Missouri Books

Some of the people pictured are my relatives,one is my father.
I've found this book to be a good connection to my past

For anyone interested in African American History in St. Louis, and particularly in Webster Groves-this book is a must! Filled with interesting photographs and charting the development of a unique community, this book lovingly portrays North Webster as only a resident could. If you know the area, you are sure to see places you'll recognize!

The authors demonstrate how the Nazi gold seized by the US after the war disappeared without a trace. Quite unexpected. The Authors are historians.

After years of researching their subject throughout the world, Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting first published this book in 1984. Their research began in response to a very simple question. What happened to the German National Gold Reserves after World War II? The answer proves shocking.
Aside from bringing the reader into the fascinating world of Postwar Black Marketeering and corruption,the book relates how a veritable Aladin's Cave of treasure disapeared into the pockets of Crooked S. S. men, K. G. B. stooges, and members of the United States Military, whose occupation of Germany was corrupt from top to bottom. This book remains a timeless reminder that no matter what uniform we wear, we're all dirty as Hell.

OMB it was hilarious seeing jonathan's review as i go to the same school and everything! i had mrs. wolferman last year in 7th grade, and she really is awesome! Also, I've read the book and it's very helpful if you want to learn about the Osage. Mrs. Wolferman rox loL!

I hate to brag, but I am lucky enough to have Kristie C. Wolferman as my 7th grade History teacher! Yuo may think I am eriting this review just becuase I personally know the author...and you're right, but I kow from experience that she is one of the best writers in the wolrd today! Today and yesterday I had two writing worksho classes with her and she taught me so much it's unbelieveable. This is so cool that I am writing a review about my own teacher. Mrs. Wolferman if you are reading this....YOU ROCK!!! Although I have never had the chance to read this book, I know that Mrs. Wolferman has written a great book, and I will read it! I bet you wish that Kristie C. Wolferman was your history teacher don't you? I know, it's not everyday you get a fomous author as your history teacher. If yuo want me to get her autograph for you, E-mail me. I will only charge $2.75. You may think that's a lot but for Kristie Wolferman's autograph? It;s totally worth it. You should definitaly read The Osage in Missouri. It's a great book, and you'll learn a lot!

Meticulously researched and easy to read study of the rise and fall of the Osage tribe from the 16th through the 18th centuries. This book explains on both a human and a global level the economic and political processess at work in the prairies and southern plains during this period of history.

A very scholarly written book. An excellent reference source for those researching the Osage Indian. However, the Author or publisher goofed on one of the References/Source cited: He cites " Wiggers, Robert "Osage Culture Change Inferred from Contact and Trade with the Caddo and Pawnee" an unpublished PH.D Dissertation, University of Missouri 1985. The Author of this Dissertation is Robert Wiegers, Professor of History, Central Methodist College, Fayette, MO. I am a former student of his and have a copy of the Dissertation. This is probably a typographical error, but it would confuse the researcher.

This book might appeal to a narrow audience, but I hope not. Prof. Gilmore has done a great job detailing the history of just how people of the turn of the century Ozarks entertained themselves. Taken mostly from old newspapers and oral histories you get great insight into the box and pie suppers, community picnics, spellings bees, debates, school plays, singing schools, and other gatherings that people used to spice up their isolated rural lives in the rugged Ozarks. I was amazed at some of the worldly topics that were debated in the schools in the evenings and the pure excitment of packing up the wagon with fried chicken and pies to spend the day at the community picnic.

This book provides a warm look back at a much simpler time. It is wonderful reading!!

I enjoyed this one cover to cover. Being an Ozark Native (lived here all my life) and being from a family (as is my wife) that settled in this area well before the Civil War, I was able to relate quite well to the wonderful stories and accounts presented here by the author. This work truly captures the essence of our past and should certainly be read by any who has the slightest interest in the subject. Like another reviewer, I am afraid this work will be relegated to a narrow audience, which is a shame as there are true gems in these pages. This work examines a somewhat lost way of life and sadly, as each year passes, we loose more and more of it. This work covers the period between 1885 and 1910, but it must be said that many of the traditions referenced here lived long after this time period. Recommend this one highly.

Well-written and intelligent, with a good sense of humor to boot. Marr throws scores of ideas at the reader, and shows that, as a travel destination, The Ozarks can hold their own against some of the USA's best.

