ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


4 6  /  C&RL News ■ Januarv 2002

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

American Musical Traditions, edited by Jeff 
Todd Titon and Bob Carlin (5 volumes, De­
cember 2001), looks at a wide spectrum of 
musical styles and shows how American folk 
music has arisen from ethnic or regional iden­
tities and cultures. Written in collaboration 
with the Smithsonian/Folkways Archives, this 
set contains more than 100 essays written by 
area specialists who focus narrowly on top­
ics often sidestepped in more general sources, 
such as music of the Gwich’in Indians of 
Alaska, black banjo songsters of 
North Carolina, the autoharp in 
old-time Southern music, music 
of the Polish Górale community 
in Chicago, and Chinese-Ameri
can traditional music in New York 
City. Each volume has a glossary 
and index for the complete set; 
color maps illustrate key regions 
and musical them es. A good 
source for students of American 
roots music. $450.00. Schirmer 
Reference. ISBN 0-02-864624-X.

Schirmer has also issued a 
sixth and presumably final edition of Music 
Since 1900 (1,174 pages, September 2001), 
last updated by the late Nicolas Slonimsky 
one year before his death in 1995. Edited by 
Laura Kuhn, this volume brings this chronol­
ogy of 20th-century music up to date with 
the additional coverage of the years 1992-
2000, highlighting concerts, first performances, 
operas, festivals, deaths, and other significant 
events. Kuhn has retained Slonimsky’s idio­
syncratic Letters and Documents section (with 
the addition of a full transcript of the 1985 
U.S. Senate hearings on record labeling) and 
his semi-serious Dictionary with its whimsi­
cal definitions of both standard musical terms 
and a few he made up (such as fraudulent 
modernism, pornographic music, punitive 
m u sic, s p a s tic  v a ria tio n s , a n d  
Wagneromorphism). $175.00. Schirmer Ref­
erence. ISBN 0-02-864787-4.

George M. Eberhart is senior e d ito r o f American 
Libraries; e-mail: geberhart@ala.org

The Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection Bib­
liography; Volume 2, English and European 
Languages, compiled by Shaista Wahab (304 
pages, 1999), is not a new title, but recent events 
have given this special collection at the University 
of Nebraska at Omaha a new significance. Estab­
lished in 1974, the collection is dedicated to the 
preservation of Afghanistan’s history and cultural 
heritage for current and future generations of schol­
ars and currently holds more than 12,000 titles. 
Volume 2 includes more than 2,500 Westem-lan

guage titles arranged by subject. $40.00 
(plus $4.50 p/h), checks payable to 
UNO Library. Arthur Paul Collection, 
University of Nebraska at Omaha, 6001 
Dodge St., Omaha, NE 68182-0237. Vol­
ume 1, more than 800 Pashto and Dari 
titles, is also available (135 pages, 
$20.00, plus $4.50 p/h).

Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey: A 
Journey to  Music's Heart and 
Soul, by Bill Wyman and Richard 
Havers (400 pages, August 2001), 
chronicles the blues from its origins 

in slavery to the modern styles of Buddy Guy, 
Bonnie Raitt, and Eric Clapton. Though not a 
comprehensive survey, this well-illustrated 
browser by the former Rolling Stones bassist 
offers biographies, lyrics, trivia, maps, and rare 
photos from Wyman’s personal archive. One 
of the best introductions to blues history in print. 
$40.00. DK Publishing. ISBN 0-7894-8046-8.

Bodies Politic Disease, Death and Doctors 
in Britain, 1650-1900, by Roy Porter (328 
pages, August 2001), looks at the formative 
years of the medical profession, its beliefs about 
the body and health, and how it was portrayed 
in contemporary graphic art. Porter comes to 
the conclusion that much of pre-modern medi­
cine in Britain succeeded because the healing 
arts were inseparable from theatrically exag­
gerated performance art engaged in by physi­
cians who triggered a placebo effect in sug­
gestible patients. Many rare contemporary prints 
also illustrate the use of medical imagery as a 
tool for political satire. $35.00. Cornell Univer­
sity. ISBN 0-8014-3953-1. ■

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


C&RL News ■  January 2002 /  47