By Region Books

Scholars should give this book an A+ for breadth of coverage and depth of analysis . . . but as a lay person in the field of academe, I celebrate its honesty and passion. While the chapters are uneven, each portrays a working writer who, for one reason or another, claims her Appalachian heritage as foundational in her life. By connecting with the rootedness of these widely-varying women, my own life --and spirit-- are immensely enriched. This book adds a unique perspective to the "spirituality of place" genre that includes such popular writers as Kathleen Norris and Thomas Berry. Take a chance -- read it! If it touches you as it did me, it may change your life.

It's amazing how much work the women in this collection have done, with so little national recognition. Dyer points out that none of them is represented in the new revision of "The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women," for example. Prejudices about Appalachia have prevented many readers from realizing what a gold mine (coal mine?) of literature the region offers. Hats off to Joyce Dyer for helping to bring this literature to the prominence it deserves. P.S. Also a very valuable read for anyone interested in writers and where writing comes from.

I found this book to be an incredible compilation of poetry, if time is taken to read each work slowly. Each reading of In Cisco reveals something new to me, whether an image or a thought, and can stop me in my tracks for a moment. The author shows himself in each poem and by the end of reading them all, you want to seek him out because he feels like an old friend. I suggest this book to those who have time to consider each word, each line, each poem.

The Border showcases the poetry and lyrical style of Cleatus Rattan, a former academician (he recently retired from the English Department at Cisco Community College) and a Texas rancher (a hundred miles west of Fort Worth near the small Bible Belt community of Cisco). Rattan writes with a robust imagination, a compelling sense of humor, and an artist's eye for detail that readers will find as entertaining as it is thoughtful and thought provoking. In Cisco, Texas: Here, no one comes to visit/to see the sights. In San Francisco,/well scrubbed guests arrive at the door,/bags in hand, sheepish smiles/on their faces, with plans to scamper/in well known directions. Fewer friends/arrive now, but those who come/have no plans, their hands reach/for the dog's head. They see sheep,/mesquite, scrub oak, the smile/on my face, and stars meandering/to nowhere known.

Never underestimate the power of images! the book portaits in a very succint way, the causes of illegal immigration and why our borders are so porous. Good book if you are used to think and go beyond propaganda.

BORDER FILM PROJECT: PHOTOS BY MIGRANT AND MINUTEMEN ON THE US-MEXICO BORDER could also have been featured in our 'arts' or 'social issues' sections, but is reviewed here for its outstanding documentary value. The authors distributed hundreds of disposable cameras, along with means of returning them, to migrants and Minutemen so they could document their own border and immigration experiences. BORDER FILM PROJECT gathers these images under one cover, pairs them with personal stories which go far beyond the usual news report, and accompanies a traveling exhibition. It's an outstanding documentary highly recommended for any collection strong in photography, social issues, and immigrant issues.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I used this book as a reference for a term paper on two African American burial grounds in Philadelphia. Contains information on major and some obscure archaeological finds in Philadelphia. History of Philadelphia as well.

Mr John Cotter and Group have written a wonderful book. If you are into "digging up the past" this is the material you've been looking. Just the wonderful pencil sketchs of the long past "Slate Roof House" makes this a absolute read. The digging up of the historical area and the great "finds" that were discovered. I feel any true Philadelphian will enjoy something out of this manual.

A very good book, Castles of Britain and Ireland: The Ultimate Reference Book contains exelent quality photographs, and contains information of almost every known castle on Britain and Ireland. It talks about their evolution through the years and about the people involved on their construction. I greatly recommend it to anyone interested on knowing more about british castles, its information is very clear and easy to understand. If you are a castle fan, this is a must-have book.

Castles of Britain and Ireland by Plantagenet Somerset Fry is the most important and most used book in my library. Not only is it a great read front to back but is invaluable as a reference when reading any history book about Britain and Ireland. It covers every aspect of Castles; The History, the people, the construction, the defenses, and even the art of attacking a castle, including seige engines. When I travel to Britain this book will be in my backpack.

Harrold and Eve have contributed significantly to the study of pseudoscientific beliefs in this volume and their previous work The Creationist Movement in Modern America (also highly recommended). This volume is the result of a 1986 multidisciplinary symposium, and chapters were contributed by authors from fields such as anthropology, psychology, sociology, and history.

