Pennsylvania Books

This is the kind of book that changes not only the way we view individual authors, but the way we view an era. Much work, both scholarly and for a popular audience, has been done in the area of the Renaissance, but little of it provides the reader with an "Ah ha!" moment, a moment that changes forever our approach to a time period. This book does precisely that. Robert Watson's premise, that civilization is to nature as perception is to reality, allows for a broad audience to read and appreciate this book. His thesis, however, is deceptively simple. With strong readings of As You Like It, Andrew Marvell's poems and 17th century Dutch painting, Watson draws together what seem like widely different materials to green the Renaissance -- to subject the Renaissance to the kind of eco-criticism that affects our own reading of the world. We are a back-to-nature sort of culture, but, as Watson's book shows, there is no getting back to Nature (and if we could get back to Nature, we might find that it resembles nothing we expected). Our civilization forever blocks an unmediated experience of the natural world, just as our perception, colored as it is with the detritis of day-to-day living, can never allow a full embrace of reality. We love to be the masters of all we suvey (and didn't God tell Adam that he could be? And by extension that we can be?) -- but as masters, the natural and the real will always elude us. What we have enslaved, whether by mind or machine, can never be fully possessed, but is always set at a distance by that very enslavement. As far as Watson's readings of individual works goes, this book enchants and unsettles with its nuanced approach to literature and art. I would certainly recommend this book for every scholar of the Renaissance period; I believe that the book has started a movement of Renaissance eco-criticism that will prove highly influential. Although some of the writing and concepts may seem, at first, daunting to the general reader, I also recommend the book to a broad audience -- that audience, I feel sure, will be appreciative (in particular) of the readings of individual works and paintings. In all, I give this book the highest possible rating.

During the past 30 years, Voigt has established himself as perhaps the most prolific authority on the evolution of baseball. In addition to his seminal three volume history, Voigt has penned nearly a score of other books and articles for scholarly journals.

When published originally in 1987, this book was the best single-volume history of the National Pastime. Baseball: An Illustrated History is a wonderful, if slightly dated, history of the Summer Game.

Voigt, a sociology professor at Albright College, traces the sport from the stick-and-ball games played by Englishmen and American colonists, to the multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise of modern major league baseball. More than 400 black-and-white photographs, many seldom-seen, help illuminate Voigt's text. Some of the singular pictures include a turn-of-the-century photograph from the files of the U.S. Surgeon General's Office displaying a ball player's disfigured hands, and one of lighting engineers placing "measuring targets" in the Polo Grounds to prepare for the installation of 836 lights and night baseball. In sum, the book is balanced and concise, yet still comprehensive in its treatment of the significance of the game in American society.

The major disappointment with the book is that there is nothing new. This paperback volume was published 7 years after the original edition, and it suffers for not being made current. At the conclusion of the book Voigt identifies player drug-abuse as the most visible issue facing the game; today, few fans would agree with that assessment. Consider all that has transpired since Mookie Wilson's nubber went through Bill Buckner's wickets: the dismissal of Commissioner Fay Vincent, the rebirth of minor league baseball, Pete Rose, the construction of classic-revival ballparks, the 1994-1995 player's strike, Cal Ripkin, and three divisions with expanded playoffs. At best, the lack of new material is frustrating. At worst, not updating the book impinges the credibility of its conclusions. In the book's first sentence Voigt proclaims "America's passion for baseball has endured [for 140 years], and there are no signs of diminishing ardor." In the wake of the game's recent troubles, ominous doubt's about major league baseball's future persist.

Make no mistake, however; this remains a wonderful book. Baseball: An Illustrated History remains an invaluable starting place for baseball history novices, and is equally satisfying for experienced scholars.

Gordon Craig gives a clear and highly readable account of the most infuential battle of the 19th century. This should be required reading for anybody trying to understand modern German history. The author uses excellent source material to bring a contemporary narretive and evaluation to this historical milestone.

If you're a Pitt fan, then you're longing for that day when Penn State will bow to the Panthers again (sadly, never again in old Pitt Stadium, razed in 1999). If you're a Penn State fan, you've seen that blue and gold nemesis to the west fade from its once high point of gridiron glory. But whether you're a Panther or a Nittany Lion, you've got to appreciate the 107 year old rivalry between these two storied squads. Pannacio's book is a game-by-game history of the series, from the first snowy meeting in 1893, to the day in 1981 when underdog Penn State smooshed then-No.1-ranked Pitt (going into the game 10-0 under Jackie Sherril) in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, Panaccio's book ends in 1981, but it captures the best years of the rivalry, as Pitt has gone 3-10-1 against the team from Happy Valley in the ensuing years. Sadly, the rivalry was interrupted 1993-1996, but four more games were scheduled for 1997-2000, so the thrill temporarily lives on. Hopefully these two schools will continue to schedule one another for the long term. In the meantime, enjoy Pannacio's nicely written work. It's full of photos, newspaper clippings, and gripping highlights.

I purchased this book because of its interesting cover photo. After reading it, I became aware of how much history is nestled away in the quaint villages and towns of Bedford County, Pennsylvania. From the French and Indian War to the Whiskey Rebellion to Fort Bedford, Bedford played a significant role in the settlement of early America. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

I grew up in Beechview. This book brought back some fond memories of a world I once knew in a far simpler time. It was just great. Fantastic!

