Library Journal articles from January 1998, page 3

Library Journal archives from January 1998

Articles of Faith: The Abortion Wars, A Frontline History.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Gorney's journalistic training comes through in this anecdotal account of the "abortion wars" from pre-Row v. Wade until the 1990s. Gorney, formerly a reporter for the Washington Post, looks at the issue of abortion from the perspectives of...

The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Sex, and Mutiny in Andrew Jackson's White House.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Marszelak (history, Mississippi State Univ.) has written a scintillating account of the "Eaton Affair," America's first great tabloid tale. Deemd a "loose woman" by the wives of Andrew Jackson's cabinet, Margaret Eaton, the new spouse of...

The American Country Club: Its Origins and Development.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Mayo (architecture and urban planning, Univ. of Kansas) writes a thoughtful history of the country club in a style similar to his earlier The American Grocery Store (Greenwood, 1993). Using sources that include histories of individual clubs,...

King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain Through African Eyes.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... In 1895, three African chiefs, dressed in the finest British clothing available, began a tour of the British Isles. That tour foiled empire-builder Cecil Rhodes's grand plan for Africa and culminated in the Chamberlain Settlement -- the...

The Politics of Illusion: A Political History of the IRA, 2d ed.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Since World War I, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its political wing, Sinn Fein ("Ourselves Alone"), has been a significant if at times barbarous voice in the contentious Anglo-Irish relationship. At a time of great optimism on both...

Black Genius and the American Experience.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Seeking to provide inspiration for his biracial son, Russell (The Man Who Knew Too Much, Carroll & Graf, 1992) delves here into the roots of achievement by African Americans. From research and interviews with many of his subjects, Russell...

Perpetua's Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... In her study of the life and death of Perpetua, a third-century Christian martyr, Salisbury (history and humanities, Univ. of Wisconsin, Green Bay) examines the cult-like mentality that drove a 22-year-old woman with an infant son to turn...

Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Boldly investigating the meaning of race, the experience of war, and the function of the public monument, Savage (history of art and architecture, Univ. of Pittsburgh) probes the landscape of collective memory on which the art forms of...

Winter Soldiers: An Oral History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Stacewicz (history, Indiana Univ.) explores the histories of the men who fought in Vietnam and who, along with many women, joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in the 1960s and 1970s. He interviews 30 VVAW members (25 men and...

Churchill and Secret Service.
January 1, 1998... Winston Churchill's fascination with intelligence in general is well known. Stafford, a former diplomat and writer focusing on intelligence history, has provided readers with a comprehensive history of Churchill's lifelong obsession with...

In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This important new work is the first substantial study of African Americans in the American West. Taylor (The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era, Univ. of Washington, 1994) covers...

The Teams: An Oral History of the U.S. Navy SEALs.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... These are the reminiscences of six individuals who served in the SEALS during the Vietnam War. The stories include that of James Tipton, who earned three Purple Hearts, and Storekeeper Third Class James Janos, better known to the public by...

Code-Name Bright Light: The Untold Story of U.S. POW Rescue Efforts During the Vietnam War.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Popular and academic works on U.S. prisoners of war continue to play a central role in Vietnam War literature and historiography. But even as the number of such titles proliferate, the quality of the research and the political bias of the...

Hitler: The Pathology of Evil.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Any student of World War II knows that Adolph Hitler was a complex and demon-ridden man. Victor, a Jewish psychotherapist dealing with personality disorders, argues that Hitler's troubled pathology has never been seriously studied because of...

Malaga Burning: An American Woman's Eyewitness Account of the Spanish Civil War.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Little known in this country, Woolsey was living with her English husband, Gerald Brenan, also a writer, in southern Spain at the outbreak of that country's civil war. Brenan's citizenship provided the couple with a measure of personal...

The Patent Guide: A Friendly Guide to Protecting and Profiting from Patents.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Despite occasional lapses into legal speak (e.g., "antecedent basis," "licensed for valuable consideration"), patent attorney and author Battle's (Smart Maneuvers, LJ 12/94) new work reads easily and well. Geared toward the businessperson...

The Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights - Survive the System.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... An excellent and balanced guide to the state court criminal justice process, this book does not detail the differences of being charged in federal court, such as federal sentencing guidelines. Authors Bergman (Reel Justice, LJ 6/l/96) and...

Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... More than the story of Bratton's two years as New York City police chief and his disagreements with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, this work details Bratton's early life and tenure at previous policing jobs while providing a crash review of...

Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Washington Post journalist Cannon believes that the four Los Angeles Police Department officers prosecuted in 1992 for beating black motorist Rodney King "were scapegoats for the Los Angeles riots" that followed the not-guilty verdicts in...

Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... With 3200 condemned prisoners on death rows and executions routine in 38 states, social psychologist Costanzo contends that it is time for this country to reconsider the cost and consequences of the death penalty. His ensuing text is...

To the Last Breath: Three Women Fight for the Truth Behind a Child's Tragic Murder.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Of the many recent news stories about sudden infant death syndrome," in too many cases what initially appears to be SIDS turns out to be cold-blooded murder committed by the closest care giver, generally a parent. Just after New Year's 1994,...

Africa in Chaos.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Ayuttey (economics, American Univ.), a Ghanaian by birth, provides a harsh critique of Africa's development. Describing the undermining of basic political and economic institutions, primarily since independence, he places much of the blame...

Aboard Air Force One: 200,000 Miles with a White House Aide.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Chitester, currently a political analyst who lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, writes of his days as the White House director of the Office of News Analysis in the Clinton administration. This office produces an estimated 5.7 million pages of...

Hamilton's Republic: Readings in the American Democratic Nationalist Tradition.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Arguably the most effective and often the most controversial force in modem politics is nationalism, which both unites and divides. According to Lind (The Next American Nation, LJ 6/1/95), such an interpretation of nationalism, especially in...

The Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This collection of Ignatieff's previously published essays conveys through meticulous reporting the moral enigmas of current warfare. Each of the five essays poses a core dilemma: How has television's "promiscuous" gaze promoted both moral...

Into the House of the Ancestors: Inside the New Africa.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Maier, a foreign correspondent in Africa for over ten years and author of Angola: Promises and Lies (Serif, 1996), has produced a remarkable book dealing with the spirit of a changing sub-Saharan Africa. It is no easy task to articulate an...

Star-Spangled Men: America's Ten Worst Presidents.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Few Americans, let alone historians, express much interest in the worst events or characters, as such, in our history, but presidential historian Miller (The Roosevelt Chronicles, LJ 10/15/97) decided to investigate whom he considers to be...

The People vs. Big Tobacco: How the States Took on the Cigarette Giants.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... The reporters from Bloomberg Financial Markets recount the events and often dramatic negotiations between the CEOs of cigarette makers Philip Morris, RJR, Brown and Williamson, Ligett, and Lorillar and a loosely federated alliance of...

China's Transition.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... In this collection of 16 essays, Nadian (East Asian Inst., Columbia Univ.) provides several different approaches to analyzing present-day Chinese politics and political culture. Written for an academic audience, the essays contain abstract...

The Ex-Isle of Erin: Images of a Global Ireland.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... O'Toole has written several other books on Ireland, and he frequently contributes to the Irish Times, the Guardian, and the New Statesman. He derived the title for this book from a joke mentioned in Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary...

Democracy at Dawn: Notes from Poland and Points East.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... In 1993, Quinn, an American career foreign service officer, began a two-year stint as head of the Rule of Law Programs in Warsaw. His task was to assist the nations of Eastern Europe with constitutional and judicial reforms, but he quickly...

The Reagan Wit: The Humor of the American President.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... After editing several previous popular books (e.g., The Uncommon Wisdom of Jacqueline Kennedy, Onassis, Carol Pub. Group, 1994), Adler collaborated with his son to compile this collection of one-liners, quips, anecdotes, and other quotables...

Paradise Lost: California's Experience and America's Future.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... For almost 150 years. California has beckoned Americans to follow their dreams to its golden shores, and millions have succumbed to the call. Now, however, the gilt is faking and the sheen is fading as Californians come to terms with the...

Loving Someone Gay.
January 1, 1998... Mixing anecdotes, stories, philosophy, and advice, Clark offers readers a fully rewritten 20th-anniversary edition of his popular guide for gay people and those who want to love and support them. The new edition brings his readers up to date...

Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... A popular lecturer, Los Angeles radio personality, and former TV talk-show host, Prager has developed a surprising following in today's soundbite media culture. Supporters praise his earnest tone, nonideological opinions, and insistence that...

