Indiana Books

In the early 1960's, Marvin Herzog was the chief interviewer for the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ). The leader of this project was Uriel Weinreich who was also the author's thesis advisor at Columbia University. As the data poured in on the patterns of linguistic and cultural variation between the Jewish communities of pre-Holocaust eastern Europe, the necessity of a method for analyzing this vast quantity of data became obvious. Herzog developed such a method and it became the basis of the doctoral dissertation which constitutes this book.
Herzog, who later became my mentor at Columbia, had the idea that it was possible to isolate a part of the territory covered which was both small enough to be tractable and yet could be regarded as a miniature scale model of the entire territory, capable of exhibiting the dynamics of dialect formation that shaped all of Yiddish-speaking Europe which is an area about as extensive as the northeastern US.
The way he did this was suggested to him by the over all shape of the dialect regions that was emerging as data from the whole area surveyed came in. The bulk of Yiddish-speaking Europe, the part where East Yiddish was spoken, turned out bo be divided into three regions: one in the southwest, one in the northeast and one in the middle. The area in the middle was shaped like an inverted 'V' tilted toward the northwest. The point of the 'V' was in a part of northern Poland with Warsaw in the southwest, Lomza in the northeast and Brest-Litovsk in the middle.
Since the area around the point of 'V' is a miniature version of the whole 'V', Herzog realized that this small area in northern Poland could be regarded as a scale model of the whole East Yiddish territory even though this small area made up less than a tenth of the whole territory surveyed. He made an intensive study of linguistic and cultural variation attested in interviews with people from 34 communities.
The author, a modest person who was perhaps constrained by the conventions of writing a dissertation in a rather conservative field, does not say so explicitly, but the idea of studying dialect interactions in an auspiciously chosen small part of the territory of a language in order to shed light on the dynamics of dialect formation within the language as a whole was a singularly happy one. The principle that regular relationships that hold sway over a small area can hold sway over a much larger one has proven fruitful in my own research.
If this book has a defect it comes from overgeneralizing this principle of the equivalence of different scales. While it is true that accounts of small scale dialect processes can often be scaled up to give a true picture of large scale processes, the reverse is not necessarily the case. That is
large scale structures are not always mirrored in the small scale. I think that Herzog assumed large scale structures generally carry over to smaller scales and this accounts for a dubious choice that he made in presenting his data in map form. A geographical distribution can be presented by showing each location with an iconic symbol to indicate the variant form found there or by drawing lines across the map dividing it into regions in which particular forms predominate. Historically, people working on LCAAJ data have preferred showing the individual locations. Drawing lines adds nothing to the clarity of presentation and requires that the designer make arbitrary decisions as to the exact course of the lines. At its worst, (not in this book but in the first volume of LCAAJ) the line method can suppress detail about individual locations. Herzog favors the line method. I suspect that this is because it works well with maps of the whole Yiddish territory where lines give a fair representation of the gross patterns of variation and he believed, wrongly, that it should work equally well in small scale maps. It does not because there is more irregularity on the smallest scales and the lines tend to gloss this over. But this is a relatively minor objection that detracts very little from a brilliant book.
The data presented in this book can throw new light on the general history of Jews in Eastern Europe. Two examples illustrate this: In the common historical narrative, Hasidism spread from the southwest to the northeast of the territory studied here and was partly beaten back by the opposition of the Lithuanian rabbis. Herzog shows that the present distribution of Hasidism coincides with that of techniques for preparing Sabbath fish and farfl (a kind of pasta). Since rabbis could not have influenced these domestic routines, Herzog suggests that well-entrenched differences in folk culture, including differences in worldview were the ultimate determinates of where Hasidism gained a permanent foothold. Another pattern offers a window into the deeper past of the Jewish settlements. The linguistic features of West Slavic languages (represented here by Polish) differ from those of Eastern Slavic ones (represented here by Belarusian and Ukrainian). Yiddish dialects have both West Slavic and East Slavic borrowings and, as would be expected, Yiddish loans from West Slavic are found to the west of Yiddish loans from East Slavic. However, a comparison of the boundary between West Slavic and East Slavic loans in Yiddish and the boundary between West Slavic and East Slavic languages themselves, reveals an interesting result. The boundary within Yiddish is to the west of the boundary within the Slavic languages, indicating that East Slavicisms have penetrated further west in Yiddish then they have in the Slavic languages themselves. This surprising result contradicts the common assumption of historians that the Jewish settlement in this area went from west to east. If that were true, the Jewish settlers would be expected to have carried West Slavicism with them into East Slavic territory. Instead they appear to have carried East Slavicisms into West Slavic territory. Thus it appears that the course of settlement included migration from east to west.

