Pennsylvania Books

This book has captured the stuggles of North Philly's young people....28th and Diamond marks a territory where only the strongest survive. This is the best young adult book of all times. I can't wait for the movie to come out. Good job Rachel and keep the books coming.

I remember the first book I read, a typical Dick and Jane primer. I can clearly recall the pictures of the blonde, blue-eyed, perpetually smiling people. As I looked around at my screaming siblings and frazzled mother, I realized Dick and Jane weren't from around my way. I had a hard time believing they were even from this planet. Roxie, on the other hand, is a much more familiar face. I bet I've past her stoop a hundred times. Her troubles and triumphs would fit in comfortably around here. The youth today see enough drama daily to wipe the smiles off Dick and Jane's faces permanently. With touchstones like this book, they will know they are not alone in their struggles to stay safe and sane.
Rachel Slaughter has created a key to open a million young minds. Young ears that aren't trying to hear anything fake, open up to her sermon because she speaks with their voice. When those hungry heads find this book, you can be sure it will be devoured. And you know, the better fed the head, the better it deals with troubles ahead.
Look for the series...

This book was shipped and delivered in a timely manner. The seller representation of the book was factual.

Duby once again has presented a thorough presentation of economic history of a really tough period for historians. Written records of this time tend to be skewed to the nobility and the clergy while the peasant and the work in the fields is cloaked in darkness. Duby gives us a flashlight to see them, albeit one with a bit of Marxist tone to it. He traverses a wide array of references and resources from very diverse fields of study to support his work. I highly recommend it.

As a member of the 11th PVI Co. I re-enactment unit, and descendant of Richard Coulter and other members of the 11th, and also friend of Helene's. I knew from the manuscript that this was to be an excellent book. More and more people learn a little more about such a tragic time in our past, and their eyes are opened by reading this elloquent rendering of the history of the Old Eleventh and thier mascot.

I thought this was a great story about what a great friend a dog can be. I saw the dog's bronze statue at the 11th PA Volunteer Regiment monument in Gettysburg with the author. We should all have a dog like Sallie.

If you are interested in German food or Pennsylvannia history, this book is for you. It focuses on the food of the Pennsylvannia Germans & how they adapted their own recipes from the old world to available ingredients in Pennsylvania. It talks about ingredients that were available to the Germans & how they prepared, preserved & ate the food. Mr. Weaver not only talks about the food but he includes interesting and sometimes little known facts about the culture that bring our Pennsylvannia German ancestors to life once again. I am so pleased that Mr. Weaver has taken the time to research and preserve for future generations not only the recipes but the stories and history behind the foods of the Pennsylvania Germans.

`Sauerkraut Yankees' by Pennsylvania Food Historian, William Woys Weaver is a treatise and concordance based on a Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook published in Harrisburg in 1848. Titled `Die Geschickte Hausfrau' (The Handy Housewife) and written in `Pennsylvania High German', it was a collection of traditional German and New World recipes done by a printer who acquired many of the recipes by simple plagiarism from many different American and German sources.

While this book is based on the 160-year-old volume, the author contributes an enormous editorial labor to make the material accessible to the modern cook and scholar. And scholarly indeed is this exposition of Pennsylvania Dutch cooking in general. I am from a Pennsylvania Dutch background and have lived on the fringes of this world for all my life and I found things about this group that I have never heard before.

And, after having read dozens of books on the nature of French, Italian, Italian regional, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Philippine, Greek, Lebanese, Moroccan, Turkish, and Thai cuisines, I have to say that this book gives as good or better treatment of the nature of its subject than any others I have read! It is important that what I mean here is not the culinary virtues of the recipes but the illuminating value of the scholarship. In fact, I would NOT recommend this book if what you want is a good book of Pennsylvania Dutch recipes. For that, you should go to any number of books by Betty Groff, Phyllis Good, or Mary Showalter. The latter's book `Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking' is especially good, larger collection of recipes.

To that litany of world cuisines, I should add that I have not seen as good an exposition of either `Southern' or `Tex-Mex' cuisines, the two other most clearly defined `home grown' cuisines. While there are dozens of excellent books on `Southern' cooking, not one of them fully characterizes the essence of what distinguishes this cuisine from its European antecedents. Although I must say that southerner James Villas and New Englander John Thorne have both done excellent essays on important aspects of Southern cooking.

