Anthology Sources Books

I was expecting this book to be more "story-like"-- to flow from one woman's experience to another. Instead it's a series of short, isolated diary entries. Quite interesting, but there's no plot to follow. I would have preferred to read each woman's diary fully, rather than mini-entries of many women's diaries grouped by general topic (taking leave, matters domestic, etc.). Again though, it is interesting stuff. My personal preference would have been to group by woman rather than topic.

In Parrot Pie for Breakfast, Jane Robinson opens up the entire spectrum of the early pioneer days, not just North American, but globally. She reveals through diary and correspondence the strength and power of the women who stood behind and beside their men in the quest for a better life and freedom. The treasured snippets of their words bring history alive with a newer, brighter light that spotlights the mostly forgotten role of women in the harshest of times.

This compilation of primary source materials is arranged inchronological chapters, with the table of contents acting as anoutline of what is to come. An excellent introduction creates a vivid context for the period. Many pieces are not in their entirety, but excerpted. Holzer's vibrant writing is a fascinating mix of biography and political history that provides setup and commentary for each selection to put the piece in context. A wide range of samples includes poems, letters, and speeches (both famous and lesser known). The editor's authority of and admiration for his subject is evident and the volume is well arranged; unfortunately, some poor editing choices detract from the text. Photos are abundant, well-selected, and well-placed; however, in two instances the same picture was obviously cropped and reused with a different caption. Photo credits are inconsistent. Sometimes they appear under the picture, sometimes they don't. A complete list of photo credits appears at the end. Including the original captions along with the page numbers would have been a nice touch. Because this is not the first book one would start with if one were to do a report on Lincoln, a list of recommended books would have been a welcome addition. According to the credits, Holzer only consulted one source for this book. While he is the author of 14 books (8 about Lincoln), one would think he would mention other sources - even his own. An incredibly detailed chronology will thrill teachers struggling with curriculum frameworks. Not a necessity, but a solid addition to collections where there is a demand for presidential biography, political/government history, or civil rights information.

Editor Levy provides a good array of texts, starting with the Heidelberger professor Eisenmenger in 1710 and ending with some fellow named Yevgeny Yevseev, who published an "Anti-Zionist" screed in 1971, harmonized with the "anti-fascist" rhetoric current in the then Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. In between are selections from Voltaire, Wagner, Stoecker, von Treitschke, Marr, various committee works, the Protocolls, Henry Ford, a trio of drosches by Hitler(yemakh shmo), the statement of the Wahnsee Conference, as it was called, and a few other bits here and there.
Levy has added introductions to each historical section, along with a good "additional reading" selection. The entirety is prefaced by an attempt at a definition of "Anti-Semitism"; his attempt seems as good as any that doesn't resort to metaphysics. My only suggestion would have been to add a few more American selections; some of the urban rustics associated with Louis Farrakhan are mentioned in ancillary material but I think it would have been useful to add full examples of some of anti-Jewish rubbish that here and now rolls around burning in the American street, stinking and befouling the feckless rhetoricians who refuse to recognize it for what it is.

Preface.

I. The source materials:

1. Chandogya upanisad: The Asura view.
2. Maitri upanisad: on the ancient heretics.
3. Payasi Suttanta: Denial of the doctrine of karma.
4. Samanna-phala-sutta: The non-conformists in Buddhist India.
5. Ancient grammatical literature.
6. Arthasastra: Earliest enumeration of philosophies.
7. Epics and puranas: See Muir's article in Part II (No. 20), where all relevant sources are quoted.
8. Nyayasutra with vatsyayana's commentary:
(a) On inference.
(b) Bhuta-caitanya-vada.
9. Prasastapada-Bhasya with Nyaya-kandali: self as distinct from body etc.
10. Jayanta Bhatta's Nyaya-manjari:
(a) Dehatmavada.
(b) On inference.
(c) Stray references.
11. Udayana's Nyayakusumanjali: Dehatmavada.
12. Santaraksita and Kamalasila:
(a) On lokayata.
(b) On svabhavada.
13. Sankara's Sariraka-bhasya: On Dehatmavada.
14. Vacaspati's Bhamati: On Dehatmavada.
15. Madhavacarya's Sarvadarsana-samgraha: The Carvaka philosophy.
16. Haribhadra with commentaries by Manibhadra and Gunaratna:
(a) Saddarsanasamuccaya on Lokayata with Manibhadra's commentary.
(b) Gunaratna on above.
(c) Gunaratna on Bhutacaitanya-vada.
(d) Gunaratna on Kalavada etc.
17. Prabhacandra's prameya-kamala-martanda and Nyaya-kumuda-candra:
(a) Bhuta-caitanya-vada.
(b) Refutation of anumana.
(c) Akhyativada.
18. Taranatha's history of Buddhism in India: A quaint legend of refuting Lokayata.
19. Krsnamisra's Prabodhacandrodaya: Caricature of Carvaka.

II. Modern scholars:

1. Verses illustrating the Carvaka tenets/J. Muir.
2. On Lokayata/Rhys Davids.
3. Lokayata/H.P. Sastri.
4. A sketch of Indian materialism/G. Tucci.
5. A short history of Indian materialism/D.R. Sastri.
6. History of materialism in India/Th. Stcherbatsky.
7. Lokayata and Svabhavavada/Gopinath Kaviraj.
8. Carvaka-darsana/Ananta Kumar Bhattacharyya.
9. The materialism/Eric Frauwallner.

III. On the Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarasi Bhatta:
Sukhlalji Sanghavi and R.C. Parikh.
Walter Ruben.
K.K. Dixit.

Index.

