Nebraska Books

Gabrielle Roy is one of my favorite authors and this book is just another example of how she is able, with few well chosen words, to reach deep into the human spirit. On the surface this is a simple story of a little girl growing up and her small adventures with her grand-mother, an older gentlemen in the neighborhood, and her own mother. And yet, it is so much more. It is about growing old. It is about memories. It is about what makes husband and wives stay together against all odds. It is about what makes life a special gift to each and every one of us. If you have not yet read Gabrielle Roy, you are in for a very unique and special treat!!

The Road to Triumph is so inspiring! I cannot believe that these people made it through these circumstances. It gives me strength and and courage, knowing that they survived. Now I know that I can do it too, with the help of Jesus Christ!

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke's childhood and young adult years as recounted in this gritty and courageous memoir, are not only a story or survival but a story of strength. Under the best of circumstances, a mixed blood Cherokee/Huron child looks out at a world where discrimination against Native Americans is the norm. Add to this an insane mother, mental and physical abuse at home as well as in her relationships, rape, alcoholism, drugs, theft, and numerous periods of hospitalization for life-threatening injuries and you have a powerful recipe for disaster. If you are strong, this memoir will test your strength. If you are standing in similar shoes, this memoir will uplift you and provide hope. In the final analysis, the culture that we've placed behind the eight-ball of our misunderstandings was the foundation of A. A. Hedge Coke's strength and her emergence as a survivor. Life and memories endure through stories, and this story is strong medicine.

Enhanced with an informative introduction by Duane A. Smith, The Rockies by David Lavender (Professor of History and Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College) is an informed and informative history of the majestic Rocky Mountains ranging from the gold strikes of 1859 to struggles that brought about law codes unique to the mountainous American West. An engaging presentation as much about the impact of humanity as it is about the mountain range itself, The Rockies is a welcome addition to American History Studies reading lists and academic library collections. Also very highly recommended is Professor Duane Smith's earlier works: The Way To The Western Sea: Lewis And Clark Across The Continent (0803280033, ...) and Westward Vision: The Story Of The Oregon Trail (0803279159, ...).

Lively, realistic and down-to-earth descriptions of early 1840's life in the Rocky Mountains. Sage ventured west in 1841 for "love of adventure, curiosity, health and to acquaint myself with the geography of unexplored regions." What unfolds is a truly absorbing and realistic account of what life was like back then vagabonding from place to place throughout the west. A very accurate and descriptive writer of mountain men and Indian customs, geographical landforms, speculations on future agricultural and economical possibilities, along with his own theories of language evolution between the Indians and Romans many centuries ago, stories of the "White Indians" (Munchies) of Arizona, his curtailed involvement with the Texan army in attempting to seize control of Sante Fe, etc. An excellent book.
The reader should have access to an atlas if not familiar with western geography as there are no maps included in the book. It is also too bad that Sage did not include more names of the people he met along the way, as this would have significantly contributed to further historical documentation of other people, places and events. This book would be an ideal candidate to edit, footnote and tear into as our scholarly historians Merrill Mattes, Bernard DeVoto, Leroy Hafen, David Lavender and others have done with their respective endeavors.

This book is actually a series of letters written by a Frenchman (Louis Simonin) to a friend in Paris in 1867. The first-hand accounts of Denver, the first days of Cheyenne, a Sioux Village, and the general practices/customs/thoughts of the day are invaluable. First-hand accounts of the old Amercian culture, supply chains, the UPRR as it was built through Wyoming, character traits of miners, Indians, and the calvary; military forts, etc. are all addressed by this astute writer. An absolte MUST for any fan or historian of the old west.

Enos A. Mills was known as "the father of Rocky Mountain National Park." After spending years as a guide in the Estes Park area, making hundreds of ascents of Longs Peak, and then purchasing and operating the famous Longs Peak Inn, he became an advocate for various conservation and nature appreciation causes, most notably with the National Forest Service. Mills criss-crossed the country giving speeches (actually basically the same speech countless times), outlining the history of the Forest Service and relating his own personal experiences in the wild. A controversial figure (he seemed to have an uncanny ability to make enemies wherever he went), he eventually broke with Gifford Pinchot's Forest Service and began campaigning to make the Estes Park region a national park. Tireless in all things he put his mind to, Mills wrote hundreds of articles and a half-dozen books about (especially) the natural wonders of the Rocky Mountain region. In 1915 Rocky Mountain National Park became a reality.

This book collects a number of nature articles Mills wrote and had published in various magazines (The Saturday Evening Post was a favorite publication). Subjects include wild sheep, mountain lakes, the grizzly bear, beavers, reforestation, the Chinook wind, and some personal adventures (one involving a trip over the San Juans between Ouray and Silverton on a "mountain pony"). Mills makes his presence felt in all the articles, and he has the ability to make the reader feel privileged to be in his company. Unconcerned with bookish information, he would much rather relate what he's seen and learned with his own eyes. Some of the articles are a bit self-serving in their unwavering praise for the Rocky Mountain NP region, but he can be excused pushing his pet project so diligently. Mills's mountain adventures in all seasons and conditions are legendary, and anyone with a hankering for first-hand mountain experiences from a master naturalist will find this book a pleasure to read.

