New Publications
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: Artist in the Age of Revolution, by Laura Auricchio (130 pages, June 2009), reviews and interprets the portraiture of French artist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (1749–1803) who, unlike her rival and fellow member of the Royal Academy of Sculpture and Painting, Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, remained in Paris after the Revolution broke out and adjusted her painting style to a more republican and reformist mode. Unfortunately, during the Terror some of her most ambitious paintings of the royal family were destroyed. $29.95. Getty Publications. 978-0-89236-954-6.
Famous Players, by Rick Geary (76 pages, July 2009), the latest nonfiction graphic novel in Geary’s series on 20th-century murders, examines the unsolved 1922 murder of Hollywood actor and director William Desmond Taylor. Geary looks at early Hollywood history, the suspects, and Taylor’s own mysterious past. $15.95. Nantier Beall Minoustchine. 978-1-56163-555-9.
A Field Guide to the Information Commons, edited by Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert (197 pages, February 2009), brings together five essays on the origin, design, architecture, and technology of the academic information commons. Some 110 pages describe 29 university services involving reconceptualized information services, covering its purpose, resources, staff, budget, software, publicity, and how it is evaluated. $65.00. Scarecrow. 978-0-8108-6100-8.
The Great American Steamboat Race, by Benton Rain Patterson (208 pages, May 2009), tells the story of the race of the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee up the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Louis on June 30–July 4, 1870. The Lee finished first, setting a steamboat record that has not been matched. Patterson provides details of the race, along with a handy history of 19th-century steam travel and the excitement and perils encountered by riverboat workers, passengers, and navigators along the Mississippi. $35.00. McFarland. 978-0-7864-4292.8.
Gringolandia: When History Calls Your Name, How Will You Answer?, by Lyn Miller-Lachmann (279 pages, May 2009), vividly portrays the torment felt by a dissident journalist in Pinochet’s Chile who, partially paralyzed, comes to America—which he disparagingly calls Gringolandia—upon his release from prison to live with his wife and son, who had already emigrated to Madison, Wisconsin. In this novel, Miller-Lachmann captures the awkwardness that his Americanized family goes through in dealing with the traumatized survivor of a nearly alien world. $16.95. Curbstone. 978-1-931896-49-8.
Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet, by James P. Delgado (225 pages, April 2009), sums up what is known about the legendary armada of the 13th-century Mongol emperor who made two disastrous attempts to invade Japan in 1274 and 1281. Delgado expands the narrative to show that the Khan’s maritime endeavors are part of a long history of China’s seafaring industry, from the time of the Warring States to its relationship with Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries. He also examines Japanese marine archaeologist Kenzo Hayashida’s investigation of one of the sunken Mongol ships off Takashima Island in Imari Bay. $29.95. University of California. 978-0-520-25976-8.
The Library: An Illustrated History, by Stuart A. P. Murray (310 pages, July 2009), offers a well-balanced and colorful overview of library collections from the royal library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal to LC’s World Digital Library. Murray ranges widely to cover early Islamic libraries, as well as the scholarly collections of Timbuktu and the Mughal and Ottoman Empires; European libraries in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; libraries in colonial North America; Melvil Dewey’s energetic Library Movement and Andrew Carnegie’s funding that both contributed to the public library as we know it today; and summary descriptions of 50 world-class libraries in operation now. A useful background textbook for library students, advocates, and professionals alike. $35.00. ALA Editions/Skyhorse. 978-0-8389-0991-1.
Newfoundland and Labrador: A History, by Sean T. Cadigan (363 pages, March 2009), covers the history of Canada’s easternmost province, from its peopling by the Maritime Archaic culture and discovery by the Vikings to its battle with Ottawa over offshore oil revenues. Few Americans realize that the island of Newfoundland and coast of Labrador were two parts of a self-governing dominion until 1949 when it joined the Canadian Confederation as a province; this volume commemorates the 60th anniversary of that union and explores its unique history and environment with a particular emphasis on the nationalist tendencies of its residents. $29.95. University of Toronto. 978-0-8020-8247-3.
Postcards from Checkpoint Charlie: Images of the Berlin Wall, by Andrew Roberts (111 pages, May 2009), provides commentary on the evocative photos of a divided Berlin that appear on 51 postcards held in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. They range from the carefully choreographed image of Soviet soldiers hoisting a victory flag over the Reichstag in 1945 to fireworks over the Brandenburg Gate celebrating reunification in 1990. The cards show the wall going up, tributes to those who died trying to escape, the American gate at Checkpoint Charlie, and the heady days of 1989 when the wall began to come down. $20.00. Bodleian Library; distributed by University of Chicago Press. 978-1-85124-322-8.
Arcadia Books, a publisher widely known for its Postcard History Series, has issued Little Bighorn, by Vincent A. Heier (127 pages, July 2009), which features many Custer-related photographs and images known only from their appearance on postcards—especially those produced by Kenneth Roahen from the 1930s through the 1950s. Also of interest are pictures of the 50th reunion and visits of Indian survivors to the 1876 battlefield. $21.99. Arcadia. 978-0-7385-7007-5.
Arcadia and Alexander Street Press recently collaborated to create a database of some hundreds of thousands of images that have appeared in Arcadia’s local-history books over the years. Local and Regional History Online: A History of American Life in Images and Texts will eventually contain more than 1 million cross-searchable images, including photographs, postcards, maps, and other primary materials from every state and region in the United States and many Canadian locales. A preview can be sampled at lrho.alexanderstreet.com.
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