Iowa Books

This is a fasinating story about a man I personally knew while training at his flight school in Ames, Iowa. A well written account of his life, especially his time of service during WW2. Flying B-24's over Germany, his plane was brought down and he was captured. A riveting tale of life as a POW and eventual liberation at the end of the war. The book then goes on to talk about his post-war service flying B-36s and the successful founding of his flight school. A well written piece that will have you wanting more. A great book about a great pilot. Rest in peace, Hap.

I have not read the book, but the author spoke to our rotary club yesterday. He is a retired architect who lives in Ames, Iowa and started writing about WWII veterans he met and interviewed. He shared some amazing stories about men who survived 32 degree water after crashing in the North Atlantic, one who refused to surrender in the Phillipines and lived in the jungle with Phillipino resistance fighters for over 2 years, a man who survived 4 wounds from machine gun fire and a man who missed a mission during which his plane exploded in mid air from a direct hit in their fuel tanks. Mr. Rudi is a great story teller and the message is loud and clear. War is Hell.

I keep this book in my car all the time, and it's pretty beat up. That's the sign of a good book on fly fishing for trout. If you want to fly fish for trout in Iowa, you should have this book and refer to it regularly. The directions at times could be more clear, partly because some of the roads have gone from their original names to something like 157th Street, but the insights are incomparable. Also, take a look at Ross Mueller's books on trout fishing in the Upper Midwest, to go with this book.

Jene Hughes has done anglers a service with this book. Iowa has some excellent trout streams and a season that is open year-round. This book helps you locate the streams and gives information on flies to use. My only suggestion would be for more detailed maps.

This is a very good and highly readable overview of the various "ethnic" regiments that made up the Union forces during the Civil War. From funny to heartbreaking to admirable, the stunning variety of soldiers that entered the Union armies is fascinating. Some regiments were specifically formed to take in ethinc soldiers of a certain nationality but when few recruits of that group joined they took in all comers. The ethinic makeup of the Union forces was often times as colorfull as their wide variety of uniforms.

Many people assume that the tale of immigrants to this country are often harassed and discriminated against solely by "Native" Americans until they assimilate, hence the "melting pot" analogy. William L. Burton sets out to debunk such a black and white approach to the immigrant population of the United States during the Civil War period. He does so within a framework of the Union ethnic regiments raised during the war. The author points out that much of the discrimination of certain ethnic groups was by other ethnic groups, rather than by native-born Americans. The story of these ethnic regiments was also largely a story of political and religious scheming, personal advancement, and to further the reputation one's own ethnic group as patriotic and loyal Americans. As the war progressed, many ethnic regiments lost their ethnic identities as conscription and lack of ethnic volunteers caused these regiments to become more and more like any other Union regiment. The experiences of the two main ethnic groups, the Germans an the Irish, are compared and contrasted throughout the book, with other groups such as the Scandinavians, the English, the Scotch, the Italians, the French, and others are handled as well.

Burton believes that the political parties of Civil War America embraced rather than discriminated against ethnics. The Know-Nothings and other anti-foreign and anti-immigrant groups were dying out by the time the Civil War started in 1861. In addition, political parties were happy to have famous foreigners such as the German Carl Schurz and the Irishmen Michael Corcoran and James Mulligan. These men tried to align their countrymen with whatever political party they were affiliated with. The Irish tended to be overwhelmingly Catholic and loyal to the Democratic Party. Germans, on the other hand, tended to vote along the same lines as native Americans, with no one religion or political party holding sway. In many cases, fights over ethnicity were not between ethnics and natives, but rather between two different ethnic groups, says the author. Each group basked in the glow of battlefield victories by their units, while also sharing in the shame of any defeat.

The raising of ethnic regiments differed in some cases, but in many ways the characteristics were the same. Many ethnic regiments started the war with a strong ethnic identity. Others, however, had difficulty fulfilling their quotas when an ethnic group did not have a large representation in a given state. The 79th New york Highlanders, ostensibly a Scotch regiment, was from the start made up of people of many different ethnicities. Other regiments, like the 32nd Indiana (German),8th New York (German), and 69th New York (Irish), were almost exclusively composed of one ethnic group at the beginning of the war. One pattern seemed to hold true throughout the war, according to Burton. As disease and bullets took their toll and ethnic heroes were disgraced or disillusioned, the pool of ethnic manpower dropped rapidly. As conscription became the norm, the ethnic character of these regiments slowly disappeared. By the end of the war, many of these regiments were filled with a polyglot collection of different nationalities and religious groups.

