Illinois Books

This book attempts to conceptualize the idea of a full scale nuclear exchange between the cold war superpowers, since the idea itself is now "unthinkable". To explore this lack of understanding the author first explains in detail the immediate and long lasting effects of full scale nuclear war. Then, he comments on the situation, making a bid for sanity in an insane situation. The author believes that self-destruction and even planetary destruction "is not something that we will pose one day in the future... it is here now" (182). Schell believes that only a fundamental change in the belief system of the people of the entire planet can erase the danger currently hanging over the world; no amount of arms limitation or reduction will end the threat of total annihilation.

Schell takes the most compelling subject imaginable -- the very real possiblity of nuclear annihilation -- and puts it into gripping, passionate prose. Anyone with a concern for the human race should read Schell's account of the effect of nuclear weapons on nature and civilization. And anyone afraid of being humbled or disturbed needs Schell's reality check all the more.

It arrived with 3 CDs. I threw a cursory glance into the book and found that I need a good start to jump into this highly developped book. Every exercise has its solution given and every vietnamese passage has its translation given on the last pages of the book. Colossal work for vietnamese lovers.

When I first got this book I was unsure about how effective it would be. After plunging into the first bit of it so far, I've got to say that I'm very impressed. It has a lot of vocab covering diverse situations one would encounter were on to go to Vietnam, though much of the vocab would be useful in many other settings too. For the book to be effective, it just takes a concentration on learning the vocab well, but I must say that for myself I'm very pleased.

Now in an updated second edition, Creating Historical Drama: A Guide for Communities, Theatre Groups, and Playwrights is a straightforward manual for transforming events and figures from American history into masterful dramas. Written by three former directors, producers, writers, and teachers of theatre, Creating Historical Drama covers features of biographical, pageant, and epic drama, how to lead and organize a theatrical group, how to energize community resources and evaluate a production site, and much more. An in-depth guide offering sample script excerpts, black-and-white illustrations, and a wealth of expert detail, Creating Historical Drama is an excellent reference and resource for community and professional performance groups, and an invaluable tool for aspiring playwrights seeking to capture the nuances of history upon the stage.

The authors with both academic and working experience in theater production relate general guidance and practical considerations for evaluating resources, organizing activities, and engaging in relevant, skilled, coordinated actions for a community theater group to stage a successful historical drama. The crucial challenge of finding and developing talented actors is not overlooked either. Success for such a community production is measured by standards of artistic performance, community service, and management responsibility. Historical dramas are particularly appealing to community theater groups because of the wide freedom they allow in dealing with different historical times, the range of important and often colorful characters, and recurring issues in human affairs. Historical plays can also have a high education value for a local population when local historical characters, scenes, and topics are portrayed. All dimensions of this type of drama particularly suited to community theaters are dealt with, from developing an idea and perspective, writing a script, staging, and engaging with the larger community. This second edition is an abridged revision of the first edition put out in 1965.

I found this book to be inspiring. While I am mired in the realities of grad studies in education--lesson plans, theory, pedagogy, etc.--this book helped remind me of why I wanted to pursue teaching in the first place. Counts calls for teachers to become leaders, not just in their schools or local communities, but as an effective, powerful political force. We are the ones in the trenches, aren't we the experts on education in America? Shouldn't we know how to fix it? Shouldn't we try?

The book is a bit dated--I couldn't help by shake my head in disgust when I read Counts ideas of what a teacher's union could and should do and compared it to my limited experience with those organizations. He presents an idealized movement where social problems that are the root of educational problems are addressed/eliminated, where teachers are respected leaders and seen as the professionals they are, and where our schools, in the end, effectively serve more students than they currently do.

Count's brief book on the role of teachers in the shaping of society's values is a must read for future teachers and anyone interested in the social foundations of education. By positing that teacher should champion classroom discourse that focuses on issues of democratic living, he places the emphasis of the curriculum where it should be - issues of social justice. Likewise the implementation of this ethically conscious curriculum is left in the hands of those who, if empowered, could have the greatest impact concerning issues of equity in American society - classroom teachers. The relevance of Count's criticism of racism, rote education and of the dangers of unchecked capitalism are such that this work could have just as easily been written in our present.

Let's cut through the usual academic hoo-ha and highfalutin, lit-crit code-talking. This collection, Maier's first, is just plain gorgeous. Packed with wit, burning with passion, personal as a late-night conversation, these elegantly crafted, far-ranging, accessible poems will make you laugh, ponder, catch your breath,and yes--cry, more than once (mind, this is an Alaskan ex-hunting guide talking). There's some sort of alchemy at work in Maier's poetic voice, something you can't quite put your finger on. But if you read these poems aloud, you'll hear it for yourself: the music of words, each one a perfectly tuned wind chime, ringing in the dusk.

