Cambria Press
American libraries and the Internet; the social construction of Web appropriation and use.
In the new knowledge environment in which the function of libraries as information centers is growing rapidly, how are librarians coping? Li (library and information science, Wayne State University) takes a look at this important aspect of how libraries are adapting to the new technologies. She uses a sociological model to study the various perceptions librarians have of the World Wide Web and how they have changed over the past ten years. She concludes that most librarians are comfortable with the Internet, despite some reservations concerning the dissemination of misinformation. The first half of the book is a history of the Web and an explanation of the methods used; the second half provides results and her conclusions. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The Chinese émigrés of Thailand in the twentieth century.
Multiethnic societies are challenging for both emigrés and the host country; as the saying goes, it takes two to tango. Chansiri, who works for the Ministry of Commerce in Thailand and lectures on law at universities in the country, examines assimilation issues for Chinese in Thailand. The author's study, derived from his doctoral thesis in law and diplomacy, Tufts U., presents evidence countering the assertion that there are no fourth-generation Chinese in Thailand because they have become completely assimilated. The book includes an introduction by a professor at Tufts, historical background on Chinese-Thai relations, data on relevant factors, and methodological notes. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Chinatown in Britain; diffusions and concentrations of the British new wave Chinese immigration.
Luk is a social geographer who studied at Oxford and currently works at the Central Policy Unit of the Hong Kong SAR government. His study of the composition and changes of Chinatowns in Britain covers both the spatial location of communities and the composition. He gives a brief overview of Chinese immigration to Britain but concentrates on the time since 1981. He discusses the diverse origin of immigrants and the role of Chinatowns in aiding economic assimilation. In his conclusions, he also notes that Chinese women tend to intermarry more often than men and posits that gender might also be added into the criteria for further study. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Contemporary Arab American women writers; hyphenated identities and border crossings.
Abdelrazek (U. of Alexandria, Egypt) offers students and scholars in American literary studies an in-depth examination of four works by four Arab-American women writers published both prior to and immediately after the events of 9/11: Leila Ahmed's memoir A (1999), Mohja Kahf's poetry collection E-mails (2003), Laila Halaby's novel West (2003), and Diana Abu-Jaber's novel Crescent (2003). All of the works explore what it means to have a "hyphenated" identity and to live in between cultures, in the sense of always being both Arab and American and yet being neither Arab nor American. Each text presents main characters who embrace and resist American and Arab culture as they negotiate both cultures, including the two cultures' different but equally subjugating constructions of them as Arab women, and work to explore and create fluid dynamic hybrid identities for themselves. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Democratization in confucian East Asia; citizen politics in China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
Wang (contemporary Chinese studies, U. of Nottingham) argues that economic growth and social modernization in East Asia have led to a growing pro-democratic public, which is preparing solid foundations for democracy while demanding more democratic institutions. He analyzes the relationships between economic development, self-expression values, and democracy in the six societies. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard, and the consumer conundrum.
Caught in a world distinguished by its disconnection with basic rules of life, wrapped in an ethics far removed from any reason to use it, DeLillo's characters make sense only to themselves and those who prey upon them, fulfilling their self-indulgence for a price. Baudrillard warns of what happens to humans when they demand and get too much. The two should get together, and they do so in Schuster's (English, Montgomery Country Community College, Pennsylvania) treatment. Organizing his thoughts alon the lines of works of DeLillo, Schuster provides significant moments bound by Baudrillard's critical theory, along with contributions by Saussure, Barthes, Marx, and Derrida. Along with the evolving language of terrorism and the quivering of inevitable societal collapse, Schuster examines DeLillo's system of objects, signification and symbolic exchange, the artist in perpetual opposition, the graffiti instinct, body time v. object time, and various seductions and permutations of the ambivalent. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The Duke of Queensberry and the union of Scotland and England; James Douglas and the Act of Union of 1707.
