Minnesota Books

Author Hugh Gusterson is a nuclear freeze activist with an unusual anthropologist's background, so it's not surprising his People Of The Bomb: Portraits Of America's Nuclear Complex takes a dual approach to analyzing how the nature and presence of the nuclear bomb has penetrated to American identity and psyche. His fifteen years of field research at weapons labs across the country incorporates this plus analysis of popular movies, political speeches, media focus on war, and intellectual circles alike to provide a hard-hitting analysis of the impact of the nuclear complex on American perspective.

The Author looks at the stresses of theory, argument and experience of women. The character and nature of developing femanism in out modern society, her development and natural instinct of maternal pressure and the development of a distinct and much needed feminine ethos in the philosophy of our time

This is a book all Duchamp scholars must have read at some point. It has particular relevance to ideas 'beyond' Duchamp as most art historians know him: the philosophical basis of his art in all its complexity is dealt with very well by the author. The book cam in top condition and very quickly: all serious students of Modern Art need to read De Duve's works.

"A Plain Pine Box" tells the story of how the Adath Jeshurun Synagogue (Conservative) in Minneapolis, alarmed at the rising costs of funerals (not to mention departures from tradition), decided to reclaim the right to care for its own dead. After studying the Jewish laws of burial and the role of the Chevra Kadisha (burial society), they formed their own Chevra and began to offer thier members the option of a plain pine box, to be provided for free by the congregation.

This is a reprint of a book that first came out in 1981. At that time, I was living in Minneapolis, where these events took place, so many of the people involved are personally familiar to me. Rabbi Arnold Goodman, the author, was the pulpit rabbi at the synagogue. The story was also featured as a TV documentary, which received wide acclaim at the time.

The many challenges that the congregation faced -- ranging from paranoia by the funeral industry to concerns about government burial ordinances to opposition within their own membership -- are all covered here in detail. In addition, Rabbi Goodman discusses many important issues surrounding Jewish funerals. I highly recommend this book as a primer to any congregation -- Jewish or not -- that is considering a return to simple funerals.

great book that explains what the north country went through.

I may be bias since I contributed an appendix to volume 2, but I was eager to do so because of how impressed I was with volume one. This book fills a needed niche.

While I've met university professors disappointed that not all implied data is tightly referenced to peer reviewed journals, or available from the source for their review, this book provides a very practical & accessible plant selection tool for rain gardens and vegetated drainage systems in Minnesota.

The pdf version is available free from the Minnesota PCA, but any remaining new physical copies are only available through some University of Minnesota Extension office.

The waterproof pages of this guide make it ideal for professionals in the field who are unlikely to part with it soon, but resulted in a price that inhibited sales. Volume 2 of this series is available through a non-profit organization called Great River Greening, but is not waterproof and is mostly a shorter extension upon the first volume.

I feel this book was slightly ahead of its time, and suffered the tragedy of the commons. That is, people don't pay for what they can get free, neither publishers nor stores carry it without a healthy profit margin, and organizing so much original information on so many plants in one place takes substantial dedication.

I hope this book inspires future guides to build upon and further develop this concept into a more broadly successful consumer product. Interest in native plant traits vital for their function in stormwater management systems will continue to grow for years to come. In a sense this is a proof of concept, or prototype, for the kind of ambitious product that results from a lifetime of collaborative research. Aspects of this book deserve imitation.

In The Poetics of DNA, literary scholar Judith Roof questions both why and how DNA has come to symbolize "a cosmic truth, representative of all life, residence of all answers, potential for all cures, [and] repository for all identity." DNA has been regarded as an unquestionable truth, but, as Roof rightly observes, this particular discourse about the infallibility DNA is far from objective. Like all discourse, the linguistic representation of DNA is equally dependent upon and limited by language, which is, in turn, structured by the various cultures and ideologies that use it.

This book is a study not only of the poetics of DNA, but of the implications of its poetics -- its linguistic representations -- and of its appropriations. Cultural and ideological appropriations of DNA occur linguistically through the use of tropes such as metaphor, metonymy, and analogy. Roof analyzes these misappropriations in her chapter "The Homunculus and Saturating Tales." She convincingly argues that conservative ideologies concerning gender, sexuality and race have preserved themselves by utilizing current scientific research on DNA and the gene in particular. Roof describes how the harnessing of this "scientific evidence" effectively reinforces cultural stereotypes.

On gender, for instance, Roof states that "What the scientists observe may well be true, but the ways it is characterized are all about ideology -- an ideology seemingly naturalized by science -- but which deploys gender stereotypes as a starting point. These stereotypes, however, are also comforting, since they provide a familiar cultural logic for the "behaviors" of genes, which reinforces older notions of gender that have recently come into question. If we are worried that women are too much like men as a result of successful feminist movements and the reform of laws, then what better way to reassert a more conservative, patriarchal notion of the "proper woman's place" than to claim that male and female genes behave according to older patterns?"

Roof's juxtaposes this discussion about gender to ones about sexuality and race. Her section on the controversy surrounding the possible existence of a "gay gene," while quite brief, is smart and provocative. Throughout her study she tirelessly demonstrates the problematic logic that undergirds today's assumptions about DNA and the power afforded to the sciences as a result. The Poetics of DNA is a testament of the value of the humanities in today's science - and technology-driven world. While the humanities are overlooked -- and underfunded -- in favor of the sciences, Roof reminds us of their worth.

Read it within a few hours, and is full of glorious details and interesting facts. A well structured arugement over all, and very interesting. However glad I am to have the book in my hands, I was disappointed to see it on google books. ... money is as money does?

This is a must read for everyone interested in how environmental policy gets made. In this highly readable text, the editors have gathered a range of authors that approach environmental politics from several interesting directions. Some of the chapters are highly personal accounts, while others are more abstract and theoretical discussions of what makes up the politics of the environment. You will be impressed to discover how much actual and intellectual territory this covers, and how particular views of history shape a sense of where politics actually occurs. Additionally, the editors have made a conscious effort to provide weblinks to the original documents that tell the story of the high-profile struggle over this "old-growth" forest controversy. This lets you get behind the analysis and descriptions to actually see how social science research is conducted. Overall, and excellent introduction to environmental politics as both an academic and activist pursuit.

The stories are as good as Serling's best, the artwork superb, and the photography reminds one of a young, male Diane Arbus. The editor is clearly one of the all-time greats. Buy this book!