Minnesota Books

If you are a Minnesota sports fan, as I am, then Sid will give you great memories of all of the major pro and college sports teams. His years of expertise and great photos will bring back a lot nostalgia. Sid is the dean of Minnesota sports coverage. A great book at a great value through Amazon.

For someone who grew up through much of these events and missed many others this book is a must-have. It is a great way to look back at the memories and learn a thing or two in the process.

An indispensable volume of Native American writing. Every library, home, and school should have a copy.

This anthology of contemporary Native women's voices is the first of its kind to weave a plethora of voices and visions together. Many great authors and works in the book. A worthwhile purchase!

I really enjoyed this book. I know most of the places mentioned. It was wonderful to hear about the people's stories. I'm very impressed that they also put in a section honoring Native Americans. VERY good.

This is the sort of guidebook real Minnesotans appreciate, not one of those listings of pizza parlors and nightlife opportunities for all persuasions. In fact, even if you're not planning a visit to our northern wonderland soon, you ought to get this book and keep it in the dash compartment of your car, cuz you never know when the urge to get buried might come upon you. I can guarantee there's no more friendly place to be interred than Freeborn County, where I am now.

If you're considering a long sojourn here, however, I suggest doing an amazon search for guidebooks. You'll find something for almost every traveler's taste. But don't forget your bug spray or your mittens.

Enjoyable, challenging book. Osa uses multiple data sources to analyze how socio-political change was accomplshed. She demonstrates how group ties evolved, moving from unsuccessful events to the successful ties and events. Osa challenges the current explanations, and succeeds.

In these days where 'uninformed wishful thinking' controls US policymakers, it is most helpful to read how political-social change was actually accomplished. Osa carefully and clearly describes the networks (personal & organizational) and historical events that lead to massive positive political change. She documents the changes in groups, and the composition of groups, that lead through sets of failed uprisings and culmunated in real political change. It is a most worthwhile book that challenges both common (mis)understandings and academic arguments about political change.

This is my favorite of Bill Durbin's books and I've read them all. The setting, the characters, the Minnesota winter, this amazing young boy Matt who becomes the man of the family ... it all adds up to a vivid depiction of life when Europeans were making their newfound way in this country.

As a teacher I've read lots of homestead books, but this one is unique in its northwoods setting. The historical details are well researched, and characters and their struggles are depicted in a realistic manner. Adults as well as kids will enjoy this story. I've used THE BROKEN BLADE in my classroom, and I intend to incorporate this one into my curriculum as well.

This book offers a great insight into the history of Saint Paul. Not just the Architecture, but the cities life as a whole.

Published in cooperation with The City Of St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission, St. Paul's Architecture: A History is the collaborative work of cultural historian Jeffrey A. Hess and public historian/historic building consultant Paul Clifford Larson. Beginning with buildings from the founding in the 1840s of St. Paul, Minnesota, through the city's great construction boom of the mid-1880s, to the Period Revival architects of the 1920s and 30s, and the rise of modernism after World War II, the city's distinct history and character as reflected through the architecture of its buildings provides the reader with an historical survey of a rich architectural heritage that concludes with a final chapter on the architecture of present-day St. Paul. Presenting more than 225 notable surviving buildings and the history of several diverse city neighborhoods, St. Paul's Architecture is profusely illustrated with period photography and illustrations, making it a seminal reference for architectural students; admirers of St. Paul's special beauty, charm and history; and a seminal addition to any professional or academic library's Architectural Studies reference collection.

One of the most important books in documentary studies in the past few years, "States of Emergency" is well-written, profound, and disturbing. Zimmermann is opening a whole new angle on the field.

Randolph Lewis (author of Emile de Antonio: Radical Filmmaker in Cold War America)

We urgently need a new world image order!

(If that's not a call to arms, I don't know what is!)

So begins Patricia Zimmermann's wonderfully, powerful new expose on the current state of the world. Right from the start I was amazed at how she was able to capture an incredible amount of energy and emotion in such a simple way. The introduction absolutely blew me away. The urgency she created is unlike anything I have ever read before ... honestly. I felt like she was sitting right there in front of me, trying to drill it into my brain. AWESOME.

You have to realize, that this kind of power and urgency does NOT exist anywhere outside of academia (that I can think of). It doesn't happen in the workplace, it doesn't happen on the news, and it's doesn't happen on Oprah. It's AMAZING.

And, hello, women aren't supposed to talk like this. Especially moms that wear fashionable clothes that need to be dry-cleaned. She is taking on transnational corporations, nation states, and rich white dudes ... if I were her publisher, I would be fitting her for a bullet-proof vest right now. Hello!

