Clubs and Associations Books

If you have ever been wished to know more about the many secret and violent organizations that have run amok on this planet than this is the book for you. Elliott gives you the chance to sneak inside the world of mobsters, cultists, and terrorists, their history and tactics, all from the safety of your home. Some of the stories related are truly incredible. In a chapter on tribal magic, we hear of an English traveller in Africa who witnessed a ceremony practiced by a group known as the Jackals. Here it is claimed a dancer actually transformed into a jackal! Another story tells of a group that required initiates to kill and canabalize to join.

Elliott begins with a history of violent and secret organizations, discussing Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Ludites. He goes on to cover modern European terrorist organizations such as the Red Brigades and the Bader Meinhoff gang. He then takes us into the world of for profit criminal organizations such as the Gambino Family and the Columbian drug lords. The final chapters explore cults and magical practices like Vodoo. All in all makes for great reading. I am surprised this book has not been more popular.

What I enjoyed most about this book is that it gives the real history of the early years of Boy Scouting - i.e., it includes both the "good" amd the "not so good" details. For example, I had long been interested to learn why Thomas-Seton left the BSA for about 10 years before coming back in the 1920's. Well this books explains it all very nicely. It also describes the powerful impact that James E. West had in forming the BSA as an organization, along with numerous other little known insights. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves Scouting and wants to learn more about it's early years and the men who contributed to giving us this worthwhile organization that is today too often just take for granted.

This publication is an excellent series of skits which will guide participants to a working understanding of the basics of parliamentary procedure and the reasons for the rules. Highlighting the routine applications of parliamentary procedure, it also gives great examples to correct some of the misinformation about some of the more infrequently encountered parliamentary rules. This book is a great way for organizations to provide leadership development for its members.

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If you're looking for different organizations in your area, look no further than the Encyclopedia of Associations. I was on a mission to find listings of non-profits in the Chicago area and I couldn't find anyone with a comprehensive list until I found this book at Amazon.com. The book is broken down by state and then by city so it is very easy to find what you are looking for. And as an additional bonus, the local chapter of national organizations like the American Heart Assoc. and American Lung Assoc. were also listed. A definite must have!

excellent book for allpurpos

This book is a radical reinterpretation of the role of certain types of voluntary associations in American civil society. It first reviews the history of fraternal orders and secret societies in the 19th century and then expands its focus to other, related types of voluntary organization. Overall, I found it a convincing and eye-opening account of the roles of self-interest and organizational competition in the non-profit sector. The author makes some claims about the desirability of non-profits that you may not agree with, but he at least sheds revealing new light on a subject otherwise treated with kid gloves.