Appropriate to the year in which Weaver's source text was first published, it was aimed at the original wave of south German immigrants to Pennsylvania. These are the Mennonites, Amish, Lutherans, and Moravians who came seeking religious freedom in William Penn's colony before the Revolutionary War. And, just as Italian cuisines were transformed by the greater wealth of food available in the New World, so the German's were able to indulge to the hilt all their culinary inclinations.

Unlike the Italians who were virtual vegetarians due to the cost of meat in their native Italy, the South Germans tended to have a very high preference for meat over vegetables. The meat of choice, of course, was pork, as pigs were much easier to raise in Pennsylvania. Sheep did not do well in the Lancaster County summer, and lamb meat simply didn't work well in transposed pork recipes. And, in spite of the great reputation of the Italians for making full use of the porkers, it is the Germans who actually have the widest variety of cured sausages. And, there are the famous scrapples and pig's stomach dishes. No wonder Emeril Lagasse loves Pennsylvania Dutch cooking (`Pork fat rules'). The most distinctive combination of flavors in this cuisine is represented by the famous dish `Schnitz un Gnepp' which may be considered the Pennsylvania German's version of cassoulet. It combines acid from dried apples, starch from dumplings, and sweet and salty flavors from the braising liquid.

It's interesting that many of the dishes commonly associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch such as shoo fly pie are actually late arrivals. And, beef becomes a more important component of Pennsylvania Dutch cooking when the beef ranching in the Midwest and the southwest, plus the railroads for carting them to Chicago and the East make it impractical for Lancaster county small farms to compete in the Baltimore and Philadelphia markets with beef prices. So, they started eating the beef themselves.

This book is oddly reminiscent of the better presentations of Medieval and Renaissance recipes and cookbooks. As in those cases, the original authors gave few exact measurements of ingredients and did not spell out methods in great detail. All of this was assumed since the original authors were writing for people who either learned to cook over many years at their mother's side or as an apprentice to a cook in a royal court or wealthy household.

Thus, the author gives us an English translation of the original `High Pennsylvania German' text and follows this with an exposition of both culinary details the recipe may be assuming and the historical context for each recipe. Each recipe is also presented with an English name, the name in the book (high Pennsylvania German) and a Pennsylvania Dutch dialect (`Pennsylfanisch') name. The commentary also translates, where necessary, the cooking method from open hearth to modern oven or stovetop.

The book does not give the recipes in the same order as in the original. It rearranges them to fit modern cookbook topics with chapters on:

Meats and Hearthside Savories
What the Dutch Call Gefliggel (Poultry)
Fish and Shellfish
A Karrich of Vittles and Herbs (Vegetable Side Dishes)
Soups, Broths, and Stews
Puddings, Pies, and Other Sweets
Siesses and Sauieres (Fermenting, Canning, and Preserves)
Heady Punches and Small Beers

The chapter on pies and sweets is an ample confirmation of Wayne Harley Brachman's (`American Desserts') description of the Pennsylvania Dutch as `dessert central' for the United States. The chapter on canning explains why the leading producer of catsup (H. J. Heinz) is a Pennsylvania company!

This is clearly a book for people who love to read about food. If you simply want a good chicken potpie recipe, get James Beard's book on poultry. But, if you love connecting the dots between foods at different times and different places, this is a book for you!

This is the best book available on the problems of sprawl. Preservation Pa.(sponsor of the book) and Hylton recently received a National Trust for Historic Preservation Honor Award for the impact the book has had. The book can be read in 2 hours; the photography is stunning.

This book is a clear outline of how suburbia took over and imposed a lifestyle on us that I'll bet we didn't want. Do you live in a house that requires you to drive to get anythinq? Even a loaf of bread? The ideas are clear, simple and seem so obvious. An easy read about a very complex subject.

by Chris Birk, Scranton Times-Tribune, staff writer, Sunday, November 5, 2006

Though it happens infrequently, when the city's living mayors gather together, the story of Scranton's last four decades materializes.

