Indiana Books

This short book is one of the best books written on film criticism. It is by no means comprehensive; however, Mr. Wollen chooses his focus carefully. The book is organized around three topics: the work and theory of Sergei Eisenstein, the auteur theory, and semiology. Mr. Wollen presents a clear, concise explication of each topic, augmented with many examples from films as well as other arts. Unlike many books on theory, Mr. Wollen's ideas are not obscure, and his language does not obfuscate the subject; his are, in fact, the clearest, most readable explanations of the basics of these theories that I have ever read. That is not to say the book is simplistic, however brief it may be. For the novice, this is a first-rate introduction to some of the basic principles of film criticism. For the authority, it's a pleasant read, a refresher on some classic ideas in film.

Frozen in time, and ready to collapse - Hoosier Photographer John Bower examines these old businesses in "Silent Workplace: Shops, Stores, Businesses, and Factories where Hoosiers Once Earned a Living". Packed cover to cover with massive, high quality black and white pictures of these abandoned pieces of ancient Americana, Bower gives a somber yet intriguing look at the days that America has long left behind. "Silent Workplace: Shops, Stores, Businesses, and Factories where Hoosiers Once Earned a Living" is a pictorial examination of old rural and small town life in the United States, and is highly recommended to any community library photography book collection.

This is an excellent book, with a "guide-book" type of layout for the reader to get information on each of the murals individually.

I'd read this book when I was in high school in the late 1970s, and several more times in later years at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library. It is a splendid and accurate biography of Mr. Skiles Test, an Indianapolis resident and legendary figure. Through Mrs. Miclot's interviews with some who knew Mr. Test, one gets a feeling for the real man. While he is remembered by local media mostly for spooky stories about his house, caskets with dead wives, etc., this book tells about his upbringing, his family, and the true story of his life on his estate. Miclot shares stories of Test's love of animals, his amazing house and his inventions, and also the sad story of how in his later years he was tormented by trespassers who were thrill seeking on his property. True, he had his curious idiosyncracies, but that is the way with great men. He never was vengeful towards the trespassers, and if the truth were told more often, he welcomed people to his home. The book has several nice pictures of the house and property, and of Mr. Test and his family, also. I highly recommend finding this book and reading it from cover to cover-- Mr. Test is one of the great men to have lived in Indiana, and his story shouldn't be lost to history. Miclot tells his story with compassion and honesty, something so many other "biographers" have missed out on with Skiles Test.

This book is about the role of black women in resistance to slavery in the British Carribean.

The author writes that life in the British Carribean was particularly savage; planters were so busy driving their slaves to make a profit that they didn't have time to formulate any paternalist ideology as happened with slave-owners in the American South. Some of the examples of the evidence presented here is given below.

She notes a large outcry by planters in Trinidad in 1823 when the whipping of female slaves was banned. The planters argued that it was the only effective device for specifically keeping female slaves in line. "One colonial office official stated that female slaves 'more frequently merited punishment than males.'"

She quotes accounts from several planters about the particular insolence of domestic female slaves. Such domestics were often in a worse position than fieldhands for they were under much closer scrutiny of masters and vulnerable to the latter's sexual lecheries and subsequent raging jealousies of the master's wife. Even with benevolent masters as lovers, the slave women would manipulate and steal from them. Such manipulation and stealing by all slaves was seen as evidence of being inherent traits among Africans by people too stupid to comprehend that the slaves might be asserting their own individuality and freedom by this act.

She quotes an account from testimony before the House of Commons in 1790 by one Henry Coor who reported that the owner of a Jamaican plantation where he stayed one night nailed the ear of a domestic slave to a tree post because she had broken a plate. The slave in the morning was found to have wrenched her ear out of this imprisonment and when found was severely whipped. She quotes an account from a Dr. John Williamson who related the story of a slave giving birth after having been confined in the stocks and then dying of a fever.

She quotes accounts from estates owned by two London merchants, Thomas and William King. In one estate she quotes a punishment book that of the 34 slaves punished in the first six months of 1827, 21 were women. She quotes a number of accounts of individual insubordination on an estate of the Kings in what is now Guiana in South America. Even though a slave named Clarrissa had her punishment increased from 12 hours of solitary confinement to 60 hours chained in the stockade, her insubordination did not decrease, writes the author.

She quotes accounts from a liberal planter named Monk Lewis who reported a scene of insubordination at his place where female slaves affected a work slowdown. When an overseer demanded that the women do their duty, one of the latter ran at the former and tried to strangle him. Lewis is quoted on reports of white overseers kicking pregnant black women in their bellies and thereby damaging the child or the mother.

Slave-owners began to enact legislation for their own benefit to ameliorate the harsh treatment of black women, for with slave importation being banned, they were concerned about slave labor not destroying the fertility of women. They also were under pressure from abolitionists. Black women generally received solitary confinement or being chained up in the stocks as opposed to the whippings still delivered on black men. Though the whip on women was still being used. The author quotes an account from a plantation in Grenada in 1823 of a female slave being whipped and again apparently another female being whipped ten years later for destroying sugar canes and "general neglect of duty." She quotes an account from this time of female slave at the plantation of Mrs. Carrie Carmicheal who colored her tongue a different color each check-up to make it seem like she was ill but then her tongue was whipe cleaned to reveal that she had been faking illness to avoid work and she was thus flogged.

