Kentucky Books

I highly recommend it, especially for residents of the Cincinnati Arch who enjoy geologic history.

I highly recommend it, especially for residents of the Cincinnati Arch who enjoy geologic history.

This book is a wonderful testimony of M's de Mille's perserverance in her chosen field of dance. M's de Mille uses the letters she wrote to construct her life as a dancer and later a choreographer.

M's de Mille does an excellent job of portraying the people she worked with (George Ballachine, Irving Berlin, Gertrude Lawrence, and Cole Porter among others) as well as describing herself, warts and all. She doesn't feel the need to make herself look good at someone else's expense.

It's amazing that a woman that was told she was ugly, who was definitely not encouraged to go into dance, managed to become one of the great, most memorable choreographers ("Oklahoma!", "Brigadoon" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" among many others) of all time. It's especially astounding to realize she did this without any help or encouragement from her famous uncle, Cecil de Mille or her father William de Mille (who was a successful playwright).

Read this book and find out how M's de Mille makes the long journey from a being a fired choreographer in New York to winning two Tony awards. You'll be glad to be along for this trip.

This book is a wonderful testimony of M's de Mille's perserverance in her chosen field of dance. M's de Mille uses the letters she wrote to construct her life as a dancer and later a choreographer.

M's de Mille does an excellent job of portraying the people she worked with (George Ballachine, Irving Berlin, Gertrude Lawrence, and Cole Porter among others) as well as describing herself, warts and all. She doesn't feel the need to make herself look good at someone else's expense.

It's amazing that a woman that was told she was ugly, who was definitely not encouraged to go into dance, managed to become one of the great, most memorable choreographers ("Oklahoma!", "Brigadoon" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" among many others) of all time. It's especially astouding to realize she did this without any help or encouragement from her famous uncle, Cecil de Mille or her father William de Mille (who was a successful playwright).

Read this book and find out how M's de Mille makes the long journey from a being a fired choreographer in New York to winning two Tony awards. You'll be glad to be along for this trip.

New Departures is a fantastic look at what other cultures are doing right with passenger rail, and what America (and Canada, for that matter) is doing wrong. It's really a one of a kind volume, because so many books on Amtrak take highly polarized views of what should occur with that agency. Instead, Anthony Pearl illustrates rail policy that actually works in several countries around the world, and explains America's failed attempts at high speed rail. He does not make political judgments (such as Joseph Vranich's "End of the Line" and "Derailed" do), but rather succinctly provides a wealth of information about what actually works. I walked away from New Departures with an immense wealth of knowledge about passenger rail policy and its history in the US and the world. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in passenger rail policy and Amtrak.

I found the book to be the most insightful analysis of passenger rail at the global level I've ever seen. It is a great resource for anyone involved in policy, or for someone who just wants to know 'why we don't have trains like Japan or Europe'. To his credit, Dr.Perl does not come up with a crystal-clear solution for the future of Amtrak. This is reflective of the reality of the mix of economics and politics that is US transport policy, namely that: funding for passenger rail is a subsidy, but funding for road and air is infrastructure.

Although this is biased commentary, as the author so graciously included my grandmother, Margery Thomas Rouse, in the "In Memorium" section of his forward, Of Woods & Waters is a truly exceptional collection celebrating the nature and people of Kentucky. It is a personal treasure, especially upon leaving the Commonwealth and moving to Virginia. A must-read for any true Kentuckian.

Thank you, Ron, for putting together such a wonderful book. If you love literature, and Kentucky, this is a must have for your private collection. What a find!

OH WOW! THE MINIATURE QUILTS AND THEIR MAKERS AT THE MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN QUILTER'S SOCIETY is organized by quilter and provides a full page color reproduction of the winning miniature quilt accompanied by an author biography.