Glory, Darkness, Light:
A History of the Union League Club of Chicago
By James D. Nowlan
A review by Jack Winans
Jim Nowlan, after three years of intensive research, has finished his history of the Union League Club of Chicago. The League history is a fascinating insight into Chicago and Illinois state politics and progress - from Adler to Yerkes.
Jim worked on the book while concurrently maintaining a staggering workload, including the rebirth of "The Stark County News," teaching at the University of Illinois, serving on many state and local committees and constantly responding to reporters and politi-cians in need of his insightful comments on the current state of Illinois Republican Party debacles.
Jim was a member of the University Club but, after completing the book, resigned and joined the Union League Club. As Jim puts it, "I don't think I would have found the club attractive at all in the period of the 1930s into the 1970s. In fact, I joined the University Club in 1981 because it was the first club to admit women, as I recall, in the Chicago area region. And while that wasn't a litmus test, it seemed a little more progressive than the Union League Club, which would have probably been the primary competitor of those two clubs, which seemed to reach out to similar types of young, upwardly mobile professionals and middle-aged folks. But today, the Un-ion League Club seems to be quite progressive in its policies towards its mission; in fact, this is not a litmus test for me either. I think that they just admitted their first openly gay member, which would cause members from the 1940s to just twirl in their graves.
"The early club was an alternative to the very stuffy Chicago clubs, and there were other clubs like the Union League Club that were ports in the storm from the muck out in the street for people who needed to do business over lunch and simply wanted a refined setting in which to do it. I think the Union League Club is different in that it originally had a civic mission, which it has maintained.
"The Union League Club, probably through its Public Affairs [Committee] and Boys and Girls Clubs and maybe to some extent its Civics and Arts Foundation, does give the members who want to be active, opportunities to utilize, through the club, to be involved in good works, and a very high percentage contribute, and within that percentage quite a few actually participate directly. And I found that to be valuable, those activities to be valuable dimensions of the club, although many other non-profit groups do similar kinds of things. But it is nice to see a club with good purposes."
"I think the club, and I think I said so in the final chapter, probably needs to find a mission or an issue for this age and burnish or re-vise the tradition being a mover and shaker on something important and valuable to the city or to the state.
Jim was raised, as his dad was, a very conservative Republican, but says, "I'm kind of a mushy moderate as I age." Jennifer Davis of the Peoria Journal Star describes Jim as a jack-of-all-trades. She includes in his credentials: a term as an Illinois legislator; an "almost" lieutenant governor; a director of state agencies; an adviser to presidential, congressional and gubernatorial candidates; professor; au-thor; newspaperman; editor and publisher; community activist; and philosopher.
Jim says that during the recent senatorial race, he was contacted for his opinion seven or eight times a week by the media and political insiders. He also feels that although there is in the media abundant information on national and local politics, there is sparse coverage of Illinois state political affairs. He feels he can fill that niche with a syndicated column with his Midwest viewpoint. He currently offers his "op-ed" (opinion editorials) to Crain's and to a small newspaper group.
Currently he is wrestling to make his three newspapers work and will be giving much of his time for the next two years at the U of I at Urbana, where he is a senior fellow and will be directing a fellows program entitled "Civic Leadership," where he'll work with the best and the brightest. Jim's book, "Inside State Government," is practically required reading for new state executives.
Also, the Union League Public Affairs Committee and Ann Lucine, a member and professor of law at John Marshall, have created a committee that will anticipate a forthcoming state constitutional requirement to review the extant state constitution and see if it should be revisited with another constitutional convention. Jim has been identified as chair of the committee.
On top of all of these accomplishments, Jim's second novel, "The Editor's Wife," will be published soon. Once again, Jim takes a story from his own colorful and accomplished past. The book takes place in 1952 in a town modeled after Mount Pulaski, Illinois. The three main characters, as they were in "The Itinerant," are taken from Jim's memory. The "old man politician" is patterned after Jim's own grandfather with a touch of Paul Powell's persona thrown in. The son is perhaps a blend of Jim and his father, and the editor's wife is modeled after one of Jim's old girlfriends. Blended in is an interracial affair and two sets of mobsters, Chicago West Side poli-ticians and the Italians.
The multifaceted personality of Jim comes through preeminently in his editorials in the Stark County News, where his admiration for his hometown and the solid Midwest morality of his roots shines forth.

I really enjoy learning about the history of every group of people and their role in the History of the world as we know it today. I have been fascinated by the lives and history of people from different Islands. We can learn so much from people who came to the United States from a small country and were determined to make their lives better. Today we have the people of Spanish descent who are working to get a better life for their children. The national origin might change but the story is almost the same. People move to a different place to live their dream. The Irish from this small Island trying to find their dream and work so others in their families could have a better life. Its the same story problems and challenges push people to reach new heights. Its great to read and undrestand why people live their lives the way they do and then wish they could go back to their countries a winner.

This book should be compulsory ready for every Anglo-Saxon Australian (Skips) and then they should all hang themselves with shame for what they have done and are doing to the Native Peoples of Australia. I feel so sorry for the Native People for the genocide and atrocities committed on them by the British Descendants of Convicts. But the "Skips" are an ignorant race of people. I should know, as I had the misfortune of living amongst these Convict Decedents for 40 years.