African and African American Studies:
Outstanding Publications, 1997-1998

Reprinted from Choice, February 1999. Copyright 1999 by the American Library Association.

In recognition of Black History Month, we highlight recent publications in African and African American studies that were awarded the prestigious Outstanding Academic Books designation by Choice editors for the years 1997 and 1998. This list updates a similar feature covering earlier titles, "African & African American Studies: Outstanding Publications, 1990-1996," which appeared in the February 1997 issue of Choice.

The Outstanding Academic Books (OAB) list appears annually in the January issue of Choice to recognize the best and most important scholarly works reviewed during the previous calendar year. Titles are selected not only for excellence in scholarship and originality but also for relevance to undergraduate students, making the OAB feature a valuable collection development tool for academic libraries.

Bibliographic entries for each title appear as originally published with the Choice review. The issue and review number for the original review appear at the end of each citation.

REFERENCE

African writers, ed. by C. Brian Cox.
Scribner/Simon & Schuster Prentice Hall International, 1997. 2v. 936p bibl index afp ISBN 0-684-19651-4, $220.00 Jul '97, 34-6001

Biebuyck, Daniel P. African ethnonyms: index to art-producing peoples of Africa, by Daniel P. Biebuyck, Susan Kelliher, and Linda McRae.
G.K. Hall, NY/Prentice Hall International, 1996. 378p bibl indexes afp ISBN 0-7838-1532-8, $95.00 Jun '97, 34-5412

Encyclopedia of Africa south of the Sahara, ed. by John Middleton et al.
Scribner/Simon & Schuster and Prentice Hall International, 1997. 4v. 555-711p ea. bibl index afp ISBN 0-684-804662, $475.00 Sep '98, 36-0045

Encyclopedia of precolonial Africa: archaeology, history, languages, cultures, and environments, ed. by Joseph 0. Vogel and Jean Vogel.
AltaMira, 1997. 605p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7619-89021, $125.00 Feb '98, 35-3039

Handbook of political science research on the Middle East and North Africa, ed. by Bernard Reich.
Greenwood, 1998. 392p bibl indexes afp ISBN 0-313-27372-3, $89.50 Nov '98, 36-1336

The Oxford companion to African American literature, ed. by William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris.
Oxford, 1997. 866p index afp ISBN 0-19-506510-7, $55.00 Jan '98, 35-2465

The World encyclopedia of contemporary theatre: v.3: Africa, ed. by Don Rubin.
Routledge, 1997. 426p bibl index afp ISBN-0-415-05931-3, $140.00 Oct. '98, 36-0696

Zell, Hans M. The African studies companion: a resource guide & directory, by Hans M. Zell and Cecile Lomer. 2nd rev. ed.
H. Zell, 1997. 276p bibl index afp ISBN 1-873836-41-4, $75.00 Dec '97, 35-1869

HUMANITIES

Dyer, Richard. White.
Routledge, 1997. 256p bibl index ISBN 0-415-09537-9 pbk, $17.95 Apr '98, 35-4270

Art & Architecture

Blier, Suzanne Preston. The royal arts of Africa: the majesty of form. Abrams, 1998.
272p bibl index ISBN 0-8109-2705-5 pbk, $24.95 Nov '98, 36-1362

Dancing at the Louvre: Faith Ringgold's French collection and other story quilts, by Dan Cameron et al.
New Museum of Contemporary Art/California, 1998. 167p bibl index afp ISBN 0-520-21429 3, $45.00; ISBN 0-520-21430-7 pbk, $29.95 Sep '98, 36-0087

Frank, Barbara E. Mande potters & leatherworkers: art and heritage in West Africa.
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. 192p bibl index afp ISBN 1-56098-794-4, $45.00 Dec '98, 36-1967

Patton, Sharon F. African-American art.
Oxford, 1998. 319p bibl index afp ISBN 0-19-284213-7 pbk, $15.95 Dec '98, 36-1982

Language & Literature

Kurz, Eleanor. Language and literacy: studying discourse in communities and classrooms.
Boynton Cook, 1997. 319p bibl index afp ISBN 0-86709-386-2 pbk, $29.00 Jun '97, 34-5502

