Lutz, Tom. Crying: the natural and cultural history of tears. -- New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.

Location: Olin, BF 575 .C88 L87 1999
Uris, BF 575 .C88 L87x 1999

Crying looks at the way people have understood weeping from the earliest known representation of tears in the fourteenth century B.C. through tears found in today's films, advertisements, and therapies. The author considers the ideas of philosophers, physiologists, and contemporary neurophysiologists and ophthalmologists. Psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists all have their theories as well. Lutz also examines paintings, literary texts and films. This book maintains that tears are never pure, and that they are never simple.
(Martha Hsu, mrh2@cornell.edu)

Gender and Christian religion : papers read before the summer 1996 meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Ed.by R N.Swanson. Woodbridge (U.K): Boydell, 1998. (Studies in Church history, v. 34).

Location: Olin, BR 1.S96 vol. 34

The complex influence of gender on the development of Christian religion is the theme of this collection of thirty- two essays. Includes both case studies ranging in time from early medieval times to the mid-19th century and in space from the British Isles to the US and Caribbean, and theoretical treatments of the role of women in the history of Christianity. Taken together the essays provide an excellent overview of the subject for the advanced student and specialist.
(Yoram Szekely, ybs1@cornell.edu)

Bergeron, David Moore. King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999.

Location: Olin, DA 391 .B46x 1999

Probably best known for sponsoring the translation of the Bible which became known as the King James Version, James the 6th of Scotland and 1st of England obviously had other interests, as this book shows. Using the large number of James' letters which have survived, David Bergeron convincingly argues that the King's correspondence with certain men in his court constitutes a gospel of homoerotic desire. The missives exchanged between James and three of his "favorites"--Esme Stuart, Robert Carr, and George Villiers--reveal an inward desire of king and subject in a mutual exchange of love. This book is a landmark in the effort to more fully understand the personal lives of early-modern British monarchs.
(G. David Brumberg, gdb1@cornell.edu)

Ozment, Steven E. Flesh and spirit: private life in early modern Germany. New York, N.Y: Viking, 1999.

Location: Olin, DD 901 .N92 O96x 1999
Uris, DD 901 .N92 O96x 1999

Using private papers and archives, the author analyzes and weaves together primary sources to create a compelling account of family in late fifteenth-century to early seventeenth-century Germany: courtship, marriage, pregnancy, child rearing, and the establishment of new families. Ozment re-creates the social and political world of this period in German and European history by his accounts of the lives of five families.
(Martha Hsu, mrh2@cornell.edu)

Holton, Woody. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture by the University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

Location: Olin, E 210 .H695 1999

As one of the most, if not THE most important events in the history of the United States, the American Revoultion has been the subject of much study, controversy, and reinterpretation from the end of the 18th century to the present. In this work Woody Holton presents us with yet another new and provocative interpretation. Rather than the supremely confident and forceful patriots of American History myth, the elite of Virginia&emdash;George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and their friends--are portrayed as so insecure that they are forced into revolution by the actions of the lower classes. While there are echoes of Carl Becker's "who shall rule and who shall rule at home thesis" in this volume, Holton contends that the only way for the Virginia upper classes to maintain their status was to declare independence from Great Britain. In this "well-written book, with clearly presented analysis" the author has demonstrated that "armed Indians, rebellious enslaved workers,and democratically active smallholders were just as much active agents of the Revolution as Lord North and Patrick Henry."
(G. David Brumberg, gdb1@cornell.edu)

Shapiro, Andrew L. The control revolution: how the Internet is putting individuals in charge and changing the world we know. New York: Public Affairs, c1999.

Location: Olin, HM 851 .S53x 1999

Shenk, David, The end of patience: cautionary notes on the information revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c1999.

