The November edition notes fifteen new books and databases from the humanities and social sciences.  The titles are arranged by call number, which roughly reflects their subject matter.  Readers may browse the entire list or go directly to individual notices, using the links provided below.

Flynt, J. Wayne. Alabama Baptists.
Black, Jeremy.  Why Wars Happen.
Barrington, Linda, ed.  The Other Side of the Frontier.
Abercrombie, Thomas A.  Pathways of Memory and Power.
Atlas Linguarum Europae.
Global development finance. (CD-ROM)
World development indicators. (Computer file)
World development report. (CD-ROM)
Lestringant, Frank. Cannibals.
Gunsberg, Maggie. Gender and the Italian Stage.
Ozeki, Ruth L.My Year of Meats.
Goethe-handbuch: in vier Bänden
Schlink, Bernhard.  Der Vorleser : Roman
The reader. translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway.
Middle East Internet Directory
King, David. The Commissar Vanishes.

Flynt, J. Wayne. Alabama Baptists: Southern Baptists in the Heart of Dixie. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press, 1998. (Series: Religion and American culture). Location:  Olin,  BX 6462.4 .A2 F57 1998 A magisterial historical study of Southern Baptists in the United States, focusing on the Alabama congregations as a case study. Will likely become a standard scholarly description of what is today the largest Protestant denomination in America, and also important for the study of Southern social and political history.  (Yoram Szekely, ybs1@cornell.edu)

Black, Jeremy.  Why Wars Happen.  New York:  New York University Press, 1998.  Location: Olin, Uris, D 214 B585x 1998  A "bold and innovative approach" which examines the causes of wars with due attention to the historical and cultural context. (G. David Brumberg, gdb1@cornell.edu)

Barrington, Linda, ed.  The Other Side of the Frontier: Economic Explorations into Native American History. Boulder, Colo.:  Westview Press, 1998.  Location: Olin, E 98 E2 075x 1998 A unique collection of essays which diverge from traditional historiography of Native American-European relations.  Rather than being viewed as victimized and exploited indigenous people, Native American are presented as "intelligent and responsive to economic forces, within institutional constraints." (G. David Brumberg, gdb1@cornell.edu)

Abercrombie, Thomas A. Pathways of Memory and Power.Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.  Olin Library: F2230.2;.A9 A24x 1998 Abercrombie deftly combines the techniques of ethnology and history in his study of an Indian community in the Bolivian Andes.  Called "groundbreaking" and  "a major contribution" by reviewers, its greatest testimonial may bethat Cornell's bibliographer actually bought his own copy. (David Block, db10@cornell.edu)

Alinei, Mario [et al.], ed. Atlas Linguarum Europae: ALE. Assen : Van Gorcum, 1983- Location: Olin , ++G1797.21 .E3 1983 Library has: v.1, Fasc. 1-5 (1983-1997) Atlas Linguarum Europa is a truly monumental publication, still in progress, that is a result of a large-scale international cooperation and a common effort of the linguists of all European countries. Nearly twenty years of preparatory work produced a linguistic atlas of a new type. It can be defined as an interpretive atlas of the fourth generation. Fourth generation atlas is not only supranational but also interlingual. Interpretive atlas goes beyond presenting raw data and is a methodological criterion as well. ALE represents a necessary development out of previously published or previously conceived nationaland language group atlases as well as a necessary development from raw data to interpretive atlases. The area covered by ALE extends as far east as the Ural mountains and as far south as the northern side of the Caucasian chain. It is the area most used by geographers for the delineation of Europe. ALE can have only geographical boarders for the continuum of dialects often crosses the political frontiers. ALE represents an innovation of considerable significance. An unquestionable achievement of ALE's organization is the preparation of linguistic maps of previously unstudied areas of Europe and the synthesis of these with existing language group atlases. Atlas Linguarum Europae's contribution towards the progress of linguistic geography andlinguistic history is unprecedented. (Wanda Wawro, wtw3@cornell.edu)

Global development finance (CD-ROM)  Location: Olin, Disk HJ8011 W9 World development indicators (Computer file)  Location: Olin, Disk HC59 W923 World  development report (CD-ROM)  Location: Olin, Disk HC59.7 W911 World Bank data is notably more accessible now that the Bank's new CD-ROM's have been added to Olin.  The Global Development Finance CD provides exportable files on the external debt and equity financial flow data of 150 countries.  Each annual disk includes additional data on international trade, payments, and capital flows.The Bank publication World Development Indicators is now available on CD-ROM.  Also issued annually, the disk offers over 600 single-year indicators for 148 economies, as well as 500 time-series indicators dating back to 1960.  The entire World Development Report series from the first 1978 edition can now be found on CD-ROM in Olin.  The wide range of themes presented over the years offers an evolving view of development issues and of the Bank's role in dealing with them.  These three new CD-ROM titles provide a useful and comparative overview of global social science concerns and a wealth of supporting data, and the disks can be charged out from Olin for ease in manipulating or exporting the files. (Janie Harris, jlh9@cornell.edu)