I'm biased of course because my quilt is in this book. Miniature quilts can be no larger than 24x24" and every aspect of the quilt must be small. Most of the time it takes as long to make a miniature quilt as it does to make it's full size counterpart. There are many wonderful quilts featured in this book. One side of the page is about the quiltmaker, the facing page is a photo of the quilt. These are amazing little works of art, and you will be given some insight about how and why the quilts were made

As the step-daughter of a Caldwell County tobacco farmer, I picked up this book with a general interest in learning about the history of the area I was growing up in.

While reading this capivating novel I was relegated with additional details about the Night Rider stops in Cerulean, KY at a barn nearby my previous grandfather in-law's home. The men picked a barn in that area to stop at and switch out their tired horses for fresh ones on their way to Hopkinsville for raids and trouble-making.

All of Kentucky history as brought to life only by Mr. Cunningham truly fascinates me. Bill Cunningham is an amazing historian that has consistently recounted some of the most fascinating events in Western Ky history.

I have also recently read and highly recommend his novel: "Castle: The Story of a Kentucky Prison." I have enjoyed being captivated by his accounts and writing style.

In "On Bended Knees: The Night Rider Story" he has once again delivered! This was an amazing book that I just could not put down once I had started reading. Being a young girl raised on a tobacco farm in Caldwell County, Ky I was no stranger to the grueling work that takes place on a tobacco farm. My family depended on the tobacco markets for a living.

Mr. Cunningham brings to life the most historic and fascinating of Western Kentucky tales. This book is a must read for any and all inhabitants of Western Ky and those with a special interest in the history of the tobacco industry and West Kentucky.

I agree with the previous reviewer: this is THE novel on the Night Rider story!!

This is a history of the Night Rider movement - an outgrowth of the Black Patch Tobacco Wars in Western Kentucky from 1905 to 1912 ot so. It's a fascinating piece of American History - the tobacco farmer versus the American Tobacco Company, which is becoming a monopoly in the world of tobacco. Well researched with details of the principals, and the major raids. I also read Marshall's Violence in the Black Patch of Kentucky and Tennessee. The Cunningham book is FAR AND AWAY the better book.

Davis tells the story of the how the Orphan Brigade came about which also covers daily camp life, individual stories and how the regiments formed. It is very clear just how the regiments were grouped and organized through descriptive writing. Many stories of soldiers hard fighting in their history at places such as Shiloh, Chickamauga, Murfreesboro and their dreaded marches in Mississippi around Vicksburg is covered. This book answers questions I had like: Just how did they fight? Who was in command? Who died? What became of the regiments after their numbers dwindled? Davis easily answers all of these and tells the story of the Orphan Brigade from beginning to end. This book is great for anyone looking to gain information on Western Campaigns and gain further knowledge on Kentuckians who had the odds stacked against them. It is perfect to gain an understanding about Kentucky in the Civil War and those who chose to fight for the south that lived there.

This is the story of the brigade (in the Civil War, from 5000 to 2000 men or so depending on the stage of the war) of Kentuckians who fought for the Confederacy. Kentucky being occupied relatively early in the war, they fought on far from home through the war.

Davis does well at covering the breadth of experience of soldiers: the life of the private in the ranks, as well as of the senior officer, is well researched. He captures the unique cultural distinctions of Kentucky quite nicely: masters at obtaining bourbon, an informal approach, raw courage, and love of horses. The bungling of generals is not soft-pedaled, which is just as well considering how much the Orphans suffered from it.

Worth adding to any Civil War library, but of particular interest to Kentuckian history buffs.

The southern states east of the Mississippi were in a territory that was for a long time under Spanish or Indian jurisdiction. By law, only persons issued passports were allowed to enter the southeastern territories, and so the passport records have the largest body of data relating to the pioneers to the Southeastern United States.

Dorothy W. Potter spent eight years doing research in the records of the War Department, the State Department, the archives of the individual states, as well as records of the Spanish and the British in West Florida. So she has assembled a complete collection of the passports and travel documents issued to individuals and families going to the Mississippi Valley area from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Never again can genealogists complain that research in the Old South is hampered by lack of a comprehensive source book, for in this one outstanding reference work there is now a huge and invaluable body of source material at their disposal. No wonder this book was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the Tennessee Historical Commission!

