March is Women's History Month. Although we were unable to assemble a full-blown women's studies issue, our March edition features the works of several female creative writers and studies of women's participation in religion, the American South and Mexico.

Nadell, Pamela Susan. Women who would be rabbis [BM 652 .N33x 1998]
Ahmadi, Nader and Fereshteh Ahmadi. Iranian Islam [BP 188.8 .I55 A35x 1998]
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Greeks and Greek Civilization [DF 77 .B94213x 1998]
Berger. Maurice. White Lies [E 185.615 .B47x 1999]
Graham, Lawrence Otis. Our Kind of People [ F 185.86 .G644x 1999]
Alexander, Caroline. The Endurance [G 850 1914 S53 A44x 1998]
Wilson, R. L. Buffalo Bill's Wild West [+ GV 1821 .B8 W55x 1998]
Inness, Sherrie A., ed. Millennium Girls [HQ 777 .M42 1998]
Gillespie, Michele and Catherine Clinton, eds. Taking off the White Gloves [HQ 1438 .S63 T34 1998]
Rodríguez, Victoria, ed.Women's Participation in Mexican Political Life [HQ 1236.5 .M6 W65x 1998]
Dalewska-Gren, Hanna. Jezyki slowianskie [PG 43 .D35x 1997]
F.N. Gromov, ed. Tri veka rossiiskogo flota [PG 56 .T75w 1996]
Betje Black Klier, ed. Tales of the Sabine Borderlands [PQ 2380. P44 T35x 1998]
Bufalino, Gesualdo. Tommaso e il fotografo cieco [PQ 4862. U344 T66 1996z]
Mistral, Gabriela. La tierra tiene la actitud de una mujer [PQ 8097 .G6 T539x 1998]
Godshalk, C.S. Kalimantaan [PS 3557 O3145 K35x 1998]
Leon, Donna. The Death of Faith [PS 3562.E599 D47 1997]
Lerner, Fred. The Story of Libraries [Z 721 L565x 1998]

Nadell, Pamela Susan. Women who would be rabbis: a history of womens' ordination, 1889-1985. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998. Location: Olin BM 652 .N33x 1998 Probably the first book-length historical overview of the issue of women's ordination in Judaism. In view of the controversies surrounding this matter in recent years, especially in the conservative and orthodox branches of Judaism, it comes as somewhat of a surprise to learn that in the United States women have struggled to become rabbis for over a century. Describes in detail the cases of several pioneering women rabbis against the background of changing currents in Judaism and Judaism's encounter with the secular modern world and feminism. Will likely become most useful in the study of one of the important issues in modern American Judaism. (Yoram Szekely, ybs1@cornell.edu)

Ahmadi, Nader and Fereshteh Ahmadi. Iranian Islam : the concept of the individual. York : St. Martin's Press, 1998. Location: Olin BP 188.8 .I55 A35x 1998 Based on the co-author's Ph.D. thesis in sociology (Fereshteh Ahmadi Lewin, Uppsala University, 1995) this book deals with the problem of the non-development of the concept of the "individual" in the Iranian ways of thinking. It tries to explain the cognitive and philosophical obstacles to the development of the concept of the "individual" in the Iranian society. There is, according to this thesis, a discrepancy between the dominant conceptions of the status and role of the individual prevailing in modern Western ways of thinking, on the one hand and, on the other, the Iranian ways of thinking, a disparity between the idea of concern for the individual, prevalent in the Western cultures and the idea of the self-annihilation, prevailing in the ways of thinking of Iranians. (Ali Houissa, ah16@cornell.edu)

Burckhardt, Jacob. The Greeks and Greek Civilization. Edited by Oswyn Murray. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. Location: Olin DF 77 .B94213x 1998 Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) was perhaps the preeminent historian of Classical and Renaissance cultures in the nineteenth century. This work consists of the first publication in English of a series of lectures in which he presented a picture of classical Greek civilization so much at variance with the idealized view of the ancient Greeks as the embodiment of aesthetics and democratic freedom that he felt unable to publish them during his lifetime. Here he portrays ancient Greek culture as an aristocratic world based on ruthless competition for power, resulting in a political structure long on tyranny and short on freedom. An important contribution to classical historiography from one of its great masters. (Yoram Szekely, ybs1@cornell.edu)

Berger. Maurice. White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999. Location: Olin E 185.615 .B47x 1999 Uris E 185.615 .B47x 1999 Maurice Berger approaches the troubling issue of race in America from a very personal perspective. The son of a liberal Jewish father who idolized Martin Luther King and a dark-skinned Sephardic Jewish mother who hated black people, Berger was one of the few white kids in his Lower East Side housing project. Out of this intensely personal experience comes White Lies, a fresh and startling book which juxtaposes the words of ordinary people coping with fears and anxieties about race with passages drawn from the work of James Baldwin, Roland Barthes, Toni Morrison, and other well known commentators. Berger encourages the reader to reckon with his/her own complex and often troubling opinions about race. The result is an honest look at race in America which is free from cant, surprisingly entertaining, and unsettling. Composed with "artfulness and grace," White Lies has been hailed as "one of the most insightful volumes in the effort to untangle this complicated national legacy." (G. David Brumberg, gdb1@cornell.edu)

