-2. ■