Massachusetts Books

This exceedingly fine academic study of the psychology and sociology that exists between unemployed professions is the most accurate document that exists on the subject. The section on the depression is especially true and compelling.

This exceedingly fine academic study of the psychology and sociology that exists between unemployed professions is the most accurate document that exists on the subject. The section on the depression is especially true and compelling.

I was blown away with the quality and breadth of the images in this unusual photo essay book. I love both Provincetown and photography, so you can imagine my excitement in discovering the book on Amazon.

Fields seems to have a knack for capturing the subtle and beautiful Cape light many artists and tourists flock to see. Surprisingly, he also has a fair number of fun and stunning portraits in the collection.

I would recommend thia book for anyone who loves photography or the Cape. It's also an easy and obvious gift selection for my friends.

If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, many photographers both amateur (me) and professional, will be in awe of this book. It will also be loved and appreciated by tourists who visit the area. I first came across this book last year when I did a slide show on Cape Cod and needed a few shots of this portion of the Cape. I did not copy Mr. Fields' work (largely because I am not as gifted a photographer), but the book inspired me. This is due to his interesting perspective of the area. His best photographs are those of the dunes and the areas along the national seashore, but he also includes typical Cape Cod shots such as vacationers, fishing boats, and historical landmarks. He also includes photographs of a few of the more outlandish sides of Provincetown, which makes Provincetown fun for many people and shows that Fields is adept at using his camera to tell a story.

This was a great book. Besides all else mentioned already,it reads like a story. No theoretical arabesques, just nitty gritty factual details so you can see connectednesses for yourself. Baltzell's very factual illustrations of idealisms' realities and human tensions towards cultishness versus civic participation serve as a useful lense and compass to me ever since reading this book. I recommend it whenever I can, particularly to someone who, like me, may at one time, be shocked by a human experience or contrast and want to ask why. I'd recommend it to any one ever involved in a cult. Its readability is comforting and enthralling, and it is deeply seated in a sense of the continuity of history and human nature. I found it a healing book. I'm sorry Mr. Baltzell is no longer alive so I can thank him. Read every crumb of this book. Its thick, but allot the time.

Digby Baltzell uses the history of Philadelphia and Boston as very real examples of two types of leadership. In Boston, the "Boston Brahmin" elites formed a strong upper class that was not tolerant, certainly, but took responsibility for community life and exercised a tremendous influence on American culture, politics, arts, and science. In Philadelphia, the "Proper Philadelphians" were charming, tolerant--and deeply irresponsible, abandoning any role in governing the city and making it by common agreement the worst run city in the United States. When Philadelphia needed a mover and shaker, it imported some one from outside, like Ben Franklin.

Baltzell takes these difference back to the colonial period and the dramatic differences in the viewpoints of the Puritans who founded Boston and the Quakers who founded Philadelphia. He also sees these changes working forward as the old upper-class socialize immigrant elites into their respective patterns, producing the Kennedy clan out of Boston, and Grace Kelly out of Philadelphia. Many of the points here can also be seen in David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed.

Baltzell's bedrock conviction is that every society needs an upper class and is going to get one whether it likes it or not (the history of revolutions proves this rather conclusively). Those who see the very fact of social stratification as an personal affront will of course get affronted. The interesting point he makes though is that many things anti-elitists think are opposites actually go together. As he shows from his examples, social tolerance goes together with a much more blatantly money-conscious and just plain richer upper-class, and societies with widespread hostility to "elites" also show deep cynicism about their leadership and society in general, a cynicism merited by the generally short-sighted and narrowly (as opposed to broadly) selfish behavior of the upper class.

Does this sound familiar? Baltzell's final point is that in the wake of the sixties, which he compares to the English civil war (1640-1660) environment that spawned the Quakers and released "a host of self-righteous seekers" on the land," American leadership has moved much closer to the nakedly plutocratic and irresponsible leadership model found in Philadelphia. And along with this change in the upper class has grown egalitarianism, openness to immigrants, cynicism, leadership gridlock, and social tolerance. The irony of communal utopianism producing results exactly opposite of what was intended would not have surprised de Tocqueville, Baltzell's great mentor in sociology.

