Illinois Books

For families pressed for time, and money great ideas. Offers insightful tips and gives great fun trip ideas.

This is the finest regimental histroy I have read. The 55th was one of the hardest fighting units in the west, and their history is a must read for all civil war buffs.

I am particularly interested in American and British drama from the first half of the 20th century. My favorite American playwright is Robert E. Sherwood, my favorite American play is Sherwood's "The Road to Rome," and my second favorite American play is "Abe Lincoln in Illinois."

I lost all sense of time and place while reading "Abe." I forgot I was sitting on a couch in NYC, and thought I was back in Illinois with Honest Abe.

Sherwood is a FOUR-TIME Pulitzer Prize winner, and it makes me sad that this brilliant playwright is so sorely neglected, and that so many people give you a puzzled look when you mention his name.

Read this play, read the aforementioned "Road to Rome" (a love story, a laugh-out-loud comedy, and ALSO a "message play"), and your literary life will be enriched. (Trust me, I've read hundreds of plays, and heck, it ain't a piece of cake to win even ONE Pulitzer!!)

An Accidental Anarchist is well-written, thoroughly researched account of the death of Lazarus Averbach. It's an excellent companion to A. Hemon's "The Lazarus Project," giving the reader insight into the historical, cultural, social and political climate surrounding the 1908 murder.

The author succiently (204 pages) uses the ongoing Indo-Pakistani conflict as a study to compare and evaluate deterrence theory and non-proliferation theory. Hagerty also adepty explaines the major focal points for this crisis. Perfect for students examining South Asia or aspects of nuclear proliferation.

Now, there's no empirical way to prove the above statement, but given the dominance of social-science conventions in writing on African history, "Magomero" is an obvious front-runner. Landeg White is a gifted literary stylist, and this book often reads like a novel (when someone says that, make sure they're not thinking of "Finnegan's Wake"). It is a study of a village in southern Malawi (colonial Nyasaland) over 100+ years, but it is much more than that too.

White's sense of drama is aided by some highly dramatic personages who figure prominently in his story. The most famous is missionary-explorer David Livingstone, a perennially fascinating, complex and influential shaper of the continent's destiny. He visited Magomero, site of the ill-fated Universities' Mission to Central Africa, frequently on two expeditions in the 1850s and 1860s. White perceptively examines the ambiguities of Livingstone's antislavery crusade, not least the paradox of purchasing slaves in order to free them---thus inadvertently stimulating the market. But John Chilembwe is just as interesting: a Malawian Protestant minister and protonationalist who studied in the USA, founded an independent mission, and eventually died leading a doomed rebellion against British rule in 1915. The later chapters are not as event-oriented, but the lucid accounts of cash cropping and womens' work are probably more representative of daily life in the colonial era, and a major contribution to social and economic history.

"Magomero" does not have detailed source notes (they tend to scare off the mass audience White aims for here), but references to scholars' names without the titles of their works ensure that only specialists can swiftly identify White's sources. The other problem is that the author's own account of villagers' accepting his presence and explanation of his research is awkwardly unconvincing; it would be more credible in the words of Malawians themselves, without assuming that they care about associations with long-dead muzungus (Europeans). These minor faults aside, this is the most enjoyable scholarly book I've come across in nearly 20 years in African Studies. For more on the area's history, see E. Mandala, "Work and Control in a Peasant Economy" and M. Vaughan, "The Story of an African Famine." G. Shepperson & T. Price, "Independent African," a classic on Africa, tells the Chilembwe story with great depth and sensitivity. For an authentic Nyasaland account based on oral data from participants in the Rising, see G.S. Mwase, "Strike a Blow and Die."

I was there when this book had it's lauch. My grandfather's picture is prominently displayed on one of the pages and a few of his quotes as well as mention of my great grandmother singing.

The tales bring me back to the greatest generation and the life my grandparents endured. A majority of the memories are from one Adirondack Woodsmen but many of their stories and songs are fantastic. Straight from the early 1900's and taken shortly before most of these men passed on.

If the author is still alive and reads this thank you. Do you still have the tapes from your interviews? I'd love to hear my grandfather on tape!

Inger Stole's book is an incredibly important tale of a forgotten history, the period in the 1930s when organized citizens stood up to and attempted to limit the power and influence of corporate propaganda in the form of the then nascent and now dominant corporate advertising industry. That fight was lost, as have been most important battles since against the intrusion of corporations into genuine culture and civil society. I hope this is the first of regular future books by Inger Stole who has an important place beside Klein, Ewen, Nader, McChesney and other critics of corporate power over our daily lives as citizens.

This book assumes a working knowledge of both Latin and Greek. The introduction is in English; the rest of the commentary is in Latin. The fables, life of Aesop and sayings of Aesop overlap in Greek and Latin. I was once hanging out at a monastery library and I stole into a dark closet where many old books donated by dead priests and nuns were piled up in boxes waiting for kingdom come. In one of the boxes (once belonging to a nun) I found a Greek reader that was published and inscribed in 1904. In the book were many Aesopic fables which I felt were quite satisfying. It's too bad that you can't find simple non New Testament Greek readers like that today. Aesopica is my favorite book. If you are looking for a cheaper alternative check out Babrius and Phaedrus published by Loeb Library, ISBN 0674994809.

"African American Foodways: Explorations Of History And Culture" compiled, organized and edited by academician and food history expert Anne L. Bower covers African American cuisines ranging from West African fare, to Caribbean influences, to South American traditions, to contemporary fusion dishes using 'soul food' ingredients that had their origins in American slavery. The seven knowledgeable contributors draw from history, literature, sociology, anthropology, and African-American studies to illustrate and demonstrate how food's material and symbolic values have contributed to African American cultural identities for almost five hundred years. Of special note is Anne Bower's own contribution, 'Recipes for History: the National Council of Negro Women's Five Historical Cookbooks'. "African American Foodways" is a model of modern and seminal sociological scholarship, as well as a welcome and highly recommended addition to academic and community library American History, Culinary History, Popular Culture, and African-American Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.