Delaware Books

This book with its poor selection of no names who offer their limited or non-existent wisdom on Welty should have never been published. It is further proof of the poor quality of USC Press Books these days.

Miss Welty deserves more than this edited (if you can call it that) volume by this European who obviously believes that being able to wipe barbecue off on his sleeve means he understands the South and Southern writing. PLEASE.

This book is a must for any Welty scholar. It is one of those rare books that I wish I could read again and again. It accomplishes much more than its modest title would suggest. Gretlund has long been one of the most erudite critics of southern lit. Teaching both in Europe and at Ole Miss, he is more objective yet has an insider's knowledge. This achievement reaffirms his place at the top of literary critics not just in Europe or America but in the world.
Darryl Hattenhauer
Associate Professor of English
Arizona State University West
Phoenix, AZ 85069

Gretlund has really done all Welty readers a huge favour by writing this book. And for all those of you out there not yet familiar with the writings of Eudora Welty...read this book.

Gretlund wrote EUDORA WELTY'S AESTHETICS OF PLACE, and it is a fine book. It is not an edited volume, as the Mississippi reviewer states in his attack. I suggest putting away the bourbon bottle and getting the facts correct before reviewing any more books.

Scientists and Native Americans argue amongst themselves and each other about if/when/how the Indians reached North America. Much of the so-called debate in the popular press is shallow and insipid.

Here we have the written pictograph record, along with accompanying orally transmitted songs - and translation, of the Lenni Lenape people, known to us white folks as the Delaware (named for some dead white guy). The Lenni Lenape were acknowledged as "grandfathers" among the Lenape family of tribes, known to us white folks as the Algonquian language group, the largest language group of Native Americans in North America.

The Wallum Olum begins with the mythical creation of the world, the entry of evil and strife, and a great flood. Sound familiar?

Then, things get interesting, as the tale takes on a more historical character, discussing a migration, perhaps from somewhere near Lake Baikal, north, until the icy sea is reached.

Lacking a land bridge to "stumble" (as one white guy put it) across, the Lenape set out in boats and explore a beautiful country to the east. When the icy sea freezes over, 10,000 Lenape cross in an arctic night, after a debate on the subject.

They find a North America already populated by humans. They interact with these others as they migrate across the continent - Iroquois, Moundbuilders, others. And as they migrate, they leave a trail of splinter groups of Lenape peoples, Yurok, Wiyot, Salish, Blackfeet, Cree, Cheyenne, Shawnee, Nanticoke, etc.. Finally they reach Delaware and wait a few hundred years to get "discovered" by whites.

Well, I apologize for telling so much of the story, but it is really a fascinating story, and David McCutcheon does a much better job of telling it than I can, so go check it out. In addition to translating the Wallum Olum and including other stories of the Lenni Lenape and other Lenape tribes that illuminate their culture and migration, he also provides plenty of sound analysis tying the story to the various geographical locations I've hinted at.

This book blew my mind. I wonder what we'll learn when we take a serious look at the stories of other Native Americans.

Read jessito's review. What is your problem dude? The book is interesting, the lenni lanape are interesting, but your white bashing is a bummer. Just because you have a problem with your own race doesn't mean you need to "share." Talk to a shrink.

The Delawares are a very interesting people, and their history, particularly their role in the early West of the 1830s and 1840s is not widely known. Its a great book. Ignore Jessitos "white business" and read the book. Dave

Several years ago I was stuck working in an office, so for some relief after gulping down food at lunch, I retreated to the sanctuary of the local public library just down the street. To my amazement, I discovered a whole range of books on the Native people of the United States. Most of what I had read was negative in nature until finding this book.
I checked it out, brought it home and proceeded to absorb the whole essence of what the author was trying to say. Although it came from the perspective of a descendant of the most recent immigrants;Europeans; nevertheless, it was to me and eye-opening experience. The pictographs are wonderful, the story is magical. It is a pity that I hadn't found it sooner. The story of the Lenape sounds like the whole story of mankind, complete with Creation, floods and evil serpents like the account in Genesis and records of their leaders just as Kings and Chronicles contain in the Holy Bible. I felt a sort of kinship with these people, even though I have never met any Lenape personally and though I am a Christian, I sensed the presence of God in their tale as well.
I live in West Virginia and there is a Petroglyph near to my home that I have visited several times. A Petroglyph is a rock with carvings from some past culture chiseled upon it. The carvings are very similar in nature to the ones in the Red Record so it is quite possible that some of the Shaman of their tribe may have been in my area hundreds of years ago.
All I can say is this book will open your eyes to the rich history and culture of the Native people. I know it will make you want to beat the drums and sing their song.

