nov07c.indd


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

The Academic Library and the Net Gen Stu­
dent, by Susan Gibbons (119 pages, August 
2007), asserts that university libraries will 
have a viable future only if they realign their 
services and resources with the learning and 
research needs of undergraduate students. 
Because Net Generation students are adept 
at using new technologies, libraries must 
adopt and exploit the educational functions 
of online gaming and virtual worlds, deliver 
information through blogs and wikis, support 
student research skills through tagging and 
social bookmarking, and explore ways to 
communicate with students through instant 
messaging and social networking systems. 
$45.00. ALA Editions. 978­0­8389­0946­1. 

Atlantic Coast Beaches: A Guide to Ripples, 
Dunes, and Other Natural Features of the 
Seashore, by William J. Neal, Orrin H. Pilkey, 
and Joseph T. Kelley (250 pages, May 2007), 
is the perfect book to bring with you on a trip 

to the seashore. The 
three geologist authors 
provide a clear expla­
nation for anything 
you are likely to fi nd 
and teach you how to 
“read” a beach by re­
viewing such phenom­
ena as tides, erosion, 
sand and gravel, mud 
balls, scarps and cusps, 

sea wrack, foam, swash marks, blisters and 
pits, bubbly sand, groundwater, beach crit­
ters, shell fossils, and dunes. A fi nal chapter 
discusses beach nourishment and conserva­
tion as an antidote to urbanized shorelines. 
$20.00. Mountain Press. 978­0­87843­534­1. 

The Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney 
and Early Minstrelsy, by Bob Carlin (193 pag­
es, February 2007), recounts the life and in­

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

fluence of Joel Walker Sweeney (1810–1860), 
the Elvis Presley of the 1840s as Carlin calls 
him, an Irish American who brought the Afri­
can­American banjo and slave songs to white 
audiences through the medium of blackface 
minstrelsy—the first national form of Ameri­
can musical theater. Sweeney is sometimes 
credited with inventing the modern banjo 
by adding a fifth string and replacing the 
original gourd body with a circular wooden 
soundbox, but Carlin disputes the tradition 
by showing that those features were pres­
ent when Sweeney began popularizing the 
instrument. Carlin’s excellent history of min­
strelsy from its origins to its heyday with the 
Virginia Minstrels and the Ethiopian Serenad­
ers is both entertaining and authoritative. 
$35.00. McFarland. 978­0­7864­2874­8. 

A Brief History of the Spanish Language, by 
David A. Pharies (298 pages, May 2007), of­
fers a linguistic history of Spanish, from its 
Iberian roots to its expansion to the Ameri­
cas. Pharies traces the primary shifts through 
which spoken Latin transformed fi rst into 
Medieval Castilian and finally into modern 
Spanish, noting along the way that Castilian 
became the dominant dialect on the penin­
sula during the Reconquest because of the 
Kingdom of Castile’s dominance in military 
exploits against the Andalusian Muslims. Ac­
companied by an essay on Spanish dialects, a 
history of the Spanish lexicon, and a glossary 
of linguistic terms. Also available in Spanish. 
$65.00. University of Chicago. 978­0­226­
66682­2. 

The Cat and the Fiddle: Images of Musical 
Humour from the Middle Ages to Modern 
Times, by Jeremy Barlow (88 pages, May 
2007), presents instances of humorous musi­
cal imagery found in the marginalia of medi­
eval manuscripts, British and European draw­
ings and prints of the 17th and 18th centuries, 
children’s books, cartoons, and sheet music, 
all from the Bodleian Library at the Univer­

C&RL News November 2007  658 

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


sity of Oxford. Barlow interprets the meaning 
for modern readers, who may be puzzled by 
pigs playing bagpipes, demons ringing bells, 
and London street musicians playing Spike 
Jones–like instruments. $20.00. Bodleian Li­
brary, distributed by the University of Chi­
cago. 978­1­85124­300­6. 

Parallel Lines: A Journey from Childhood 
to Belsen, by Peter Lantos (246 pages, Sep­
tember 2007), traces the author’s life as a 6­
year­old in Makó, Hungary, when he and his 
family were deported in June 1944, first to a 
Jewish ghetto in Szeged, then to labor camps 
in Strasshof and Wiener Neustadt, Austria, 
and finally to the Bergen­Belsen concentra­
tion camp in Germany. Lantos, whose origi­
nal name was Leipniker, recalls those days 
with a mixed sense of child­like adventure 
and retrospective horror. As an adult, after re­
tiring from a faculty position at King’s College 
London, Lantos sought out the scenes of his 
youth and a moving reunion with the Ameri­
can soldier who liberated him from a German 
prison train near Magdeburg in April 1945. 
$19.95. Arcadia Books. 978­1­905147­57­0. 

Silver and Gold Mining Camps of the Old 
West, by Sandy Nestor (269 pages, January 
2007), rescues some elusive facts and fi gures 
about Western mines and mining camps from 
the tailings of industrial history. Arranged by 
state, Nestor’s encyclopedia documents the 
remaining history of each location, includ­
ing yields, population, residents, and colorful 
anecdotes. Numerous historical and modern 
photographs, a glossary, and a tongue­in­
cheek “Miner’s Ten Commandments” reprint­
ed from the Placerville (Calif.) Herald, June 
4, 1853, accompany the text. $55.00. McFar­
land. 978­0­7864­2813­7. 

Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge 
in the Dutch Golden Age, by Anne Goldgar 
(425 pages, May 2007), examines the extraor­
dinary outbreak of market speculation in tu­
lip bulbs in the Netherlands in 1636–1637. 
Although tulips had first been imported from 
Turkey since the mid­16th century, the fl ow­

ers began to appeal to gardeners and collec­
tors for their color variants. Prices for some 
bulbs rose to enormous heights in the 1630s, 
reaching an unsustain­
able crescendo of fu­
tures trading that bot­
tomed out a year later. 
Tulipmania has been 
held up as a caution­
ary tale about stock 
bubbles and the hu­
bris of unbridled capi­
talism, especially by 
Charles Mackay in his 
1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions 
and the Madness of Crowds. Goldgar’s analy­
sis shows that much of what we know about 
the episode is myth; in the process of decon­
structing it, she offers us a vivid portrayal of a 
colorful cultural crisis that transformed Dutch 
society. $30.00. University of Chicago. 978­0­
226­30125­9. 

The Voodoo That They Did So Well: The Wiz­
ards Who Invented the New York Stage, by 
Stefan Kanfer (230 pages, June 2007), con­
sists of eight essays that first appeared in 
City Journal describing the high points and 
personalities of Broadway history. Kanfer 
profiles the Italian li­
brettist Lorenzo Da 
Ponte (1749–1838), a 
colleague of Mozart 
and Casanova who 
emigrated to New York 
and built the city’s fi rst 
Italian opera house; 
the wonders of vaude­
villean variety enter­
tainment where such 
legendary entertainers as the Marx Brothers, 
Mae West, Buster Keaton, and Burns and Al­
len earned their fame; the heyday of Yiddish 
theater on Second Avenue in the fi rst three 
decades of the 20th century; and the stellar 
achievements of George and Ira Gershwin, 
Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Stephen 
Sondheim, all vividly portrayed. $24.95. Ivan 
R. Dee. 978­1­56663­735­0. 

November 2007  659 C&RL News