For musical experts. A detailed analysis of the first movement of string quartet Op.18, No.1. Excellent study for students of Beethoven, composition, or string quartet players. Musical examples on nearly every page. Large format, beautifully bound.

Prior to the 1973 Supreme Court decision granting women unrestricted abortion access during the first three months of pregnancy, some states had decided to take initiative in revisiting 19th century abortion restrictions/prohibitions and discarding the now-worthless laws.

Because the first anti-abortion laws were passed prior to the development of antiseptic surgery/antibiotics, and had actually led to an increase in organized crime's involvement (eager to profit off of women's desperation) the statues could not accomplish any policy objective by the mid 20th century. Coincidentally, fetal life had never been among the concerns of the original legislators.

Doctors could attempt to treat illegal abortion complications, but paradoxically could not offer women services which would prevent the horrific medical crises to begin with.

Consequently, a patchwork of reform laws began developing under the recommendation of the American Law Institute, the Clergy Consultation Services, and fair minded legislators who were navigating realization the laws had to be reformed, with uncertainty of how far those reforms should go. Unlike the women's liberationists of the later 1960's who framed abortion as a woman's right and conversely positioned denial as a tool of women's subordination, the professionals involved in these cases also reasoned their control of the process would remove the social stigma then attached to abortion. If women could be screened prior to undergoing an abortion, only virtuous women would receive the procedure and society would be preserved.

However easy to disparage their intentions from the vantage point of a self-identified 'third wave' feminist who has never known a world without legalized abortion, I recognize their involvement in the policy process as a critical step in obtaining an eventual nationwide repeal ruling.

As the futility of conservative reform statues and widely varying laws became apparent, newly minted reproductive rights activists became less willing to accept anything less than a standardized national repeal.

With the Bush administration openly vowing to turn back the clock on women's rights (and the obvious willingness of some state legislatures in helping to achieve that goal) case studies such as these will prove to be an indispensable resource for scholars and activists alike. Understanding our past helps prevent future returns.

The darkest thing about the so-called Dark Ages is the darkness of our ignorance of them. I'm speaking in general of educated readers, many of whom will be surprised to learn that there was a "Norman Conquest" outside of England, and of the best historians, whose ignorance is directly proportioanl to the scarcity of reliable sources.

Yes, there was a Norman Conquest of Sicily, and then of large chunks of the boot of Italy, and the Norman kingdom which resulted is well worth studying for its importance in the expansion of Europe. But this book plunges even farther back into the darkness, to examine the state of things in southern Italy before the Normans, in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. The author writes: "In this early medieval period, southern Italy was in effect a giant laboratory, one in which polities were tested and where Byzantium, the Lombards, the Islamic world, and the Latin West constantly intersected." In other words, much of the interfacing of European, Byzantine, and Persian-Arab knowledge and technology that we Western European historians have studied so carefully in Renaissance Spain and northern Italy had already been previewed in southern Italy. Another quote from Dr. Kreutz: "...the lower half of the Italian peninsula...first became a separate and distinct geopolitical region in 774, with the Carolingian conquest of northern Italy. It is true that it was not politically unfified until the late eleventh century, under the Normans. From 774 on, however, southern Italy mostly pursued its own separate destiny, and indeed, as the Kingdom of Naples, it continued to do so until the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century."

This is not a book that makes concessions to a popular readership. It's all solid scholarship and stolid prose. Much of its drama focuses on the reliability of monastic sources. So, unless you're a Calabrian nationalist, why should you give a hoot? Because this fragmented and triangulated region was probably the most important gateway/marketplace through which Greeks, Muslims, and Latin-German Christians exchanged ideas! It was through this region, for instance, that Indian numerals using zero entered Europe. Most of the flow of knowledge was into Europe from Byzantium and North Africa, to the very great long-term detriment of the Islamic world. Frankly (and there's a pun), Europe was receptive while Islam was beginning its long exclusion of infidel science.

Benevento, the inland southern capital of Lombard Italy, is not much of a tourist destination these days, but it was a city of greater sophistication in the 9th C than anywhere north of Rome. Its liturgical music has been imaginatively reconstructed by Marcel Peres on his CD of Beneventan chant. Amalfi, the Lombard/Greek city state on the seacoast, is indeed a spectacular place to visit today, though most of its architecture dates from well after the Lomabards. There are good reasons to suppose that Amalfi was a hub of exchange of musical and poetic styles, north and south, long before the Spanish court of Alfonso el Sabio. Somehow, in southern Italy, the characteristic instruments of both Islamic and European music encountered each other and re-absorbed the dominant Hellenic instruments. The basic double reed of ancient Greece, for example, became the shenai of Arab/Persian music and the shawm>oboe of European. Translations of ancient Greek texts also flowed through pre-Norman and Norman Italy - translations from Greek to Arabic to Latin and also some from Latin to Arabic, though Arabs were almost never the translators.

Only readers with a general knowledge of Mediterranean history over the millennia will find this book intelligible. Still, if you are a person who reads history regularly for pleasure, you won't find many books with more new knowledge to impart.

I first encountered this book during my undergraduate studies at SUNY Geneseo. I was taking a human rights class and this book literally changed the way I view the world. This is a dense read, with a lot of detail, and reading the footnotes is a MUST, however if it does not change the way you view the world around you you haven't read it right. This is a must read for anyone who believes that the horrors that governments can perpetrate need to be illuminated.