REVIEWED ELSEWHERE

• Published in: Biography (Honolulu) 2010, Vol.33 (4), p.871-913
• Main Authors: Altizer, Nell, Angley, Patricia, Bell, Alana, Butler, Janet, Fassiotto, Michael, Fischer, Lars, Garneau, Marie-Christine, Garneau, Théo, Hilt, Douglas, Merle, Gabriel, Peterson, Barbara Bennett, Ward, Yvonne
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund (1903-1969); Attitudes; Bernhardt, Sarah (1844-1923); British English; Culture; Epistolography; French language; Health care policy; Historical text analysis; Huang, Yunte; Language history; Libraries; Literary criticism; Music; Nonfiction; Russian language; Slavic languages; Sociology; Womens health
• ISSN: 0162-4962; 1529-1456; 1529-1456
• DOI: 10.1353/bio.2010.1004

Publications reviewed include The Age, Australian Book Review, Church History, Contemporary British History, Cultural Critique, English Historical Review, French Studies, (Toronto) Globe and Mail, Journal of Classical Sociology, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Libraries and the Cultural Record, Le Monde des Livres, Music and Letters, The New Yorker, New York Review of Books (NYRB), New York Times Book Review (NYTBR), Ohio History, Opera News, Pacific Historical Review, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Russian Review, Sewanee Review, Studi Francesi, Technology and Culture, Victorian Studies, and the Women's Review of Books. Among the authors who contribute to this collection on Balzac, Patrick Labarthe studies the relationship between Sainte-Beuve and Balzac; José-Luis Diaz, Balzac's attitude toward the literary revolutions of his time; Alex Lascar, Balzac's criticism of Eugène Sue in "La Revue Parisienne"; Patrick Berthier, Balzac's literary criticism; Roger Pierrot, his correspondence with Astolphe de Custine; Marie-Bénédicte Diethelm, the paternity of an article entitled "Le Grand Balzac" in 1846, attributed to Auguste Vitu, Baudelaire, and Théodore de Banville; and Stéphane Vachon, who presents a series of new documents about Balzac's death. Based on more than a thousand interviews, written in broad imaginative strokes, this book, at 622 pages, is something of an anomaly on today's shrinking world of nonfiction publishing: as narrative epic rigorous enough to impress all but the crankiest of scholars, yet so immensely readable as to land the author a future place on Oprah's couch. Koslow focuses each succeeding chapter on a different urban health initiative: campaigns for sanitary housing conditions, pure milk, protecting childbirth and lowering infant mortality rates, public health nursing, and the drive against venereal disease . . . embedding responsibility for fostering public health in the city's 'official infrastructure' (p. 9).