Colleges and Universities Books

This is a great book all fans of UNC basketball will enjoy. Jimmy does a great job of sharing an "inside" look of that championship team!

super insider information gives a real life perspective to players and team--great book for UNC and basketball enthusiasts

This is a great book for Tar Heel fans everywhere who are old enough to remember that magical year 1982 when the Tar Heels captured Dean Smith's first National Championship. Great stories and memories from a great player who many of us think was the driving force behind that Championship. If you are a Tar Heel fan and 1982 was one of those great years for you and you have not read this book, then buy it and read it right now!!

If you graduated from UNC in 1982, this is second only to the Bible as the best book you'll ever read. If you're a Tarheel, this is a MUST HAVE!
Scott Fowler's (of Charlotte Observer fame) writing is the best. Jimmy "Bossman" Black proves he can write as well as he can lead a championship team.

How 'bout dem Heels, they are the NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!

A pleasure to read. As a Tar Heel who knew Jimmy, I am not surprised by the candidness and honesty of his writings. The '81-'82 Tar Heels were an amazing team. Jimmy's book provides a personal perspective that brought back many memories. Any fan of college basketball should read this.

The author creates the most believable characters in Lauren's Line. The vivid descriptions of the characters and surroundings allowed the reader into the mind and body of each character. The names matched each person to a T!!!
Great book!

This was the funniest book I read all year. If you are an English major or an English teacher, you will fall down laughing at this satire of an English department. If you're not in academia, you'll still find it very funny but you'll never know how realistic it is. The humor is dark, and the writing style is subtle. One of my favorite parts was the memorial service for the dead Lauren (I don't want to give it away but it involves public nudity.)

I loved this book so much!!! I definitely recommend Lauren's Line. It was a totally original, fun read. It was actually a relief for me to find this book, because the last dozen books I read were all uninspiring. This was the first book in about a YEAR that I really "got into" in a totally natural, fun way. I literally couldn't put it down. I was even reading it in the bathroom and on the subway. It's just so funny the way the author creates a cast of characters at this university, and each person is SO believable. Anyway, I highly, highly recommend this unusual book!

If you're familiar with Sondra Spatt Olsen's work, you always know after the first paragraph that you're in for a good read.
And if you've taken English courses at a large urban school and wondered what goes on behind the scenes, Lauren's Line tells it all in a lucid trenchant way, skewering the characters and serving them really well done. You're sure to recognize your English 101 teacher.
Olsen's a professional. What you see is what you get and that's people in all their pettiness and all their bigness. Hooray for George Reilly! He gets my vote for English Department Chair.

Once I started reading Lauren's Line I couldn't do anything until I put it down. So many hilarious characters, so absurd their world at a public college.
In fact the other day I was at a dull oral review here at my state college as my mind wandered I snickered to myself remembering the professor in Lauren's Line who bought multiple canvas totes the year he graduated from Harvard so he could advertise his education for the rest of his life. Maybe that doesn't sound that funny in the awkward way I wrote it but Sandra Spatt Olsen really will have you in stitches when you read her take on the story. I mean when was the last time a book made you laugh a good six months after you read it?
Also the book is small enough to easily fit in my purse so I could carry it around. It's cute too. Its red spine looks good on the shelf.

Finally, a well thought out book for parents thinking about the college process! My favorite story is early in the book setting the tone for a great and helpful read. Early on, the author is clear that the process is out of control for many parents. As the Admissions Director for MIT, she makes it clear not to worry about college until it is time, rather than picking your preschool with intent to head to the IVYies....This book really tells us there is much more to learn on this road and truly this book is all about that journey in a healthier way!

Really grounded for both parents and teens. A must to read before any other books on college, including the guides to colleges. This gets you centered on what is important and aligns your values; then you can focus on the facts about colleges. A great duo.....a college admissions dean and a pediatrician....both care deeply about kids and speak to what they need.

I found this book to be useful. The author had several suggestions that we had not thought of and facts we were not aware of. The whole college admissions process is way harder than when I went through it, and I would say, there is a lot of negative as far as I can see. Her book is encouraging that the process can be a positive one, if you can step out of the frenzy that most other kids and parents seem to be embroiled in. The only reason I gave it 4/5 stars instead of 5 is because I felt there was some conflicting information between our school's college counselors and her and that's confusing.

As parents who have seen many of our friends completely lose perspective as their kids apply to college, my wife and decided that we would not go down that road when our time came. Forget all the books that imply they will get your child into a "brand name" school. It's about discovering together a place where they can grow, and strenghtening your relationship as you launch them toward their future. In the name of sanity, I recommend this book (and also a great one our own pediatrician recommended, "Getting In Without Freaking Out.") Stop hovering -- start helping your kids by not imposing your agenda.

Ms. Jones's advice on how the parents of high school juniors and seniors can reduce stress in the college admissions process is spot on.

I was lucky enough to receive Ms. Jones's advice when she spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at our Boston area high school. For those not so lucky, you can obtain the advice in her book, coauthored with pediatrician Kenneth R. Ginsburg.

Parents - and their children - will benefit from Jones's advice for two reasons: 1. Jones explains WHY current parents are so hyper about the admissions process (partly due to the fact that we parents are from the generation which mistakenly believes we can accomplish anything!) 2. And Jones gives practical advice on HOW each parent can reduce their child's stress in the admission process, including actions that can be easily implement right away.

Every parent of a high school junior or senior should buy her book today.

You'd expect this book to be either a paen to conservative values, or a completely dry legalistic review. It's neither, which is really wonderful. The first chapter suffers from bouts of overdetail, but once you get past that, the book blossoms into a very interesting pastiche of historical facts and musings reported in an unconventional array of styles that really hold your attention. Besides, where else would you read about the treatment of Jews in the Massachussetts Bay Colony?? A highly original read.

The first book by John T. Noonan, Jr., that I read was his tour de force, Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, which I finished reading on June 5, 1967, finding it an exemplary study of a fascinating subject. On June 16, 1973, I read his Power to Dissolve: Lawyers and Marriages in the Courts of the Roman Curia. Each year I pick a book which I consider the best book I read that year. For the year 1973 I awarded Power to Dissolve the greatest book of the 55 books I read that year. When I saw The Lustre of Our Country I knew I could not go wrong reading it, and I was right. Other reviewers have written well of the book, but even if you do not read the entire book--its chapters are able to stand alone--read Chapter 7, entitled "The Pilgrim's Process." It is a dazzling and devastating critique of the Supreme Court's meanderings in dealing with the religion provisons of the First Amendment. This is an excellent book, and anyone interested in its subject will be rewarded in reading it.