This book describes and analyzes one of the most improbable stories in American education - how did it come to pass that the preeminent music school in the United States, probably in the world, came to be situated in southern Indiana - Bloomington to be exact, at Indiana University. George M. Logan, Head of the English Department at Queen's University, Canada became intrigued by this question and wrote a brilliant book to answer it. As an American living in Europe I am often surprised that musically aware people here not only have heard of Bloomington and Indiana, but react so favorably to it. Its performing faculty (like Janos Starker or Menahem Pressler, or students from Indiana like Joshua Bell) are well known here and heard in concerts or on the radio. Here is one American success story well and interestingly told. Not only is the cast of musical charaters in this history fascinating, but Logan has weaved into the narrative the issues and analyses that confronted the Indiana administration and faculty and the outcomes of their decisions. This a colorful book describing high culture, but it is also a kind of ongoing management manual on successful cultural organization, although Logan is well balanced, recording not only successes but failures as well. I loved reading this book, learned a great deal about cultural management and just plain management, and warmly recommend it.

This book was written by my Great Uncle, Walter Brookfield Hendrickson. This book completely describes life in Indianapolis,In. and surrounding areas during the years in the title. There are lots of wonderful pictures of my family in here. He and his brother, my grandfather, lost their father early on in life. Walter had to get a job and he will work until he dies in 1984. If you grew up in Indiana this book is perfect for your collection, lots of memories will be brought back to life.

Reid Duffy is great as usual ! Humor and reviews of the best of Indiana resturants. Information you can use, and always respect his opinion to to right on !

More than just about women, it's about Hoosier history, and the kind of good ol' American fortitude that makes our country great. The drive to excel and accomplish is embodied in these women. They illustrate that the pioneer spirit is still part of the Midwest. Their web site has some sample stories too.

This book was written in 1947 when Indiana was a very different place. Yet this book endures as a compelling and sometimes critical look at important people, times, and events in Indiana's history.

Martin tells about Indiana's beginnings: How people came to settle here, what those people were like. He shows how the Civil War played out in Indiana, where every fourth-grade student is now told that "brother fought against brother." He describes the poverty of Indiana farm life and how natural gas made many men wealthy, both in the late 1800s. He tells of the "golden years" in the early 1900s, as cities began to rise. And he explains the troubled years of the 1930s and 1940s, which were fresh in the memories of this book's first audience.

Martin's most compelling writing, however, is reserved for his portraits of colorful Indiana men: Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, infamous Klansman D. C. Stephenson, and others. The story of Debs is the best part of the book. Martin clearly sympathized with Debs, who championed the worker from his Terre Haute home and, later, from the Presidentail campaign trail and, finally, from prison. Debs's story is all the more interesting to me because I lived in Terre Haute for several years in the 1990s. My apartment was a mile or so north of Debs's home on Eighth Street, which still stands as a historical site. I can imagine the physical setting of Debs's Terre Haute activism as Martin relates it. But it is difficult for me to imagine the spirit of the city in those days, if nothing else because the city's current sleepiness stands in such stark contrast.

This large, hefty book is an excellent travel guide of the Hoosier State. Modeled somewhat after the WPA Guide published in 1941, the book highlights 14 different regions from around the state. The larger cities (Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Richmond, Terre Haute, etc.) are the starting points for each tour, with travelers being directed to various smaller towns and historical points of interest in a circular motion, finally bringing them back to their starting points again. Major historical sites are, of course, described in detail, but so are numerous minor places, including notable houses and buildings, parks, monuments and memorials, churches, and museums. The guide is particularly worthwhile for the amount of detailed information included. It is a guide to the history of Indiana and does not contain hotel/motel listings, popular attractions, outlet malls, etc. But anyone interested in the history of Indiana will find this guide of great value.

This was a page turner and a heart stopper when an accident occurs. I laughed and worried about the hero surviving.