A "poetic" paraphrase of Rafinesque's early nineteenth century hoax. The so-called "Delaware" or "Lenape" text is a patchwork of words culled from early Moravian missionary sources, strung together without regard for grammar or semantic structure. It's a transparent fraud. The so-called "pictographs" are, likewise, a fabrication of Rafinesque. The eminent scholar of Delaware culture and language, Dr. David Oestreicher, in his lengthy doctoral dissertation, has completely demolished any flicker of a notion that this work has any legitimacy, whatsoever. It was ever unknown to the Delaware Tribe of Indians, now headquartered in Bartlesville, OK; and their council has summarily dismissed it. Every resurrection of this work, as an "authentic" production of the Lenape Indians, constitutes another hoax perpetrated on an unsuspecting public--even if done unintentionally. In the end, this is a just another White Man's fiction, masquerading as an Indian narrative.

This book is a good source of information by the author as objective member a university English Department in the fragmented postmodern modern world of today's professional expectations and specialized suject areas. McCrea relates the loss of interest in Addision and Steel as members of the current literay canon and literary reviews which have dwindled to significanty none since 1957. He traces the history of the canon back to the seventeenth century London and proceeds to Saussaure and Derrida as the leaders in the study of literary criticism and its canon for public interest in the twentieth and tweny-first century. Most of his comments are of interest historically and socially in respect to literature and its ever growing but selective group of isolated critics who only intertain a main focus of study. Is Derrida right, wrong, or both? This question gets a bit confusing in the last chapter on the New York mutes who are "signing" as they communicate enthuisiastically inside a restaurant as McCrea and his children watch. Is Derrida wrong, or is writing insubordinated by a system of sign that indicate the signified. Read this book for McCrea's comments that may initiate some questions of your own concerning the democratization of literature by the postmodern critics and English Department professionals.

This book was on the required reading for my English Graduate School Comprehensive Exams in the area on Literary Criticism. Brian Mcrea thoroughly repeats his same point several times within this text almost to the level of a reader's perplexity with his obsessive observations concerning the change in the world between the seventeeth to the eighteenth century literary styles and the postmodern era up until our current time. Certainly it is not surprising news to any English graduate student that Addison and Steele are no longer the literary icons for journalistic and literary practices used in the late 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries. For forty dollars, however, you get alot of repetition of Mcrea's observations on this "phenomenom."

This book is a good source of information by the author as objective member of a university English Department in the fragmented postmodern modern world of today. Professional expectations and specialized suject areas now dominate the scene for graduate studies and new professors. McCrea relates the loss of interest in the public literary style Addision and Steel as members of the current literary canon and critical reviews which have dwindled to significanty none at all in periodicals since 1957. He traces the history of the canon back to the seventeenth century London and proceeds to Saussaure and Derrida as the leaders in the study of the new literary criticism and its canon in the twentieth and tweny-first century. Most of his comments are of interest historically and socially in respect to literature and its ever growing but selective group of isolated critics who only entertain a narrow and main focus of study. Is Derrida right, wrong, or both? This question gets a bit confusing in the last chapter on the New York mutes who are "signing" as they communicate enthuisiastically inside a restaurant as McCrea and his children watch. Is Derrida wrong, or is writing insubordinated by a system of signs that do not indicate the signified? Read this book for McCrea's comments that may initiate some questions of your own questions concerning the democratization of literature by the postmodern critics and new English Department professionalism.

This is a must read for every teen or adult that believes history is simply about boring dead white people and inconsequential dates. Can you write a "real" history book that has valid arguments about.....SWIMMING POOLS? Dr. Wiltse has caught the attention of the young people of this nation who believed that history, real history, has to be about a President, King, or a General, and has taught us all that seemingly mundane events in the lives of common people, often overlooked, are history too!

So far I am a quarter of the way through this book and it has repeated the same information several times. As soon as the author progresses into the 1900s he quickly shifts back to the 1890s and then up to the 1900s and then back again. The information could have been a little more carefully strung together and not so repetitive. I look forward to finishing this book to see if this gets any better. Despite the irritating repetition the information presented is interesting.

Here comes summer, and Americans will head for a trusted way of getting rid of stress and heat: they will jump into swimming pools. But pools themselves have been a source of stress to many communities within the nation; indeed, Jeff Wiltse has written a history of the social tensions pools have caused (and sometimes eased) in _Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America_ (University of North Carolina Press). It is surprising that what might seem a trivial subject, a pastime in which millions of Americans have innocently indulged for over a hundred years now, might even have a history. But Wiltse, who teaches history at the University of Montana, has driven from town to town to draw information for this book. His travels were mostly in the north, for he did not want to range too far and write separate regional histories, although he says the pattern of social use of pools is consistent within the towns he surveyed. He amassed a huge amount of data from newspapers and civic documents about who was using the pools, with statistics often kept by race and sex. Wiltse has shown beyond doubt that pools have reflected and generated our feelings on sexual and racial matters, and although his book is a serious academic history, it is by turns amusing and sad as America came to an incomplete understanding of how we ought to treat pools and the swimmers who use them.

