Cultural Books

My dad gave this to me for Christmas because I have been interested in the history of mushing since I started about 8 years ago. I am extremely happy to see Togo in here! I really don't like how Balto has gotten all of the glory, I mean, he only did the last 40 miles!
This is a great read for any dog nut or anyone interested in the gold rush.

Dog lovers and history buffs alike will relish Gold Rush Dogs, a celebration of notable dogs of the Gold Rush era, from John Muir's Stikeen to Baldy of Nome. Black and white photos from Gold Rush days depict dog and man alike in this excellent blend of history and animal insights.

It's time people recognize the "true heroes" of the lifesaving Diphtheria Run to Nome which began on January 27, 1925 in Nenana, Alaska. The true heroes were not Balto and Gunnar Kaasen. The true heroes were members of twenty dog teams. Wild Bill Shannon left Nenana with 300,000 units of serum to be relayed a distance of 674 miles by twenty dog teams, before finally reaching Nome. On January 28, 1925, Leonhard Seppala and his dog team led by Togo, left Nome to collect the serum 254 miles away at Nulato for the final run into Nome.

Togo was a small gray dog eager to be a sled dog. It was by chance that Leonhard Seppala discovered the leadership Togo displayed when first harnessed in the wheel position. Because of Togo's determination, he was moved in stages to the front of the line, soon becoming a once in a lifetime leader. Seppala entered and won every major race in Alaska, many of them several times, with Togo in lead position.

Late in the serum run, Seppala was unaware that Nome had made the decision to send three additional dog teams to relieve Seppala. The teams were to space themselves every 20 miles outside of Nome. Rohn, Olson, and Kaasen...whose team was led by Balto...drove the three additional teams. Kaasen hit a blizzard at Solomon and was instructed not to go forward. Kaason alleged there had been little wind that night in Solomon, visibility was good, and the Safety Roadhouse displayed the proper signal light acknowledging the waiting dog team. Kaasen continued on, bypassing Safety where the serum was to be turned over to Rohn, who in turn was to take the serum into Nome.

Kaasen reached Nome on February 2, 1925 with the serum. Kaasen had been accused of bypassing Safety in order to claim the honor of bringing the serum into Nome. The men of the "Great Race of Mercy" were awarded $25.00 each from the Territory of Alaska along with citations of bravery and inscribed medals. Kaasen received an additional $1,000.00 along with an offer to star with Balto in a Hollywood film. Kaasen traveled Outside to the lower 48 states giving lectures about the serum run. Balto not only received recognition as the "wonder dog" but was recognized for Togo's racing achievements as well. The city of New York erected a bronze statue of Balto in Central Park. The other nineteen dog teams and their vital part in the serum run were soon forgotten.

Kaasen and Balto had carried the serum 106 miles. Seppala and Togo covered 260 miles in 40-degree below temperature through a raging storm, a distance longer than any team on the trail. Togo received permanent injuries during the serum run and would never race again.

After the serum run, Seppala continued touring on the Outside. He later moved to Seattle where he died in 1967 at age 90...never forgiving the events that followed the serum run. Togo's remains are displayed at the Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla, Alaska. The Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award is presented each year to the Alaska Iditarod musher displaying the highest care and concern for his or her team. Balto's bronze statue still stands in Central Park. Balto's remains are displayed at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Togo and Leonhard Seppala were the heroes of the serum run...along with the other eighteen dog teams that were soon forgotten amongst all the negative controversy.

Please note: It is not my intent to take away the achievements of Balto; nor was it Balto's intent to dishonor the nineteen great dog teams. The one that finishes the race first is not always the winner. In this case it was the nineteen teams that brought Balto to the finish in Nome along with his fame and glory.

Gold Rush Dogs is a great book that shows just how loyal dogs can be. Not only that she tells about the history and shows the important role that dogs played in developing Alaska. Besides this, she tells nine amazing stories of dogs that are famous in the region of the state that they stayed at.

Sure, you probably know about Balto in the Dipheria run, but you may not know about Togo, who was equally vital in the relay. Then there is Patsy Ann, the friendly stray who's ability to always know when and where the ships were coming in earned her the titile of "Official Greeter of Juneau.

Whether your a dog lover, or just love stories about Alaska, this book is full of amazing stories that capture the grandure of Alaska and the heart of dogs.

I loved this book it was a great resource to me in building my Women in Alaska's History page. It was both well written and visually appealing, it flowed nicely and had excellent graphics!

