Minnesota Books

Castañeda's study goes well beyond the common anthropological focus on the "impact" of tourism on Mayan communities, instead focusing on the complicated, historical relationships between Maya actors, anthropologists, and tourists at the well know archaeological site of Chichén Itzá, and the nearby - but not so well known - Maya community of Pisté. Castañeda's study weaves together the history of anthropology in Yucatan (with a particular focus on the works of Redfield and Steggarda), tourism (including a fascinating analysis of New Age spiritualists and Aztec revivalists during the equinox at Chichén Itzá), and local Maya actors (through an analysis of their engagement with anthropologists, tourists, and the Mexican state).

This book is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of architectural education and practice. The author, Thomas R. Fisher, now Dean of University of Minnesota's College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, goes right to the point of what is wrong with architecture today, and offers both questions for debate and answers he can support.

Always an original thinker about architecture, and well-known for his bold opinions as editor of what was the field's most important professional magazine, the now defunct Progressive Architecture, Fisher is very clear on the discipline's one big idea: "...all good architecture puts forward a proposition, whether the designer is aware of it or not, about the good life, about how we should live and what we should live for." As he would be the first to admit, many architects lose sight of this proposition, and from the general public's perspective, if architecture is supposed to be about making life better, most architects have a funny way of showing it.

Fisher is clear on what has to be done. Architecture, in its education, internships, and practice has to reconnect to what he calls a comprehensible "public fiction" of what design can do for buildings, places, and cities. He recognizes architects Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as ur-designers Charles and Ray Eames, and architectural historian Vincent Scully, as cogent, forceful advocates of strong "fictions" of how design could make life better, whether by integrating technology, by connecting to the earth and place, or by unprecedented seeing patterns and connections, can shape a world where people can live, work, and play in environments that are both functional and meaningful. Fisher calls the organizing principles of these designers' work "fictions" because declarations that "the house is a machine to live in," for example, is by no means an absolute truth, but it is a vision that yielded decades of extraordinary environments. To me, the term "narrative" or "vision," as tired as those words are, might better make the point, since "fiction" can hold the stigma of deliberate deception.

In the Scheme of Things outlines the philosophical and historical basis for past "fictions," as well as ones to come, leaning heavily on the Pragmatist work of John Dewey, and as with the recent "Pragmatist Imagination" conference at the Museum of Modern Art, he implies that this kind of enlightened utilitarianism remains the firmest ground for a discipline that has lost its way. To Fisher, if it is to find its way back, architecture will have to take communicating with the general public much more seriously, make clear that design is about solving problems, not an application of taste from a historical or avant-garde catalogue, and have to reconnect education and practice.

He is too cavalier in his dismissal of formalism-no matter how many times you say architecture is research and problem-solving, it is also about the way things look, and image and form are essential to its "problems." But his point is vital - architects need to be involved in the full life cycle of the built environment, at the beginning stage (not pushed aside while the developers and planners cut the deal), and even after construction into post-occupancy studies. In addition, he calls for an education that recognizes a macro sense of "design" that transcends the specific work of building design, and which would enable an architect to attack a problem from the most conceptual - much as Rem Koolhaas is now doing for Prada and other companies, re-conceptualizing (or at least appearing to), their entire approach. He may be right, it is certainly exciting for educators or practitioners to retool themselves as this kind of consultant. On the other hand, he may be playing into the egregious business school myth that all management and consulting skills (in this case design skills) can be applied to all businesses - which sometimes works for a company selling off its assets, but very rarely results in a better product or anything associated with an advanced notion of the good life.

In short, Fisher looks at the ecology of architecture, and without belaboring the metaphor, finds in it an unhealthy set of monocultures, not even in productive juxtaposition with one another. For some, his answers may not have enough "friction" (or enough pictures - there are none in this volume, a daring but risky choice for a book on this topic). Indeed, if there is any criticism to be made of Fisher and his editors (Engine Books, Inc., and the publisher, University of Minnesota Press), it is that he is such a clear writer, and so smoothly edited, that the reader can't always get a grip on just how challenging are his points of view, and how radical they really are for the academy and the profession.

In addition, the book may ultimately be too abstract to fully connect to the students, architects, and public that it needs to. Fisher strives to be admirably independent architecture's celebrity culture, which he sees as a bad hangover from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts tradition, yet at the same time it is "stars" who are the greatest advocates, today, of sustaining a "public fiction" for architecture - with Andres Duany and his New Urbanism movement calling for stability and order and safe streets in one corner and Rem Koolhaas and his acolytes calling for "metropolitan" excitement, change, and opportunity in the other. Perhaps Fisher believes that neither one has a fiction that is good enough to report on at length, or that they are so over-reported as personalities that it is time to focus on the real content of the debate (he does cite Duany briefly). Fine, he is intellectually right, but in the battle for the hearts and minds of architecture, the star system will be with us well into the new century - dealing with it is, yet again, a design problem, and Fisher may well find a way.

Zempel's work in compiling and translating this book of letters is a tribute to the Norwegian immigrant experience. Through these letters one discovers the great hardship and great joy brought to these individuals who in many circumstances travelled great distances on their own. Thank you for bringing insight to my own families experience through the voices of those who had the courage to venture before.

