referencebooks

Dictionary of Worldwide Gestures, Second Edition

By Betty J. Bäuml and Franz H. Bäuml.

Published by Scarecrow Press, 1997.

This is a 6" by 9" clothbound book running to 510 pages including the "index of significances" and the bibliography.

Reference books don't get much odder than this. This book provides brief descriptions of culture-bound physical gestures and a literary citation supporting each. The book is arranged first by body part or pair or group of body parts involved in the gestures (so that sections have headings like "Arm, Hand," "Finger, Tooth," and "Knee, Lip") and then, within each section, by the emotion or message communicated by the gesture. So, on page 230 we are in the section "Foot," looking at descriptions of gestures signifying embarrassment, emphasis, engagement (to be married), etiquette, fatigue, fear, femininity, "finished," greeting, and impatience. The entry for "femininity" says,

"Standing with feet close together and one toe pointed inward. Narrow stances are regarded universally as feminine. Axtell, Gestures, p. 109. See Masculinity.

The entry here (in the section "Foot") for "Etiquette" says,

Men rise from a sitting position in the presence of a lady. 13th cent. Germany. Kudrun, st. 342, 1. Messengers rise when delivering a message. 13th cent. Germany. Kudrun, st. 768, 1-2. * Clicking the heels together, accompanied by a slight bow [Editors' note: this was the rule for middle and upper class men before World War II to signify "at your service" and in greeting ladies and superiors]. Germany; Austria. It is no longer common, except in parody of Prussian manners. Axtell, Gestures, p. 109. In general, standing with heels together and toes pointing out at a slight angle suggests the military stance of attention and therefore suggests attentiveness and respect. Axtell, ibid.

The "index of significance" leads you from words for emotions or other messages to sections of the book by body part, and is useful.

The collection of information about gestures in this book is impressive, because there are so many and because so many are obscure or obsolete. However, it does seem to have some shortcomings. The organization of the book is such that you can't look up a gesture you've seen but don't understand by some classification of the motions involved; the farthest you can get is to the body parts and then a long list of significances. Another shortcoming is that it doesn't attempt to provide information on the cultural range of a gesture. Sometimes a country will be named in relation to a literary source cited for the meaning of a gesture when that gesture has a broader geographic and cultural extent. Also, there is no attempt to distinguish between gestures that are culture-bound and, in a sense, linguistic and gestures that represent deeper, animal-level expressions of emotion, which are universal.

Taken together it's a very interesting and odd book.

Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook

Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy, Editors

Published by M.E. Sharpe, 2005.

This is a 7" by 9.5" hardcover book running to 515 pages including the index, plus thirty-five pages of preferatory material, including a preface, an introduction, a "how to use this book" section, a list of illustrations, and a brief bios of the editors and contributors.

As a handbook, this book presents a series of essays intended to cover the territory of the book's subject matter. The introduction defines a motif as a small narrative unit recurrent in folk literature. The essays in this book are divided into sections marked by letters of the alphabet, which key the motifs discussed to the classic work by Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature. The first few sections are:

• A. Mythological Motifs (10 essays)
  
• B. Mythical Animals (5 essays)
  
• C. Tabu (4 essays)
  
• D. Magic (8 essays)
  
• E. The Dead (1 essay)
  
• F. Marvels (4 essays)
  
• G. Ogres (1 essay)
  
• H. Tests (4 essays)
  
• J. The Wise and the Foolish (1 essay)
  
• K. Deceptions (4 essays)
  

The book looks at motifs in folk literature cross-culturally, but does not make the Romantic assumption that motifs occurring in different cultures represent universals (despite the presence of the word "archetype" in the title). Instead, it compares and contrasts the uses of a given motif in different cultures.

Opening the book at random, I'm in in the section on The Dead, in the chapter, "Ghosts and Other Revenants," looking at the headings, "The Grateful Dead," "The Vanishing Hitchhiker," and "Why Those Who Die Do Not Return To Life." I thought the Grateful Dead was just a country rock band (well, not JUST a country rock, band, but still, a country rock band), but it is a motif in folklore, probably originating in the Hebrew story of Tobit, where someone generously pays the debts of a dead man so that his corpse can be buried, and then is aided by the ghost of the dead man, who comes in the form of an old man, a servent, or a fox. At the end of this chapter is a section of references that includes citations to 12 books about motifs of ghosts and other revenants. The prose is easy to read and informative.