Graham, Lawrence Otis. Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Location: Olin F 185.86 .G644x 1999 Uris F 185.86 .G644x 1999 A narrative of the mostly hidden American black upper class, this is the first book written about their world by one of their own. Graham traces the rise of a conservative network of families which date back to the first black millionaires in the 1880s. The author profiles institutions and individuals in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D. C., Philadelphia, Detroit, Nashville, Memphis, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. He describes a group which has been simultaneously heroic, snobbish, generous, and ambitious. In the process he gives us a firsthand look at a very private community that has played a major role in American life. (G. David Brumberg, gdb1@cornell.edu)

Alexander, Caroline. The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. New York: Knopf, 1998. Location: Olin G 850 1914 S53 A44x 1998 In 1914, Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men set sail to Antarctica, where they hoped to be the first to cross the continent on foot. Before reaching their destination, their ship, Endurance, was trapped in the ice pack and eventually crushed. One of the crew was Frank Hurley, an Australian photographer, who had his professional equipment with him. This book has reproductions of 140 of his photographs of the ship, documenting its slow demise, and the crew in their subsequent efforts to survive. In fact, everyone did survive, as did Hurley's original glass plate negatives. The Endurance was published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's exhibition on Shackleton's journey. (Martha Hsu, mrh2@cornell.edu)

Wilson, R. L. (Robert Lawrence). Buffalo Bill's Wild West : an American legend. R.L. Wilson with Greg Martin ; photography by Peter Beard and Douglas Sandberg. New York: Random House, c1998. Location: Olin + GV 1821 .B8 W55x 1998 As eagerly as today's fans are anticipating the arrival of Lucas's Star Wars prequel, one hundred years ago so did his fans eagerly await the appearance of Buffalo Bill's Wild West & Congress of Rough Riders of the World. Appearing on stage, in the open air, and in Edison's early films, William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody and his touring troop of cavalry, cowboys and American Indians theatrically recreated their real life experiences in the nineteenth century American West. Wilson's book is a richly illustrated and documented history of the show. It features a broad range of artifacts and period photographs from special museum and private collections. Receiving detailed treatment are the show's talented stars, striking visual promotional material, and historic firearms. The book concludes with several photos of the contemporary EuroDisney recreation of Buffalo Bill's Wild West recreation of the frontier, leaving readers to consider the evolution of American myth and legend in popular entertainment. This book is part of Olin's collection on the social history of recreation and leisure. Found under call number GV, these Olin resources document and describe the role and meaning of sports and spectacle in modern society. (Janie Harris, jlh9@cornell.edu)

Inness, Sherrie A., ed. Millennium Girls: Today's Girls around the World. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998. Location: Olin HQ 777 .M42 1998 Scholars in multiple disciplines look at what it means to be a girl in different cultures and religions today. Chapters include "Hasidic Girls: Daily Lives and Inner Worlds," "Spice Girls' Talk: A Case Study in the Development of Gendered Identity," "'Feeling Better' with BRAVO: German Girls and Their Popular Youth Magazine," "Pornography or Therapy? Japanese Girls Creating the Yaoi Phenomenon," and "Do Bad Girls Get a Bum Rap? Sexual Solutions and State Interventions." This book offers valuable cross-cultural perspective to the growing studies of girlhood and youth culture. (Brenda Marston, bjm4@cornell.edu)

Gillespie, Michele and Catherine Clinton, eds. Taking off the White Gloves : Southern Women and Women Historians. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998. Location: Olin HQ 1438 .S63 T34 1998 Taking off their white gloves and speaking their minds, ten prominent historians contribute essays on four centuries of women's lives in the South. Imaginatively employing literary analysis, social history, cultural studies, labor history, and oral history, the authors explore the complexities of women's experiences across class, race, sexuality, and time. This volume celebrates the nearly 30 years of activity of the Southern Association of Women Historians, founded in 1970. (Brenda Marston, bjm4@cornell.edu)

Rodríguez, Victoria E., ed. Women's Participation in Mexican Political Life. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998. Location: Olin HQ 1236.5 .M6 W65x 1998 The fifteen essays that comprise this volume document the recent emergence of Mexican women in politics and, by extension, the emergence of feminist scholarship in Mexico. Originally presented among the papers delivered at two international conferences on "Women in Contemporary Mexican Politics," in Austin, Texas, the contents represents a wide range of social science research ably tied together by Rodríguez's introduction. (David Block, db10@cornell.edu)

Dalewska-Gren, Hanna. Jezyki slowianskie. Warszawa: Wydawn. Naukowe PWN, 1997. Location: Olin PG 43 .D35x 1997 The purpose of this book is the introduction of phonological systems and grammatical structures of Slavic languages, the comparative history of Slavic literary languages, the various alphabets and writing systems used by the Slavic nations. The author, an adjunct at the Institute of Slavic Languages of the Polish Academy of Sciences describes a wide panorama of phenomena characteristic for the Slavic linguistic world. Each linguistic phenomenon is described and compared to its corresponding occurrence in every Slavic language. This comprehensive work is addressed mainly to students of Slavic philology and their teachers as well. (Wanda WWA, wtw3@cornell.edu)

