Michigan Books

Eloise. The mere mention of the name can send shivers down the spines of any who grew up in the southeastern Michigan era. The dark, brooding, mental asylum stood poised at the corner of Merriman Rd. And Michigan Ave. for decades inciting myths and legends about what went on behind those walls. I can remember as a kid, my older brothers teasing me whenever we drive by about how they were going to drop me off and leave me there. Then later as a teenager, we'd drive around its grounds late at night on a dare, keeping our eyes peeled for escaped inmates. This was one scary place!

Author Patricia Ibbotson peels away those urban legends in her wonderful and comprehensive history of Eloise which was so much more than I ever knew. Eloise was founded in the 1830's as a poorhouse in Nankin Twp. Michigan which later became the city of Westland, my home town. The original log cabin building has once been known as the Black Horse Tavern. From this tiny, lone structure rose a vast complex of over a dozen buildings that became a city unto itself. Eloise had its own police and fire departments, its own post office, general store, greenhouses, bakeries and tobacco curing house. The farmlands it was nestled on grew a variety of crops that were all tended to by the patients and inmates of Eloise. Eloise even had its own auditorium used by both patients and employees to put on shows.

At its peak Eloise housed thousands of patients and inmates, but as I found out, it was much more than just an asylum. It was the Wayne County General hospital for many years until closing in 1984. Eloise also was a nursing home, caring for the aged and the infirmed, and boasted a Tuberculosis Sanitarium in the early 1900's as well. Eloise also continued in its original goal by caring for the indigent. There is a striking photo of a dormitory as large as a football field, with row upon row of bunk beds for what was termed "POGIES" or "poor old guys". The men could come to Eloise for a roof over their heads and three square meals per day. While the living conditions may not have been ideal, as Ibbotson points out the alternative today is that they are homeless and on the streets.

This fascinating history is told with over 200 archival photos from the 1800's right up until the facility finally close in the 1980's. I was astounded by the photographs of Eloise's interiors. Thinking I'd see something out of a "B" horror film, I instead saw interiors that looked like they were taken inside a posh hotel. Art deco designs, Tennessee marble walls and columns, and Terrazzo tiled floors adorn the buildings and Eloise took things such as patient's needs for warm, natural lighting into consideration decades before it became the norm. But you never lose sight of the fact that this was a mental facility. The buildings that were used to house the inmates are covered in thick, iron bars. One darkly humorous photo shows three smiling female attendants standing before a table piled with leather restraints; another shows a patient on a table under going electro shock therapy. Perhaps the most historically interesting photo is that of Bridget "Biddy" Hughes, who had the distinction of being the first person committed to Eloise in 1841. She would spend the next 54 years there until her death in 1895.

Today, little is left of the once sprawling complex; just an administrative building is all. Now occupying the land is a strip mall featuring a grocery store, video store, etc, and a McDonalds restaurant. Eloise may be long gone but the urban legends and tales of hauntings are still passed along by residents of the area today. What a captivating history of a true Michigan legend. Well researched and filled with outstanding photography.

Gilligan's clear writing and fascinating historical evidence make his arguments compelling and totally convincing.

This is an excellent textbook for a class in modern Israeli Hebrew. The 10 lessons are well structured. They are divided into 2 parts which use a conversation to introduce new vocabulary and grammatical concepts. There are group exercises to practice conversations and written exercises which test comprehension and develop grammar.

The grammar includes basic subjects like the nominal sentence, agreement in number and gender between noun and adjective, construct state, pronominal suffixes, key particles (yesh, `eyn, hineh, etc.), interrogatives, personal and demonstrative pronouns, use of the active participle for expressing present tense. Level 1 finishes with the introduction to past tense with the qal perfect of a few verbs. The system of Hebrew verbs is more fully developed in Level 2. Level 3 is geared toward the written more than the spoken word.

The vocabulary of the text is practical for a school setting. The vocabulary is not the typical vocabulary geared towards tourists or diplomats. One feature I really appreciate is the inclusion of occasional loan words from English that are in use in current colloquial Hebrew. The language is not so colloquial that the paradigms in 2nd person plural have been leveled as is common in actual conversation.

