Indiana Books

It's no secret that I adore Dr. Goodman and her work. This book is no exception. I truly appreciate the body of knowledge she has assembled in this one title, addressing mental illness, spiritual intrusions, modern methods of approaching both and tribal wisdom to distinguish the two. Dr. Goodman provides a bridge between healing approaches that is incredibly under appreciated.

Emily Kimbrough is the co-author, with Cornelia Otis Skinner, of the classic, OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY. On her own, she was a prolific author, and I wish that her publishers would re-issue more of her books. HOW DEAR TO MY HEART is a 1991 re-issue, underwritten by the Delaware County Historic Society, of her reminiscence of her earliest childhood in Muncie, Indiana at the turn of the 20th century. The original printing was in 1944.

As always, Ms. Kimbrough's writing is lyrical, and one easily can imagine through her those defining years for our nation, a moment when electricity and automobiles first were entering everyday life, and the telephone still was in the experimental stages. Ms. Kimbrough's vivid style makes that moment understandable, and she remembers her childhood, the places and the people, with great affection.

Like all children, she assumed that her realities were the only ones, but the truth is that she grew up in one of the most prominent and affluent families in a small town and, as such, her upbringing was that of an American princess. Still, her family's excellent values shine through, as they do in all her books, and she demonstrates a slice of life that never again will be recaptured. Christmas in Muncie in 1905 is somewhere between Dickens and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, and it makes for marvelous reading.

Consistent with all of her other books, there are plenty of funny anecdotes interspersed with studies of the characters in her life, her paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother (and that grandmother's next-door neighbor, President Benjamin Harrison) and her nanny, the daughter of former slaves.

The charming drawings add to the overall feeling of the book. I believe that the same artist also did the illustrations for the early Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace; essentially, these stories are about similar little girls in similar towns. Maud's girls are fictionalized and Emily's story is her own, but the spirit of both their styles are much the same.

This is a wonderful book.

This is a valuable book (resource) for budding entrepreneurs. It seems to try to cover all the bases for starting a small business, but it can't do them all well in the space available between its covers. The book is only 288 pages long. If you are in the planning stages of starting a small business, then I highly recommend you get a copy of this book. Read it, study it, and outline it. There are helpful checklists to help you grasp the subjects. You will come up with a plethora of keywords and terms that you will want to google to find Web pages giving more detailed (and maybe more current) information.

I am a SCORE counselor (Senior Corps of Retired Executives) who typically does face-to-face counseling sessions three nights a month. It would really be neat if my clients would read this book BEFORE they came to their session with me because they would pretty much be "educated customers" ready to ask educated questions. Our sessions would be so much more beneficial.

My favorite chapters were:

1. Initial business concerns
2. Your business' structure
3. Business start-up details
5. Sources of business assistance (SCORE is mentioned here)
7. Your smart business plan (and a good sample plan is included)
8. Obtaining the financing you need

The book is weak when it comes to how the Internet can be used in corresponding, hiring, and marketing. But this is just one example of how googling keywords and concepts found in the book will make the book more complete. Don't treat the book as authoritative on the law. It isn't. Nor was it ever intended to be. It is light on tax information as it relates to small business.

I was particularly impressed with the material presented in Chapter 2: Choice of Legal Entity. That subject is sorely ignored in most small business books, and it is critically important. It is a subject I regularly must spend a great deal of time discussing at my SCORE sessions. This book does a pretty good job on the topic.

Chapters 4 and 9 through 12 are easy to find fault with. The topic of each could fill a book. But having these topics covered definitely will help a budding entrepreneur know some of the issues they raise.

I would have liked the book more if Chapter 6 (marketing) had been less superficial. When I read it I got the impression that the author was more a public relations expert than a marketing expert. I generally categorize public relations as a subset of marketing. Marketing includes advertising, public relations, and a whole host of other promotion techniques. I did not get this message when I read the book. I also would have liked the book better if the Internet, email, and Web sites had been discussed more. But there are many books on those subjects. Therefore, I can't complain too much about the limited discussion of computers.

When you read this book it may feel a little like it was produced on an assembly line. Maybe it was? There are 51 versions of this book sold; one for each state and the District of Columbia. Content is king, and this book has it. 5 stars!

