By Region Books

The approach Connah takes with this text is that he is discussing Africa, excluding Egypt and the Maghreb which he considers not ever being a part of "black" Africa. It is here that he makes his first folly. Secondly he attempts to discuss tropical Africa primarily from archaeological evidence. This works well, since few historians focus on history in this way. The problem with this is that Africa's story is a million times more complex and dynamic than archaeological evidence has provided. Not because of some elusive romantic idea of Africa but from the simple fact, which Connah admits, that archaelogical/anthropological research in Africa is next to nothing in comparison to other places. The majority of such studies focus on pre-modern man's existence in Africa and not on modern man's civilization in Africa. For this reason alone such an approach to African history, as good as its intentions and scholarly methods may sound can be revealing in some senses, but extremely limiting.
I do recommend this text, for the simple fact that there is a fair amount of knowledge an Africanist can learn from some of the archaeological work discussed but I warn you that this should not be considered a well-rounded text for studying Africa's history.

Continental Saxons is quite uneven in its offerings. The roundtable style discussion makes up for this in part and some of the contributors were quite good but others were merely distracting. Given how little scholarly information is available on the pre-conversion 'Saxons' -however you choose to define the label- this book is a necessary read for those of us limited to English but who still have an interest in the subject.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION. D. H. Green.

LOCATION IN SPACE AND TIME. M. Springer
The received opinion. Criticism of the received opinion. Saxons in late antiquity. Saxons in the Merovingian age. Saxons in the Carolingian age and during the tenth century.
Discussion...

THE NORTH SEA COASTAL AREA: SETTLEMENT HISTORY FROM ROMAN TO EARLY MEDIEVAL TIMES. D. Meier
The landscape. Frisii, Chauci and Saxones: the North Sea coastal area from the Roman to the Migration period. From anonymity to history: the North Sea coastal area in the early medieval period. Epilogue: cultural heritage of the wetlands.
Discussion

SOCIAL RELATIONS AMONG THE OLD SAXONS. F. Siegmund
The ethnic question. The decrease of settlements in the fifth and sixth centuries. The layout of cemeteries. Demography. Women and men. Grave goods and age groups.
Discussion.

JURAL RELATIONS AMONG THE SAXONS BEFORE AND AFTER CHRISTIANIZATION G. Ausenda. .
Discussion.

RURAL ECONOMY OF THE CONTINENTAL SAXONS FROM THE MIGRATION PERIOD TO THE TENTH CENTURY. W. Dorfler
Introduction and theoretical background. Environmental changes in the Roman Iron Age and in early medieval times. Summary and conclusions.
Discussion.

THE BEGINNINGS OF URBAN ECONOMIES AMONG THE SAXONS H. Steuer.
The Saxons and the Carolingian-Ottonian Empire. Network of pre-urban centres and circulation of goods among the Saxons. The Carolingian coinage reform as an economic revolution. New markets. Fortresses, monasteries and episcopal sites as pre-urban centres in the conquered Saxon territory. Concluding remarks.
Discussion.

SAXON ART BETWEEN INTERPRETATION AND IMITATION: THE INFLUENCE OF ROMAN, SCANDINAVIAN, FRANKISH, AND CHRISTIAN ART ON THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE CONTINENTAL SAXONS AD 400-1000. K. Hoilund Nielsen
The late Roman tradition. The Saxon adoption of late Roman Saxon style. Saxon identity. Scandinavian and Frankish traditions. Tom between two traditions. The Christian tradition. The final surrender to Carolingian belief and politics. Conclusion.
Discussion.

THREE ASPECTS OF THE OLD SAXON BIBLICAL EPIC, THE HELIAND.
D. H. Green.
Discussion.

BEYOND SATRAPS AND OSTRICHES: POLITICAL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES OF THE SAXONS IN THE EARLY CAROLINGIAN PERIOD.
I. Wood.
Discussion.

THE CONVERSION OF THE OLD SAXONS. J. Hines
The historical context. Antiquorum Saxonum prouincia. Charlemagne and Widukind. Cultural revolution or evolution? Postscript.
Discussion. .

CURRENT ISSUES AND SUGGESTED FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF THE CONTINENTAL SAXONS. F. Siegmund & G. Ausenda

INDEX.

LIST OF MAPS

Map of north-western Europe in the fourth century .
Map of north-western Europe at the end of the eighth century
Map of central places in and connected with medieval Saxony

This card and book set is based on Native American symbols illustrated as Glyphs.