This is a very special book. Its subject matter is weighty, its intent serious, its disciplines--law and theology--address issues of grave import. The purpose of this review is to alert potential readers to qualities as to which a more adequate review is likely to leave them unaware. The text of the "Lustre" is not ponderous. Instead navigation of the thicket of ideas which the text presents tends to leave the reader refreshed rather than drained. Eccentric and various in its organization and modes of presentation, this book frees one from captivity to a prescribed routing and invites navigation after one's own bent. Subtle logic combines with a pervasive historical sense. Events permeated with paradox and tragedy are presented with insight and wit. Not an easy read; but rewarding. As in the case of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a reader of this book touches the life of a very special American.

John T. Noonan, currently serving as Judge on the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, has written both a personal and historical account of the experience of religious freedom in American history. Noonan begins his book by giving an autobiographical narrative of his Catholic upbringing in Boston and how this affected his theological and political views on religious freedom. He discusses his difficulty in reconciling his belief, taught by his father and other intellectual mentors, in religious tolerance with the teachings of the Catholic Church, which asserted that it was the one true church and that it was the duty of the state to actively promote Catholicism as the only true religion. Noonan then draws upon his theological knowledge to argue, contrary to what his Church once taught, that the very idea of religious freedom is fundamentally a Christian one. Noonan sums up his argument:
"By the first century A.D. there is in the Mediterranean world a religionEhat carries the concepts of a God, living, distinct from and superior to any human being, society, or state; of obligations to that God, distinct form and superior to any society or state; of authorized teachers who can voice these obligations and judge any society or state; of an inner voice of reason that is one way God speaks as well as by His authorized teachers. According to these concepts as taught by this religion, each person, individually and not as part of a family, tribe, or nation, will have to account to God as Judge for every thought and deed. Collectively, these concepts are at the core of liberty of conscience and liberty of religion."
Noonan then turns to history. In the Introduction to the book, Noonan put forward the argument that "free exerciseEs an American inventionEever before 1791 was there a tablet of the law, a legal text guaranteeing to all a freedom from religious oppression by the national legislature." Noonan now goes on to demonstrate the evidence for this claim. He traces the settlement of New England, the religious oppression of the Quakers and the Baptists, and then tells how religious liberty came about from these early conflicts. Noonan writes that:
Plymouth and the Bay Colony provided an ideal and a rhetoricEhode IslandEnd PennsylvaniaEhowed that organized government could exist without supporting a churchEand] Maryland provided the phrase [free exercise] that is at the core of the First Amendment. All four colonies demonstrated that the Church of England could tolerate other forms of Christian worship and so prepared the ground for the English Act of Toleration.
Noonan demonstrates that it was the pluralism of the colonies and the diversity of religious sects that contributed in large part to the development of religious freedom in early America. This "proliferation of sects" gave colonists "a variety of alternatives to the established" churches, which "created political constituencies that politicians had to consider."
The book then turns to the legacy of James Madison and how he has so influenced our views on religious freedom. Noonan gives a mini-biographical treatment to Madison, describing his early religious training and somewhat sudden entry into colonial politics during a critical time in our nation's history. The reader cannot help but to sense the author's deep affinity for Madison and his legacy. Noonan gives special treatment to Madison's role in crafting the American concept of church and state matters.
Noonan then goes on to describe early 19th century American church and state relations through a fictional sister of Alexis de Toqueville. Contrary to Toqueville's, Democracy In America, Noonan argues that church and state interacted in a manner that was not exactly in keeping with the Madisonian ideal. Government at this time was very closely involved with religion and supported it in a number of ways that could be construed as respecting an establishment. Noonan also describes the abolitionist movement and how this crusade was firmly rooted in American Christianity, at least the Northern variety.
Noonan focuses a large portion of his book dissecting and examining the legal aspect of church and state matters and religious freedom as a whole. He keeps the readers attention by a fictional dialogue between 'Harvardman' and 'Mr. Simple.' There are several interesting observations made by Noonan during this quite extensive examination of jurisprudence relating to church and state matters. One of the most intriguing is:
"Ceremonial deism was the court's description of prayers by a legislature, prayer at the opening of a court, and of 'In God We Trust' imprinted on the coinagesEust as Secular Humanism was nonreligious practice that was called a religion, ceremonial deism was religious practice that was not to be called a religion. The court created a kind of American Shinto, a state religion that for establishment purposes was a non-religion because its purposes were secular."
One could only conclude after reading such an argument that the Supreme Court has indeed established a religion appropriate for government support at the exclusion of all others. Is this not what Madison and others warned us would happen if the state took it upon itself to delve so deeply into religious matters as our courts recently have? Noonan argues his point but at the same time allows the reader enough leeway to decide on his own.
The book concludes with four examples of how the American concept of religious liberty has impacted the world EFrance, Japan, Russia, and the Roman Catholic Church. The final example brings us back to Noonan's own beginnings, or where the first part of the book left off. In 1965 the Roman Catholic Church formally adopted, after centuries of persecution of 'heretic' sects, religious toleration. Beyond the significance this event served for the author, it provides an appropriate closing to the topic of religious freedom and certainly a monumental one in human history as a whole.

One of the ironies of American Constitutional history is that many of our greatest jurists have never had the opportunity to sit on our highest court. One thinks of such obvious examples as Learned Hand, John Johnston Parker,Arthur Vanderbilt, Roger Traynor, and John Minor Wisdom. John T,. Noonan, currently a senior judge with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, clearly deserves to be ranked in this select company( as does his philosophical antipode, Richard Posner of The seventh circuit). This book, remarkably lucid, remarkably learned and remarkably humane, constitutes the culmination of Noonans historical, legal and philosophical reflection.Other reviewers have already indicated the riches of this fine books contents. I will only note that I learned something new, or encountered a fresh and startling argument, on almost every page. Noonan has thought deeply about democracty and human freedom, not only in America, but in other countries as well. The chapters on France, Japan, and Russia show an understanding of the cultural political, and religous life of those nations which borders on the extraordinary. The chapter on Tocqueville( told through the literary device of an imaginary account of America written by Tocquevilles equallly imaginary sister, Angelique,) is quite brilliant, and opens up new perpectives on Tocqueville. All in all, a great book. One hopes for more from Judge Noonans learned and humane pen.It is truly amazing that mediocrites such as Breyer, Kennedy, Ginsburg and Souter sit on the court, while this deeply patriotic and brilliant man has to preside over the often humdrum cases of the ninth circuit.

This is an outstanding resource book for OSU Buckeye football fans. It offers detailed accounts of each season, including scores, stories, and much more.

However, there is one important shortcoming with this book. After watching the HBO special about the OSU-Michigan rivalry, it is clear that this book leaves out several important details about OSU football, usually details that tend to portray OSU in a somewhat negative light.