International Human rights are a relatively recent invention, and there coming into international law can be attributed to the UN. "Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal Justice" is a through and scholarly look at the development of human writes during the periods of shortly before its creation and immediately following it, and its expansion and development over the years following it all and everything since, as rights for all more and more often becomes the norm. "Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal Justice" is highly recommended for community library international affairs shelves and for anyone who wants to be more appreciative of what we have now.

Brown County, part of southern Indiana's Hill Country, is a great destination for landscape artists, bird lovers, and folks digging for their genealogical roots (not ginseng). Dillon Bustin's book "IF YOU DON'T OUTDIE ME" was inspired by photographer Frank Hohenberger, & has been popular ever since its 1982 publication by Indiana University Press. However, they do not respond to continuing pleas that it be reprinted.

The reason may be that in 1993 I.U. Press published "Frank Hohenberger's Indiana Photographs" (isbn: 025331285X). (One 1931 photo in that book, edited by Cecil Byrd, shows a harnessed white horse at Corydon's historic Capitol Square; the horse appears to be reading a sign: "NO AUTO PARKING.") Hohenberger's sense of humor kept him young. When I first met Frank Hohenberger he was in his early 70s, though I wouldn't have guessed that (see picture on p.35 when he was 57).

Bustin's 13 vignettes (not exactly a Brown County word!) include Harry Kelp - - the one who actually "OUTDIED" the others. In the late 40s he lived on Nashville's Village Green by the Methodist Church with his sister Olive. She happened to be the one who invited me to transfer my membership from upstate New York, and she was a truly caring lady. Allie Ferguson is shown (p.45) outside her boarding house down the street. It later became "the Ferguson House shop" with antiques (& maybe some junk) that owner Alice Weaver, a strong-minded resident, might or might not allow you to buy. "Grandma Barnes" (read p.124-131) is still the subject of stories and songs. The very touching photograph on p.129 was taken when she was the *FIRST* Brown County Blossom Festival Queen, chosen at the insistence of "outsider" artists!

Other photos chosen by Dillon Bustin are among my favorites: p.2, Mullis making shingles; p.106, Bohall making baskets; p.114, the Beisels making music. Bustin wrote that "Brown County is the nearest part of the South in the North" . . .& . . . "the inhabitants of those hills have always been skilled at factional feuding" . . . & . . . "they have an indefinable folksy essence that draws people to the area" . . . "they can indulge in a flexibility with Time." The author's *Prologue* includes a picture from Nov.1929 (possibly the week of the stock market crash) showing the Liars' Bench which had been trashed on Halloween night. One 'local' said, "It's worse'n bad. It's th' ruination uv th' town." Another Nashville icon, the old Log Jail, was built in 1879 (at a cost of $1500.). It generated some of that feuding when folks put up resistance to having the Jail turned into a concession with tickets sold for tours.

In contrast to feuding & pranks is a picture (p.7) taken from the hill, now Locust Lane above the Courthouse, showing a lovely pastoral scene. That 'look' has disappeared & now all is bustle, while the 'natives' & 'non' continue arguing about just what constitutes the special quality of life here. Reviewer mcHAIKU is content to lean back and simply enjoy.

Ed Gleeson, the top selling civil war author of "Rebel Sons of Erin" creates another bestseller. Clearly written and illustrated, this book should be in every civil war enthusiasts collection. In June 1861, 34 men from the Southern Illinois counties of Williamson and Jackson traveled to western Tennessee and became part of Company G of the 15th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. Their story is a unique for many reasons and is relayed in the book Illinois Rebels. Gleeson's book chronicles the formation of the group, identifies the soldiers by name and provides additional information for each of them.

Although it is a reproduction, it is a very nice addtion to anyone's Indiana history Collection.

Although there may not be a plethora of scholarly activity on the imagination itself, it is known amongst those alert Kant scholars that the imagination plays a key role in the first and third critiques. In his first book "Imagination and Depth in Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason,'" Bernard Freydberg demonstrated the pivotal role that the imagination plays in Kantian epistemology. But in this provocative work, Freydberg asserts that imagination is the "linchpin" in any understanding of the second critique as well. With keen insight and scholarly rigor, Freydberg discloses imagination as the driving force even in the "Critique of Practical Reason" where it appears to have no significant role.