African & Middle Eastern

Ezenwa-Ohaeto. Chinua Achebe: a biography.
J. Currey/Indiana, 1997. 326p bibl index afp ISBN 0-253-33342-3, $29.95 May '98, 35-4933

Nfah-Abbenyi, Juliana Makuchi. Gender in African women's writing: identity, sexuality, and difference.
Indiana, 1997. 188p bibl index afp ISBN 0-253-33344X, $35.00; ISBN 0-253-21149-2 pbk, $14.95 Jun '98, 35-5484

Oral epics from Africa: vibrant voices from a vast continent, ed. by John William Johnson, Thomas A. Hale, and Stephen Belcher.
Indiana, 1997. 331p bibl index afp ISBN 0-253-33257-5, $35.00; ISBN 0-253-21110-7 pbk, $14.95 Jan '98, 35-2543

Richards, Sandra L. Ancient songs set ablaze: the theatre of Femi Osofisan.
Howard University, 1996. 210p bibl index afp ISBN 0-88258-109-0, $29.95 Feb '97, 34-3167

Under African skies: modern African stories, ed. by Charles R. Larson.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997. 315p afp ISBN 0-374-21178-7, $25.00 Jan '98, 35-2544

English & American

Chancy, Myriam J.A. Searching for safe spaces: Afro-Caribbean women writers in exile.
Temple University, 1997. 246p bibl index afp ISBN 1-56639-539-9, $59.95; ISBN 1-56639-540-2 pbk. $19.95 Feb '98, 35-3161

Clayton, Cherry. Olive Schreiner.
Twayne/Prentice Hall International, 1997. 140p bibl index afp (TWAS, 865. African literature) ISBN 0-8057-8287-7, $26.95 Dec '97, 35-1966

Gunning, Sandra. Race, rape, and lynching: the red record of American literature, 1890-1912.
Oxford, 1996. 195p bibl index afp ISBN 0-19-509990-7, $35.00 May '97, 34-4922

Hansen, Elaine Tuttle. Mother without child: contemporary fiction and the crisis of motherhood.
California, 1997. 283p index afp ISBN 0-520-20577-4, $45.00; ISBN 0-520-20578-2 pbk, $16.95 Oct '97, 35-0773

Hay, Samuel A. Ed Bullins: a literary biography.
Wayne State, 1997. 302p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8143-2616-1, $34.95 Apr '98, 35-4339

Jablon, Madelyn. Black metafiction: selfconsciousness in African American literature.
Iowa, 1997. 209p bibl index afp ISBN 0-87745-560-0,$27.95 Sep '97, 35-0129

Levine, Robert S. Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the politics of representative identity.
North Carolina, 1997. 314p index afp ISBN 0-8078-2323-6, $45.00; ISBN 0-8078-4633-3 pbk, $18.95 Oct '97, 35-0781

Prahlad, Sw. Anand. African-American proverbs in context.
University Press of Mississippi, 1996. 292p bibl index afp ISBN 0-87805-889-3, $45.00; ISBN 0-87805-890-7 pbk, $20.00 Jan '97, 34-2634

Rotella, Carlo. October cities: the redevelopment of urban literature.
California, 1998. 358p index afp ISBN 0-520-20763-7, $50.00; ISBN 0-520-21144-8 pbk, $18.95 Nov '98, 36-1460

Van Wienen, Mark W. Partisans and poets: the political work of American poetry in the Great War.
Cambridge, 1997. 31lp index ISBN 0-521-56396-8, $59.95 Oct '97, 35-0797

Performing Arts

DeVeaux, Scott. The birth of bebop: a social and musical history.
California, 1997. 572p bibl index afp ISBN 0-520-20579-0, $35.00 Apr '98 35-4406

Erenberg, Lewis A. Swingin' the dream: big band jazz and the rebirth of American culture.
Chicago, 1998. 320p index afp ISBN 0-226-21516-4, $28.00 Oct '98, 36-0866

Gerard, Charley. Jazz in black and white: race, culture, and identity in the jazz community.
Praeger, 1998. 202p bibl index afp ISBN 0-275-96198-2, $39.95 Oct '98, 36-0869

Lhamon, W.T. Raising Cain: blackface performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop.
Harvard, 1998. 269p index afp ISBN-674-74711-9, $24.95 Jun 98, 35-5553

