Nebraska Books

This book is a compeling read. It describes in minute detail the religious, social and economic structure of the time. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to have a glimpse of life in Poland before WWII.

As the Holocaust recedes further into the past, it becomes increasingly difficult to treat it as more than an abstraction. It becomes defined by numbers: Six million or more dead, numbingly large. Yet, how can one who did not live in that era imagine what it truly meant, and even more so for a goy such as myself?

Ben-Zion Gold's memoir is truly a treasure, because of its portrait of Jewish life before the Holocaust. He describes his boyhood living in an Orthodox household in Radom, Poland in the 1930's. He paints rich pictures of family members and gatherings and a host of unique individuals. He depicts his religious schooling, cut short by the war.

The last few chapters briefly describe how Gold survived the war, and the impact of his ordeal on his faith. His candor and insights are deeply appreciated.

Gold originally wrote his story with his daughters in mind -- to tell them about the family in Poland, all of whom were murdered well before his daughters' birth. Fortunately for us, he has expanded the tale in such a way as to make it accessible, even to those of us with no familiarity with Jewish life or customs. I was particularly grateful for how terms are defined on first use.

The Holocaust becomes so much more meaningful now. With Gold's story, we see the faces of those who perished, their personalities, community and culture. We understand a little better what was lost.

I highly recommend this book.

This is a favorite from childhood. It's a good novel to get a picture of what a cowboy's daily life and background were truly like in the period of U.S.history when ranches were a big part of the western scene. The sketches by James add much charm.

Independance is riding a Wyoming ridgeline on Christmas eve in a blizzard,catching the lights of a remote cabin in the valley below,and deciding whether or not to ride down to the cabin,based soley on how badly you think that you really need a cup of coffee.Will James is the "Lone Cowboy"in this turn of the century autobiography of the life of a drifter who roams from Mexico to Canada in search of ranch work.Abandoned as an infant,James was raised by a French Canadian trapper who provide equal doses of love and sink or swim trials.James fills the many lonely and isolated hours of his youth with drawing.The book contains many of James's illustrations of cowboy life and particularly beautiful renditions of his favorite subject,horses.A simple cowboy tale to most,this story will, to some readers ,provide a moving testimony to the spirit of courage,stubborness,independance that characterized the itinerent cowpokes of the old west.A wonderful book for young readers who will love the early stories about trapping,camping and getting that first horse.All will enjoy the beautiful artwork that so effectively illustrates the storyline.This sensitive story,told by the roughest of men, will provide a moving experience for all readers.

I was given this book as a gift about ten years ago. I have camped and backpacked in the Colorado Rockies many times and loved reading about its early pioneer days. Each story is carefully researched and presented. Many of the women encountered harsh resistance as they tried to homestead or pursue their varied outdoor interests, but, the overall theme for the stories is how courageous and strong the women were. I loved this book and although, I give away most of the books I buy, this one I keep close at hand.

Read it before you go the the Rocky Mountains. Then have fun exploring the places that are described. These women are awesome and I would love to meet the author, Janet Robertson.

Bryan Jones' book is about growing up in small town Nebraska in the 1950s, the son of an easy-going Methodist minister and brother of two older sisters. Throughout, it is humorous; at times it is laugh-out-loud funny.

The title comes from a Huck Finn-inspired attempt to float down the Platte River on an inner tube raft with another boy, an adventure somewhat diminished by the shallow river's lack of water and a tumultuous thunderstorm that drives them to a motel. The book begins and ends with accounts of the extended families from which both of his parents spring -- the Tuppers of Red Cloud (Willa Cather country) and the Joneses of little Magnet in northeast Nebraska.

The rest is a vivid evocation of a small-town boyhood set mostly in the western Panhandle town of Chappell, Nebraska. For a boy who owns BB guns, loves elaborate pranks, and plays baseball, it's a town of lazy summers, cranky neighbors, vicious school teachers, incompetent town cops, and various oddball residents. Although he does not make much of this, he is the proverbial preacher's son, always riding the ragged edge of disaster.

