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NEW PUBLICATIONS

C&RL News, April 2008
Vol. 69, No. 4

by George M. Eberhart

American Shamans: Journeys with Traditional Healers, by Jack Montgomery (265 pages, February 2008), recounts his personal experiences with root doctors, hexenmeisters, granny-women, Powwow practitioners, and other folk healers in South Carolina and the Appalachians. Montgomery, collection services coordinator at Western Kentucky University Libraries, conducted extensive field research with healers in the 1970s for a religious studies class at the University of South Carolina. His mentor in this endeavor was a retired history professor, author, and healer of Dutch Fork, South Carolina, named Lee Gandee (1917–1998), who taught him many folk medicine techniques and revealed the little-known history and anthropology of American shamanism. $19.95. Busca. 978-0-9666196-9-0.

Dirt Cheap, a novel by Lyn Miller-Lachman (368 pages, June 2006), revolves around a community college teacher’s efforts to expose the intentional contamination of a town’s soil and water by a chemical company 15 years earlier and its toxic effects on current residents. Miller-Lachman, editor of the MultiCultural Review, has also compiled an anthology of 17 contemporary Latino/a stories for young adults, Once upon a Cuento (2003), that explores the immigrant experience. $15.95. Curbstone Press. 978-1-931896-29-0.

Elegies from New York City, by Mirela Roznoveanu (105 pages, January 2008), is a new selection of poems that celebrate her adopted city in mythical terms and compare it with her previous life in Communist-era Romania. In perhaps her strongest statement, “New York,” she calls it the “greatest city in the world,” where “Hordes of disposable human beings fuel / with their fresh energy / the secret furnaces of the city. / They come for money and freedom / and the city gives them as much as they can get.” In part two, “From East to West,” Roznoveanu shares her musings on life and history inspired by visits to Paris, Boston Commons, the Arizona desert, and the Alamo. $15.00. Koja Press. 978-0-9773698-4-3.

The Great Strikes of 1877, edited by David O. Stowell (197 pages, March 2008), focuses on anticorporate protests in areas other than Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Martinsburg, West Virginia, where workers striking the B&O and Pennsylvania railroads engaged in battles with state militia and federal troops in July and August 1877. Stowell, author of the definitive Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877 (University of Chicago, 1999), brings together social historians who examine how the strikes created a shift in the pictorial stereotyping of workers in the pages of illustrated newspapers; the railroad strikes in Hornellsville, New York; how the “Battle of Halsted Street” revitalized the labor movement in Chicago politics; strike fears and agitation in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville; details of the strike in San Francisco, where Chinese immigrants were the target; and the effect of the strikes on Hispanic and Mexican-American labor and racial issues in southern California. $65.00. University of Illinois. 978-0-252-03241-7.

The Humble Little Condom: A History, by Aine Collier (371 pages, October 2007), uncovers the secret story of the sexual sheath from Paleolithic cave art to AIDS prevention. Collier surveys every possible nuance, including the role of sausage-makers and glovers in medieval Europe, condom tycoon Julius Schmid, the legend of Dr. Condum, the sex-obsessed GIs of World War II, and the perpetual debate over protection versus abstinence. Her research must have been fun because she peppers her commentary with whimsical and curious facts, anecdotes, and illustrations collected along the way. For example, in the late 1990s, one out of every six British tourists between 18 and 32 had sex with someone he or she had just met while on vacation, but only half of them used condoms. $18.95. Prometheus. 978-1-59102-556-6.

Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution, edited by Jason S. Anderson and Hans-Dieter Sues (417 pages, November 2007), presents a sampling of paleontological research into the emergence of new vertebrate forms. Topics include the transition from jawless to jawed fishes, the origin of snakes, the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs, the multiple diversifications of Mesozoic mammals, and the transition of whales from land to the sea. $49.95. Indiana University. 978-0-253-34926-2.

Mammoths: Giants of the Ice Age, by Adrian Lister and Paul Bahn (192 pages, rev. ed., November 2007), incorporates new mammoth discoveries since the first 1994 edition, including trackways found in Canada in 1999, the 6,500-year-old mammoth remains in the Pribilof Islands off Alaska, and the exceptionally preserved baby mammoth discovered in May 2007 on the Yamal peninsula of northern Siberia. A final section summarizes the latest scientific findings about dating mammoth remains, mammoth habitat and diet, weight, body form, and DNA sequencing. Nicely illustrated. $29.95. University of California. 978-0-520-25319-3.

The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations, by Mary Ellen Snodgrass (746 pages, 2 vols., December 2007), is an extraordinary compilation of data on operatives and passengers of the informal system of safehouses and escape routes from the American South in place from the late 18th century through 1865. Snodgrass characterizes the Underground Railroad as “the nation’s first civil rights movement” comprised of individuals who “risked life, property, reputation, and freedom on behalf of black wayfarers in need of respite.” A wide range of primary and secondary sources are given for all the entries, which are supplemented by a timeline, genealogies of families involved over more than one generation, and appendixes listing operatives and passengers by state. A 60-page index is a boon to access. $199.00. M. E. Sharpe. 978-0-7656-8093-8.

The movement of African Americans away from the South did not stop with the abolition of slavery. In 1879–1880, many black families (dubbed “Exodusters”) fled to Kansas by way of St. Louis in search of political, social, and economic freedom in the wake of Reconstruction’s failure. In The St. Louis African American Community and the Exodusters (178 pages, January 2008), Bryan M. Jack sheds light on what happened to many of those who arrived in St. Louis unable to pay for the last leg of their trip across Missouri to Kansas. Faced with antagonism by white city officials, the Exodusters were aided by many in the African-American community, such as Charlton Tandy and James Milton Turner, who provided them with relief and the means to continue their journey. $34.95. University of Missouri. 978-0-8262-1772-1.

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