Michigan Books

There's a ton of books of poetry, but not very many accesible ones about the nature of it or poets in general. This book fulfills on all levels in this respect. By pointing out clear, quoted examples of the good, the bad and the pretentious - all in a way that anyone could understand - this book makes you want to run out and write one of your own.

An excellent reference book of poetic thought, and not overly long.

This is a fascinating story of a Chinese federalist, Chen Jiongming, whose dream of a United States of China was shattered in the 1920s. It describes Chen's role in the tumultuous politics of southern China from 1909 to his death in 1933, including his relationship with Sun Yat-sen, leader of the centralist revolutionaries. Sun wanted to unite the country by force and institute change through a centralized government based on a one-party system. Chen advocated a multiparty federalism and the peaceful uinfication of China. In 1924, Sun reorganized his Nationalist Party and entered into an alliance with the Communists. When the army of the alliance swept across the southern and central provinces, all provincial constitutions, provincial and local assemblies, and local self-government societies and activities associated with the vision of a federated state ceased to exist. The story of Chen Jiongming and federalism has since remained hidden behind Nationalist and Communist accounts of the early revolutionary struggle. Leslie Chen's narrative is lively and readable, it gives an intimate, yet historically accurate, account of an historical issue of much relevancy to contemporary China.

John W. Stamper is a man's man. He hit the spot with this book, this masterpiece of architectural history on Chicago's North Michigan Ave. hit home with me. I can't wait until his next book, PLEASE! John W. Stamper, WRITE MORE!

I found "Chicora : Lost on Lake Michigan" to be an engrossing read. In recounting the story using excerpts from newspaper accounts I really got a good insight on the prevailing mindset of the people of that time. The book is not just about a shipwreck. It deals also with an issue that is vitually unknown in todays society: lack of information. In todays world we are sometimes presented with more information than we can handle, modern technology, in its various forms, phone, fax, TV, radio,and internet keeps us connected to the world in a way unheard of in the time of the Chicoras demise. The book describes how crowds of people waited for the newspapers, or relied on, sometimes erroneous, word of mouth updates on what was really going on. Reading about these methods as primary for dissemination of information was really a visit to times gone by. The pace of the book did slow quite a bit as the author described, in detail, a history and motivation behind each crew member, but overall I found it a worthwhile read.

The Japanese attack on Shanghai in 1932 has been overshadowed by the second assault five years later, and then by the Second World War. But it was a key moment in the long build-up to the world conflict, and Professor Jordan has done it full justice in this book.
Drawing on a multiplicity of sources, he tells the gripping story from the pretexts set up by a Japanese army major to the final search for a truce so that the Japanese could turn their attention to conquest elsewhere in China. In the course of his narrative, he also puts the record straight on a number of key areas where politics subsequently distorted the account of what happened during the five weeks of Shanghai's trial for bombing, artillery and fire.
As in his earlier book on the Northern Expedition by the Nationalists to take control of China, Professor Jordan cuts through the propaganda which surrounds much of the country's history to produce an authoritative picture of an episode which, in many ways, presaged later events such as the bombing of unprotected civilian areas and the failure of the democracies to resists militrarism. His book also raises the interesting question of why so many historical accounts of China in this period have unquestioningly accepted conventional wisdom that gets some important aspects of the Shanghai attack wrong, despite contemporary evidence to the contrary.

Dr Schultze has given a great critique about the typical evangelical's unquestioned trust in technology. He asks, what is all this trust in technology doing to our faith?

That is something I ask myself frequently as I watch churches chase after secular marketing gurus using marketing "technology" to turn their churches into glorified coffee shops and adding enough entertainment production values to their worship service "experiences" that they could make Cirque du Soleil jealous!

We need to use media to communicate in our age, but how is our media strategy changing us?

Schultze says, "Technology enables, but it also disables; in the process of making some worthwhile things happen, it prohibits other good things from taking place-even things that are primary matters of the spirit or habits of the heart. Moreover, the unexpected consequences of new media are sometimes more powerful than the carefully planned ones."