What an awesome book! Couldn't put it down. The odds these women fought against to chase their dreams during such a dangerous journey, not to mention the hardship of simply being a woman during this time in history is astounding! A must read for any woman looking for inspiration and motivation to follow her dreams!

Jane G. Haigh and Claire Rudolf Murphy have compiled a book about women of Alaska that is both concise and comprehensive. Glancing through this slim volume reveals a starting place on every page and creates an urge to read it all in one sitting. That would be a mistake, however, since the history contained in the pictures, biographical sketches, journal excerpts, maps, and historical cameos deserves to be savored in small slices and contemplated at length. Haigh and Murphy not only catalog names, dates, and places, but they have managed to create a view of the Gold Rush Women of Alaska and the Yukon that instills a sense of pride in their daughters, granddaughters, sisters, and nieces. These women defied not only the hardships of survival in the north, with its harsh climate and unforgiving nature, but most of them also defied the social conventions of their day to travel alone, or in small groups, seeking adventure, employment, and riches in much the same way as the men usually associated with the gold rush. Many of them found all they were seeking and more, while others died trying. Some took up the illicit trade of prostitution or worked to deprive successful miners of their treasure. Most simply worked hard, took advantage of opportunity as it presented itself, and prospered in the self reliance and skills they possessed. Gold Rush Women includes stories of educated, sophisticated women from the privileged societies of America and Europe, illiterate but highly skilled women from poorer levels of those societies, and the Native women who adapted to the invasion of their homeland and created new lives for their own families. From Harriet Pullen, who owned the most elegant hotel in Alaska, to Klondike Kate Rockwell, known as the Belle of the Yukon, to Sinrock Mary, Reindeer Queen, every story in this book inspires admiration for the women who settled, civilized, and survived one of the most famous human stampedes in history. Not all of these women succeeded in reaching the goals they set for themselves, but every one has a fascinating story to tell her late 20th century sisters. We are not the only ones to establish our independence, prove our abilities, and conquer life with all the adversity it may throw at us. The Gold Rush Women were here first!

This small book's size belies the wealth of information it contains. The book gives brief (2-5 page) summaries of the lives of a wide variety of women that participated in the Klondike Gold Rush. The authors write as if they personally knew these women and were telling their friends about them. Their writing style is easy to read, brief and very descriptive.The women include a native woman whose husband made an early stike; a woman whose son didn't return from the Klondike so she followed to search for him; several women who started/worked in businesses in the Klondike and women and families that entertained the prospectors. Photos accompany each biographical sketch.These are poignant stories that made me marvel at the strength of character of these women. Many made fortunes and found husbands in the Klondike but most suffered emotional or financial loss later.This book can be savored as either a very enjoyable read or for the historical bibliography it provides. I've referred to it several times and will continue to re-read it.

A fine book on cigars. I completely enjoyed this book and refer to it often.

I just picked this book up recently (2007) and though the book is getting on in age, it really holds up today. The first half of the book discussed history of tobacco, cigars, and smoke shops. The authors can really tell a good story and their historylessons were highly entertaining.

This is a useful and well-written cigar guide. It is getting a bit dated, but it is still very good for all cigar lovers.

The Good Cigar is to your brain what your tobacconist's walk-in humidor is to your nose. It's a cornucopia of history, anecdotes, and general cigar lore that makes you want to relax and stay a while.

Jeffers and Gordon start their history with the original tobacco lovers, the indigenous people of the Americas. Then they discuss the introduction and development of tobacco in Europe and the New World. Jeffers and Gordon acquaint us with many of the people who have influenced our image of cigars (Mark Twain, Groucho Marx, Ernest Hemingway, etc.) and give quotation buffs a nice supply of material. From the "Wooden Indian" to cigar boxes and bands, they explore the history and artistry of cigar paraphernalia.

The authors include a cigar index complete with their personal ratings of each cigar. The book shows its age here, as some of the cigars are no longer sold. This doesn't necessarily detract from the book. You just might run into somebody who's had a box aging for several years and is willing to trade a few sticks. In a situation like this, an older index of cigars would be helpful.

Jeffers and Gordon also cover humidors, cutters, and lighters. They even include a resource guide. These sections might lead the cigar neophyte to believe that cigar smoking is a costly pursuit, but this doesn't have to be the case. Less expensive and perfectly functional accessories are readily available; but as Winston Churchill warned, "Shoddiness can be found easily, in quantity" (I got that from this book). Choose carefully. There are several Internet message boards devoted to cigars that would be more helpful than this book in finding accessories that fit your taste and budget.