Do not be fooled by any attempt at categorizing this book, they do no justice here. Zimmermann covers nearly 20 areas of studies, from film to finance from politics to health care. Think about it, how can one talk about issues in the world today without overlapping these areas of study? They are all intertwined! Zimmermann exposes the seams of the simple cause and effect relationship and why it has NEVER existed. Be ready, it will rock your world.

You know what's really incredible, Zimmermann has recorded the history of the public space in the later part of the twentieth century. She did it, it's right there! What other document has done this? Do you know how incredible that is? Do you know how many people don't want the public to know what happened? It is now impossible for them to try to re-write history. She snuck in the backdoor. There is no need to theorize about what happened, she just wrote it all down for future generations to see. That's amazing.

The Minnesota series is terrific, I particularly liked the Media series. You should read them all.

The Storms! book is about how Minnesotans weathered some of our severe weather storms. It's more anecdotal than scientific, and has awesome pictures of each storm. Great fun to read about whether or not you remember the storms yourself.

Thirteen-year-old Carrie's father told her to leave Hinckley on the train if the forest fire reached town - but Carrie doesn't want to leave her horse. Daniel, one of Carrie's friends, wants to leave Hinckley on the train - but he can't persuade his grandmother to come until it's too late. How will Carrie and Daniel manage to escape?

Survival! Forest Fire is a very good book. The setting is realistic, and the characters act like real people might. For example, Carrie Vaughn, who's father is a volunteer firefighter, disobeys her father when he tells her to take a train to St. Paul. She decides to stay with her horse, Midnight, instead. I think this action is realistic, although it isn't the smartest thing to do in a fire. This book, I think, is a little more exciting than the rest because some of the characters injure themselves, and that makes it harder to escape from the fire. This story was sort of like Survival! Fire, but more exciting, as I have said. I think Kathleen Duey and Karen A. Bale's description was fantastic. It really helped me imagine the setting in my mind. I would like to thank Kathleen Duey and Karen A. Bale on a job well done and encourage them to keep writing these series!

Here are a few of the many reasons I keep reading everything Mike Messner writes:

1) He seems to take the feminist "personal is political" slogan to heart, revealing much more of himself and his own questions and vulnerabilities than most other male writers.

2) He uses both academic and journalistic techniques to research his topics and support his theses.

3) He lacks the arrogance of many experts, retaining an open mind as he delibertely attempts to look at things in original ways.

4) The topic of this book -- and several of his others -- continues to fascinate me. By looking at how we "do gender" in a sporting context, we come to understand so much about how and why any and all women and men behave as we do.

Highly recommended. -- Mariah Burton Nelson

USC Sociologist Michael Messner, who has spent the majority of his academic career studying issues of sport, masculinity, and power has written a truly significant book with Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports. The book finds a place for much of his previous research, as well as the research of other gender and sport scholars, to elicit the mechanisms in which gender is produced, reproduced, and contested in sport.

The premise of the book holds that gender is a product of structure, culture, and an individual's interactions within culture. This serves as the launching point for a deft discussion of the affects of sport in America. Messner has a talent for seeing the larger picture in seemingly "normal" events, and in Taking the Field he analyzes the affect that "normal" interactions in sport has on the subjugation of women and gay men, and the real and symbolic violence committed against both women and men by men.

Messner's work is important to scholars of both sport and gender, but is particularly important to gender scholars who too frequently fail to recognize the power sport, and sport media, has in shaping current gender relations, particularly the institutionalization of manhood. But Taking the Field is also highly recommend for anybody who has an interest in understanding the larger implications of American sport, beyond winning and losing. It is a must read for coaches, parents, and educators who have anything to do with sport.

To help us understand how theory hits the road, Messner highlights familiar news events such as the Columbine Massacre, or the 1999 Women's World Cup Championships, and analyzes them from a social-feminist perspective. In such he clearly elucidates the perils of the way we do sport in America and shows us that the concepts and theories he speaks of are not just found on the pages of books - that they are real, with real life application, and have a very real affect on people's lives.

Taking the Field is also important because it brings both homophobia and the mediea into the center of analysis. Whereas much attention has been given to the media's role in gender relations, I have been wholly discouraged by the absence of homophobia from much sport literature, and from sport in gender literature. Taking the Field shows the significance homophobia plays in sport, shaping and maintaining athletics as a masculine and heterosexual institution, and how important sport is in the production of gender

In the end Dr. Messner suggests that resistance to the system is possible (perhaps even inevitable). The masculinist center of sport has a soft underbelly and it is currently challenged by individual sports, female athleticism, the growing presence of gay male athleticism, and progressive individual men who are no longer willing to allow the system to function in a homophobic and misogynistic manner. But while these challenges to a hegemonic masculinity have threatened sport's ability to be openly sexist and homophobic, we must understand how sport attempts to reproduce itself covertly, so that we can continue to progress toward a culture of equality...