Malone, Jacqui. Steppin' on the blues: the visible rhythms of African American dance.
Illinois, 1996. 272p index afp ISBN 0-252-02211-4, $44.95; ISBN 0252-06508-5 pbk, $16.95 Apr '97, 34-4398a

Ward, Brian. Just my soul responding: rhythm and blues, black consciousness, and race relations.
California, 1998, 600p bibl index afp ISBN 0-520-21297-5, $60.00; ISBN 0-520-21298-3 pbk, $24.95 Dec '98, 36-2108

Religion

Sernett, Milton C. Bound for the promised land: African American religion and the great migration.
Duke University, 1997. 345p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8223-19845-5, $54.95; ISBN 0-8223-1993-4 pbk, $17.95 Feb '98, 35-3255

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Handbook of diversity issues in health psychology, ed. by Pamela M. Kato, and Traci Mann.
Plenum, 1996. 439p bibl index ISBN 0-306-45325-8, $69.50 Jun '97, 34-5713

Henrion, Claudia. Women in mathematics: the addition of difference.
Indiana, 1997. 293p bibl index afp ISBN 0-253-33279-6, $39.95; ISBN 0-253-21119-0 pbk, $16.95 Jun '98, 35-5712

Sports & Physical Education

Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson: a biography.
Knopf, 1997. 512p index afp ISBN 0-679-44495-5, $27.50 Apr '98, 35-4563

Shropshire, Kenneth L. In black and white: race and sports in America.
New York University, 1996. 212p index afp ISBN 0-8147-8016-4, $24,95 Feb '97, 34-3375

Sports in North America: a documentary history. v. 1, pt. 1: Sports in the Colonial era, 1618-1783; v.1, pt.2: Sports in the new republic, 1784-1820, ed. by Thomas L. Altherr.
Academic International, 1997. 2v. 496, 469p bibl indexes ISBN O-87569-188-9, v.l, pt.1; ISBN 0-87569-189-7, v.1, pt.2; $97.00 ea. Jul '98, 35-6296

SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Rooks, Noliwe M. Hair raising: beauty, culture, and African American women.
Rutgers, 1996. 160p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8135-2311-7, $38.00; ISBN 0-8135-2312-5 pbk, $15.95 Jan '97, 34-2822

Anthropology

Burton, Richard D.E. Afro-Creole: power, opposition, and play in the Caribbean.
Cornell, 1997. 297p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8014-3249-9, $45.00 Jan '98, 35-2787

Renaud, Michelle Lewis. Women at the crossroads: a prostitute community's response to AIDS in urban Senegal.
Gordon & Breach, 1997. 172p bibl ISBN 90-5699-530-8, $60.00; ISBN 90-5699-531-6 pbk, $21.00 Mar '98, 35-3951

Stone, Glenn Davis. Settlement ecology: the social and spatial organization of Kofyar agriculture.
Arizona, 1996. 256p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8165-1567-0, $47.50 May '97, 34-5174

Voeks, Robert A. Sacred leaves of Candomblé: African magic, medicine, and religion in Brazil.
Texas, 1997. 236p bibl index afp ISBN 0-292-78730-8, $37.50; ISBN 0-292-78731-6 pbk, $17.95 Apr '98, 35-4578

Business & Economics

Economic reform and the poor in Africa, ed. by David E. Sahn.
Oxford, 1996. 488p bibl index afp ISBN 0-19-829035-7, $90.00 Mar '97, 34-3972

Letwin, Daniel. The challenge of interracial unionism: Alabama coal miners, 1878-1921.
North Carolina, 1998. 289p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8078-2377-5, $49.95; ISBN 0-8078-4678-3 pbk, $19.95 Sep '98, 36-0432

Sahn, David E. Structural adjustment reconsidered: economic policy and poverty in Africa, by David F. Sahn, Paul A. Dorosh, and Stephen D. Younger.
Cambridge, 1997. 304p bibl index ISBN 0-521-5845l-5, $74.95 Jul '98, 35-6357

Walker, Juliet E.K The history of black business in America: capitalism, race, entrepreneurship.
Macmillan Library Reference USA/ Prentice Hall International, 1998. 482p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8057-1650-5, $45.00 Dec '98, 36-2245

