Wisconsin Books

Biologist Jo Handelsman and sociologists Daniel Kleinman and Abby Kinchy gather scholars together in Controversies In Science & Technology From Maize To Menopause, considering such diverse topics as hormone replacement therapy, overuse of antibiotics, genetic modifications of crops, and agricultural issues. The result is an extensive set of scholarly discussions of scientific, health and technological issues not to be missed.

This is an axcellent book--but Amazon must make a note somewhere that is easily identified that this book was once called "Symbols" published by Amherst Press in 2000. Amazon has it listed only as a "reprint" edition. That ISBN # is 0-942495-97-7

Suchoff bases his far-ranging analysis of three major novelists of modernity - Dickens, Melville, and Kafka - on the stimulating intellectual frame inspired by the now classic Frankfurt School theorists - Adorno, Horkheimer, and Benjamin - and by their interpretation of history, which goes back to the first half of the twentieth century. Against the anti-historical reading of culture, the Frankfurt School claimed that artefacts contained the traces of their dialectical links with their times and that art worked against the grain of hegemonic representations, thus carrying out an essentially redemptive role in the domain of culture. According to Suchoff, this approach can still offer innovative and meaningful interpretations of the modern novel, capable of highlighting the oppositional role played by mass culture in and through texts, in the face of what he regards as reductive and conservative readings of modernism. Starting with Victorianism, Suchoff then discusses how the commodification of the novelist does not suppress Dickens's subversive rewriting of Victorian stereotypes. He concentrates on "Little Dorrit" to retrace in the subtext of this emblematic and most decent novel a repressed narrative of sexual abuse and unspeakable violence against women, a narrative that is nevertheless voiced by eloquent textual clues. Melville's work is interpreted as a powerful and devastating revision of American myths of power, destined to shipwreck like Ahab's ship, the Pequod. Finally, Kafka is analysed as a writer who thoughtfully comes to terms with Jewish identity, Zionism and political action, against the interpretative cliché that would deny his involvement with the challenges of his times. Suchoff's analysis manages to combine both sound theoretical knowledge and clever textual analysis, capturing the making and remaking of ideology in the discursive layers of the literary artefact. Doubtless, his convincing interpretation of these three major writers, who are so diversely engaged with history, makes his book not just an interesting contribution to the large corpus of criticism on Dickens, Melville and Kafka in the widening field of cultural studies, but a stimulus to apply such critical tools to other texts.

Martin Henni was the first Catholic Bishop of Milwaukee, Wisc. arriving there in the 1840's. He was sent to begin the diocese which was growing with German immigrants arriving by boat from Chicago and across the Great Lakes.
This book traces his travels in Wisconsin by horseback to visit other towns and minister to the people of Green Bay to LaCrosse. He traveled to Europe to entice German speaking priests to come to Milwaukee which had no seminary and needed clergy for the immigrants. In the early days around 1845 he trained a few boys in his house for the priesthood but then in 1856 he founded and built the city's first and world renown seminary, St. Francis De Sales which sits on the Lake Michigan shore in the town of St.Francis south of Milwaukee.
The original buildings of the seminary were constructed with bricks hand made in a brickyard and kiln built on the campus grounds and continued in use by Henni for about 10 years after the founding of the seminary to raise money from the commercial sale of the bricks.
Henni was a pioneer on the western front of America who established his seminary to train priests for some 48 dioceses from Michigan to Kansas until each diocese began building its own seminary as populations grew around the turn of the century. Henni lived through the cholera epidemic in Milwaukee of 1852-1855 which convinced him to build a seminary in the rural countryside south of Milwaukee out of the congested city center of growing immigrants so that the students would have fresh air and be free of disease.
This book shows the early life of Milwaukee and the growth of Catholic immigration in Wisconsin and the church leadership which was vital to founding the diocese and its lasting seminary which has trained over 4,000 priests to date in the last 150 years.
I strongly recommend this book for church history buffs and alumni who wish to know the early life of the alma mater. "Filios Reduces Salutat Alma Mater"!!!!!
From a member of the St. Francis Seminary class of 1970. "Quod est in scripto, est in mundo." (Marcus T.Cicero) Pax Vobiscum, Atty. Roger Lindmark, Los Angeles, CA
[Email: roglindmark@juno.com]

