College and Research Libraries


580 College & Research Libraries 

sociologies, particularly Paul Starr's The 
Transformation of American Medicine, Vic-
tor Fuchs's Future of Health Policy, and a 
1977 issue of Daedalus devoted to Ameri-
can health care. 

Two major flaws detract from the over-
all success of this book. First, the final 
editing was inadequate: there are numer-
ous errors of typography (e.g., Stark in-
stead of Starr in the index, Harry & Louis 
in the text) and style ["Older men (and 
they were almost always male) ... "].The 
data in the columns labeled "Developed 
& Developing" in figure 2-2 seem to be 
reversed, given assertions made in the ac-
companying text. Concepts are often in-
troduced without explanation (e.g., 
'overbedded hospitals'), and unsup-
ported assertions abound (e.g., "Unfor-
tunately, the use of discounted fees and 
the employment of thousands of new 
people ... have destabilized the health 
care system"). The same sentence ("One 
physician bucked the tide of medical ob-
struction ... . ") appears on page 131 and 
again on page 177; it also contains an 
unreferenced quote. Though often merely 
a nuisance, preventable errors such as 
these detract from the authority of the 
text. 

The second flaw relates to the integra-
tion of concepts across chapters. The 
chapters seem to have been written to 
serve as self-contained units. This can be 
disconcerting for those readers who at-
tempt to read the book from cover to 
cover. For example, the same statistics are 
reported in several different places, and 
some concepts (and some reference 
works) are introduced and explained sev-
eral times, each time as if they were new 
to the reader. Frequently referenced 
books (such as those by Paul Starr) ap-
pear in several chapter bibliographies, 
sometimes with a different annotation. 
More important, introducing only that 
piece of a concept which relates to the 
theme of the chapter makes complex top-
ics such as managed competition and the 
role of third -party insurers difficult to 

November 1996 

follow and synthesize. This approach 
may leave readers of a single chapter 
with the false impression that they know 
everything the author has to say about a 
given issue. 

In short, the volume is a mixed bless-
ing. For careful general readers, it ex-
plains some of the health care reform is-
sues that appear daily in newscasts and 
newspapers. Via footnotes and bibliog-
raphy, it suggests some beginning points 
for those who want to explore a topic in 
more depth. It is probably most appro-
priate for a public, high school, or com-
munity college library, but I would not 
recommend it for an academic health sci-
ences library.-Valerie Florance, University 
of Rochester Medical Center. 

Greening the College Curriculum: A Gu.ide 
to Environmental Teaching in the Liberal 
Arts. Eds. Jonathan Collett and 
Stephen Karakashian. Washington, 
D.C.: Island Pr., 1996. 328p. $40 cloth 
(ISBN 1-55963-421-9); $22 paper (ISBN 
1-55963-422-7.) LC 95-39225. 

Published as a project of the Rainforest 
Alliance, Greening the College Curriculum 
was purportedly prepared to mainstream 
environmental education in academe. 
Although intended for the use of faculty 
members interested in integrating envi-
ronmental teaching into their discipline-
based courses, faculty to whom this con-
cept may be new, administrators, and 
trustees also might benefit from perus-
ing this volume for the thoughtful and 
thought-provoking ideas it explores. 

The core of the work comprises ten 
discipline-specific chapters. Covered are 
anthropology, biology, economics, geog-
raphy, history, literature, media and jour-
nalism, philosophy, political science, and 
religion. Each chapter is written or 
cowritten by a professor or professor 
emeritus of the discipline under review. 
The editors acknowledge lapses in cover-
age and suggest that other areas may be 
treated in a second edition. They also state 
that sociology was deliberately omitted 



because of the excellent course syllabi for 
environmental sociology that were col-
lected by the American Sociological As-
sociation and available from ASA. 

Each chapter begins with a discussion 
of the environment in relation to the dis-
cipline, provides a description of course 
plans (many of which are divided into 
categories such as introductory, lower di-
vision, and upper division), and con-
cludes with a resources section includ-
ing print and nonprint materials. The 
quality of the writing varies, as is the case 
with any collected work, but overall it is 
quite good. 

The subject-based chapters are pre-
ceded by a discussion of contemporary 
academe from an ecological perspective. 
Much is found wanting, and certain re-
forms are proposed by the author, David 
W. Orr of Oberlin College. The overspe-
cialization within higher education, 
which has resulted in many professors 
and students possessing a poor sense of 
the world in its entirety, and spiraling 
costs, which have made institutions of 
higher learning ever more dependent on 
corporate gifts and government and cor-
porate grants, are among the factors that 
discourage positive environmental ac-
tions. Orr proposes not only curriculum 
changes, but also the physical redesign 
of campuses, with buildings structured 
to fit the environment. The utilization of 
solar energy for heat, trees to shade for 
coolness, and natural airflows to venti-
late should become standard compo-
nents of architectural planning. 

Orr recommends an environmental 
ranking (comparable to the academic 
ranking) of schools as a motivation for 
accountability. The assignment of an en-
vironmental ranking might be based on 
a review of institutional recycling poli-
cies, an audit of consumption and dis-
card per pupil, and an examination of the 
educational programs offered that sup-
port a sustainable environment. In addi-
tion, Orr reported on a course at Oberlin 
College in which students studied cam-

Book Reviews 581 

pus food, energy, water, materials, and 
waste flows. The campus administration 
acted on the class recommendations and, 
from an initial expenditure of $300,000, 
saved $400,000 in two years. Other prac-
tice-oriented courses at Oberlin and else-
where are likewise described. 