Lestringant, Frank. Cannibals: The Discovery and Representation of the Cannibal from Columbus to Jules Verne. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997 (The New Historicism:Studies in Cultural Poetics, 37) Location: Olin PQ 145.1 C35 L47x 1997 Frank Lestringant, a leading French scholar, gives us a fascinating account of cannibalism and the images it conjured for Europeans from the Renaissance to the late nineteenth century. Lively, accessible and provocative, this unique study will not only be welcomed by readers in early modern history, European literature, anthropology, and religious studies, but will fascinate anyone interested in the myths and realities of cannibalism. (Flaminia Cervesi-McCobb,  fcm4@cornell.edu)

Gunsberg, Maggie. Gender and the Italian Stage: from the Renaissance to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Location: Olin, PQ 4136 G86x 1997 Maggie Gunsberg explores gender portrayal on the Italian stage, and its shifting relationship with other social categories of class, age and the family, over the past five centuries. An interdisciplinary approach and feminist perspective inform her critique of work by Machiavelli, Ariosto, Goldoni, D'Annunzio, Pirandello, Franca Rame, and others. (Flaminia Cervesi-McCobb, fcm4@cornell.edu)

Ozeki, Ruth L. My Year of Meats.  New York: Viking, 1998. Location: Olin, PS3565.Z45 M99x 1998 14-DAY This first novel builds on misunderstandings rooted in gender, cultural, and regional differences and preferences.  Jane Takagi-Little, a Japanese- American woman documentary filmmaker hired to make a series for Japanese television about the lives of average American housewives, finds her comic experiences become more baroque with each episode.  Variety shows exposing the lives of ordinary individuals are popular Japanese TV fare;the sponsors of this series, meat importers, are troubled by Jane's increasingly provocative "average housewife" selections.  For this year's reader, an engaging first novel;  for future scholars, part of the body of fictional representation of the social fabric of the 1990s. (Sarah How, seh4@cornell.edu)

Witte, Bernd, [et al.] Goethe-Handbuch : in vier Bänden. Stuttgart : J.B. Metzler, c1996- Location: Olin,  PT 2168 .G589 1996 Library has:    Bd.1-3; Bd.4:T.1-2 (1996-1998) This handbook provides an introduction to Goethe's works by offering a combination of survey articles and interpretations of individual works.Volume 1 focuses on Goethe's poetry, volume 2 on his dramatic works, and volume 3 on prose works.  Volume 4 provides biographical information by means of substantive articles, arranged alphabetically. (Martha Hsu, mrh2@cornell.edu)

Schlink, Bernhard. Der Vorleser : Roman.. Zuerich : Diogenes, c1995. Location: Olin, PT 2680 .L71 V9 1995 Schlink.  The reader  ; translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway. New York : Pantheon Books, c1997. Location: Olin, PT 2680 .L71 V9 1997-- 14 Day Shelf An original contribution to the genre of "Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung" (coming to terms with the past), The Reader is a brief tale about sex, love, reading and shame in postwar Germany. (Martha Hsu, mrh2@cornell.edu)

Middle East internet directory 1998. 1st ed. -- Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Cyber Gear LLC, 1997- Location: Olin ,  + TK5105.875;.I57 M53 This is the first printed Middle East Internet directory. It lists mostly business and commercial Internet Web sites and computer network resources based in the Middle East. Entries also provide such information as e-mail addresses and usage statistics covering the following countries: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen. Recommended as a reference tool for anyone seeking to discover the Middle East in cyberspace, but particularly for the specialist who will find in it a wealth of information about the area--albeit not very comprehensive.  (Ali Houissa, ah16@cornell.edu)

King, David. The Commissar Vanishes / the falsification of photographs and art in Stalin's Russia. New York: Henry Holt and Co., c.1997. Location: Olin, +TR85. K55x 1997 This unique and eerie book is the fruit of author's 30 year quest for the lost authenticity of photographs of communist political figures during the period of Stalinism. David King, a photohistorian, singlehandedly gathered an unprecedented private collection of Soviet photographs: those rare photos which portrayed actual historic people and events and many more images which were grossly distorted in the grim process of Stalin's destruction of social memory through the falsification of historical photographs. Many major Soviet personages who had played important roles in the bolshevik revolution and later in building of the Soviet state appeared in original photographic prints that documented their place in history, only to "disappear" forever in later version of photos just as they were actually executed or were lost forever in Stalins gulags. The techniques of this deception were rather crude: assorted snips, airbrushes, transpositions, even plain ink. At the same time, as King writes, a parallel deceitful campaign came to full swing glorifying Stalin as the great leader and teacher of the Soviet people through socialist realism art: paintings, monumental sculpture and again falsified photographs representing Stalin as the only true friend, comrade and successor to Lenin.  In George Orwell's fictional account of a totalitarian state and its effect on its people, the falsification of the past becomes a major industry. In retrospect, thanks to authors like David King, we have gained evidence that Orwellian fiction had its appalling counterpart in the reality of Stalin's Russia. (Wanda Wawro, wtw3@cornell.edu)