This is a fascinating and useful book.

Unique Games and Sports Around the World: A Reference Guide

Edited by Doris Corbett, John Cheffers, and Eileen Crowley Sullivan.

Published by Greenwood Press, 2001.

This is a 6.5" by 9.5" hardbound book running to 407 pages including the bibliography and indexes, plus an introduction.

Most reference books about sports and games provide either rules and instructions for play or historical statistics. This one is different, because it looks at sports in a geographical, anthropological and sociological way.

Most of the book is a country-by-country look at sports and games as they are played in different cultures, especially if the games are unique to a given culture. The majority of the games included are children's and teenager's games that might be played in a schoolyard; interestingly, these are the most confined to specific cultures and countries.

Opening the book at random, I'm in the section for Norway, which lists only one game that is specific to that country, a game whose name is translated into English as "Together Save." Like all the entries in the book, this one gives a statement of who plays the game, the object for players, the number of players, clothing and equipment required, the type of space it is played in, how the end of the game is determined, the symbolism or point of the game, and the rules of play including scoring. This particular game is a good example of what is interesting about the book, because it is quite different from schoolyard games played in the United States. The object of the game is to get all of the players securely aboard a wooden crate or a square piece of wood. Instead of competing to push each other off and be "king of the mountain," players cooperate so that everybody can stay on. As the book states, this game "[r]epresents the need for organization, leadership, and trust in the face of disaster." It is also clearly a game that reinforces in children the values of a more socialist society (as Norway certainly is).

An interesting feature of the book is that for each game, there is a statement of whether the game is "suitable for replication," presumably by teachers for their students. Chinese cockfighting is not suitable for replication, and "Together Save" is.

This is a really interesting book, useful in studying other cultures or as a source of unique and educational play activities for recreation teachers.

The Christmas Encyclopedia

By William D. Crump

Published by McFarland, 2001.

This is a 7" by 10" hardcover book, running to 346 pages including the bibliography and index, plus the acknowledgments and a preface.

This book would be better titled, An Historical Encyclopedia of Christmas, because most of the entries are about the history behind various Christmas traditions and the celebration of Christmas in different countries, with an emphasis on popular culture.

For an idea of what's here, the first fifteen entries in the "R" sequence, including see references, are:

• Reindeer See Saint Nicholas
  
• Remember the Night
  
• Republic of South Africa See Africa
  
• Resonet in Laudibus See Joseph, Dearest Joseph Mine
  
• Revenge is Sweet See Babes in Toyland
  
• Rich Little's Christmas Carol
  
• The Right to be Happy See A Christmas Carol
  
• Ring Out, Wild Bells
  
• Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow
  
• Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
  
• Rocking
  
• Rocking Carol See Rocking
  
• Romania
  
• Rose Bowl See New Year's Day
  
• Rosemary See Christmas Plants
  

The entries are very informative and interesting, but seem to lack what many would like to see in terms of drawing those connections between our popular Christmas traditions and their pagan origins. The Non-Christian European and Classical origins of a few Christmas traditions are acknowledged, but not really explored. That's a decision which in effect denies the reality that Christmas remains mostly a pagan holiday adopted (and tamed) by Christianity. Still, it's a somewhat useful and entertaining book.

Tyler's Honest Herbal: A Sensible Guide to the Use of Herbs and Related Remedies, 4th edition

By Steven Foster and Varro E. Tyler.

Published by The Haworth Herbal Press, 1999.

This is a 6" by 9" harbound book running to 442 pages including a summary chart and index, plus the prefaces to each edition and a section of full color illustrations.

The preface ends with this descriptive paragraph:

Tyler's Honest Herbal, Fourth Edition, is intended to bring scientific understanding of commonly sold herbs into the twenty-first century. Again, if we err, we do so on the side of conservatism. The current interest in herbs is consumer driven. Now that herb products are much more widely available, offered more often than not repackaged by marketing companies with no internal scientific knowledge of the substances they purvey, truth can indeed be stranger than fiction.