I've also purchased Missouri and Arkansas Off the Beaten Path guides, but they simply aren't quite as complete and don't convey the same sense of fun or authority as Marr's guide.

The best-darned guidebook to the fabled area, The Ozarks, provides dozens of reasons to take a pass on Miami, Las Vegas, and Hollywood, and visit some of the most authentic places in the nation. Ron Marr has written a wonderfully entertaining guide that's filled with tons of advice on what to see, what to do, where to stay, where to eat, the best places to shop and the special events of the area. Branson, Missouri, has made the Ozarks the destination of choice for countless people, but Marr tells you all about the other great places that can be found across Missouri and Arkansas, and as he does you will find yourself laughing out loud and planning your next trip there.

When it comes to both beautifully written and well-researched text by author Karen Glines, plus breathtaking pictures (taken from on-site paintings by artist Billyo O'Donnell, I've never seen a book that better captures the spirit and soul of Missouri than the Glines and O'Donnell collaboration, "Painting Missouri." An inspiring format that should serve as a model for other states, "Painting Missouri" belongs on the library shelves and in the hands of anyone who lives in Missouri, used to live here or plans to visit the state!

This book is a treat for any Missourian. It not only has great information it also has beautiful art. If you love Missouri or the midwest you will love this book. If you are an artist you will be inspired to get out ant paint.

As a student of history it was exciting to come across Mark Levitch's recent book, Pantheon de La Guerre: Reconfiguring a Panorama of the Great War. Readers interested in art, political science, marketing or just wanting to expand their horizons will find this to be a brilliantly written work. With its many elegant illustrations you may find yourself doing as I did. Upon reading of an illustration I literally took a magnifying glass to better view it and was amazed how Mr. Levitch was able to minutely go over the painting to discover its varied stories. Mr. Levitch succeeds in presenting as grand a vista into the First World War from the perspective of the French nation by its artists as the artists themselves did with their colossal work. Intriguing indeed is the writing manner by which Mr. Levitch takes a one dimensional propaganda piece and literally makes it appear as a living, breathing and altering life form. His style draws one easily into understanding how the French and their allies came to revere this distorted air brushed view of the war as the Pantheon unfortunately presented. Mr. Levitch points out the numerous changes made to the Pantheon during the war, changes made to reflect the most current politically correct points of view as the war progressed. An example of this is Tsar Nicholas and his court which suffered the air bushing of history upon imperial Russia's abandonment of their French allies. Even the rampant bile of French anti Semitism found its way into the painting which, because of Mr. Levitch's research, is noted and the portion of the Pantheon containing its depiction is illustrated. I must wonder if the time spent by the author researching each figure, trying to identify every face and noting each modification to this enormous colossus is any less an endeavor than the actual painting itself. The book later follows the Pantheon's history through out the roaring twenties and its eventual arrival to its new home, the United States. Because of the vivid detailed documentation, various sections of the pantheon stand out and become a vision in the mind's eye. It was amusing to read of the inclusion of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S Truman into the Pantheon as the French viewpoint of the war became second fiddle at the hands of American artists revising the pantheon to reflect their tastes and to make its exhibition more palatable to Americans. To the owners belong the spoils and with the great art piece firmly in the ownership of Americans it was repainted, torn apart, and pieced back together to represent a significantly greater American involvement in the Great War than the French ever intended and perhaps more so than history can sustain. Today, as its 100 birthday nears, portions of the Pantheon de La Guerre are on display in Kansas City's Liberty War Memorial. Without Mr. Levitch's eye opening book, a museum visitor may easily assume these portions are the Pantheon as it was originally presented and in its entirety. It is no such thing. In reality, it is as much a distortion in its present state as the original was of the Great War. If for no other reason this would mark Pantheon de La Guerre: Reconfiguring a Panorama of the Great War an outstanding researched and must read book. When you parallel this with the author's writing style, the descriptive interesting tidbits and major informative facts presented I am in awe this is only the author's first book.