While many works have been published addressing the history of the American Indian nations and their liquidation, it is rare to find this addressed in a rigorous anthropological way. In particular, anthropological analysis of Native American dispossession seems to treat the Indians as a subject and the European Americans as a control group--somehow above anthropological scrutiny. White, therefore, renders a rare service in treating both the Indians and their European American interlocutors as vulnerable actors, subject to misunderstandings, panic, and folly.

Another, more important virtue of this book is to explode persistent notions about the economic organization of pre-industrial peoples. White explodes--as did Polanyi, et al--the Hayekian notion of primitive economic man. We learn that "trade" among the profiled Indian nations was not driven by prices and scarcity, but by honor and reciprocal obligation. This misconception has continued to plague Western relations either with pre-modern societies (e.g., in West Africa & the Pacific) but also marginalized communities within industrialized societies (e.g., South Central Los Angeles, or North African diaspora communities in urban France).

The familiar, morally satisfying analyses of Western/pre-modern contacts, and their abysmal aftermaths, tend to rely on obvious criminality on the part of the Western actors. This is insidious because it minimizes the implications of an historical narrative for modern social relations (by making it seem like a bizarre anomaly) and because it makes it so much harder to witness and protest modern destructive behavior.

I found this book helpful, informative and inspiring. I applaud the courage, spirit and conviction of those who contributed to this volume who spoke up and exercised their international human right of freedom of expression on behalf of Rushdie's own legal right to the same right under international human rights law. May the author Salman Rushdie continue to write award-winning fiction celebrated around the world by discriminating readers and writers and may there always be courageous and conviction-filled individuals who refuse to be intimidated by terrorists and other thugs who commit criminal acts around the world in violation of recognized international legal norms

The book is divided according to the taxonomy Rossman has developed to group the varieties of ultra-nationalist thought: "neo-Eurasianism" (conceptualized by Rossman as geopolitical antisemitism); Gumilev's theory; "National Bolshevism;" "neo-Slavophilism;" "National Orthodoxy;" and biological racism referring to the "Aryan" myth. Though terminologically somewhat confusing, for the purpose of Rossman's investigation, this conceptualization of the ideological spectrum seems to lead him to a rather useful classificatory scheme. It allows Rossman to systematically describe, analyze and criticize each major school in Russian post-Soviet ultra-nationalist thought neither ignoring any relevant approach, nor drowning in the hundreds of articles, brochures, periodicals, and books that constitute potential objects of his study. The ideas, theories and concepts introduced and criticized by Rossman are far too sophisticated and numerous to do them justice here. I shall mention thus only the few minor quarrels I have with the study.
Rossman's extensive discussion of the philo- and antisemitic tendencies in pre-revolutionary Russian religious philosophy and Sergei Nilus is interesting, but, in this context, ultimately unnecessary. A short summary would have been sufficient.
Some of the relevant secondary literature is missing in Rossman's bibliography (Matthias Messmer, Semyon Reznik, Michael Hagemeister, John B. Dunlop, Yitzhak Brudny, Wayne Allensworth, Hildegard Kochanek, Viacheslav Likhachëv, etc.). Also, in the last part of his study, Rossman makes a statement that I found debatable. Rossman writes:
"Russia is a very heterogeneous country in terms of its racial composition, and thus, the use of racist rhetoric can compromise even the most well-established political parties. In addition, the historical memory of the Second World War makes citizens of the former Soviet Union hostile to any fascist ideology [...]." (p. 256)
Though this is, perhaps at a first glance, a correct assessment, it might be misleading in two ways. First, it could be possible to classify Lev Gumilev's theory of ethnogenesis conceptualizing ethnic or supra-ethnic groups as biological entities, and Russia-Eurasia as such a super-ethnos as a novel variety of racism. If so, racism - though certainly not its Nazi version - constitutes, as Rossman shows in his second chapter, a major intellectual movement in post-Soviet Russia.
Second, it seems too optimistic to assume a Russian hostility to "any kind" of fascist ideology. Certainly, Nazi ideas and symbols are rejected by most Russians; Italian Fascist ideology seems also discredited. However, new post-war ultra-nationalist ideologies avoiding Nazi rhetoric, and posing under such headings as "ethnic pluralism," "Third Way," or "traditionalism" may still qualify to be categorized as varieties of fascism (understood as a generic concept). All of the above critique is, however, ultimately inconsequential, and in no way questions the significance of Rossman's contribution.
The one serious remark to be made concerns the publishers editorial work: There are dozens of misprints (especially in the endnotes), and an embarrassing succession of two versions of the same paragraph in the conclusions (p. 283).
Otherwise, however, this is an informative summary and critique of the most relevant anti-Semitic ideologies in Russia today, and excellent introduction to the subject. One hopes that it finds a wide readership not only among students of antisemitism and the history of ideas, but also among experts on international right-wing extremism and contemporary Russian politics and society.