feb05c.indd


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

The Concise Enc yclopedia of the Revo ­
lutions and Wars of England, Scotland, 
and Ireland, 1639–1660, by Stephen C. 
Manganiello (612 pages, September 2004), 
identifies all the important personalities of 
the English Civil War and Commonwealth 
period—parliamentarians, Puritans, royal­
ists, and Levellers—as well as the signifi cant 
battles, skirmishes, castles, weapons and ar­
mor, and acts and decrees of what for many 
Americans is a very confusing historical era. 
However, as Manganiello points out in his 
preface, some of the concepts articulated at 
the time are central to the American experi­
ment, such as universal franchise, civil rights, 
religious toleration, and feminism. Hundreds 
of maps and an appendix on naval vessels 
make this an essential guide for students. 
$95.00. Scarecrow. ISBN 0­8108­5100­8. 

The Great Composers Por trayed on Film, 
by Charles P. Mitchell (338 pages, November 
2004), analyzes the movies about 65 classi­
cal composers to assess how accurately they 
depict the men and their music. Among the 
films analyzed are Amadeus (Tom Hulce as 
Mozart), Farinelli Il Castrato (Jeroen Krabbé 
as Handel), Stars and Stripes Forever (Clifton 
Webb as Sousa), Casta Diva (Maurice Ronet 
as Bellini), and Bride of the Wind (Jonathan 
Pryce as Mahler). Mitchell also comments on 
the effectiveness and quality of each fi lm and 
includes appendices on films about fi ctional 
composers and composers on TV series. 
$49.95. McFarland. ISBN 0­7864­1795­1. 

Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of 
America’s Founding Ideas, by David Hack­
ett Fischer (851 pages, October 2004), begins 
with a simple question, asked by a 21­year­
old scholar in 1843 of an elderly veteran of 
the American Revolution: “What made you go 
to the Concord fight?” His response was, “We 

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

always had been free, 
and we meant to be 
free always. They [the 
Redcoats] didn’t mean 
we should.” The 91­
year­old Captain Levi 
Preston knew nothing 
about John Locke, but 
he and his compatriots 
had an innate under­
standing of liberty and 
freedom that each generation of Americans has 
inherited, interpreted, and expanded in unique 
ways. Fischer points out that English is the only 
language that uses both words, which have dif­
ferent origins and ultimate meanings: “liberty” 
refers to independence and autonomy, while 
“freedom” entails the rights of belonging to a 
community of free people. Liberty and Free­
dom is a graphically fascinating and intellectu­
ally stimulating examination of images and ar­
tifacts (such as the “Don’t Tread on Me” snake, 
the Statue of Liberty, the Freedom Train, and 
political cartoons and buttons) representing 
the merging, interaction, and conflict of these 
two concepts from the colonial Liberty Tree to 
the War on Terror. Fischer concludes that the 
very thing that keeps an often divided America 
free is the diversity of its traditions of liberty 
and freedom. $50.00. Oxford University. ISBN 
0­19­516253­6. 

Online Investing Hacks, by Bonnie Bi­
afore (485 pages, July 2004), offers a wealth 
of tips on analyzing company fi nancials, ex­
ecuting trades, and managing portfolios for 
the careful investor. Especially valuable are 
its suggestions on how to tweak Excel to 
make it a formidable analysis tool, but other 
tricks involve calculating investment returns, 
how to spot hanky­panky with cash fl ow 
analysis, and using rational values to buy 
and sell. One of the best of O’Reilly’s “hacks” 
titles, which also include Word Hacks, iPod 
and iTunes Hacks, and Home Theater Hacks. 
$24.95. O’Reilly. ISBN 0­596­00677­2. 