Of particular interest for researchers is the original Student Opinion Questionnaire that was used in a national survey of college student pseudoscientific beliefs which was conducted simultaneously in three seperate areas of the country. The results of this survey are presented within the book.

The second edition is preferable, as it includes a new chapter by Bernard Ortiz de Montellano on the increasingly prominent topic of "Afrocentric" history, as well as an updated final chapter covering changes in pseudoscientific beliefs from the 80s to the 90s.

This is an invaluable tool for all social scientists interested in understanding how people come to accept many things as fact, even when presented with evidence to the contrary. Explorered are the ways in which people are socialized to adhere to specific belief systems; via family, religious and educational institutions... The primary focus is on false belief systems which have origins in fundamentalist religion.

In my studies of Mesopotamia, I had never really known much about Dilmun and Magan, places which are mentioned in several Mesdopotamian texts. My choice was between Geoffrey Bibby's book on Dilmun published in 1972, and this book which was published in 1998. Having read Professor Crawford's book `Sumer and the Sumerians' I finally decided on her book primarily because it was more recent.

The book, which focuses on the period 5000-1700BC, is a detailed survey of the findings from about 125 archaeological sites on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf from the island of Falaika at the head of the Gulf, the `Eastern Province' of Arabia including Tarut Island and the Bahrain Islands, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates to the Musandum at the Straits of Hormuz, the interior sites of Oman and the coastal sites along the east side of that peninsula down to the most easterly point of the Arabian Peninsula at Ras al Junayz.

Chapter 1: The Setting, describes the physical setting of the area, and provides the rationale for identifying Dilmun with the Eastern Province and the islands of Bahrain, while noting that references to Dilmun in the Mesopotamian texts may have referred to different parts of this area at different times The copper rich sites in Oman is the reason for identifying it with Magan whose copper mines were of considerable importance to the Sumerian and Akkadian dynasties.

Chapter 2: The Earliest Settlements, covers the archaeological sites for the earliest period period of human settlement in the Eastern Province and Bahrain from about 5000BC to 3000BC which is the time of the Ubaid, Uruk, and Jemdat Nasr periods in Mesopotamia. Current archaeological evidence is sparse, but it seems that after the initial settlement phase during the 5th millenium, these were largely deserted during most of the 4th millenium until the Jemdat Nasr period when contacts between these areas and Mesopotamia revive.

Chapter 3: The Development of Dilmun, covers the archaological sites and textual evidence of the 3rd millenium. There is little evidence of settlement in the Eastern Province and Bahrain until about 2500BC, when the first urban settlement developed on Tarut Island where workshops for pottery manufacture, and other material such as lapis lazuli, copper, and steatite have been excavated. On Bahrain Island itself, the vast area of ancient burial mounds at Saar date from around 2500BC and were built and often reused over a period of about 2000 years lasting into the Hellenistic age. Professor Crawford points out that over the past 30 years surveys and excavation of newly identified towns and villages show that enough local people lived on the island to fill the graves, arguing against the hypothesis that Bahrain was a necropolis for Mesopotamian royalty and aristocracy.

Chapters 4 and 5 cover the period 2000-1750BC when there was a dramatic expansion of settlement on Bahrain This is the so-called period of `Early Dilmun', when it appears that Bahrain traders acted as the middlemen between the states of lower Mesopotamia and the mining businesses of the Oman Peninsula. The evidence for settlement, the architecture of domestic, workshop, and temple buildings, graves, and artefacts is described in considerable detail.

Chapters 6 and 7 cover the same things for the Oman Peninsula, where direct contact with Mesopotamia seems to have been replaced by contacts with cities in Central Asia and with the Harappan cities on the Indus River.

Chapter 8 provides an overview of the Development and Decline of Dilmun.

This is a thorough and up to date study of the findings from the archaeological sites along the south side of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf and the Oman Peninsula. Of the 250+ references in the bibliography, fully two thirds were published in the 15 years immediately prior to the publication of this book in 1998. The descriptions of the architecture of buildings and tombs is well supported by photographs and illustrations, and the differences and similarity in styles between the two areas is also very clear. There are several maps showing the general area of most settlements, but only about half of the named sites are shown on any map. I eventually found a more detailed map of Oman and the UAE on the web, but still had to resort to Internet searches for information on those sites which I couldn't find on this map. Even so, this left about a dozen which were not listed in the index, and for which I have no idea as to even their general location. A small point perhaps, but I find that knowing where things are is helpful to my understanding.