The text is ktiv male except in the vocabulary lists and the paradigms. By being written without vowel points and diacritics, it avoids the student becoming dependent on them. Also, on the subject of the writing system, the text is one of the few that addresses one of my pet peaves with Hebrew textbooks. It actually teaches how to write cursive!

Were I teaching a class in Modern Hebrew I would select this textbook.

This is a textbook for a young-adult or adult class, however, it can be used for self-study as long as the associated audio tapes are also purchased.

I have given this book away to different school's where I have taught in Minnesota, and in Mexico (Chiapas, San Luis Potosi). Now I find myself teaching again, and I need it! I'm ordering another copy from Amazon.com!

This book gives ESL/EFL students the repetition they need, and it makes it so simple, that they don't mind the work! It is page after page of photocopiable worksheets that start from zero--the verb "to be" and goes on to advanced.

You can use it for extra practice specific area for a student who needs it, or for everyday class worksheets, quizzes, homework, or games (I put one item up at a time, and see who comes up with the correct answer first)...

After I know my students understand a concept I make sure they can put it into practice in many different ways. This book is the easiest way I've found to do that. English Structure Practices has all the bases covered...including exceptions to rules that I may not have remembered.

It's VERY THOROUGH! And that's how my students want to learn and I want to teach; thoroughly!

I read this book for a graduate course in Roman history.

It is important to understand that the army of the Republic was by no means a second rate militia force. "Discipline and training were its hallmarks; the care with which the camp was laid out reveals no ordinary grouping of amateur warriors. The Romans adopted professional attitudes to warfare long before the army had professional institutions." The army's professionalism is proven by reading the one military training manual still extant, Vegetiu's fourth century CE Epitome of Military Science. Most experts agree that Vegetius' Epitome was certainly a compilation of earlier Roman military training and doctrine manuals that have not survived. This manual is replete with information for the commander on how to recruit, train, supply, billet, and employ his legion in combat.

Rome had an army from its earliest beginnings as a small city-state. There is little known of the structure of the military in early Roman history. "At first, military service in the Roman Army entailed a man being away from his home...for a few weeks or months over the summer. The campaign season opened in March and closed in October, as official festivals in the Roman calendar make clear." Servius Tullius was the sixth king of Rome who reigned from about 580-530 BCE. Servius instituted many reforms in both the political and military structures of Rome which were codified in the Sevian Constitution. He conducted the first census of the citizenry and used this information to divide the population into classes based on wealth. The class structure was then used both politically for voting classification and militarily to determine in what portion of the legion a man would serve in to defend Rome. The men were organized into centuries (hundreds) within the class structure. Militarily, the class ranking was based on wealth, which determined where a man would serve in the legion based on his ability to provide his own weapons and equipment. The wealthiest class in Roman society served in the equites or the Roman cavalry, of which there were eighteen centuries. Obviously, these men had the financial ability to provide their own horses. The majority of the population was divided into five classes who served in the infantry. Men who had no property had no military obligation. The military tactics used were similar to the Greek hoplite formation.

"Members of the `first class' were to be armed with a bronze cuirass, spear, sword, shield and greaves to protect the legs; the `second class' with much the same panoply minus the cuirass; the `third', the
same but lacking the greaves; the `fourth; the shield and spear only, and the `fifth' was armed only with slings or stones.

During the period of the Republic, the structure of the army went through some changes after the enactment of the Servian Constitution. When a Roman citizen volunteered or was drafted, it was to fight in a specific campaign rather than for a specific length of time. Since Rome's empire was expanding in the second century BCE, it might not be uncommon for soldiers to serve in successive campaigns with a length of service reaching six years--the usual maximum length of service. In some very rare instances a soldier could volunteer to serve longer terms of service, mainly for the booty reward available to soldiers. Normally, a soldier would be maintained in a citizen reserve for sixteen years after his initial term of service. If a soldier was mobilized later, it was unlikely he would retain his former rank. This fact made it difficult for a man to make the army a lucrative profession in the Republic era. Even if a citizen showed exceptional aptitude and bravery in combat and rose to the rank of centurion, he would only have received double the pay of an ordinary soldier until Julius Caesar changed the pay and reward structure for his legions.