There are a few sobering moments in the mix, as when he pauses in a recollection of the early 1950s polio outbreaks to tell of two young survivors. But for the most part, Jones is eagerly looking for the comic turns in his stories, the ironies and absurdities. He manages this by lapsing into the frame of mind he seems to have had as a boy, irrepressible, heedless, and almost totally self-centered.

I recommend this book to anyone who has ever loved Huck Finn. It takes its rightful place on a bookshelf of American small-town childhoods. As companion volumes, I'd recommend Roger Welsch's humorous "It's Not the End of the Earth But You Can See It From Here," about the goings on in another Nebraska small town, Dannebrog, as well as Willie Morris' memoir of growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, "My Dog Skip."

Bryan is my high school history teacher of long ago and I would say you can beleive most of the hysterically funny stories found in this book! Why, it's better than a comic book! Read it and I'll bet you can relate to many of the situations.

Aside from interweaving human and proto-Marxist themes that add interest, the novel provides an intriguing look into the seamy and risky world of the "naked short sale." Short sellers are often reviled by business executives as shadowy figures who victimize perfectly good companies with their machinations. The SEC has many regulations to try and curb their use. However, The Market Place tells how a business executive in an era without government regulations is able, with cunning and a top notch investment banker, to turn the tables on the short-seller. The hunters become the hunted in the City of London at the turn of the last century.

Harold Frederic's last novel, published posthumously in 1899, it's about Joel Thorpe, an unscrupulous English businessman, who wishes to acquire all the wealth and position he can, only to end up being bored with it all after getting it. He makes his "killing" with bogus rubber stock and a great deal of chutzpah. But he is also interested in power: "There's nothing else in the world so big as power - strength. If you have that, you can get everything else. But if you have it and don't use it, then it rusts and decays on your hands." He is ruthless and a bully, and remains so right to the end.

When near the end of the book Thorpe exhibits restlessness and displeasure with the way his life is turning out, his business partner levels with him: "You've set out to live the life of a rich country squire - and it hasn't come off. It couldn't come off! You haven't the taste for it inbred in your bones. You haven't the thousand little habits and interests that they take in with their mother's milk, and that make such a life possible." One of the best characters in the book is Thorpe's sister Louisa, who has him pegged right from the start. When she accuses him of being uncaring and negligent with his money and then declares, "You sit upon your money-bags and smile. If you want the truth, I'm ashamed to have you for a brother!" - we want to cheer. The novel is brisk and sharp in its satire, and sticks with you long after finishing it. Worth tracking down and reading.

For some reason, the impression this book description gives is that it only covers the Indian raids on the road ranches along the Little Blue River in August 1864. It certainly does that in exhaustive detail. But it covers SO much more. It basically covers ALL the Indian raid activity in Nebraska in the 1860-67 time frame including all along the Platte Valley as far as Julesburg. Biographies of all the major players are here too, no easy task considering most were simple pioneers that left a tough trail to follow.

The comprehensivness of this tome is incredible. The book is richly sourced and the footnotes highly informative. Maps are excellent, although throwing in one additional map showing all the rivers of Nebraska would have been nice.

This is a book so packed full of information that it needs to be read twice, because there's too much to digest the first time around.

Mr. Becher, my sincere congratulations. You've done a marvelous job. This was obviously a labor of love. Hard to believe this is your first book.

I have been a "student" of the Indian raids along the Little Blue in Nebraska in 1864 and have written and lectured on the subject for the past 9 years. Even my own publication falls way short of this new book. The history of the raids has needed someone to present it using no frills, no embellishments - just hard, cold facts supported by good documentation. The author has done just that and with the flair of a storyteller, the fascinating account of the events leading to and after the conflict is flawlessly unveiled in the book. The real heart of this book though is in Part II, presented in a nearly blow by blow "you are there" view of each of the attacks on stage stations and road ranches by Cheyenne and Sioux warriors. No other accounts have told this story with the thorough and painstaking examination given it by the writer. Drawing upon a vast body of military records, manuscripts, government publications, newspapers, periodicals, books, and other documentation, he has sifted meticulously through half-truths, outright untruths, shaded truths, and filled in with factual material where none was available or had been omitted in previous accounts. The remarkable research has resulted in a work that sheds a new and delightfully comprehensive light upon this period of American history.

