|
Wolfgang Behn. Concise
Biographical Companion to Index Islamicus: An International
Who's Who in Islamic Studies From Its Beginnings Down to the
Twentieth Century. Brill, 2004.
- This bio-bibliographical
work covers the years 1665 to 1980 and gives information on the
approximately 40,000 authors who have written about Islam and
their writings.
Mordechai Feingold. The Newtonian Moment: Isaac Newton and
the Making of Modern Culture. The New York Public
Library/Oxford University Press, 2004.
- A companion volume to an exhibition at The New York Public
Library, this lavishly illustrated book demonstrates the
far-reaching effect of Newton's groundbreaking theories on
modern culture and society.
Terry Jones, et. al. Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval
Mystery. St. Martins Press, 2003.
- Growing out of a staged coroner's inquest on Geoffrey
Chaucer's death held at the Sorbonne in 1998, Terry Jones of
Monty Python fame and four other scholars examine how a changing
political climate created a new context for interpreting the
writings of the famed English poet, possibly making them
dangerous enough to warrant his murder.
Melissa Hines. Brain Gender. Oxford University Press,
2004.
- Emphasis on sex difference distracts from the bigger picture:
students in the United States lag behind their counterparts in
other countries when it comes to math and science. The change in
male to female dominance in professions, such as teaching and
secretarial work, relates more closely to lowering status and pay
than to differences in hormones and genes.
Katz, Dovid. Words On Fire: The Unfinished Story of
Yiddish. Basic Books, 2004.
- This history of Yiddish language and culture discusses the
development of Yiddish as a literary language, the development of
secular Yiddish culture, the loss of most of the language's
users, and the survival of Yiddish among some religious groups
today.
Raymond Knapp. The American Musical and the Formation of
National Identity. Princeton University Press, 2005.
- Knapp examines the American musical as "one of three
distinctively American and widely influential art forms that took
shape in the first half of the 20th century." Chapters
address 19th-century European roots, early American developments
(minstrelsy, extravaganza, pantomime, burlesque, and vaudeville),
American mythologies, race and ethnicity, the Second World War,
exoticism, and art and commerce.
Jennifer Gordon. Suburban Sweatshops. Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2005.
- In 1992 Gordon founded Workplace Project to help immigrant
workers in the underground suburban economy of Long Island, New
York. In this book, she weaves together Latino immigrant life and
legal activism to tell how the most vulnerable workers in society
came together to demand fair wages and safe working conditions
from their employers.
Kenneth Lichstein, et. al. Epidemiology of Sleep: Age,
Gender, and Ethnicity. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.
- When it comes to sleep, Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle certainly comes to mind: sleep does not come naturally
in a laboratory setting. The authors here use self-reported sleep
diaries to establish normal sleep patterns among different age
groups. The good news is that the data does not support the
notion that older adults are condemned to poor sleep.
Mandela, Nelson. In His Own Words. Little Brown &
Company, 2003.
- Mandela's eloquent and important speeches are collected
in this volume and illustrate his lasting commitment to freedom
and reconciliation, democracy and development, culture and
diversity, and international peace and well-being. The speeches
are arranged thematically and are accompanied by tributes from
world figures.
John Ogasapian. Music of the Colonial and Revolutionary
Era. Greenwood Press, 2004. Steven H. Cornelius. Music of
the Civil War Era. Greenwood Press, 2004.
- These two volumes in the series American History through
Music provide thorough overviews of two significant periods of
musical development in the United States. The first traces
musical life in the North American colonies and early republic
between 1500 and 1799; the second covers antebellum American
through 1865. Both books focus on America's evolving musical
multiculture-the distinctive mixture of cultivated and vernacular
music from diverse sources.
CONTRIBUTORS
Mark Alpert, Social
Sciences Librarian
Katherine Button,
Reference Librarian/Science Library
James Rosenbloom,
Judaica Specialist
Darwin Scott, Creative
Arts Librarian
Anthony T. Vaver,
Humanities Librarian
<Previous article Main menu Next article>
|