Really, my biggest problem is that they condensed so many of the mooks into this one, but only included a few accessory patterns, and none of the "how-to" craft/clothing mod instructions. Really, they wouldn't have to include full patterns, they could easily just dedicate a few pages to printed Japanese words commonly used in Japanese patterns and craft instructions, along with the English definitions. At that point, we could just locate the words, and figure out on our own what to do with our original mooks. Of course... that still wouldn't be of much help to those who just discover it, and want the dress patterns, the aprons, the pinafores, etc. Still, I'm hoping that they'll make that change in a future translated mook, if not at least host something of the sort on their site.

Wow! The photos of the girls in their Gothic and Lolita fashions are incredible. It was neat to see how the style varies from individual to individual. I only had a broad idea of what Gothic and Lolita fashion was prior to getting this magazine. Both the photos and interviews with girls gave me a more in depth understanding. I enjoyed the article about Japan rock star Nana Kitade. I also had no idea how cutting edge Japan was in the fashion world. I will definitely be buying them every month!

i have been waiting soo long for this to come out in English! i had expected so much but they were all blown away.. thank you soo much.

I was so excited for this mook to get here, and I wasn't disappointed! It includes excerpts from Japanese Gothic & Lolita Bibles as well as some new material covering lolita in the West. Interesting articles, plenty of tips for aspiring lolitas, beautiful pictures.
I'm really looking forward to the next issue.

Great patterns and cute articals. Perfect mook for any aspiring Lolita. Why wasn't this book translated sooner?

I loved every essay in this book. Beautifully written. Insightful. Entertaining. Thought provoking. Brilliant but never pretentious.

The book was delivered before the estimated delivery date. The book was in the stated condition- good.

In Grammar Lessons, Michele Morano takes the reader on an unforgettable journey, a treat to the senses. She invites us to explore her thoughts and feelings as she experiences daily life in Spain in the early 1990's, while teaching English at the University of Oviedo for a year. While in Oviedo, she enrolled in a Spanish language course for foreigners or "extranjeros."

In thirteen personal essays, Morano captures the reader's heart with her descriptive and poetic style. Her themes evoke a feeling of familiarity, for her stories are organized around topics such as food, travel, and solitude versus loneliness. "I'm hungry in both body and spirit," she writes. "I crave not just a meal, not just the take-out supper I can carry to the emptiness of my room, but a complete dining experience." One pressing issue during the year in Spain was her longing for the man she left behind in New York.

Morano prefaces her book by explaining that grammar is not simply words strung together to form sentences, but the mannerisms, gestures, and ways of life that accompany language. The book is organized into three parts. The essays in Part One reveal her struggle to learn the Spanish language while living the culture. The essays in Part Two revolve around her later trips to Spain. Part Three reflects her attitude toward travel along highways and how it shapes the individual. Morano's sentiments about travel and saying farewell to relationships are reflected in these lines:

"If you move about in the world, if you live fully and fall in love--with friends, acquaintances, and places and periods of time, your heart is going to break again and again. Each time you say good-bye, you'll feel the ache of impermanence, of inevitability, of your own finite days."

I connected with this book because I would have benefitted greatly from studying in foreign lands while I was studying Spanish as my college major. However, overseas travel and study programs were not as prevalent in the late 70's or early 80's as they are now. I have since made many excursions to Mexico and Spain, although at this point in my life I live vicariously as an eager armchair traveler. I comfortably travel to many faraway places through others' spoken and written accounts.

As I read Grammar Lessons, Morano took me on a vivid tour of her daily discoveries of cultural life and relationships in Spain. The pages held me spellbound, and I wished the journey did not have to end.

by Sharon Blumberg
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Not since Tobias Wolffe's This Boy's Life have I been so moved by a work of nonfiction. Ms. Morano's economical prose, keenly observed detail and emotional honesty are a triple-threat. The essays work that magic of translating what your imagination conjures into an experience which you feel is now a genuine memory, something about which you and she have secret and sacred understanding. Everyone who has had their heart broken by their crazy boyfriend while travelling through Spain should read this book, and then everyone else should too, because after a glass of madeira or a cup of cafe con leche your mind might trick you into reminiscing about that year in Spain when your crazy boyfriend ...