The dissolution of the Scottish Parliament and the country's union with England in 1707 is one focal point in McKay's biography of Douglas, but the Duke's career also spanned the Revolution of 1688, the crisis of Darien, and the political battles leading to the Act of Union. This is the first biography of Douglas, and McKay says it perforce relies heavily on the opinions of his supporters and opponents. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Fascist and anti-fascist propaganda in America; the dispatches of Italian Ambassador Gelasio Caetani.
To be Italian, whether in Italy or in America, in the first half of the twentieth century was to be acutely aware of fascism, whether or not one was in agreement with it. Nazzaro (European history, Rochester Institute of Technology) brings insights from his family's experiences in Italy, where they faced violent death, and in the US, where they faced a pandemonium of perceptions and motives. Working from these insights and a wealth of archival material, Nazzaro tracks media attention to fascism in America, closely reading the official reports of progress by Ambassador Caetani and such interesting sources as the responses to the American Immigration Quota Act of 1921, evidence of attempts to create US-Italian solidarity, signs of ethnic cohesion, the after-effects of the murder of the socialist Matteotti, and records of conflicts between Caetani and Bastianini, the secretary general of Italian fascists in other countries. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The genius of kinship; the phenomenon of human kinship and the global diversity of kinship terminologies.
Dziebel has doctorates in both history and anthropology and is currently both advisor to the Great Russian Encyclopedia and senior anthropologist at Crispin Porter + Bogusky advertising agency. His extremely dense work is actually three books in one. The first is a history of kinship studies from the early 19th century to the present. The second is a comparative study of kinship terminology among non-Indo-European languages, for which he has also prepared a data base published on the internet. The third section, highly controversial, as he admits, uses anthropology, mitochondrial studies and linguistics to suggest that the "out of Africa" model of human origins may be in error and that the first humans actually came from the Americas and spread from there to the rest of the world. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
German media and national identity.
Inthorn (media and cultural studies, U. of East Anglia) utilizes four case studies to illustrate ethnocentric and civic concepts of German national identity. Her examination illustrates how German identity is thought of within Germany itself. Topics explore Germany's relationship with the European Union, press coverage of significant issues (such as citizenship reform and immigration law), and how football and food frame a country's culture. The author offers considerable background and history in her discussions, as well as a good number of humorous anecdotes and observations. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Sexual health and Bollywood films; a culturally-based program for South Asian teenage girls.
Madan-Bahel (counseling psychology, Columbia U.) created and tested a program using Bollywood film clips to increase sexual health awareness and knowledge among South Asian female youth. The program's first implementation took place in a largely South Asian high school in Queens. This text surveys literature on the status quo; combines the pre-program experiences of participants into vignettes; and discusses the effectiveness of the program on increasing sexual health awareness and decreasing stigma and incidences of sexual violence in the targeted community. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Sex-selective abortion in India; the impact on child mortality.
American public health scholar Shepherd analyzes census data on the sex ratio of young children in India to illustrate the increasing practice of aborting female fetuses, as the use of ultrasound makes such selection cheap and easy. Then she looks at the effect of prenatal sex selection on gender differentials in mortality and in health care and morbidity. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Social networks of older adults; a comparative study of Americans and Taiwanese.
The authors (anthropology and sociology, California State U. Bakersfield) present the results of their early-1990s comparative study of social networks among adults aged 60 and older in the US (sampled from small towns in Northeastern Oregon) and Taiwan (sampled from both a central city and a village). The study, based mainly in social-exchange and social constructionism theories, compares demographic information; network types (i.e. friends, children and other kin, and affines), data on the perceived amount of support in each community, cultural and family values, social capital and leisure activities, and health, among other topics. Interview schedule and questions are included. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Sons of Garibaldi in blue and gray; Italians in the American Civil War.