Freydberg's approach is masterful for two reasons. First, instead of planting himself only within a textual analysis of the second critique, he bridges the first critique with the second. That is, he shows how the first critique informs and "opens up" into the second critique by appropriating the relevant passages and concepts from the "Critique of Pure Reason," most notably the role of synthesis/image-making and the imagination that powers it. This allows for an analysis that doesn't arise in a vacuum. Freydberg also examines the relation of the second critique to its successor, the "Critique of Judgment" much the same way as he does with the first. Second, in the bridging of the first critique to the second, Freydberg foregoes what could have been a more trouble-free appraisal. Instead of utilizing the A Deduction alone where imagination is prominent, he relies heavily on the B Deduction where Kant seems to have given imagination a "lesser" role. Thus he treads the more difficult path to make his case while also reaping the rewards that this type of journey brings at its conclusion.

Although Freydberg takes his cue from Heidegger (and in turn Sallis), his insights are original. Heidegger, in his book "Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics," claimed that the imagination is the root of both sensibility and understanding but that "Kant recoiled in the face of this unknown root." What makes this account both provocative and exciting is Freydberg's treatment of this "unknown root." He demonstrates that imagination, even when it seems to be absent, is in fact always, already deeply at work even in the construction of our moral framework.

For example, Kant says of the Triebfeder (incentives of pure practical reason) that they are the subjective ground of the determination of a will. As finite beings, we are subject to our pathological incentives. Yet through moral feeling that human beings are also subject, we are aware of the moral law as well (an a priori concept), which is the only law that qualifies as a moral incentive. Bridging this chasm is the imagination. Freydberg reveals how any determination of the will of a finite human being has already undergone the synthesis of imagination. In this case, imagination has generated an incentive out of the pure, moral law as well as bringing it (this moral incentive) into opposed play with our sensuous inclinations.

There are many more examples throughout this work that exemplify imaginations disclosing and synthesizing role. Freydberg's arguments are precise and well thought out. Although working within the continental tradition, he provides a close reading of the text, supporting his position with a logical rigor that should garner the respect of those in the analytic tradition.

In the last analysis, Freydberg's inquiry achieves the notable goal of disclosing how the imagination beats at the heart of the second critique in particular, and all three critiques in general. Suffice it to say that "Imagination in Kant's `Critique of Practical Reason'" is a work that adds sorely needed scholarship to the Kantian corpus. Ignored for too long by many Kant scholars, Freydberg discloses that which, although hidden, plays the crucial role in the "Critique of Practical Reason." Imagination at the heart of Kant's second critique...who would have thought?

The photographs, maps, travelers' accounts, physical reconstructions, and studies of the Bible that are the subject of this book once fired popular fantasies of the Holy Land. Nineteenth century visitors to the Chautauqua Institution used to walk through a large scale model of biblical Palestine, sometimes tucking a blade of grass into their pockets or purses. You can still take a tour and listen to Sunday evening lectures there. At the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, a replica of Jerusalem covered eleven acres while today, some 300 miles to the southeast, a seven story high Christ of the Ozarks looks over a modern re-creation of the Holy Land set in the hills of Arkansas. For home viewing there were tours via stereoscopic photographs, lavishly illustrated books such as Picturesque Palestine, and the reports of scholars who passed through the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. All reached for an illusory touch of the "real" in the midst of fantasies about the Holy Land, as may still be seen in a reader friendly book written by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed, Excavating Jesus. These competing visions of the Holy Land were, and are, shaped by forms of Christianity and Judaism, and entangled with various political and ideological debates at home in America.

David Gunn, Bradford Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University wrote that Imagining the Holy Land is "remarkable and important...not only pertinent to an understanding of biblical criticism and popular culture in America...but crucially important to a nuanced understanding of American public discourse about Middle Eastern affairs today."

This is simply a marvelous book. I picked up an earlier edition a few years ago and still refer to it quite often for my own research into Lincoln. As Mr. Davenport stated in that edition, the book is a travel guide, not a biography. However, because of the fact that it is so well-researched and full of detail, it could almost pass for a biographical overview, especially of Lincoln's life in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, prior to his presidency.

I highly recommend this book for any Lincoln admirer, those who have a mild interest in the subject and especially for those who want to learn more. With Lincoln, there's always more to learn!