In the final chapter, "Reinventing the 
Classroom: Connected Teaching," 
Jonathan Collett discusses the emphasis 
on faculty research and publication, the 
absence of training for teaching at the col-
lege/university level, and the need for 
teaching to be done in a more unified 
manner. Students must integrate knowl-
edge into a core, not compartmentalize 
what is learned, for life in the twenty-
first century. Collett reports that an ac-
tive environmental movement exists 
among students in the 1990s. Many 
schools have environmental groups in 
which interested faculty members could 
become involved. The chapter concludes 
with an extensive list of resources to as-
sist with environmental teaching. 

The book would have been strength-
ened by the inclusion of a chapter dis-
cussing the consequences that are likely 
to result if a sustainable environment is 
not realized within the next fifty to one 
hundred years. Although the first chap-
ter makes reference to a "planetary emer-
gency," few examples are used to illus-
trate the existence of serious crises. For 
example, the reference to "overpopula-
tion" simply states that worldwide popu-
lation is "now growing at the rate of a 
quarter of a million each day." A bit more 
information would serve to make the sta-
tistic more meaningful and more alarm-
ing. This suggested chapter also could 
include the significant advancements that 
have been made toward environmental 
correctness in the past twenty-five years. 
Without the growing awareness and 
positive actions that have come about 
since the early 1970s, our circumstances 
today would be worse by far. 

Although not falling strictly within the 
scope of this work, a chapter summariz-



582 College & Research Libraries 

ing the environmental crisis could be po-
tentially helpful for the conversion of the 
unconcerned and/ or ~esser concerned 
scholars, whose numbers are not incon-
siderable. These folks are admittedly not 
the audience for whom this book was 
prepared. However, they are arguably the 
ones who most need to examine the vol-
ume and ponder the proposals presented. 

Despite this complaint,· Greening the 
College Curriculum is an important book. 
Providing, as it does, a fairly comprehen-
sive plan for the integration of environ-
mental education into the liberal arts cur-
riculum, it is unique. Hopefully, it will 
reach a wide audience in the academic 
community and have a beneficial impact 
on the presentation of topical materials 
to the current generation of students.-
James W. Williams , University of fllinois at 
Urbana-Champaign . 

Lanham, Richard. The Electronic Word: 
Democracy, Technology, and the Arts . 
Chicago and London: University of 
Chicago Pr., 1994. 285p. $14.95. (ISBN 
0-226-46885-2.) LC 93-13884. 

This volume is a polished rhetorical per-
formance by an unabashed and distin-
guished rhetorician, president of 
Rhetorica, Inc. (the note on the jacket 
does not explain the nature of this enter-
prise) and former director of the Writing 
Programs at the University of California-
Los Angeles, who welcomes the com-
puter as the means by which Western 
education will return to "a rhetorical 
pedagogy" and to the rhetorical paideia. 
Lanham is long on promise and enthusi-
asm but short on specifics, to some ex-
tent understandably so because much is 
yet to be discovered about how the com-
puter will influence Western education. 

The first seven of Lanham's ten chap-
ters have appeared elsewhere (in shorter 
forms, in two cases) between 1989 and 
1992, and many of them began life as lec-
tures at various learned venues, as the 
author freely informs us in headnotes 
that detail the past lives of each chapter. 

November 1996 

The headnote to chapter 8 explains the 
argumentative structure that Lanham has 
been building in the preceding chapters, 
and this is probably the best place for a 
reader to turn before reading the earlier 
material. In fact, given that the first seven 
chapters often cover the same ground in 
different ways and rehearse what Lanham 
sees as the polarities of Western culture 
several times, reading it and perhaps dip-
ping and skimming the earlier chapters 
would be a practical response to the book. 
Two of the chapters (3 and 7) are pivotal 
and deserve more than "dip-and-skim"; 
in the former, he argues for the rhetori-
cal convergence of disciplinary thought 
in all areas of learning, and in the latter, 
he explores "The 'Q' Question" about 
"what the arts are good for, about how 
moral and formal truths can be related 
to one another in human life." 

In the latter portions of the book, chap-
ters 8 to 10, after he has set forth his ar-
gument, Lanham takes on alternative 
views, specifically those in recently pub-
lished works. He is very good at sniffing 
out the extravagant statement and using 
it to flog the author of an opposing view, 
sometimes with an arrogance matching 
and even surpassing that of his adver-
sary. With an attentiveness to rhetorical 
effect, Lanham ends the book on a more 
moderate note-a Socratic dialogue of 
sorts in which he takes on Curmudgeon, 
something of an alter ego but also a be-
loved former teacher to whom Lanham 
allows a few points but whom he wins 
over, more or less, to his own position in 
the end. By this time, his own position 
also is more cautiously stated, though 
still overwhelmingly optimistic. 

One of the dangers in writing about 
technology is that it changes so fast, as 
do attitudes toward it. Lanham launches 
his argument with the assertion that "hu-
manists are such natural Luddites and 
have become so used to regarding tech-
nology-and especially the computer-
as an enemy that it takes some temerity 
to call the personal computer a possible