- Email: [email protected]
Expression, refolding and purification of a human interleukin-17A variant
BOOK REVIEWS the entries is succinctly written, and the groups covered span the entire globe. The directory is divided into eleven subsections: North America, South and Central America, Western Europe and Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, U.S.S.R., Middle East and North Africa, sub-SaharanAfrica, South Asia, EastAsia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. With respect to specific entries, the volume includes such widely diverse groups as the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua and the Hmong of Laos. Some ofthe major minorities ofNorth America are summarized, as are a number of ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe. Both large and small minority groups are presented. Jews of India, numbering some five thousand persons, and Byelorussians of the U.S.S.R., numbering some ten million persons, are included in the directory. At the beginning of each entry, the editors supply a briefsynopsis of the group, including its location, population size, percent of total population, religion and language. At the end of each geographical subdivision is a bibliographic list for further research. The volume also includes an interesting appendix that presents extracts from such documents as the United Nations Charter on Human Rights, the U.S.Joint Resolution on Indian Tribes and the Constitution of Bulgaria. Each entry begins with a brief historical review of the group's experiences. A number of the entries also include very useful maps. In addition, each entry summarizes the group's experiences up to the present. For many of the minority groups, the editors make projections for their prospects in the future. On the whole, the book offers an objective treatment of the groups covered. The style of prose is easy to follow and should pose no difficulty for anyone wishing to use this resource. The entries serve as a good starting point for those wishing to investigate a particular group. Given the recent developments in Eastern Europe and the Middle East this book may serve as a valuable resource to those who are interested in minority group relations.
African Americans in the Colonial Era: From African Origins through the AmericanRevolution. By Donald R. Wright. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1990. Pp.184.
179
JOSEPH A. SARFOH
State University ofNew Yom, Albany
One of the most obviously neglected aspects ofAfrican American history is the much mentioned, seldom investigated American slavery in the colonial era. The reasons for this neglect are by no means obscure: the difficulty of researching the colonial era since much relevant evidence is scattered through oral history, archives and libraries of three continents and the tendency to focus on the cotton South between 1830 and 1860. Wright's study derives its form and strength from the fact that it focuses on a century and a half of the colonial period during which African Americans were confined to the plantations and smaller farms around Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland and throughout the coastal low country of South Carolina and Georgia. Wright's main concern is with the African American experience throughout the colonial era. He deals with this concern in the early chapter of the book with a detailed examination of the African origin of the African Americans. In this chapter, Wright pays particular attention to the Africans' varying historical experiences. Immediately, attention is drawn to the major institutions-political, economic, social and cultural systems--that served to sustain their identity and establish them as human beings with complex characters who made rational decisions under varied and difficult circumstances. However, Wright reminds us that these institutions varied within each group ofAfricans and varied from place to place, thus tempering a broad sense of unity. From this examination, Wright moves rapidly into the complex period of the Atlantic trade that "brought African slaves to the New World and after 1619to the areas of the North American mainland under English control." We are told that during the early years of the colonies' existence, "seasoned" slaves were imported mainly from the Caribbean Islands of Jamaica and Barbados into English America, but that by 1720 a balance had been restored between the "outlandish" Africans and "seasoned" West Indian imports. This distinction is important for the understanding of the relations between the African American population at a later date. There is an interesting discussion of why Africans rather than Whites and native Indi-
180
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
ans were recruited for the heavy physical work. The discussion touches on the development of the institution of Black slavery in the mainland colonies over time and space and on the existence of racial prejudice which helped to define the African American in a stereotypical way by the dominant White population. Wright also discusses why the African American found it necessary to reach out to his African heritage as well as his acquired European experience to come out with the African American culture for survival. Wright concludes his book by reminding us that by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the major forces that would affect the way African Americans would live the long period to follow were already well set in motion. This said, let me conclude this review by saying that from an historical perspective Wright provides the reader with a better understanding and considerable insight into the causes, consequences and conditions of African Americans in colonial North America. He succeeds in these because of his display of an enviable knowledge of the libraries and archives and other sources, not only of the United States and Europe, but also of Africa. It is this knowledge that has enabled him to provide excellent historical background, documentation and argument as to what really happened and why. Another strength of the book lies in the fact that it is well written and reads very well. The only draw back is that the author could have adorned the text with a few more maps and some tables since the book, as he states in the introduction, represents an effort to right the "imbalance in the experience of African Americans throughout the Colonial era" over time and space.