Jennifer Maier is hilarious. The imagination at work behind the poetry in her first collection, Dark Alphabet, is voracious and supple. It expands the world from the tiniest points into a universe bright and dark with meaning. It yields sly-eyed, delightful images that burn in the mind long after the poem is gone. And, as a bonus, her imagination tickles and teases with the agility of a truly consummate poet. On moving on from an old love: "Will April lay down her xylophone / and pick up the cello? / Or December go gravely in his mourning coat / without his white gloves, his diamond tiara?" And the poet's answer to a friend who asks why she is not a novelist: "although / I have combed the Gulf Coast towns / of my childhood, seeking the snowy egrets / of great short fiction, it is only the poetry birds / who land on me." Maier possesses the sort of wit that steals the familiar object out from under your nose, rendering it to you again, either inside out or in a different color, say, chartreuse. It's then, with a jolt of recognition, that you see what has been overlooked: the lake as a "murmuring woman" under the moon, like the woman oppressed by the memory of her drowned son but kept from falling through the earth by the atoms that "push back / bound in their electric need." Or the earnestness of the young undergraduate asking her professor if she believes in soul mates, her "eyes two sharpened spades / turning the loam of her future." These poems move nimbly between the commonplace and the resonant, fired by the poet's deep reverence for language and a fascination with the way our minds enter our own experience and that of others, often through unexpected doors: a hymn to a saint, a cherry cordial given to a child by a black-sheep uncle, the thread of a cashmere sweater winding through the lives of generations of women. Compassion, stripped of sentimentality, moves behind each word, giving flight to Maier's poetry birds that form "a dark alphabet against the sky."

Neil McMillen gives us a look at the real effects of Jim Crow in Dark Journey, the story of white supremacy in Mississippi in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. McMillen explores this society of racial apartheid from the vantage point of the oppressor and the oppressed, for as he states in his preface, "until historians adequately explored the exterior forces that operated on the black community there could be no truly adequate histories of the interior life of the people within that community." He includes many descriptions of Mississippi during this "race-haunted" time from blacks themselves, which adds significantly to the texture of McMillen's "bottom up" depiction of how truly repressive the white regime was. What quickly emerges from this straightforward study is a society dominated without question by whites, one in which whites sought to re-establish race relations as they existed prior to the Civil War. They largely succeeded.

What strikes the reader forcefully from the beginning of McMillen's book is how insidiously prevalent the system known as Jim Crow was in Mississippi, and how it affected every aspect of black life. Jim Crow did not mean that blacks were simply in effect denied the right to vote and had limited economic opportunities, though to be sure both of these hurdles existed. White supremacy, as McMillen deftly points out, meant far more than denied voting rights and low-rung jobs. It meant (either de facto or de jury) poor or no high schools, lynchings, outrageous jury verdicts and trials, harassment for succeeding in traditionally white professions, no libraries, etc. The sheer scope and overriding predominance of white supremacy in Mississippi is shocking, especially since whites really did not seek to hide it from prying Northerners. White supremacy transcended class lines for the most part, McMillen show us, and even acted as a greater force upon whites than economic self-interest. For example, every white owner of a store, restaurant, garage, theatre, etc., who refused to serve blacks was also losing the money blacks would have paid them.

McMillen concludes that from the 1890s to the middle of the 20th century very few blacks overcame the high political and economic barriers placed in their way by a Mississippi society bent on oppressing them. Blacks in that state, however, managed to create and maintain their own separate political, religious, educational and social institutions despite the odds against them. Those who could, moved away from Mississippi, much like the oppressed and degraded Irish left their native island to escape the shackles of British economic and sectarian control. Truly, Mississippi's society was born of hatred of blacks by whites, a situation not totally eradicated by the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Dr. McMillen provides a rare insight into the world of Black Missippians during the 1920s, '30s & 40's. His writing style is a lovely complement to his ingenious insights. He is truly one of our greatest scholars & non-fiction writers. This book is a must-read for anyone even mildy interested in African-American or general Southern history. Black or White this book will help you understand this period in our history. I can't wait for his sequel.

Music exists as it is being heard. Looking more closely at who is hearing the music and how they receive it along with who is delivering the music and for what reasons adds an often neglected, yet vital aspect of music performance and history. Karen Ahlquist's book is a wonderfully readable addition to literature about history and opera; she provides us with a fascinating look at music and people in a specific time and place.

If you love opera you will love this book. It is all about the early New York opera scene with fascinating stories about operas biggest stars. Scandal and intrigue abound. A must buy for all opera aficionados.

Great Book and Amazon delivered every thing that they promised. Would use them again any thing they sold some thing I wanted. Thanks.

Mr. Malone, whose long and distinguished career has secured him a place as the world's foremost country music historian, has once again hit one straight out of the park. Rich with both remarkable detail and cogent analysis, the book is a tresure for anyone who cares about country/bluegrass, roots music, or the general American experience. Truly an outstanding work.

"Down at Theresa's" puts you visually into the Chicago blues world. PoKempner captures the people who are the music, while the blues plays through their image.

A great glimpse of the blues. The pages reverberate with such a depth of feeling you can hear the music. A triumph in every way.

There is a typo on the last sentence of my review that I did last week for this book where it states I I've, please remove the I.

Thanks Nate Richey

Although Duck Calls of Illinois, 1863-1963 by Robert D. Christensen is limited to Illinois calls made prior to 1964, it encompasses all of the early documented history of the modern duck call. This is because all of the documented history happened to occur in Illinois.

This is a fascinating and very well done book that no duck call collector could possibly do without. Over 100 Illinois call makers are represented including Charlie and Haddon Perdew, Clifford, Grubbs, Martin, Trutone,Barto, Olt, Allen, Ditto, Leonard, the Glodo family, and the Roseberry family. The great photography will help in identifying many of your unknown calls.

$65 might seem like a lot of money for a book, but considering the rather limited market it is a bargain. The best $65 I I've spent since I started collecting calls.

Nate Richey