Illinois Books

A fascinating journey through the doowop era in Chicago. It's all here-singers, songwriters, record companies. If it happened, Pruter has chronicled it. Another book by the same author-"Chicago Soul"-picks up the story where this book ends.

The main thesis of Sanborn's book is that violence as seen through the examples of the Tsarist and Soviet armies cemented the Russian nation together. The first part of the book, Sanborn writes about how the Soviet army managed to tighten draft evasions by rewarding those families that had members serving in the military while confiscating the land of draft evaders and their families during the Russian Civil War.Sandborn also deals with the different nationalities in the Russian empire. Belorussians and Ukrainians assimilated into the Russian army but were later segregrated into seperate ethnic units during the Russain Civil War. While Central Asians resisited service in the Russian army and the Jews were regarded by both Tsarist and Communist officers as subversives and dangerous to morale. The middle section Sanborn descibes how gender roles were coonected to the new Russin nationalism. Both Tsarist and Soviet propaganda stated that Russian men must develop their bodies to protect their nation and the family, while Russian women were required to have sons that could drafted into the army. The final section Sanborn writes how the Russian state would redeem criminals and draft evaders if they rejoined the army, but both the Soviet and Tsarist system would harshly punish pacificit sects. Although the state rewarded violent behavior it could not control it as seen through the various atrocities during the Russian Civil War.The main weakness of Sanborn's book is that he does not write about the treatement about the injured soldiers during and after the Russian Civil War and how this influeced their perception of the Soviet state. Overall this an excellent social history of the Russian army and how it contributed the creation of the Soviet Union.

This book might be out of print, but I urge you to track it down and read it. It's less than 200 pages. The story will hook you. If you don't fall in love with Anthoula, then something is wrong.

A kaleidoscope of the marvelous sixties as seen through the rear view mirror......enlightening, energizing, and above all entertaining. This is an enjoyable book for a warm summer afternoon.

Rose has written an important book that should be read by all people interested in work and justice. By carefully examining shop floor activism at the mill and life in the Duquesne community, Rose reveals the challenges of forming a union in a key industry beset by a working class divided by skill, ethnicity, and race. Based on the most impressive archival research I have ever encountered, this books stands as a signal achievement in the profession. It is an important story well told! Buy this book!

One of the finest entries in Collins' nate Heller series. Publishes at what I consider the character's high water mark.

It is unfortunte that this book is out of print. Bring It Back!

This book of X. Zubiri is perhaps the most excellent philosophical cosmology of de twentieth century.

An Early Encounter with Tomorrow won the 1998 Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History from the American Philosophical Society. From the Society's press release, this book meets "the highest standards of imaginative scholarship", "makes available much new information", and "interpretations cross disciplinary lines and point the way to new approaches." "Arnold Lewis demonstrates and analyzes the cultural importance of the Columbian Exposition and of the skyscrapers in Chicago's Loop....The major theme is Chicago's international importance in the transformation of Western culture at the end of the 19th century. Europeans who endtered the Loop walked int a real future, not a vision of one. Exhilarated or disquieted, they acknowledged Chicago's central district as the 'Museum of the present.' The minor theme is the usefulness for historians to study the encounter between the established and the new, the collision between old world assumptions and new world realities, not only in the Loop but also in the Columbian Exposition." From Meredith Clausen's April 1998 review in the American Historical Review, "Carefully researched, well-documented, clearly organized, and beautifully written, Lewis's book should be required reading for anyone in the field of American history, cultural studies, and women's studies as well as architectural history. It is cultural history at its best."

If you love architecture and want to understand the birth of modernism and tall buildings in America, and uniqueness of the Chicago school of architecture -- the inspiration for generations of American architects including Sullivan's student Frank Lloyd Wright -- you have to have this book. It is a gorgeous work of art, the design of the book is so simple and compelling, the large plate photographs do justice to both the beauty and ingenuity of the architecture as well as the architectural photography. For lovers of art books, architecture, black and white photographs, for those who want to own a book as a piece of art, this is a wise investment. I know I treasure it -- reading it is like taking a journey to the past, one in which American architects still dared to dream.

Now in a revised and updated second edition, Camille Stagg's The Eclectic Gourmet Guide To Chicago is a reliable and informative guide to more than two hundred of Chicago's top restaurants. Rated and ranked, each restaurant receives a complete, one-page, in-depth description of its best dishes, atmosphere and service. The restaurants are indexed by cuisine, quality, value, and location, with maps divided by geographic zone to locate the restaurants for easy planning by locals or out-of-towners. All pertinent information is provided including hours, reservation, credit card, dress, and parking information. Of special value is the "best picks" section for everything from burgers to desserts to delis. If you are going to be spending time in Chicago, get hold of a copy of Camille Stagg's The Eclectic Gourmet Guide To Chicago to make culinary and dining memories you won't soon forget.