He also develops an interesting thesis showing that the First Amendment's constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, the press, and the right to assemble is really centered on the freedom of religion, not the press as is often assumed, thus showing that in America religion and media have long been linked.

He has a chapter, "Discerning Professional Journalism" that analyzes the press and critiques their "fundamentalist" self-assumption that they are unbiased. The most practical parts of this book relate to journalism.

Of particular interest to me is how he shows historically how modern advertising borrows from Christian evangelical evangelism. In my opinion modern Christian marketing is not merely taking concepts from advertising, as much as it is reclaiming them back from secular sources that have borrowed them. I doubt the author would see ministry marketing exactly the way I do. But I don't need to understand or agree with everything he says to improve my perspective by reading his book.

The book is an important read for any Christian communicator. But whatever your perspective about Christian media is, don't expect the author to draw any conclusions that result in practical outcomes for Christian media producers in this book. This is more of an academic hang-wringing tome. In a couple places I felt he held up the "Anabaptists" (which I read as "Amish") as examples that didn't really connect with me.

Over the past decade, a number of books on the history of Christianity in Asia have appeared, the best known of these being Samuel Hugh Moffett's A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol.1: Beginnings to 1500, published in 1992. Although Gillman and Klimkeit's book covers much the same territory as does Moffett, it does so in a more balanced and accessible fashion. The authors are experts in the field: Hans-Joachim Klimkeit is Professor of History of Religions at Bonn University, and an authority on religion in Central Asia, and Ian Gillman has recently retired from the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Queensland, where he taught for 28 years. The result of their collaboration is a magisterial treatment of Christianity in Asia.

The book is divided into 12 chapters of varying length. Klimkeit has written two masterful chapters on Central Asia and China, and Gillman the remainder of the book, including comprehensive chapters on Syria and Palestine, "Arabia", Armenia and Georgia, Persia, India and South-East Asia, as well as editing the whole. Both authors write from a wide - indeed, magisterial - knowledge of the field and with empathy for the subject matter. They are circumspect in their analysis, not falling into the trap - as other treatments of the topic have sometimes tended to do - of building a theoretical superstructure upon the foundation of a limited range of evidence. Nor do they uncritically accept the evidence that is available, but use it cautiously, with balance and discernment. Thus, Gillman argues against an unquestioning acceptance of the accounts of the Apostle Thomas' ministry in India, and suggests that the alternative originator of Indian Christianity - Thomas of Cana - might be dated in the 8th, rather than in the 4th, century. Similarly, his chapter on South-East Asia does not claim too much, or to engage in "wishful thinking" based upon slender or non-existent evidence. Both authors present all sides of the question, and argue their case fairly, succinctly and persuasively. I found their treatments convincing.

The book covers all aspects of the topic, and its country-by-country coverage of Christianity east of the Mediterranean is set into the overall framework of Jewish and Syriac Christianity, producing an illuminating synthesis. I was particularly impressed with Gillman's summation of the theological controversies that underlay the emergence of Asian Christianity. In a brief 8-page section entitled "A Necessary Excursus into Theology", he manages to produce the clearest account I have yet seen of the complex issues underlying the theological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries. As he points out, understanding of these various "Christianities" is essential if one is to understand the development of Asian Christianity. The clarity of his treatment is matched by his discernment and wide knowledge of the issues.

To sum up, the book is an excellent analysis of Christianity in Asia to 1500. The only criticism that I would make is that Gillman at times betrays a tendency to riddle his text with short indented quotations which do not always appear necessary, and which interrupt the flow of his writing. Having said that, these stylistic issues do not seriously detract from a most valuable book, which I predict will become the new standard text for the study of early Christianity in Asia. If I could afford only one book on the subject of Asian Christianity before 1500, this is the one in which I would invest. (...)

Read this for graduate history course in medieval history.
Sir John Froissart's "The Chronicles of England, France and Spain," is one of the best primary sources of the fourteenth-century. Froissart spent several years traveling through France, England, and Scotland collecting oral first hand accounts from participants. Unlike many historians' accounts, Froissart's prose make for an engaging read. Froissart's writings may be short on the type of battlefield details that modern historians yearn for; however, they are rich in explaining some of the tactical decision-making made by Edward III before and during the Crécy campaign.