A similar observation can be made about dates. I recognize that it is obviously very difficult to pinpoint 3rd - 5th millenium dates with any certainty, but it would have helped if the author had included some kind of dating line even if it was broken down into every 250 years. I eventually developed one for myself but I still have some doubts about its accuracy.

This is a fairly short book (the main body of the text is only 156 pages), but the level of detail is such that I found a single reading was insufficient for me to truly absorb what I was reading. As a result I had to reread it several times and make copious notes on the findings by site and time period. While this is not a criticism of the book it does mean that if you want to get the most from this book, then a quick read through is not going to do it unless you are very familiar with the latest archaelogical information.

In this book, professor Crawford provides an excellent, up-to-date report on what is presently known about the ancient society of Dilmun and others in the Persian Gulf area. Three areas are reported upon: North-western Arabia, Bahrain (Dilmun), and Oman (Magan). The author exhaustively reports on archaeological findings (including architecture, burial items, pottery, and more), analyzing their significance, but avoiding any broad speculation.

I can't say enough about this book. If you want to know what is presently known about Dilmun and Magan, but wish to avoid the extreme speculation (if not outright guesswork) of many books, then this book is for you!

This book was written a decade ago, but nothing has come along yet to replace it. If you were to read a single book on the way that foragers live and have lived, this synthesis of the vast ethnographic literature would be an excellent choice. Kelly is keen to show that foraging peoples are quite diverse, a useful perspective for those of us who tend unconsciously to focus on the traits common to all foragers. By the end of the book, one has some sense of the range of possibilities for foraging societies, and a more sophisticated appreciation of the ways in which our paleolithic ancestors lived.

are examined very succinctly in this text. Beginning students of hunting and foraging behaviors will realize that the answer to the question "what do we eat?" is not an arbitrary cultural choice, but is instead both measurable and predictable. According to The Foraging Spectrum, such predictions are based on geographical area, climatology, and primary production, to name a few.

Saburo Sugiyama, who has participated in many of the key excavations in Teotihuacan, explore the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, in so far as this Pyramid (and human sacrifices associated) is an evidence of State Ideology and rising militarism of a superpower in Mesoamérica between 200-650 AD.
Excellent archaeological book!

Teotihuacan is an amazing mystery. At its peak, it was the 6th largest city in the entire world and exerted at least partial control over key Maya cities up to 600 miles away. Yet it did so with stone age technology, no written language, no beasts of burden, and not even the wheel. And because of the lack of written records, it's very difficult for us today to understand how any of this was possible in general terms, let alone know the details of its civilization and administration.

This book is an attempt to throw some light on these enigmas. It was written by one of the recognized experts on the site, who has participated in many of the key excavations there, and is based on what is known as of the present. The main discussion is a detailing of the massive (200-odd) victim human sacrifice that was part of the ground-breaking ceremony of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, one of the 3 major buildings of Teotihuacan, and its implications for the government of the city.

This book is definitely not light reading. It's written in a clear yet rather technical manner, so those who aren't familiar with scientific writing might find it rather heavy going, although still informative. For those with a real interest in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican history, however, it's a very useful and fascinating book. However, there's no way around the disturbing nature of its subject matter, although the book doesn't dwell or even speculate on the gory details. It just tries to explain what the quantity and arrangement of bodies and artifacts means for our understanding of life and government in Teotihuacan.

This extraordinary book presents 113 sepia-toned photographs, with commentary, of the people, architecture and landscape of Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, and Sikkim, taken by a career British officer in the late 19th and very early 20th century. Anyone with an interest in this region should be enthralled by his remarkable photographs of these remote mountain worlds. The photos represent an important historical record, and give us a fascinating view of these mysterious hidden kingdoms. The book is beautifully designed, and the authors provide important historical background on the photographer (John Claude White), his life and times, and the history of the region.

this book shows the above counties'sights by photo from 1883 to 1908.you may say this is an old records.however,especially the kingdom of sikkim,
the records on this book are very very variable and important matwerial even if you have not any interest in this country.because many people never heard the name of "sikkim",that's the important point.we thought we know all countries around this small globe,but it's not correct.because we never know about sikkim at all,even the name of this coutry.I hope you agree with me about this point,at least.today you can touch and know every countries at book stores except sikkim.hope you may have the same feeling and thoughts about this small black hall in this world.how can i say...we have to know more about sikkim any way . thank you.