Art historian Mark Levitch has unearthed the fascinating back story to a revered painting that hangs in the nation's only World War I museum, The Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. Turns out that this depiction of America's rescue of Europe originated as a relatively minor panel in a vast mural the length of a football field. Created during the Great War by select French academic artists, Pantheon De La Guerre was intended as a celebration of France and its allies, replete with the iconography of the period (not to mention the topography of France!). In Levitch's telling, the mural fell out of fashion in post-war France; only an idioscyncratic Baltimore collector saved it from the dust heap. The colossus was shipped to America, where in the 1930s it was thoroughly sheared and reconfigured as a paean to American heroism in the war. Components of the mural are dispersed worldwide and still show up at auctions and on eBay. In crystal clear and elegant prose Levitch portrays the strange devolution of the painting as an index to shifting tastes in modern art and culture between the wars. If you have any interest in the Great War and the art and culture of the period, you will find Levitch's account compelling reading. This handsomely printed and illustrated volume is fit for the coffee table or the study. Highly recommended.

This was an amazingly interesting book. The best I've read on the subject. I would definitely recommend it.

This is one of the best book I've ever read on this subject. I would highly recommend it!

Unquestionably the best commentary on Plato I have read as yet. No ideology, no radical interpretations of Plato, just extraordinarily insightful and incisive. The essential secondary reference in studies of Platonic political philosophy.

Oxford Don, Raghavan Iyer noted that the world is a fortunate place when there are two people alive -- at the same time -- who understand Plato. Eric Voegelin was clearly one of those people in the twentieth century. This material was originally published in Volume 3 of Order and History, the core of the magnus opus that Voegelin chose to publish during his life time.

I met Eric Voegelin once as a graduate student, and asked him, "why'd you publish all this stuff?" I've been digesting his answer ever since. It was "to resist totality and totalitarianism."

Particularly, seen from this standpoint, a clear core of this book is his articulation of the Platonic concept of "metaxy," or the in-between character of life. In philosophical terms, this refers most directly and fully to "in-between" the Agathon (e.g., see myth of the cave and the Divided Line in the Republic) and the apeiron (explored most directly and deeply in the Timaeus). For the philosophically uninitiated, it is possible to speak of this in more mundane terms.

An unstated corollary of Plato's notion of the "metaxy" is that life is always larger than our categories. From a Socratic/Platonic perspective, this may include but will entail more than the epistemological recognition that every way of seeing is a way of not seeing. The notion of the "metaxy" is most fundamentally a linguistic indice pointing to ontological plenty as the ground of life, albeit lived within bounds of existential scarcity. This is a notion commonly shared by the great civilizations of East and West. The notion of the "metaxy" underscores that life is lived within a tension between the "transcendent" and "immanent" dimensions of being.

When we lose track of this tension, as we have to a great extent in the modern world, and subscribe to reductive ideological notions/understandings of life -- and most particularly, when we imagine that we can encapsulate life within the pride of our own "enlightened" categories -- on a political plane, there may be little to constrain the prideful actions of ideologies, irrespective of whether their clothing is Red or Black, or whether it is "left" or "right." Irrespective of the political stripe, repression and murder become "justified" in the pursuit of an ideological aim -- which in Voegelin's philosophical terms is to dissolve the "metaxy" in the usual modernist mode, through immanetizing the transcendent "eschaton."

Voegelin's philosophical terms may sound remarkably abstract to the modern ear (recall Robert Dahl's silly review of Voegelin's The New Science of Politics for the American Political Science journal). Facile critiques such as Dahl's typically focus on the unfamiliar language while overlooking the elementary fact that what Voegelin is asking us to do in every aspect of his work is to take a journey that precisely allows us to see the world in terms other than that of our inherited climate of opinion. For those willing to be thorough scholars rather than merely play at it within the context of given suppositions, Voegelin's scholarship offers new vistas and incredibly rich fields of study. His scholarship offers the capacity to reflect upon and act in the world in a substantively grounded mode with implications for every discipline (see e.g., A.G. Ramos' New Science of Organizations).

I submit that a key to understanding this text and the greater body of his work at large is to grasp the central significance of the "metaxy" -- not as a concept within the history of ideas -- but as a life referent of perennial relevance to the recurring challenge of resisting sophistic pretensions and the inherited or emergent ideologies of any time and place.

This text demands a good deal. You'll develop insights into Plato available no where else. But for Voegelin, such studies were never a matter of antiquarian interest. They were a matter of developing meaningful referents for life. The value in this text is precisely in its yield, capable of resonating throughout your life and offering far more than the initial effort it will require of you.