Kansas Books

I was curious to know what the secret was, yet afraid to find out. If horror ever needed a wake up call, this book has sucessfully done it. I recommend this book to anyone who's into horror and looking for a good read.This book breathes new life into the horror genre.

Great Book!! I was looking for a new kind of horror story.
The story was fresh and alluring. I couldn't put the book down.
Once you start reading this book, finishing it is a must! I couldn't get enough of this book. This book takes you to another world. A world, I woudn't mind paying to take a tour of. I hope Kansas Rae write a part two to this book. I know some director is ready to turn this book into a movie, and when they do; I will be the first person in line to buy a ticket. The book, Keep The secret Alive is a good read!

Ralph Voss's A Life of William Inge is a superb biography with impeccable balance between academic integrity and compassion for the subject. The work is that of a superior scholar who is a relentless detective. Dr. Voss has written a candid and painfully honest analysis of the complex and secretive Inge . Every last scrap of information has been unearthed in compiling the bibliography for this book. A less able author might have been tempted to exploit the anguish of Inge's tortured sexuality to construct a tawdry narrative concentrating on his personal life to the exclusion of an examination of his creative genius and contribution to American drama. Instead, Voss opted to explore all aspects of Inge's damaged psyche and in the process has simultaneously compiled an accurate and fascinating glimpse of post World War II middle class American morality.
The illusive, perplexing Inge was not an easy subject. A Life of William Inge belongs on the shelf of any person interested in the history of the stage, and is absolutely a must buy, gotta have book, for those attempting to write biographies. Not only is it the ultimate standard for combining flawless research skills with a compelling narrative, it's an exquisitely objective account of a lonely troubled man who went from winning the Pulitzer Prize to taking his own life.

Within reading the first few pages of this well researched and illuminating biography of one of America's finest playwrights, it becomes obvious that author Ralph Voss is first and formost a major fan of William Inge, the bard of Kansas. That is always a prerequisite for embarking on a biographical journey. However, Voss' fandom does get in his way frequently as he unsuccessfully confuses is goal: is he a fan or a critic. This is really a small matter as the book does provide a fascinating insight into William Inge, a man whose private nature makes him a shadowy enigma at best.

Even almost thirty years after his death, Voss (writing in 1988), finds it very difficult to focus on Inge's personal life. The book doesn't provide as effective an insight into the writing process or into the man's inter workings as say Leverich's recent biography of Tennessee Williams has. This is due in no small part to the simple but important fact most of Inge's surviving friends and family didn't really know him.

This leaves Voss with little choice but to focus on the work.

Voss makes it apparent that reading a biography of Inge is ultimately anti climatic as the thin layer of fiction in his work barely covers its ultimately autobiographical quality. Anyone who has read, watched or produced Inge's work will immediately recognize the forms, characters and language and situations relfected in his life. Voss proves most successful in drawing, enhancing and exploring those connections. This holds especially as the older,increasingly cynical and bitter Inge attempts to answer his critics (especially Robert Brustein!) and create plays reflective of the volatile 1960's and early 1970's. His latter plays failed perhaps because Inge tried to write outside of his strengths. Watching his bittersweet portraits of midwestern life crumble to dark and violent scenes of depravity really does fill the reader with a sense of sadness and loss. William Inge, like many great artists, decomposed in front of an audience.

Voss does admit that perhaps while Inge was not a great playwright in the sense he did not revolutionize the form as Brecht, Beckett, Odets, Williams, Miller and Wilder did, he did possess an uncanny ability to capture realistic dialouge.

Inge's sepia toned portraits of midwestern manners and life have been overshadowed by the canon of Williams, Miller and O'Neil to be sure. Voss makes the successful case that Inge stands as a proud equal to the more illuminary authors of America's rich dramatic tradition.

A fine read well worth the time and effort about a fine literary artist desperately in need of rediscovering. Even if it doesn't know whether it is a biography or critical evaluation.