In that atmosphere, surrounded by his colleagues, former Mayor David Wenzel looked around a few years ago and found himself wondering who would tell the story when they're gone. So he decided to embrace the role of storyteller -- not just of the last 40 years, but of the city's 140-year history.

"The history of our city is being lost on daily basis, as people die and they're not leaving the stories behind the way they used to. I just wanted to grab that piece of history," said Mr. Wenzel. "This is something that if I don't put down on paper, nobody else is going to go do it.

"This will be lost if I don't get to these guys."

Mr. Wenzel set out to chronicle the terms and achievements of Scranton's 29 mayors. The culmination of about two years' worth of research and writing, his book, "Scranton's Mayors," was released at the 43rd annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast on Oct. 27 at the Radisson at Lackawanna Station hotel.

Crafting the 176-page book, Mr. Wenzel noticed a couple of dominant themes connecting the line of mayors: First, each succeeding mayor gained more power and influence than his predecessor, and, second, each viewed his role as mayor in a different light.

For example, Mayor James B. McNulty worked as the city's biggest promoter, while Mayor Jim Connors embodied the essence of personal politics, said Mr. Wenzel.

"I liked seeing the evolution of the city being formed as I watched each of these mayors," said Mr. Wenzel. "Everybody uses a different path to get to reach the mayor's office. There's some characters there, too."

Enthralled by the books, Mr. Connors also found an opportunity to spotlight the mayors' families, many of whom suffered in silence.

"Even though it's only in the city, we're still away. We're out of the house, fighting snowstorms, going to crime scenes, and then having people say unkind things, sometimes untrue things, about us," he said. "It puts an awful lot of pressure on the family. All of the mayors' families came through in grand style. They were always the backbone."

Mr. Connors and his successor, Mayor Chris Doherty, used the same phrase to describe the book: a gift to the city.

"You get a sense of the city, in seeing the changes from when it first started," said Mr. Doherty, who praised the work of Mr. Wenzel. "He's a very kind and good man. I think this exemplifies his personality."

The book, "Scranton's Mayors," is available at Borders and at Tribute Books in Eynon, as well as on www.amazon.com.

©The Times-Tribune 2006

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RUP5OO4YLDKK1 By: Alicia Grega-Pikul, Electric City, October 26-November 1, 2006 Edition

Former head honcho David Wenzel scribes a complete history of Electric City executives.

Some were born as far away as Ireland and Scotland; others in nearby Honesdale, Pittston, and Waverly. Many were forced to choose work over school in order to help support their large families. They were veterans of the Civil War, World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. They were funeral-home directors, grocers, railroad machinists, and engineers as often as they were coal barons, bankers, tax collectors, and treasurers. They are Scranton's Mayors.

When the city of Scranton was incorporated out of the boroughs of Scranton, Providence, and Hyde Park in 1866, former Mayor David J. Wenzel (1986-1990) points out in the introduction of his new book Scranton's Mayors, it was not unlike a "boomtown." The population was 25,000. Lackawanna
Iron Works was the city's largest employer and there would be no city hall for 25 years.

Scranton's freewheeling, populist spirit opened the office of mayor to 29 men of diverse education, economic, and skill levels from laborers to coal barons. Wenzel's clear, straightforward collection of mini-biographies reveals the remarkable about each leader and moves at a reader-friendly pace sure to keep interest.

The book is admirably honest and absent of ego, and provides enlightening context to what might otherwise be random historical facts. He traces how role of mayor has changed in power and influence from one generation to the next, and from one man's ruling style to the next.

And he manages to make sense of a complex history of close elections, party politics, and the city's unrelenting struggle to find economic and social balance while fighting mine subsidence, population loss, and social ills.

This book's photography supports the authors narrative message: 1. Glass sculpture is beautiful.
2. Glass sculpture has a surprisingly extensive record of having been presented in fine art museums.

Martha Drexler Lynn writes with the voice of a fiction writer and the mind of a scholar. She takes us through the issues common to all sculpture over time and then visits 26 museum collections and discusses how sculpture made of glass found its way into those collections. This book will be interesting not only to art historians and scholars but to those interested in how works of art find their way into American museums. Museums studied range from the Metropolitan and the MFA Boston to excellent regional museums.