The Independence Party And The Future Of Third-Party Politics: Adventures And Opinions Of An IP Senate Candidate is the memoir and personal testimony of William McGaughey, who ran for the U.S. Senate on behalf of the same party that backed Minnesota's former governor, Jesse Ventura. Very highly recommended reading for Political Science students, as well as political activists of all parties and reform movements, The Independence Party And The Future Of Third-Party Politics offers a thoughtful and thought-provoking "insider view" of the wheels of contemporary American politics and offers a persuasive rationale behind the motivational struggle for political change.

This was a great book and everything! I bet everybody would like this book. I loved every single part in it. This book had alot of funny parts in it and some parts are mystrious & mischeivess. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Research report writer Kathy Davis Graves contributed to the creation of an up-to-date fifth edition of Elizabeth Ebott's solid reference, Indians in Minnesota, a fact-filled reference guide for researchers and professionals of all walks who need to twenty-first century demographics concerning Minnesota's Native American population of more than fifty-four thousand. Indians in Minnesota draws from hundreds of interviews from tribal members, data from the 2000 Minnesota Census, federal and state reports, and more. Covering both historical and contemporary understand of Minnesota's Native Americans, living on and off reservations, and addressing the significant changes and challenges of the twenty-first century, Indians of Minnesota is a highly accessible, informative, and insightful compendium. "With tribes rapidly increasing their powers and abilities to control their own environments, it is important that non-Indians understand and accept differing views of how to deal with natural resources. As one Indian leader said, 'We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we rent it from our children.'"

I taught this book in a senior seminar (4th-yr undergraduate) Environmental Anthropology course in 2003-04. I was a little worried about assigning it b/c the theory can be very dense, but it turned out to be one of the more popular books in the course, full of ideas that students kept referring back to and using in their term papers. Because each of the chapters looks at the idea of the "forest" (and the processes through which it has been produced) from a range of perspectives, it's a fun book to teach in a seminar setting -- it can be approached from a lot of different angles, and is almost inherently provocative of debate. And it has great illustrations -- all of my students were "fooled" by the pseudo-satellite photos that Braun presents and goes on to deconstruct brilliantly.

This book does a wonderful job of illustrating the Minnesota iron mining scene of 1910 or so. It focuses primarily on the mines of the Mesabi Range, but also touches on the Vermilion and Cuyuna. I have found it an invaluable resource in getting a better idea of old mining practices. One word of caution: this book is devoted entirely to the technical engineering aspects, and has nothing to offer as far as the social aspect of the mines. But if you are researching this rich period of Minnesota's mining history, or have more than a slight interest in it, I would highly recommend this book. The price tends to be a little high, but in my opinion it's well worth it.

The Laurentian divide is Northern Minnesota's invisible hill - a long hump of land that stretches a hundred miles through the Northeastern corner of the state. On the eastern slope is a large uplift. The Ojibwe Indians called it Mesabi, meaning sleeping Giant. The discovery in the 1890's of mammoth deposits of iron ore in the Mesabi range brought untold numbers of immigrants seeking the "red gold": Croatians, Serbians, Slovenians, Italians, Scandinavians, and Finns. "Da Range" was born. Fueled by cheap labor and an abundance of iron ore, towns sprang up like beads on a string: Coleraine, Nashwauk, Chisholm, Mountain Iron, Eveleth, Virginia, Biwabik, and Hibbing. The ore for the iron that built the nation during the first part of the century came from the sweat of the free-spirited Minnesota prospectors. A proud, hard-working bunch, none worked harder than Anton Debevec, a laborer who immigrated from Slovenia in 1903 with his wife Agnes to work in the mines and raise a family. The Iron Ore Minor's Son is the memior of Joseph J. DeBevec, one of seven lanky Debevec kids who grew up in the shadow of the Mesabi. Energetic and enterprising, Joe worked his way to the top of his form in the retail business managing stores for the J. C. Penney Company in rural Midwest towns, his success driven by the idea that: "there must be a better way!" He married into the Macks of Virginia, Minnesota and later the Gills of Toronto, Canada. He is father to two families, and has gained enough blessings in life to be a great grandfather. --- from book's dustjacket

At the close of active life (well, near the close - Arne will turn 90 in Jan.2002!) Norwegian eco-political philosopher Arne Naess is interviewed by spry young American academic David Rothenberg.

Subjects span Arne's entire life consciousness. In easy-to-read, question-and-answer format, this slim volume tells the lay reader many fascinating personal details. Rothenberg & Naess discuss -- inter alia -- Arne's rejection of his mother, childhood obsession with tiny things, the financial help from his older wealthy businessman brothers that freed Arne to live a charmed "thinking" life, and Arne's subversive leadership in the WWII Norwegian Resistance.

Why are this old Norwegian man's memories so important? Although many in the USA do not yet know him, Arne Naess is considered the father of "Deep Ecology" - a philosophy of articulate ecological beliefs, which works to shape ecological dialog with non-ecological forces.

Today's ecological thinkers will find these interviews highly educational. It is intriguing to see how the 20th century movement called Deep Ecology was shaped not only by Naess' work in ethics and communication theory, but also by his spiritual communion with non-human intelligence, and his "Panzercharakter" defensive shell.

These personal interviews reveal that the spiritually transcendent militancy of Gandhi's "satyagraha" - which Naess has made so key to modern ecological activism - appealed to him emotionally as well as philosophically. Most importantly they confirm that the emotional life of the leading ecological philosopher of the 20th century, has been equally as influential as his intellectual power.