For example, absent from this book is the fact that one year during the 10 year war, in the midst of an OSU blowout, Hayes ordered his team to go for a 2 point conversion after a touchdown, and when asked by the media why he had gone for two, Hayes replied "Because I couldn't go for 3!" Michigan then used that as motivation as they took revenge upon OSU the following season when they won the rivalry game. This entertaining and important story is absent from the book, perhaps because it portrays OSU in a negative light. However, I prefer to read an objective account of what happened, and I like to hear both the good and the bad. This book offers much of the "good," but doesn't say much about the "bad" things that have happened in OSU football.

One further example, Hayes' career notoriously ended when he punched a Clemson player following an interception in a bowl game. This book covers the story, but really goes easy on OSU and Hayes, and fails to capture the type of shock and scandal that ensued following that incident. It may be a dark chapter in OSU history, but it was an important moment, and this book doesn't delve into the details, but rather defends Hayes as having acted "in an obvious fit of frustration" (paraphrasing). This was a disservice, as this was an excellent opportunity to present both sides of the story, from Hayes' supporters and his critics. Instead, the book glosses over much of the info, says that Hayes left, later spoke at a graduation, and leaves it at that. Hayes' impact on the school merited a more detailed explanation of what had happened, and the incidents that led up to Hayes' resignation. The lack of information, and the lack of objectivity detracted the book.

The book also does not go into much detail regarding the 10 year war, and the relationship between Hayes and Schembechler. I would have liked to see some more coverage in that area, as there were many terrific stories from that era.

Having said all of this, I would still recommend this book as a strong source of OSU football history. I would only caution that the book does not always tell the full story, and therefore should not be referred to as a "complete" history of OSU football.

A great book filled with everything and everyone of Ohio State Football lore. I recommend Highly.

In the great state of Ohio, football is a year-round fixation. Especially for fanatics of the Ohio State Buckeyes, who measure each season's success with the ghosts of its legendary past. When not anticipating the current team's fortunes, they're busy mining for factual nuggets reaffirming the program's glory years.

Buckeye enthusiasts have struck gold with the latter. THE OFFICIAL OHIO STATE FOOTBALL ENCYCLOPEDIA is an informational jackpot, a whopping 683 pages of pure pigskin bliss, chronicling the entire history of one of sports most storied traditions. Either a lifelong follower or an Ohio State alumnus could architect such a massive undertaking; fortunately, it fell into the able hands of Jack Park, who is both, in addition to his duties as a commentator and columnist. With over four-hundred college football games to his credit--including nearly every OSU home contest since the late-1940's--he is simply the foremost authority on Buckeye football.

Unlike most proverbial encyclopedias with the A to Z format, this one is chronologically recorded, from their humble beginnings in 1890 through the modern-day mania of the 2000 campaign. Amazingly, not one season or game slips through the cracks; each one is vividly recalled with various accounts and statistics.

What really distinguishes the book from the typical almanac, though, is Park's inclusion of the many colorful anecdotes scattered throughout. Within the gray-shaded blocks lie some wonderful tales involving famous and little-known individuals whose passion and spirit have helped to shape the Buckeyes' saga as much as the many great coaches and All-American players. If the myriad of information isn't enough, the appendix offers twenty-four more pages of records and statistics, while the feast concludes with an alphabetical listing of every letterwinner in their illustrious 111-year history.

Bringing the sea of words and numbers to life are the visuals, beautifully arranged with scads of archived photos, newspaper headlines, game programs, and ticket stubs. Rather than clutter the path, they perfectly enhance its charm, balancing the formality of a textbook with the casualness of a scrapbook.

Park's warm but direct approach works effectively. Although his own experiences with OSU date more than a half-century, his reports on each season prior are equally as fresh and seamless, as though he were actually there. These recollections also subtly echo the sentiments of true Buckeye loyalists while still remaining neutral, a deft touch for a work of this type. That personal flair ensures that it's not just compiled by some factory or computer; it makes the whole experience less like a rigid research and more similar to a batch of stories told by a friendly old neighbor.

An essential bible for Buckeye nuts, THE OFFICIAL OHIO STATE FOOTBALL ENCYCLOPEDIA should be required reading for even the remote sports fan curious to gain insight into the history of a major collegiate athletic program, and in Ohio State University's, one of the nation's proudest.

My husband Lance went to Ohio State and wathches football and follows his alma mater, of course. I bought one of these books for him and for his dad. Wow...I finally bought a gift they both like, which meant a lot to me.

He likes different parts about the book, especially reviewing the years from when he attended OSU up through the most recent football campaigns. His father most enjoyed reading the section on Paul Brown, whose success at Ohio State was just part of a great coaching career.

They both liked the abundant photos throughout the book. My husband gets into sports stats, and this book was full of information on the teams and the individual players and coaches.

They both liked reading about Woody Hayes, Ohio State's legendary coach. My husband, who was a journalist at OSU, said he was able to interview Woody twice and the famous coach was extremely cordial both times. Of course, my husband said he never had to interview Woody after an Ohio State defeat.

So thank you for helping me make this holiday season successful and memorable.

In the great state of Ohio, football is a year-round fixation. Especially for fanatics of the Ohio State Buckeyes, who measure each season's success with the ghosts of its legendary past. When not anticipating the current team's fortunes, they're busy mining for factual nuggets reaffirming the program's glory years.

Buckeye enthusiasts have struck gold with the latter. THE OFFICIAL OHIO STATE FOOTBALL ENCYCLOPEDIA is an informational jackpot, a whopping 683 pages of pure pigskin bliss, chronicling the entire history of one of sports most storied traditions. Either a lifelong follower or an Ohio State alumnus could architect such a massive undertaking; fortunately, it fell into the able hands of Jack Park, who is both, in addition to his duties as a commentator and columnist. With over four-hundred college football games to his credit--including nearly every OSU home contest since the late-1940's--he is simply the foremost authority on Buckeye football.

Unlike most proverbial encyclopedias with the A to Z format, this one is chronologically recorded, from their humble beginnings in 1890 through the modern-day mania of the 2000 campaign. Amazingly, not one season or game slips through the cracks; each one is vividly recalled with various accounts and statistics.

What really distinguishes the book from the typical almanac, though, is Park's inclusion of the many colorful anecdotes scattered throughout. Within the gray-shaded blocks lie some wonderful tales involving famous and little-known individuals whose passion and spirit have helped to shape the Buckeyes' saga as much as the many great coaches and All-American players. If the myriad of information isn't enough, the appendix offers twenty-four more pages of records and statistics, while the feast concludes with an alphabetical listing of every letterwinner in their illustrious 111-year history.