The men who led these regiments were as varied as the regiments themselves. Consider August Willich and Louis Blenker, both German immigrants. Willich was a poor Prussian who never did learn to speak English well and who commanded in a down to earth, no-nonsense style. This colonel of the 32nd Indiana led it to great renown as one of the hardest-fighting Union regiments of the war. His countryman Louis (Ludwig) Blenker was a "Forty-Eighter", a failed revolutionary from the unrest in Germany in 1848. Blenker, a former wine-maker from Worms, led a lavish lifestyle while in the Union Army. His 8th New York was known as somewhat of a "tourist attraction" for their opulent parties and other activities around Washington, D.C. In addition, Blenker had what was essentially an entourage surrounding him at his headquarters. Many German mercenaries and other German notables who could not find a place elsewhere were welcomed into Blenker's "family". In fact, Blenker eventually rose to command the only all-German division ever assembled during the Civil War. Two Irishmen show serious contrasts as well. Some men such as Thomas Meagher of Irish Brigade fame were open Fenians, Irishmen who wanted to eventually see the independence of Ireland come by force if necessary. They believed that the Civil War was a perfect proving ground for future soldiers of the Fenian movement. Meagher welcomed his association with the Fenians. Others, such as political mastermind James Mulligan in Chicago, catered privately to the Fenians while publicly denying any involvement with the group. This was to curry favor with the Catholic Church (who despised the Fenians) and to also seem less dangerous to mainstream America. One thing united most of these men as the war went on: ambition. To hold a colonelcy was to wield power, and these men did anything they could to keep their regiments in the field as viable fighting machines. This led, as discussed earlier, to the loss of ethnic identity in regiments. Anyone who wanted to join was welcomed as a way to fill the ranks.

I enjoyed Melting Pot Soldiers, but this book is more of an introduction to the topic rather than a full blown, in-depth study of the various ethnic regiments of the Union army. Weighing in at 282 pages long, Burton's book does succeed in showing how the various ethnic regiments often experienced the same problems of political intrigue, power-mad individuals within the regiment or outside of its ranks, dissatisfaction with the introduction of other ethnic groups, etc. The author also provides an interesting look at how native-born Americans and ethnics interacted within their own groups and when dealing with other ethnics. Burton's main point seems to be that these ethnic groups, despite their differences with native-born Americans and with each other, were truly Americans from the beginning. These various groups of people had chosen to come to America from their native lands for one reason or another, and whatever the reason, forged a new American way of life. Burton closes the book by saying, "the best-kept secret of the ethnic regiments is how truly American they were." Those whose ancestors came to this country and participated in its greatest tragedy will particularly enjoy this book. Those interested in how ethnic populations interacted with native Americans during the war years will also find the book to be a good read. If you are new to this subject and want a solid primer, you cannot go wrong with Melting Pot Soldiers.

As I have noted in my review of Leon Trotsky's memoir My Life (click see all my reviews) today's public tastes dictate that political memoir writers expose the most intimate details of their private personal lives in the so-called public square. Here, as in Trotsky's memoir, Serge will offer up no such tantalizing details. These old time revolutionaries seem organically averse to including personal material that would distract from their political legacies. That is fine by me. After all that is why political people, the natural audience for this form of history narrative, appreciate such works. Contemporary political memoir writers take note.

Serge was a militant from his youth. However the October 1917 Russian Revolution is the real start of his political maturation and wider political influence. I believe the reader will find the most useful information and Serge's most insightful political analysis dates from this period. Serge became a secondary Communist leader after the Bolshevik seizure of power and in various capacities, most notably as a journalist for the Communist international, witnessed many of the important events in and out of Russia in the 1920's and 1930's. Moreover, for a long period of time he was a key member of the Trotsky-led Left Opposition to the rise of Stalinism which formed in the Russian Communist Party and later in the Communist International in the 1920's. Serge eventually broke politically with Trotsky in the late 1930's over the class nature of the Soviet state and organizational differences on the role of the revolutionary party in the struggle and in power. Serge's later politics and activities are murky, somewhat disoriented and the subject of controversy (see the Appendix in Memoirs and my review of Serge's book Kronstadt). However, Serge's analysis and insights as a witness to this period of history retain their value, especially his analysis of the, for leftists, very troublesome Stalinist purges and terror campaigns of the 1930's.

