sept11b.indd C&RL News September 2011 496 America Walks into a Bar, by Christine Sis- mondo (314 pages, June 2011), takes us on a “pub crawl through American history,” as the au- thor puts it. C o n t e n d i n g that saloons and taverns were the focal points of such q u i n t e s s e n - tially Ameri- can principles as freedom of expression and freedom to associate, S i s m o n d o shows how these gathering places served as de facto town halls, courthouses, community and business hubs, incubators for new litera- ture and music, and centers for machine, democratic, and radical politics. Yet bars have also been targeted by the temperance and anticorruption movements, a sober re- minder that rowdy excesses can lead to re- pression, with antismoking ordinances and policies prohibiting stroller moms currently trending. Sismondo’s narrative is engaging, informal, and filled with memorable anec- dotes. $24.95. Oxford University. 978-0-19- 973495-5. The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture, by Joshua Kendall (355 pages, April 2011), chronicles the life of America’s greatest lexicographer, Noah Webster (1758–1843), whose first diction- ary, published in 1806, was notable for its American spelling variants and its inclusion of technical terms in addition to literary George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, e-mail: geberhart@ala.org N e w P u b l i c a t i o n sGeorge M. Eberhart words. Kendall, the author of The Man Who Made Lists (2008), a biography of thesau- rus compiler Peter Mark Roget, reminds us that Webster was also a prolific author of textbooks, spellers, treatises on infectious disease, and Federalist newspaper articles. He was also a champion of copyright law, abolition, female education, workman’s compensation, and higher education, and was one of the founders of Amherst College in 1821. Yet he was a flawed hero, whose critics accused him of arrogance, stubborn- ness, and poor anger management, which in modern times might be diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive disorder, a condition that Kendall notes may have actually helped him in his 30-year quest to perfect his dic- tionary. $26.95. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 978-0- 399-15699-1. Harry Potter and History, edited by Nancy R. Reagin (336 pages, June 2011), extracts the historical elements behind the magic, witchcraft, and social structures of the Pot- terverse. Following a timeline that com- pares genuine Muggle history with wizard- ing history, the book’s 13 essays examine medieval mandrakes, charms, and love po- tions; the use of ancient languages in spells; medieval manuscripts and libraries; the real alchemist Nicolas Flamel; historical perse- cutions of witches and wizards; how Lord Voldemort symbolizes Nazism; the decline of European aristocracy (the Malfoys); Hog- warts and the British boarding school; and racism, feminism, and class in the wizarding world. A worthy companion to John Grang- er’s literary exploration of J. K. Rowling’s work, Harry Potter’s Bookshelf (Berkley, 2009). $17.95. John Wiley & Sons. 978-0- 470-57472-0. A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar ibn Said, by Omar ibn Said (222 pages, July 2011), is a translation by Ala Alryyes of Omar’s autobiographical essay written in September 2011 497 C&RL News Arabic in 1831 when he was a slave in the house of James Owen of Fayetteville, North Carolina, a general of militia and brother of John Owen, governor of North Carolina in 1828–1830. A l t h o u g h short on de- tails about his life, the work is im- portant as the only American slave narra- tive written in Arabic using a West African script. Alryyes shows that Omar’s “safe” pro-slavery text is filled with between-the- lines innuendo that would be recognized only by those who could decipher it. His literary style, which emulates the Qu’ran and includes some Qu’ranic passages, con- tradicts both his supposed conversion to Christianity in 1820 and the contemporary perception of blacks as innately illiterate. In addition to a new translation set against the original manuscript, which was rediscov- ered in Virginia in 1995, Alryyes includes several essays by others on Muslims in early America and the context of Omar’s essay in antebellum America. $19.95. University of Wisconsin. 978-0-299-24954-0. OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word, by Allan Metcalf (210 pag- es, November 2010), credits Charles Gor- don Greene with the invention of the most frequently used word on the planet as an abbreviation for “oll korrect,” a humorously mangled spelling of “all correct.” The word and its meaning first appeared in the March 23, 1839, issue of Greene’s Boston Morn- ing Post at a time when abbreviations oddly were in vogue. After exploring some false hypotheses about its origins, Metcalf pro- ceeds with numerous fun examples of its uses—including the telegraphic OK, the OK Corral, OKeh records, George Ade’s revival of the word in Fables in Slang, Oklahoma, okey-dokey, and Thomas A. Harris’s 1967 classic of transactional analysis, I’m OK— You’re OK. $18.95. Oxford University. 978- 0-19-537793-4. The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed His- tory, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics, by John Pollack (212 pages, April 2011), defines a pun as not just a play on words, but the transformation of one word or thing into another by relating them through sound or sight. Pollack, winner of the 1995 O. Henry Pun-Off World Champi- onships and a former speechwriter for Pres- ident Bill Clinton, breaks down a remark- able variety of types of pun—homophonic and homographic puns, paradigmatic puns, syntagmatic puns, Spoonerisms, Wellerisms, the chiasmus, Tom Swifties, story puns, knock-knock jokes, daffynitions, meld puns, and portmanteaus. He goes on to de- scribe how the brain processes puns, the tumultuous relationship between low pun- ning and high humor, and the creative ben- efits of wordplay. $22.50. Gotham Books. 978-1-592-40623-4. The University: An Illustrated History, ed- ited by Fernando Tejerina (433 pages, April 2011), is an intriguing attempt to assess the progress of universities from their begin- nings in Classical Greece to the quest for new models in the 21st century. Edited by a panel of Spanish academicians who have brought together contributors from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, this well- illustrated volume offers a global perspective on higher education that includes chapters on the beginnings of Oxford and Cambridge, students and scholars from the Enlighten- ment to the birth of liberal democracies, three centuries of founding universities in colonial Latin America, entrepreneurial and world-class institutions, and the relationship of the university to its physical space. $60.00. Overlook Duckworth. 978-1-59020-644-7.