Along with Jian Chen 1994 book on what drew Communist China into the Korean conflict, Prof. Zhang's book provides valuable insights on how Mao and the PLA "volunteer" army conducts its warfare against the much better equipped U.S. military. Red China paid a very high price to defend the North Koreans, and Prof. Chen explores the root motivation for this "sacrifice." Prof. Zhang's book focuses on the how of the war, from the Chinese view point. Working with previously classified Chinese documents, the book details how Mao and his military commanders (led by Peng Te-huai, who was purged three years after the Armstice) differed on the strategies and tactics, with Mao coming across as an incompetent bureaucrat who placed zero value on the lives of his soldiers. While there are many mistakes in this book concerning the movements of the U.S. forces (likely because Prof. Zhang is quoting from Chinese military memos -- but it would have been nice if he caught them and corrected them), this book is a must-read for every American who has not forgotten the Forgotten War and the hundreds of thousands of U.S. casualties.

Shu Guang Zhang provides an in depth perspective to the Chinese motivation for intervention in the Korean War, and a critical analysis of the strategy employed. Much can be learned of the battlefield strategy and political machinations of this most formitable foe, including the tactics of both the battlefield and the negotiation table.

This is a briskly paced overview of one hundred years' worth of presidents, from McKinley to Clinton (with a very brief mention of George W. Bush). That Gould starts with McKinley is notable, for historians have tended to place the origins of the modern presidency with his successor, Theodore Roosevelt. In tracing the development of the presidency as an institution, Gould follows a handful of key themes: (1) the rise of mass media and its effects on the presidency; (2) the rise of continual campaigning; (3) problem-ridden second terms; and (4) the decline of parties and its consequences. Only the fourth receives unsatisfactory treatment: Gould mentions it as a theme and never really follows up on it, and while parties as nominating and institutional forces may have declined with the spread of primaries, they surely play a larger role in today's polarized political atmosphere.

Each president is assessed, and except for the somewhat unique argument for McKinley, the analyses are not surprising. Gould, for the most part, agrees with other historians' assessments. Not enough time has lapsed since Clinton, and the chapter he gets is weak; Gould opted to focus on the scandals and controversies. Most interesting of all, perhaps, is Gould's conclusion that the modern presidency is ill-equipped to deal with the problems of this century.

Overall, a solid overview of the presidency.

This book is both erudite and accessible, and it's an excellent survey of the modern Presidency, which Gould, a respected University of Texas historian, points out has been transformed in roughly the past hundred years from an intimate, folksy, at times nearly one-man operation into an unwieldy, unworkable, and dangerously out-of-touch apparatus that has far less to do with running the country than it does with raising cash, making meaningless appearances and feeding the media, and getting re-elected to a Constitutionally-allowed (and historically-mandated) second term that in most cases is a failure compared with the first term. (Can you think of a President since Franklin Roosevelt whose second term was more successful than the first?)

Other reviewers of this book have pointed out that Gould's position on the evolution of the presidency is a paradox, since in order to be effective, the modern president must be a master of the perpetual campaign, and yet the perpetual campaign is what Gould believes is the bane of the presidency, transforming it into a position of celebrity and spectacle rather than one of leadership and policy. However, that is a paradox that needs to be examined more deeply in a philosophical context; this book is a survey, not a political science text, and Gould gets points for raising the paradox, which is a provocative one, in the first place.

The book is full of anecdotes and lucid detail about the modern presidents, along with Gould's snappy and precise evaluations of the strengths and weaknesses of each, and the factors in the broader political culture of each man's term in office that changed the presidency forever. He is not particularly partisan in his political stance; he has good and bad to say about each president. There are many surprises in this short but rewarding book, and there are excellent suggestions for further reading at the back.

A really good cozy mystery series that takes place in a small quaint town in Kansas. Picasso has opened a gourmet restaurant in this unusual setting and the townsfolk are loving it. Po and her gang of quilters are fans of Picasso's. A plump, little man with a gorgeous wife. His wife Laurel is found dead in the water and they're not sure if she slipped or it was foul play.....you figure it out. So the sloughing begins. With all the quaint shops, the loveable characters and a good mystery, you will find this another charming book in the series.