Bringing the sea of words and numbers to life are the visuals, beautifully arranged with scads of archived photos, newspaper headlines, game programs, and ticket stubs. Rather than clutter the path, they perfectly enhance its charm, balancing the formality of a textbook with the casualness of a scrapbook.

Park's warm but direct approach works effectively. Although his own experiences with OSU date more than a half-century, his reports on each season prior are equally as fresh and seamless, as though he were actually there. These recollections also subtly echo the sentiments of true Buckeye loyalists while still remaining neutral, a deft touch for a work of this type. That personal flair ensures that it's not just compiled by some factory or computer; it makes the whole experience less like a rigid research and more similar to a batch of stories told by a friendly old neighbor.

An essential bible for Buckeye nuts, THE OFFICIAL OHIO STATE FOOTBALL ENCYCLOPEDIA should be required reading for even the remote sports fan curious to gain insight into the history of a major collegiate athletic program, and in Ohio State University's, one of the nation's proudest.

Most college kids in the 70's were force-fed RICHARD HOFSTADTER's book, The Age of Reform, which ridiculed populism.
But having grown up the son of a immigrant farm boy and county agent, my view of the midwestern populism and farm culture was much much different.

So Goodwyn's book was a welcome documentation of what I had known all along--that populism was a uniquely American movement, and the spirit of the frontier was never rugged individualism, but community.

The Farmer-Laborer Alliances of the late 19th Century, and the People's Party that resulted, always referred to their reform movement as 'cooperation', and quoted Thomas Jefferson, and the founding fathers. In this context, populism was uniquely American. It was a struggle between democratic capitalism vs. speculative and monopoly capitalism.

Real populism was about creating cooperative systems to consolidate farmer's economic power in competition with the railroads and the banks. It was the alternative to the disasterous crop-lien system of the rural south that turned so many of Jefferson's yoeman farmers into destitute sharecroppers, that forced them out of their homes to settle the western plains.

Goodwyn's book debunks the idea the William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech was the defining highpoint of populism, when in fact it was it's destruction. Goodwyn points out that free silver was never more then a shadow movement of an immensely popular political movement.

Goodwyn also debunks the later-day revisionists like Michael Kazin's book, author of The Populist Persuasion, that populism was a style of rhetoric than a coherent set of political ideas or reforms.

While the People's Party was co-opted and destroyed by the Democrat Party, most of the reforms advocated by the populists came to pass in the 1930's with the agricultural reforms of the 1930's. Things like the rural electrification, the regulation of the railroads, the Farm Credit Administration, and the federal reserve all grew out the original populist ideas. Because of the populist complaints, eventually government intervention in the grain and other food commodies marketplace was recognized as the means of democraticizing and strengthing the market system, stablizing the food supply, and strengthening the market system.

But most importantly, the dignity of the common man against the rich and powerful urban elite entered American political discourse.

This is an important book, and a welcome understanding of perhaps the most successful movement by common folks to control their own destiny.

Obviously influenced by the New Social history and the Sixties' social movements, Lawrence Goodwyn attempts a major reinterpretation of the Populist movement in The Populist Moment, an abridged version of his epic Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement in America. Although Goodwyn's main project is a redefinition of Populism and stress on the movement's culture, he also provides a theory for social action that serves as the narrative structure for his history and a useful philosophy in itself. Placing the origins of Populism in Texas and conceptualizing the Farmers' Alliance as the movement's ideological core, Goodwyn's analysis marginalizes the Fusionists and Free Silverites, providing a powerful reinterpretation and the main strength of the book. However, by stressing these aspects of the movement, Goodwyn fails to take in the whole of Populism in all its disparate manifestations.

Before proceeding to the history of Populism, Goodwyn begins his book by introducing his "sequential process of democratic movement-building:" forming, recruiting, educating, and politicizing. (xviii) It is this theory of building and maintaining a movement culture, which provides the outline for Goodwyn's history. For Goodwyn, the movement successfully formed, recruited, and educated a large body of supporters. However, in politicizing, the movement failed to maintain its educational program and cooperative institutions, thereby opening the way for Silverites and Fusionists while losing its movement culture that attracted and held the base supporters.

Throughout the book Goodwyn centers Populism in the Farmers' Alliance of Texas and sees Charles Macune and William Lamb as the movement's unofficial leaders. In response to increasing poverty, drastically reduced farm prices, and, most importantly, the centralization of power and resources, the Farmers' Alliance sprung forth from communities in central Texas as a way for tenants, sharecroppers, and small farmers to educate themselves about politics, economics, and agriculture. Building membership and loyalty through cooperatives stores and the joint marketing of crops, the Alliance expanded across the South and Midwest through a phalanx of itinerant lecturers spreading the group's message. As their cooperatives fell victim to the ongoing economic recession, Charles Macune developed a federal sub-treasury plan that would create a fiat currency for farmers, essentially issuing greenbacks as loans backed by the harvest. While the sub-treasury never came to fruition, Goodwyn defines true Populists as unaligned supporters of the plan and members of the Farmers' Alliance. Consequently for Goodwyn, everyone else falls under the 'shadow' movement of Silverites and Fusionists. With this conception of Populism, Goodwyn locates the movement's demise not in the failure of Bryan's campaign, but in the People's Party support of the free silver Democratic ticket.

Goodwyn attempts a major reinterpretation of the Populist movement and largely succeeds by marginalizing the 'shadow' movement. Furthermore, his detailed analysis of Populism's development posits a truly democratic movement of common folk united by a shared set of concerns. By tying the rise and fall of Populism to his movement theory, Goodwyn provides a tremendously useful framework for understanding the broad implications, successes, and failures of the movement. While his reinterpretation can not be overemphasized, his book falls short by not paying more attention to the 'shadow' movement in the West and Midwest. The 'shadow' movement of free silver and fusion was an important and influential component of Populism; by not giving it attention, Goodwyn tells only half the story. Finally, Goodwyn's analysis of Populism could have benefited from talking more about race. Despite the connection with the Colored Farmers' Alliance, at its heart, Populism was based on white supremacy, deeply problematizing Goodwyn's eulogy of Populism as the last truly democratic American social movement.

Seldom in our nation's history have there been widespread, grass-roots challenges to the economic and political system. According to the author, the agrarian movement of the late 1880s, otherwise known as Populism, was in fact the last such great challenge. Beyond the history of the movement, the author is much concerned with the implications for future democratic movements.

