Ohio University Press
Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson; travel, narrative, and the colonial body.
Stevenson (1850-1894) is best known today for such classic novels as Treasure Island and Kidnapped. The author's early travel writings, e.g., his "South Sea Letters" were not well received critically in the late Victorian era. In what is presented as the first book-length study of his contributions to this genre, Buckton (English, Florida Atlantic U., Boca Raton) applies "cruising" in the contemporary sense of seeking sensual pleasure — in exotic landscapes and bodies — in the heterosexual and homoerotic themes of Stevenson's writings, as well as that of traveling for travel's sake or collecting material for writing. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The future city on the inland sea; a history of imaginative geographies of Lake Superior.
Olmanson (history, U. of Wisconsin-Madison) traces the many fantasies about the southern shores of Lake Superior, whether they come from the diaries and letters of explorers, missionaries, geologists, journalists, industrialists, scientists or government functionaries. What we find is a land built almost entirely on imagination while the real shores, particularly Chequamegon and the Apostle Islands, became populated by people with distinctly different visions. The result is a close look and the widely various expectations and intentions of white settlers across the frontier, which in this case was a beautiful region overburdened by conflicting imaginary geographies. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Imagining Serengeti; a history of landscape memory in Tanzania from earliest times to the present.
One of the world's most romanticized spaces, the Serengeti is more imaginary than real by the West. Even those who have worked to "conserve" the Serengeti have brought with them their own cultures' ideas about what and who is fit to live on it, and often those who have lived out their lives on it are regarded as poachers and more or less as unworthy of this singular and evocative space. Shetler (African and world history, Goshen College) analyzes the landscape memory of the Serengeti within the social identities of the people of the western portion of it, identifying core spatial images and testing them against archaeological, linguistic, ethnographic, ecological and archival evidence. She deals with past ways of seeing and using the landscape in ecological, social and sacred ways, and the relationship between landscape memory and historical challenges of colonial and post-colonial times. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Searching for Fannie Quigley; a wilderness life in the shadow of Mount McKinley.
A popular historian of Alaska, Haigh presents a biography of Alaska pioneer Quigley (1871-1944), who was often mentioned by visitors to nearby Mount McKinley in their reports and articles, but who had never been the subject of a sustained study before. She arrived in the area in 1905, where she mined, hunted, grew vegetables, and brewed beer for four decades, then died in her cabin. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Southeast Asian lives; personal narratives and historical experience.
This collection of personal narratives comes from anthropologists. Whether or not they are themselves from southeast Asia or ever experienced the privations of war, social upheaval, and invasion, they find interesting things to say about what they have observed. Topics include remembering, fighting for one's own story and that of one's family, building a personal ethnological tradition, marking time in narratives of the life-world, considering the invisible borders in narratives of women, and stories from a Muslim fishing village in Thailand. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Swahili beyond the boundaries; literature, language, and identity.
Mazrui (African American studies, Ohio State U.) examines how Swahili literature as a hybrid phenomenon from the earliest times has been undergoing a new wave of reconfiguration as a result of a conjuncture of new historical forces. The text also functions as an exercise in comparative literature, with the objective of promoting a more multicultural understanding of literature as a human experience. Three of the four chapters are extensive revisions of essays previously published in scholarly journals and edited books. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Updike in Cincinnati; a literary performance.
In the spring of 2001, John Updike spent two days in Cincinnati, Ohio as a featured guest of the Cincinnati Short Story Festival. In this volume, teacher, critic, and festival organizer Schiff (English, U. of Cincinnati) offers a detailed record of Updike's visit. Included are transcripts of question-and-answer sessions and interviews, the text of short stories read and discussed at the event, b&w photographs, and anecdotal observations. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The whiskey merchant's diary; an urban life in the emerging Midwest.
As a very young man Mersman came to the Midwest from Germany with the hope of becoming successful in business. His first venture was as a whiskey rectifier in Cincinnati, purifying distilled spirits and adding flavorings to sell to retailers. When that risk paid off but his trade became illegal he had a good wholesaling infrastructure set up anyway, and eventually he took the risk of founding a bank in St. Louis. He married and had eight largely healthy children, despite his having syphilis. Most remarkably, he kept a journal for decades in which he recorded, with remarkable honesty, business dealings, family life, the course of his disease and the effects he observed of cholera epidemics. The late Fisher, a public health physician, ably edited, giving just enough background for Mersman to justify the risks he took. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
