Race and IQ. Edited by Ashley Montagu. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Location: Olin BF 432 A1 R3x 1999   These classic essays offer a rebuttal to those who would claim any link between race and intelligence. Twenty-four contributors from a variety of fields express skepticism about the scientific validity of intelligence tests, if only because scientists still cannot distinguish between genetic and environmental contributions to the development of the human mind. Five new essays have been included that specifically address the claims made in The Bell Curve (Olin BF 431 H398x 1994). (Martha Hsu, mrh2@cornell.edu)

Keel, Othmar and Uehliger, Christoph. Gods, goddesses and images of God in ancient Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998. Location: Olin, BL 1640 .K4413x 1998 An important new study of the religion of ancient Israel and Canaan. By means of detailed examination of the massive archaeological evidence accumulated during a century of biblical archaeology, with special attention to iconographic evidence found in amulets and inscriptions, reconstructs the emergence and development of the cult of Yahwe in relation to the surrounding religious cults of Canaan, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Devotes special attention to the question of female deities and female characteristics of the deity in ancient Israelite religion. While there have been many other historical studies of ancient Judaism, this one stands out because of its heavy reliance on the archaeological rather than the written historical record. (Yoram Szekely, ybs1@cornell.edu)

Calvin, Jean, 1509-1564. works: the comprehensive John Calvin collection. CD-ROM. Albany, OR: AGES, 1998. Location: Olin, Electronic Text Center, BX 9420 .A2x 1998 This is a CD-ROM version of the complete writings in English translation of Calvin, the most important figure of the Protestant Reformation after Luther himself. Augmented with translations of the complete works of St. Augustine and several Bible version as an aid for tracing relevant references in Calvin's works. Because it allows searching for specific concepts and even single words across the vast amount of text this electronic version will surely prove a useful tool for the study of this important figure as well as the history of Christianity generally. (Yoram Szekely, ybs1@cornell.edu)

Encyclomedia, il Seicento e il Settecento. Guida multimediale alla storia della civiltà europea/ diretta da Umberto Eco; progettata e curata da Horizons Unlimited (Bologna). Location: Olin Electronic Text Center, disk CB 401 E53x 1995. Encyclomedia is a CD Rom created and directed by Umberto Eco. It offers a completely new approach to the knowledge of the past. The user can easily navigate through Art, Literature and Theatre, Science and Technology, Music and Philosophy and have access to a vast repertoire of texts, images, animations, videos and sounds. Il Seicento explores the century in which "a new science paints an unknown image of the world. The big States who will dominate Europe are shaping up. Some of the most important and most renown artists of the world are born. The Religious wars are devastating entire Countries and new philosophies and political theories are sprouting up." (Umberto Eco). Il Settecento discusses various themes, among which the French Revolution, the history of Music from Bach to Mozart, the history of Science of the post-Newton era, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and finally the evolution of thought by philosophes. (Flaminia Cervesi McCobb, fcm4@cornell.edu)

Hamann, Brigitte. Hitler's Vienna: a Dictator's Apprenticeship. -- New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Location: Olin DD 247 H5 H281913x 1999 Hitler lived in Vienna from 1906 until he left for Munich in 1913, at the age of twenty-four. In addition to the modern, artistic, "fin-de-siècle" Vienna we associate with Freud, Mahler, and Schnitzler, there was another Vienna, fraught with ethnic rivalry, that rejected Viennese modernity as too international, too libertine, and too Jewish. Drawing on previously untapped sources that range from personal reminiscences to the records of homeless shelters where the unemployed Hitler spent his nights, this is a full account of this formative period of Hitler's life. (Martha Hsu, mrh2@cornell.edu)

Great Towns and Regional Polities: in the prehistoric American Southwest and Southeast, ed. Jill E. Neitzel. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999. (Amerind Foundation New World Studies Series, 3) Location: Olin, E 78, .S7 G74x 1999 Sixteen contributors examine the beginnings of urban life in the American Southwest and Southeast. Searching for commonality and difference the work is organized through a series of pairings that examine the urban features and outlying regions of such well-known North American sites as Snaketown, Pueblo Bonito and Moundville. A large collection of maps and figures adds to a reader's understanding and to the book's appeal. (David Block, db10@cornell.edu)