A must read for contemporary art collectors interested in learning about sculpture made of glass.

I enjoyed this book so much that I nearly wrote to the author to congratulate him. The content is easy for modern readers to relate to: young adults exploring religion and sexuality and occasionally rioting against college authorities. Hessinger skillfully interweaves these themes with the political, economic, and cultural values of the early republic to discover the roots of this generation's apparent crisis. The book is not only a compelling piece of scholarship but also a model of clear, succinct, engaging historical writing. I recommend it highly, with the caveat that it will be best enjoyed by those who are already knowledgeable about the nineteenth-century United States.

So you think your teenager gives you trouble? Well, get in line with generations of previous Americans! This book shows that young adults produced much anxiety in the decades following American independence. Armed with new notions of equality and finding new opportunities unleashed by market capitalism, youth in the early national era disrupted traditional patterns of courship, churchgoing, and apprenticeship. Effortlessly blending entertaining anecdotes with sophisticated theoretical analysis, Hessinger has written a fascinating book that will appeal to both scholars and a general audience.

This is a well written, coherent book on the benefits of globalisation to developing countries and the reasons why it appears that globalizations fails these countries. It is a must read for all those anti-globalization supporters who argue that free trade hurts developing countries.

The author is in no way a champion of conservative economics and was indeed for many years (and probably still is), extremely leftwing in many of his thoughts and ideas. Additionally, he has also spent a lot of time studying developement in Africa and hence, he writes with some authority as to what will benefit developing countries economically, which gives credibility to his work, unlike a number of other pro-globalization writers.

Finally, this book comes across not as a rant against the right, demonising the evils of coroporations and their government lapdogs (in the vein of Naomi Klein and others), but rather as a well structured argument supporting the need for more globalization in the developing world. Nor is the book a Ra-Ra chant extoling the virtues of internet acess to Indian farmrs, in the frame of Thomas Friedman, but rather quietly chip away the rhetoric that oftern surrounds this topic and making a strong, pro-globalization, case.

This book is a must read for those who are looking for reasons why globalizations helps developing countries and for those on the left who doubt its benefits.

It's a shame that this book doesn't appear to be that popular (judging by the lack of other reviews). This book is a refreshingly clear and coherent study of the modern phenomenon of "globalization". After wading through swamps of economic illiteracy and knee-jerk corporation-bashing from incoherent academics like Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, it's a real treat to hear from a "leftist" who actually knows what he's talking about.

The author's background is in development economics, and unlike most pampered first world'activists, he has spent many years in the most desperately poor places of the world. His stated priority is to advocate policies that will allow the poorest people of the world to improve their standard of living, and to anyone who doesn't understand the benefits of trade, his conclusion is surprising: We need MORE 'globalization', not less.

For starters, we need completely free trade in agricultural products, a market in which the loudest defenders of "free trade" (ie the US) are notorious for their subsidies and tariffs.

Whether all of the policy prescriptions are realistic or not is another matter (his recommendations for increased UN power already seemly sadly anachronistic given the current mood in the US), but it's a great and rare pleasure to read a coherent analysis of the modern economic system and a fairly scathing indictment of the fashionable 'anti-globalization' movement from someone with impeccable left-wing credentials.

I strongly recommend this book to people who like poetry, and even to those who don't. Full of great phrases that stick in your head.

Setting The World In Order is an impressive compendium of poetry showcasing Rick Campbell's intensely personal style, grace, and storytelling approach to the genre. Legend: He came from a land that didn't need words./Fire singed the sky, soot and ash/settled on the tongue. Speech/was furred and superfluous,. He grew older and left, crisscrossed/America, sat silent and stranger/in the loud seats of cars. Salesman/and truck driver wove their special language,/piston-driven to talk and brood./He listened and thought his shadow/saved them from their lost dreams./Throughout his land he became legend./Buck's boy who never talked. No one/at the Legion or VFW; no one/ at the hundred Bohunk and Italian bars;/no one at J&L, Armco, Coppers,/Phoenix Glass, or American Bridge;/no cops; no railroad dicks;/no coaches named Maccalini/ever heard him speak. he saved it./It's for you and you haven't come yet.