ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ M ay 2002 / 375 N e w P u b l i c a t i o n s G eorge M. Eberhart Ahead o f Their Time: A Biographical Dic­ tio n ary o f Risk-taking W om en, by Joyce Duncan (312 pages, March 2002), offers mini­ bios of 75 famous w om en mountaineers, avia­ tors, travelers, naturalists, explorers, and astro­ nauts. The wom en w ho are profiled, according to Duncan, “displayed the shared characteris­ tics of going beyond w hat was expected, ei­ ther by their era or their gender or both.” Each entry offers suggestions for further reading. $55.00. Greenwood. ISBN 0-313-31660-0. Becoming M o n a Lisa: The M akin g o f a Global Icon, by Donald Sassoon (337 pages, Novem ber 2001), consists of the author’s e n ­ tertaining quest to discover w hy Leonardo’s painting is the best-know n artistic portrait in the world. Poised to celebrate its 500th birth­ day in 2003, M ona Lisa’s appeal has achieved a pop status far exceeding its deserved rep u ­ tation as a Renaissance masterpiece. Sassoon discusses the mysteries of the painting: w hen da Vinci com pleted it, the identity of the sit­ ter, how it came to France, and the m eaning of her smile. He also describes its 1911 theft by Vincenzo Peruggia, a 30-year-old Italian decorator w ho w orked at the Louvre; its dam ­ age in 1956 by the stone-throw ing Bolivian H ugo Unzaga Villegas; and exam ples of the m any send-ups, satires, songs, postcards, ads, comics, and W eb sites devoted to La Joconde. $30.00. Harcourt. ISBN 0-15-100828-0. British Archives: A Guide to Archive Re­ sources in th e United Kingdom, edited by Janet Foster and Julia Sheppard (815 pages, 4th ed., March 2002), has b e e n fully u pdated since the third edition of 1995 with e-mail and W eb site addresses for each of the 1,231 entries, w hich also provide information on access, o p e n hours, major collections, and finding aids for each organizational reposi­ tory. Business archives are included in this edition for the first time. The m ain index of­ fers access to collections, personal names, and parent organizations, while a subject guide G eorge M. E b e rh a rt is sen io r e d ito r o f A m e ric a n Libraries; e-mail: geberhart@ ala.org indicates subject strengths. $170.00. Palgrave. ISBN 0-333-73536-6. Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, edited by Derek Jones (4 vols., 2,891 pages, Decem ­ ber 2001), contains 1,550 entries by more than 600 contributors w orldw ide w h o discuss ev­ ery aspect of the suppression of free expres­ sion in politics, religion, education, art, m e­ dia, language, and law. International in scope, few countries and periods of history are left out of this wide-ranging and scholarly analy­ sis of censorship issues. Libraries in Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and South Africa receive special treatment, but m any less familiar topics are also covered, for example: the two occasions in Islamic history w hen observatories w ere destroyed for religious reasons; the 17th-century English pam phle­ teer William Prynne, w ho had his ears cut off and his cheeks branded with the letters “SL” for “seditious libeller”; the story of banned Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, w ho w orked briefly at the National Library in Havana; offi­ cial c e n so rsh ip in T rinidad a n d T obago, Gambia, Nepal, and ancient Rome; the ru­ m or-saturated history of snuff movies; and Jishukusei, the Japanese form of self-censor­ ship practiced since 1945. Zim babw ean au­ thor Doris Lessing has written the foreword, “Censorship and the Climate of O pinion,” in w hich she takes both tyranny and political correctness to task.- $395.00. Fitzroy Dearborn. ISBN 1-57958-135-8. The Fine A rt o f Copyediting, by Elsie Myers Stainton (153 pages, 2nd ed., March 2002), updates the 1991 edition with a new chapter on changes in style, spelling, and usage, as well as revised and e xpanded sections on citations, indexing, bias-free writing, editing procedures, and com puter technology. D e­ signed for both editors and authors, this guide outlines the steps in m anuscript preparation and identifies som e of the pitfalls in editor/ author relationships that can m ar the process. A helpful handbook for novices and a good refresher course for old hands. $17.50. Co­ lumbia University. ISBN 0-231-12479-1. mailto:geberhart@ala.org 376 / C&RL News ■ M ay 2002 Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! by