MAKING a return journey in a new form is Harry H L Kitano and Roger Daniels' Asian Americans: Emerging Minorities (Prentice Hall $200). The original book was published in 1988. This second edition was inspired by the 1990 census which showed three per cent of the US population - over seven million people - were Asian Americans.
The authors take a multi-faceted approach to examining these immigrants looking at different Asian American groups and their reactions to life in America, immigration legislation and how and why people wanted to move countries in the first place. New material from the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s updates the work.
Out in paperback is South African President Nelson Mandela's well-received autobiography Long Walk To Freedom (Abacus $153). Mandela, who first started to write the book in secret 20 years ago while still serving a life sentence on Robben Island for his political activities, recalls his early childhood experiences, his struggles in the anti-apartheid movement and as president of the African National Congress and his relationship with his wife Winnie. He also opens the door on his 26-year stretch in prison, revealing how he managed to keep his mind over the matters of the ANC while incarcerated and how he dealt with jail life.
On a musical note, Dolly Parton's autobiography and an authorised biography of Eric Clapton arrive in paperback.
Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business (HarperCollins $72) provides the country singer's version of her climb from a one-room cabin in East Tennessee to top warbler, composer and international star. Interesting pictures of her early life included.
In Clapton (Pan $119), Ray Coleman charts the star's battle with drugs, his passion for Pattie Boyd, the then wife of Beatle George Harrison, and the tragic loss of his four-year-old son, who died after falling from a 49th-floor condominium window in New York in 1991. In between the personal trauma, Coleman examines the major part Clapton has played in the music scene over the past three decades.