Women's Review of Books - 2012 Issues

January/February 2012

• The Women Rebel
  Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion By Jean H. Baker
  By Jean H. Baker
  Reviewed by Sarah Blustain

• Into the Eye of the Storm
  Night’s Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins, With Her Unfinished Autobiography
  By Yaël Tamar Lewin 
  Reviewed by Debra Cash

• Grief for Men, Grief from Men
  Surviving the Bosnian Genocide: The Women of Srebrenica Speak By Selma Leydesdorff; War Is Not Over When It’s Over: Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War
  By Ann Jones
  Reviewed by Cynthia Cockburn

• Where They Have to Take You In
  Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home
  By Anita Hill
  Reviewed by Renée Loth

• Rape During Wartime and Beyond 
  Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights
  Edited by Elizabeth D. Heineman
  Reviewed by Jennifer G. Mathers

• A Useable Past
  Sister Arts: The Erotics of Lesbian Landscapes
  By Lisa L. Moore
  Reviewed by Martha Vicinus

• Photography
  Despartely Perfect
  Photos by Rachel Papo and Commentary by Nina Alovert

• The Things They Left Behind
  The Buddha in the Attic
  By Julie Otsuka
  Reviewed by Mako Yoshikawa

• Poetry 
  By Alissa Valles

• Field Notes
  There Are Places That I Remember
  By Robin Becker

• Uniting and Dividing
  Twin Cites By Carol-Muske Dukes
  Selected Poems: A New Selection By Amy Clampitt
  Reviewed by Grace Schulman

• What's Out There?
  Head Off & Split By Nikky Finney
  Life On Mars By Tracy K. Smith
  Reviewed by Colleen J. McElroy

• Having Fun Learning To Be Liberal
  Before Porn Was Legal: The Erotica Empire of Beate Uhse
  By Elizabeth Heineman
  Reviewed by Leila J. Rupp

• Breaking Rank
  An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country
  By Susan Rosenberg
  Reviewed by Brackette F. Williams

• Gender and Power
  The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe
  By Nwando Achebe
  Reviewed by E. Frances White

• Violence is Gendered
  Equality with a Vengeance: Men’s Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash By Molly Dragiewicz 
  The Victimization of Women: Law, Policies, and Politics By Michelle L. Meloy and Susan L. Miller
  Reviewed by Amy Barasch

   

March/April 2012

• Feminists of the Right and Left
  Before the Revolution: Women’s Rights and Right-Wing Politics in Nicaragua, 1821-1979
  By Victoria González-Rivera

  Reviewed by Florence E. Babb

• Poverty, Gospel, Revolution
  The Journey of a Tzotzil-Maya Woman of Chiapas, Mexico: Pass Well Over the Earth
  By Christine Eber and “Antonia”
  Reviewed by Martha Gies

• The Adaptable Brain
  The Truth About Girls and Boys: Challenging Toxic Stereotypes About Our Children
  By Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett
  Reviewed by Susan McGee Bailey

• From War on Poverty to War on Poor People
  The War on Welfare: Family, Poverty, and Politics in Modern America
  By Marissa Chappell
  Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty
  By Kaaryn Gustafson
  Poverty, Battered Women and Work in US Public Policy
  By Lisa Brush
  Reviewed by Annelise Orleck

• The Index of the Mind
  The Politics of Fashion in Eighteenth-Century America
  By Kate Haulman
  Reviewed by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell

• Good Reads
  Real Books
  By Trish Crapo

• Poetry
  By Sheila Squillante

• From Sixteen Personalities to One
  Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case
  By Debbie Nathan
  Reviewed by Paula J. Caplan

• Cartoon
  By JD Glass

• Not Ready to Lie Down
  Traveling Light: Poems
  By Linda Pastan
  Aftermath: Poems
  By Sandra M. Gilbert
  Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010
  By Adrienne Rich
  Reviewed by Donna Krolik Hollenberg

• All Fur Coat and No Knickers
  The Forgotten Waltz
  By Anne Enright
  Reviewed by Valerie Miner

• The Ethics of Bioethics
  Private Bodies, Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics
  By Karla FC Holloway
  Reviewed by Charlene Galarneau

• On With the Show
  Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical
  By Stacy Wolf
  Reviewed by Deborah Jannerson

• Harem Fantasy and Reality
  Harem Histories: Envisioning Places and Living Spaces
  Edited by Marilyn Booth
  Reviewed by M. Lynx Qualey

