Minnesota Books

Ann Burckhardt is a former reporter, columnist, and editor for the Taste (food) section of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Her fantastic credentials don't stop there, though. She's written and edited dozens of books on food, even the Betty Crocker Cooky Book.

This book brings together her years of knowledge and experience, and her love of the food world. It is full of pleasures--food, good writing, and a writer's passion for her topic. The subject is the food scene of Minnesota. But, this book has appeal far beyond state lines. This long-time journalist's skill at bringing people and places to life makes it a worthy read for any writer. There's nothing about it I didn't enjoy!

If that isn't enough to entice, the recipes surely will ... Lemon-Butter Bars, Créme Brulèe French Toast, and Magic Marshmallow Crescent Treats. Also, there's Marion Ross's Cheesy Macaroni Bake with Spam, or Endlessly Easy Chicken Breasts, among others.

--Review by Sarah Tieck excerpted from The Writer's Notebook, July 2005 issue

Delightful, heartwarming stories of northwoods rural medicine. Dr. MacDonald warmly describes his hearty patients who live on the edges of civilization. You'll meet a colorful cast who don't always see eye to eye with "modern" medicine, but have a great deal of respect for their country doctor, who many times, is having to figure things out on the fly.

A Country Doctor's Chronicle reads like a mixture of James Herriot and Patrick McManus, with a healthy dose of self-depricating humor. Highly recommended for anyone in the medical field or anyone who likes human interest stories and is looking for some diversionary reading. Grade: A.

I thought that the story was fascinating. I grew up in the area and had always heard the story of "Coya" never knowing any of the characters. The book tells the story of the struggle of a hometown girl that was filled with passion and how she falls into politics and "tragically" falls out. The book shows just how corrupt the political scene can be, especially to a woman from a small midwestern town.

Crazy Dave struggles to live a normal life on a rural Indian Reservation in Ontario, Canada. Basil Johnston recalls his childhood and living with his grandmother and "Crazy" uncle Dave, who has downs syndrome. A fascinating, humorous and very realistic account of what it was like growing up on an Indian Reservation. Uncle Dave tries desperately to fit in with his community but is often misunderstood and never fully accepted. Uncle Dave is a metaphor for his people, the Native American Indian who is an outsider in is own country and anglo society. But once understood, the love, warmth and strong family values are seen through the Indian people. "Crazy Dave" often gets into trouble without knowing why. When he wants to play baseball with the children he hits the ball to far, he eats a wood cutter's lunch and is mistaken for a Japanese spy during the height of World War 11. This is an excellent read, don't be discouraged by the slow pace of the first two or three chapters, once started, you will not want to put the book down. I devoured the book in 3 days.

This is a study from several decades ago that was one of the earliest geo-spatial reviews of crime associated with bars. I don't remember how many bars were studied, perhaps 60, perhaps more. What we found was that there was an empirical correlation between the incidence of crime and the offense site distance from the bar.

What was interesting is that this used one of the first distance decay models which used normalized density functions to actually measure density as a function of distance. The math and stat involved demonstrated that at least for the city of Minneapolis during the study period, it was unhealthy to live near or frequent a bar compared to any other establishment type.

I guess you'd call it a proof of what everyone kinda new all along. The study was later used to shut down a particular bar in Minneapolis which we likened to the bar scene in the first star wars movie. It was a fun place to visit and we felt that the lab-work of actually being a bar patron was valid and justifiable research.

This isn't what I would call high literature, but if you're in the mood to shut down your local noisy neighborhood drinking establishment, this is YOUR study to present to the city council.

I have no idea how this ended up on Amazon, but if anyone actually has a copy, I'd love to see it. My copy got moldy and discarded years ago.

I have read this book and realized that this is the most brutal honest book that I have ever read on the AIDS Crisis. The problem of informing people who are not PWA's or Gay( Such as myself)is that you sometimes do not get the full picture. However, this is a little known gem that should be read by anyone that has to involuntarily change there lifestyle and bury so many friends in such a short time.

Extremely well-written (not at all dense or over anyone's head), and very original, mix of political and critical theories of the past few decades (plus Emerson). Escaping from the often self-indulgent intricacies of pop-deconstruction, Wolfe offers real and pragmatic tactical theories for a better-informed Left. I was very impressed, and even amused; there is a sense of humor here that is too often missed in today's critical environment. Very good.