Education

Ford, Donna Y. Reversing underachievement among gifted black students: promising practices and programs.
Teachers College Press (Columbia University), 1996. 236p bibl index afp (Education and psychology of the gifted series, 11) ISBN 0-8077-3535-3, $52.00; ISBN 0-8077-3536-1 pbk, $24.95 Feb '97, 34-3436

Vogt, W. Paul. Tolerance & education: learning to live with diversity and difference.
Sage Publications, CA, 1997. 289p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7619-0216-3, $56.00; ISBN 0-7619-0217-1 pbk, $25.95 Dec '97, 35-2257

History, Geography & Area Studies

Europe

Peabody, Sue. "There are no slaves in France": the political culture of race and slavery in the Ancien Regimé.
Oxford, 1996. 210p bibl index afp ISBN 0-19-510198-7, $39.95 Jun '97, 34-5860

Pearson, Michael N. Port cities and intruders: the Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the early modern era.
Johns Hopkins, 1998. 202p index afp (Johns Hopkins symposia in comparative history, 23) ISBN 0-8018-5692-2, $35.95 Nov '98, 36-1721

Thomas, Martin. The French empire at war, 1940-45.
Manchester, 1998. (Dist. by St. Martin's) 298p bibl index ISBN 0-7190-5034-0, $79.95 Nov '98, 36-1807

Africa

Cordell, Dennis D. Hoe and wage: a social history of a circular migration system in West Africa, by Dennis D. Cordell, Joel W. Gregory, and Victor Piché.
Westview, 1996. 384p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8133-8168-1, $69.95 Jan '97, 34-2892

Dzimba, John. South Africa's destabilization of Zimbabwe, 1980-89.
Macmillan (UK)/St. Martin's, 1998. 225p bibl index ISBN 0-312-17669-4, $69.95 Sep '98, 36-0476

Geiger, Susan. TANU women: gender and culture in the making of Tanganyikan nationalism, 1955-1965.
Heinemann/ J. Currey/E.A.E.P./Mkuki Na Nyota, 1998 (c1997). 217p bibl index afp ISBN 0-435-07254-4, $60.00; ISBN 0435-07421-0 pbk, $23.95 Jul '98, 35-6378

Gershoni, Yekutiel. Africans on African Americans: the creation and uses of an African-American myth.
New York University, 1997. 246p bibi index afp ISBN O-8147-3082-5, $40.00 Jan '98, 35-2863

Keegan, Timothy. Colonial South Africa and the origins of the racial order.
University Press of Virginia, 1996. 368p bibl index ISBN 0-8139-1735-2, $45.00; ISBN 0-8135-1736-0 pbk, $14.50 Sep '97, 35-0420

Lester, Alan. From colonization to democracy: a new historical geography of South Africa.
I.B. Tauris, 1996. 278p bibl index (International library of African studies, 8) ISBN 1-86064-091-5, $59.50 May '97, 34-5228

Lynn, Martin. Commerce and economic change in West Africa: the palm oil trade in the nineteenth century.
Cambridge, 1998 (c1997). 270p bibl index (African studies series, 93) ISBN 0-521-59074-4, $64,95 Oct '98, 36-1117

Roberts, Richard L. Two worlds of cotton: colonialism and the regional economy in the French Soudan, 1800-1946.
Stanford, 1996. 38p bibl index afp ISBN-0-8047-2652-3, $55.00 Jun '97, 34-5825

Robertson, Claire C. Trouble showed the way: women, men, and trade in the Nairobi area, 1890-1990.
Indiana, 1997. 341p bibl index afp ISBN 0-253-33360-1, $49.95; ISBN 0-253-21151-4 pbk, $24.95 Jun '98, 35-5801

North America

Banks, William M. Black intellectuals: race and responsibility in American life.
W.W. Norton, 1996. 335p bibl index ISBN-0-393-03989-7, $29.95 Apr '97, 34-4671

Dickerson, Dennis C. Militant mediator: Whitney M. Young Jr.
University Press of Kentucky, 1998. 384p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8131-2058-6, $30.00 Oct '98, 36-1146

Litwack, Leon F. Trouble in mind: black southerners in the age of Jim Crow.
Knopf, 1998. 599p bibl index afp ISBN 0-394-52778-X, $35.00 Sep '98, 36-0523