The small farmers in western Texas in the 1880s recognized that the economic cards were stacked against them. The crop lien system and the "furnishing" merchant, the exorbitant prices paid for goods combined with low prices paid for cash crops, and the price gouging of railroads - all of these inspired some farmers to begin forming local alliances that would try to use cooperative methods to bypass those powerful interests that placed farmers in economic thralldom. Lecturers that spread across the South, and even westward and northward, drew upon close-knit farming community ties to eventually establish some 40,000 "sub-alliances" involving two million people, all finally part of a National Farmers Alliance. Through local trade stores, warehouses, and state exchanges, these sub-alliances attempted to buy and sell in bulk. But these efforts met with varying and limited success. Banking interests, grain elevator operators, and stockyards, among others, refused to deal with these farming groups, to accept their notes based on their cash crops and land.

It is hardly surprising, given their radical critique of economic interests, that agrarian organizers would turn to political action to seek redress for farmer grievances. Yet the turn to politics was a highly complicating development for agrarian reform. The agrarian platform was highly radical for the times involving such issues as land reform, labor rights, government ownership and control of transportation and communication, and banking and currency reform with the elimination of the gold standard. But the hold of generational allegiances to the Democratic and Republican parties prevented many farmers from shifting to independent politics despite the fact that their traditional parties were resolutely opposed to many of the farmers' measures. Attempts at reform through the traditional parties were met by cooptation and demagoguery.

The People's Party was formed at Omaha in July, 1892. The party's platform was the agrarian platform containing not only the National Alliance's sub-treasury plan, which was a plan for the issuance of greenbacks, but also calling for the free coinage of silver, both planks having the effect of increasing the money supply. Electoral success was limited. The Democratic Party through coopting of the silver issue and flagrant electoral fraud was able to defeat the Populists throughout the South, where they had their greatest support. In 1896 the People's Party through pre-convention intrigue actually nominated a staunch silver Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, for president, thus essentially ending the Populist movement. According to the author, Populism had become a "shadow" movement, a mere shell of its former orientation.

For the author, democratic mass movements that take issue with core aspects of society face almost insurmountable odds. In the first place, there are the assumptions that the "system" works, that the system contains mechanisms for continual progress and for overcoming problems. In fact, there exists an entire school of thought among historians that contends that the Populists were cranks unwilling to accept social progress and sought only to maintain an antiquated way of life. That school of thought is most closely associated with historian Richard Hofstadter. However, the author finds that the Populists' grievances were real enough while admitting the difficulties of overcoming the received culture. In addition, the author contends that the hierarchical nature of social structures and the accompanying deferential behavior make independent thought and action exceedingly difficult.

Genuine mass movements cannot be top-down driven. The formation of a mass movement that can achieve political viability must proceed from the ground up. Key to any such movement is the establishment of an independent institution that through the participation of its members develops an ideology and strategy that counters prevailing authority. The counter organization must educate and recruit new adherents. The agrarian movement was based on the sub-alliances and their cooperative ventures and achieved extensive recruitment and education through a lecturing system. The politicization step is often difficult to take and sustain because member activism takes on an indirect element in that it is geared to electoral success allowing party elites to then fully engage in the governmental process. Populism was ultimately unable to successfully take the political step.

The author suggests that the failures of Populism essentially defined the boundaries of the possible in fundamentally changing basic structures of American culture. First Progressivism and then liberalism all operated on a basis of incremental reform. In other words, the system works. The policies forming the Federal Reserve, allowing the constant rise of farm tenantry, and permitting the continued centralization and rise in influence of corporations all rejected or minimized the scope of the Populist program.

This book is a short form of the author's complete work, "The Democratic Promise." At times the book takes on the feel of an overview. For example, it would have been interesting to see far more details concerning the actually workings of the various cooperative efforts at the sub-alliance level. And following the twin threads of the Alliance and the People's Party across many states and conventions over a ten year period can be a little sketchy.

The author's insights into forming mass democratic movements and mounting cultural challenges are outstanding. Those insights add to the understanding of Populism. It should give anyone pause when considering the ability of modern movements to impact the status quo.

I was moved, impressed, and inspired by this book. There are a couple of other reviews that do excellent jobs of summarizing, so I will try to limit my ten pages of notes to a few highlights, and some other books that I believe can help the 3 out of 5 Americans that want "none of those now running." The Republican and Democratic parties have sold out (this is best documented in Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It) and it is time we restored the Constitution and demanded Electoral Reform to restore We the People as sovereign.

Written in 1978, this book could not have come to me, and others in the transpartisan movement, at a better time.

The author opens with very helpful overviews of how a mass culture, a mass indoctrination, if you will, is a much cheaper and easier way to keep the mass docile, than a forced or fascist solution. He reminds me of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.

He then moves to the manner in which industrialization eroded democracy, making it a poor facade. I am reminded of Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System

He then stresses how in a damaged or constrained democracy, public resignation and private escapism are the dominant features of the mass public.

He then moves into an overview of the agrarian-based populist movement that was crushed by the railroads, Pinkerton's as an illegal army, and the banks, with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 being the consummation of the banking victory over the people.

He notes that mass protest requires a higher order of culture, education, and achievement, especially in harmonization of disparate nodes. He identifies four steps within which the third is clearly of vital importance:

1. Autonomous institution emerges as a hub
2. Recruiting of masses takes place
3. Educating of masses takes place (40,000 "lecturers")
4. Politicization of the masses actualizes their power to good effect.

The author does a superb job of stressing the importance of internal communication, and says that IF this can be achieved, THEN a new plateau of social responsibility is possible. He calls this plateau of cooperative and democratic conduct "the movement culture."

The populists achieved a "sense of somebodyness." I am reminded of All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (Bk Currents) as well as Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People.

He examines the Civil War and concludes that it changed everything--it fragmented the nation into sectarian, religious, and racial prejudices. Latter in the book he examines the pernicious effects of white supremacy, which ultimately undid the potential collaboration among poor whites, poor blacks, and poor Catholics factory workers in the Northeast.

The populists tried to break free of the railroads and banks that conspired to keep them in debt forever. Among their brilliant leaders, one stood out, conceptualizing both a large scale credit cooperative (i.e. public ownership of the essentials of society including food, water, energy, and communications), and a sub-treasury that would ensure that natural resources were applied to the needs of the people and not to squatter or absentee landlords.

The seven "demands" of the populists, ultimately crushed by the banks:

1) Abolishment of banks, issuance of government tender
2) Government ownership of the means of communication & transportation
3) Prohibition of alien ownership of USA land
4) Free and unlimited coinage in silver
5) Equitable taxation among classes
6) Fractional paper currency
7) Government economy

The populists opposed "organized capital", emphasized living issues over dead or archaic contracts, and tried to establish their own newspapers because they understood that the mainstream media had been co-opted by the railroads and the banks.