Opening the book at random we find the entry for Feverfew, which is two pages in length. The entry begins with a brief paragraph describing the history of the herb's use going back to antiquity, and then goes on to discuss the results of scientific studies that have tested its efficacy, potency, safety, and identified its active chemical compounds. Finally the article gives caveats to consumers and identifies some important questions for further research.

The book is honest where scientific studies of an herb's effectiveness have been less than conclusive, or when they have simply shown an herbal remedy to be ineffective for some of its traditional uses (as with Betony).

In the preface, the authors also say that this book is controversial among herbalists, some of whom don't like its scientific approach to what they see as a traditional art. The book fills a need, however, for a scientific guide to herbal remedies.

The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances

By Richard Rudgley.

Published by St. Martin's Press, 1999.

This is a red, hardcover book measuring 6" by 9" and running to 302 pages including the bibliography and index, plus the acknowledgments and introduction.

This little encyclopedia gives information about the social history, psychological effects, methods of use, and in some cases a little of the botany and chemistry concerning dozens of psychoactive substances, ranging from the very mild (chocolate) to the very powerful (PCP); and from the very common (marijuana) to the obscure (ayahuasca). The book is neutral on the desirability of the use of psychoactive substances, treating it simply as a fact.

For a sense of what is included, the full list of entries in the "P" sequence (one of the longer ones) is:

• PANAEOLUS see Fungi
  
• PCP
  
• PEGANUM HARMALA
  
• PETROL SNIFFING see Inhalants
  
• PEYOTE
  
• PHENCYCLIDINE see PCP
  
• PIPES
  
• PIPER BETLE see Betel
  
• PIPER METHYSTICUM see Kava
  
• PITURI
  
• POPPERS see Nitrites
  
• PROZAC
  
• PSILOCYBE
  
• PSYCHEDELICS
  
• PUFFBALLS
  

Of those entries, the one on Pipes is the longest at eight pages, with the ones on Pituri and Psilocybe being the next longest, at 4.5 and 4 pages long, respectively.

The text is very readable and interesting. It's not very technical, but communicates a ton of non-obvious information.

This is a book that's potentially very useful for a variety of research purposes.

Storytelling Encyclopedia: Historical, Cultural, and Multiethnic Approaches to Oral Traditions Around the World

General Editor: David Adams Leeming
Project Editor: Marion Sader

Published by Oryx Press, 1997.

This is a hard-bound book of 7" X 10", running to 543 pages including the index, plus a preface and a list of contributors. Among the contributors are professional storytellers as well as academics.

The first part of the book has 32 pages of articles discussing traditions of storytelling. The second part has the A to Z entries and a bibliography.

The encyclopedia portion of the book has just over 700 entries, covering common characters, themes and features of traditional stories, specific traditional stories, major scholars of oral traditions through history, and contextual topics such as "Ritual," "Masks and Masquerade," "Chinese Storytelling," and "Jack Tales." The first twenty headings in the "D" sequence are:

• DANCE
  
• DAT
  
• D'AULNOY, MADAME (MARIE-CATHERINE LE JUMEL DE BARNEVILLE)
  
• DAVY JONES
  
• DEATH
  
• DEGH, LINDA
  
• DELARUE, PAUL
  
• DELPHI
  
• DEMON LOVERS
  
• DEMONS
  
• DESCENT TO THE UNDERWORLD
  
• DEVI
  
• DEVIL
  
• DIFFUSION
  
• DIONYSUS
  
• DISGUISES
  
• DISMEMBERMENT OF PRIMORDIAL BEING
  
• DIVINE CHILD
  
• DIVINE SIGNS
  
• DIVISION OF WORLD PARENTS
  

Entries average a half a page to a page in length and are very readable and interesting. Within entries, terms in all-caps are cross-references to other entries. Many entries have a couple of suggested items for further reading at the end.

In the preface the editor apologizes for the incompleteness of the encyclopedia, but one has to be impressed with the number of entries and the amount of information included.

It's not surprising that the book is as strongly multicultural as it is, since it's disciplinary connections are mainly anthropology and world literature, but it's still something that makes the book especially valuable.

The Global Etiquette Guide to Asia

By Dean Foster

Published by John Wiley and Sons, 2000.

This is a 6" by 9" paperback running to 341 pages including the index.

