Tennessee Books

The book gives the extensive history and inside story of how a huge corporation was able to use its vast resouces to keep on polluting a small river and avoid paying for health problems it caused. Well written and interesting - almost like a John Grisham book, but non-fiction.

This book had a LOT of great information about this period in our history....Anyone from this area would enjoy the reading...

I found this a fascinating visual record of the TVA and its work over the relevant years, 1933 to 1963. Patricia Ezzell, the TVA's historian, has selected 135 one-per-page photographs from more than twenty thousand in the archives and they really do reflect the wide range of activities the Authority was involved in, dam and reservoir building, power generation, fertilizer production, reforestation, mapping and surveying, flood control and more.

The book is divided into three sections, Depression Era, War Effort and Growth and Change. Although social photographer Lewis Hine was hired for a month in 1933 and contributed 197 photos in that time the majority of photos in the book are by Charles Krutch. He took thousands and it is the range of subject matter that makes the book so interesting to me. As well as the obvious technical shots of dam construction Krutch also photographed temporary house building for construction workers, village and small town life, recreation centers, farming and folks relaxing in their homes enjoying the benefits of cheap TVA electricity.

The photos in the last section, Growth and Change (basically from 1945 to 1963) are devoted to the everyday. The TVA was by then established and you can see photos of transmission lines, aerial shots of large corporate plants, increased freight traffic on the Tennessee River, school visits to farms and even the contestants of the Miss Guntersville Lake Beauty Pageant. All thanks to the vision of the Roosevelt government years earlier.

The book is well printed and designed and the author writes a brief introduction to the TVA. The back includes a useful bibliography and index. My only criticism is that the map on page seven is woefully inadequate, the excellent captions with each photo mention places that I wanted to find out where they were but couldn't, I ended up using the TVA's interactive map on their website. Apart from the map this is a wonderful book about a huge endeavour that really made a difference to so many people.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Calvin Stearns, the father, George, one of his four sons, the father's brother, and Calvin's three other sons covered a lot of ground in early 1800's New England. They were master carpenters whose homes they built for their families and clients in Vermont and Massachusetts--mainly in Northfield and Boston--were looked to as models of the best of New England craftsmanship and design ideas. "Calvin Stearns designed and built dwellings that were visually and spatially complex...[that] articulated hierarchy." His brother and his sons never strayed far from these architectural principles, but often imaginatively applied them according to different social circumstances they were in, the wishes of their clients, and changes in architecture in the course of the careers. Garrison focuses on Calvin and George Stearns because it was they who left many documents which could be studied for the two carpenters' working habits, financial and social relationships with clients, and the materials, supplies, and equipment they used. Garrison does a meticulous study which credits mainly the two Stearns he focuses on with changing the architecture and building of rural New England homes and thus the main of New England rural society. "The book considers pattern, work, identity, power, and ambiguity because those metathemes help organize interpretation." For instance, "the Stearnses primarily acquired power through their ability to design and make things"--which ability others sought out and they demonstrated in building their own houses in different communities they moved into. To call these two Stearnses "carpenters"--instead of the architects they clearly were to a considerable degree if not strictly by occupation--may seem coy or seem an understatement. But the author means to show not only the consummate carpentry and design sense of Calvin Stearns and his son George, but also how their being woven into different communities had an effect on architecture throughout the region. Garrison is director of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture and history professor at the U. of Delaware.

Excellent read!!! Not done yet due to not having enough time to sit down, but I cannot wait to read more...page turner!!!

It is a shame that society has brought us to have to explain why we use certain words to describe people as they were referred to at the time.

Better rewrite Gone With the Wind and make it politcally correct!!!

Great Job Gary...!!! (so far...)

We used to work there and it brought back great memories of the times and people.

A definitive interpretation of the major plays that covers the characters, structure, and language of the plays, this work is especially impressive for its insights into Williams' poetic language. It explains clearly the imagery of the language, its rhythms and diction, as well as the visual dramatic effects that made Williams an innovator in his day. If you like the plays, buy the book! You'll love it.

The product was exactly what i ordered and got here within the time it said it would.

This is a great book written by a student. It's going to really help me in making decisions about college. I you think you might want to go here, definitely check out this book. You'll learn a ton you wanted to know and so much more.

*Vieux Carre* is probably the finest play of Williams' "Late" period--and it's terrific, though unfairly neglected. It's much more like the earlier work in terms of a "straight" narrative, and as good as it is I think we'll be seeing many more productions of it in the future.