Rough Road to Glory: The Norwegian-American Press Speaks Out on Public Affairs, 18751925. By Arlow W. Andersen. Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1990. Pp. 271. $38.50. ODD S. LOVOLL
St. Olaf CoUege
In his study, The Immigrant Takes His Stand: The Norwegian-American Press and Public Affairs, 1847-1872, published in 1953, Arlow Andersen recorded editorial opinions on pub-
lie affairs in the first quarter century of Norwegian American journalism. The work being reviewed may consequently be regarded as volume two, tracing as it does the adjustment of Norwegian inunigrants during the dramatic and rapidly changing era between the Gilded Age and the mid-1920s by again, as in the earlier study, examining the responses of editorialists in selected journals in the prolific world of Norwegian American pressmanship to the important issues of the day. The evidence thus garnered reveals, according to Andersen, that the half century under consideration represented for most Norwegian Americans "a rough road to glory." An informative introductory chapter on the Norwegian American press sets the stage for subsequent presentations; in fourteen wellwritten chapters, each of which may be read as a separate essay, Andersen deals with a great variety of public issues. Topics include such general concerns as political conviction, public education, labor unrest, women's rights and prohibition, as well as comments on specific events in Norway and in the Norwegian American community. Each chapter has an identical organization, beginning with an outline of the origin and history of the subject, interspersed with hyperbolic generalizations, whereupon follows an agglomeration of the \ views of Norwegian American editors, and sometimes political figures, on the issue. Since Andersen mainly presents these opinions with little attention to analysis or social context, or even to the essential consideration of change over time, many questions remain unanswered. Why, for instance, did the editors of Nordisk Tidende in distant Brooklyn side with the workers during the Pullman strike of 1894 while journalistic opinion in Decorah- Posten in Iowa and Minneapolis Tidende expressed disapproval of the strikers? But even in this case, and on such other public affairs as the issue of the entry of the United States into World War I, Andersen illustrates a lack of ethnic consensus. Norwegian American leaders and opinion makers were not driven by a single ideology as they reflected on the proper role and attitude of their compatriots in America. Their polemics contain both drama and insight, and at least in one case Andersen breaks new ground, most clearly in the chapter on racial attitudes, which reveals NorwegianAmerican sympathy for Indians, antagonism toward the Black race and
African Americans in the Colonial Era: From African Origins through the AmericanRevolution. By Donald R. Wright. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1990. Pp.184.
