North Carolina Books

Golf Architect Richard Mandell's seminal work, Pinehurst ~ Home of American Golf (The Evolution of a Legend) recently won the prestigious International Network of Golf Book of the Year Award. "Richard created a beautiful book full of incredible information and photographs about one of golf's most historical places," declared Mike Jamison, Executive Director of ING. "This is a must read for those whose eyes mist when they think of Sandhills golf." What makes this accomplishment even more impressive is that Mr. Mandell started his own publishing company, T. Eliot Press, in order to properly tell the story. "The publishers I spoke to about this book never really gave it the respect that a complete history of Pinehurst should have," points out Mandell. "A grand vision for this book had to match the grand subject matter. We're talking about Pinehurst."
The International Network of Golf is an eighteen-year old non-profit, media-based networking organization whose mission is to enhance and promote communication and education in golf. For fifteen years, the International Network of Golf has strove to annually recognize the best in media. ING winners and outstanding achievers are determined by an independent panel of three judges in each category. Each judge uses a point system with several criteria overseen by a voluntary category chairperson.
Mr. Mandell's book was a finalist for both Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Award and the USGA's Herbert Warren Wind Book Award as well. "I never imagined the critical success of the book when I started it back in 2003," says Mandell. "For my first effort in the publishing arena, I'm very proud and thankful that I could contribute to the world of golf by preserving a history that could easily have been lost."
Described as "A nice stroll through history" by one of the judges, Pinehurst ~ Home of American Golf (The Evolution of a Legend), is a detailed account of the evolution of the playing fields of Sandhills golf and how it affected golf in America. "To me, the history of the area from an architecture and development standpoint is the real story and an education for anyone who loves the history of golf" says Mandell.

For those that love the The Sandhills of North Carolina, this is a must have for any golf history buff's library! It is an exhaustive and thorough history of the Sandhills region. It has tons of pictures (many of them full-color) and diagrams. It is full of all types of surprising details - so I would advise you to actually read it rather than make it just a coffee-table book. This is huge, heavy book and worth the price once you get it in hand.

I came across this book in a course on Byzantium, and was very impressed with Safi's analysis of the Saljuk influence on Islam, and most particularly in the realm of the mystics bartering baraka for orthodoxy and political influence. Safi's argument is convincing, even if it is a movement away from more traditional scholarship. This book is very well written and engaging definitely one of my favorite books in the realm of Islamic scholarship.

I was very intrigued by this book. It is an in depth look at medieval Islamic society, and I found it fascinating that there is not just one view on issues, but always a range of perspectives. It was particularly good on the relationship between religion and politics, and also the social role of scholars and mystics. beautifully written!

Karen Jolly has produced a wonderful source of information on Anglo-Saxon charms. She makes a powerful case for the charms as elements of Anglo-Saxon popular religion, and explodes many of the myths of a pagan/Christian dichotomy that flooded the field during the age of patristic readings, and that have returned under the guise of neo-paganism in our own popular culture. One cannot claim to be a scholar of the Anglo-Saxon charms without having read this book.

the book is great, you see, cause it's informative and incredibly detailed. It's obvious much work went into the book, and that much research was done. The book, however, isn't for those just starting out in the field of charms and magic... you should have a little background before reading the book. It's more for the historical reader then just any plain person... details on spells are also found in the book. Just plain great

One of the largest contributions of this book is its effort to combine economic history with cultural analysis. Livingston takes the time to distinguish important structural changes in the US economy during this period (1850-1940). More cultural historians and critics should grapple with this material--Livingston can wean us off of blanket labels ("incorporation," "Gilded Age") that leave no room for thinking through the more dynamic relations of the economic and the cultural.

A second virtue of this book is Livingston's provocative, polemic argument. Although his political sympathies are with the left, he offers a strong critique of the tendency among left historians to see the emergence of corporate capitalism as the effective end to any chance for victory on the left. This "tragic" mode of analysis, Livingston argues, means we can only remain mired in a nostalgic orientation toward the past. Livingston turns to two cultural formations--literary naturalism (especially the fiction of Theodore Dreiser) and pragmatism (especially William James)--to argue for a "social self" that offers hope for political progress but is not inherently at odds with corporate capitalism. I'm still not sure if I buy Livingston's argument, but his frame of analysis and reflections on history and models of selfhood are tremendously fruitful.

Although the book is largely an advanced academic study, it is clearly written and free of jargon. Well read students of American history and culture will be able to follow the analysis.

This is a work of conceptual brilliance, in its argument about why pragmatism occurred when it did, its cultural ramifications and its current importance. In addition Livingston illuminatingly connects pragmatism with post-modernism.

This is from the book: There are predominant view that Asian cultures are objectified and understood strictly through Western ideas. Based on a detailed examination of presentations by Japanese Buddhists at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Snodgrass argues that Buddhists themselves helped reformulate Buddhism into a modern world religion.

