Massachusetts Books

This is a marvelous guide book. We intended to visit Plymouth on our vacation this year but did not make it. However, we plan to take this book with us when we go next year. Dr. Jehle goes through all the signifcant sites at Plymouth and takes you through the history (the real history, not the revisionist, politically correct nonesense that passes for history today) of that site/monument in detail. He acknowledges the contributions of both the Pilgrims and the native peoples and highlights the strong faith of our founders as well as that of many of those in the native population. I highly recommend this, especially if you want to teach your children the history of our founding.

This is an easy-to-read booklet for those off the beaten tourist path with an interest in history and philosophy/christianity.
The second half is devoted to what is probably Plymouth's best kept secret: The Forefathers' Monument, a beautiful and impressive 81 ft. granite statue overlooking the town, which none of my friends had ever heard of. The monument artistically and philosophically depicts five main figures (Faith, Morality, Law, Education and Liberty), several smaller figures connected to the five larger ones and scenes of the history of the plantation. The worldview of the pilgrims and the citizens of the last century are explained through the interdependency and rich symbolism of the five figures of the monument: No liberty without education, no education without law, No law without morality, no morality without faith - an abbreviated version.
The first half of the book is devoted to the history of the pilgrims and their settlement. Through personal accounts of 400 years ago, it brings to life the persecution, the aspirations and struggles of these pioneers, upon which our country was built. It gives brief descriptions of various monuments and other sights worth seeing and puts them into the historical context of the settlement.
It made our return visit to Plymouth exceedingly rich.

Portrait of a Port is a remarkable collection of photographs covering the Boston waterfront in the days of sail. Whether you are a model maker, historian, or sailor, you will appreciate this amazing collection of photographs. A minimal, but entirely sufficient text explains the photographs, but the real content lies within the photos. There are coasting schooners, clippers, catboats and barges. There are fishermen and fishcarts, docks and shipyards, riggers and sailors. Get a magnifying glass because the detail locked within these lovely old black and white photos is stunning. The collection captures a time long gone.

I met Mr Bunting in Jaffrey, NH during the time he was compiling Old photos. Any lover of the nautical scene will love this book.It covers the port of Boston from 1852 to 1914 .A wonderful picture every other page with very knowlegeble discourse on the facing page. From the Thomas W Lawson the only 7 masted scooner ever built to the masts named sfter the days of the week to the lowly but wonderful narrow gauge ferry from East Boston to Boston. I rode this ferry many times as a child.

This is a book you will never toss out.

A great re-print of one of the best documents about the landscape design aspect of the Prairie School. Vernon's introduction contains well-researched information about this important aspect of a significant American regional design expression.

The Prairie Spirit In Landscape Gardening is a reprint of a classic treatise first published in 1915, about a uniquely American style of landscape design - the "prairie style." Black-and-white photographs of designs for Chicago's Graceland Cemetery and Midwestern landscapes by Walter Burley Griffin and Warren H. Manning complement an informative text that has stood the test of time as a hallmark of American landscape gardening cultural trends. An extensive introduction to the new edition rounds out this remarkable and enduring work, The Prairie Spirit In Landscape Gardening is a welcome and strongly recommended addition to personal, professional, academic, and community library landscaping and gardening supplemental reading lists and reference collections.

This book was nothing like I expected. It is a collection of prayers DuBois had been writing his entire life. The astonishing fact about the collection is that he kept these works a secret until his final days in the United States. This is a mind motivating book and highly underrated. It can move the "souls of black folk." This thoughts have nothing to do with the fact he and I both graduated from Fisk University.

This book was nothing like I expected. It is a collection of prayers DuBois had been writing his entire life. The astonishing fact about the collection is that he kept these works a secret until his final days in the United States. This is a mind motivating book and highly underrated. It can move the "souls of black folks." This thoughts have nothing to do with the fact he and I both graduated from Fisk University.

This book should be required reading for American history buffs and students. Hinkle sifted through Lexington's past and managed to find enough of Prince Estabrook to give us a peek into his life as a slave and a revolutionary soldier more than 200 years ago.

When envisioning the tense faces of Lexington militia on April 19, 1775 staring at the British regulars as they approach the green, rarely does one place a black face among them. None of the subsequent paintings of the Battle of Lexington included black participation. Through careful research, Alice Hinkle has pieced together into a lively narrative the shards of evidence extant on one such African American. Prince Estabrook's life and those of other local African American patriots of the American Revolution are illuminated in her book--Prince Estabrook, Slave and Soldier. In elevating the visibility of African Americans in colonial Lexington and surrounding towns, she has done a great service. New England slavery and military service are research topics that have yet to be thoroughly explored. Alice Hinkle shows presence of the past by interviewing Charlie Price the Lexington citizen that has taken on Prince Estabrook's role for a number of years in the April 19th town reenactment of the Battle of Lexington. In addition, an appendix offers a black patriots' trail for those who would like to visit sites in the Boston area connected with black patriots. A thoroughly enjoyable read, Prince Estabrook, Slave and Soldier, inspires one to want to delve further into the topic.

This book is about Priscilla Foster, a 12 year old girl living in Salem in 1692. Priscilla's friends have started accusing innocent people of being witches and before she knows it Priscilla has joined them in accusing people. Priscilla wants to stop but she finds herself unable to. This is my favorite Her Story book.

Priscilla Foster is one of the girls who see witches in the Salem Witch Trials. She tells her grand-daughter about her tragic and terrifying tale. Gives a must-read account of the trials.

Like E. Annie Proulx, Charlotte Bacon's writing is fresh and compelling, sprinkled liberally with incandescent imagery. Like Cheever, seemingly small events, like a weekend in the country, a troubling discovery made by a daughter in her father's apartment, or a whale-watching trip, all mark tidal points in the lives of her characters. With nary a false note, this young writer carries us through the lives of men and women facing the end of marriage, the beginning of a pregnancy, the repercussions of the loss of a job on a wealthy family. Such grace and assured prose is rare in young writers, and I'm already waiting for her next. An excellent collection of stories (and prize-winning, too, if you check the book jacket).

All our old elusive friends from English Class -- Psychological Depth, Moral Complexity, Wit (sparkling of course), Astute Observation, Lucidity and Grace -- are evident in these fine tales of women sliding into nuances of awareness they never sought and perhaps wouldn't have welcomed. Reminiscent of Cheever, yes; but also Chekhov and (at their very best) Ann Beattie and Alice Munro. Rather impressive stuff.

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.

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.

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.

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.