George G. Rable (671 pages, March 2002), recounts in detail the Union military disaster in December 1862 at Fredericksburg, Virginia, when the Army of the Potomac under the poorly organized Ambrose Burnside sustained staggering losses in futile attacks against James Longstreet’s Con­ federates on the unassailable Marye’s Heights south of town. The battle set the stage for both Lee’s optimistic invasion of Pennsylvania and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Rable’s comprehensive treatment of the courage and carnage of the campaign helps the reader un­ derstand w hy federal troops at Gettysburg shouted “Give them Fredericksburg” when they saw Longstreet’s m en advancing from Semi­ nary Ridge. $45.00. University of North Caro­ lina. ISBN 0-8078-2673-1. From Angels to Hellcats: Legendary Texas Women, 1836 to 1880, by Don Blevins (149 pages, O ctober 2001), is a light biography of seven w om en of the Texas frontier w ho are often skipped over in m ore general texts. Blevins reminds us of Susanna Dickinson, the only adult Anglo to survive the Alamo battle; the “yellow rose of Texas,” mulatto Emily Mor­ gan, w ho was taken as a mistress by Mexican President Santa Anna but served as a spy for the Texians; Fort Griffin professional gam ­ b le r Lottie D eno; H o u s to n h o te l o w n e r Pamelia Mann; horse trader and “cham pion cusser” Sally Scull; Sarah Hornsby, whose pre­ m onitory dream in 1833 saved settler Josiah W ilbarger after he h ad b e e n sc alp e d by Com anches; and D iam ond Bessie Moore, whose unsolved murder near Jefferson in 1877 prom pted one of the most famous trials in Texas history. $12.00. M ountain Press. ISBN 0-87842-443-1. Goin' Back to Sweet Memphis: Conversa­ tions w ith th e Blues, edited by Fred J. Hay (271 pages, November 2001), offers transcrip­ tions of Hay’s interviews in the 1970s with Memphis blues musicians prom inent in the first half of the 20th century: Furry Lewis, Bukka White, Big Amos Patton, Lillie Mae Glover, Laura Dukes, and others. Beale Street in Memphis was the entertainm ent center for the black mid-South, and its music and cul­ ture are represented here in the artists’ ow n words. $34.95. University of Georgia. ISBN 0- 8203-2301-2. A H is to ry o f Russian M usic: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar, by Francis Maes (427 pages, N ovem ber 2001), reassesses the su pposed nationalist and orientalist elem ents in music by Russian com posers from Glinka to Shostakovich— a concept b ased on the ideas of music historian Vladimir Stasov, w ho is now seen as m ore propagandist than o b ­ jective observer. As m uch an analysis of sociopolitical influences as it is an exam ina­ tion of Russian musical trends, Maes’s w ork offers a new appreciation for the com plex interaction of traditional and modernist styles that characterize Russian com position in the late 19th and 20th centuries. $45.00. Univer­ sity of California. ISBN 0-520-21815-9- Not Seeing Red: American Librarianship and th e Soviet Union, 191 7-1960, by Stephen Karetzky (504 pages, February 2002), is an unabashedly partisan look at the writ­ ings of leaders of the library profession in the United States and their perspectives on Soviet librarianship, internationalism, intellec­ tual freedom , and McCarthyism. Karetzky, director of the Felician College library in Lodi, New Jersey, makes the case that—like m any other American authors, academics, and e d u ­ cators of the era— librarians w ere blind to the repressive totalitarianism of the Soviet state, failed to understand the responsibility of the Soviet Union for the perpetuation of the Cold War, and countered anti-Communist w arn­ ings about the pervasive evil of Marxism by waving the b anner of intellectual freedom without ensuring that conservative viewpoints found their way to library shelves. The au­ thor m akes m any valid points in this well- footnoted volume, and m any m ore that are, at best, controversial. Some seem purely in­ flammatory, such as his characterization of ALA’s 1953 adoption of the Freedom to Read Statement as the result of “librarians’ endur­ ing and rueful yearning for greater prestige and professional status” that was “im pelled largely by self-induced feelings of low self­ esteem .” Definitely w orth a look, as the pro­ fession comes to grips with current challenges a n d criticisms. $92.00. University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-2162-7. Perilous