Kansas Books

Purchased as text book for class given by author. Interesting historical information about the environmental movement evolution in the state of Wisconsin.

Consuming Nature: Environmentalism In The Fox River Valley, 1850-1950 has an unusual dual nature - in one respect, it is a straightforward chronicle of the debate in Wisconsin's Fox River Valley more than fifty years ago, when the populace questioned and resisted the paper industry's heedless practice of dumping pollution into the Fox River. On a deeper level, Consuming Nature examines not only how this microcosm struggle, repeated in numerous areas elsewhere throughout the state and the nation, reflected not only the clash of economic industrial forces versus environmentalists, but also how it represented the growth of a consumer society. Consumers craved employment and products created by the paper industry, but consumers also craved the ability to enjoy recreation in Fox River, a privilege that excess pollution was about to destroy. At its core, Consuming Nature dares to advance the thesis that the modern environmental movement owes far more than most anyone would admit to the power and influence of consumer society.

I found this book to be one of the best books about command decisions and relationships between Politicians and generals during the Civil War I have ever read. It covers the battles and the leaders of the Confederacy, both great and flawed. I found it hard to believe that some Southern leaders/generals fought harder against their own side in stupid little infights and disputes. The book goes a long way in explaining Lee's strategy and that of Davis and how they were different and the results of that difference. This book concentrates on the Eastern Theatre, the author's other book 'Jefferson Davis and his Generals' covers the Western Theatre of operations and is brillant in its examination of this area. Both books are well worth reading.

It was ok but if your doing a report then it could get a little boring but it is great information!

(4.5 stars)

I cringed a bit when I saw that Michael Glenny (an infamously bad translator) was one of the editors of this volume, but in spite of that, I was really drawn into the book. It begins with a very long chapter on an oceanographer who escaped by jumping off of a cruise ship late at night and swimming for three days until he reached the nearest island, and goes on to give us the stories of Russian émigrés from three different eras--on the heels of the Revolution and Civil War, between the World Wars and during WWII, and in the post-WWII era. Quite a few of the people interviewed in Part One, and a fair amount in Part Two, came from the upper-classes (some were even royalty), and so had a radically different experience of those early Soviet days than did the people on the bottom of the social order. The people in Part Three all seem to be from normal classes, though, not a bunch of dispossessed countesses, governors, wealthy people, and what have you. And depending upon which socioeconomic class and geographical area one came from, the experience was going to be different; for example, someone from the ruling classes and in a place like St. Petersburg obviously was going to be against the Revolution from the start, whereas someone who lived in a poorer area in the Ukraine may have initially supported and welcomed these changes, only to find the new rulers were just as bad for them as the Tsar had been. A lot of these people went through some quite drastic things to survive and to escape, like illegally crossing borders, jumping off of a ship, forging identity cards, deserting the Army, and bribing officials, but they had to take these extraordinary measures because the idea of freedom was so very important to them. Many of them settled in places with large Russian colonies, such as London, Paris, Prague, Belgrade, Poland, Harbin (in China), Israel, the United States, Vienna, Germany, and Bulgaria, though some of them escaped to other places (at least temporarily), such as North Africa and Turkey. I loved almost all of the stories and found very few boring or uninteresting.

Since this is partly a Michael Glenny book, though, there were some things that kind of annoyed me, albeit not so much they totally overwhelmed my overall enjoyment. For example, does anyone under the age of 100 still seriously use unnecessarily gendered words like "citizeness," "poetess," or "Jewess," or make superfluous references such as "a lady congregant" or "a woman cook"? Since a lot of these interviews were translated, I'm assuming that such dated sexist expressions were the work of the translators and not the speakers. (Unlike a lot of other languages, English is not a gendered language!) The chapter on the Dowager Empress's lady-in-waiting also employed the extremely archaic custom of capitalising all royal pronouns, which seems extremely distracting and pretentious today. It might have been considered proper a hundred years ago, but the language has evolved since! Stalin's date of death is twice given as 6 March 1953, when everything else I've ever read gives it as the fifth of March. I have also never seen my favorite writer's wife referred to as "Natasha Solzhenitsyn." In the nearly twelve years I've been reading his work and learning about his life, I've only ever seen her called Alya Svetlova! Still, considering what a great resource the book is, those are admittedly comparatively minor points, however annoying and distracting. Obviously, references to and remarks about "current" events and realities in the Soviet Union are today going to be ever-more-distant history, but such is to be expected with just about any historical book; parts of it will inevitably become dated as time marches on.

This book is about "the Russian dustmen of Cannes", the Russians who fled during and after the Russian revolutions in 1918-1919 and tried to carve out a new life for themselves and their families in the West. The book is made up of 61 chapters, each by a different emigre. Mostly they are extracts from interviews by the book's authors with the emigres; a few are from written sources. A few of the emigres are whiners (the Bolsheviks "took all our lovely horses", one Countess complains) but most have interesting things to say. For royalty watchers, there is the account of Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna's lady-in-waiting of their captivity in the Crimea, and tales of Grand Duchess Ksenia in exile. There are tales of pogroms under imperial Russia, life during the revolution, escape from Russia in multitudes of ways, life in exile, life under the Soviet regime... The book's format makes it easy to skip around, and boring or annoying accounts are easily skipped over. The accounts seem to be weighted in favor of members of the nobility and bourgeoisie. A good book for anyone who is interested in how they lived during the revolution and after.

Bought it brand new and it came in that condition. What can I say its a textbook I am required to do in my course of study to become an ordained minister.