I enjoyed reading the second book on the Queen Bee Quilters. This one wasn't quite as complex as the first one, but all of the quilters are so genuine. This Quilt Bee reminds me of real quilting bees, the members are diverse, their preferences for techniques, fabrics, and colors are very different, and, of course their approach to projects vary depending on their way of starting new quilts. Our own little bee is so similar in many ways, and although every member is unique, we have so much life we have shared together that we are very close.

The previous review is right on; I would add that this book is succinct, and the prose is clear and laypersons should find it understandable. Indeed, laypeople might want to understand the problems that this 60-year-old case poses to our society now. The 9/11 attack and the subsequent Bush Administration order creating special military tribunals -- "military commissions" of the type that tried the 1942 saboteurs -- has inspired several new books on this incident. Mr. Fisher's book distinguishes itself in focusing on the legal importance of this case -- that became the Supreme Court's Ex Parte Quirin ruling. Quirin is still important case law in questions of special tribunals and wartime detention of enemy suspects. Further, and Mr. Fisher brings this out, the Bush Administration's tribunal system seems to be patterned on FDR's.

I recommend this and Louis Fisher's 2005 work, Military Tribunals and Presidential Power to those interested in post-9/11 legal issues.

REVIEWED BY PHILIP GOLD http://www.washtimes.com/books/

The Congressional Research Service, part of the Library of Congress, is filled with people who do fine work. Among the best is Louis Fisher, legal scholar and CRS senior specialist in Separation of Powers. Mr. Fisher combines a plain, effective style with a mature analytic sense. The result has been over three decades of books and studies that - blessings upon the taxpayer - actually inform and affect the real world. "Nazi Saboteurs on Trial," which Mr. Fisher intends as a prelude to his definitive history of American military tribunals, is only the latest example.
This short, meticulously researched monograph assesses one of the stranger legal escapades of World War II. The facts of the case are not in question. What matters is how the military and civilian court systems performed, the interaction of the executive and judicial branches, and whether that episode should or could serve as precedent for the trial of terrorists and other "unlawful combatants" by military means.
Mr. Fisher's answer: While such types do not and should not enjoy automatic access to the U.S. civilian court system and its protections, the use of military tribunals raises questions that cannot and should not be ignored.
The facts of the case are these.
In the 1941 "Sebold Affair," the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with the help of William Sebold, a German turned American counterspy, rolled up over 30 Nazi agents. Adolf Hitler, perturbed, demanded that English-speaking saboteurs be dispatched to America, there to smash factories and railroads and Jewish-owned department stores, spread panic, and generally make themselves a nuisance. German intelligence, the Abwehr, didn't think much of the idea, but deemed it prudent to keep the Fuhrer happy.
So they went out and recruited the original Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight: eight Germans who had lived in the United States (two of them naturalized citizens), but had returned to Germany in the '30s for various reasons. None was the brightest tree in the forest; group cohesion and mutual trust might be described as negative, at best. Still, the eight were given a few weeks' training, then toted aboard two submarines.
In June, 1942, one group landed in New Jersey, the other in Florida. They came ashore in German uniforms, which would give them combatant status in case of immediate capture. They then changed into civvies, buried their tradecraft, and walked off with not much more than their ample moneybelts and orders to win one for the Fuhrer.
They were apprehended quickly, mostly because one of their number, George Dasch, called the FBI to let them know they'd arrived. Perhaps none of the men intended actually to commit any sabotage. None did. But that didn't keep six of them from the electric chair that August, and two others from life sentences.
Justice, such as it was, came swiftly and questionably. President Franklin Roosevelt, taking a grim special interest in the case, determined to try them by secret military tribunal. He appointed the members and decreed himself the sole reviewing authority. Further, the tribunal would not be a standard court martial, governed by the Articles of War and other legislation. It would be an ad hoc commission, governed by the "laws of war" (a nebulous category) and empowered to make such procedural changes as it deemed expedient.
Among them: Although civilian and military courts could not impose the death penalty for actual acts of sabotage, this tribunal could, and did, for acts that were never committed, and may never have been intended.
Clearly, this setup raised numerous questions regarding the separation of powers, military jurisdiction in time of war, and of fundamental fairness. One of the defense attorneys petitioned the Supreme Court, which effectually evaded the issue until after the executions, then issued its opinion in Ex Parte Quirin - a document that did nothing for the luster of the Court, then or since.
In essence, concludes Mr. Fisher, the Supreme Court functioned as "an arm of the executive." It reaffirmed that enemy combatants have no constitutional right of access to civilian courts; that the two citizens had forfeited their citizenship by taking up arms; and that when they took off their uniforms, they became "illegal combatants" who could have been shot out of hand, but who were graciously afforded a trial.
Finally, the Court held that it could not assess the trial itself, since that was secret.
In sum, a mixed set of precedents, ranging from common sense to dereliction of duty. And the question arises - will we be able to learn from the affair to make the handling and disposition of terrorists and other "illegal combatants" both more effective and more just?
Or will we be fortunate even to do as well?