Trails, Dangerous M en, by Will­ iam B. Secrest (255 pages, O ctober 2001), looks at the careers of 28 bandits w ho robbed C&RL News ■ M ay 2002 / 377 stagecoaches in California from 1856 to 1900. Richly illustrated with mug shots o f the crimi­ nals and the law m en w ho n abbed them, this w ell-researched rogue’s gallery provides a glimpse of the reality behind the W estern myth. Included is the fa­ m ous C harles “Black B a r t” B o w le s , w h o r o b b e d 28 sta g e s in eight years and posed as a gentleman miner in San Francisco betw een holdups; Bill Miner, the legendary train-robbing “Grey Fox,” w ho spent m uch of his life in vari­ ous prisons; Jo h n and C harley R uggles, w h o w e re ly n c h e d in Redding in 1892 after a botched and bloody robbery; and the Tom Bell gang, w ho engi­ neered the first stagecoach holdup in Califor­ nia in 1856. Secrest intersperses all this his­ tory with interesting sidebars on the parts of an 1840s Concord coach, famous stage driv­ ers, how to drive a stagecoach, the types of guns used in robberies, and the books and songs of the era. $15.95- W ord Dancer Press, 8386 N. Madsen, Clovis, CA 93611. ISBN 1- 884995-24-1. Resting Places, by Scott Wilson (432 pages, November 2001), identifies the grave site or other final disposal of the remains of 7,182 fa­ mous persons, primarily Americans and Euro­ peans. The exact cemetery plot or area where the ashes were scattered is given if known, along with gravestone inscriptions, monument details, and other circumstances of burial. Wil­ son takes three full pages to list all of his ac­ knowledgments, but he singles out reference librarians for special praise because they “have taken up the search through old newspaper microfilm or county cemetery records, with an increasing interest of their ow n in where the subject of each particular search was or was not interred.” An index of place names identi­ fies the fam ous in each locality. $85.00. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1014-0. A related title is Suicide in the Entertain­ m ent Industry, by David K. Frasier (428 pages, February 2002), which offers the details of 840 suicides by p e o p le in show business (vaudeville, film, theater, dance, and music) from 1905 to 2000. A macabre yet fascinating catalog, this book makes one w onder whether self-inflicted death is an occupational hazard in the entertainm ent industry. Both famous (Kurt Cobain, Brian Keith, Inger Stevens, and Gig Young) and m inor figures (Rusty Hamer, w ho played Danny Thom as’s son in the TV sitcom M ake Room f o r Daddy; Chief Long Lance, an actor-writer w h o claimed to be a Blackfoot Indian but w ho 50 years after his death was revealed as an African-American from North Carolina; and Clara Blandick, w ho played Auntie Em in The W izard o f O f) are profiled. A few questionable suicides are listed, including Marilyn M onroe, George Reeves, and Alan Ladd. $65.00. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1038-8. Skulls a n d Skeletons: H u m a n Bone Col­ lections a n d A ccum ulations, by Christine Quigley (263 pages, October 2001), completes this trio of postm ortem publications. Quigley describes catacombs, ossuaries, mass graves, prehistoric excavations, private collections, and institutions that have preserved hum an skeletal remains, and looks at why these col­ lections are important scientifically and his­ torically. $39-95. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864- 1068-X. ■ ( “Invitation to . . contin u ed fr o m p a g e 342) campus efforts to retain students and to in­ crease their success. For academic libraries, the concept has trem endous potential to “en­ sure the library’s relevance to [our institutions’] educational and research program s,” as ACRL President Mary Reichel declared w hen she announced her presidential them e.2 Indeed, the idea of learning communities gives form, structure, and language to our desire for continuous learning, for creative connectivity, and for diversity on our cam­ puses, in our libraries, and in our professional associations. Sounds like an idea worth show­ ing up for. Notes 1. Joan K. Lippincott, “Developing collabo­ rative relationships,” College & Research Li­ braries News (3, 3 (2002): 191. 2. Mary Reichel, “ACRL: The learning com ­ munity for excellence in academ ic libraries,” College & Research Libraries News 62, 8 (2001): 820. ■