ISSUE: Summer 1999
The Oxford Book of the American South: Testimony, Memory, and Fiction, edited by Edward L. Ayers and Bradley C. Mittendorf, offers a variety of what has been written and thought in Dixie during nearly 300 years of its history. Topics range from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement with an opening section on the old South. Oxford recently published a paper edition [$18.95]. California is offering a new edition of the French seacaptain Auguste Duhaut-Cilly’s account of A Voyage to California, Sandwich Islands, and Around the World in the Years 1826—1829. This account includes an eyewitness report of what life was like in California while it was still under Mexican rule. Duhaut-Cilly’s journal has been translated from the French by August Fruge and Neal Harlow [$29.95 cloth]. Norton has republished Townsend Davis’ Weary Feet, Rested Souk: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement which brings the landscape of this period of Southern history alive anew. Davis traveled some 30,000 miles and spent more than 100 hours interviewing civil rights veterans. He produced what has been described as “an indispensable travelers guide book to Civil Rights in the deep South” [$16.95 paper], Rebecca M. Blank’s It Takes A Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty is available as a Princeton paperback [$18.95]. Johns Hopkins has republished Arnold R. Isaacs’ Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia which Douglas Pike in a New York Times Book Review described as “reportage at its very best” [$17.95 paper]. John F. Sears’ Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the 19th Century was lauded by historian Simon Schama as “a work of exceptional intelligence and deep research. It is essential reading for all students of landscape history.” Massachusetts recently published a paper edition of Sacred Places [$15.95]. Clifford Dowdey’s Lee and His Men at Gettysburg details the battle from the Confederate point of view. Nebraska has republished Dowdey’s account as a Bison Book [$16.95 paper]. Washington has a new edition of Janet E. Rasmussen’s New Land, New Lives: Scandanavian Immigrants to the Pacific Northwest [$24.95 cloth, $12.95 paper]. Elephant Paperback series Ivan R. Dee has reprinted Iriving Kristol’s Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea [$18.95]. Gary W. Gallagher’s The Confederate War describes “how popular will, nationalism, and military strategy could not stave off defeat.” It is now available as a Harvard paperback [$15.95]. Other recent Harvard paperback publications include Gerald F. Linderman’s The World Within War: America’s Combat Experience in World War II [$15.95]; and Eric T. Dean, Jr.’s Shook Over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War [$16.95]. Cornell is offering a paper edition of Jane Balin’s A Neighborhood Divided: Community Resistance to an AIDS Care Facility [$14.95]. Vintage Books has republished Stanley Crouch’s collection of essays Always in Pursuit: Fresh American Perspectives with two new essays for the Vintage edition [$14], Also available as a recent Vintage Book is Tony Horwitz’s national bestseller Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War [$14]. Brooks Mather Kelley’s Yale: A History recounts the development of one of the nation’s most prestigious universities from its founding in 1701 by a small group of Puritan clergymen to its position today as a major international institution. This history is now available in a paper edition from Yale [$37.50 cloth, $18 paper].
LIVES & LETTERS
Originally published in 1964, Willie Lee Rose’s Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment, a chronicle of South Carolina’s Sea Islands during the Civil War era, won the Allan Nevins history prize, the Francis Parkman prize, and the Charles S. Sydnor prize for Southern history. A new edition of this award-winning book was recently published in paper by Georgia with an introduction by noted Southern historian, C. Vann Woodward [$16.95]. Chicago has published a paper edition of David P. Currie’s The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period, 1789—1801 [$18]. North Carolina has issued a paper edition of One of Lee’s Best Men: The Civil War Letters of General William Dorsey Pender, edited by William W. Hassler with a new foreword by Brian Wills, first published by the UNC Press in 1965 [$16.95]. A recent Princeton paperback is William H. Chafe’s Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein and the Struggle to Save American Liberalism, a book that is both a chronicle of liberalism at the barricades in the 1960’s and 70’s and the story of a man desperately seeking peace in his interior life [$19.95]. Wisconsin has republished Helen Barolini’s Chiaroscuro: Essays of Identity, a collection of essays that is part memoir, part social commentary and part literary criticism [$19.95 paper]. New England has reissued Roxanna Robinson’s Georgia O’Keefe: A Life, a biography of the 20th-century’s leading woman artist [$19.95 paper]. The Modern Library has a new edition of Living Well Is the Best Retenge, Calvin Tomkins’ account of the legendary life of Gerald and Sara Murphy, two American expatriates who found themselves at the center of a charmed circle of artists and writers including Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald [$16.95 cloth], St. Louis Woman is the autobiography of Helen Traubel, a native of Missouri who went on to become a world class soprano but who remained true to her roots through it all. Missouri has a paper edition now available [$19.95]. Cornell has a new edition of Eunice Lipton’s Alias Olympia: A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious Model and Her Own Desire. the 19th-century model being Vitorine Meurent who appeared in Manet’s paintings [$11.95 paper]. Washington has republished Annabel Walker’s Auriel Stein: Pioneer of the Silk Road, a portrait of the man considered “the colossus of Centrl Asian scholarship” [$19.95 paper). Nebraska has added Rufus R. Dawes’ A Full Blown Yankee of the Iron Brigade: Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers with an introduction by Alan T. Nolan in its Bison Books series [$16.95], Henry Kamen’s Philip of Spain is the first full scale biography of the ruler of the most extensive empire the world has ever known. Yale has republished this biography of Philip II in a paper edition [$17.95]. Another recent Yale paperback is Russia Througli Women ‘s Eyes: Autobiographies from Tsarist Russia edited by Toby W. Civilian and Judith Vowles [$18]. Jean Strouse’s Alice James: A Biography is an account of the life of the sister of William and Henry James which was awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize for Distinguished American History. Harvard is now offering a paper edition [$18.95]. Other recent Harvard paperbacks include Albert J. Von Frank’s The Trials of Anthony Burns Freedom and Slavery in Emerson’s Boston [$16.95]: Robert Dallek’s Ronald Reagan: The politics of Symbolism with a new preface by the author [$15.95] and three works about the Adams Family all by Paul C. Nagel, the works being respectively Descent From Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family [$16.95]; John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life [$16.95] and The Adams Women: Abigail and Lounisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters [$14.95].