Thus, as with Trotsky's memoir, you will find a thoughtful political self-examination by a man trying to draw the lessons of the degeneration of the Russian Revolution, the subsequent defeats of the international working class movement, the devastating destruction of the fellow revolutionary cadre who made and administered the early Soviet state while still defending the gains of that revolution. Overshadowing these concerns is a constant personal struggle to maintain one's revolutionary integrity at all costs. That is, not to wind up like Bukharin or Zinoviev and the like, compromised and lost to the struggle for socialism. All this, moreover, and perhaps hardest of all still maintain a sense of revolutionary optimism for the future organization of human society.

Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin once commented that in the run-up to the October Revolution the political whirlwind stirred up by that revolution inevitably brought those individuals and organizations looking for the resolution of the revolutionary dilemma into the Bolshevik orbit. This was most famously the case with Trotsky's Petersburg Inter-District organization that fused with the Bolsheviks in the fateful summer of 1917. That same whirlwind later drew in the best elements of the Western labor movement as word of the revolution reached the outside world. Previously, Serge had been close to the French anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movement but as happens in great revolutions he, like other militant anarchists, was drawn to the reality of the Soviet experiment despite political differences over the question of the state. Despite this he, generally, like the non-Bolshevik militants served the revolution with distinction. Thus, this fateful political decision to cast his personal fate with the Russian Revolution led him to the series of political adventures and misadventures that enliven his memoir.

At the beginning of the 21st century when socialist political programs are in decline it is hard to imagine the spirit that drove Serge to dedicate the better part of his life to the fight for a socialist society. However, at the beginning of the 20th century he represented only a slightly younger version of that revolutionary generation of Eastern Europeans and Russians exemplified by Lenin, Trotsky, Martov and Luxemburg who set out to change the history of the 20th century. It was as if the best and brightest of that generation were afraid, for better or worse, not to take part in the political struggles that would shape the modern world. Those same questions posed at the beginning of that century are still on the agenda for today's generation of militants to help resolve. This is one of your political textbooks. Read it.

There is not a better record of the Left Opposition to Stalinism available. A moving, sincere, exciting and interesting memoir of a largely forgotten political current of the first half of the twentieth century.

Midwest Marvels: Roadside Attractions Across Iowa, Minnesota, The Dakotas, And Wisconsin by freelance writer Eric Dregni is a handy 437-page travel guide to many of the munificent and iconic roadside attractions scattered along the highways and byways of five midwestern states. Lavished throughout with black and white photos of strange scenic wonders, Midwest Marvels is a type of entertaining curiosity tour featuring a text which is illustrated with photographs and down home folk tales. All of the attractions are real and actually exist, albeit sometimes hard to believe (Og the Gorilla, King Kong of the Prairie?). Midwest Marvels is well researched, as for example, the chapter on Peanuts Park, in St. Paul, Minnesota which has a thumbnail sketch of the famous comic artist, born in St. Paul, containing little known facts about Charles Schulz's history of leaving the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1950 for greener pastures when it decided his weekly fee of $10 was "too much for simple drawings (p. 149)." Midwest Marvels is filled with the quirky, wild, wacky landmarks of the Upper Midwest. From the Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, to the Effigy Mounds of Marquette, Iowa, Midwest Marvels presents useful information about attractive features, history, locations, hours, prices of admission, and local colour stories. It is well worth the price to the traveler unfamiliar with what the five-state Upper Midwest area has to offer the curious passerby.

As a lifelong resident, I've always found the caricatured depictions of the Midwest and we Midwesterners (e.g. Fargo) pretty entertaining in that there's an undeniable kernel of truth. This book, to my simultaneous horror and delight, does not require suspension of disbelief. The narrative, maps and photos cast crossed kino eyes on the sublime weirdness of Midwestern reality- like the Ron Schara Wooden Leg Museum in Gaylord, MN.

Read this book. It will inform your roadtrips and make for swank church-basement conversation on Saturday night.