• Open Up White Space
  Out on Assignment: Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space
  By Alice Fahs
  Uncovering Race: A Black Journalist’s Story of Reporting and Reinvention
  By Amy Alexander
  Reviewed by Carol Sternhell

May/June 2012

• The Discoverer Discovered
  The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe
  By Glynis Ridley

  Reviewed by Janet Beizer

• The Care Crisis
  Unprotected Labor: Household Workers, Politics, and Middle-Class Reform in New York, 1870 - 1940
  By Vanessa H. May
  Making Care Count: A Century of Gender, Race and Paid Care Work
  By Mignon Duffy
  The Caring Self: The Work Experiences of Home Care Aides
  By Claire Stacey
  Reviewed by Candace Howes

• The Meaning Of The Fetus
  Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern Americav
  By Sarah Dubow
  Reviewed by Emily Douglas

• Purists Vs. Pragmatists
  Lucretia Mott’s Heresy: Abolition and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America
  By Carol Faulkner
  Fighting Chance: The Struggle Over Woman Suffrage and Black Suffrage in Reconstruction America
  By Faye Dudden
  Reviewed by Lisa Tetrault

• Caring For Rosie The Riveter’s Kids
  Demanding Child Care: Women’s Activism and the Politics of Welfare, 1940-1971
  By Natalie M. Fousekis
  Reviewed by Marcy Whitebook

• Photography
  Unconventional Subjects, Conventional Settings
  Photos By Jess T. Dugan
  Commentary by Karen Irvine

• Field Notes
  The Complexity Of Life
  By Robin Becker

• Poetry
  By Rachel Mennies

• The Connectedness Of Things
  The Undertaker’s Daughter
  By Toi Derricotte
  Shimmer
  By Judy Kronenfeld
  Reviewed by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

• Down And Out In Paris
  The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R.
  By Carole DeSanti
  Reviewed by Patsy Baudoin

• Who’s A Terrorist?
  Walking with the Comrades
  By Arundhati Roy
  Reviewed by Kerryn Higgs

• The Forgotten "I"
  Marzi: A Memoir
  By Marzena Sowa, with art by Sylvain Savoia, translated by Anjali Singh
  Reviewed by Marta Bladek

• The Crooked Room
  Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America: For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn’t Enough
  By Melissa V. Harris-Perry
  Reviewed by Sheri Parks

• Required Reading
  A Walk in Victoria’s Secret By Kate Daniels; Violet Transparent
  By Anne Coray
  The Stranger Dissolves
  By Christina Hutchins
  The Takeaway Bin
  By Toni Mirosevich
  Poetry in America
  By Julia Spicher Kasdorf
  Stateside
  By Jehanne Dubrow
  Reviewed by Ginny Kaczmarek

July/August 2012

• The Trauma of Separation
  Help Me Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery
  By Heather Andrea Williams
  To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker
  By Sydney Nathans
  Reviewed by Jean Humez

• Fashioning a Conscience
  A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman
  By Alice Kessler-Harris
  Reviewed by Clarissa Atkinson

• Crossnational Abortion Policy
  Doctors and Demonstrators: How Political Institutions Shape Abortion Law in the United States, Britain, and Canada
  By Drew Halfmann
  Reviewed by Miriam Smith

• The Gender of Genre
  Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
  By Jeanette Winterson
  Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots
  By Deborah Feldman
  Reviewed by Jan Clausen

• The Mother of Us All
  Gentlemen and Amazons: The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
  By Cynthia Eller
  Reviewed by Corinne T. Field

• The Lesbian Tide
  When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love and Revolution
  By Jeanne Cordova
  Susanna J. Sturgis

• Essay
  From a Once-Young Feminist: Remembering Adrienne Rich
  By Kate Daniels

• Cartoon
  By Stephanie Piro

• Four Poetic Debuts
  California
  By Jennifer Denrow
  All of Us
  By Elisabeth Frost
  Rag & Bone
  By Kathryn Nuernberger
  Thirteen Departures from the Moon
  By Deema K. Shehabi
  Reviewed by Kelly Davio

• Poetry
  By Margaret Randall

• Good Reads
  Many Gravies
  By Trish Crapo

• The Politics of Everyday Life
  The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminisms
  By Susan Z. Andrade
  News From Home: Stories
  By Sefi Atta
  Swallow
  By Sefi Atta
  Reviewed by Heather Hewett

• Hybrid Politics
  A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness
  By Cherrie L. Moraga
  Reviewed by Alvina Quintana

• The Dangers of Reform
  Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law
  By Dean Spade
  Reviewed by Jennifer Levi and Giovanna Shay