This is really an excellent book. Using the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893 as a focal point, Snodgrass explores the various issues, conflicting interests and uneasy alliances, and mutual perceptions and misperceptions coming together in and branching out from this seminal event in religious history. Snodgrass has a historian's knack for critical scholarship and turns a keen eye towards the political dimensions of all of this without being reductive...one still gets a clear sense of the various deeply felt religious beliefs and spiritual convictions held by the different people who appear in the book. The Buddhist reform movements of the Meiji period and their formulation of a modern Buddhism (formulations that have become "common sense" in both Japan and America today) are covered in great, illuminating detail and with careful analysis. American assumptions of Buddhism are also dissected, and the author's critique of Paul Carus' "Gospel of Buddha"--a popular work that introduced (in a highly distorted fashion, as she shows) many Americans to the "other world religion" (besides Christianity)--is quite to the point.

"Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West" is scholarly and sophisticated yet written in a clear, engaging prose style. It should be of particular interest especially to anyone interested in modern Japanese Buddhism and modern American religion, in colonial and post-colonial studies, or in the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

Dean was an unbelievable coach who was able to participate in an incredibly competitive arena, yet make consistent decisions with his values and beliefs, never compromising those ideals, even in the heat of battle. The way he created the Carolina family, always remembering everybody who ever played, managed and worked with the team is truly amazing. Keep this book by your bedside and refer to it often.

I like this new book about Dean Smith a lot. Smith was famous in his press conferences for rambling on and on and not saying much of anything quotable, but the author (David Scott) has painstakingly culled Smith down to a point where the excellent coach sounds funnier, blunter and more insightful than he is often given credit for. This book would be a superb addition to a Carolina fan's library, and Lord knows there are a few of them out there.

For anyone who has any interest in pottery this is a "must read" and this also incudes whoever may have an interest in US History.

this book is an archival wonder. the author brings us into intimate contact with the potters of a generation past. production, studio, and industrial potters alike should read and absorb the severe trials these men(and women)had to go through to make a living during a time when living wasn`t gauranteed. details such as kiln construction workshop layout and techniques make this book intresting for anyone involved in the pottery field. give it ten stars!!!

Mr. Fowler has done a fantastic job of telling of a simpler time in our country. A time when God and family were more important than material things.
The book is one of those books that you can't put down once you have started reading and once you have finished you have to read again. of all the caracters in this book Aunt Laney is my favorite. Her faith in God makes her stand out.
Many of the stories that are told in the book I can remember duplicating in the 50s when I was growing up in the same area of NC. Thanks for taking me back to a simpler time and reminding me how important family is.

A RAISING UP: BRINGS BACK SIGHTS, SMELLS AND GOOD MEMORIES OF THE TOBACCO SEASONS AND THE SPARTAN LIFE ON THE FARM IN NORTH CAROLINA IN THE 1940'S AND 1950'S. TOLD WITH SIMPLICITY AND DEAD-ON INSIGHT,I WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECCOMEND THE BOOK FOR ALL AGE GROUPS.

ADC doesn't offer individual county maps In North Carolina as they do in Maryland - where I use them - but this mapbook is excellent in the specific areas for which it is intended.

As new transplants to the Triangle area, we bought this map book to keep at home and the pocket edition to keep in the car. The level of detail is impressive, and our new street was even included (which I can't say for any of the online map services). This has proven to be a valuable resource for my family as we get acclimated to the area. Highly recommended.

Growing up as one of Jane H Macauley's daughters, I heard all the great backroom and campaign stories, but I never put them in the wider context of the growing engagement of women in politics until reading Rymph's fascinating account. My mother and her friends are passionate believers in the grassroots and the precincts, and crisscrossed the country to get out the vote. Feminist slogans peppered my childhood, and the ERA was the grail. The hijacking of the progressive and moderate Republican women's organization is an enlightening chapter -- let's hijack it back, ladies!

Examining how different factions of women sought access to and within the GOP, this book was a gripping read.

Beginning in the aftermath of the 19th Amendment's ratification, the book chronicles women's political activity. Rymph then goes on to explain how different factions developed different definitions of 'women' and 'Republicanism' as the decades subsequently passed.

The rise of the modern conservative movement came through the 1964 campaign. Many of the women party activists independently mobilized behind Barry Goldwater's campaign. They demonstrated that they would not just rubber stamp whomever the party bosses had wanted to receive the nomination.

Such action also illustrated that conservative Republican women were (if not necessarily how I and colleagues would immediately think of it) leaders with political power of their own which would effectively be flexed. Researched from a strictly nonpartisan and scholarly perspective, this work concedes that conservative women are politically effective.

I've read many other books on women and politics, but this work provided a never-before-read perspective. Prior to reading this book, I honestly had no idea that women's role in the Republican party was so complex.