Singer and Langdon, both university professors, reassess French imperialism; which along with the imperialism of other Western nations, has been negatively portrayed in the colonial and postcolonial studies of recent decades. They do so through biographical and historical studies of key French proconsuls in French colonies in Africa and Asia. They do not try to make the simplistic point that French imperialism and colonialism was good, or even desirable. But they aim to balance the picture of this colonialism, and by extension all Western colonialism. While not trying to gloss over brutalities and atrocities committed by colonial masters, the authors note that colonialism also worked to "reduce feudal inequalities, abolish serfdom, establish constitutions, build roads...and extend educational opportunities." This was seen by France--and other colonial powers--as "civilizing backward peoples." But it could also be seen as raising the living standards of the inhabitants of the colonies. Shedding a light on French colonialism by biographically and analytically looking at the specific colonial officials of Thomas Robert Bugeaud of Algeria, Louis-Hubert-Gonzalve Lyautey of Southeast Asia, and others, the authors inject a human dimension, with all of its aspirations and faults, into the subject. This is a scholarly work which reads almost like history for the general reader for dealing with historical characters and seeing historical issues in terms of their personalities and actions. With its balanced, broader view of French colonialism, "Cultured Force" restores an ambiguity to its subject, thus making it a subject of true history and human enterprise rather than an ideological or myopic one.

This is a great book for kids who are interested in the history of the Green Bay Packers. Additionally, any teacher who wants to spark students' interest in a sports hero while giving them a great piece of literature should purchase this book.

Before starting this book, I had begun reading the better known "Dr. Johnson's London" by Liza Picard. But as an American reader, I became frustrated. For example, Ms. Picard refers to prices in terms of "d." [6 d. etc.] I suppose that any British reader knows that the "d." stand for, but I was wondering, "Pound? Quid? Shilling?" Schwartz specifically explains that 4 farthings = 1 penny, which is abbreviated as "d."
Ms Picard is British, and assumes that the reader knows many other incidentals that American readers may not know. Half way through that book, I turned to this one instead. Perhaps because Richard Schwartz is American, his book is more accessible for "Yanks." His writing is lucid, yet this short book is crammed with fascinating details about 19th century English life. It includes such specifics as the fact that wigs were greased before being powdered, and that insects infested the wigs! There are countless other similarly specific details. For example, Schwartz is specific about what 19th century folk spent on various items, even comparing the prices of traveling by coach vs. wagon etc.
Now that I have finished reading this marvellous introduction to the era, I will go back and finish reading Picard's "Dr. Johnson's London" and will hopefully get more out of it.

This is a must read. The author really has a way of sucking you into the story, I felt like I was there. This is one book that you should start early because you will not be able to put it down until you are finished!

brilliant, true and a rare gem. Dance is an up-and-coming art experience that will soon be genuinely valued.

This would be a fascinating book for someone interested in overcoming panic disorder. But it is actually so much more. If that phrase were not in the title, it would more accurately reflect the book -- a wonderful entertaining and engaging story about one man's life.
I quickly found myself very interested in this author; being drawn in to care about what was happening to him and how he was dealing with it. It's all about how he dealt with his panic disorder, but the telling is far more entertaining than it sounds. He leaves nothing out either -- the funny stuff, the heart breaks, the embarrassment, the girls and the sex. Often, I couldn't put the book down until I had finished a chapter.
Rand's descriptive writing is awesome -- rich and flavorful and entertaining. It shows that even a calm, studious, serious fellow can have a very lively and engaging life.
In addition, I found his dealing with the racial issues very frank and refreshing. (By way of explanation, Rand took up Zydeco dancing, which is from the Black Cajun culture of Louisiana and he spent considerable time there in the backcountry.)
Overall, it was an excellent read. I highly recommend it.