This is not an academic book per se, but a handy guide to etiquette and customs for travellers to Asia, with a business slant to it. It is part of a series of similar guides for all parts of the world.

The book is divided into sections geographically - first into broad regions and then into chapters for individual countries. Each chapter begins with some background information on the country it's covering, including a summary of the historical context and short paragraphs on politics, education, and demographics. This is followed by a section discussing fundamental cultural orientations through specific cultural variables ("Other-Independent vs. Other-Dependent," "Hierarchy-Oriented vs. Egality-Oriented," "Rule-Oriented vs. Relationship-Oriented," etc.). These cultural orientations are in sections for how people relate to each other, how people view time, and what is the best way for society to work with the world at large. From there each section begins to go into the specifics of a society's customs: greetings and introductions; communication styles (including okay and not okay topics; tone, volume, and speed; use of silence; physical gestures; etc.); protocol in public (walking styles and waiting in lines; behavior in public places like airports and the market); dress; dining and drinking (including table manners; seating plans; etc.); being a good guest or host; gift giving; holidays; and business culture (including such things as daily office protocol; management styles; boss-subordinate relations; conducting meetings; and negotition styles).

Besides being an extremely useful book for travellers, it is very interesting as a quick source of insight into aspects of life that are culturally determined but seem to us to be simply natural, as well as sometimes revealing the greater development of Asian cultures in certain respects.

Westerner that I am, I can't resist copying down a brief paragraph to give you a sense of the kind of information the book is absolutely filled with. This is in the chapter on Indonesia, in the section on Communication Styles, under the heading, "Silence:"

"Passive silence -- allowing time to pass simply, without words -- can be a form of proactive communication in Indonesia. There may be long pauses between comments, but rarely extending over several minutes. When confronted with silence, for whatever reason, the best response is to remain silent yourself, although this may be difficult and appear unproductive for time-conscious Westerners. This is perhaps the most subtle form of communication, yet communication it is. If you must say something, bring up something positive, even if it is unrelated to the previous statement. Remember, in Asia, "silence is golden"; those who speak too much are considered immature, given how careful one must be with what one says. Because some Westerners find silence disconcerting, they may tend to fill up the space with more talk; resist this impulse, as it only enhances the effectivness of the silence, by forcing the Westerner to say more than he or she might be inclined to."

Reverse Symbolism Dictionary: Symbols Listed by Subject

By Steven Olderr

Published by McFarland, 1992. Copyright held by the author.

This is a small hardbound book of 181 pages that's made to go with Olderr's earlier book, Symbolism, a Comprehensive Dictionary, but could easily be used with another dictionary of symbols or used by itself.

Where a typical dictionary of symbols lets you look up symbols (e.g. pomegranite) and read about their meanings, this book lets you look up meanings to find what symbolizes them. For example, a sequence of entries in the middle of the book, fitting on one page, runs:

• I [letter]
  
• Icarus
  
• ice
  
• id
  
• the ideal
  
• ideals
  
• ideas
  
• identification
  
• identify
  
• idleness
  
• idolatry
  
• Idolatry, personafied
  
• Ignatius of Loyola, St.
  
• Ignominy
  
• ignorance
  

Here is a typical entry:

liberty broken chains; butterfly; oak; ocean; Phrygia; rod; sandals; shoes; stocks [for restraint] (loss of liberty); Sun [tarot] (liberation from physical limitations); sword; torch (revolution and ultimate liberty) * association: Aquarius (the loosening of bonds; the immanence of liberation); green * flower language live oak * heraldry cat *see also freedom

This is the kind of reference book that makes great browsing when you're in an expansive, creative, and poetically meditative kind of mood, and is useful for creative inspiration as much as for research.

Native American Quotations

Compiled and Edited by Howard J. Langer.

Published by Greenwood Press, 1996.

This is a hardbound book measuring 6.5" by 9.5" and running to 261 pages.

This book is a compilation of quotations by Native Americans, from the mid-sixteenth century to the present day. There are about 800 quotations in the book altogether. The quotations are almost all about the relationship between the Native Americans and the Europeans in North America. The book is divided into a section for each person quoted. Each speaker's section begins with a couple of biographical sentences and then goes on to give some quotations - sometimes just one, sometimes a couple of pages worth - each cited thoroughly. Additionally there is a section at the end with anonymous quotations, prayers and proverbs. There is also an index of people, a subject/keyword index, and a tribe index.

