Ohio University Press
Africa writes back; the African writers series & the launch of African literature.
In 1962, Heinemann Press in London brought out a novel by an African author, Chinua Achebe, and the African Writers Series was born. Currey, a publisher of African books who worked on the series for many years, presents a memoir of the first twenty-five years of the series. He gives mini biographies of the people involved, both publishers and authors, and relates the circumstances around the publication of the most important books. He divides his book by region, noting political changes in Africa that added to normal publishing concerns. The series published both original works in English and translations from native African languages, Arabic and French. It was responsible for a new form of literature being introduced to Anglophones all over the world. The series also gave Africans a voice and, by extension, an international identity. The series foundered in the late eighties with the collapse of African economies but still continues to publish. It also provided an incentive to others, like Currey, to carry on their work. This is an interesting background to an important literary movement. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
American pogrom; the East St. Louis Race Riot and Black politics.
In this well-written study, Lumpkins (history and African American studies, the Pennsylvania State University) discusses the twentieth-century history of the Black community of East Saint Louis. He starts with a reevaluation of the causes of the 1917 destruction of the physical community, resulting in the deaths of many inhabitants and the temporary exodus of seven thousand members of the community. Rather than viewing this as a popular response by the "saloon society" to the number of Black workers moving up from the South to take jobs, Lumpkins uses an impressive array of primary documents and interviews to argue that the pogrom was instigated by White "politician-businessmen" who felt threatened by increased political and civic activity within the Black community. After a complete investigation of the events of 1917, Lumpkins details the rebuilding of the community, which started almost immediately, through the end of the Second World War. Often comparing the East St. Louis experience with that of other urban centers, the book establishes the context of a continual struggle for equality from the nineteenth century to the present, using solidarity, political savvy and determination. The footnotes and bibliography of the book are particularly detailed and will be a boon to future scholars. (Ohio University Press series on law, society and politics in the Midwest) (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Heretical Hellenism; women writers, ancient Greece, and the Victorian popular imagination.
The knowledge of Ancient Greek in Britain was once the exclusive province of upper-class men. Fiske (English, Rutgers University) follows the distaff side of Greek. She begins with a summary of Greek as a signifier of male dominance and how that made it alluring to intellectual women. Some, like Elizabeth Barrett and Jane Harrison, studied the language on their own, bypassing the daily grind of rote grammar lessons. Others, like Charlotte Brontė studied the classics in translation. Fiske demonstrates how these women broke from traditional modes of exposition as much as they did in their learning methods. Their heresy was against a repressive system, expressed with subtle (or blatant, in Harrison's case) subversion. A chapter on the paradoxical popularity of the story of Medea in the second half of the nineteenth century is particularly insightful. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Heterosexual Africa?; the history of an idea from the age of exploration to the age of AIDS.
Western scientists and policy attributed the otherwise inexplicably rapid spread of AIDS among men and women in Africa, to the hyper-sexuality of Africans attested to since early colonial times, and a different strain of HIV than what infected gay and bisexual men in the West. The problem is not so much that the answer is wrong and racist, says Epprecht (history and global development studies, Queen's U., Toronto), as that it harms struggles for sexual health and sexual rights in Africa and globally. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Intonations; a social history of music and nation in Luanda, Angola, from 1945 to recent times (CD included).
Moorman (African history, Indiana U.) places music at the center of the formation of the Angolan nation and Angolan nationalism between 1945 and 1990. Beyond just lyrical and musical meaning, she argues, music brought people together "across lines of class and ethnicity, through the intimate yet public politics of gender, and in new urban spaces," and reterritorialized an urban-produced sound and cultural ethos across the whole territory of Angola through the spread of radio technology and the establishment of a recording industry in the early 1970s, thereby creating a sense of cultural sovereignty that allowed the Angolans to imagine the Angolan nation in terms beyond the control of the state. The included CD contains 15 musical tracks of Angolan semba. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
James Madison; philosopher, founder, and statesman.
These essays on James Madison reflect his legacy as a great political theorist by concentrating on his development as a statesman, his work at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, his advocacy for the Bill of Rights and ultimately his role as a leader. Editors Vile (political science, Middle Tennessee State U.), Pederson (political science, Louisiana State U., Shreveport) and Williams (chief justice, Supreme Court of Rhode Island) have aimed these articles squarely at the juncture of political theory and history, with contributors addressing Madison's contributions to constitutional design, the invention of the "extended republic" and his views on religious freedom, citizenship and leadership. Madison's contributions to government after he left the presidency are also explored from a philosophical viewpoint. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Kant and the role of pleasure in moral action.
Morrison (the Honors College, University of Houston) provides a new slant on Kant's controversial theories of moral action. Kant states that respect causes moral actions. However, he neither defines respect clearly nor does he state how it leads to moral action. Morrison gives an explanation of this. He argues that for Kant respect is a nonpathological feeling that leads to moral action in the same way that pathological feelings like anger or lust lead to immoral actions. Therefore Kant studies the latter to elucidate the former. This in depth examination of a difficult point of Kantian thought, one which Kant himself might not have completely formulated, is clearly presented and refreshingly free of jargon. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The law of the looking glass; cinema in Poland, 1896-1939.
The history of the film industry in Poland is tied to the national Polish identity as well as being a reflection of religious and linguistic differences within the country. Skaff (film studies, University of Texas, El Paso) explores film in what is now Poland between the introduction of the movie camera in 1896 to the start of the Second World War. At the beginning of the time under study Poland had been partitioned into three sections politically and was comprised of Catholics, Jews and Lutherans who spoke Polish, Yiddish and German. Film, especially silent movies, helped to reinforce the memory of a Polish state. Skaff demonstrates how film reflected the divisions in society, especially between Catholics and Jews but also how film makers of both faiths worked together using themes of cooperation. They also used fantasy themes, often from Yiddish literature, that struck a chord in the desperate years between the wars. The blend of artistic and social history is well done, of interest to film scholars and anyone studying Poland before the Nazi invasion. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Madness in Buenos Aires; patients, psychiatrists, and the Argentine state; 1880-1983.
This is a social history of psychiatry, psychiatric hospitals, and the Argentine state. Ablard (history, Ithaca College) explores the experiences of psychiatric patients and their families over the past century, as well as the discourses of the psychiatric profession, in order to address such issues as the relationship between psychiatry and state authoritarianism, psychiatry as a nationalist enterprise, and family and patient challenges to psychiatric authority. Ohio U. Press and U. of Calgary Press seem to have co-published this book, each edition with its own ISBN. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Slavery, emancipation and colonial rule in South Africa.
Dooling (African history, U. of London) explores the history of the rural Cape Colony, located in what is now modern South Africa. The author begins with the establishment of Dutch rule, which began in 1652, and continues with subsequent British rule to the beginning of the South African War in 1899. The history examines the legislated abolition of slave labor, its conflicting results, and the elements that led up to the war. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