Conquering Schizophrenia: A Father, His Son, and a Medical Breakthrough.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Writer Wyden (Stella, LJ 10/15/92) turns his journalist's attentions on his own family, mixing the story of his son's nearly 30-year illness with a history of schizophrenia and its treatments. The personal story, particularly the opening...

Afrolantica Legacies.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... With shades of his previous book, Bell (Gospel Choirs, LJ 5/1/96) continues with his odd mixture of parables and political essays. In this sequel, he pairs fictional sidekick Geneva Crenshaw with President Clinton, who was influenced by her...

The Crisis in Black and Black.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Hutchinson (The Assassination of the Black Male Image, LJ 10/19/6) brings together current themes of black identity with the events of the past few years and puts them into perspective. The author confronts the recent controversy of the O.J....

The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here, LJ 4/1/91) has produced another exemplary piece of investigative reportage that reveals the chasm between blacks and whites, rich and poor, in America. Two Michigan towns -- predominately white,...

'... And Then I Became Gay': Young Men's Stories.
January 1, 1998... This thoughtful, well-researched study provides a fresh perspective on the formative years of contemporary gay and bisexual males in our society. Savin-Williams (clinical psychology, Cornell Univ.) postulates that although their experiences...

A Guide to London's Churches.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Athough the subject of London churches may have limited appeal, Blatch's new edition of his 1978 guide is an intriguing compendium of church history, architecture, and associations. Blatch details more than 140 of London's Anglican churches...

Won Ton Lust: Adventures in Search of the World's Best Chinese Restaurant.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Krich (Music in Every Room, Grove, 1988, pap.) has given us a delightful travel/food narrative. He and his Chinese wife, Mei, cruise the world in search of the best Chinese restaurant, from China to Europe then on to other locales. Several...

Belize: Adventures in Nature.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... As the first title in a new series, "Adventures in Nature," this book focuses on Belize's natural resources. For each attraction, it supplies directions for getting there, outfitters, accommodations, and the like. The useful appendixes give...

The African American Travel Guide.
January 1, 1998... Travel guides are usually all-encompassing, but this well-organized and inexpensive work confines itself to the African American experience and can be usefully consulted for business travel as well as for personal vacations. Robinson, a...

The Most Beautiful Villages of New England.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... In this handsome addition to the series that includes books on the Dordogne, Provence (LJ 1/95), and Tuscany, travel author Shachtman displays the charms of more than 20 New England villages, from Nantucket, Watch Hill, and Stonington on the...

Hidden France: An Insider's Guide to the Most Beautiful Villages.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Tilleray (The Frenchwoman's Kitchen, Sterling, 1992) takes use on a tour of rural France, passing region by region through over 50 villages of her native land. On the way, she draws our attention to an architectural detail here, a feature of...

Travelers' Tales Love and Romance: True Stories of Life on the Road.
January 1, 1998... Wylie, an editor with Romance Traveling, has compiled a collection of 39 stories of love experienced while traveling. A wide variety of stories has been selected for this volume, some involving committed relationships, some involving new...

Travel Here and There.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Zelman's 26 humorous travel essays have previously been published in the Chicago Tribune, Jewish World, and other major papers. Each essay interestingly explicates her travel experiences with her husband in such diverse places as Harlem,...

Mrs. Greenthumbs Plows Ahead: Five Steps to the Drop-Dead Gorgeous Garden of Your Dreams.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Finally, another practical, funny gardening guide from Danz, who won the Garden Writer's Association Quill and Trowel Award for her first book, Mrs. Greenthumbs: How I Turned a Boring Yard into a Glorious Garden and How You Can, Too (Crown,...

The Inviting Garden: Gardening for the Senses, Mind, and Spirit.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Noted garden writer Lacy (The Garden in Autumn, Holt, 1995) invites all gardeners to contemplate gardening as more than just a physical activity. As he explains, gardening also satisfies a need in humans for sensory enrichment, intellectual...

Stalking the Wild Amaranth: Gardening in an Age of Extinction.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Marinelli (Your Natural Home, LJ 9/1/95) explores the connection between modern gardening practices and environmental degradation threatening many native plant species, such as the sea beach amaranth. Her argument that gardeners should do...