The compiler's purpose is to communicate Native American history in a living way, so that we can connect it to actual people, rather than understanding it through the usual stereotypes. Unfortunately, the selected quotations have a sameness in terms of their focus and point of view that does little to bring the image of Native Americans to life and give it the complexity it deserves. Also, in an odd way, the sincerity and truth of many of the simpler statements in the book tend to be lost in the print format, where it might be more deeply present in audio/visual recordings.

Nevertheless the book is an important compilation and serves a necessary purpose.

Black and white photographs of many of the people in the book enrich it by showing the variety among Native Americans, both physically and in terms of lifestyle and social identity.

Encyclopedia of Human Emotions

Edited by David Levinson, James J. Ponzetti, Jr., and Peter F. Jorgensen

Published by Macmillan Reference USA, 1999.

This is a two-volume hardbound set measuring 9" by 11" and totaling 768 pages including the bibliography index and subject index, plus 18 pages of preferatory material.

This Encyclopedia brings together information from psychology, psychiatry, biology, sociology, anthropology, communication studies and other fields to summarize what we know about "the nature, causes, expression, and societal role of emotions - today, in the past, and across cultures."

There are 156 articles in the set, each signed by an expert whose institutional home is listed. The "S" sequence contains articles with the following titles:

• Sadness
  
• Sartre, Jean-Paul
  
• Satisfaction
  
• Seasonal Affective Disorder
  
• Self-Esteem
  
• Sensation Seeking and Risk Taking
  
• Shame
  
• Shyness
  
• Sin
  
• Smiling
  
• Sociology of Emotions
  
• Spinoza, Baruch
  
• Sports
  
• Stress
  
• Sullivan, Harry Stack
  
• Surprise
  
• Sympathy
  

The article on satisfaction is almost seven pages in length. It begins with a paragraph defining the emotion, and then has sections with the headings, "Satisfaction as a Concept;" "Satisfaction Compared to Related Concepts" (with subheadings "Pleasure," "Happiness," and "Joy,"); "Cross-Cultural Research on Satisfaction;" and "Conculsion." It finishes with see-also references to "Achievement Motivation," "Happiness," "Hope," "Motivation," and "Pleasure," followed by a bibliography of 44 items for further reading.

The textual discussion is non-technical and very informative. Most people's knowledge of emotions is intuitive, and it is almost surprising to see how much study has gone into human emotions in different disciplines and what the contours of our knowlege of emotion are.

Articles on related emotions, such as Envy and Jealousy, Shame and Guilt, Anxiety and Fear, and Sympathy and Empathy, are all written by different experts, which allows you to get different versions of the distinctions between them.

This is a very interesting encyclopedia, useful in many types of research. The odd thing about its subject matter is the unlikelihood of someone turning to it whose research might be helped by it, because of its focus on subjective experience rather than the outward realities that are usually in focus. People doing work in theatre, film, literature, art, persuasion, psychology and some other social science disciplines seem most likely (to me) to find a good use for this encyclopedia.

Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America
Revised and Updated Edition

By J. Gordon Melton

Published by Garland's "Religious Information Sytems" imprint, 1992.

This is a 5.5" X 8.5" paperback of 407 pages including the index.

Melton is an established authority on cults, having authored other commonly-seen reference books on the subject, but this doesn't make it any less noticeable and awkward that his list of chapters on "The Established Cults" includes such major American religions as the Church of Christ, Scientist, Jehovah's Witnesses, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). "Cult" is a very loaded and powerful word, so it is surprising to see it applied to such powerful and established groups as these, and raises questions about Melton's criteria. For example, a commonly-understood attribute of cults is that they require members to break ties with the world outside, or that they are outside the mainstream of American religion, things that aren't quite true of the Mormons, for example, though their internal associations and unity are certainly strong.

Melton is aware of the controversial aspect to the gray area of cults and religion, so he devotes his first chapter to the preliminary question of "what is a cult," and provides his working criteria. In this chapter, Melton talks about three major sources of discussion about cults, that contribute varying degrees of pejorativeness to the "cult" label. These are Christian counter-cult ministries representing religious orthodoxies (which beg the question, in my mind, "What would Jesus do?"), secular anti-cultists who arose in the 70's in response to the experience of brainwashed family members, etc., and social scientists who study religious behavior and groups. Melton is relatively private about his own pathway to the study of cults, but my sense is that he is some kind of an orthodox Protestant.