This book is an insightful, and enjoyable, introduction to studies in cult television. This collection of writings deals with shows such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Star Trek," "Doctor Who" and other series central to the genre. One of the strengths of this book is that most essays, while usually attached to a specific television series, are presented in such a '"transparent" style that the reader still benefits from insight without necessarily being familiar with the individual series serving as an illustration of theory/ history given in the essay.
The book begins (after an excellent introduction penned by both editors) with the tradition of "French dressing," namely an academic, hyper-metaphysically abstract essay by a French author. The reader may do well to enter into the book by initially skipping this one and starting instead with
Sara Gwenllian-Jones' " Virtual Reality and Cult Television." Her essay is a quietly (read: somewhat academic) yet vital and enthusiastic exploration of the immersive nature central to the cult television experience.
Several essays deal with cult TV fandom. Each affirms the positive profile of those of us who share that kind of social awareness made manifest by means of our profound love of fantasy and play.

Finalemente, someone else is doing the right kind of work in the right way on this topic.

For years, Chico/Chicana scholars--like Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Elvia R. Arriola, Lourdes Torres, and of course, Cherrie Moraga and the late Gloria Anzaladúa--have written circles around us about the politics of culture, place and community. These women in particular seem to be fearless in investigative gaze surrounding the politics of eros within their communities. José Esteban Muñoz's albeit seminal Disidenificaitons speaks to a "Latino" performance, or as he phrases it one of "Queers of Color". Yet, to date, it has been the closest that we have come to a genuine scholarly effort to articulate the political function governing the erotic within the Cuban American community by a Cuban American scholar until now.

Ortíz's work is scrupulous, fascinating and inventive. Rather than repeat the theoretical notions of race, place, gender and time that have come to be literary critical practice, they are merely the tools--Foucauldian, Critical Race, Gender Theories--by which he fashions a incisive path in this area of thought. Many, many scholars to come already owe this author an enormous debt of gratitude for the groundwork he has laid.

The essays collected in this book, which represent a sort of interdisciplinary confluence between "political science" (such as it is) and anthropology, engage with traditional international relations theory in a really compelling and refreshing manner. The central idea is fairly simple: "insecurity," whether between states or other non-state actors, is not naturally given, but is instead produced through social interaction. Coming from this is an ontological refocus, in which the subject (ie, the actor) is "decentred" within the field of analysis, and replaced by these social processes themselves. Subsequently, we see the emergence of questions related to the nature of identity and "culture," the power relations that are manifested in the production of these insecurities, and some of the most basic assumptions of more traditional "rationalist" theories (which are revealed to be problematic).

The exceptional introductory chapter establishes a set of core principles: reality is socially constructed; this construction reflects, enacts, and reifies relations of power; and the "critical constructivist" approach promoted throughout the book must problematise these dominant constructions (or discourses) while reflexively acknowledging its own role within the discursive field. Each successive chapter employs these principles, more or less, to analyse a specific IR-relevant topic, including the Cuban missile crisis, the ineffectual international response to genocide in Rwanda, the "colonisation" of the Internet as a new field of national insecurity, and the failure of neorealism to anticipate the end of the Cold War. Despite the fact that the content is diverse, conceptual incoherence is avoided through reference to these basic ideas, and the case studies instead do a good job of developing and highlighting the usefulness of the approach.

The editors themselves identify strongly with the constructivist school. I'd argue that their reflexive approach to discourse puts them somewhere further down the post-positivistic spectrum, closer to poststructuralism. Either way, this book should be required reading for anyone in the field of international relations, particularly those with a specific interest in security studies. By effectively critiquing a number of traditional assumptions within IR theory, it serves to alleviate the hegemony of certain long-dominant schools of thought, and provides a more complex and, arguably, a more realistic portrayal of political process.


FURTHER READING:

David CAMPBELL, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity and National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia
In both of these works, Campbell provides an intriguing account of foreign policy, in which these discourses, rather than expressing the interests of a predefined national group, actually participates in constructing the group's identity and defining the state as an object.

William CONNOLLY, IdentityDifference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox
Connolly examines the relational, interdependent nature of the concepts of identity and difference, which, he argues, are mutually constitutive and conceptually inseparable.

Ernesto LACLAU and Chantal MOUFFE, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics
Laclau and Mouffe tackle a number of related concepts, including the constitutive and constraining nature of discourse, and the emergence of systemic organising principles through (often unguided) self-reinforcing social processes.

Jutta WELDES, Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis
An expanded version of Weldes' chapter on the Cuban missile crisis.