The following quote on page 168, from the year 1892, is eerily relevant to today:

"The people are demoralized. ...The newspapers are subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrate; our homes covered with mortgages; labor impoverished; and the land concentrated in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down our own wages; a hireling standing army (Pinkerton's), unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down; and they are rapidly disintegrating to European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes, unprecedented, while their possessors despise the republic and endanger liberty."

Wow. I am reminded of virtually every book I have read in the past four years on unilateral militarism, virtual colonialism, and predatory immoral capitalism. Just a couple can be mentioned here:

The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Working Poor: Invisible in America

The author draws the book to a close by observing four trends that spelled the demise of the populist movement:

1. Banishment of "financial issue" from public debate
2. Corporate mergers (and one could add, corporate "personality")
3. Decline of public participation in democracy
4. Corporate domination of mass communications

He identifies three persistent flaws in the existing American economy:

1. Land ownership permitting alien, absentee, and predatory landlords
2. Basic financial structure that imposes debt rather than credit
3. Corporate centralization

He stresses that populism is not socialism, but rather a democratic promise emergent. He is optemistic that lessons from the populist failure could be used by farmers, laborers, and others to do a mass insurgency, to "work together to be free individually."

If we are to defeat the current corrupt Republican and Democratic parties, we must do so in a transpartisan fashion: a third party must be based on the disaffected from both of the corrupt "main parties" while attracting back to the debate and the electoral process the lapsed voters and the new voters. I think we can do that for 2008.

In a very thorough manner, Mr. Goodwyn covers the history of the populist movement thru its years as the farmers' alliance and the Peoples' Party! The leading people, the main party newspapers,the conventions, experiments and actions of this great movement are covered in this excellent book! Put this powerfully written book next to the classics by Hicks and McMath! A must have!

Nancy Cott's Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation seeks to illuminate marriage as government control of the population politically and socially by the U.S. government purposely regulating marriage with legal measures. Cott further depicts how gender and race were discriminated against by the Christian monogamous based institution of marriage in the United States. Cott's intention in this book was two fold. Firstly, to highlight how the concerted efforts by the U.S. government to promote Christian monogamous marriage and discourage other forms of marriage had a significant impact especially on gender roles in society in which all forms of public and private lives of men and women were affected. Secondly, the institution of marriage had a strong hand in creating the definitions of gender itself.

Cott asserts that the institution of marriage that has been promoted by the government shapes human identity in both public and private spheres and strongly influences gender roles within society and that these pieces of information are integral to understanding society as a whole. Cott sets out to accomplish proving her assertions by giving a systematic historical account of marriage from the beginning of the United States until present day. Cott discusses at great length, legal measures that supported monogamous marriage and discouraged other forms of human union throughout United States history. Cott also discussed in great length the changing economic positions of men and women through the history of marriage. Cott definitely demonstrated that Federal, State, and Local authorities whether the legislative or judicial had a strong role in shaping and charting the direction of marriage in the United States on a course of Christian, monogamous marriage. Cott in turn analyzes the results of government intervention in the institution of marriage and how it related to men, women, and minorities. As the reader of Public Vows there is not a dispute that this is a correct interpretation of monogamous marriage as a government promoted institution and it had differing effects on men, women, and minorities. If this book was written and published in the 1950's for example, it would have been shocking new information, however, since this book was published in 2002 the information that marriage is bound within a legal institution with civil benefits attached that benefit those married is now ordinary information that most know, or at least most who have been married know. The question for this reader was what kind of new information does this provide?

The answer is none because after hearing her explanation of the origins of her idea for this book in the seminar I attended, it was clear Cott's goal was not to provide new information nor were the goals of the book solely the ones mentioned in the book. Firstly, Cott mentioned that the inspirational idea came from her observation while standing in line to purchase a ticket at a movie theater. She noticed that people pair up as male and female couples and she wondered why this was so. Secondly, her association with a colleague that works for a civil rights organization for gay and lesbians wanted her input and expertise to help justify their cause for gay and lesbian marriage. Cott's intention was to illuminate the idea of marriage as an institution that provides legal and civil benefits for the individuals that are married. Cott's true goal was to provide tangible written evidence for what people in the 21st century already know which marriage is a heavily legal institution that provides civil benefits to those that are married. This assertion subtly implies that all couples should be able to enjoy the civil and legal benefits marriage provides. Cott provided evidence for the true goal of this book with her own words in the seminar.

Two pieces of evidence from her own explanation of why she wrote this book points to the fact her intention was not to provide new information, but to lend credibility to the idea of marriage as civil institution to hopefully benefit couples who are currently not allowed to enjoy the civil liberties marriage provides. Firstly, Cott hinted to the fact this was common knowledge in the 21st century because of her surprise at the reaction of the people who listened to her testimony in Vermont about marriage as a civil legal government institution. According to Cott, the people listening to her testimony were taken aback at the thought of marriage having more to do with civil liberties than a religious and spiritual bond between two people. Secondly, Cott mentioned that these individuals were from the small state of Vermont and implied these people were not in tune with modern thinking on marriage. The mere fact that Cott recognized these people listening to her testimony on marriage were not representative of main stream thought on marriage by people in the United States in the 21st century provides evidence that she knew she was not providing new information, but only taking a common cultural idea that marriage is a legal institution and illuminating it for those few who are not in the know already.

After listening to Nancy Cott in the seminar it is clear that the book was written with the main intention to take an intangible idea floating around in the cultural consciousness and transforming it into a tangible idea in the printed word to ultimately serve a cause. Cataloging an intangible idea in black and white on the pages of a book inevitably gives any idea more credibility. Nancy Cott''s goal was to lend credibility to the idea of marriage as a legal and civil institution which hopefully in the long run would prove that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry and enjoy the legal and civil benefits marriage provides individuals.

Although the institution of "marriage" among humans is generally considered to be thousands of years old, it has a much shorter history as a public insitution in the United States. Nancy Cott's book dives straight into the history of marriage in the U.S., from early societal attitudes and government regulation during the push westward to later government attempts to reign in those with differing sexual mores throughout the 18th century. Her discusison of the state of marriage in the 20th century is equally revealing.

Nancy weaves a tale with many facts that few people are probably aware of: that marriage was frequently unregulated in early America, that divorce was relatively common (but frowned upon), and that religious and utopian communities were challenging the status quo of marriage and state control of the institution from very early on in our nation's history. She makes the best case I've ever heard for proving that marriage is a public institution subject to the will of the state and men in power, transformed and changed over decades by government, often for purposes of exercising control over the population (especially women) and for imposing on the nation the perceived natural order of things.

