PHILIP HERBST is an author and editor whose previous books, The Color of Words and Wimmin, Wimps, and Wallflowers, dealt with how language defines social and political reality. A cultural anthropologist, Herbst has taught at the State University of New York, Potsdam, was a Visiting Scholar in both the Anthropology and the Gender Studies departments at Northwestern University, and has conducted research under the auspices of the National Institutes for Health and the Southern Poverty Law Center.