Melton has chapters on 32 different "cults," which include Christian Science, Mormons, Rosicrucians, Satanism, "Spiritualism," Theosophy, The Universal Peace Mission Movement of Father Divine, Scientology, Mormons (separate entries for mainstream and fundamentalist, polygamy practicing Mormons), ECKANKAR, Elan Vital, Hare Krishnas, Nichiren Shoshu, Osho, Unification Church, and "Witchcraft and NeoPaganism" (which hardly seem organized enough to be a cult, but, whatever), among others. Additionally, the New Age Movement is listed as a cult, and there are two chapters on anti-cult movements.

The entry on Nichiren Shoshu, as an example, is seven pages in length. The chapter describes the history and origin of the movement, including internal divisions, and then goes on to discuss the beliefs and practices, organization, current status and existing controversies of the group, and finally a bibliography.

Following the long section that goes into detail about the cults listed is a section titled "Violence and the Cults."

It's a pretty interesting and informative but somewhat tendentious reference book.

The Mythical Zoo: An Encyclopedia of Animals in World Myth, Legend and Literature

Boria Sax

Published by ABC-CLIO, 2001. Copyright held by the author.

This is a 7" X 10" hardbound book of 299 pages and larger print including the index.

The book has entries on animals or groupings of animals (e.g. "Heron, Ibis, Crane and Stork," "Bee and Wasp") that each run several pages in length.

The entry on Dogs is one of the longer ones, running ten pages in length. It has one black and white illustration, a picture of the "His Master's Voice" Victrola advertisement. The entry draws connections between humankind's relationship with dogs and folklore about dogs throughout the world and throughout history. It also draws connections between dogs' behavior and that folklore, for instance citing dogs' sense of smell and ability to serve as a guide in the hunt as the background for the fact that a vast range of cultures view the dog as a guide to the world after death. The entry runs through various cultures' use of the dog in their symbolism and legend, also including a bit of modern culture and literature in the discussion. The entry ends with a bibliography of ten sources for further reading, which includes works on specific cultures, books about dogs in myth and legend, and an entry for Plutarch's legend "Isis and Osiris."

The book has numerous helpful "See" references leading to grouped entries and synonyms.

International Handbook on Gender Roles

Edited by Leonore Loeb Adler

Published by Greenwood Press, 1993.

This is a 6" X 9" clothbound book of 525 pages, including the bibliography, index and contributors' bios.

The book is divided by country. For each country there is a substantial discussion of gender roles from a feminist anthropological perspective.

As an example, the entry for Nigeria, written by Nigerian scholars, is fifteen pages in length with references. It has an introduction, a three page overview that touches on the history and culture of Nigeria, a long section with the heading "Comparisons between men's and women's gender roles during the life cycle" that is divided by stage of life, and a page-long summary. The section on the comparison of men's and women's gender roles goes into social institutions and contemporary trends in interesting detail.

Not every country is represented, but for every country a country with a similar culture is there (e.g. Finland is the only Scandinavian country represented). There are articles on 31 countries total.

It is interesting to see The United States of America given the same treatment as other countries in the book, which is what really makes it an "international handbook." The section on the United States begins by locating it geographically and telling us that it is bordered by Canada on the North and Mexico on the South, with oceans to the East and West. Much information in the chapter, presented this objectively, is, however, new to Americans who take it for granted, living amidst it.

The arrangement by country allows for research on individual countries, of course, but it also facilitates cross-cultural comparison, which is often what is needed when researching or talking about aspects of culture that people commonly take for granted or view as universal and eternal (which is not to say, of course, that nothing in the world can or should be new).

A nice, substantial book.

Field Guide to Gestures: How to Identify and Interpret Virtually Every Gesture Known to Man

By Nancy Armstrong and Melissa Wagner

Published by Quirk Books, 2003.

This is a full-color, thick, small-format paperback of 4.5" X 5.75".

This is a really fun book. It's a dictionary of gestures divided into seven sections for types of gestures, and a section in the middle with color photographs illustrating each gesture.