Marriage may be ancient in origin, but Nancy Cott does an excellent job in the end of showing that "marriage" in the U.S. did not simply grow organically from these ancient traditions, and that government is capable of altering the institution for its own purposes as it sees fit, regardless of what might truly best for society or the individuals in it. While Cott does not explore the impact of her findings on same-sex marriage in great detail, it is very enlightening to understand that debate in light of the changes in marital law over the past 200 years that Cott cleverly elucidates for the reader. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand the evolution of the institution of civil marriage in the United States.

Just shy of 300 pages and 9 Chapters that cover An Archaeology of American Monogamy; Perfecting Community Rules with State Laws; Domestic Relations on the National Agenda; Toward a Single Standard; Monogamy as the Law of Social Life; Consent, the American way; The Modern Architecture of Marriage; Public Sanctity for a Private Realm; and Marriage Revised and Revived.

As the author notes Mae West had the best quote about marriage when she said "Marriage is a great institution ... but I ain't ready for an institution yet". But it is the rich historical facts she shares that provide great insight into the deep misogynist roots of marriage and how it was usually and in some cases still is a contract a man has with a woman. This is why I have always seen marriage as nothing more that legalized prostitution and a protection of material wealth.

The author shows how Protestants and to some degree Catholics have decreed what marriage should be as well as how strong men and women have risen up over the decades and even centuries to denounce attempts to regulate whom they could have sex with and attempts to require that people marry to have sex, own property in common.

The books discusses Americas racist and sexist history with marriage and how some politicians were as eugenic minded as well. And how the rich were and have always been given the slight nudge and wink to do damn well what they want which included having lovers. The hypocrisy of American marriage laws.

A detailed history of how legal, lifelong, heterosexual monogamous marriage has been actively promoted, mandated, and enforced by various means throughout the history of the USA, with little or no tolerance for those who espouse nontraditonal relationship forms. Well researched and well written. Highly recommended.

This book doesn't say anything that most don't already know, that marriage is a form of public institution. The goodness of this book comes from that fact that most people can't really explain exactly how or why marriage is a public institution, and if they can their arguments are short and unsupported. Cott gives us tons of strong evidence and supports her arguments with alot of outside sources, so that the reader can get a real understanding. Of course with all books, there is some bias on the part of the author, but the reader doesn't have to agree with Cott in order to get something out of this book.

This book has a chapter about Goddard College, where I am a graduate student. This college (Goddard)is definately "Utopian" and progressive. These colleges have made higher education both interesting and challenging for individualized education. This book is helpful in focusing on this unique type of education.

As a young student in the late 70's, I attended what was then called an "alternative education" school for two years of my elementary education. The knowledge I learned in this progressive school is a valuable part of who I am and what I have become. My fondest learning experiences came from these two crucial years. I am a strong advocate for progressive education and feel that new methods need to be examined and implemented in order to give students a proper education; reading Constance Cappel's Utopian Colleges gave me a glimpse into some educational institutions that are doing just that. I found it to be both interesting and intriguing in showing how some colleges are trying to change how we educate young adults in our country. An easy yet informative read, Utopian Colleges will introduce students and educators to some alternative teaching methods and educational philosophies; more publications such as this should be offered so students can be aware of the different choices they have for selecting a college for their higher education experience.

Dr. Cappel's book addresses both the history of utopian education and its present incarnation in Utopian Colleges. Speaking from personal experience, I know many of the stresses that provide for both compromise and solidarity within a utopian educational community do exist and have been greatly affected by their manifestations. The underlying work ethic the author shows to be true in the diverse selection of educational institutions featured in Utopian Colleges is a very important aspect of education that is generally ignored in mainstream education. Utopian Colleges shows that the utopian ideal in American post-secondary education was not a counter-culture product of the 1960's, but a long-held tenet which has sought to nurture the creative and intuitive genius to be found within each willing student. The extensive background information provided as a prelude to the present-day and historical outlines of several utopian colleges, along with the discussion of the nature of "utopia" itself are of great enough value alone to offset the cost of this book. This is a great text with which to begin a critique of the American educational system.

At this time when large universities such as Harvard accept money from bin Laden, the need for smaller "Utopian Colleges" becomes evident. Not only are the missions of these colleges more ethical, but their history of progressive education and its values give hope to American higher education. This book examines these colleges that create independant thinkers rather than the corporate robots of the major U.S. universities.

Dr. Cappel's book provides a comprehensive glimpse into the higher education system at work in America today. She clearly explains what her criteria for a "utopian" environment are, and then goes on to describe how each of the chosen colleges reflects these. Her mode of investigation is fascinating, and it is apparent that she made the most of her experiences at all of the institutions she visited. This book proves that, even among the widespread mediocrity that has become evident in American colleges and universities today, there are a few schools out there that still insist on following a dream and a vision, and creating the perfect learning environment that provides students with the finest education possible.

When Elizabeth's friend,Nina Harper and her boyfriend,Bryan are attacked.They investigate.It's a cult,William White is behind it.Mike and Jessica elope in Vegas because she felt left out her best friend,Lila Fowler got married and is now Countess Something.Isabella Ricci is closer to Danny,than to Tom Watts.

This was great! My favorite part was when jessica and Mike elope in Vegas. I would never do it, but I thought it was good for them. None of her family or friends know yet. Elizabeth and Tom are trying to deny their feelings for each other. Liz is still with William. Liz is trying to find out the leader of the society who attacked Nina and Bryon. Tom is afraid for her safety and doesn't want her to do it.

I liked this book because it has romance, suspense, plenty of suspicion and of course, a very unexpected ending. This is one of the best Nancy Drew books I have read since I started reading them last year. I couldn't put it down

This book was great! This is one of my favorite Sweet Valley University books. Jessica Wakefield and Michael McAllery get married, but Jessica's too scared to tell anyone. Elizabeth Wakefield loves Tom Watts, but WIlliam White loves her. Nina Harper suffered an attack along with Bryan Nelson. But will she ever get close to him? Isabella Ricci wants Danny Wyatt to help her get closer to Tom Watts, but they end up getting closerto eachother. Todd Wilkins is starting to realize that Lauren Hill isn't as wonderful as he thought she was, plus he's going through some hard times due to the scandal. This book is great!

I liked this book, it wasn't boring and it continues what was left off in "What Your Parents Don't Know" I just wish that ELizabeth and Tom could at least find out that one of them have feelings for the other because it's beginning to get irratating that they always get jealous of one another when they are with another person or when they get interuppted by someone when one of them are finally going to confess that he likes her and vice versa.

Weidlich's study of how and why Lord Bertrand Russell was denied a teaching job at New York's City College is definitive.

It is difficult to see how anyone else could have written a clearer explanation of the embarrassing decisions made by the college's and the city's officials in denying Russell the right to express any views whatsoever on a college campus.