Recommended reading for those interested in Roman history, military history.

Hi! Excellent book. It is clear why it is sold out. You need to order more!!!

This is a great account of the Hidatsa Indians. Washington Matthews was able to preserve part of the Hidatsa language.

The Orestia trilogy is the tragic story of the awesome responsibility of a blood debt. In the first play, "Agamemnon," the title character returns victoriously from Troy to be murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, who having sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia so that a fair wind would blow the Achean army to Troy. In the middle play, "The Choephori" ("The Libation Bearers"), Orestes comes to Argos to avenge his father by killing his mother. After doing the bloody deed, Orestes is afflicted by madness and flees in terror from the Furies, the hideous spirits who hunt down and punish murderers. Thus the stage is set for "The Eumenides," the final play in the trilogy.

"The Eumenides" begins a few days after the end of the previous play, with Orestes seeking refuge at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. In a most unusual move for a Greek tragedy, the action then jumps ahead several years when Orestes, after years of wandering as a tormented outcast, arrives at Athens and throws himself on the mercy of the godess Athena. The Furies arrive, hot upon his heels, and demand he be punished for his act of matricide. However, Orestes insists that since he acted according to the dictates of Apollo, he is guiltless of the crime. This is a shocking declaration, especially for someone from the accursed house of Atreus. Athena convenes a special court to hear the case against Orestes, but they are unable to reach a verdict, leaving it to the goddess to decide his fate.

Ultimately, the Orestia is a celebration of the Athenian civilization that had created a democratic government and a system of trial by jury. That such a system could be perverted might be true, as the case of Socrates strongly suggests, but Aeschylus is comparing the system to the past to draw a strong distinction between vengeance and justice. The Orestia has great importance because of this theme, and not simply because it is the only surviving example of a Greek tragic trilogy. The climax of "The Eumenides" is rather strange for a Greek tragedy, since it ends on an exalted note of reconciliation and optimism. This is symbolized most by the transformation of the Furies into the Eumenides ("kindly ones"). But ultimately it is the Athenian legal system, where a new type of justice is tempered by mercy, that is being glorified in this triology. The tragic story of Orestes is simply the tale Aeschylus chooses to teach his lesson.

Book Review

Maintenance of Cultural Myths: The Case of Stalking
Every Breath You Take: Stalking Narratives and the Law. Orit Kamir, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2000.