179
JOSEPH A. SARFOH
State University ofNew Yom, Albany
One of the most obviously neglected aspects ofAfrican American history is the much mentioned, seldom investigated American slavery in the colonial era. The reasons for this neglect are by no means obscure: the difficulty of researching the colonial era since much relevant evidence is scattered through oral history, archives and libraries of three continents and the tendency to focus on the cotton South between 1830 and 1860. Wright's study derives its form and strength from the fact that it focuses on a century and a half of the colonial period during which African Americans were confined to the plantations and smaller farms around Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland and throughout the coastal low country of South Carolina and Georgia. Wright's main concern is with the African American experience throughout the colonial era. He deals with this concern in the early chapter of the book with a detailed examination of the African origin of the African Americans. In this chapter, Wright pays particular attention to the Africans' varying historical experiences. Immediately, attention is drawn to the major institutions-political, economic, social and cultural systems--that served to sustain their identity and establish them as human beings with complex characters who made rational decisions under varied and difficult circumstances. However, Wright reminds us that these institutions varied within each group ofAfricans and varied from place to place, thus tempering a broad sense of unity. From this examination, Wright moves rapidly into the complex period of the Atlantic trade that "brought African slaves to the New World and after 1619to the areas of the North American mainland under English control." We are told that during the early years of the colonies' existence, "seasoned" slaves were imported mainly from the Caribbean Islands of Jamaica and Barbados into English America, but that by 1720 a balance had been restored between the "outlandish" Africans and "seasoned" West Indian imports. This distinction is important for the understanding of the relations between the African American population at a later date. There is an interesting discussion of why Africans rather than Whites and native Indi-
180
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW
ans were recruited for the heavy physical work. The discussion touches on the development of the institution of Black slavery in the mainland colonies over time and space and on the existence of racial prejudice which helped to define the African American in a stereotypical way by the dominant White population. Wright also discusses why the African American found it necessary to reach out to his African heritage as well as his acquired European experience to come out with the African American culture for survival. Wright concludes his book by reminding us that by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the major forces that would affect the way African Americans would live the long period to follow were already well set in motion. This said, let me conclude this review by saying that from an historical perspective Wright provides the reader with a better understanding and considerable insight into the causes, consequences and conditions of African Americans in colonial North America. He succeeds in these because of his display of an enviable knowledge of the libraries and archives and other sources, not only of the United States and Europe, but also of Africa. It is this knowledge that has enabled him to provide excellent historical background, documentation and argument as to what really happened and why. Another strength of the book lies in the fact that it is well written and reads very well. The only draw back is that the author could have adorned the text with a few more maps and some tables since the book, as he states in the introduction, represents an effort to right the "imbalance in the experience of African Americans throughout the Colonial era" over time and space.
Rough Road to Glory: The Norwegian-American Press Speaks Out on Public Affairs, 18751925. By Arlow W. Andersen. Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1990. Pp. 271. $38.50. ODD S. LOVOLL
St. Olaf CoUege
In his study, The Immigrant Takes His Stand: The Norwegian-American Press and Public Affairs, 1847-1872, published in 1953, Arlow Andersen recorded editorial opinions on pub-
lie affairs in the first quarter century of Norwegian American journalism. The work being reviewed may consequently be regarded as volume two, tracing as it does the adjustment of Norwegian inunigrants during the dramatic and rapidly changing era between the Gilded Age and the mid-1920s by again, as in the earlier study, examining the responses of editorialists in selected journals in the prolific world of Norwegian American pressmanship to the important issues of the day. The evidence thus garnered reveals, according to Andersen, that the half century under consideration represented for most Norwegian Americans "a rough road to glory." An informative introductory chapter on the Norwegian American press sets the stage for subsequent presentations; in fourteen wellwritten chapters, each of which may be read as a separate essay, Andersen deals with a great variety of public issues. Topics include such general concerns as political conviction, public education, labor unrest, women's rights and prohibition, as well as comments on specific events in Norway and in the Norwegian American community. Each chapter has an identical organization, beginning with an outline of the origin and history of the subject, interspersed with hyperbolic generalizations, whereupon follows an agglomeration of the \ views of Norwegian American editors, and sometimes political figures, on the issue. Since Andersen mainly presents these opinions with little attention to analysis or social context, or even to the essential consideration of change over time, many questions remain unanswered. Why, for instance, did the editors of Nordisk Tidende in distant Brooklyn side with the workers during the Pullman strike of 1894 while journalistic opinion in Decorah- Posten in Iowa and Minneapolis Tidende expressed disapproval of the strikers? But even in this case, and on such other public affairs as the issue of the entry of the United States into World War I, Andersen illustrates a lack of ethnic consensus. Norwegian American leaders and opinion makers were not driven by a single ideology as they reflected on the proper role and attitude of their compatriots in America. Their polemics contain both drama and insight, and at least in one case Andersen breaks new ground, most clearly in the chapter on racial attitudes, which reveals NorwegianAmerican sympathy for Indians, antagonism toward the Black race and