Don't think that this book is just about grand theory--it is filled with a host of fascinating portratits of the two cities' upper classes, and so contains a good deal of the achievers of America from colonial days to World War II. The simple quantitative analysis is effective and not off-putting.

I never realized how seriously I could be negatively impacting my health just by the way I handled my food. I've read through the book twice, and have since donated it to the bookshelves at the AIDS Support Network of San Luis Obispo County, CA. This book really should be given to each and every HIV-Positive person at no charge by their respective ASO's. Little things can truly have a great impact on our health.

This excellent guide is recipient of the Reviewer's Choice award and is well deserving of it. It details all aspects of nutrition and food safety and shows food is a great tool of preventive medicine in promoting healing of common AIDS-related illness.

This is an excellent book for those yakers who are looking for an escape from motor boat laden waters. It is well illustrated and has helpful tips on where to put in and what to expect as you traverse the water ways.

we live in broad brook, connecticut and this is the first year we've had kayaks. in the early summer we met a woman on the scantic river near the somersville dam and she recommended this book. best tip of the year. there are so many great paddles in here that you'd never know about just by looking on a map. we'd been driving around, shooting in the dark, and mostly being disappointed by what we found. every paddle we've taken out of the book has been excellent. can't recommend it highly enough.

After 55 years of intense and rabid anti-communism, most people can be excused for accepting the old cliches about American Communists: dour, unfeeling and fanatical in their devotion to Moscow's orders. This joint autobiography of Agnes (Sis) Cunningham and Gordon Frieson shows us that, instead, Communists tended to be pretty much like all of us. Driven by a desire to create a better America and repelled by the "everything's for sale" attitude of the two main political parties, they labored through poverty, blacklisting, lynch mobs and government sabotage towards that better America. And they did it all with a song on their lips and in their hearts. An excellent book for those who want to know more about a period when only the very brave questioned the government and the system we live under.

OKAY, I GAVE THIS BOOK 5 STARS, NOT BECAUSE IT WAS A GOOD BOOK, IT WAS NOT, BUT BECAUSE I REALLY WANT PEOPLE TO READ IT. I GREW UP WITH PEOPLE LIKE "SIS" CUNNINGHAM AND GORDON FRIESEN AND WAS MYSELF ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN MANY OF THE SAME MOVEMENTS DISCUSSED. I AM AN OLD MAN AND CAN LOOK BACK WITH SOME AMOUNT OF OBJECTIVITY. YES, WE HIT UPON CAUSES THAT WERE JUST AND MADE COMPLETE SENSE. WHO WOULDN'T TRY TO STOP LYNCHINGS, RACISM, CORRUPTION IN POLITICS AND CORRUPTION IN BIG BUSINESS AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE POOR, ESPECIALLY IN RURAL AREAS. AT THE SAME TIME THESE PEOPLE WERE IN EFFECT ORGANIZERS FOR THE COMMUNIST PARTY AND THEIR AVOWED PURPOSE, WHICH IS HISTORICAL FACT, WAS THE OVERTHROW OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM AND IN EFFECT THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. THEY WERE PROFESSIONAL TROUBLEMAKERS, NOT PARTICULARLY INTELLIGENT,OR HISTORICALLY CENTERED, WHO REALLY CARED MORE ABOUT THE "MOVEMENT" OR "REVOLUTION" THAN THE PEOPLE THEY PURPORTED TO BE HELPING. THEIR ETHICS WERE AT BEST AMORAL AND LYING OR CRIMINAL ACTS TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR ENDS WERE TOTALLY JUSTIFIED. I WAS THERE, I KNOW. IT IS A DREARY, BORING, DEPRESSING ACCOUNT OF SOCIAL MALCONTENTS AND MISFITS WHO PROJECTED THEIR OWN MISERY ON THE ENTIRE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE. IMAGINE THESE PEOPLE BEING IN CONTROL AND IMAGINE HOW MUCH FUN IT WOULD BE TO LIVE IN A SOVIET STYLE STATE. READ THE BOOK, IT WILL SCARE YOU, OR AT LEAST IT SHOULD.

