july06c.indd


George M. Eberhart N e w  P u b l i c a t i o n s  

African American Men in College, ed­
ited by Michael J. Cuyjet (357 pages, March 
2006), discusses the issues surrounding 
the recruitment, retention, and graduation 
of African­American men in American uni­
versities. Contributors examine the factors 
that promote a climate of academic success 
for black males, extracurricular activities, 
mentoring, specific challenges for gay men, 
historically black institutions, and profi les 
of recent support programs at such schools 
as Bowling Green State University, Rutgers, 
and Central State University. $38.99. Jossey­
Bass. ISBN 0­7879­6460­3. 

Film and Television: A Guide to the 
Reference Literature, by Mark Emmons 
(366 pages, March 2006), is an annotated 
bibliography of English­language reference 
books and Web sites about movies and 
television shows. Emmons provides 1,244  
descriptions of titles divided into chapters 
on indexes and bibliographies, dictionaries 
and encyclopedias, fi lmographies, national 
cinema, genres, formats, studios, portrayals, 
filmmakers, screenplays, production, the 
industry, and fans. Given the vast number 
of published items in this area, Emmons’s 
comments will help in making wise acqui­
sition choices. Appendices provide relevant 
LC and Dewey classification lists by subject 
and by call number. $40.00. Libraries Un­
limited. ISBN 1­56308­414­9. 

The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans 
in the Age of Revolution, by Gary B. Nash  
(235 pages, February 2006), looks at the 
potential avenues to freedom for blacks, 
one­fifth of the U.S. population at the time, 
during the American Revolution and early 
republic. Nash presents a cogent argument 
that the political climate of the 1780s and 
1790s might well have led to the abolition 

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

of slavery, but the election of Thomas Jef­
ferson in 1800 and the subsequent ascen­
dancy of states’ rights over federalism led 
to more narrowly defined concepts of citi­
zenship. $19.95. Harvard University. ISBN 
0­674­02193­2. 

Forts of the United States: An Historical 
Dictionary, 16th through 19th Centu-
ries, by Bud Hannings (738 pages, March 
2006), describes every known U.S. fort, 
camp, blockhouse, presidio, trading post, 
battery, and barracks established from co­
lonial times to 1900. Information on many 
of these often temporary fortifi cations 
can be difficult to find, and Hannings has 
done a superb job in identifying locations 
and describing each site’s signifi cance. 
One drawback is that—unlike Robert W. 
Frazer in Forts of the West (University of 
Oklahoma, 1972) —Hennings only gives 
the year of establishment or abandonment 
of a facility, rather than month and day. 
However, he makes up for it by provid­
ing appendices on D.C. Civil War defenses, 
Seminole Indian War forts, Pony Express 
depots, Spanish missions, a chronology of 
conflicts, and a state­by­state list of 20th­
century military bases (including their ac­
tivation status), as well as a four­column,  
65­page index. $125.00. McFarland. ISBN 
0­7864­1796­X. 

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, 
New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf 
Coast, by Douglas Brinkley (718 pages, 
May 2006), describes 
in riveting detail eight 
days in 2005—from 
August 27 when Hur­
ricane Katrina reached 
Category 3 intensity 
to September 3 when 
the U.S. 82nd Airborne 
took control of New 
Orleans and evacu­

C&RL News July/August 2006  438 

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


ation buses finally arrived at the Conven­
tion Center. Brinkley, a history professor at 
Tulane University, captures the confusion, 
the terror, the heroism, the rage, and the 
drama of that week of wind, rain, and fl ood, 
not only within the Crescent City but along 
the harder­hit Mississippi coast in Bay St. 
Louis, Waveland, and Biloxi. The author, 
who pulls no punches in ascribing blame 
for government mismanagement at all lev­
els and praise for individual acts of foresight 
and bravery, spent six months interviewing 
refugees, survivors, and officials about the 
disaster and documenting the details from 
numerous news sources. A detailed timeline 
in an appendix helps anchor the narrative, 
but the book is sorely in need of a New 
Orleans map. $29.95. William Morrow. ISBN 
0­06­112423­0. 

Hell in the Holy Land: World War I in the 
Middle East, by David R. Woodward (253  
pages, March 2006), provides a rare look 
at the experiences of British foot­soldiers 
in campaigns against the Turkish army in 
Egypt and Palestine in 1916–1918. Although 
spared the horrors of stalemated trench 
warfare in France, the men of the Egyptian 
Expeditionary Force were not swashbuck­
ling, romantic heroes in the T. E. Lawrence 
mold; they faced a harsh and unexpected 
environment, acute shortages of food and 
water, and a resilient foe. Woodward dips 
into many archival sources to let the soldiers 
speak for themselves. $29.95. University 
Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0­8131­2383­6. 

Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to 
Hoaxes and Other B.S., by Alex Boese  
(278 pages, April 2006), serves as a criti­
cal­thinking primer for postmodern me­
dia. Thankfully eschewing commentary on 
UFOs and other anomalies, Boese focuses 
on much more prevalent manifestations  
of unreality as “hoaxes, urban legends, 
spoofs, scams, advertising ploys, politi­
cal doublespeak, and other forms of b.s. 
that lurk in the modern world.” Scattered 
throughout this volume are such reality 

rules as “Anyone can create a website, in­
cluding liars, practical jokers, and people 
who want to sell you a t­shirt” and “Un­
solicited email is not a reliable source of 
information—about anything”; and handy 
definitions like “Greenscamming: Decep­
tively using environmentally friendly rheto­
ric for non­ or antienvironmental purposes” 
and “Media contamination: The skewed 
perception of reality that results from over­
whelming media coverage of an event.” A 
fount of disinformation about cat­droppings 
coffee, the Nigerian bank scam, the NCSU 
fellatio–breast cancer study, the Cocktail 
Party Chatter Index, political photo fakes, 
mushroom licenses, and fake Amazon book 
reviews (for some of these, see the Ama­
zon reviews of this title alone). $14.00. Har­
court. ISBN 0­15­603083­7. 

Information Literacy Assessment: Stan-
dards-Based Tools and Assignments, by 
Teresa Y. Neely (216 pages, April 2006), 
provides an excellent basis for informa­
tion literacy testing based on the ACRL 
standards. Neely and several contributors 
offer background on information literacy, 
supply references on information­skills as­
sessment, and give examples of questions 
from existing testing instruments. One 
chapter discusses assessment areas that are 
not covered by the standards. $40.00 (ALA 
members $36.00). ALA Editions. ISBN 0­
8389­0914­0. 

The Oxford Companion to Ships and 
the Sea, edited by I. C. B. Dear and Peter  
Kemp (677 pages, 2nd ed., December 2005), 
is a handy reference of nautical terms and 
topics that can guide a reader through the 
more jargon­filled portions of Melville and  
Conrad as well as elucidate the mysteries 
of naval propulsion and navigation. Sig­
nificantly updated since the 1976 edition, 
this handbook has widened its coverage of 
environmental issues and recent technical 
developments. Filled with useful diagrams, 
charts, and maps. $65.00. Oxford University. 
ISBN 0­19­860616­1. 

July/August 2006  439 C&RL News