F.N. Gromov, ed.,Tri veka rossiiskogo flota.. Sancta Petersburg: Logos, 1996. Location: Olin PG 56 .T75w 1996 In the 300 year old history of the Russian navy, Russian seamen have established an impressive record of victories, explorations, inventions and other constructive achievements. Since the end of the second World War the Russian navy has become a sea power second in its strength and effectiveness only to the United States Navy. 1696 marks the beginning of the Russian fleet built by Peter the Great on the eve of his siege of Above. In the past two years many works have been published to commemorate this anniversary; " Tri Veda Rossiskogo Float" is one of them. In impressive three volumes it provides an account of the development of Russian sea power, with description of its role in 35 out of 37 wars fought by Russia and the Soviet Union. It includes profiles of naval commanders, history and development of Russian shipbuilding from the first sailboat of Peter the Great to nuclear submarines. The publication may serve as reference work but makes interesting reading as well. Unfortunately, a most invaluable item that is totally lacking and considerably weakens the usefulness of such a major work is any form of an index. (Wanda WWA, wtw3@cornell.edu)

Betje Black Klier, ed., Tales of the Sabine Borderlands Texas A&M University Press, 1998. Location: Olin PQ 2380. P44 T35x 1998 In February, 1830, eighteen-year-old Theodore Pavie traveled west on the Camino Real from Natchitoches, in the new state of Louisiana, to Nacogdoches, Texas, which remained under Mexican rule. Events of his trip inspired him to write stories rich in details of the Louisiana-Texas border region after he returned to France. After Pavie's death in 1896, his works slipped into quiet oblivion until Betje Black Klier discovered his travel journal and letters in the late 1980s. Both Pave and his modern biographer-editor Klier work at the intersection of history and literature. Borderlands and Western historians, anthropologists, literati, and travelers will be interested in exploring these treasures of historical detail and early examples of American ethnographic fiction. (Flaminia Cervesi-McCobb, fcm4@cornell.edu)

Bufalino, Gesualdo. Tommaso e il fotografo cieco. Milan: Bompiani, 1996. Location: Olin PQ 4862. U344 T66 1996z A journalist with a desire to be a writer leaves his work, his family and his friends behind. He exiles himself in the basement of a big metropolitan apartment building, where he becomes the spectator, the actor and the reporter of many ups and downs, until a final denouement that overturns the events. This is the last novel written by the late Gesualdo Bufalino, author of many narrative works, and winner of the Premio Campiello in 1981 for his novel Diceria dell'untore and of the coveted Premio Strega in 1988 for Le menzogne della notte. (Flaminia Cervesi-McCobb, fcm4@cornell.edu)

Mistral, Gabriela. La tierra tiene la actitud de una mujer. Selection and introduction by Pedro Pablo Zegers Blanchet. Santiago de Chile: Red Internacional de Libro, 1998. Location: Olin PQ 8097 .G6 T539x 1998 Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) was the Nobel laureate for literature in 1951, the only Latin American woman to be so honored. This compilation was prepared by the curator of the Writers Archive of the Chilean National Library to illuminate Mistral's feminist thought. It consists of excerpts from the writer's published oeuvre and her manuscript correspondence, composed between 1906 and 1951. (David Block, db10@cornell.edu)

Godshalk, C.S. Kalimantaan. New York: Holt, 1998. Location: Olin PS 3557 O3145 K35x 1998 14-DAY An ambitious and imaginative historical novel, rich in detail and imagery, set in colonial North Borneo. Olin collects historical fiction very selectively. This work is a natural example, both as a first novel from a promising writer and as a widely praised description of a part of the world well-studied at Cornell. (Sarah How; seh4@cornell.edu)

Leon, Donna. The Death of Faith. London: Macmillan, 1997. Location: Olin PS 3562.E599 D47 1997 14-DAY Airfares to Europe have been low, and Ithaca skies are gray. If you are reading this review, you may need Donna Leon's five mysteries to transport you to Venice in your fireside armchair. Commissario Guido Brunetti is married to an archaeology professor and has two teenage children. His encounters with Venetian society, and the author's developed characters and keen descriptions of family life and cityscape, enrich these tales. Leon, an American who lives in Italy, was published by HarperCollins until two years ago; her recent works are available only in UK editions. The latest, A Noble Radiance, is on order for Olin. (Mysteries collected by the Library as examples of genre literature are widely read by the Cornell community.) (Sarah How; seh4@cornell.edu)

Lerner, Fred. The Story of Libraries: from the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age. New York: Continuum, 1998. Location: Olin Z 721 L565x 1998 This book describes the crucial role libraries have played throughout history: in ancient Egypt, China, the classical Western world, Islam, medieval and Renaissance Europe, and colonial and modern America. The final chapter, "Libraries of the future," outlines the role libraries will play in the preservation of crumbling books and documents, and in forming new ways of preserving our culture. (Martha Hsu, mrh2@cornell.edu)

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