Alexandra Ross is a successful doctor, happy with her work in the emergency room of a big-city hospital, so when her Mountie husband Cameron abruptly announces that he has asked for and received a transfer out of the drug squad to a desk job in a distant small town, Alex must battle a great deal of fear, hurt, and resentment.
Cam has asked for the transfer because, since he blew the whistle on a superior officer addicted to heroin, he has been shunned by all his fellow officers, and their attitude has broken his heart and endangered his life. Hurt and terribly insecure, Cam simply reacts without explaining any of his reasons to Alex.
Alex decides to sacrifice her job and accompany her husband, thinking that a slower pace might help them recover some of the closeness they've lost. But life in the small town of Korbin Lake is far from ideal, and the two grow farther apart as Cam struggles to learn his new job and Alex faces the prejudices of the area's long-entrenched medical establishment.
There is a happy ending here, as a marriage is resurrected with the support of friends and family, and the changing of some life-long attitudes. But this book is wonderful because it's so realistic; one character thinks that love without communication is not enough, but I would put the message a little differently: certain kinds of love simply can't survive without communication.
This story is further enriched by two "subplot" romances, each powerful in its own right; Alex's brother, Wade, finds love despite the havoc wreaked on his life by a spinal injury, and Cam's brother, David, finds that love is the motivator that is powerful enough to help him grow up and decide what he wants from life.
Recommended.

This is about as good a book as the interpretation of Nietzsche by a college philosophy professor and translator from the German might offer for my consideration. The second paragraph of the Introduction is already into the humor of the situation. "Nietzsche is like laughter from a beautiful mouth or in dancing eyes--soon everyone in the room is swept away by hilarity or hysteria, where the line that separates good health from noxious influence is obliterated." (p. xiii). The funny things for me in this book are "an old story that comes from Umbria during the High Middle Ages" (p. 187), the fantasy set "when Nietzsche celebrated his fiftieth birthday in 1894" (p. 251), and notes 8 and 9 of Chapter 6, "see also my PUREST OF BASTARDS, forthcoming," (p. 262).

Chapter 5, "Der Maulwurf/ The Mole," has 17 pages of German with English translations. The little poem:

sole
role
of the
mole
--pp. 118-19

rhymes so much better in English (3 perfect rhymes in 5 words) than in the German translation: "geworfener/ Entwurf/ des/ Maulwurfs" (p. 119). I don't know much about German, so I'm struck that the German word "Entwurf" seems remarkably like J.R.R. Tolkien's Entwives, which were missed so much by Treebeard in Chapter 4 of THE TWO TOWERS that he sang an Elvish song to the hobbits, in which an Entwife sang, "I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again: Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!" Chapter 5 of INFECTIOUS NIETZSCHE ends with five pages of a poem, from "Dideldum!" in German and English, from the book HUMORISTISCHER HAUSSCHATZ by Wilhelm Busch (1963), illustrated by 15 cartoons of man and mole in a garden. This must be for comic relief, but adding things like this to a book on philosophy might also count as a reality check.

Among the serious sections in this book, "The Biopositive Effects of Infection" on pages 201-03 mentions "metaphors in motion." The next section mentions "the contagion of chronic indirect illness." (p. 205). There is a bit of psychology in that paragraph. "It may not be a mere contingency that Freud invokes eternal return of the same in the context of re-experiencing trauma. If war neurosis consists in the effort to discharge the excessive energy of the traumatic event through repetition of the original event in active remembrance, if in repetition compulsion the traumatic event is felt again, is re-sented, it may well be that recurrence is essentially bound up with ressentiment." (p. 205) That last word there is in French. Nietzsche used it so much Walter Kaufmann defined it as "a desire for revenge that is born of the sense of being underprivileged." (THE GAY SCIENCE, section 370, note 126, p. 331). It wasn't a big surprise to me, when I was drafted, that I might be sent to Nam, or that I dreamed I was in Vietnam, and when I woke up in the morning, I really was in Vietnam. The joke is that it didn't end there. Just mentioning Nam makes me sound like I was underprivileged enough to think that I have something to complain about, as if I still haven't gotten used to my life being one thing after another, mostly things I shouldn't talk about, especially the worst. It was the new Nixon that was really funny for me. I could never believe that people really wanted a new Nixon, particularly as my commander in chief, if his bright idea was to send me to Cambodia, which was like being re-sented all over again. Comedy is the only excuse for thinking that I understand how this works, and if you don't get that, you might not like this book.