The Compassion of Animals: True Stories of Animal Courage and Kindness.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Lassie, go home! Rin Tin Tin, move over! The deeds of these fictional dog heroes cannot compare with the exploits of the real-life animals detailed in this book. Motivated by the courageous behavior of her own pets during the 1989 San...

Gardens in France.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Von Schaewen, a freelance photographer, has a remarkable eye for capturing the gardens of France. Her color images exhibit the same refined sense for artful arrangements as do the gardens she photographs. But the lack of any commentary or...

Does Jane Compute?: Preserving Our Daughters' Place in the Cyber Revolution.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... The term computer nerd has a male connotation because it isn't acceptable for girls to be computer experts, notes the author. Consequently, many girls are growing up with insecurities about their computer skills, and there is a shortage of...

Codeine Diary: A Memoir.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Health & Medicine Hemophiliac and Guinness record breaker for hand clapping, Andrews has written a memoir of what it was like growing up as the "healthy" child in the family because of his brother's struggle with an ultimately fatal...

Firm for Life: A Lifelong Plan for Fitness, Energy, and Overall Good Health.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Timed to meet the New Year's Resolution demand for diet and exercise books, these two titles present programs aimed at two distinct audiences. The Bensons, creators of the best-selling The FIRM aerobic exercise and weight-training videos,...

Dr. D's Handbook for Men Over 40: A Guide to Fitness, Health, Living, and Loving in the Prime of Life.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... According to comedian Bob Hope, you've reached middle age when your age begins to show around your middle. Minnesota-based Dorsen suggests that middle age is a slippery slope where men are often caught between their aging parents on the one...

Energy Up!: Shed Pounds, Get Fit, Gain Stamina, and Turn on Your Power with This Unique Program.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Timed to meet the New Year's Resolution demand for diet and exercise books, these two titles present programs aimed at two distinct audiences. The Bensons, creators of the best-selling The FIRM aerobic exercise and weight-training videos,...

Cancer Combat: Cancer Survivors Share Their Guerrilla Tactics to Help You Win the Fight of Your Life.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... For newly diagnosed cancer patients, one of the most important things to realize is the wide range of options available for fighting this disease. Unlike other consumer health titles, this work does not endorse or recommend specific doctors,...

The VBAC Companion: The Expectant Mother's Guide to Vaginal Birth After Cesarean.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Korte, a writer and lecturer on women's health issues for over 25 years, has written this book "to show those of you who do want a VBAC [vaginal birth afer cesarean] how to get one." This volume is based on the author's published research,...

Lupus: Everything You Need to Know.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Systemic lupus erythematosus is a mysterious, hard-to-diagnose disease that affects an estimated two million people in the United States alone. The unpredictable behavior and uncertain course of lupus raise many questions for sufferers of...

Surgery and Recovery: How to Reduce Anxiety and Promote Healthy Healing.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This brief and sensitive book exhorts the patient to take steps to alleviate the trauma one experiences in going to the hospital for surgery. Olson, a nurse practitioner, makes practical suggestions for learning about the illness,...

The 5 Vital Secrets for a Healthy Life.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Puhn (The 5 Day Miracle Diet, Ballantine, 1996) is a certified nutrition specialist who looks at the ways in which the whole-body responds to the stresses of poor diet and other bad habits. Her holistic approach explains how pain or illness...

The Gastrointestinal Sourcebook.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Rosenthal (The Thyroid Sourcebook, Lowell, 1995; The Fertility Sourcebook, Lowell, 1995) now delivers a good general text on the gastrointestinal system. She describes normal digestive functioning, then covers the gamut of digestive...

Prostate Cancer: Overcoming Denial with Action; A Guide to Screening, Treatment, and Healing.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Prostate cancer (PCa) has been gaining attention from increased public awareness, improved testing methods, and the number of prominent men who are identified as PCa survivors (Bob Dole, Sidney Poitier, and Norman Schwarzkopf among many...

Never Question the Miracle: A Surgeon's Story.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Since her poor childhood in Haiti, where a voodoo priest told her that she would become a physician and a surgeon, Toussaint struggled to achieve that goal. Guided by faith in herself and her destiny, she survived bouts of self-doubt,...