September/October 2012

• The Good Mothers Club
  Disability and Mothering: Liminal Spaces of Embodied Knowledge
  Edited by Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson and Jen Cellio
  Reviewed by Kim E. Nielsen

• The Origins of Plan B
  The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States
  By Heather Munro Prescott
  Reviewed by Sarah Blustain

• The Family Secret
  Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello, Her Life and Times
  By Cynthia A Kierner
  Reviewed by Martha Saxton

• The Holy Grail of Beauty
  Facing Beauty: Painted Women and Cosmetic Art
  By Aileen Riberio
  Reviewed by Linda Simon

• The Worst Place in the World
  Home
  By Toni Morrison
  Reviewed by A. J. Verdelle

• The Other Shoe Drops
  Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama
  By Alison Bechdel
  Reviewed by Audrey Bilger

• Poetry
  By Diana Woodcock

• Photography: Brazilian Street Diary
  By Viviane Moos

• Interview
  Khadidiatou Koïta and the International Campaign to End Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
  By Tobe Levin

• Field Notes
  Diving into the Dream: A Poet's Reflection on the Influence of Adrienne Rich's Poetry
  By Robin Becker

• A Whole Lot of Founding Going On
  Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010
  By Elizabeth Alexander
  Address
  By Elizabeth Willis
  The Book of Men
  By Dorianne Laux
  The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems, 1980-2010
  By Marge Piercy
  Reviewed by Carol Bere 

• We All Carry Someone
  Carry the One
  By Carol Anshaw
  Reviewed by Jessica Jernigan

• Essay
  Going on Fifty: Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook
  By Roberta Rubenstein

• Binational Stardom
  Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and America
  By Beth Holmgren
  Reviewed by Halina Filipowicz

• Beyond Heroism
  The Women of Katrina: How Gender, Race, and Class Matter in an American Disaster
  Edited by Emmanuel David and Elaine Enarson
  Women Confronting Natural Disaster: From Vulnerability to Resilience
  By Elaine Enarson
  Reviewed by Elizabeth Fussell

• The Pure and the Impure
  The Good Muslim
  By Tahmima Anam
  Reviewed by Mandira Sen

November/December 2012

• The Pros and Cons of Reproduction
  Why Have Children? The Ethical Debate
  By Christine Overall
  Reviewed by Rosemarie Tong

• Women Legislators & Party Politics
  Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change
  By Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon;

  How Women Represent Women: Political Parties, Gender, and Representation in the State Legislatures
  By Tracy L. Osborn

  Reviewed by Glenna Matthews

• Becoming a Person of Significance
  As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks 1964-1980
  By Susan Sontag, edited by David Rieff
  Reviewed by Harriet Malinowitz 

• An International Civil Rights Pioneer
  Thyra J. Edwards: Black Activist in the Global Freedom Struggle
  By Gregg Andrews
  Reviewed by Dayo F. Gore 

• Hidden in Plain Sight
  Amy Lowell: Diva Poet
  By Melissa Bradshaw
  Reviewed by Donna K. Hollenberg 

• We Don't Need a Piece of Paper From City Hall - Or Do We?
  One Marriage Under God: The Campaign to Promote Marriage in America
  By Melanie Heath;

  Not Just Roommates: Cohabitation After the Sexual Revolution
  By Elizabeth H. Pleck

  Reviewed by Ruth Sidel 

• Saying "Yes" to Life
  The Book of Life: Selected Jewish Poems 1979-2011
  By Alicia Suskin Ostriker
  Reviewed by Anita Diamant 

• Poetry: The Alice Poems
  By Jan Clausen 

• Good Reads: Finding Ourselves in History
  By Trish Crapo 

• Cartoon
  By Annie Murphy 

• Spare and Flagrant
  Inside/Out: Selected Poems
  By Marilyn Buck
  Reviewed by Martha Gies 

• A Queer Studies Foremother
  Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader
  By Gayle S. Rubin
  Reviewed by Svati P. Shah 

• Rebellious Sisters
  The Kings’ Mistresses: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and Her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin
  By Elizabeth C. Goldsmith
  Reviewed by Rosalind Delmar 

• Black Lesbian Families Finding Community
  Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood Among Black Women
  By Mignon R. Moore
  Reviewed by Julie Abraham 

• A Time of Isms
  Bid Me to Live
  By H.D., edited by Caroline Zilboorg
  Reviewed by Emily Wojcik 

The Women's Review of Books receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.