What a page turner! In a prose style that bops along like riffs floating out of a Central Avenue nightclub, RJ Smith's book The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance sheds long overdue light on the history Black Los Angeles. I was prepared to learn more about the fabled music scene on Central Avenue during the 1940's, but there is so much more to this story. The unsubtle ways in which race has shaped life in Los Angeles are fleshed out with sketches of Central Avenue's leading cultural, religious and political leaders; some familiar, others undeservedly obscure. Although the focus is on African-Americans, racist events like the forced internment of Japanese Americans and the Zoot Suit Riots intersected life on Central Avenue and readers will gain a nuanced vision of what this fabled multicultural city looked like sixty years ago (not a pretty picture at all.) The standard narrative of the civil rights movement tends to locate all the action in the south, but LA's home grown struggles to end segregation in the wartime defense industry and post war housing boom deserve a place in schools' curriculums and popular culture. And for anyone interested in the survival strategy known as "passing", or for anyone with more than a "passing" interest in the musical/cultural genre known as "exotica", the chapter on Korla Pandit is a must! Thanks RJ, for one of the best books I've ever read on the city we call home. As a postscript I'd like to add that a great book to fill out the "overlooked history" niche of your library is Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise and Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past by William Deverell.

If you love Los Angeles and L.A. history, this book is a fantastic read. It both honors the African-American community's struggles for justice and respect in the city and introduces the reader to an extraordinary range of people-artists, journalists, civil rights leaders- who were indispendable to the development of black life and culture in Los Angeles.

Mr. Smith also does a superb job in communicating a sense of place and time, namely the sights and sounds of L.A.'s African-American neighborhoods in the 1940s.

No matter what your color or background, if you live in L.A.'s city's limits, reading this book wil make you proud to be an Angelino.

The ghosts and shadows, spirits and voices long since quieted are awakened, resurrected and put on display for all to see. This is quite simply an excellent book. What the author captures is the pride and determination, intelligence and ignorance, the creative genius and social failures of a street which became an area and an area which became a neighborhood and a neighborhood and its cultures. Cultures and counter-cultures, the civic minded hustlers, businnessmen, club owners, jazz musicians, lawyers, spiritualists, con-men, pimps and whores, atheletes and common folk. Those who endured racial taunts only to serve up taunts of their own, thumbing their nose at society while making plans to kick down the door of barriers constructed to keep them in their place. The sights and sounds of black Los Angeles, the birth place of attitudes which prevail to this day. Rarely has the spirit of urban Los Angeles been captured so completely.

The recollections gathered from old newspapers, cards, letters and the fading memories of those still around leave the reader enraptured. Every page is a treat. The fantastic stories coupled with the brilliant personalities make this an enjoyable historic voyage. To understand the roots is to understand the fruit and the subject of this book is definately a root to be studied and enjoyed by all with an interest in urban Los Angeles.

The history of our Los Angeles African-American roots have finally been given long overdue mention. With all the attention paid to Harlem, you'd think L.A.'s contributions to black American culture, civil rights, and religion pales in comparision. Hardly true!

Azusa Street, was literally the birthplace of the modern Pentocostal movement. And with certain recent documentaries on Jazz, it seemed no one had ever heard of Central Avenue's Club Alabam, or the hot and swingin' Bronzeville district of Downtown.

There was the still standing Dunbar Hotel, a black oasis for many of the well known, and not so famous, to find shelter while visiting the "City of Angels." Not to mention black L.A.'s major contributions to standup comedy, and as much as anyplace else, the jumpstart for R&B music.

Checkout the early civil rights movement here that foreshadowed such major figures as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, or the black literary community of Los Angeles. A powerful reminder of the huge and highly forgotten contributions of the black Los Angeles community, to the African-American struggles in America. R.J. Smith should receive an honorary medal of human brotherhood.

Prof. Mungello wrote this comprehensive book on the intercourse of China and West in culture and religion in a highly readable text.
Between 1500-1800, China was a powerful country. Catholics dreamed of converting China into a Christian country. However, it was Chinese influence to Europe to bring about Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. He showed that missionaries sent back Tao Te Ching, I Ching and Confucius teaching to the European educated to help bring about the Enlightenment Movement.
What would happen when China is Christianized and the West goes Taoist Way?
By 1800, China was still in its glorious satisfaction while European Powers underwent industrialization. Britain unable to balance the trade deficit pushed opium and war on China. The 1997 Hong Kong Hand-over concluded the last British Imperial chapter in history. China was at its nadir at 1900 Boxer Movement with eight foreign countries invaded Peking.
Napoleon said, "When China wakes, it will shock the world". History affirms the Tao in East and West, strong and weak, grandeur and decline, war and peace. Prof. Mungello presents the readers the historical background to understand the modern China. A number of Westerners see Deng's reform with market economy lead to China rising as a world threat. Reading this book will help open up their horizon.

