Iowa Books

Simply a must-read....not only for journalists, but anyone interested in modern application of classic (and not-so-classic) philosophic thought. From Korzybski to Aristotle, this book does not disappoint!

In March 1857, Inkpaduat and his band of Native Americans attacked several frontier Iowa and Minnesota settles leaving some forty dead and taking four young women captive. Rumors spread rapidly about the event. The U.S. Amry from Fort Ridgely and citizen militia rom Fort Dodge and Webster City, Iowa, and form New Ulm, Mandato, St. Peter, and Traverse des Sioux, Minnesota, marched through snowdrifts and spring floods to provide assistance to the survivors of the raid. Rescue of the captives and punishment of the renegades became a top priority of the government. Legends, Letters And Lies: Readings On The Spirit Lake Massacre Of 1857 includes readings from all facets of the event including military reports, contemporary newspaper accounts from the area (and from the East Coast), reports from the missionaries who helped rescue the captives, first person stories of the burial parties and more. Also included are lists of those involved including the militias and the U.S. Army unit, the Native Americans who went in search of Inkpaduta and his band, and the claims filed to recover losses resulting from the event. Highly recommended for students of Native American studies, as well as Iowa and Minnesota frontier history, Legends, Letters And Lies is a superb example of regional frontier history and is enhanced for the reader with maps, illustrations, a bibliography, and an index.

I first read this book almost fifty years ago as a teenager. A friend had given a copy to my father as a going away present, when he set out to emigrate to America. Even though my parents were much too late to homestead or farm, this story gave me a clear understanding of the promise of America for the immigrant. The hero of the narrative is a poor day laborer's child on one of the large estates of the Kaiser's Germany. He grows up in a one room cabin, which is shared by the livestock, if any. As a teen he emigrates to America.

He does not find the streets paved with gold. Life is never easy. A son almost dies of diphtheria. Home made carts set to run on the rails, are demolished by trains. Bad years come after good. Hired help is difficult to find. But with hard work, honesty, a devoted wife, and time he builds a good life, a family and farm in Iowa. Nothing like this would have been possible at home.

Richard Trost has given us a clear translation, which lovingly reflects the idealism of the original. He also has given careful attention to Americanizing the frequent north German dialect expressions of the original. Anyone who is interested in the immigrant experience will find this book a must reading. It is also a very enjoyable story.

Wayne S. Cole is well-known as an influential and significant professor-author in the historiography of American foreign relations. In this book, we see a different side: a careful and reflective memorist who has pondered on the significance of his life and the times that he lived through. And what times they were: Depression-era America, World War II, the challenging years of the Cold War, the onset of campus unrest, changes in the nature of the family and societal patterns. Cole lived through it all, and observed carefully the world around him, with a shrewd and often unsparing bluntness and honesty. In this book we learn what it was like to grow up in a rural community in the 1930's, how the war affected him and his colleagues (he became a skilled and indeed gifted flight instructor), and how he adjusted to the postwar world, embarking on a career that would see him rise to the pinnacle of academic recognition in the field of American foreign affairs. Cole's book is at once thoughtful and insightful, without being maudlin, sentimental, or detail-obsessive. It is strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in social and cultural history.

Written for interior design course classroom use, this book explains the concepts of lighting using everyday terms rather than engineering jargon. The calculations and formulas have been simplified but still provide reliable forecasting of light levels. There is a discussion of the various types of lighting available, their costs, and other economic aspects.

In this collection of essays Professor Guillory does an outstanding job reflecting upon rural and small town life in central Illinois. Whether ruminating on Lincoln, pick up trucks, old cars, favorite restaurants, narrow two lanes, and the tasks of restoring an old home, Guillory displays a keen and literate sensitivity to his adopted, beloved land. Recommended for those who appreciate graceful, thoughtful essays on rural themes!

Bob Artley's LIVING WITH PIGS is a fun display of satire and farm animal insights. Artley's visions of life on the farm is applied to the pig in a series of cartoon panels which present pig insights, followed by short vignettes reflecting on their feeding, care, and psyche.

"Lone Tree" is an account of a killing rampage by a one-time prosperous Iowa farmer and a metaphor about the killing of the American farmer during the 1980's. Author Bruce Brown does a great job of examining the psychology of prosperity, the cause and consequences of Federal Farm policies, and the forces that propelled Dale Barr to kill his neighbor, wife, and banker. As we see and smell corporate hog confinements dotting our landscape and witness the continued fall of farm incomes, the conditions for a reenactment of the tragedy of Lone Tree exist. Not a fun book, but a good one.

Don't expect to find everything mentioned in the book; it's been awhile since it's been written. I can only speak for Harrold, SD, but the Centennial Cafe has been torn down, and Bohning's Grocery went out, though the building's still there. Still, it's a good history, and the most thorough one about the state that I've read. That includes the ones about Deadwood and Mt. Rushmore, because of their narrow scope.

As a person that has lived in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area all my life, I find the books by authors who discuss their childhood in that area especially attractive. Paul Engle grew up when horses were still the primary form of power for transportation and farm work in the Cedar Rapids area. His father was a horseman who worked 12 and 16 hours a day, 365 days a year, which was the typical work life of most men at the time. His mother was a housewife that cooked, cleaned, raised and processed most of their food, sewed and nursed, which was also typical of women at the time. Many times he talks about how rough their hands were from the calluses.
Paul and his siblings were put to work as soon as they were able, his hands were rarely idle, selling papers, working in the drugstore and even lighting the Saturday fire for local Jewish families. He often talks about the smells of sweat (both human and horse), manure, liniment, lotions and food. His father came home smelling of horses every day, it was a natural part of their existence. One of the thrills that he describes is when the local butcher was smoking ham, he allowed the children to put their head in the smokehouse and breath in the fumes. Paul considers the subsequent coughing fit to be a small price to pay for the joy.
Yet, like nearly everybody that grew up in such an environment, he looks back on his childhood with great fondness, writing about it with reserved yet deep emotion. Despite the fact that his father would yell at the children and give them an open-handed wack on the sit-down when it appeared to be needed, Paul still expresses deep love and respect for his father.
Engle's childhood is a time long gone, a time of very hard work with very little monetary rewards. Yet, the character and memories that were generated when he was young are so powerful that he clearly believes that there was little that could possibly have made his early life more formative or happier. Life was hard but never more rewarding than what he experienced and he writes about it with such pride and joy that you cannot help but believe that something fundamental has been lost.