K. LYNN STONER (ed.):  Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2000.

Bibliographies are difficult to judge; those outside of the field can seldom assess if there have been significant omissions, or if they account for the latest scholarship. The merits of this exceptional research tool, however, will be evident to students of Latin America and the Caribbean. Lynn Stoner and Luis Hipólito Serrano Pérez's work offers some 2000 annotated entries --both archival and scholarly-- pertaining to Cuban and Cuban-American women from the late nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, with the bulk focusing on the latter. Individual entries range from a few lines on a little-known mambisa, to references to entire collections of government and statistical data, to biographies. Six chapters are ordered chronologically and divided into sections covering the turn of the century, the early Republic, Batista's regime, the years of turmoil leading to the revolution, and post-revolutionary society. The concluding chapter concentrates on Cuban women in "exile," a term that the authors do not always differentiate adequately from migration.

A useful introduction precedes each chapter and describes in broad outline events affecting women's experiences during the period at hand. However, only Edwin N. Acosta's final introductory essay attempts a review of the historiography. Students and researchers might have profited from such an effort throughout, which also would have lent additional substance to the volume's short introduction. Those pages are so brief that some intriguing statements are left without adequate support. The authors suggest (p. xvi), for instance, that contemporary Cuban women in both the island and the United States have lost their "focus on women's issues as such." They do not say, however, what sorts of issues these might be, nor do they refer readers to the scholarship on such debates.

Among the volume's many virtues, few are as noteworthy as its thorough cataloguing of widely dispersed sources housed in various Cuban repositories, including the Archivo Nacional, Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, Instituto de Literatura y Lingüística, and Biblioteca Nacional José Martí. Researchers armed with this work will be spared days of combing through catalogues and will benefit from the collective knowledge of dozens of Cuban bibliographers and archivists who collaborated with Stoner and Serrano Pérez. In addition, the volume draws from collections in the United States, most notably those at the Library of Congress and the Fletcher Library at the University of Florida.

The bibliographers' selection criteria are not stated explicitly. In general, however, most entries should be of interest to those concerned with the social history of women, feminism, politics, and literature. Although the volume does include sources relevant to the study of gender and its construction, these appear to be fewer in number. This may reflect the relative lack of scholarship (much of which has been produced outside of Cuba, as the bibliographers note), and perhaps also difficulties in narrowing the universe of relevant archival materials.

Even if the historiography does not receive all of the attention one might wish for, the Bibliography of Cuban and Cuban American Women is invaluable as a research and reference guide. This volume, assembled with painstaking care, is unparalleled in its thoroughness. Furthermore, the materials are presented so as to allow students and researchers to launch their projects without much delay. The bibliography is indexed extensively. A subject index covers women's organizations and notable feminists by name, as well as topics ranging from AIDS to suffrage. All entries are also listed under the author's name. Teachers, too, may find this bibliography useful in course preparation.