I am a sunday school teacher, and my pastor asked me to give a class on "introduction to the old testament". He suggested I look into this book, so I ordered the book from Amazon.com. I have been using the book for the sunday school teaching and the book has been a very good source for teaching. For individual reading, it is great!. The book goes in sequence starting from Genesis and it explains the books of the bible very thoroughly. It is not a complicated or complex book to read, neither is it too simple. Its format is very nice to follow. I am enjoying it!

I think this is very good book for Public Administration studies. The only beggary is, that is very difficult to read for nonenglish people!

At recent times, lots of book about new public management and reformist movements have been published by varied writers. The most important flaw of the propositions given and models created was the ignorance of the politic realities. And most of the models has been based on pure rational/economic assumptions. Therefore, none of them was completely applicable for public sector organizations. This book gives us some insights about the politic "realities" of the public sector and its relationship to the democratic context of the society. All contradictions the popular public management propositions hold are explained in the book as clearly as possible. The author of the book puts forward arguements contrary to the popular public management propositions. If you are getting bored due to the myriad popular books and models this book exactly is for you to read and gain an interesting and deeper understanding about the essentials of public administration. Strongly recommended.

This book is the best resource that I've found to finish and improve my garden here in Kansas. This book has some nice pictures, but they are not particularly useful. I don't even care though b/c this book is LOADED with great gardening advice. I've read dozens of gardening books, but I learned a lot of new things from this resource. It is especially helpful in terms of plant selection-choosing plants that grow great in our region. I like that it gives more choices than the Sunset "top ten" book. I think this guide may be a little outdated in terms of listing new cultivars, but I didn't consider that a problem, either.

Rachel Snyder takes a practical approach to the unique problems of the plains. Instead of telling me what I can't plant, she gives me myriad options for creating a long-lasting, beautiful garden. What this book lacks in beauty, it makes up for with loads of great advice and information about plants that will survive scorching heat, high winds and cold winters. I highly recommend the book for beginning gardeners.

THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS is a tall tale about an 11-year-old boy living in Melville, Kansas, who loves to dig holes. Big holes.

"I believe there is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply digging a hole," the unnamed narrator explains. "A hole is an achievement. A great hole is a great achievement."

While attempting to build a pond in his backyard, the boy uncovers what appears to be a fossil. His persistent digging reveals it to be an extremely large fossil of a unique nature. Soon, thanks to the financial aspirations of the digger's father, the "Fossil Expert" for the state of Kansas gets involved and a series of controversies ensue involving who owns the fossil, what should be done with the fossil and whether or not it is really a fossil at all.

The unlikely tale is great fun to read because Jennings has given his narrator a perfect voice --- smart, wise-cracking and honest, the narrator tells his story engagingly, reporting the bizarre occurrences that pepper the story with a straightforwardness grounded in the idea that most anything can happen in a state as odd as Kansas. The narrator is both supported and opposed by a wacky cast of characters --- a mother who only makes sandwiches for meals, the pretentious "Fossil Expert," a bevy of eccentric members of the Quattlebaum family, and Phil, the solitary duck --- whose various outrageous actions are in perfect keeping with the tone of the story.

The narrator's most stalwart friends, Tom White Cloud, a bookstore owner of Native American descent, and Miss Joyce "Penny" Whistle, the narrator's science teacher on whom both Tom and the narrator have a crush, come to his aid late in the story when it appears everyone has lost sight of the real importance of what has appeared in the narrator's backyard. The "moral" of the story is laid on pretty thick by the book's end, but that hardly detracts from the overall pleasure THE GREAT WHALE OF KANSAS delivers.

--- (...)

I like the book so far,because in the story it tells
about a young boy in his backyard and,they are pucifect.

My best part is that when he is digging,and he discovers
preserved in the cretaceous lime stone is more than spectiacular.

The U.S.Mail the setting of the story is Highley Park,the
conflict is a fossil that is five-foot musasaur the characters are,Phile,Miss.Whistle,Chief Wah-Shum-Gah.

What a wonderful read! I am sorry to be finished reading. I will miss Red Ferrel, the horseman/ex-outlaw, and the Irishmen, Jack and Keven, and Adam Quint and Micheal Pacini. I just took a trip up to Quality Hill to look out over the West Bottoms, on this beautiful Kansas City day, and to finish my end-of-the-book cry. Schultz is a darned good writer.

"Gully Town" provides a very good insight into the history of Kansas City from the mid-1800's through the early 1900's through the lives of its main characters. A lot of these fictional characters are based on real people and Mr. Schultz's weaving of historic detail into the story is well done and makes for a learning expericence as well as fun reading. I would recommend "Gully Town" to anyone who has a desire to know more of the real history of early Kansas City, Missouri.

This is a very basic overview of how to start an ESL ministry. It is good for what I wanted it for but someone needing a lot of technical information on ESL learning would need more. The book provides an extensive bibliography and resource list. I've used the resource list more than anything. Good basic info.

I am really exicited to have found this book. I have a MA in missions science and TESOL and this book brings materials together in an excellent way! There are also other excellent resources in this book. I was excited to find the authors will relate to my training Native Americans to work with ESL! Highly recommended to others interested in ESL or training Christian workers in ESL!!

This is a solidly-written little book with good insight into the issues confronting a small congregation. The author has obviously been there, and worked through these issues with wisdom and good humor.

This book is a great resource for anyone belonging to a small church. The author discusses all the issues confronting a small church. His basic premise is that all small churches focus on church growth when they should be focusing on church health. A healthy organism will grow naturally. Unhealthy churches shouldn't expect to grow. Take care of church health first and your church will grow. He doesn't lay out a specific plan because each community is different. But he does lay out specific issues to be aware of and to deal with.