Minnesota Books

Najarian is a master of clarity. I highly recommend this informative and interesting book.

I just want to suggest that the person who previously reviewed this book makes a confusion between De Man's life and the content of this book. To say that this book is trite is mindless.

Miranda Joseph's book is fantastic. If you tend to think the word "community" is synonymous with "a good thing," you will think again after reading this book. The book challenges some of the basic assumptions of non-profit organizations, political activists, and progressive thinkers, yet it does so from a sympathetic and decidedly leftist perspective. This is no armchair, right-wing, or libertarian attack, but rather a careful and constructive critical engagement with progressive thought and practice. The first chapter lays out a compelling case for the interrelations between community and capitalism, challenging the common, romantic idea of community as a group of people with shared identities and common interests that are necessarily opposed to and more progressive than governmental or business interests. It shows how capitalism produces communities, and so makes us aware of how we might be complicit in that which we hope to question. The remaining chapters offer case studies that exemplify this position, and so offer multiple points of entry for a diverse range of readers. Set aside some time and read this book, it will be worth it.

These plays written by Adrienne Kennedy are truly interesting to read. I am currently directing one of them, called "She Talks To Beethoven." Its a very compelling story and shows the contrasts between 1961 Ghana and old-time Berlin. These plays are very dramatic and I encourage anyone, whoever is interested in direting a one-act play, or just to read, to purchase this book.

Featuring a foreword by Assistant Professor of History Mary Lethert Wingerd, American City is the captivating true story of a battle that would greatly alter the balance of power between unions and big business. In the spring of 1934, union organizers arranged for Minneapolis truckers to go on a series of strikes and protest scab workers. Violent opposition to the strike culminated in slaughter when police fired on unarmed strikers, killing four and injuring countless others, in an event that would come to be know as Bloody Friday. First published in 1937, journalist Charles Walker's account of the clash remains a classic, fact-filled examination of a pivotal moment in labor history. Highly recommended.

Now that "reality" television is a dominant format for mainstream television (from the fourth--and counting-- installment of "Survivor" to "The Bachelor" and on and on), it makes sense to go back to the original.

"An American Family" was a surprise success when it was first broadcast in 1973: a 12-part series on PBS with very few voice-overs and what now seem like long shots of an affluent California family (two divorcing parents and five kids) doing things like playing guitar and discussing mundane topics and cleaning out their backyard pool (there were more engaging moments than that, but they were not the majority of shots).

What accounted for this series' success? How did it get made? How was it edited, and what was kept in and left out? Why is it still so compelling despite the passage of time and the declining attention spans of Americans in the past 30 years? Could it get made today?

This ultimate book about "An American Family" answers many of these questions and more: probing the origins of the series, and analyzing the final product and the widespread reaction to it in well-researched and precise detail.

The filmmakers were very lucky (in the sense of being able to create compelling TV) to have chanced upon the Loud family, in which the parents were about to get divorced and in which the eldest son Lance (who died in 2002, sadly) provided such a usable storyline (hanging out with Warhol's crowd in New York, etc). The book debunks the widely-held belief that Lance "came out" during the series. He never explicitly says he's gay on the show. However, of course he was, and it was much of America's first exposure to an openly gay man on TV, week after week.

If you've never seen this series but are still intrigued by it, also buy the book! Reading it will give you a great sense of the program, and will allow you to visualize it. (The still illustrations also help, as do accompanying material like press-release photos and ads from the time).

I only wish the series itself was for sale somewhere! Unfortunately, WNET in New York no longer seems to own the rights.