Will US wage war on China in the billions of dollar trade deficit as their British cousins did in 19th Century?

I think Mungello has done a wonderful job in reconstructing the meeting between China and the Western world.

Dr. Mungello has done a great job in presenting how the (Far) West met with Chinese culture over the period of 1500-1800. This book was written in easy and non-technical language. As a Chinese that has learnt Chinese history all through my school years, I am intrigued to read simialar materials presented from a Western perspective in simple English.

Dr. Mungello noted that the Chinese in Song Dynasty mistook the picture of Virgin Mary as Guanyin (Chinese Goddess of the sea). A three-story high statue given by Portuguese to Macau, China shortly before 1999 was meant to be Guanyin but it certainly looks like Virgin Mary. What went around has come around:) Thanks for writing such a good book and I enjoyed it very much.

University Profs take note: Although I had to read this book because I was in the author's class at Baylor, it really is a good introductory book. Dr. Mungello is one of the world's top Sinologists and did his graduate work at the U. of California at Berkeley and I am privelaged to be one of his students.

Half of the book is focused at the West meeting China, and the other half is China meeting the West. It answers the questions: What did the West reject and accept from China? What did China accept and reject from the West?

Brian Fagan first published this book in 1987 and an undated version was published in 2004. You want the updated version as it summarizes new developments and changes in thought in an introductory chapter.

What has not changed is the eternal dispute about when man first arrived in the New World. The conservatives, among whom one could probably include Fagan, say less that 15,000 years ago. The dissenters say 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. In a book for the general reader Fagan undertakes a careful summary of the evidence. He looks at the spread of Homo sapiens from their place of origin in Africa to the rest of the world. He examines the archaelogical evidence for man in Siberia -- the jumping off place for the New World -- and in Beringia, the now vanished land that linked Siberia and Alaska during the last Ice Age. He evaluates migration scenarios for paleo-Indians from Beringia south to the Americas and the archaelogical evidence from a multitude of ancient sites. Along the way, he illustrates the relevance of things such shovel-shaped incisors and linguistic theories. A thoroughly fascinating presentation!

The author has no ideological axe to grind but the weight of the evidence he presents supports the conservative view of a Paleo-Indian arrival in the New World about 15,000 years ago and a rapid dispersal reaching as far south as Chile by 13,000 years ago. But the evidence is thin and dissenters will find theories more to their liking also evaluated by the author. My opinion hardly matters, but I stand among the conservatives, However, I have a nagging doubt. How did those people get to Chile so fast? Is the famous Monte Verde site there mis-dated? Does hope still exist for for those who believe paleo-Indians arrived in the Americas 20,000 years ago?

Unlike many archaeologists, the author doesn't get lost in fascination with pottery shards or chopper blades, but keeps his eye on the goal of presenting a comprehensible, reasonable, scientific, and interesting tale of how the Americas may have become populated.

Smallchief

I enjoyed this very readable book. I first read it in 1988 and after doing so, actually went out and bought the thing. The author has some very nice theories as to the peopling of North America and is quite well able to back them up. The book is easy reading and logical. While not all may agree with the author's explanations, they do give food for thought. Recommend you add this one to your collection.

I first came across this book in 1990. I have read this book 4 times since then. The book is very easy to read and comprehend.

The saga of how Asians came across the land bridge following the mega fauna is very interesting. Based on speech and dental patterns, the history of at least two waves of people moving into North America and southward is unfolded.

Fagan explains how the evidence of the nomadic cultures was discovered and how this evidence shows how these people survived. From this discovery of Clovis points to group kills of now extinct species, Fagan tells a fasinating story of how the native Americans arrived here.

The extinction of the mega fauna, the land bridge, and ice age's impact on the peopling of North America are interwined into a good reading book.

I wish all anthropolgy books could read so smoothly!

Updating an older book on a broad and varied topic is a risky enterprise. If much work has been done in the ensuing years, a complete rewrite is usually in order. Too few results can fail to justify the reprise. Fagan's original effort on the peopling of the Western Hemisphere was an excellent survey. This edition is essentially that first account, with an explanatory chapter inserted at the beginning of the book. That technique has the advantage of warning the reader what to look for while going through the text. And while much new information has come into view, Fagan reminds us that the underlying questions about where "Native Americans" originated, and when, remain unanswered.