February 2005  137 C&RL News 

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


The Scarith of Scornello: A Tale of Re ­
naissance Forger y, by Ingrid D. Rowland 
(230 pages, December 2004), immerses the 
reader in a delightful concoction of 17th­cen­
tury antiquarian controversy and bibliographic 
intrigue. In 1634, Curzio Inghirami, the well­
educated teenaged son of a Tuscan noble 
landowner, claimed 
to have discovered 
south of Volterra a 
cache of Latin and 
Etruscan scrolls en­
cased in strange 
earthen capsules he 
called “scarith,” a 
supposed Etruscan 
word referred to in 
the texts. Curzio pub­
lished an account of 
his discovery in Flor­
ence two years later titled Ethruscarum Antiq­
uitatum Fragmenta that sparked a scholarly 
debate on the find’s provenance. Foremost of 
the doubters was a scrappy Vatican librarian 
named Leone Allacci who wrote a withering 
critique of Curzio’s dubious discovery. Row­
land provides a broader context for the story, 
showing how it epitomized Roman­Tuscan 
rivalries and the Calvinist­Catholic debate on 
free will. A treasure for bibliophiles. $22.50. 
University of Chicago. ISBN 0­226­73036­0. 

Science Frontiers II, compiled by William 
R. Corliss (338 pages, October 2004), contains 
more than 1,300 abstracts of journal articles 
on anomalies and curiosities in archaeology, 
astronomy, biology, geology, geophysics, psy­
chology, chemistry, and other disciplines. A se­
quel to Corliss’s 1994 volume, this edition cov­
ers articles published over the past 10 years in a 
wide variety of publications from New Scientist 
and Nature to BBC News Online and Current 
Anthropology. Some of the topics included are 
enigmatic structures in the Arctic, discordant 
red shifts, bacteria in the stratosphere, aberrant 
bird behavior, problems with plate tectonics, 
icy minicomets, and near­death experiences. 
$21.95. Sourcebook Project, P.O. Box 107, 
Glen Arm, MD 21057. ISBN 0­915554­47­X. 

Sleuthing the Alamo: Dav y Crockett ’s 
Last Stand and O ther Mysteries of the 
Texas Revolution, by James E. Crisp (201 
pages, October 2004), offers a glimpse of 
the excitement, frustration, and intense con­
troversy involved in investigating the “Texas 
creation myth” of the fall of the Alamo—es­
pecially the question of whether Crockett 
died swinging Old Betsy in a Disneyesque 
tableau or was executed by firing squad af­
ter pleading for his life. Crisp is a leading 
proponent of the latter scenario and explains 
why he came to that conclusion in this en­
gaging personal memoir, which also tackles 
the racism inherent in the traditional Alamo 
myth. Sam Houston and the original Texians 
were apparently a bit more culturally inclu­
sive than some of their descendants. $20.00. 
Oxford University. ISBN 0­19­516349­4. 

The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Ency­
clopedia of Comic­Book Icons and Holly­
wood Heroes, edited by Gina Misiroglu with 
David A. Roach (725 pages, November 2004), 
provides some 300 essays on the colorfully 
costumed crime fighters of comics, graphic 
novels, film, and television, with an emphasis 
on the genre’s role in American popular cul­
ture. Many of the entries describe subcatego­
ries (DC Comics, multiculturalism, sidekicks 
and protégés, supernatural heroes) in addition 
to specific characters. The coverage is not as 
comprehensive as Jeff Rovin’s out­of­print En­
cyclopedia of Superheroes (Facts on File, 1985) 
nor as episode­specific as John Kenneth Muir’s 
Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Tele­
vision (McFarland, 2003), but it serves as an 
excellent supplement for libraries with this 
collection focus. $29.95. Visible Ink, distrib­
uted by Omnigraphics. ISBN 0­7808­0772­3. 

Ultimate Robot, by Robert Malone (192 
pages, September 2004), presents a potpourri 
of droids, drones, and automata from collect­
ible toys and kits to cinematic bots, commer­
cial products like Sony’s QRIO, and the Martian 
landers. More pop­cultural and visual than tech­
nical, this overview should satisfy the curious 
browser. $30.00. DK. ISBN 0­7566­0270­X. 

C&RL News February 2005  138