In this book, Hal Rothman provides a history of Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). Rothman sees this as an example of a new type of urban park, though he doesn't really spend any time comparing it to Gateway NRA in New York, Cape Cod NRA outside Boston, Cuyahoga NP outside Cleveland, Santa Monica Mountains NRA outside Los Angeles, and the many other examples of urban national parks - - which should probably include the open spaces in Washington DC such as Rock Creek Park and the National Mall, for that matter. Instead, he views GGNRA more or less as one of a kind, despite the title of the book.

Two related themes take up most of his book: "civic environmentalism," that is, the local interest groups that pushed for the park and that shape its every action; and the management challenges that the National Park Service (NPS) faces in this environment. These challenges include issues such as dealing with natural and man-made fires, off-leash dogs, a nude beach, protecting cultural and historic resources, and figuring out what to do with Alcatraz. Most of the book deals with such matters and the politics around them. Rothman's narrative always risks going off into minutiae, but he keeps his eye on the larger management issues.

Rotman also includes lots of "obiter dicta" in his narrative - - opinionated and unsupported comments about American politics and society that are irrelevant for the story here. It's indicative of this predilection that Rothman mentions Ronald Reagan and his Interior Secretary, James Watt, far more than he mentions Nixon, Carter, Clinton or either Bush, or their Interior Secretaries. Rothman would rather get in some digs at Reagan and Watts as he tells the story, though these two figures were no more involved in decisions at Golden Gate than, say, Clinton and Babbitt.

Aside from that distraction, this is an informative and well-crafted book. I'd like to know more about why people think Golden Gate is a *national* resources as opposed to a state or regional resources, and in fact many of its properties used to be state parks. Given the remarkable diversity in resources, why should all these non-contiguous units be gathered together in a single national recreation area? Rothman never addresses this larger issue, which seems to me a fundamental policy question about these kinds of parks.

Completing a full-length history of Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) might seem odd considering its relative youth compared to other national park areas. Hal Rothman, chair of the history department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas demonstrates the park deserves such a study because it is different than anything the National Park Service has managed before. At GGNRA, the traditional NPS management style had to be adapted for a dynamic urban population that visited the urban park for a variety of reasons, most of which were not the typical uses long-established in the bureau's "crown jewels" like Yellowstone, Yosemite and Glacier.

Accustomed to exerting great influence in and around its larger, more conventional parks, at GGNRA the park held "one of many seats at a regional political and economic table" (x). Residents did not defer to park management like they had in and around the crown jewels. Previously, national parks functioned more as symbols than participatory reality (2). At GGNRA, the park service had to accept fully participating public and break its affinity to hiking by admitting visitors that enjoyed activities such as biking, hang gliding, skateboarding instead of simple sightseeing.

GGNRA has presented many management challenges. The park is largely without boundary signs or markers and it has been easy for visitors to overlook its national status (61). Many areas of the park contain private property, which is a source of management difficulty because the owners' decisions could impact visitors experience in the park and the park's ecology (94). Unlike any previous national park, GGNRA established a Citizen's Advisory Board. The NPS has greatly heeded to public comment in shaping management practices. The park presented one of the most comprehensive management plans ever enacted (62).