HISTORY
Battle Ground Berlin: CIA vs KGB in the Cold War was written In three authors with first-hand experience of that battle. Naturally David E Murphy, retired chief of CIA’s Berlin base Serget A Kondrashey a retired liutenant general of the KGB and former head of its department, and George Bailey a former director of Radio Liberty and author of Germans. Yale has now published a Paper edition of Battleground Berlin [$l6.95]. Vintage Books is offering Serge Schmemaim’s Echos of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village, a book The New Yorker calls “stark, moving and indifinitely suggestive” [$15], Virginia is out with a paper edition of Paul K. Longmore’s The Invention of George Washington which traces Washington’s development from colonial planter and soldier to republican icon [$l6.95]. Princeton has a new edition of Jeffrey Burton Russell’s A History of The Singing Silence a book elected as one of Christianity Today’s top 25 book in their 199S hook issue [$14.95] paper Other recent Princeton paperbacks include Charles S. Maier’s Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany which won the 1995 New England Historical Associations annual book award [$ 19.95] and Elizabeth Kier’s Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the Wars [$17.95] Theodore S. Hamerow’s On the Road to the Wolf’s Lair: German Resistance to Hitler is out in a paper edition from Harvard [$18.95]. Other recent Harvard paper backs include Robert Service’s A History of Tuentieth-Century Russia [$16.95] and Kate Cooper’s The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity [$16.95].
LITERATURE IN GENERAL
Jonathan Bate’s The Genius of Shakespeare was cited as one of the best books of the year by John Gross in the London Sunday Telegraph. Said Gross “The Genius of Shakespeare is the liveliest and most intelligent general book on Shakespeare I have read for a long time.” Oxford has published a paper edition of this book [$17.95]. Jeffrey Kacirk’s Forgotten English is billed as “a Merry Guide to Antiquated Words, Packed with History, Fun Facts, Literary Excerpts, and Charming Drawings.” It is available in paper as a Quill Book [$11]. Schocken Books has a paper edition of Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White edited with an introduction by David R. Roediger [$14]. Rutledge has republished Cary Nelson and Stephen Watt’s Academic Keywords: A Devil’s Dictionary for Higher Education which presents “the highs and lows, humors and horrors of higher education in detail, devastating dictionary format” [$20 paper].
FICTION
Richard Beard’s X20: A Novel of (not) Smoking was hailed by Publishers Weekly as “hilarious. . . and edgily comic satire. . . This witty debut rolls together the great themes of love, addiction and hubris into a story about cigarettes and, in this case, giving them up.” Avon’s Spike Trade Paperbacks series has reprinted X20 [$12]. A recent HarperPerenial is Janice Daugherty’s Whistle, a novel The New York Times Book Review calls “sensuous, swift, full of sparkling twists” [$13 paper]. A recent Scribner paperback is Hanif Kureishi’s short story collection, Love in a Blue Time [$11]. Originally published in 1940, Erskine Caldwell’s Trouble in July is an electrifying account of the lynching of a black man in the depression-era South. Georgia is now offering a new paper edition [$14.95]. As part of its Harlem Renaissance series, the Modern Library has a paper edition of Wallace Thurman’s Infants of the Spring, a roman à clef about the Renaissance [$11.95 paper]. A new Vintage Book is Allan Gurganus’ Plays Well with Others, a novel about Manhattan in the wild 1980’s [$14]. Other recent Vintage Books include Bruce McCall’s Thin Ice: Saved by the American Dream [$14]; Jonathan Lethem’s Girl in Landscape [$12]; and Three Plays by Noel Coward, the plays being “Blithe Spirit,” “Hay Fever,” and “Private Lives” [$13].
