Such feats of engineering as the Giza pyramids, the irrigation system and so on suggest that the Egyptians knew the law of cause and effect. They also knew that this wasn’t all there was to this world. Egypt produced techniques of magic, innumerable magical texts and magical objects: figurines, statues, amulets, wands, etc. (pierced dolls are an Egyptian invention). The book also touches on the role of magicians, the magico-medical exchange with Mesopotamia, how rulers like Augustus (who burnt many magical books seen as subversive) reacted to magic, and the influence of Egyptian magic on Medieval and Renaissance times (including Arab scholars) and modern practitioners such as W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley. MET

Publisher: University of Texas
Paperback: 192 pages
Illustrated

The mummified remains of an Egyptian priest named Horemkenesi (11th century, Thebes) are beginning to crumble, so a museum team decides “it’s now or never,” and unravels him—and in the process Horemkenesi achieves his desired immortality with his identity “coming alive” 3,000 years later! The reader is shown in vast detail the city dig that led to Horemkenesi’s initial discovery—which through archeological and linguistic detective work also “unravels” all facets of life during his time (cultural, religious and economic), Egyptian medical knowledge, the significance of writings placed near Horemkenesi’s tomb, and why his brain remained but not other vital organs. MS

Publisher: University of Texas
Paperback: 116 pages
Illustrated

Seemingly lost in the annals of time, the Zoot Suit riots occurred in Los Angeles between June 3 and 13, 1943. By this time the United States was involoved in a “war for democracy,” and an end to “racism and discrimination” as personified by the German Nazis. Yet, during this same period, the virulent racism endemic in this country was remarkable—riots in Detroit and Los Angeles, internment of Japanese-Americans, internment of Italian-Americans—and one wonders whether the war to end all wars should not have begun on our own doorstep. Mazón’s book offers an exciting and alarming view of Mexican-American lifestyles in Los Angeles in the 1940s. The reader is regaled with a description of the events surrounding the origins of the zoot suit: “The Drape Shape, as if made for a much larger man than its wearer, so baggy as to conceal a bad figure but with ample room for a holster under the armpit, was associated with American gangsters, and a version of it known as the zoot suit had been worn by Danny Kaye [!] and Frank Sinatra [!] for a shorter time.” Well, we always knew about Ol’ Blue Eyes—but Danny Kaye? JB

Publisher: University of Texas
Paperback: 163 pages

A sociocultural overview of the contemporary development of the first and second immigrant generations (labeled by Ruben Rumbaut as “1.5 or one-and-a-half” Cuban-Americans) that have lived “life on the hyphen” for the last half-century. It is the author’s search for identity that led to his examination of the history of Cuban-American culture and the adjustments that have been made living a hybrid life in contemporary America. He tries to define various Cuban Americans ( for example, YUCAs, or Young Upwardly Cuban Americans) and show “how tradition and translation have shaped their lives in Cuban-American culture, a culture which is built on the tradition of translation, in both the topographical and linguistic senses of the word.” Perez Firmat claims that it is one thing to be Cuban in America and another to be Cuban-American.
Music, movies, television, and literature are used to illustrate his investigations. Cubans who have become icons in American culture—Desi Arnaz, Perez Prado, poet Jose Kozer, writer and Pulitzer-Prize winner in literature Oscar Hijuelos, and even the Madonna of Miami herself, Gloria Estefan—all get their due in this book. The author does give us plenty of dirt on many of the personalities that he examines but also gets sidetracked and exposes more of himself. He quotes Desi Arnaz from his autobiography A Book:”writing a book is, I discovered, not an easy thing to do. It also proves that the brain is a wonderful thing. It starts up when you are born and stops when you sit down at the typewriter.” OAA

Publisher: University of Texas
Paperback: 231 pages
Illustrated

Unfortunately, this book contains “informed theoretical developments in film theory, cultural studies, postcolonial discourse, and Third World cinema.” Still, it seems to be one of the only existing English-language books to deal with that kaleidoscopic factory of celluloid iconography that is the Bombay movie world, which exceeds Hollywood in its annual output of films released and has an equally long history. In the filmis, Hindu myth gets choreographed by Busby Berkeley to a shimmering soundtrack of raga-pop which can induce involuntary ecstatic states in the Westerners who have had the good fortune to be exposed to it, and the undying devotion of a subcontinent of loyal viewers many millions strong. While valuable as historical background, this book does not aspire to bring to the Western world the wonders which would await it if Bombay were ever to become the next cinematic Hong Kong. SS

Publisher: University of Texas
Paperback: 368 pages
Illustrated

“Opens with a summary of known health hazards and their effects, and goes on to discuss the techniques of organizing a community to conduct a scientific health survey. With these tools, citizens living near petrochemical plants or waste disposal areas—or many who have simply noticed a high incidence of certain health problems in their community—can determine for themselves whether a problem really exists and if they should seek remediation. Given the reality that government agencies often lack the resources—or the will—to detect certain health hazards before they affect a community, an informed citizenry should be its own environmental watchdog.” Newly revised and updated.

Publisher: University of Texas
Paperback: 240 pages