Franklin, John Hope and Loren Schweninger. Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Location: Olin, E 447 .F7x 1999 Uris, E 447 .F7x 1999 The view of African-American slaves as compliant and resigned to their fate is deeply rooted in the American consciousness. This groundbreaking analysis by the foremost historian of the African-American experience, John Hope Franklin, and his collaborator, Loren Schweninger, puts this idea to rest. Using a wealth of documents, including planters' records, petitions to county courts and state legislatures, and local newspapers, Franklin and Schweninger demonstrate that slaves did rebel against their masters and struggled for their freedom. The authors also examine the ways in which the white slave holding class marshaled their considerable resources to prevent runaways and to mete out severe punishment to captured escapees. This is a book which will be read and debated for many years to come. (G. David Brumberg, gdb1@cornell.edu)

Dyer, Thomas G. Secret Yankees: The Union Circle in Confederate Atlanta. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Location: Olin, F 294 .A857 D94x 1999 The story of Confederate sympathizers in the North during the American Civil War is fairly well know; Union supporters in the South are less well known. Secret Yankees is the story of a small band of Union patriots, lead by the indomitable Cyrena Stone, in Atlanta. Living in a city ruled by the Confederate military, who brooked little dissent, the group managed to aid Union prisoners of war, protected the interests of slaves and freedmen, and spirited military intelligence out of the city. Their help ironically assisted Sherman's attack on their own homes. Remaining loyal to the Union even in the last desperate days of the war, Cyrena Stone and her friends survived to see the triumph of the cause for which they risked their lives and fortunes. Secret Yankees provides both an illuminating account of a little known aspect of the Civil War and a thought provoking exploration of the nature and meaning of national loyalty in wartime. (G. David Brumberg, gdb1@cornell.edu)

Ladd, Everett Carll. The Ladd Report. New York : The Free Press, 1999. Location: Olin HN 90. V64 L33x 1999 The Ladd Report defines, measures, and analyzes Americans' involvement in civic life. In his latest book, Everett Carll Ladd challenges the common assumption that Americans have withdrawn from public affairs. By focusing on local community life and by broadening the scope of activities measured, Ladd finds individuals actively engaged in groups and associations. His data show Americans invested in cooperatively fostering social, religious, educational and environmental goals.As executive director and president of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, the author is well positioned to research his topic. He utilizes a wide range of survey data, public opinion poll results, media electorate studies, and organization membership registers. The book could serve as an introduction to quantitative social science and a sampler of survey resources. For those interested in public opinion and survey data, Olin Library offers an array of reference tools and secondary literature. Olin subscribes to the polling and survey reports issued by Roper, Gallup, Harris, etc., and provides guides and indices to national and international public opinion results. Journal articles and monographs such as the Ladd book offer abstracts and analysis of American public opinion. (Janie Harris, jlh9@cornell.edu)

Curtains of Iron and Gold: reconstructing borders and scales of interaction. Ed. Heikki Eskelinen, Ilkka Liikanen and Jukka Oksa. Aldershot, England ; Brookfield, Vt. : Ashgate, c1999. Location: Olin [JC 323 .C87x 1999 This book examines the historical role and present factors of creating political, economic and psychological borders in Europe. The concept of borders has not been studied since the Peace of Westfalia in 1648, which legitimized borders as the ultimate markers of national sovereignty, containers of statehood, nationhood and citizenship. For a past decade Europe has been witnessing two simultaneous processes of significant economic, cultural and political transformation; the creation of European Union in the West leading to the economic and social cohesion with a diminished role of national borders; and the wide proliferation in East and Central Europe of new political entities and development of new territorial borders. While these processes have been occurring simultaneously, they are, in fact, an antithesis of one another. The Western nations are going forward to a new stage of development, while in the East, earlier models of the traditional post-Westfalian nation-states are being employed. During the Cold War period, the rigid differences were described in terms of an Iron Curtain that divided two distinct political and economic systems and two ideologically and culturally distinct worlds. At present, differences are still discernible but they might be better described in terms of a Golden Curtain which this time divides Europe into two different economic and cultural spheres. The book investigates the future of European borders in various national and regional settings. It offers detailed case studies of cross-border dynamics of Estonian-Russian, German-Polish, Austrian-Slovenian and Hungarian-Yugoslavian borders. The US-Mexican case is added as a point of comparison. (Wanda Wawro, wtw3@cornell.edu)