For those who know (or wish to learn about) the whys and wherefores of the white-Indian relations from the time of the colonists and through the final conflict at Wounded Knee in 1890, it is put into perspective with this work. The book is divided into four parts, followed with an epilogue and appendices. Part I gives an overview of the development of white-Indian relations and interactions, presided over by government intervention from the 1600s up to the 1860s and the eve of the raid or massacre along the Little Blue. Unfolded in Part II is an amazingly accurate and detailed description of each day of the raid and immediate aftermath taking place from August 7th through August 19th. Beginning on the 7th, Cheyenne and Sioux warriors attacked numerous road ranches along the Little Blue and vast amounts of property and goods were destroyed. Commerce and travel along the route west from Missouri and Kansas through Nebraska and Colorado came to a halt. Hundreds of people were affected, many lost their lives, several women and children were captured and held hostage - some for as long at nine months.

Part III describes the panic and some levelheaded preparation and fortification of their homes by people living in the outlying areas of the actual raids. Accounting of press coverage given to the events, military campaigns to seek out and punish the Indians is given by the author before chapters on the captives and their unplanned for journey against their will.

For those interested in the ordeal and aftermath of the captivity of those mentioned, the book is a goldmine of information. Of the known captives (Lucinda, Isabelle and Willie Eubank, Ambrose Asher, Laura Roper, Nancy Morton, Daniel Marble) all survived and were released to military authorities. All returned home to relatives except Daniel Marble and Isabelle Eubank, who lived for only a short time after reaching Denver where they were brought by Major Edward W. Wynkoop, the commander at Fort Lyon in Colorado Territory. Nancy Morton was held 6 months and finally reached Fort Laramie in Wyoming, as did Lucinda and Willie Eubank who were brought there by their captors in May of 1865. For those interested in the history of the Sand Creek Massacre and Black Kettle's role in the events of 1864, it may be a surprise to learn that he was one of those greatly responsible for negotiating the release of the captives to Major Wynkoop near Hackberry Creek in western Kansas in September of 1864. Colonel Chivington and the First Colorado Volunteers ultimately attacked him and his fellow tribesmen in late November 1864.

Part IV of the book describes the aftereffects of the raids with concluding stories about many of the individuals who had lived in the valley of the Little Blue as well as others who impacted the story. Summation is given the Lemmon, Roper, Martin, Eubank, Morton, Emery, Mudge, Comstock, Baker, Artist, Gilbert, Hunt, Palmer, Bainter, Uhlig, Metcalf, Morrow, McDonald, Gilman and Marble families. What became of those military and governmental officials like Colonel Summers, Generals Samuel Curtis and Robert Mitchell, John Evans, and John Milton Chivington is discussed. A concluding chapter describes one former captive's return to the site of her capture that had occurred 64 years before.

Appendix A lists the known casualties of the raid, including those killed, mortally wounded, wounded and captured. This list is incredibly valuable for those trying to make sense of all the names and dates. Appendix B is a list of the military troop dispositions of company units and commanding officers. The photographs and illustrations are fine and their clarity is very good. Although a few typos crop up here and there in the text and one map on page 174 erroneously lists Nuckotte County instead of Nuckolls County, there is nothing about the book that needs much improvement. I loved the book and learned a lot from it that even I, after nearly 10 years of studying this topic, did not know.

No bookshelf of individuals interested in American west history should be without this awesome piece of research and easy to read style of writing. I highly recommend the book and give it my highest endorsement.