The human diaspora begins in Africa, some five million years ago according to Fagan - [recent finds emerged too late to appear here]. Unique among migratory species, Homo sapiens sapiens moved in but one direction. From our origins on the savannah, the author traces our path into north-eastern Asia. When conditions permitted, glacial ice having trapped enough water to reduce sea levels some 300 metres, these ancient Asians moved onto a lost continent now named "Berengia". This link between Asia and North America must retain evidence of human occupation, but retrieval from the sea bottom is difficult. Fagan describes the intense research into climatology, palynology and other fields to explain how the data has been accumulated over many years.

Hidden evidence provides opportunities for speculation and controversy and the studies of ancient Americans is rife with both. Fagan describes what research has revealed and reviews the suppositions drawn from the scattered and inconclusive evidence. Fagan examines the various theories of when humans entered the Americas and what dispersal paths they followed. He lists the dig sites with the opinions derived from the evidence, weighing the contending arguments with care and a considered detachment. Where dating is flawed or suspect, he resists ill-considered judgment, calling for further investigation. A few anomalous sites, such as Monte Verde in Chile and Meadowcroft in Pennsylvania receive extra attention. He's quick to praise diligent methods while readily disparaging hasty proclamations. The Pedra Furada site in Brazil, once extolled as "challenging ideas on the First Americas", is given a lengthy description, but is dismissed as poorly investigated and reported. As Fagan notes, tracing the movements of humanity in ancient times is a detective's work, with clues assessed only with extreme care.

Some points of contention the author passes over with summary evaluation. After his presentation of Paul Martin's thesis that the disappearance of large mammals was due to human predation, Fagan dismisses it. Climate shift, he states, changed the nature of plant life leaving these prey species bereft of fodder. Yet Tim Flannery, in two books published since the original edition of Great Journey, demonstrates that browsing and grazing species would have adapted to climate change. The timing of human occupation and megafauna extinction is too proximate to be ignored. The prime example of Maori hunting of moa species in New Zealand is symptomatic and well documented. Martin may have been wrong in details, but his basic thesis has withstood criticism.

These flaws don't negate the exceptional worth of Fagan's achievement in this study. It's a powerful and informative narrative of Western Hemispheric archaeology, its practitioners and their results. Starting with early views of the first European invaders, he explains how improved scholarship, better technology and disciplined approaches have clarified the picture of Native American life. Fagan provides photographs and maps for additional support of the text. This remains a valuable book, easily read and understood. It has not been replaced and will keep its well-earned reputation. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I totally agree with all the reviews below. What a pity this book is dropping out of print. It is an excellent general introduction to the Greeks that is funny, lively, and never takes itself too seriously. My one issue with Mr. France is that the translations of Homer, Sophocles, and Aeschylus he recommends are good (Hammond, Rieu, Vellacott, Watling), but what about Fagles? Maybe it is a British thing; but after Fagles' translations, those others simply won't do.

I started to read this book expecting a dry and labourious list of past events in ancient Greece and such like. From the first line of the introduction it was clearly not going to be like any other book on the classics I had ever read.
It is funny, factual - I loved the bit about Parson's Pleasure -,engaging, thoroughly entertaining and very informative. You've just got to buy this book.....

As a retired computer industry executive, I have spent seventeen serious years both formally a la carte at Oxford and elsewhere as well as informally studying classical Greek culture, have amassed a library of over four thousand books on this subject, and I only regret that I didn't have Peter France's book as my course outline before I started. The respect that Sir Kenneth Dover and other eminent scholars (and in Dover's case, formerly Oxford) lent Mr. France certainly attests with more authority than I to its value. Its thoroughness, breadth and accuracy of representation of a very complex culture is truly admirable and would have saved me from many lower priority lower yield "roads less traveled".

I read this book to get a general feel for ancient greece after reading the Odyssey in the summer. The book was an excellent walk though of ancient greek culture and philosophy, though in places it can be difficult without an academic background of sorts. I particularly liked how straight forward the authors analogies were, and how the information was portrayed in section, in particular the snippits from actual greek plays give a taste of some of the greats that is certain to leave one wanting for more. An Excellent book.

This remarkable, very readable book is written as a conversation between two women born in Beijing at the same time as the People's Republic of China. As the women explore the similarities and differences in their experiences--from housing arrangements, to elementary school, to their roles in the early months of the Cultural Revolution, to the years spent working in rural China--the reader learns about the wide range of what it means to have grown up in the PRC. The result is a reflective, thought-full, and nuanced look at this tumultuous period in China's recent history.