We didn't have pools originally, going down to swim in the river or "the old swimming hole". The swimmers often had no running water at home and this was a way for them to wash away some bodily grime; their Victorian betters strongly agreed with bathing for this purpose, but not with the way it was being accomplished. The problem of how to get those underclass clean without letting their pastoral cavorting offend others resulted in a solution, the first municipal bathing pools. Remarkably, there was not racial segregation in these initial pools. Pools changed again when they became not centers for training but locales for play. The huge pools were viewed as resorts, places where a family might come on vacation, and they had sand around them for artificial beaches. Pools had been segregated by gender, but these were not; because of fretting over what might happen if white women saw athletic black bodies, or if blacks started appreciating the displayed bodies of white women, racial segregation of pools began. There was violence in many cities when black people tried to use the pool. The way one city after another attempted to exclude black people in different ways makes for uncomfortable reading.

Desegregation eventually happened, but the victory turned out to be Pyrrhic. As blacks were admitted, white swimmers stopped going to the public pools, and so it became easier for cities to reduce maintenance on the pools, which fell into disrepair and were closed. Cities had financial crises in the 1970s, further reducing pool budgets, and have never started up another building surge. White swimmers went to private pools or home pools, and Americans aren't putting a high value on public recreation as much as they used to. Suburban communities are building water theme parks, which are busy places for kids, but do not foster the socialization that families used to find around a public pool. It may not have worked out to be the best outcome for either blacks or whites, but that's the way history works out sometimes. Wiltse's readable history gives a surprising outlook on important aspects of American culture, and shows that swimming pools are far more consequential than you'd expect.

As one who fishes the Delaware, I was hugely disappointed by this "book." There is no new insight, the text is lame and rife with grammatical errors and the photos are horrible. The whole first section is a quote from Schweibert's "Trout." Pretty lazy. I can't believe they charge [$$$] for this. Save your money for flies.

Filled with colorful anecdotal stories, George Spector's River Journal: Delaware River is a superbly presented fly fishing guide that includes a detailed river map, color fly plates, a suggested list of flies, and a invaluable wealth of experienced "tips, tricks & techniques" for trout fishing along the Delaware River system of New York and Pennsylvania.

A river with a storied history deserves to have its story told, and George L. Spector does a good job within the pages of Delaware River, part of the River Journal series published by Frank Amato Publications. Spector begins with the river's history, then reveals a wealth of facts about the many fishing opportunities this watershed offers both in New York and Pennsylvania. The Delaware was once a smallmouth bass and walleye fishery, but the constructions of dams in the 1960s turned the river into a premiere coldwater wild trout fishery that is also one of the few rivers on the east coast to be navigated by drift boats, which are primarily western river water craft. Delaware River is chock full of vivid color photos, and Spector adds useful information about the river's shad fishery and insect hatches, too, making this a thorough introduction to this excellent, historic, fly fishing destination.

the knowledge of the book is good. however, it is not feasible to say that all Indiginous black people are Lenabe/Lenape we are all indiginous but not all lenabe. This org take money but I never see there activity in the country.

I was able to understand the concept of this book and speak personally with the writer on his scope of Lennni Lenabe People. My understanding is that we are a solemn people. You may not see much activism, but activism by the people can be felt because we are able to interact one to one to spread the message of peace and love. This is the new activism of the millinneum. it is not for you to agree or disagree. This book is the written word, and for the intellectual minds that understand the meaning of origin and how this land came to be. It is like the bible. The understanding is there because the faith is there. There are no questions. Learn to be what you feel, and rather than just see what you do not know. This is a powerful book. Allow its message to reawaken our orgin and true rights of passage.

I am a Lenni-Lenape and of course was interested in reading the book. I was disappointed because the book contained a good deal of information, but it was not properly presented. The book was not edited. While I salute the author's knowledge, I am disappointed that there are no reference sources for the information contained in the book. A book of this type requires support, if not it merely falls into the category of speculation. I would suggest that the book be rewritten and include reference sources as support. Also better sequencing of ideas would be nice.

B.D. Evans, Ph.D.

We recently bought our first free standing home on 1/4 acre in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. My original plan was to 'garden every inch', but I soon realized that was not a 'plan'. After going through several volumes and magazines in the library, I came across this book.