John Froissart noted that Edward III's purpose for the invasion of France, which started the military action in the Hundred Years War, was to conduct a chevauchée, which was essentially a procession of the army through the countryside that pillaged as it traveled. Edward III then intended to use his superior mobility to make his escape up the coast to Flanders without having to fight a major battle with the numerically superior French forces. However, Crécy was the sight of the first major battle of The Hundred Years' War and was a rousing success for the invading English army of Edward III. The battle, which took place on just two days in August of 1346, was emblematic of the tactical successes that the British enjoyed at the battles of Poitiers and Agincourt.

Froissart's accounts wax poetic about the skill and courage that the Black Prince and his men fought with as they fended off several waves of French attacks on that day and the next day as well. Froissart put it succinctly when writing about the sixteen-year-old Black Prince's baptism by fire in battle. "There he learnt that knightly skill which he later put to excellent use at the battle of Poitiers, where he captured the French king." Although heavily outnumbered, Edward III's longbow men were the force multiplier that garnered a stunning victory for the British over the French. Most estimates of the longbow tactics used in the battle state the over one-half million arrows fired by the English easily cut down the French cavalry. Thus, the longbow, and the brilliant way in which it was employed, was responsible for the lopsided casualty figures of the battle. Although casualty figures are somewhat unreliable, most sources put the French losses at one-third of the French nobility-about 12,000 men in all, against the English losses of 150 to 1,000 total. Froissart sums up the mastery of the longbow men and the tactics they employed turning them into a weapon of mass destruction and a force multiplier. "They were some of the finest, most highly trained and militarily efficient troops that any nation ever put into the field of battle." The battle of Crécy taught all the armies of Europe that the longbow would reign as the supreme weapon in battle for the next 100 years.

Recommended reading for those interested in medieval history.

EXCELLENT SCHOLAR STUDY ABOUT THE DOCTRINE OF TRINITY.A MUST HAVE FOR ALL CHRISTIANS WHO WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH ON THIS SUBJECT.

The term "civil society" became popular in the late 20th century as a critique of Marxism and communism. Civil society represented hope in the midst of fallen communist states and offered an alternative to statism and overgrown governments. But its definition remained vague, failing to address the issues of capitalism and failing to explain the reason for communist revolutions. Instead, it envisioned an "active citizenship" to be taken through voluntary associations, but it did not address problems in the capitalist system. Civil society was conceived in the United States as "those domains of activity that Americans occupy when they are engaged neither in government (voting, serving on juries, paying taxes).............................. " In this book, however, the author focuses on the development of civil markets. The market is a powerful force, and ever more pivotal today with the growth of a global economy. More and more people study the business system: people who are retired; civic leaders; academicians; investors; financial analysts; consultants in business and management; public policymakers; researchers who work for labor; philanthropic organizations; social critics; and social activists. Everyone is keeping an eye on the market not only for his or her survival, but because the market is changing the course of society. While the growth of markets brings promise, Bruyn argues that there is a corresponding concern. Could market values distort values in other institutions, such as home, family, education, government, or even religion? Could the core values of other institutions diminish, perhaps turn toward business interests? Could the goal of economic growth threaten the natural environment or even human survival on earth? Such questions remain critical to the future of markets and states. This book starts with the premise that the economy is embedded in the whole of society -- business, government and the Third Sector, otherwise known as civic groups. The economy is not the same as business just as government is not the same as the state. The following definitions are important when creating a framework to explain development in the whole of society. Bruyn defines "economy" to be where people make their livelihood. The economy is about survival and scarcity, he says, but it is also interwoven into the whole society, and inter-bound with social life. Similarly, the concept of "government" is identified with the state, but it is actually woven into the fabric of society. Political scientists acknowledge that all associations require governance. "Government" in its broad meaning refers to the management of any association, including, for example, the government of a church, a university, a union, or a trade association. In this book, you will find a new mode of thought about civil (self) governance in a market system. The book is superb.