april08c.indd


George M. Eberhart N e w  P u b l i c a t i o n s  

American Shamans: Journeys with Tradition­
al Healers, by Jack Montgomery (265 pages, 
February 2008), recounts his personal ex­

periences with root 
doctors, hexenmeis­
ters, granny­women, 
Powwow practitio­
ners, and other folk 
healers in South 
Carolina and the 
Appalachians. Mont­
gomery, collection 
services coordinator 
at Western Kentucky 
University Libraries, 

conducted extensive fi eld research with heal­
ers in the 1970s for a religious studies class at 
the University of South Carolina. His mentor 
in this endeavor was a retired history profes­
sor, author, and healer of Dutch Fork, South 
Carolina, named Lee Gandee (1917–1998), 
who taught him many folk medicine tech­
niques and revealed the little­known history 
and anthropology of American shamanism. 
$19.95. Busca. 978­0­9666196­9­0. 

Dirt Cheap, a novel by Lyn Miller­Lachman 
(368 pages, June 2006), revolves around a 
community college teacher’s efforts to ex­
pose the intentional contamination of a 
town’s soil and water by a chemical company 
15 years earlier and its toxic effects on cur­
rent residents. Miller­Lachman, editor of the 
MultiCultural Review, has also compiled an 
anthology of 17 contemporary Latino/a sto­
ries for young adults, Once upon a Cuento 
(2003), that explores the immigrant experi­
ence. $15.95. Curbstone Press. 978­1­931896­
29­0. 

Elegies from New York City, by Mirela Ro­
znoveanu (105 pages, January 2008), is a 
new selection of poems that celebrate her 

George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, 
e-mail: geberhart@ala.org 

adopted city in mythical terms and compare 
it with her previous life in Communist­era 
Romania. In perhaps her strongest statement, 
“New York,” she calls it the “greatest city in 
the world,” where “Hordes of disposable hu­
man beings fuel / with their fresh energy / 
the secret furnaces of the city. / They come 
for money and freedom / and the city gives 
them as much as they can get.” In part two, 
“From East to West,” Roznoveanu shares her 
musings on life and history inspired by visits 
to Paris, Boston Commons, the Arizona des­
ert, and the Alamo. $15.00. Koja Press. 978­
0­9773698­4­3. 

The Great Strikes of 1877, edited by David 
O. Stowell (197 pages, March 2008), focuses 
on anticorporate protests in areas other than 
Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Mar­
tinsburg, West Vir­
ginia, where work­
ers striking the B&O 
and Pennsylvania 
railroads engaged 
in battles with state 
militia and federal 
troops in July and 
August 1877. Stow­
ell, author of the 
defi nitive Streets, 
Railroads, and the 
Great Strike of 1877 (University of Chicago, 
1999), brings together social historians who 
examine how the strikes created a shift in the 
pictorial stereotyping of workers in the pages 
of illustrated newspapers; the railroad strikes 
in Hornellsville, New York; how the “Battle 
of Halsted Street” revitalized the labor move­
ment in Chicago politics; strike fears and agi­
tation in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville; 
details of the strike in San Francisco, where 
Chinese immigrants were the target; and the 
effect of the strikes on Hispanic and Mexican­
American labor and racial issues in southern 
California. $65.00. University of Illinois. 978­
0­252­03241­7. 

234C&RL News April 2008

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


The Humble Little Condom: A History, by 
Aine Collier (371 pages, October 2007), un­
covers the secret story of the sexual sheath 
from Paleolithic cave art to AIDS preven­
tion. Collier surveys every possible nuance, 
including the role of sausage­makers and 
glovers in medieval Europe, condom tycoon 
Julius Schmid, the legend of Dr. Condum, 
the sex­obsessed GIs of World War II, and 
the perpetual debate over protection versus 
abstinence. Her research must have been 
fun because she peppers her commentary 
with whimsical and curious facts, anecdotes, 
and illustrations collected along the way. 
For example, in the late 1990s, one out of 
every six British tourists between 18 and 32 
had sex with someone he or she had just 
met while on vacation, but only half of them 
used condoms. $18.95. Prometheus. 978­1­
59102­556­6. 

Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution, 
edited by Jason S. Anderson and Hans­Di­
eter Sues (417 pages, November 2007), pres­
ents a sampling of paleontological research 
into the emergence of new vertebrate forms. 
Topics include the transition from jawless to 
jawed fishes, the origin of snakes, the evolu­
tion of birds from theropod dinosaurs, the 
multiple diversifications of Mesozoic mam­
mals, and the transition of whales from land 
to the sea. $49.95. Indiana University. 978­0­
253­34926­2. 

Mammoths: Giants of the Ice Age, by Adri­
an Lister and Paul Bahn (192 pages, rev. ed., 
November 2007), incorporates new mam­
moth discoveries since the first 1994 edi­
tion, including trackways found in Canada 
in 1999, the 6,500­year­old mammoth re­
mains in the Pribilof Islands off Alaska, and 
the exceptionally preserved baby mammoth 
discovered in May 2007 on the Yamal penin­
sula of northern Siberia. A fi nal section sum­
marizes the latest scientifi c fi ndings about 
dating mammoth remains, mammoth habitat 
and diet, weight, body form, and DNA se­
quencing. Nicely illustrated. $29.95. Univer­
sity of California. 978­0­520­25319­3. 

The Underground Railroad: An Encyclope­
dia of People, Places, and Operations, by 
Mary Ellen Snodgrass (746 pages, 2 vols., 
December 2007), is an extraordinary com­
pilation of data on operatives and passen­
gers of the informal system of safehouses 
and escape 
routes from the 
American South 
in place from 
the late 18th 
century through 
1865. Snodgrass 
characterizes the 
U n d e r g r o u n d  
Railroad as “the 
nation’s fi rst civil 
rights movement” 
comprised of individuals who “risked life, 
property, reputation, and freedom on be­
half of black wayfarers in need of respite.” 
A wide range of primary and secondary 
sources are given for all the entries, which 
are supplemented by a timeline, genealo­
gies of families involved over more than 
one generation, and appendixes listing op­
eratives and passengers by state. A 60­page 
index is a boon to access. $199.00. M. E. 
Sharpe. 978­0­7656­8093­8. 

The movement of African Americans 
away from the South did not stop with the 
abolition of slavery. In 1879–1880, many 
black families (dubbed “Exodusters”) fl ed to 
Kansas by way of St. Louis in search of po­
litical, social, and economic freedom in the 
wake of Reconstruction’s failure. In The St. 
Louis African American Community and the 
Exodusters (178 pages, January 2008), Bryan 
M. Jack sheds light on what happened to 
many of those who arrived in St. Louis un­
able to pay for the last leg of their trip across 
Missouri to Kansas. Faced with antagonism 
by white city officials, the Exodusters were 
aided by many in the African­American com­
munity, such as Charlton Tandy and James 
Milton Turner, who provided them with re­
lief and the means to continue their journey. 
$34.95. University of Missouri. 978­0­8262­
1772­1. 

April 2008  235 C&RL News