ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 826 / C&RL News ■ O ctober 2000 N e w P u b l i c a t i o n s George M. Eberhart The ABCs of XML: The Librarian's Guide to th e eXtensible Markup Language, by Norman Desmarais (206 pages, March 2000), is the reference to turn to when you finally have to figure out what all the meta-fuss is about XML. Beware: There are phrases in here lik e “e x te rn a l en tity m a n a g e m e n t” and initialisms aplenty, but Desmarais attempts to make it relevant. A prior familiarity with HTML and some acquaintance with the MARC for- mat will help you get through it. A bibliogra- phy, glossary, and appendices that show a book about Confucius in SGML format, XML format, USMARC converted from XML, and XML format for bibliographic data will e n h a n c e u n derstand ing. $28.00. New Technology P ress, P.O. B o x 8 4 2 4 1 1 , Houston, TX 77284-2411. ISBN 0-9675942-0-0. Academic Freedom: A Guide to the Literature, om piled by Stephen H. Aby and Jam es C. Kuhn IV (225 pages, March 2000), is an annotated listing o f 481 b o o k s , jo u rn a l a rtic le s , documents, and Web sites on academ ic freedom in post-secondary education published since 1940. Special sections on religious education, political correctness, the issue o f tenure, and academic freedom in other countries are in- cluded. $75.00. Greenw ood. ISBN 0-313- 30386-X. Arabia Felix from the Time of the Queen of Sheba, by Jean-Frangois Breton (216 pages, May 2000), summarizes what little is known about the history, com m erce, and customs o f the people o f Saba, a kingdom in the highlands o f South Arabia that thrived for seven centuries before its decline in the sec- ond Century A.D. Saba was the source for G eorge M. E b e rh a rt is se n io r e d ito r o f A m e rica n Libraries; e-m ail: geberhart@ ala.org many o f the fragrances o f the ancient West, esp ecia lly fran k in cen se and myrrh. T he Sabaeans were skilled in hydraulics, construc- tion, funerary architecture, and commerce, and possessed the oldest form o f written lan­ guage in the region. Unfortunately, they are best known for the Queen o f Sheba who, it turns out, either had nothing to do with Saba or e lse was completely mythical. $24.00. Uni­ versity o f Notre Dame. ISBN 0-268-02002-7. Cattus Petasatus: The Cat in the Hat in Latin, translated by Jennifer Morris Tunberg and Terence O. Tunberg (75 pages, O ctober 2000), fea- tures the original artwork ac- companied by rhyming Latin verse set to an octosyllabic, trochaic rhythm that echoes that used by Dr. Suess. Latin students and scholars will have fun tackling this dur- ing a break from Horace and O vid or on a rainy day: “Im ber totum diem fluit / Urceatim sem per pluit.” A note on the verse form and a Latin vocabulary accom- p a n y th e te x t. $ 2 2 .5 0 . Bolchazy-Carducci Publish ers, 1000 Brow n St., Unit 101, Wauconda, IL 60084. ISBN 0-86516-471- 1. The Dime Novel Companion: A Source Book, by J. Randolph Cox (333 pages, Jun e 2 000), con tain s m ore than 1,200 descrip- tive entries on titles, publishers, charac- ters, authors, and g en res o f the p opu la r ad ven tu re n o v e le tte s that a p p e a le d to young U.S. readers from 1860 to 1915. As C ox writes in the introduction, “T he h e- roes are o ften patriotic, rugged individu- als, and represent Contemporary p opu lar c o n cep ts o f the n a tio n ,” and they had col- orful nam es like D eadw ood D ick and Bar- ranca Bill. Libraries with dim e-novel c o l­ le c tio n s w ill fin d th is a u s e fu l g u id e. $79.50. G reen w ood. ISBN 0 -313-25674-8. mailto:geberhart@ala.org C&RL News ■ O cto b er 2000 / 827 Fossil Snakes of North America: Origin, Evolution, Distribution, Paleoecology, by J. Alan Holman (357 pages, Ju n e 2000), is the first com prehensive description o f all known fossil snake taxa in North America with illustrations o f the vertebrae that allow precise identification. A descriptive list o f all known North American sites where snake fossils have been found is also valuable. Holman gives an overview o f snake evolu- tion and describes how various species re- sponded to glacial advances and retreats in the Pleistocene. For those who are wonder- ing, the oldest known snake on the conti- n e n t is a la te C r e ta c e o u s p ip e s n a k e ( Coniophis) found in Wyoming and New Mexico. $69-95. Indiana University. ISBN 0- 253-33721-6. Humor in Twentieth-Century British Lit- erature: A Reference Guide, by Don L. F. Nilsen (561 pages, April 2000), is a survey of British literary humor from Sir Arthur Wing Pinero to Douglas Adams. The ten chapters are arranged by the birth decade o f the au- thors, with an analysis o f the com edic, satiri- cal, ironic, and witty writings o f each, to which is appended a representative bibliography of criticism. Some Irish, Scottish, and Welsh au- thors are included, among them Jam es Barrie, Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett, Dylan T ho­ mas, and Joyce Cary, though the author’s 1996 Humor in Irish Literature: A Reference Guide is cross-referenced. Comedy is not entirely restricted to prose: Where appropriate, po- etry, drama, and film works are critiqued. $85.00. Greenwood. 