Weili's book is remarkable. I was struck by her honesty, studiousness of recording details, and courage of facing the past events, no matter how ugly they were, and searching for the truths and true feelings. One of the most memorable moments of the book was the story about Weili's mother, walking 20 miles, close to the distance of a Marathon, to give birth in the cold winter by herself in 1945. As a female soldier in the People's Liberation Army, Weili's mother had to go outside of the WWII Japanese controlled territory to avoid capture. She was crippled for many years after this experience. Weili's mother's personal story was an example of the war time suffering the Chinese people went through. Weili described this story to give background on her family and the Great Culture Revolution. Ironically, many people who suffered a great deal to establish the new government in 1949 were tormented, imprisoned, or killed during the Great Culture Revolution.

Why should one read Weili's oral history book on the Great Culture Revolution in China? Here are the reasons I would suggest:

1) To understand what happened in history.

Weili and Ma Xiao Dong's personal encounters were a part of the Chinese history, and a part of the human history. The author described the years of her youth spent in China when the daily reality seemed so unbelievable and crazy. A totalitarian region was created to isolate the 1 billion Chinese people from the rest of the world. It could be called the biggest scale social experiment. In the name of revolution, beating someone to death, looting, and public humiliation were common practice in those days. Once targeted as a counter-revolutionist for whatever reasons, one lost individual rights and faced physical attacks by the mobs.


Yet, those 10 traumatic years were not a total loss. The authors wanted to show you that living an innocent and simple life was somewhat possible at times for young people. The young people were initially enthusiastic to fight for the revolution and get reeducated by going to the country side. They were with people their age, away from home to serve as laborers on the farms for 5, 10, or even sometimes 20 years. They sang, performed, and made friends. Later, the reality of famine, poverty, and personal encounters in the country side left them confused and disillusioned. They matured beyond their years due to the sent-down experience.


2) To learn from this period of Chinese history. How did the Culture Revolution happen?

It happened mostly because Mao's communism "religion" dominated all. Weili's stories took us to a different time when everyone was labeled and categorized into 9 different "red" and "black" types. The man-made caste system marginalized the intellectuals and business people. So beware of religious fanatics or other ideology fanatics who would not tolerate others with different viewpoints, and do not let one voice dominate a country or a group. Masses can be brainwashed into a lot of ugly things such as killing neighbors who are identified as enemies. Racial violence and ethnic cleansings are examples of those belief systems in other parts of the world.

Second, life itself was not valued in the teaching of the time. Young kids were taught that life should be easily given up for a greater cause such as the revolution. There were plenty of books and films on the heroes who sacrificed lives for the new government. In addition, killing or beating an "enemy" was encouraged. Not respecting life was also one of the reasons that the Culture Revolution caused so much damage.

The third reason that the Culture Revolution occurred was due to the desire to negate history or anything old while jamming down a new belief system. The poetic side of Mao wanted to cleanse the past and create a new society. As Mao grew increasingly impatient with the speed of the progress, he resorted to extreme measures of "cleansing," - the Great Culture Revolution. The Red Guards (young people who pledged allegiance to the revolution) and the masses fought, killed, or tormented anything or anybody who were deemed counter-revolutionary. The violence was justified and praised. The Red Guards thought that they were doing the right thing for a cause. Later Red Guards fought each other because one group thought it was more revolutionary than another.

3) To appreciate women's perspectives on growing up during the culture revolution. The new government was supposed to have liberated women. They were equal to men in a lot of ways. Considering that women still had feet bound 50-60 years earlier, this was a remarkable accomplishment. Weili's mother was a combat pilot during the revolution. Weili's mother said that women must stand tall, which seemed to be something Hilary Clinton would have said.

However, the authors described what they experienced and learned as women, Chinese women specifically, in a male-dominated society. Weili's mother held leadership positions outside of the house, yet at home she cooked, cleaned, respected her husband's authority, and was a model wife. Women were expected to play these two different roles in a modern society. Moreover, the media and culture at the time encouraged young women to dress like soldiers with uniforms and heavy belts. Femininity was denied and considered "bourgeois." The young women at times did not want to be mothers because culturally motherhood devalued a woman and raising kids appeared to be hard, tedious, and not as meaningful as other work. If life is not valued, of course the tasks of raising kids are not respected.

The dialog format throughout the book was powerful and very easy to read. The author had a very crisp and clear writing style on some of the most difficult subjects. All in all, a terrific reading experience for me.