In order for nursing to function in the electronic world, we MUST have a coded standardized professional nomenclature to be represented in the health care record. To ignore that fact is to ignore reality.
The NOC work is, in my opinion, the most viable of the standardized outcomes languages. The NINR has supported its development with funding for research on the validity and reliability of the outcomes.
Every nurse and student nurse needs to familiarize him/herself with the text and the outcomes language of the nursing profession.

Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) authored by Johnson, M, Maas,M. & Moorhead, S. did a outstanding job in difining NOC and enriching my knowledge about NOC.

This is a most accurate account of daily living in a small Iowa town. The subtlety of the author's descriptions can only be fully appreciated by one who has grown up in that environment. Bauer makes no apologies for the foibles of the townspeople, but neither does he seem to satirize them. His insight into the people of Prairie City adds a natural warmth without lathering up with any undue sentimentality.

I would recommend this to anyone who has an interest in small towns in the Midwest - and what makes them tick.

Enjoyed his slice-of-life descriptions of people he spent time with. At first I was puzzle at the choices of characters, all men (incuding his father)and mainly those who did manual labor. Where was the rest of the town? Then I realized that he examining the people that he (and me) had least understood growing up.

This book is just spectacular. There is just a vast range of topics in this book. There are chapters on chemical immobilization, medical termnology, effects of stress, and numerous chapters on restraint procedures by Order/Family and in some cases individual species. Each restraint procedure has detailed pictures. The only problem I have with this book is the pictures are black and white, other than that fact the pictures are very clear and informative. If you work in any wildlife facility, or plan to, I highly recomend buying this book. Also would come in handy for any biologist or zoologist who plans to do in the field studies because of the indepth chapters on chemical restraint/immobilization.

An excellent information source for the novice or expert animal handler. I use this book extensively for handling of my animals, non of which are exotics. Fowler describes each technique clearly, in terms everyone can understand. This book will be a valued addition to any library whether you're a farmer, zookeeper or dog owner.

Salt Lantern by William Towner Morgan is an in-debth study of a man and his relationship with the home he was born and raised in. The story he weaves includes his personal recollections, other family members' recollections, as well as a chronological history of the structures his ancestors lived in over the centuries.

Salt Lantern is also a personal history of the various branches of Morgan's families--in England, Ireland, early America, and into the Twentieth Century. It appears he was born after the sudden death of his father, he was raised in a household of women, and he grew up not really understanding his place in the family.

Morgan seems to become the Salt Lantern, an artifact that has signifigant meaning within the family, but is not really understood. Morgan explores his own birth, life, and relationships through the structures he studies and describes.

This is a study of history, architecture, family relationships, and personal memoir. A good read.

SALT LANTERN: TRACES OF AN AMERICAN FAMILY is a salty journey with author, Bill Morgan, as he traces his life and records his family history. Beginning with his great-grandmother's salt-filled chimney lantern, Morgan captures his ancestral family history through his study of family homes, landforms, letters, and family artifacts.

Morgan travels back through time by visiting ancestral homes in England, Ireland, Scotland; then he moves to Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota searching for buildings and landscapes, letters and historical documents that help him tell his story.

Satl Lantern is also about Morgan himself. As a child gowing up in Pipestone, Minnesota, with a single mother, surrounded by older siblings and cousins, (his father died before he was born), Morgan uses the environment he grew up in to find his own sense of place and purpose within his immediate family and his ancestral family.

Morgan adds fresh memories written by his brothers and sister, as well as journals and other family documents to create a comprehensive American famiy history.

For anyone interested in family history, architecture, or just a good read, this book is a pearl. Photos throughout help to tell Morgan's story. Esspecially interesting is the story and photo of the Salt Lantern House that inspired Morgan to pursue this project. Morgan tells us he now has the family heirloom in his possession.

I attended school in Schleswig Iowa so I was cativated from the beginning of the book. I thought the book was well researched and it would be enjoyable reading for anyone with roots in the community. Every community has its culture and I felt that Mr. Grill did an excellant job of depicting the essence of life in this Iowa farm town.

Schleswig is 100 years old this year. It is a town located in Crawford County, Iowa, and anyone familiar with the town should read this book. It traces the history of the town for the past 100 years, and the history of the area for millions of years before the town came into existance.