If I Can Cook/You Know God Can.
January 1, 1998... With lyrical originality and musical patois, playwright, novelist, and poet Shange (Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter, LJ 11/15/94) intertwines the history and food of the "African Diaspora" into a beautiful little book in the tradition...

Riddle of the Ice: A Scientific Adventure into the Arctic.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This is the tale of a nautical and scientific adventure. In 1991, Arms attempted to sail to the Arctic in a 50' sailboat but had to turn back because of sea ice. After extensive research he was able to complete his trip in 1994. What Arms...

On the Edge of the Wild: Passions and Pleasures of a Naturalist.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Bodio can be described as an ethical hunter -- someone who knows well and respects the animals and cycles of nature that draw him to the wild and who does not kill indiscriminately. This book, his third, "is a collage in essays about the...

Lethal Laws: Animal Testing, Human Health and Environmental Policy.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Fano, currently coordinator for the Medical Research Modernization Committee in New York, holds a master's degree in urban and environmental policy. Her book addresses a major ethical concern for medical researchers worldwide, and her tone...

Tracking the Charlatans: An Environmental Columnist's Refutational Handbook for the Propaganda Wars.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Over 25 years of writing a syndicated environmental advocacy newspaper column has equipped award-winning journalist Flattau with the insight and ammunition to produce this contentious work, which refutes outspoken opponents of the...

A Science Odyssey: 100 Years of Discovery.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This book's purpose is to serve as a companion to the PBS series of the same name, but since it was reviewed before the airing of the series this month, it is impossible to ascertain whether it fulfills its purpose. However, it can clearly...

Survival Strategies: Cooperation and Conflict in Animal Societies.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Social animals and apparent altruism bothered Darwin as he developed the theory of natural selection, and they continue to puzzle evolutionary scientists. Gadagkar, author of both technical and popular works on evolution and a senior fellow...

Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This book brings together stones, poems, essays, and meditations by the editors and more than 70 other prominent female nature writers and field scientists, including Gretel Ehrlich, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Terry Tempest Williams, to show how...

These Rare Lands: Images of America's National Parks.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Landscape photographer Jorstad traveled numerous times to each of this country's 54 national parks to capture the unique beauty found in each. Arranging the photos chronologically by the date each park was established lends an interesting...

Cascading Style Sheets.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Cascading style sheets (CSS) were developed by Lie and Bos for the World Wide Web Consortium to provide authors with the tools to manage the aesthetics of web site design. For now, they are not in wide distribution and only the most recent...

Building a Web-Based Education System.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This is a good CD-ROM/book package for those starting out in web-based education. The authors take their readers through the process, discussing subjects such as design, content development, student assessment, virtual class management, and...

Creating the Virtual Classroom: Distance Learning with the Internet.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... There is less technology here than in Mc-Cormack's book (above), but Porter presents a better conceptual approach to web education. She doesn't let either technology or reality get in her way as she discusses the possibilities and pitfalls....

The Electronic Privacy Papers: Documents on the Battle for Privacy in the Age of Surveillance.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This is not an academically neutral book on the subject of privacy. Both Schneier and Banisar are security and privacy advocates of long standing, and they like to refer to the information superhighway as the information "snooperhighway."...

Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... This is a collection of essays representing European, Canadian, and U.S. points of view on how technology is changing our understanding of what is private. Topics under review range from global policies for personal data, to privacy and...

Killer Web Design: NetObjects Fusion.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Weil and Baron offer the reader the fastfood approach to getting set up in electronic commerce. The CD-ROM contains prebuilt code in Perl, Java, and Javascript and even a working version of Netobjects Fusion, a site management tool for...

Drag 'n' Drop CGI: Enhance Your Web Site Without Programming.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Weil and Baron offer the reader the fastfood approach to getting set up in electronic commerce. The CD-ROM contains prebuilt code in Perl, Java, and Javascript and even a working version of Netobjects Fusion, a site management tool for...

Building Cyberstores: Installation, Transaction Processing, and Management.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Nemzow intends this work for anyone who needs to manage financial transactions on the web. But he does not advocate a quick and-dirty approach. Nemzow covers all aspects of establishing a web site, from design to security, and spends time...

Teach Yourself Macintosh in 24 Hours.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Both of these books are about the new Macintosh operating system upgrade, OS8. Folks who have already been using the Mac will find Langer's book more useful because the "New Features" section at the front gives them all they will want. For...