0-313-29424-0. Library Service to Youth of Hispanic Heri- ta g e , ed ite d by B a rb a ra Im m roth and Kathleen de la Pena McCook (197 pages, August 2000), contains essays prepared for the fourth national conference o f the Trejo Foster Foundation for Hispanic Library Edu- cation, held in March 1999 at the University o f South Florida. The papers include “The Support Role o f Community College Library/ Learning Resources Programs in Academic Success,” by Derrie Perez; “Collection D e­ velopment across the Borders,” by Haydee C. Hodis; and “Subject Access to Fiction: A Case Study Based on the Works o f Pat Mora,” by Elaine Yontz. $42.50. McFarland. ISBN 0- 7864-0790-5. A related title is Library Services to Latinos: An Anthology, edited by Salvador Güerena (249 pages, September 2000), which focuses on Spanish-language collections and services. $35.00. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0911-8. The Men of Secession and Civil War, 1859-1861, by Jam es L. Abrahamson (186 pag es, April 2 0 0 0 ), exam in es the words and m otivations o f the radical “fire-eaters” w ho to o k the South out o f the U nion and the abolitionists and m od erates w ho tried to deal with the s ec e ss io n crisis. T he Civil War cam e about b e ca u se o f a refusal to com p rom ise and a failure to exam in e the c o n se q u e n ce s o f radical action. A grasp o f the events o f th ese three crucial years— the p ersisten ce o f section alism , the col- lap se o f the D em ocratic Party, the failure o f Southern un ion ism and com p rom ise, and the long stalem ate at Fort Sum ter— help s us understand the underlying forces that tore Am erica apart through four long y e a r s o f w ar. $ 5 5 .0 0 . SR B o o k s , 104 G re en h ill Ave., W ilm in gton, DE 1 9805- 1897. ISBN 0-84 2 0 -2 8 1 9 -6 . Missing Reels: Lost Films of American and European Cinema, by Harry Waldman (313 pages, September 2000), presents short de- scriptions o f nearly 1,000 American and Eu­ ropean fiims made betw een 1900 and 1950 and subsequently lost through neglect, de- struction, or deterioration. A significant por- tion o f film history has been permanently lost. 80% o f Western-made movies produced be- fore World War I have b een lost, while 15% o f those made betw een 1930 and 1950 are also gone. Stills from som e o f the films have b een preserved, and Waldman uses a few to enhance his summaries. Lost foreign-language films from Denmark, France, Hungary, Por­ tugal, and other European countries are given equal space with British and American films. $55.00. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0724-7. The Possession at Loudoun, by Michel de Certeau (251 pages, August 2 0 0 0 ), is the first translation into English o f the late Jesu it historian’s 1970 study o f the dem onic p ossession o f the nuns at the Ursuline con- vent in Loudun, France, that led to Urbain G rand ier’s burning at the stäke in 1634 for sorcery . Certeau look s at the event from 828 / CSRL News ■ October 2000 many p ersp ectiv es— relig iou s, p o litical, and p sy ch o log ical— and refers to court proceedings, medical reports, and mem- oirs to reconstruct its p ro b ab le causes. $40.00. University o f Chicago. ISBN 0-226- 10034-0. Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The American Medicine Show, by Ann Anderson (190 pages, September 2000), looks at the medicine show from its origins in the Middle Ages through its blossoming in the 19th cen- tury. Though largely forgotten now, this form o f popular the- ater had a lasting influence not only on vaudeville but on American commercial market- ing te c h n iq u e s . A n d erson traces its history through the peddlers o f colonial times, cir- cuses, Wild West shows, min- strelsy, traveling quacks, and its last expression in Louisiana, Dudley J. LeBlanc’s Hadacol Caravans from 1949 to 1951. Well-illustrated and docu- meflted, as well as entertaining. $38.00. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0800-6. Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam, by Ken- neth Conboy and Dale Andrade (347 pages, March 2000), teils the story o f the U.S. covert plan to insert South Vietnamese commandos into North Vietnam for the purpose o f creat- ing dissent, Subversion, and Sabotage. The operation was a complete failure, as first the CIA then the Defense Department slowly came to realize that blind missions into closed communist societies did not work. Between 1961 and 1967, 54 teams totaling nearly 500 men went north, only to be captured or killed almost immediately on arrival. However, this operation, along with later short-term covert insertions, allowed Washington to think that somehow it could produce a resistance move­ ment that would slow down Hanoi’s assault on the south. The authors have interviewed some o f the agents who went on these mis­ sions, many o f whom endured years of im- prisonment and torture in Vietnam and years of neglect by the U.S. government. $34.95. Uni­ versity Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1002-2. Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Exam- ining the Scientific Evidence, edited by Etzel Cardena, Steven Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner (474 pages, January 2000), offers a rare overview o f research and theories on anomalous experiences written by and for clinicians, teachers, and researchers in psy- chology. The title pays homage to The Vari­ eties o f Religious Experience (1902) by William Jam es, who pointed out that psychology cannot c laim to be compre- hensive if it does not under- s tand and treat experiences that are distinct from those considered normal. The expe- riences described here, what- ever the cause, are definitely paranorm al: hallucinations, synesthesia, lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, te- lepathy and clairvoyance, alien abduction experiences, past- life memories, near-death ex­ periences, anomalous healing, and mystical visions. Each chapter is written by recognized authorities in these areas and examines the empirical support for various models to explain the experiences. $39.95. American Psychological Association. ISBN 1- 55798-625-8. The Variety of Life, by Colin Tudge (684 pages, May 2000), provides an illustrated survey o f all major groups o f living creatures, alive or extinct, from algae and bacteria to Homo sapiens. Tudge says he under took this task as a tribute to taxonomy, which he claims has becom e marginalized in the past few decades as dull, esoteric, and irrelevant. Not so, as he explains in the first few chapters with a brilliant overview o f classification from Aristotle and Linnaeus to modern cladistics and molecular techniques for judging phy- logeny. Taxonomy is, in short, an attempt “to reconstruct the evolutionary history of all the creatures on Earth, over a period o f nearly 4 billion years, with extremely limited data, and with a huge number o f obvious and not- so-obvious pitfalls along the w ay.” In any c a s e , p la n t and an im al g ro u p in g s are looked at much differently now, and if your last biology d a ss was 1975 or earlier, you may wish to use this as a refresher. An C&RL News ■ O cto b er 2000 / 829 index o f organism s and many drawings by several illustrators m ake this volum e easy to use. $45-00. O xford University Press. ISBN 0 -1 9 -8 5 0 3 1 1 -3 . Finding Order in Nature: The N atural­ ist Tradition fr o m Linnaeus to E. O. Wil­ son, by Paul Law rence Fa rber (1 6 0 pages, July 2 0 0 0 ), lo o k s at th e s cie n tists w ho sought to m ake sen se o f variations in the natural world and to understand the p lace o f our ow n s p ecies within it. $39.95. Jo h n s Hopkins University. ISBN 0 -8 0 1 8 -6 3 8 9 -9 . Women and Warriors of the Plains: The Pioneer Photography of Julia E. Tuell, by Dan Aadlund (182 pages, Ju n e 2000), reviews Tuell’s work in chronicling the sunset o f the Plains Indian culture from 1906 to 1929. She and her schoolmaster husband lived on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana and the Rosebud Reservation in South Da­ kota. She was allowed to photograph a Sioux sun dance and the last animal dance per- formed by the Northern Cheyenne in August 1911, preserving portraits o f the oldest holy men and wom en who performed the cer- emonies in their most ancient form. Her pho- tographs also show rare exam ples o f every- day life on the Plains, from children swim- ming in a creek to wom en scrapiiag hides or preparing dog stew. $18.00. Mountain Press. ISBN 0-87842-417-2. Written on the Body: The Tattoo in Eu­ ropean and American History, edited by Ja n e Caplan (319 pages, August 2000), ex- am ines the history and rep resen tation o f tattoos in W estern culture from antiquity to the current “tattoo ren aissan ce.” Though E u ropean s red iscovered tattooin g in the 18 th C entury w h e n th e y e n c o u n te r e d Polynesians in the South P acific, the con - tributors to this volum e show that it was an ancient practice: T he Neolithic “Icem an ” foun d in the A lpine Ötz Valley in 1991 sported tattoos m ade 5 ,0 0 0 years ago, and the G reek s, Rom ans, and Celts branded prisoners and slaves with tattoos. O ther topics include religious tattoos, the Renais­ s a n c e tattoo, tattoos in V ictorian Britain, branding and tattooing in Russian prisons, tattooed entertainers, and modern tattooing as a self-actualizing process. $65.00. Princeton University. ISBN 0-691-05722-2. ■ 830 / C&RL News ■ October 2000