I believe a book is best useful when it makes me question myself or change my attitude. Ye and Ma's book is definitely one of such books. They help me see the Cultural Revolution in a new light.
Born after the Cultural Revolution, I do not have the opportunity to live this turbulent time myself. Identified as poor-peasants (pin-nong, though not peasant at all) and being non-intellectuals, both my father's and mother's families were not targeted or severely affected in the Cultural Revolution. Or if they were, they did a good job shielding me from that memory. My high school history book only gave a cursory glance at the Cultural Revolution, about which my history teacher did not take the liberty to say more. The notion that "this is a taboo" had been planted in my immature mind without myself knowing exactly where it came from. Therefore, I never thought about inquiring about it before I went to college.
Since then I came to understand how and why it was a mistake, a huge mistake that was almost irreparable. However, what has done cannot be undone. What we can do is to mind the present and create a better future to make up for the losses. I brought into the general morale of "looking-forward" (xiangqiankan, this is more telling in its homophone in Chinese which means "looking toward money") and felt reassured about it.
However, now being a graduate student in the United States, I was exposed to more western intellectual works. Their obsession with the Cultural Revolution made me unable to continue my "ostrich strategy." As one of the generation "growing up under the red flag," I read such starkly downbeat criticism of the Cultural Revolution as capitalism's unrelenting ideological attack on the Chinese Party: Cultural Revolution, as China's stigma, is the best topic they can engage in order to castigate China. Nationalist sentiment also made me reluctant to directly confront this traumatic national memory. Particularly, I had a hard time reading the "victim literature" produced by people who suffered during that time and later went to the West--the "land of free speech"--to let out their sorrow and hatred. I knew I was unfair to them--they have been so profoundly affected by that past that time cannot separate them from its horror or undo its effects. I also knew my resentment testified to the success of Chinese government's "thought control." However, no matter where my sources of rejecting the negative portrayal of the Cultural Revolution came from and no matter to what extent I could question myself, the more stark and inhuman the Cultural Revolution is depicted, the less I would trust the accounts.
Yet, Growing up in the People's Republic finally enabled me to comfortably and bravely face up to this burden of history. On the one hand, Ye honestly related the death of her school principal, the story that has haunted her for years, and Ma daringly confesses her participation in violence, which is made more compelling as she juxtaposes it with the violence her mother was afflicted with. The immense difficulty they have in "opening up deep wounds" reveals the highest moral integrity. On the other hand, their telling of the sweet childhood adds an intimate dimension to this supposedly brutal age. Ye's apathy to join the revolution in contrast to Ma's enthusiasm in embracing the "winds and waves" convinces me that they did not grow up "drinking wolf milk," as they are represented in some literature. The complexity of this era can only be understood by lending a humanistic understanding to the seemingly unimaginable individual behavior. By transforming the unbelievable into the understandable, what this book gives me touches at a level deeper than history.

I am the author of the book Growing Up in the People's Republic: Conversations between Two Daughters of China's Revolution. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). I am very grateful to the press for bringing it out to the reader, yet I have to say I feel dismayed by the cover design. The actual cover is not the same as the one shown on Amonzon.com. The most conspicuous feature on the current cover is a rather mean-spirited looking Chinese soldier. Judging by the modern communication equipments he's is wearing, the soldier is a military policeman. Incidentally, the military police only began to appear in China in the 1980s. What does a soldier of the police force have to do with a book about the growing-up experiences of two women in the 1950s and 1960s?

Yet I understand right away the symbolic meaning of the soldier. What he represents is a dark, repressive "police state." It is exactly this highly simplistic and unrelievedly negative image of the PRC (People's Republic of China) that I question in the book. What my book presents is a multi-faceted picture of the "Mao era." Through the conversations between me and Ma Xiaodong (my conversational partner in the book), we try to sort out, from personal, generational, and gendered perspectives, the entangled history and mixed legacy of a complex age. What distinguishes my book from most of the existing personal memoirs on the Mao era is precisely this more nuanced and more reflective approach. Such a distinction is recognized by Prof. Paul Cohen in his Forward to the book as well as the description of the book on the back jacket.

Unfortunately, the current jacket design contradicts what the book is about. It misrepresents the book and undermines its central message. It is an irony that a book intending to reveal the many "shades of grey" of a complex world is packed in "black-and-white" color. As the author, I believe I should let my readers know what I think about the matter. It is also worth noting here that I was not consulted with about this design beforehand. In this specific case, there was a lack of communication between the press and the author.

Thank you very much for reading the book. I'd appreciate it deeply if I could hear your feedback.