The ancient Indian materialistic thought system known as Carvaka or Lokayata formed the most redoubtable intellectual and doctrinal sect outside the Vedic fold. Despite intense persecution from orthodoxy, it stood its ground unfailingly and left a powerful impress on the corpus of Indian literature from the Vedas to the Upanisads and later. The irreproachable logic of its basic stance still appeals to perceptive minds.

In this anthology almost all the available materials on Carvaka and Lokayata have been methodically arranged. They are divided into three sections, the first providing the text from traditional sources, the second being devoted to modern studies on the system, and the third offering a critical survey of Jayarasi's Tattvopaplavasimha. The English rendering closely follows the original text.

The present compilation furnishes a full profile of one of the most controversial thought systems in India. The volume can be counted as a major contribution to the field of Indian philosophical studies. Teachers and researchers as wll as students of Indian materialism and indology should find it indispensable.

The editors have assembled, organized and introduced a rich collection of the prose and poetry of Christians from Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Although many of the works are translated from modern or ancient Breton, Irish, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic and from Latin, all flow with grace and feeling. The works from over a thousand years ago provide profound insights on the issues we face today and on how we can address our local problems through the love of all creation. The modern works are intensely personal but all have the ability to touch readers far from the Celtic homelands. A wonderful introductin to Celtic, Christian or Celtic Christian literature and an excellent springboard for wider studies. Readers unfamiliar with the geography and history of the Celtic lands might wish to read with a map in hand and balance the anothological approach with the works of J.Phillip Newell, David Adam, John O'Donohue, Edward Sellner, Thomas Cahill and Peter Berreesford Ellis.

Has very good insights into the history of Paris shown through visitors' accounts. But I wish the excerpts (and the book) had been longer. I'm sure the visitors' accounts had much more to say about the social life of Paris in their times. I'm also sure that there are many more sources than just the ones in this small book. Small, but interesting.

The author, A.E.Dick Howard, a well-known scholar on Magna Carta has managed to pack in a few pages a highly readable synopsis of all provisions of the Great Charter that King John granted to the barons, sword in hand, in June 1215.

This Charter has great importance in its foreshadowing American constitutional provisions on such fundamental rights as freedom of our religious institutions from governmental interference, right of the people to petition the government for redress of grievances, right of temporary insurrection to restore the Constitution in case of tyranny (chapter 61 of the Charter, Second Amendment to the US Constitution), due process of law, speedy trial by jury, fair trials, proportionate punishment (ban on cruel and unusual punishments).

Summarizing: this short work is an excellent, highly readable authoritative introduction to the Great Charter.

Having read many histories of 20th century concert music I could not easily conceive of an addition to the canon that is as interesting, challenging and original as this. Albright has gathered together an eclectic range of primary source materials authored by composers, writers, artists and theorists all of which explore aspects of musical modernism and its putative antithesis - post-modernism. In just bringing this material together he has done music history a service. Yet in one sense what I most enjoyed is Albright's own commentaries which link his diverse sources together so effortlessly that the book reads like a novel; and his prose writing is superb. If only more "textbooks" were of this quality.

This book is hard to describe but an anthology, like the title says, is a good start.It is a good book to read to get an authentic perspective of the frontier history of this important state,sure, it has some boring moments, but a complete read gives you a good feel for the times and history of the Ohio frontier.It almost puts you there at the time of all these goings on.Like I said, some boring, but, also quite a bit interesting at the same time.

Twenty years after I read Keats' ' La Belle Dame Sans Merci' I got hold of this book. Even after all this time, the lines " And this is why I sojourn here/Alone and palely loitering/Though the sedge is withered from the lake/And no birds sing. " still remain in my inward eye. Suddenly I couldn't wait to read it again, and opened the book right where the ballad was. I can say that the beauty of the pictures we get in mind and the effect it produces on us haven't gone down a bit.

In this book, John Strachan writes about the following:

1. Portions of letters written by Keats to many of his friends

2. The early critical reception (to get an idea of the nature of reception he had as a budding poet)

3. Modern Criticism (to understand what the contemporary Keatsian scholars thought about his works).

4. Here comes the part which we all (Keats admirers) like alike - Key poems - the poems (in their various forms) published in this section are:
a. 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' ('Much have I traveled in the realms of gold')
b. From Endymion ('A thing of beauty is a joy for ever')
c. From 'Isabella; or The Pot of Basil. A Story of Boccaccio' ('Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel')
d. From Hyperion. A Fragment ('Deep in the shady sadness of a vale')
e. The Eve of St.Agnes' ('St Agnes' Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!')
f. La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad' ('Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms')
g. 'To Sleep' ('O soft embalmer of the still midnight')
h. 'Ode to Psyche' ('O Goddess ! hear these tuneless numbers,...')
i. Ode to a nightingale ('My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains')
j. 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' ('Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness')
k. 'Ode on Melancholy' ('No,no go not to Lethe,...')
l. From 'Lamia' ('Upon a time, before the faery broods')
m. 'To Autumn' ('Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,')
n. From 'The Fall of Hyperion. A Dream' ('Fanatics have their dream, wherewith they weave...')

5.Recommendations and pointers to reading further.

There are plenty of numbered footnotes on each page which aid quick reading, so that we don't digress trying to look up for meanings and connotations. This increases the speed and pleasure of reading. There are a lot of interesting historic details as well as other trivia. For instance, the fascination doesn't decrease even after reading the fact that title ('La Belle Dame Sans Merci') was derived from an English translation of a 1424 poem by French poet Alain Chartier.

After reading John Strachan's book, we are left with an increased and regenerated appreciation of Keats. His insightful comments and views add to the pleasure of reading Keats poetry. Here is an excellent resource (a guide, and more importantly a well researched sourcebook) for all Keats lovers, English majors and Keatsian scholars. Highly Recommended!