Interpreting became the linchpin of the park, a way of communicating to its endless constituencies. Instead of merely explaining features, interpretation in GGNRA explained the very presence of the Park Service (150). Interpretation and management of the park will always be a challenge, according to Rothman, because GGNRA is "asked to be all things to all people, all the time" (xi). GGNRA is a prime example demonstrating that no single presentation will impress all national park visitors. Multiple presentations must exist to appeal to a public that visits national parks for a myriad of reasons. Nowadays national parks are anything and everything to visitors, depending on their interests, whether they are recreational enthusiasts or car-bound sightseers.

The book contains one large map of the park, but no photographs or more detailed diagrams. The narrative would be thoroughly enriched by providing its readers with a means of visualizing the locations described. In the introduction, Rothman states that the Park Service embraced recreation in the 1960s. The park service, in reality, has embraced recreation since its inception. The author declares later in the narrative that the NPS was more accustomed to viewing its visitors as hikers and equestrians than bikers and skateboarders. Hiking and horseback riding are definitely forms of recreation. These small weaknesses aside, The New Urban Park proves a thorough study of how NPS management has had to reinvent itself to take on the administration of sanctuaries that appeal to a wider public than it has traditionally served.

This book takes a fascinating look at the educational policy in the USA since 1965. If you want to know more about US education policy, you need to read this book.

McGuinn's review of federal education policy and politics since Johnson's presidency is outstanding. His interview data dramatically enrich our understanding of the transformation of sentiment in the U.S. Congress since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). For readers who like to know what people were thinking about the role of the federal government in K-12 education, when they were thinking it, and how they acted in response to those ideas and proposals, McGuinn's study is essential reading.

At the same time, McGuinn's book is really about ESEA and its reauthorizations (the last of which is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 [NCLB]), not all of federal education policy. Inadequate attention is given to the politics and policy development of the other dramatic federal influence in K-12 schooling, namely, the Education for All Handicapped Children's Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-142), now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; recently reauthorized as the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, but frequently abbreviated as IDEA '04 and still referred to as IDEA). If you have an interest in IDEA politics and policy, Tiina Itkonen, who is a professor at the California State University, Channel Islands campus, has a book forthcoming (derived from her doctoral dissertation, "Stories of Hope and Decline: Interest Groups and the Making of National Special Education Policy"), which is sure to be seen as a profound contribution to the field.

The idea of regime change, which is the theoretical perspective adopted by McGuinn, is a good one. Clearly, there was a change in congressional leadership, largely through a consensus among moderate Democrats and Republicans, as well as significant and active leadership across three presidential administrations. There was also an evolution in thinking about the role of the federal government in school reform. The power of McGuinn's perspective is that it requires a careful longitudinal analysis of political events and policy proposals.

At the same time, I think McGuinn understates the power of John Kingdon's work in explaining how we arrived at NCLB as well as the importance of the 1994 reauthorization of ESEA during the Clinton administration. I recommend Christopher Cross' book, Political Education: National Policy Comes of Age, and Larry Cuban's book, The Blackboard and the Bottom Line: Why Schools Can't Be Businesses, for additional insights into the development of the political consensus behind NCLB and the motives that had been slowly and increasingly driving the development of that consensus for nearly three decades.

Finally, I would contend that McGuinn's assertion that NCLB represents revolution rather than evolution needs further examination. Here, I think his policy regime change perspective comes up short because it does not help us decide what sort of policy mechanism justifies the status of revolutionary precedent. The 1994 reauthorization of ESEA included nearly all of the policy language that appears in the 2001 reauthorization (NCLB). The difference between them is the policy mechanisms included in the legislation--ESEA 1994 was all voluntary and rhetorical, while NCLB 2001 is mandatory--not the substantive thinking behind where federal education policy should go. This is a fine point, but critical to those who are interested in the implications of McGuinn's book for political science.