Compiled by professional linguist David J. Costa, The Miami-Illinois Language is an exhaustive grammatical reconstruction of the language spoken by the Miami and the Illinois Native Americans -- dialects of the Algonquian language family. The populations of the speakers of these languages were decimated by warfare and disease; now, The Miami-Illinois Language pieces together a complex technical map of how people once communicated, with information from surviving stories, historical sources, comparison with related languages and more. A seminal work of impeccable scholarship, The Miami-Illinois Language is very highly recommended for inclusion into Native American Studies in general, and Native American Linguistics reference collections in particular.

This is NOT an "exhaustive grammar" of Miami-Illinois; there is no coverage of word formation (a major component of the grammar of an Algonquian language) nor of syntax. One hopes Costa will go on to cover these areas (so far as such a thing is possible given the absence of native speakers) because his account of the historical phonology and the morphology of Miami-Illinois (which is what this book consists of) really is very good. I suspect it would be most likely to appeal to Algonquianists; it should be pretty useful to the brave souls striving to revive the language, whom one wishes well. Costa says his target audience includes linguists interested in learning about the Algonquian languages, and I think it would indeed be useful for them, especially because of the fairly conservative phonological nature of Illinois compared with eg Ojibwe. A minor quibble: nowhere is the allomorphism of the personal prefixes ni-/nint- ki-/kit- a-/at- mentioned, even though the book has plenty of examples of it; this would mystify readers unfamiliar with other Algonquian languages.

This book is clearly the best researched and objectively written work ever produced on the, controversial,"last battle" of the Indian Wars.

An unbiased, original, creative, compelling mastperpiece, Moon of Popping Trees is a brilliant and "professionally detached" work regarding Native American/European American relations prior to and including the Wounded Knee "incident." Of course, by "professionally detached" I mean amazingly separated from this often times over-emotionally approached subject in American History.

Yet, what is most compelling about this absolute masterpiece, is that despite Smith's own emotional detachment, he by no means fails to draw in the emotion of the reader--a danger which "scholarly reflections" often succomb to. Smith's work is perennial, cautious, and yet fascinatingly marvelous in its ability to "suck in" the reader. A subject I often pay little attention to and have little care for...Moon of Popping trees gave me a desire to study this area of history in greater detail.

Great book - well written, accessable. Divided into two sections - the first is an introuctiuon to the broader concerns of approach german baroque music - lutheran-musical ideologies, ideas of rhetoric in msuic etc. the second is both a compendium of musical-rhetorical terminology, and a selection of shorter extracts concerning individual baroque theorists and their ideas of rhetoric in music. superb book: essential for reference and for and introduiction to the msuic of the period's extrinsic concerns.

i read this book while studying in the authers music history class in university.its informative and fascinating for the mind to analyze the inticate theory of music during the baroque period. truly a wonderful piece of literature

Schullery and Whittlesey have performed a great service for all lovers of Yellowstone Park and its history. This is excellent scholarship. It is not, however, the "first full account" of this story. Chris Magoc's Yellowstone: The Creation and Selling of an American Landscape, 1870-1903 (University of New Mexico Press and MOntana Historical Society, 1999), is equally fine and indeed goes further and deeper in its analysis of the cultural and historical significance of this chapter of the park's history.

The collaborative effort of Paul Schullery (Professor of History, Montana State University) and Lee Whittlesey (Park Historian, National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park), Myth And History In The Creation Of Yellowstone National Park presents the complex and fascinating history behind the creation of the Yellowstone National Park. This unprecedented establishment came to be during the American Gilded Age, a time when corporate greed ran rampant and political altruism seemed almost extinct. Myths about the inception of Yellowstone National Park have persevered and found an enduring public acceptance, but the true story of the individuals behind the park's creation is actually one of flawed human beings with their own competing motives, and not necessarily pure-hearted conservational philosophies. Myth And History In The Creation Of Yellowstone National Park is a work of impressive scholarship and very highly recommended for university and community library American History collections.