Morgan, Philip D. Slave counterpoint: black culture in the eighteenth-century Chesapeake and Lowcountry.
North Carolina, 1998. 703p index afp ISBN 0-8078-2409-7, $49.95; ISBN 0-8078-4717-8 pbk, $21.95 Sep '98, 36-0525

Schwarz, Philip J. Slave laws in Virginia.
Georgia, 1996. 253p index afp ISBN 0-8203-1831-0, $40.00 May '97, 34-5298

Shipler, David K. A country of strangers: blacks and whites in America.
Knopf, 1997. 607p index afp ISBN 0-394-58975-0, $30.00 Mar '98, 35-4080

Taylor, Quintard. In search of racial frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990.
W.W. Norton, 1998. 415p bibl index ISBN 0-393-04105-0, $29.95 Jul '98, 35-6432

Williams, William H. Slavery and freedom in Delaware, 1639-1865.
SR Books, 1996. 270p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8420-2594-4, $50.00 Jan '97, 34-2966

Political Science

Cawthra, Gavin. Securing South Africa's democracy: defence, development and security in transition.
Macmillan, UK/St. Martin's, 1997. 230p bibl index ISBN 0-312-17419-5, $65.00 Feb '98, 35-3536

Clapham, Christopher. Africa and the international system: the politics of state survival.
Cambridge, 1996. 340p bibl index (Cambridge studies in international relations, 50) ISBN 0-521-57207-X, $59.95; ISBN 0-521-57668-7 pbk, $19.95 May '97, 34-5331

Firmin-Sellers, Kathryn. The transformation of property rights in the Gold Coast: an empirical analysis applying rational choice theory.
Cambridge, 1996. 200p bibl index ISBN 0-521-55503-5, $54.95 Mar '97, 34-4099

Glaser, James M. Race, campaign politics, and the realignment in the South.
Yale, 1996. 229p bibl index afp ISBN 0-300-06398-9, $28.50 Jan '97, 34-3009

Monga, Célestin. The anthropology of anger: civil society and democracy in Africa, tr. by Linda L. Fleck and Célestin Monga.
L. Rienner, 1996. 212p bibl index afp ISBN 1-55587-644-7, $45.00 Apr '97, 34-4727

Tushnet, Mark V. Making constitutional law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1961-1991.
Oxford, 1997. 246p bibl index afp ISBN 0-19-509314-3, $29.95 Dec '97, 35-2404

Waldmeir, Patti. Anatomy of a miracle: the end of apartheid and the birth of the new South Africa.
W.W. Norton, 1997. 303p index ISBN 0-393-03997-8, $27.50 Jul '97, 34-6512

Woodward, Peter. The Horn of Africa: state politics and international relations.
Tauris Acadernic Studies, 1996. (Dist. by St. Martin's) 226p bibl index (International library of African studies, 6) ISBN 1-85043-741-6, $59.50 Feb '97 34-3537

Sociology

Chetkovich, Carol. Real heat: gender race in the urban fire service.
Rutgers 1997. 241p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8135- 2409-1, $50.00; ISBN 0-8135-2410-5 pbk, $18.95 Jan '98, 35-3016

Collins, Catherine Fisher. The imprisonment of African American women: causes, conditions, and future implications.
McFarland, 1997. 152p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7864-0263-6, $29.95 Sep '97, 35-0601

Delgado, Richard. The coming race war?: and other apocalyptic tales of America after affirmative action and welfare.
New York University, 1996. 198p afp ISBN 0-8147-1877-9, $24.95 Jan '97, 34-3045

Franklin, Donna L. Ensuring inequality: the structural transformation of African-American family.
Oxford, 1997. 251p index afp ISBN 0-19-51007-6 $25.00 Sep '97, 35-0605

Sugruc, Thomas J. The origins of the urban crisis: race and inequality in post war Detroit.
Princeton, 1996. 375p index afp ISBN 0-691-01101-X, $35.00 Jun '97, 34-5995

Wilson, Carter A. Racism: from slavery to advanced capitalism.
Sage Publications CA, 1996. 271p bibl index afp (Sage series on race and ethnic relations, 7) ISBN 0-8039-7336-5, $44.00; ISBN 0-8039-7337-3 pbk, $21.95 Feb '97, 34-3617