The sections are:

I. Arrival and Departure
II. Approval
III. Disapproval
IV. Mating
V. Offensive and Profane
VI. Just for Emphasis
VII. No Words Needed

It's most useful for browsing for fun or for finding gestures to add to your repertoire (if your new year's resolution was to talk more with your hands) than for finding out what someone meant by that hand motion, although it is possible to use it for that. This is because the entries are given in order of sections by the type of meaning, and then by the name of the gesture (e.g. "Live Long and Prosper," "The Fig," "Loser," "The Sizzle," "Money"), which you don't know if you don't know what a gesture means. The plates can tell you, but that requires a good browse.

A lot of these gestures are of recent invention and are a part of pop culture, and some are gestures that have been around for centuries but you may not ever have thought much about.

The book presents itself as being very multicultural. The faces in the section of color plates are multi-ethnic (and multi-generational) and some regional and national variations on the meanings of gestures are described in a special section for each gesture with the heading "region." However, I find the book to be mainly about the meaning of gestures in the United States. Gestures not in use in the United States aren't really included, and international variations on the meaning of gestures aren't very thorough. For instance, in the entry for "Nod 'Yes,'" it says that it is universal except in Greece, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, Turkey and Iran, where the gesture's meaning is reversed with shaking the head side to side. That's an interesting fact (if it's precisely true), but it leaves out the fact that in much of Asia, nodding the head up and down carries more of the meaning of "I hear and understand you" than "I assent or agree," something that can be quite confusing if it isn't known. So, the people who have put this book together are quite creative, but perhaps not academic authorities.

That said, there is a lot to be learned from this book. Did you know that the heavy metal "horns" gesture has an older and continuing meaning? It means, "Your wife is cheating on you." It also means, "Go Longhorns."

The Book of Calendars

Frank Parise, editor.

Published by Facts On File, 1982.

This is a hardbound book, 8X10" and 387 pages including the index.

Facts On File publishes tons of reference materials on current events, government and statistical type topics. This book is a guide to the different calendars used by ancient and modern cultures, including historical information, explanations and conversion tables. It's an example of a type of reference book that hasn't really gone out of date after more than 20 years.

The book is divided into the following sections:

Ancient Calendars
Africa
Modern Near East
India
Southest Asia
Far East
Central America
Western Calendars

The first thing I notice about this book is how many different calendars actually exists and how much information exists about them. Among the calendars described are the Seleucid Calendar, the Fasli or Soor San calendar (forerunner of the Islamic calendar), the Yezdezred calendar of ancient Persia, the modern Iranian lunar and solar calendars, the Zoroastrian calendar, a slew of different Indian calendars, the ancient Chinese lunar calendar (now the longest unbroken sequence of time measurement in history), the Mayan calendar, 14 possible Julian and Gregorian calendars, the French Revolutionary calendar, and the Soviet calendar. The modern Jewish calendar is discussed as the Hebrew calendar in the section on Ancient Calendars, but it is described there as being much different now than in ancient Judea.

The conversion tables are what gives the book its great potential for usefulness beyond its curiosity value, because scholars working with primary source material from other times and cultures will need to convert dates. Conversion to Western dates is sometimes to Gregorian dates and sometimes to Julian; no consistent pattern is immediately evident (to me), and the brief introduction doesn't shed much light.

Overall, it's a very interesting and useful book.

The Cambridge World History of Food

Edited by Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas.

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2000.

First thing to be said about this two volume work is that it's FAT. Over 2100 pages in two hard-bound volumes, two columns per page. That is a big helping of food history.

The Table of Contents lists eight parts, each with numerous sections. The eight parts are:

I. Determining What Our Ancestors Ate
II. Staple Foods: Domesticated Plants and Animals
III. Dietary Liquids
IV. The Nutrients - Deficiencies, Surfeits, And Food-Related Disorders
V. Food and Drink around the World
VI. History, Nutrition, and Health
VII. Contemporary Food-Related Policy Issues
VIII. A Dictionary of the World's Plant Foods

An example of the depth of this work is that the article on Kava is over seven pages in length and has a bibliography of 44 fully-cited references.

This is a tasty and very satisfying work. Very useful as a starting point for anyone researching anything having to do with food.