may12b.indd


C&RL News May 2012  292

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

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

concerns, and administrative styles. $32.95. His-
tory Press, distributed by Trafalgar Square. 978-
0-7524-6290-5.

Mr. and Mrs. Madison’s War: America’s First 
Couple and the Second War of Independence, 
by Hugh Howard (365 pages, January 2012), is 
a straightforward and vivid recap of the War of 
1812, a conflict we are somewhat hazily remem-
bering this bicentennial year. Howard narrows 
his focus on James Madison, the first president 
to call for a declaration of war, and his stron-
gest supporter and wife Dolley, who was re-
sponsible for saving the Gilbert Stuart portrait 
of George Washington from the soon-to-be-
burned White House. A more comprehensive 
treatment is likely in Troy Bickham’s forth-
coming The Weight of Vengeance: The United 
States, the British Empire, and the War of 1812, 
published by Oxford University Press. $30.00. 
Bloomsbury. 978-1-60819-071-3.

New in New Orleans Architecture, by John P. 
Klingman (192 pages, March 2012), presents 80 
architectural projects completed in New Orleans 
in the past 15 years that exemplify the best in 
contemporary architecture. Included are office 
buildings, museums and other institutions, uni-
versity and school buildings, and residences. 
One library is represented, the John P. Isché 
Library Commons in the downtown Louisiana 
State University medical complex. All too often 
when we think of New Orleans the Vieux Carré 
comes to mind; this sampler reminds us that the 
city is far from being stuck in the past. $26.00. 
Pelican. 978-1-4556-1537-1.

One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth 
and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, 
by Thomas R. Pegram (280 pages, September 
2011), reassesses the social role of the Klan in 
the first half of the 1920s when the organization 
had as many as 4 million members. To ordinary 
white Protestant Americans, both rural and ur-
ban, the Klan represented widely shared civic 
and moral values that were threatened by vast 

Encyclopedia of Demons in World Religions 
and Cultures, by Theresa Bane (409 pages, 
January 2012), identifies nearly 3,000 demons in 

the Judaeo-Christian, 
Buddhist, Hindu, Is-
lamic, Vodou, Meso-
potamian, and Zo-
roastrian pantheons 
with brief descrip-
tions and source 
notes for each. (My 
favorite is Ikwa-
okinyapippilele, the 
Kuna nocturnal de-
mon of headaches.) 

Bane, who has also written the Encyclopedia of 
Vampire Mythology (2010), avoids fictional de-
mons and questionable sources in this compila-
tion. A comprehensive index and bibliography 
follow the listings. Rupert Giles would definitely 
have had this book in his library at the Hell-
mouth. $75.00. McFarland. 978-0-7864-6360-2.

Eyes Only: The Top Secret Correspondence 
Between Eisenhower and Marshall, by An-
drew Rawson (288 pages, May 2012), brings 
together for the first time transcripts of the eyes 
only cables between Gen. George C. Marshall, 
Army chief of staff in Washington, D.C., and 
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme allied 
commander in Europe, from December 1943 
to October 1945. Rawson located a microfilmed 
copy of the records assembled by Eisenhower’s 
chief of staff, Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, in the 
George C. Marshall Research Library in Lex-
ington, Virginia. The cables are presented in 
roughly chronological order, though Rawson 
groups them into topical threads within each 
month (“Difficult Dealings with De Gaulle,” “Al-
locating Limited Air Resources,” “The Discovery 
of Nazi Treasure”) and provides abundant ex-
planatory footnotes. The correspondence sheds 
much light on how the generals interacted, their 



May 2012  293 C&RL News

a working library), its unorthodox arrange-
ment (by state or country of origin and not 
Dewey class), its anticanonical inclusion of 
a wide variety of popular fiction and poetry, 
and its aesthetic use of open space and floral 
arrangements that was unusual for the time. 
The authors analyze the collection’s signifi-
cance in the context of women’s history, ra-
cial issues, and regionalism. $28.95. Univer-
sity of Massachusetts. 978-1-55849-928-7.

1616: The World in Motion, by Thomas Chris-
tensen (384 pages, February 2012), takes a close 
look at the events and personalities of a single 
year when the Renaissance was giving way to 
the early modern period. Christensen maintains 
a global perspective, moving easily from Ming 
China and Mughal India to Spanish silver mines 
and Dutch Golden Age painting, all of it accom-
panied by lavish color illustrations. One chapter 
examines the accomplishments of women of the 
time, among them the writers Lady Mary Wroth 
and Dorothy Leigh, the Christianized James-
town Indian Pocahontas, the Basque soldier 
Catalina de Erauso, and the Italian painter Arte-
misia Gentileschi. Another chapter explores the 
commingling of scientific discovery, mysticism, 
alchemy, and witchcraft that signified the era’s 
obsession with both physics and metaphysics. 
$35.00. Counterpoint. 978-1-58243-774-3.

The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclo-
pedia of Comic-Book Icons and Hollywood 
Heroes, by Gina Misiroglu (463 pages, 2d 
edition, April 2012), provides 175 essays 
on the colorfully costumed crime fighters 
of comics, graphic novels, film, and televi-
sion, with an emphasis on the genre’s role 
in American popular culture. Some of the 
entries describe subcategories (Dark Horse 
heroes, multiculturalism, camp and comedy 
heroes) in addition to specific characters. The 
front matter classifies the various superhero 
ages: Golden Age (1938–1954), Silver Age 
(1956–1969), Bronze Age (1970–1980), Late 
Bronze Age (1980–1984), and the Modern 
Age (1985–present). Don’t discard the 2004 
edition; many earlier entries have vanished. 
$29.95. Visible Ink. 978 0-7808-0772-3. 

cultural changes tak-
ing place after World 
War I. The often bru-
tal vigilante behavior 
that made headlines 
in the South and 
Southwest, as well as 
the secrecy practiced 
by hooded groups 
at the local level, 
masked a more main-
stream and complex 

activism. Its interest in expanding public educa-
tion, for example, was a reflection of its strong 
opposition to the spread of Catholic schools; 
and the Klan’s little-known but enthusiastic 
role in enforcing prohibition was prompted by 
Protestant moral rigidity. Pegram contends that 
by 1925 the Klan’s propensity for violence and 
extremism, the arrogance of its leaders, and its 
maladroit grabs for political influence resulted 
in group fragmentation and personal burnout. 
$27.95. Ivan R. Dee. 978-1-56663-711-4.

Right Here I See My Own Books: The Woman’s 
Building Library at the World’s Colombian Ex-
position, by Sarah Wadsworth and Wayne A. 
Wiegand (284 pages, January 2012), examines 
the context and contents of the library collec-

tion assembled by 
the Board of Lady 
Managers of the 1893 
Chicago World’s Fair 
for installation on the 
second floor of the 
Woman’s Building. 
All 8,259 books in the 
collection were writ-
ten by women, and 
they were contrib-

uted by 40 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, 
and 23 foreign countries. ALA provided library 
school graduates to serve as resident librar-
ians to answer questions and catalog the col-
lection. ALA held one of its annual conference 
sessions in the Women’s Building that July, and 
Wadsworth and Wiegand note that attendees 
would undoubtedly have been surprised by the 
library’s closed stacks (it was an exhibit and not