For those of you who have seen the Native American Petroglyphs found in various places across the Southwest, you know they are primitive symbols carved or chipped into stone. They are wondrous to behold as they have stood against time and the imagery sparks the imagination.

Ms. Rogers has introduced these glyphs into a card deck similar to tarot decks. There are 72 cards, square in shape, depicting various petroglyphs.

Ms. Rogers has made petroglyphs her study and she provides in her book a brief history of her adaptation of these petroglyphs to cards, her interpretation of the symbols and their meanings and suggested layouts for these cards.

Complications: This deck is not based on the Rider Waite deck, nor is there any correspondence to any other Tarot Deck. The cards are square, as opposed to the usual rectangle cards. While the deck can fit comfortably into your hand, the shape lends itself to the idea that the cards can turn up in one of 4 different directions: upright, reversed, facing left or facing right. Ms. Rogers has included meanings for all four directions, which means that this deck requires a lot of study and reference to her book in order to be accurately read.

This is not a deck that you can pick up and use your already established tarot knowledge. This deck will require some research and some working time to get this down.

The spirituality explored here appears to be Native American. The animal associations seem to be on line with generally accepted Native American associations. Interpretations, however, seem to belong to Ms. Rogers.

If you feel an association to the Native American spirituality and want to explore the ancient symbolism of the native peoples, this would be a deck you should look into. Interpretations, as always, are in the mind of the reader, and this deck offers a new way to look at these symbols. boudica

Thomas Davis' book discusses the fate of biblical archaeology, concentrating on the figure of William G. Albright. Albright dominated the field of Palestinian Archaeology in the mid-century. He gained a certain popular prominence by arguing that he could show the existence of the patriarchal narratives in Genesis as well as the conquest narratives in Joshua. But by the sixties and seventies people became increasingly skeptical about Albright's methods and arguments. And by the eighties and nineties, a full-fledged "minimalism" had broken out, which argued that the entire biblical narrative before the Persian period was essentially little more than a myth.

People who read this book will assume they will be learning the truth behind the Hebrew scriptures. Actually much of the slim book discusses more prosaic matters. There is a discussion of the origins of modern Palestinian archaeology since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Davis discusses a laundry list of archaeological institutions, collegial squabbles, financial troubles, and problems over the French and British mandates in the interwar period. There is also a history of archeaological techniques. Modern Palestinian archaeology requires the mastery of three techniques: intense recording of archaeological detail, complex understanding of pottery evolution as a guide to dating, and subtle understanding of stratigraphic principles. Albright was a master of the first two techniques, but had problems with the third. Davis goes to some length to argue that Albright was not a crude fundamentalist. He presented himself as a "moderate" between biblical literalists and theological liberals. Indeed, his wife converted to Catholicism, he readily agreed that archaeological dating trumped biblical chronology, and did not waste his life looking for the remains of Noah Ark.

On the other hand his theological parti pris and his intense opposition to the Wellhausen thesis clearly led him to commit a number of striking non-sequiturs. Early in his career he found the remains of urbanization in the area of the fabled "cities of the plains." After exploring the cemetery and finding objects whose ceremonial purpose was unknown, Albright announced that he had found Sodom, no doubt with its licentious practices. Later on Albright sought to vindicate the truth of Abraham. Since he could not prove his existence directly, Albright sought to argue that phenomenon in the patriarchal narratives, like nomadism and certain legal customs, were present at the time in question. But this involved misdating things by several centuries. His discussion of the conquest focused on several destroyed sites that could be dated to the thirteenth century BCE. This would imply that those areas had been destroyed by Joshua and his armies. That did not actually follow. Moreover, it ignored the fact that there were other sites of destruction before and after this period, while later archaeological research found more continuity than the conquest thesis suggested. There was also the fact that there were no such signs of destruction at two of Joshua's most prominent victories, Jericho and Ai. As Davis admits "The archaeology was used to correct the biblical record, which was used to interpet the archaeology, a circular trap."

On the whole though, this book is too slim a discussion of its subject. The debates between maximalists and minimalists are discussed rather cursorily. Certainly if one wanted a thorough discussion of the Exodus, the Conquest, and the United Monarchy one would have to go elsewhere. Except to underplay it, there is little account of Albright's theological beliefs. There is nothing here like Keith Whitelaw's acidulous criticism of Albright for blanding accepting the barbarities of the conquest. Considering this is a book about the history of Israel, there is little discussion of Israeli archaeology and its possible nationalist biases. And although Albright called himself an orientalist, there is no discussion of orientalism. There is however a mention of Thomas Kuhn's theory of paradigm shift, the sort of thing one expects to find to pad a reheated doctoral dissertation, which is what this book essentially is.