I believe in vampires. There is no empirical data which I can use to prove their existence, but proof is unnecessary: what is important is that I believe. But how is it that an otherwise rational person harbors such a superstition? Those who snicker may ask why they are afraid of the dark, or sense icy digits brushing their necks when alone. Orit Kamir in Every Breath You Take, points to collective culture as the villain in such manifestations of the unconscious. Her subject is those who stalk, in a work which "... does not aim to define human categories or defeciences, but merely to better understand the social phenomenon as it is conceived"(2).
What is fascinating is the method she adopts to expose the phenomenon of stalking. Drawing from Sumerian and Hebrew myth, nineteenth-century English literature, and a century of film, Kamir works in a linear fashion and effectively demonstrates the cyclical and repetitive nature of the themes and motifs of stalking. She concludes, in a somewhat hasty manner, with a critique of the current California anti-stalking law, maintaining that what has occurred is a fusion of image with law.
Collective culture, states Kamir, creates and sustains the myths and dreams which, "like ghosts ... haunt our lives and alter our behaviour"(3). And although social behaviour is malleable, those shifting winds are drawn into a vortex by periods of moral panic: a public pre-occupation with a social phenomenon that is irrationally perceived as extremely threatening. These periods are unstable and impulsive, and prone to misconceptions, so that today "[by] addressing mythological images rather than social reality, the legislature did not adequately conceptualize the prohibited behaviour, and the `panicky' drafting rendered an imperfect law"(175). This is Kamir's conclusion, and the answer to her unstated question: how do our cultural constructs work upon us? What she reveals is the considerable gap between a fear of stalking constructed in the media and the reality of stalking such that the modern legal response is lacking in many respects.
With the fear of stalking comes the elements of social control derived from myth to validate oppression. So when Kamir discusses female then male stalking, there are striking contrasts. Kamir's central female subject is Lilit - counterpoint to Eve - who "subverts patriarchal sexual norms"(41) is feared and hated, yet secretly desired as she is both sexually independent and dangerous. By characterizing female stalking as dangerous, Lilit's independence, like the "witches" of Europe, is a rallying point, "which society and patriarchy could, and can, bank on when necessary to establish solidarity among men"(42). Apparently, what frustrates and elicits this reaction is the fact that Lilit never lets men control and objectify her - the hallmarks of male stalking.
Kamir asserts that male stalking is nourished to service the social order while female stalking is used both in dangerous times of social instability. In this light, male stalking or the unseen eye (appropriated from Lilit) is operating at all times and therefore in constant need of justification. Accordingly, most stalking narratives are structured by a patriarchal framework: first there is the strond, sexually initiating women who stalks a man (both Lilit and Alex in Fatal Attraction); second, a "Jack the Ripper" type serial killer who stalks a sexual, evil women whose moral vacancy invites punishment; and third, a monstrous male (Frankenstein, Dracula) stalks a weak, domestic Eve who is saved only if she is revealed to be a Virgin Mary type character. Themes in hand, men can remain wary of Lilit, destroying her mortal counterparts for moral failings, or reward chastity by driving of the beast. Yet though our cultural discourse is replete with these themes, in general, they have very little bearing on the type of stalking that occurs today.
Perhaps that is an inaccurate statement. When Kamir outlines the shortcomings of the current legislation in California, the prejudices mentioned above are readily apparent. To begin, there is the requirement that a threat be made against the complainant intended to place the target in "reasonable" fear of death or great bodily harm. This definition does not capture the type of stalking practiced by Ted Bundy or Allan Dershowitz who did not threaten, merely watched, or chose their victims without announcing their presence. Further, the adoption of an objective standard (the mythical "reasonable person") leads Kamir to state that once the prohibited behaviour is exhibited, "the victim's subjective feelings should make no difference and there seems to be no rational need to inspect them"(188). Presumably women can not sense danger in repeated, persistent attempts by men to invade their personal space; or may not realize that this behaviour may be permissible as part of the biological imperative. To solidify her criticism, and as a wonderful device to unite the work, Kamir quotes Nancy Ehreneich's determination that the "reasonable person" is a device for "importing a pre-existing societal consensus into the law"(191). Confusion and duplication in the current legal response to stalking thus reflects deeply imbedded cultural myths that women should be vulnerable to the male gaze, and should anticipate their fates as the logical conclusion of their promiscuous and non-male sanctioned behaviour.
Dislodging the dictates of the unconscious can not occur without an understanding how those images were formed - layer upon layer of myth and speculation - an Kamir is convincing in her treatment of stalking while pointing out that a critical analysis free from moral panic is crucial. But it will be an uphill battle, and while my crucifix reposes at home, I do occasionally carry garlic.

Cameron Gleadow

Written by the founder of the Lake Michigan Federation and the Executive Director at the Canadian Environmental Law Association, Evolution Of The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is a scholarly discussion of the Canadian- American partnership regarding the Great Lakes, the negotiation behind the Great Lakes Agreement and its evolution, the transformation of the Great Lakes Regime, and more. In addition to the detailed and heavily researched survey of history that forms the main text, the entire Great Lakes Agreement of 1972 and its 1978 revision, along with copious notes, round out this down-to-earth environmental history. An excellent reference, as accessible to lay readers as well as students and professionals in environmental studies.