If you liked/read nearly anything by Michael Berube (_Public Access_ and _The Employment of English_) or Cary Nelson (_Manifesto of a Tenured Radical_<-- C. Nelson's pointed response to Roger Kimball's right-wing bombast _Tenured Radicals_), then you should buy this book or check it out from your local library. As a grad student in Library & Information Sciences, I must declare that this book is a must for any Academic Library! Lipsitz very much continues the conversation begun by Berube in _Public Access_ and Cary Nelson, et. al. in their probing work on the exciting emergence of "Cultural Studies" in Higher Education.
"American Studies" as described by Lipsitz here is basically CultStud informed by US cultural/social/political history and
literature. It is very engaging reading, especially the chapters
on the legacies of the 1930s, 1960s, and 1980s (and the ideological uses of a distorted IMAGE of the 1960s by Reagan/Thatcher Neoconservatives in the 1980s down to the present
day, which Lipsitz documents and condemns persuasively throughout
his book). The book explores the ongoing, changing myths/images that ask "what is/are" the thing(s) that make up this cultural entity we call the US of A. Lipsitz is a very entertaining, very
gifted writer, and as was the case with Michael Berube's work,
I literally could not put Lipsitz's book down! This book shows the enormous promise and power of American Studies (e.g. cultural studies) and gives a definitive example of "how it's done".
Loved it!

Scholarly, substantive, and engaging as it is, Liberman's dictionary in his own words is "written to test the chosen approach to the new dictionary" he has put together. The dictionary is intended to be a model for future etymological exploration and study. Most importantly for the field, it introduces but mostly exemplifies a new approach to the investigation of word origins and deciding on the right root for a word, when this can be done with a reasonable degree of assurance. As Liberman states and demonstrates with his analyses of 55 words, the large majority common, "tracing word origins is a game of probabilities" in which the "centrifugal principle" should be favored when it comes to assigning a word's cognate. This principle is explained, "All conditions being equal, tracing a word to a native root should be preferred to declaring it a borrowing. In similar fashion, it is more attractive to refer to an ascertainable foreign source than to an unidentifiable substrate."

Liberman is a professor of Germanic philology at the U. of Minnesota and author of many books and articles on etymology and language. Most of the 55 words he has chosen for this first book of a planned series are simple words. Among these are bird, drab, ever, dwarf, gawk, key, lass, man, pimp, toad, and witch. Nearly every word is traced to a root word among the northern European family of languages, the basis for Anglo-Saxon and modern English. The word "jeep" is an obvious exception. A few of the words are controversial four-letter or gender terms.

While the author's "centrifugal principle" sets relevant limitations and preferences for deciding on the root of a particular word, the etymological practice demonstrated in his analysis of the more than 50 words is complex and depends on much scholarly knowledge. In these analyses, Liberman does not simply follow a line of apparent related words to a root word, as seen in most dictionaries, including even the esteemed multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary. For Liberman's search for the most probable root entails assessing other respected etymologists' research and conclusions, comparing similar words or possible cognates from several languages, and arguing for why the particular root identified is preferable. In other words, Liberman goes well beyond simply denoting a word root. He aims not only to clarify etymology where able, but to unearth its complexity where called for both to correct errors and assumptions regarding particular words and improve etymological methodology and research.

Word lovers will find the lengthy, involved articles on the number of particular familiar and few obscure words engaging. Most significantly for the field of etymology is his methodology; which is both rigorous and flexible in reaching probable attributions for word roots. With scientific method (as opposed to the frequent presumptions and conventions), literary (i. e., writing) and reasoning ability, and incomparable scholarship, Liberman charts new paths in the field of etymology.

I used this book as a main resources for a paper I wrote in college about the experiences of Jewish-American women. I quickly fell in love with this book - the history and real life stories are fascinating and really make you think.

We borrowed this book from the local library just because my children (5 & 4 yrs old) picked it out. To our surprise, this book quickly became a favorite and my children (and husband) just didn't put it down. We live out in the country, and every day the kids would be out in the yard with a magnifying glass looking for different tracks and comparing to the ones in the book! Soooo, I gave this book 5 stars for the simple fact that there are lots of tracking books out there, and I'm sure some are more complete, however this is extremely easy to use and even children can enjoy exploring the outdoors! However, let me add that my hubby is an avid trapper, and he found it just as great - so it's not TOO simple either. I've only seen the MN & WI version, but I'm sure the other states that are covered in different versions would be very similar. We highly recommend getting your own copy as we did, and start exploring!