[Review of] Joyce Moss and George Wilson. Peoples of the World: North Americans-The Cultural, Geographical Setting and Historical Background of 37 North American Peoples

This is a disappointing book. It might even be a dangerous book. Disappointing because although it looks like a reference book, it turns out to have too many errors to be of much use in that fashion. Dangerous because if it finds its way into school libraries, then many of those errors will invariably find their way into student papers and student minds. Almost to add insult to injury, in what I assume is an attempt to provide a simple, readable text to a wide (and perhaps school-aged) population, the writers have adopted a remarkably awkward style. Some examples should suffice to make the problems clear

[Review of] Peter Manuel. Popular Musics of the Non- Western World

This is a wide-ranging, insightful and often fascinating survey of popular ethnic musics of the world. The title is perhaps a bit misleading. By western Manuel clearly means modern Northern European and those parts of the Americas most directly influenced by the Anglo-Germanic traditions of Northern Europe. This is certainly a current and popular connotation for the word, and most readers should have no trouble with Manuel\u27s use of the term in this way. Readers who are used to thinking of western as comprising Europe, Africa and the Americas, however, will have to make adjustments. Manuel excludes consideration of westernized popular music forms as Greek rebetika and Jamaican reggae and ska

[Review of] Patricia Klindienst. The Earth Knows My Name: Food Culture and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic America

Perhaps one of the most fascinating parts of this book is its prologue, where Klindienst discusses her own family\u27s rejection of its ethnic Italian heritage. Frightened by the anti-Italian sentiment surrounding the execution of Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in the mid-1920s, Klindienst\u27s family changed their name to something less Italian-sounding (she doesn\u27t say what) and raised their children as assimilated Americans. Only many years later, at a family reunion, did Klindienst learn of her own ethnic origins. Fascinated, she began researching not only her own family\u27s history but also that of Italian Americans in general. In the process she discovered the letters that Sacco and Vanzetti had written while in prison, awaiting their execution. Vanzetti\u27s letters, in particular, touched Klindienst. Vanzetti wrote lyrically of his father\u27s garden in Italy: how he missed it and how thinking of it brought him some measure of peace. These letters, according to Klindienst, and the sentiments expressed in them, led to her interest in researching the gardens of other ethnic Americans and set her off on a series of interviews with gardeners from a variety of ethnic backgrounds in the United States to see what gardening means to them

[Review of] H. Nigel Thomas. From Folklore to Fiction: A Study of Folk Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel

The complex and important relationship between African American folklore and African American literature is the focus of this thoughtful, well-written book. Many African American writers have drawn from folklore, and Thomas sets out to demonstrate--by analyzing specific examples--some of the traditions that have developed in the use of folklore in African American writing

Introduction

The papers in this volume represent some of the best current scholarship on questions of ethnicity. All of them were first presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the National Association for Ethnic Studies, held in Kansas City, Missouri. With the announced theme of Ethnicity: Global Perspectives, the conference attracted scholars from many disciplines and many countries. Presentations were selected to reflect both global perspectives on ethnicity, and examples of emerging ethnic identities around the globe. The interdependence of local and global issues emerged repeatedly and became a foundational theme in many of the sessions

From Cousin Joe to the Comoros: Orthography and the Politics of Choice in Africa and African America

This paper explores issues of orthographic representation in two different projects, in two different locations, and draws some general conclusions about the role of an outsider linguistic anthropologist in working with individuals and their data. One project involved helping Cousin Joe, a blues singer from New Orleans, to edit his autobiography for publication. The other project involved developing a bilingual, bidirectional, Shinzwani-English dictionary for the Comoro Islands. Each project required an awareness of-and sensitivity to-the cultural and political implications of orthographic decisions

The Current Controversy in Kinship

Two major positions have emerged in the debate about the nature of kinship. One argues that kinship can only be analyzed from the framework of the biological necessities of human reproduction. The other argues that this position is nothing more than an ethnocentric view of kinship derived from European culture & that only a broader cultural approach can provide a meaningful analysis of kinship. In this approach it is necessary to analyze kinship around the world from a perspective derived from within each different culture. Recent developments have pointed out the inadequacies of both of these positions & call for a new approach to kinship. This article suggests one possible approach that goes beyond the debate between biology & culture. It is based upon the complementarity of human social behavior

[Review of] Arthur S. Evans, Jr. and David Lee. Pearl City, Florida: A Black Community Remembers

This is a delightful book. Using the words of over two dozen individual residents of Pearl City, Florida, the authors have put together a group autobiography with both historical and sociological significance. A brief introduction provides background and methodology, and two final chapters by Evans and Lee provide analytical insights and theoretical perspectives on questions of history, sociology and social geography

[Review of] John D. Buenker and Lorman A. Ratner, eds. Multiculturalism in the United States: A Comparative Guide to Acculturation and Ethnicity

The comparative nature of this book is its most outstanding feature. The editors and authors have all worked to make their approaches to the question of acculturation and ethnicity as comparable as possible across chapters -- and across ethnic groups. The overall framework stresses the differing stresses that individuals in each ethnic group have had to struggle with in their quest to become American.” It also emphasizes the importance of recognizing that no group is monolithic in its responses to acculturative pressures, that there is always a range of individual paths which might be chosen

[Review of] Joseph E. Holloway, ed. Africanisms in American Culture

Part of the Indiana University series on Blacks in the Diaspora, this book brings together ten essays on the impact of African roots on African American cultural patterns. Two of the essays are general in nature, the other eight focus on specific cultural domains such as religion, music, folklore, and art