Choice Review

Wells (English, Temple Univ.) looks at the rhetorical work of Our Bodies, Ourselves (OBOS). Basing her study on manuscripts, correspondence, and interviews with the collective of writers, Wells traces the evolution of the rhetorical forms, starting parallel to New Left power structure analyses through the challenges to medical expertise taken up by the collective. Contextualized within the framework of literacy sponsors (i.e., social movements, organizations, and institutions that engage individuals who come into contact with them to enhance their literacy), the book traces the evolution of the rhetorical work done in OBOS and its intended "publics" through several versions. The chapters focus roughly chronologically on the various editions of the book and the writing practices and tensions that shaped content and rhetoric. Backlashes, changes in publishers, and changes in the women's movement transformed the authoring practices within the collective. The resulting texts engage different and more diverse, even globalized, publics, producing strain, contradictions, and innovations over the text's four decades of life. For those interested in OBOS and the history of the US women's movement, and programs in gender and women's studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. L. Croissant University of Arizona