Dartmouth Authors

Charles K. H. Chen, Far East Specialist, Dartmouth Library. Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary of Chinese Authors. N. Y., Oriental Society, 1975. $20.00. Supplement, 2 vols., 1976. $50.00. Conceived to meet the needs of the ever increasing numbers of Western scholars in Asian Studies in the past decade, Chen's Dictionary contains entries for more than 3,000 Chinese authors and presents information from all available sources from the entire corpus of original Chinese literature. The Supplement brings together information on an additional 5,000 Chinese authors selected from Chen's bio-bibliographical project. The foreword to the Dictionary is written by Professor Wing-tsit Chan, professor emeritus of Chinese culture and philosophy.

Denis G. Sullivan, professor of government, Jeffrey L. Pressman, and F. Christopher Atherton, Explorations in Convention Decision Making. San Francisco, W. H. Freeman, 1976. 147 pp. Hardcover $6.95, softcover $3.50. A continuation of a study of the decision-making processes of the bitter, divisive 1972 Democratic Convention published by two of the same authors in 1974, this book examines the process of a presidential nominating convention both more extensively and intensively. Compiled with the assistance of many undergraduate interviewers from Dartmouth, the book surveys the political forces which molded the opinions of representatives to the mid-term convention in 1974, at which the party's nominating procedures were drastically altered.

W. G. Kerr '49. Scottish Capital on theAmerican Credit Frontier. Texas State Historical Association, 1976. 246 pp. $13. In this Bicentennial year Professor Kerr, a former member of the history department at St. Andrews University, Edinburgh, marks the centennial of an economic relationship between the United States and our Scottish cousins and forebears. In the 1870s the Scots initiated a program of investment in the developing areas of the Western frontier, financing mortgage loans to farmers, ranchers, businessmen, which not only provided an impetus for the nation's late 19th century expansion but also, Kerr explains, forged financial bonds which continue today.

John Ceely '58. The Country Is Not Frightening. Berkeley, Neon Sun, 1975. 71 pp. $4. Ceely's poems, written from 1962 to 1975, seem not so much written in the traditional sense of the word as torn in verbal chunks from out of the poet's intense emotional life. Now living on a Wisconsin farm, Ceely is far from being either a bucolic or a regional poet. The poet himself characterizes his work as "the raw nerve talking back." His form is the cadence of the speaking, often shouting, voice; his fidelity is to the breath. The eye will not serve: Ceely's poems must be read aloud — and aloud and aloud.

Edward Miller '58. A Complete Guide to theOlympics. Burlington, Vt., Common Sense Publishing Co., 1976. Paperback $4.95. Not only does Miller introduce the reader to every event of the Olympic Games, with past records and prognoses for each, but in a book published some months before the event he also included under his "Gymnastics" section a full-page picture of Nadia Comaneci. That's real foresight!

Richard J. Gordon '62. The People and theirSchools. Teaneck (N.J.), G. P. Press, 1975.122 pp. Based on published literature in the field as well as his own statistical surveys, the book documents a growing reluctance to support our schools and calls into question some of our comfortable myths about the traditional American faith in, and willingness to finance, education.

W. Thomas MacCary '63, and M. W. Willcock, University of Lancaster, eds. Plautus's Casina. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976. 256 pp. Cloth, $24.50; paper, $9.95. One of the liveliest of the Greek comedies which were adapted to the Roman stage and the Latin language by the famous playwright Plautus in the second century B. C., the Casina has attracted the considerable talent and classical erudition of Professor MacCary and his British colleague.