Bobrovnikova, Elena. Odna zhizn': stikhotvoreniia, dnevnik, pis'ma. Moskva: Gotika, 1997. Location: Olin PG 3479.4 O164 Z47x 1997 Elena Bobrovnikova, a graduate student of the Mathematics Department at Cornell University, tragically died in Ithaca in 1996. Her mother, Natalia Stupochenko, gathered Elena's writings, drawings, and pages of her diaries, and created an intimate yet multi-dimensional portrait of the young Bobrovnikova. This mother's labor of love is a beautiful, most meaningful memorial to her daughter. It allows us to gain insights into Elena's personality, her perceptions of the world and of life, and her struggle to understand both. This young woman's keen intelligence, subtlety, and loving nature emanate from the pages of "Odna Zhizn". Her humanitarian concerns go hand-in-hand with her appreciation for the beauty of little things in each passing moment. The book truly embodies Elena Bobrovnikova's extraordinarily gifted, sensitive, and noble essence. Poetic, sometimes whimsical illustrations drawn or painted by Elena make the portrait more complete. (Wanda Wawro, wtw3@cornell.edu)

The Visual Culture Reader, edited by Nicholas Mirzoeff. London, New York: Routledge, 1998. Location: Olin, NX 458 V575x 1998 This anthology of 44 key writings in the new field of visual culture can serve as an introduction to the field, for it represents the diversity of both this interdisciplinary field and postmodern expressions of culture in visual form. The author's other books include Bodyscape: Art, Modernity, and the Ideal Figure (Fine Arts N 6494 .P66 M67 1995) and Silent Poetry: Deafness, Sign, and Visual Culture in Modern France (Olin HV 2471 .M57x 1995). Useful for browsing or for reference. (Sarah How; seh4@cornell.edu)

Stephens, Mitchell. The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word. London: Oxford University Press, 1998. Location: Olin, PN 1992.6 S73x 1998 14-DAY This historian of radio and television journalism warns his readers: "...you are beginning to read a book that looks forward to the eclipse of reading by the offspring of TV." He believes that the moving image has the power to dissipate the spiritual crisis of American culture in the late twentieth century. Using examples from experimental video, advertising, the history of photography and film, and television, the author considers the kinds of work that might release this full, transformative power. (Sarah How; seh4@cornell.edu)

Marso, Lori Jo. (Un)Manly Citizens: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's and Germaine de Staël's Subversive Women. Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1999. Location: Olin, PQ 2053 M 28x 1999. In (Un)Manly Citizens, political theorist Lori Jo Marso explores an alternative vision of citizenship in the writings of French Enlightenment figures Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Germaine de Staël. This critique transgresses the boundary between political philosophy and literature in turning explicitly to fictional texts as the site of an alternative conception of the self, citizenship, and democratic politics. Marso departs from previous feminist scholarship on Rousseau by reading Emile and La Nouvelle Héloïse from the perspective of his women characters. In this reading, Sophie and Julie emerge as subversive of the narrow range of femininity usually understood as advocates of Rousseau. Marso argues that these women display an uncanny ability to deconstruct the qualities and dictates of scholarship for which Rousseau is infamous. In Staël's novels, Delphine and Corrine, Marso locates a citizenship practice premised on the recognition of individuals in terms of their concrete histories and situations. Marso makes us aware of how early in the history of modern political thought the potential of unmanly vision of citizenship as a radical critique of politics was already being discussed and formulated. (Flaminia Cervesi McCobb, fcm4@cornell.edu)

Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de, 1852-1921. The Tribune of the People. translated by Walter Borenstein. Lewisburg: Buckness University Press; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1999. Location: Olin, PQ 6629 .A7 T7513x 1999 A social novel written against the background of civil unrest and industrial change, this translation of Tribunal presents the author's concern for the lot of the Spanish proletariat in the mid 19th century. Through the voice of Amparo, a young girl growing up in the Galician capital, La Coruña, we hear of emerging economic aspirations, political organization and feminism. Amparo's experience, while presented with considerable optimism, is a warning that class separation was unlikely to be bridged by talent alone-- for this one requires a great deal of luck. (David Block, db10@cornell.edu)

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