"...This is one of the finest reference books we have ever seen."--Winston De Ville, Alexandria (LA) Daily Town Talk

"...Mrs. Potter has made a major contribution to genealogical research in the southern states."--Charles F. Bryan, Jr., Tennessee Historical Quarterly

"May I take a moment of your time to tell you how impressed I am with your Passports of Southeastern Pioneers. It is a model work of genealogical scholarship...."--Letter to the author from Elizabeth Shown Mills

This book was well writing, with many unknown facts on the movement of American families caming to the Southern states. It is a shame that it is out of print.

The Peace Corps in the 1960's under founding Director Sargent Shriver and later under Jack Vaughn has been well chronicled in such books as "Come as You Are" by Coates Redmond, "A Moment in History" by former Deputy Director Brent Ashabranner, "The Bold Experiment" by Gerard Rice and more recently by Cobbs Hoffman's "All you Need is Love."

Less well known is the history of the Peace Corps in the 1970's when Richard Nixon tried to dismantle the agency. Recent scholarship by Professor Hoffman has shown that Nixon's Peace Corps Director Joe Blatchford fought a rear-guard action to save the Peace Corps by supporting its merger into the ill-fated Action Corps. Director Blatchford's other contributions to the Peace Corps have never been adequately recognized, among them his "New Directions" policies to re-orient the agency.

David Searles, who served three years as the country director for the Peace Corps in the Philippines, and two years at Peace Corps headquarters as a Regional Director for North Africa, Near East, Asia, and Pacific (NANEAP) and as Deputy Director under John Dellenback, provides an insider's look at the Peace Corps as well as a revisionist history of the Peace Corps in the 70's which emphasizes the political imperatives that drove many of the decisions made.

The recounting of the Action Corps' shortcomings and problems is especially timely as history repeats itself with President George W. Bush's Executive Order in February, 2002 creating the USA Freedom Corps with the Peace Corps as one of the main components.

Highly recommended.

I enjoyed the first hand experience by Searles and his family in the Philippines. A great history lesson of those times and experiences. A wonderful account of a successful business man who took to heart the words of JFK. Ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for your county. P. David Searles embraced that philosphy and volunteered and moved his entire family to a different country. A first hand account of all the adventures the family had while there. JFK would have been proud.

As the title suggests, this book covers the philosophical background behind films defined as neo-noir. Surprisingly this contains a large number of films most people wouldn't readily identity as Film Noir. Blade Runner, Memento, A Simple Plan and the works of Quentin Tarantino and the Cohen Brothers are amongst some of the movies that are analysed in depth. Many other movies are touched upon including Fight Club, Minority Report, The Bourne Identity and many others. The essays in this book give new insight into these movies and are easily readable by those without any background in philosophy. I would highly recommend it.

Neo-noir films incorporated the visual style, characterizations, and subject matter of the classic film noir of the 1940s and '50s. But this latter film genre was able to employ more advanced film techniques; and with the replacement of the moralistic Production Code with the more flexible modern ratings system, neo-noir film was able to add new dimensions of subject and visual matter. The 1974 "Chinatown" may be "the first authentic neo-noir," writes Richard Gilmore, professor of philosophy at a Minnesota college. The TV program "Miami Vice"--first program, September 1984--was set in the Great Miami area for its "cycle of decline, decay, development, and renewal (invariably followed by further repetitions of the cycle) [which] affirmed the indeterminacy and contingency of the postmodern noir," as Stevens Sanders, emeritus professor of philosophy at a Massachusetts university writes. Thirteen essays by these and other philosophy professors relate neo-noir films not only to the film noir which preceded them, but also philosophical thoughts and ethical perspectives of Sartre, Plato, Kant, Kierkegaard, Marx, and others. Blade Runner, L. A. Confidential, The Onion Field, Parallax View, Dances With Wolves, and Raiders of the Lost Arc are among the films analyzed as neo-noir or which contain elements of this genre. This collection of essays is a companion of the editor Conard's "The Philosophy of Film Noir."