She gives accounts of slave women being involved in many rebellions. There is the Jamaican maroon leader Nanny in the 1730's and "Cubah," leader of the slave revolt in Jamaica in 1760. She quotes an account from a rebellion in Surinam in 1730 where 8 of the 11 executed for it were women. Six of the females were "broken alive on the rack" and the other two, youngsters, were decapitated but they had such nerve in facing these atrocities that they "did not utter a sigh." She quotes an account from a male slave under interrogation that the only major uprising on Barbados, which took place in 1816, was formented by a woman She states that from contemporary accounts, women played a big role in the mob actions to protest poor working conditions in St. Kitts in 1834 druing the brief "apprenticeship." She "transition" to emancipation. There were two women in the group of sixteen sentenced for sedition and mutiny in this incident. She quotes an account from an English official during the great uprising of 20,000 slaves in Jamaica in 1831 that women were heavily involved as guides for rebels, as provocateurs to try to cause harm to British forces, and so on.

She gives accounts of how black women were feared because of their knowledge of Obeah herbal formulas that could poison whites and their leadership in African religious ceremonies which could be occasions for plotting rebellion.

She talks alot about the sexual mores of slave women. The planters propagated the notion that black women were inherently inclined towards promiscuity. Contemporary abolitionists agreed that slave women were promiscuous, only arguing that the degradation of slavery made them that way. She goes through an analysis of West African and slave sexual and marriage customs. Many African socities seem to have had a custom of "trial marriage" and divorce was relatively easy to obtain. In marooon communities, according to the author, young women were accorded something like "coming out" parties perhaps similar to those for aristocratic girls in Europe. The author quotes a Barbados parliament report to the House of Commons in 1789 that the black women there were very gentle and virtous. She quotes a Jamaican slave doctor who estimated that black men were no more promiscuous then men in England.....The author concludes that most slave families were monogamous, with strong retention of African extended family structures despite the threat of enforced separation through sales. Polygamy was rather minor and according to accounts, the first wives in such relationships obtained almost equal status with the husbands. She quotes slave-owners accounts of the generous and happy relations among slaves.

She explores the evidence that the low fertility rate among slaves in the West Indies was due to black women killing their babies within nine days after birth or willing their own miscarriage.

The book gets exceedingly slow to read towards the end.....

Excellent collection of essays which deal with the chaos and order dealing with turbulence of the early five year plan. For all scholars of the period these essays are must. The approach is that of working a history from below. Missing from the essays however is a chronology or keyword reference for less knowledgable readers. Most interesting is Lewin's essay on class which avoids much of the vulgar Marxist and narrow Weberian definitions of class. Highlighting the political and cultural definitions of class and the process in which they are transformed from the proletariat into Soviet workers. Otherwise, a class in power into a statistical catagory. And the transformations wrought from the new peasant "immigrants" set against the established worker.

As an avid history reader, I immensely enjoyed this book. I read an older edition of it about 30 years ago, but I did not enjoy it then half as much as I did this new edition. The editor's explanations made what was happening more understandable. The one thing that I would like to see in all history books and that most do not have is better and more maps. When trying to follow closely detailed operations, it is hard to do with the limited maps in most books, including this one.

This edition brings out the fact that the person in the frontline does not know what is going on in the overall picture. The editor, Mr. Ferrell, fills us in on when and where Doc's experiences plug into this massive theatre of war. It's apparent that Doc is only aware of what is going on in his immediate area. He is busy with the day to day problems of surviving and fighting and this does not include a detailed knowledge of the overall battles.

My favorite part of the book is the occupation of Germany where I think the author's personality comes out more. He obviously had more time to write and think and had less pressure on him when he wrote this part of the narrative.

I found it a very interesting and compelling book. You can read it quickly because of its shortness, but it is certainly intriguing from the human and historical aspects. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys historical literature, especially if you like the war aspects of same.

This is a rare book that offers an authentic look at one of the many wars America has pursued around the world, rather than being another metastudy, i.e. a synthesis of other scholarly monographs on the subject. It just happens that the Vietnam war (and genocide) continues to be one of the most important and defining moments in contemporary history. The collection is edited with care and insight not only into the personal/military but narrative/literary facets of the oral narratives that give it such a profound dimension, and make reading this volume such a rewarding experience. Although not all contributions are up to the same high standard set in the introduction, it's an important and well-written, and hence engaging and "teachable" study, recommended to all those interested in the subject.

The author lived among eleven denizens of a village in north Russia. This cultural anthropological work is of use to both the scholar and layman. Mores and folkways are eloquently discussed. Did the American Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Russia have similar experiences?

It has been said that one knows a hoosier because they are thepeople who dribble a basketball around the Indy 500 while looking formushrooms! If you are not from Indiana, I'll give you a secret, basketball is sacred, especially High School Basketball. Mr. Knight's book captures the "Golden Age" when basketball ruled and tv was non-existant. Anyone who has watched the movie "Hoosiers" must read this book. It is so well written, you can hear the sound of basketball shoes on hardwood. Personally the author is a story teller at heart, the soul of a Bard with the passion of a true Hoosier.