Location: Olin, HM 851 .S54x 1999

This month's recent acquisitions introduce a new call number to the antiquated Library of Congress classification scheme. Class "HM 851" is the new category for books and journals on the subject of Information Society, whatever that is. As described in these new acquisitions, the information society is wired, nonlinear, immediate, chaotic, global and growing. The books are cautionary essays by authors whose initial boosterism has been tempered by life in the new society. Both are among the founders of the technorealism project, and they reference each other's work. In "The Control Revolution," Andrew Shapiro reviews the political, social and economic change in the information society and measures the change against his ideals. His concerns are with the status and role of the individual, and his conclusions urge balance between the individual and society and between the traditional and the new. In his work, "The End of Patience," David Shenk continues the critique of information society that he began in his 1997 book, "Data Smog." He worries that the new technologies, particularly electronic communication, have overwhelmed humans' ability to adapt. The theme of enthusiastic skepticism runs through his essays on the media, government, and education in the new society. In addition to the titles by Shapiro and Shenk, Olin class "HM 851" offers four other recent books with more on order. Olin users will find that the information society has been named and classed, and is now being reviewed.
(Janie Harris, jlh9@cornell.edu)

Herzog, Hanna. Gendering politics: women in Israel. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. (Interests, identities and institutions in comparative politics).

Location: Olin, HQ 1236.5 .I75 H46x 1999

Explores the place of women in democratic politics by means of a detailed study of Israeli female elected officials in the period 1950-1989. Using a wide range of primary and secondary sources, it analyzes the extent to which female candidates succeeded or failed during Israeli elections, and then explores the reasons for the comparatively slight participation of women in Israeli politics. One of the few thorough and scholarly book length treatments of the subject in English, of interest to all students of Israel, Womens Studies and Political Science.
(Yoram Szekely, ybs1@cornell.edu)

Borges, Jorge Luis. Selected Non-Fictions. (New York: Viking, 1999).

Location: Olin, PQ 7797.B635 A22x 1999

1999 is the centennial of Borges' birth, and the event is being celebrated by running the presses world-wide. This work compiles samples of the author's non-fiction--essays, reviews, commentary, prologues, lectures and political and cultural notes. It includes a number of newly-translated pieces by Eliot Weinberger, Suzanne Jill Levine and Esther Allen. Readers interested in Borges can get a view of the 1999 publishing boomlet by entering the key words "jorge luis borges" in Cornell's NOTIS database. The resulting 17 works (the first ones in the chronologically-sorted display) are published in the Latin America, the United States and Western Europe.
(David Block, db10@cornell.edu)

Brown University Women Writers Project (computer file). Providence, RI:The Project, 199?-.

ONLINE PR1110.W6 B76 http://resolver.library.cornell.edu/misc/arw7408

Internet resource file; accessible through the Library Gateway.

This state-of-the-art electronic textbase of women's writing in English before 1830 supports a wide range of activities related to scholarship, research, teaching, and the development of electronic texts. Promoting research on text encoding and its applicability to early texts is a key project goal. "As more and more textual resources become available in electronic form,… what is becoming clearer is how closely intertwined the technical and scholarly issues are: how different, for instance, it is to separate issues of transcription and editing from issues of encoding, and how important it is that technical issues be addressed with scholarly imperatives in mind." Presently 173 texts are available online, with new texts added continually. As the most important works that once were difficult to find become available, the database will move toward adding more obscure works such as eighteenth century novels and writing by women of color.
(Sarah How, seh4@cornell.edu)

See, Carolyn. The Handyman. New York: Random House, 1999.

Location: Olin, PS 3569 E33 H36x 1999 14-DAY

Recommended reading for a weekend at the turn of the millennium, this book is realistic, optimistic, and forward-looking, -- a fiction for folk who like to know the ending first and for idealists appreciative of the transformation of the present. Reading Carolyn See is like listening to a long engaging conversation. The tale: a young aspiring artist tries Paris and feels out of place; homesick, he returns to Los Angeles and sets himself up as a handyman; listens, looks, appreciates, helps people, and fixes things; and at lasts grasps the brass ring -- his muse, vision, and right place. On a serious note, this novel belongs in the Olin collection because Carolyn See, who teaches at UCLA, is a significant American writer whose work establishes her as a perceptive chronicler of our times.
(Sarah How, seh4@cornell.edu)