"Touched by War" is a reasonably good military history of the fighting in SW La in 1862 and 1862 (after the fall of New Orleans). The maps and level of tactical detail are very revealing. Although the research level is adequate, a more rigorous search of manuscript depositories and other available primary source material would have enhanced this book immensely. I would give it 3.5/5 stars. Note that Pena's more recent book "Scarred by War" is a revised edition of this book that also includes new chapters covering activities in the final two years of the war.

This is a book by a pioneer who took sage brush and converted it into a farm. My family came into ownership of this property in ~1953 and sold it in 1985. The changes that have occurred from the time the Youngs homesteaded the property until today makes your head spin. If you did not own this land at some time, the book would be extremely uninteresting. Since it is part of my family history, I loved it!

I think this book is great, however the delivery was so slow from the bookseller, I had to purchase a second book. the book finally arrived, so now I have two similar gardeniing books.

I really like the information in this book. However instead of being organized by Month as the title suggests, It is organized by Plant type (perennial, annual,etc.) I find it time consuming and frustrating to have to continually flip from one section to another just to find out what to do for a specific month.

This book is the perfect tool for me, as I'm always wondering what I should be doing when to get the best results. It's unique in the way it's written and I don't believe it's meant to be your only resource for gardening information. It's very good at what it does and I actually like the way it's broken down, it works well for me.

I like the idea behind this book a lot. It has a lot of good tips, but it needs to be reorganized. There are January - December sections for annuals, perennials, bulbs, etc. I don't like having to have to go to several different sections for each month. It would be a nicer book if it was better organized.

I just moved to Maryland from a quite different climate and was unsure how to deal with the changing seasons in this part of the country. It's very helpful to be able to look under a particular month and plant type and figure out what I'm supposed to be doing this time of year. Should I still be pruning my flowers? Is it okay to plant ANYTHING this time of year? What about preparing my garden for the winter? How do I deal with humid summers? My new home has a long-untended yard and garden, so I will pretty much be starting from scratch, and it's great to have some idea what can be planted, when it can be planted, and how to care for it.

The author has both excavated and written profusely on the Missippian Culture, centered in Cahokia to the East of Saint Louis, and the builders of the largest pyramids in North America. The culture flourished in the later Medieval times, just before the white men came to North America. Cahokia should be a famous as Chichen Itza and Tikal--this book is a superb introduction to the culture and to the scholarly discputes about its origins and acheivements.
Every well educated American should be familiar with Missippian culture. Read this book!

What a fascinating subject, but what a disappointing book. The author, though obviously an expert in the field, should stick to writing for archaeological journals and stay away from books for the general public. Simple, declarative sentences, engaging graphics, fascinating photographs would make this little-known subject come to life, but unfortunately not one of these is to be found in this book. Instead you'll be subjected to such dreadful prose as "When compared with the material evidence of orthodoxy at Lohmann phase Cahokia, these lines of evidence indicate cultural diversity, persistence, hybridity, and creolization." Unless your idea of fun is reading 177 pages like this, stay away from this book.

Disappointing. This book is Nick Roerich's travel diary from the mid 1920s when he went on an artistic expedition around India, China, Mongolia, Russia, Tibet. I found it disjointed and a bit of a grind to read. There's plenty on his being held up by Chinese bureaucracy and of then being forbidden to paint before being sent on his way along the toughest routes by corrupt Chinese bureaucrats. In fact, it sounds like he had a horrendous time while in China and Tibet, e.g. being delayed for weeks at a time by the authorities in temperatures of -50 deg, camped only in Summer tents. He mentions the various legends of the areas he visits, e.g. "Jesus" is buried in a tomb in Kashmir, various expectations of some "Maitreya" chacter coming to save the world. Overall, rather gloomy, and I got bored by his regular pro-Buddhist propaganda, e.g. "Buddha" being the "blessed one" and of his dismassal of the pre-Buddhist Bon-po faith as a "religion of demons".

The author offers a lot of interesting tid bits on the history of the U.S. / Mexican border of which I was previosly unaware of and for which I am grateful. Nevertheless, in spots he gets a bit overbearing with his social/economic points of view. A little editing and it would be a pleasent read.