If you are interested in additional books explaining NCLB, you may wish to consider these:
No Child Left Behind and the Public Schools by Scott Abernathy
Politics, Ideology & Education: Federal Policy During the Clinton and
Bush Administrations by Elizabeth H. Debray
No Child Left Behind (Peter Lang Primer) by Frederick M. Hess
School's in: Federalism And the National Education Agenda by Paul Manna

This is a small book, and the history within the covers is a collection of diaries from different persons, including one Mexican peasant - Jose Librado Gurule - who found someone (or someone found him) to write down his memories from the hard-working teamster and laborer aspect. His patient people were virtual slaves of the landmaster, a wealthy Mexican sheepman - Jose Leandro Perea - (who used simple "debt owed" rather than "ownership of" to control his workers, who were in reality life-long indentured servants, never seeming to remove themselves from the debit side of his ledger. This trip was to be no exception to that idea, but rather an extension of it for most.

Perea also had a contract to help build a railroad, as well as setting up a frontier supply store, so it's likely he had a lot more in mind for the men to further his monetary benefit once they arrived out there. Since they paid for their own clothing (debit to the rapidly expanding ledger of Senor Parea) and other incidentals for the privilege of working for him, he quite possibly built the whole railroad with what they owed him for the Santa Fe Trip to supply the stuff he would ultimate sell back to them. It would also appear that all Jose got out of this was a new suit of clothes, which he did manage to do with money he "took with him", which had been his goal - his only goal aspired to - against the risks of the journey.

I thought his accounting of the Travails of the Trail to be one of the most interesting and effective, since they were from a different culture; which, though mingling on the same journey with the white drovers, wealthier wagon masters, including his own Mexican boss, was nevertheless a world apart though they moved and lived through the same one each day. Each set of eyes beheld the journey individually; each set of circumstances shaped the work load and the end result; but each life was risked in common every day.

It was a very, very good read and is worth adding to your Southwest History shelf. Four stars only because of it's short length in relation to it's overall worth, which was vastly important from the individual accounting aspect of it, and deserved more accumulation of the material from other sources and people. I'm sure there were more diaries out there that could have been found but were not and therefore, never added to an important work like this.

I knew I would be spending part of the summer living in raton, NM exactly on the Santa Fe Trail so I thought I'd try this book. I later found out from my brother in Santa Fe that the author is an extremely respected local journalist and historian.

the book are monographs or case studies of some of the people who lived and often died making the long trek. It was sort of an expressway of its day, the hardship and speed depending on whether or not you had the political clout ot have US Cavalry troops as escorts.

Anyone who travels anywhere near the Trail, or lives there, should donate this to local schools and libraries.

This is a workman like book containing good information, but its style is somewhat pedestrian. Its author is quite fair in his treatment of U.S. Presidents from Roosevelt through G.W. Bush and their relationships to the military, but he should have exercised better judgment in the book's organization. In his efforts to be fair and impartial for all administrations, he essentially followed a pretty rigid format and devoted longer chapters to those administrations that lasted eight years and shorter chapters to those that lasted four years or less. This is fine in some ways, but unfortunate in others. For example, this reviewer would have preferred him to provide a much more detailed discussion of the Truman Presidency during which a unified Department of Defense was created by merging the War and Navy Departments over the strong objections of the Navy and at the same time the first efforts were made to create a unified military command structure creating the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the same vain, a more extensive treatment of the varying roles of the Secretaries of Defense (SECDEF) over these years would have been welcome. Certainly, the author provides enough material on this subject to tantalize the reader into wanting to read more about the subject. His premise that the relations between the Joint Chiefs and the various U.S. Presidents can be examined without also examining the role played by the SECDEFis just plain wrong. All in all this is a good book that could have been a lot better.

I had the pleasure of reviewing this book while still in its manuscript form. If you have ever wondered what went on behind the scenes of the American Military, the interactions of a President and the key players of a military this book will not disappoint you.

Dr. Herspring's well researched book analyzes how the leadership of the Presidents conflicted or meshed with his top Military Advisors as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff and how ultimately this affected the history and the military actions of our country.

A must read for any Civil-Military Relations or Political Science student.