Appointment Denied: the Inquisition of Bertrand Russell. By Thom Weidlich. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY 2000.

Weidlich, a journalist and former reporter for the National Law Journal, has described in lucid detail how famed philosopher Sir Bertrand Russell was denied a position on the faculty of City College (CCNY) of the City of New York. The 1940 incident has been compared to the "monkey trial" of John Scopes. I have read widely from Russell's work as well as about Russell and find Weidlich's book is definitive about Episcopal Bishop Manning's successful efforts to gain support from Catholics and politicians to keep Russell from teaching. Also, Weidlich explains Russell's views in layman's language that is understandable and on the mark. If the Vatican can apologize for Galileo, one wonders when will the Episcopalians apologize for their egregiously narrow-minded bishop?

This book is a story of how our society treats people who think they are smarter than everyone else. Most of the action takes place in New York City, where John Lennon also discovered that he was not entirely welcome, possibly for some of the same reasons that Bertrand Russell was a problem. While there is some concern in this book for free speech, the opposition to Russell was mainly a problem for people who might be held responsible politically for the taxpayer dollars that Russell was so concerned about getting. The British earl (3-times-married, twice divorced) needed enough income to provide for his child of two, at a time when "probably the world's most renowned living philosopher" (p. 10) was only two years short of the mandatory retirement age. This book was written before the events of September 11, 2001, and seems totally unaware of the possibility that anyone who disagrees with the financial control exercised by New York City over global economics could hijack airplanes and use them to reduce large buildings to rubble. America is fortunate that a plane on September 11, 2001 also struck the Pentagon, so the federal government had a direct military attack which it could respond to in a like manner (air superiority being a prime consideration in superpower planning for geopolitical dominance). The military use of aircraft has become an American obsession as critical to American geopolitical machinations as intellect is a distinguishing feature in the ideology which thinks it rules in New York City and in the mind of Ralph Nader.

The index has a lot of distinguished names, including Augustine, Bruce Barton, Bismarck, Giordano Bruno, Neville Chamberlain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Euclid, Sigmund Freud, Galileo Galilei, Hegel, Werner Heisenberg, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thomas Jefferson, James Joyce, Lenin, Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Plato, St. Joan of Arc Holy Name Society, Socrates, Baruch de Spinoza, Stalin, Trotsky, Voltaire, Woodrow Wilson, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. There is only a single entry for the Communist Party, none for the Democratic Party, and only a few pages are cited for Young Communist League and Young People's Socialist League. I am not related in any way to the Bruce Barton whose views on religion are so well known that the president of Hunter College, George N. Shuster, a lay Catholic, could describe other Catholics as "`like a blend of' the Daughters of the American Revolution, advertising man Bruce Barton, `and a random devotee of Torquemada,' the evil medieval inquisitor. Of their moralizing, he said that Catholics could see `nothing in the universe but middle-class primness--an order to avoid shocking some imaginary schoolgirl' (these were prescient words concerning Russell's predicament)." (p. 86).

My own interest in the role of the Democratic party in this book is a result of the situation for the appointment of federal judges, now that the Democrats no longer have control of the U.S. Senate, which has the power to approve such appointments and have tried to make this seem like an important role for protecting the rights of people who think that there is more to life than just getting married and having children. Prior to the appointment of George Shuster, the president of Hunter College was Eugene Colligan, "a political hack, installed when Tammany Hall, the notorious Manhattan Democratic machine, was still running the city (though not for much longer). . . . At the college's 1935 commencement exercises, the rowdy audience held placards charging `Colligan Lives Up to Mussolini's "Order of Merit"' (the fascist leader had bestowed upon him the Italian Medal of Merit for `distinguished educational accomplishment')." (p. 11). Throughout this book, the leadership of Protestant Episcopal Bishop William T. Manning of the Diocese of New York combines with the kind of politics that Democrats have spent years using, appealing to popular animus to try to avert the kind of confusion which the future is bound to run into sooner or later.

Those who learned the most about political advantages were students who had the opportunity to promote their own interests. At the time, the student body was pretty bright. ". . . and because of the Ivy League's limits on how many Jews it would take--during this period that Russell was to teach, `the City College student body represented perhaps the purest intellectual elite in the country.' Of the eight Nobel Prize winners the college has produced (more than any other public institution), three came from the class of 1937." (p. 54). Those who were there just a few years later might have resigned themselves to the belief that being born with a brain wasn't really all that great, if this book is any indication of how the world will treat you.

In the case of the Young Communist League, who "viewed it as a case of academic freedom . . . but we don't really give a hoot about Russell and this case," (p. 55) others "begged the YCL representative on the student council to keep the Communists out of the Russell controversy so they could win it. `Everything the Communists touched was the kiss of death. . . . the Hearst papers depicted the Communists fighting to get Russell in. This contributed to an extent in keeping Russell out. The irony was that the next fall, the YCL used their fighting for Russell to recruit new members among the incoming class.'" (p. 56) Now that the U.S. Supreme Court can be anyone who the President picks, we shall see how soon the people who placed obstacles in the way of those who wanted to count ballots for his opponent can be replaced by incoming justices, using the term loosely, of course, in the time-honored manner.

weidlich provides a stimulating and briskly-paced account of a seemingly minor historical event, which nonetheless serves as the springboard into a wide-ranging and meticulous consideration of deep, difficult issues: how much intellectual freedom in academia is too much? do individual taxpayers, as the ultimate funders of public academic institutions, get to answer this question? or is it their elected representatives? or neither? and can our society allow the answer to find its fundament in one particular religion's belief system? or in a morality that transcends particular religions? does such a morality exist?

the historical coverage of the russell controversy itself is thorough, carefully documented and generally unimpeachable. weidlich is conscious of the story's amusing, sometimes ridiculous components, which adds to the enjoyment. the book is worth the price for that analysis alone. the treatment of the bigger themes is gravy.

Weidlich's cogent historical narrative crisply sets up a seminal event in New York politics, and how the members of the power structure, for various reasons, conspired to better or preserve their political positions by opposing Russell's nomination to teach philosphy at City College in the 1940s. But in a larger context, Weidlich's book provides a prescient analysis of an event that was a harbinger of things to come - of the familiar debate over unpopular uses for taxpayer funds, and how educational priorities often fall victim as a result. While the book does not aspire to be anything more than a clear picture of a 1940s New York controversy, it would seem that this clear vision has made the more timeless aspects of the debate rise to the surface. Appointment Denied is a must for anyone with an interest in the political dynamic that ran New York's system of higher education, and the theological dynamic that still seems to govern the politics of the city - and the nation.