The ghost of Jamie O'Roarke, a dashing pirate trapped inside an oak tree in the Old Burial Ground in Salem, Mass. is released from his wooden prison by a bolt of lightening on Old Hallows Eve. Unbeknown to Rebecca Love, the lovely young assistant to Peter Hawking,(who is holding a seance in the cemetery), O'Roarke has been waiting three hundred years to get revenge on the Love family. It seems Rebecca Love's ancesters were responsible for O'Roarke being hanged. O'Roarke tricks Rebecca into going with him back to the Salem of 1692. What follows is a wonderful story of intrigue, humor and suspense told by an author who has throughly researched her subject. This entertaining novel is not only wonderfully written, it is informative and historically accurate. I highly recommend this book. It's a real page turner.

Serena Devlin has woven a tale of adventure, time travel and romance set in modern day Salem, Massachusetts and the Salem of 1692. Her marvelous descriptions of her characters and of the settings in her novel remind me of the type of attentiion to detail that made Ernest Hemingway so famous. If anyone is expecting a book about Wiccans, they'll be sadly disappointed. This novel is an adventurous romp with great characters such as Jamie O'Roarke, a pirate trapped inside an oak tree for three hundred years, freed by a bolt of lightening on Old Hallows Eve that splits the tree in two. Devlin brings to life the Salem of 1692 by her use of dialect that would have been spoken by persons living in Salem at that time. I highly recommend this book for any person age fifteen or older. (I'm an adult and I throughly enjoyed it) Theodore Windsor, history teacher (10th grade)

I worked for Boston Public Schools in the 1970's..It was just as tunmultous and political as this book describes.
Mr. Cronin was obviously there and knows the past problems and the recent breakthroughs.
i recommend that everyone interested in city schools read this important history of the movs improved urban school system in America.

Dr. Cronin has written several books and this is one of his finest efforts. An excellent retelling of the evolution of one of Americas oldest public school systems.

This is a very concise and thought provoking book. Dr. Andrews addresses issues that are still challenging us today while at the same time, giving the reader an excellent historical guide with fascinating information not only about the events and sites of this exciting part of our Country's history, but also by giving us glimpses of the part played by many diverse people (which, unfortunely, is not fully explored in most of our American history textbooks). The introductory section "Modern Myths and Revolutionary Realisties"and "Prelude to the American Revolution" sets the stage for what follows--a truly readable introductory history/guide book about the area! Of special interest to this reader were the sources listed at the end of every chapter as well as the chapter explaining some of origins of Colonial idioms still in use: "skin flint", "mind your P's and Q's", "pot luck". This book is a winner and deserves to be in everyone's bookcase or back pocket to be read and used and savored and given as gifts.

Joseph Andrews' Revolutionary Boston, Lexington & Concord: The Shots Heard Round the World! offers the unusual combination of being a quick read yet containing factual, compelling information. The author has done his homework on this one. The content is succinctly written and contains many interesting anecdotes, actual quotes from the patriots and British, little known facts and myths that all add up to a little jewel of a book. If you are traveling to the Boston area or just want to bone up on this most historic area, without reading tomes of history, this book is for you.

I am one of the "locals" that the author, Dr. Andrews, mentions who has seen a lot of the sites, but at different times. I never knew the extent of the involvement of so many towns. The part about Boston was an especially pleasurable trip through memory lane for me, since my father was a member of the Massachusetts General Court from 1940-1950 and Boston was an integral part of my early years.

I enjoyed how Dr. Andrews was able to weave together separate parts of Massachusetts Revolutionary history into an easily readable book with lots of anecdotes and explanations that make this history come alive. It is amazing to realize that on April 18,1775 the British troops "embarked from a spot near today's Public Gardens...before landfill built up the area..."

So much packed into 144 pages; a must read; a most enjoyable guide!

This guidebook is a great read - if you are not now planning a trip to the Boston area you will surely want to once you finish! I'd like to catch the next plane out of Honolulu & go on a tour. The author makes history come alive again. He clears up many misconceptions & tells what really happened. His style of writing is reader friendly. In addition to being a comprehensive guidebook it is also worth reading for anyone interested in Revolutionary History. Lots of pictures too.