Its beauty lies in the fact that it helps the begginer to PLAN. The gorgeous pictures helped me decide which plants I like visually; the icons let me know immediately which plants do well in shade, sun or both; which are drought tolerant, which attract bees, which are scented, which are native; the list seemed endless. I also like the fact that the book includes water plants, trees, grasses and shrubs with the usual fare because we are fortunate enough to have dogwoods in our yards and now I know how to take care of them.

The reference guide includes contact information for area garden centers, including one about 15 minutes from where we live.

I hope readers can find a guide like this specific to the areas in which they live.

The best recommendation of all: after 3 renewals from the library, I finally decided to BUY the book - I'm definitely going to use it this spring and always.

Aside from providing a list and pictures of popular local plants, this book provides little useful information about individual species and their cultivation. Much of each one-page species description is pure boilerplate providing generic information on planting that is repeated over and over again throughout the book, rather than being stated once in a section on cultivation. Truly disappointing.

I like that this book is specifically about the area in which I live. There's lots of good info here. I wish there had been more flowers listed, though. I wanted to find a smorgasbord of pretty, interesting and different flowers from which to choose. (I'm not looking to plant trees, so I just skipped over that section.) I think this book is a pretty good resource for neophyte or relatively new gardeners in the Mid-Atlantic.

The late Dr. Herbert Kraft was a renowned scholar of the archeology and history of the Lenape Indians of New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. While exploring Lenape sites along the Delaware River in northwestern New Jersey, Kraft became familiar with the legend of the "old Mine Road," reputed by local folklorists to be the "oldest road in America." The road was allegedly built in the mid 17th century by Dutch copper miners moving down into New Jersey from Esopus New York.

Using historical and archeological sources, Kraft marshals a convincing array of documentary and technical evidence that succinctly demolishes the myth that the Dutch, or anyone else in the 17th century, built a road along the Jersey side of the Delaware River, and reveals that the story is of fairly recent origin. The burden of proof now lies with anyone who claims otherwise.

"The Dutch, the Indians and the Quest for Copper" is devoted to the thesis that the "legend" of Dutch mining at Pahaquarry (New Jersey) in the 1650s has no basis in fact. About half of the book is concerned with the Lenape Indians of the area, and is totally irrelevant to the main thesis. Apparently this is all to support the thesis that (restated) "no damned idiot would be wandering around in the wilderness 100 miles from the nearest settlement to discover such a mine in the first place". Mr. Kraft ignores the fact that the French were all over the interior of North America by that time. While Mr. Kraft succeeds in demonstrating that the legend is at best exaggerated, his thesis ultimately fails. None of the evidence he provides disproves the possibility of Dutch mining on the site in the 1650s. Apparently one of his key points is archeological evidence based on digs he supervised-yet he never presents any results of those digs. Most of the chapters fail to met their reasonable objectives in many ways. For example there is a chapter on the history of copper smelting, that provides a nice summary of the prehistoric development, but does not extend up to 1650, to explain exactly what technology was available. A major point of his thesis is that the Dutch couldn't have smelted the ore anyway, but yet he fails to describe what technology was available to them and why that would have failed. Mr. Kraft also presents a brief history of mining technology-which would be unintelligible to anyone not already familiar with the subject, but also useless to such an individual. Mr. Kraft discusses subsequent mining at the site, but less adequately than magazine articles I've seen. Overall, Mr. Krafts book is of interest only to those individuals with a very specific interest in the legend of Dutch mines on the site in the 1650s. Everything worthwhile that Mr. Kraft has to say on this subject could fit into 5 or 6 pages.

Although one picture (at least) is not correctly captioned, the book contains much information and memories of times past and of the lives of military personnel. Fort Miles was an important strategic military base and deserves its place in the history books. Kudos to the author for his tenacity in compiling the data.

I live in Delaware and I have been to Cape Henlopen State Park where Fort Miles was when there was a Fort Miles. I have seen the bunkers and the towers and the big cement buildings but this book didn't explain any of it. There were lots of pictures of the servicemen and how they lived but somehow I was disappointed by the information that was in the book. I was probably looking more for a link between the past and the present and it was all in the past. There were no links to the place as it is now and what is being done to the area to bring it alive again to today's people.

I highly recommend this guide to anyone who will be traveling in the Northeast as well as Canada. This guide gives you everything from upcoming events for the year to where to stay & eat. The maps are easy to read and follow. I have been a reader of the Mobil Guide for many years and it is continuing to give the most accurate, up-to-date travel information. This is the MUST-HAVE for the Northeast traveler.

The book gives a good overview of the areas with many addresses. Anyhow I found it a bit too black and white. It gives useful maps, but no coloured pictures from the areas, which would make it a bit more pleasant to read.