While there are historical accounts of the German Americans, Jewish Americans, and Irish Americans who fought in the Civil War, much less is know about the contributions of Italian Americans — the focus of Alduino (history, Anne Arundel Community College) and Coles' (history, Longwood U.) text. The authors present an overview of the early Italian American experience followed by chapters on prominent and lesser-known officers — Giuseppe Garibaldi, Edward Ferrero, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, Francis Barretto Spinola, Alberto Maggi and Enrico Fardella; the Garibaldi Guard; Italian Americans in the Union Navy; and Italian soldiers in the Confederate Army. The appendices contain a collection of 40 letters written by one soldier to his wife, an excerpt from the 1891 book Hospital Life in the Army of the Potomoc, and a list of enlistments. Academic but accessible to the general reader. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Styling texts; dress and fashion in literature.
Fashion sense began early in English literature; the inaugural essay is on transgressive disrobing and disarming in Beowulf. From there the contributing British and American literary scholars travel forward through time, viewing such examples as class and gender in Twelfth Night, transvestism and hybridity in Jane Eyre, money and romance in The House of Mirth and Sister Carrie, Toni Morrion's Jazz, and sartorial culture in Oryx and Crake. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Untangling the web of hate; are online "hate sites" deserving of First Amendment protection?
In order to determine whether what he calls US-based hate sites on the Internet are deserving of First Amendment protection, Barnett (communication, Slippery Rock U. of Pennsylvania) first examines the standards for regulating hateful speech in non-Internet settings and their applicability to online material. He then conducts content analysis of ten sites run by the Ku Klux Klan, National Socialist Movement, Tualatin Valley Skins, Orange County Assembly of God, Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party, League of the South, Council of Conservative Citizens, and Jewish Defense League, examining themes and targets of hatred. He finds that the sites are worthy of First Amendment protection and recommends other strategies for mitigating their harms, such as the use of filtering technologies. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Urban Brazil; visions, afflictions, and governance lessons.
Why would a smaller city like Curitiba thrive while the bright lights of São Paulo slowly dim? According to Vassoler (political science, State U. of New York), the public is engaged in the planning process at Curitiba, elects city officials also engaged in planning and supporting positive changes, and expects innovations that are supportable with current city resources. Vassoler specializes in international politics and it shows, with able comparisons to other Latin American and international cities as she describes urban governance and the urban political economy, the effects of problems in Curitiba and its approaches to solutions, the process of institutional change from public entrepreneurs to municipal agencies through urban visioning, the ills of other Brazilian cities (particularly São Paulo) as their governance strategies drift, and lessons learned from this model of urban planning and public participation. She includes an abridged version of the Curitiba master plan. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
West across the Pacific; the American involvement in East Asia, from 1898 to the Vietnam War.
This work is primarily the work of F.H. Conroy (emeritus, history, U. of Pennsylvania). He recounts American political and military involvement in East Asia from the Spanish American War, which resulted in the taking of the Philippines as an American colony, through just prior to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and American entry into World War II. Conroy approaches the topic through the lens of traditional diplomatic history. His son adds an introductory foreword and Quinn-Judge (history, Temple U.) updates the material through the Vietnam War in a brief concluding chapter. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
When terrorism and counterterrorism clash; the war on terror and the transformation of terrorist activity.
Sheehan (Graduate Programs in Dispute Resolution, U. of Massachusetts Boston) applies time series intervention analysis to test the extent to which military force escalation in the name of the "War on Terrorism" has increased or decreased transnational terrorism. The analysis extends through December 2004 and thereby tests the terrorism inflaming effects of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as that of the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003 and the Abu Ghraib scandal of April 2004. Escalation is tested in terms of days terrorist incidents happen, the number of places they occur, and changes in the makeup of victims of attacks. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The Wilsonian persuasion in American foreign policy.
With his other recent book, The Advancement of Liberty: How American Democratic Principles Transformed the Twentieth Century, Price (political science, Texas A&M U.) offered a hagiography of American military interventionism as the globe's most successful and benevolent fount of freedom and democracy. This volume is in the same vein, if a bit more limited in scope. It gives credit to President Woodrow Wilson for having largely defined the mission and style of American interventionism and having decisively turned the country away from its earlier isolationism. Price describes the Wilsonian persuasion as it manifested at the Versailles Peace Conference and through World War II and its aftermath in Europe and in Asia and in the founding of the United Nations. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
