Bates Books

This is an update of Cadillac Desert. Marc Reisner felt that half a decade later his book Cadillac Desert was out of date given current trends in Western farming. Somehow, this book is really not that convincing. Marc Reisner's arguments seem a lot weaker than in Cadillac Desert. You almost feel that this book was written at gunpoint, with the rice farmer lobby holding the gun.

In other words, Cadillac Desert is far more insightful and prescient than this book. I would definitely read Cadillac Desert first.

Description from the book back cover:

India paid an appalling price in blood and misery for partition in 1947. The Scarlet Sword tells what happened to one small community, but the scene it portrays must have been repeated numerous times elswhere in the sub-continent. When the battle between the Kashmiris, Pathans, and Afridis began, the Hindus as well as the British fled to the local Catholic Mission for refuge. But the mission soon became the focus of a campaign of murder, rape, and pillage and for ten horrifying days the refugees lived with violence and fear. Only the indomitable courage of Father Simpson kept them alive and sane.

I often randomly select a book from our files to read and review. Having just sent my oldest off to college, and with two other teens at home, I found the book to be more of an affirmation of raising them correctly, than dealing with specific time-sensitive issues. We dealt with more than our share of medical, educational and family issues as the children were growing up, and the one thing I learned was that no advice is the correct advice when you are in the middle of a crisis. If the problem is so severe that you are even tempted to write to a neutral third (or fourth or fifth)party, chances are you won't be able to read the answer on a neutral basis (that is, if you GET an answer). The questions were a bit polite, but poignant, and would need to be rewritten for the new millenium (and corresponding teen issues), but it's nice to thumb through the book and land on a question/issue to find that you would have dealt with it the same way. There are some incredible letters from "concerned grandparents" that will amaze you with the audacity, and led me to wonder if they were actual letters or just an exaggerated essay in which to attach an appropriate "speech." In general, a good book but, as the subject line reads, "Don't ask for advice while you're in the middle of a crisis."

This book was okay, but parts of it were kind of corny. Like breaking into Joe Hagan's farm and all that stuff with Paula. I thought it was pretty dumb how they made a big deal about how big of a racing farm Graytops was, I mean it only had 15 horses at it. That's pretty tiny compared to most barns. Oh well, overall it was a pretty good book.

If you are starved for information on daguerreotypes--like I was--get this book; otherwise pass it by. The reproductions are not great and you will not learn about the dagueereotype process--just a very vague description is given. The descriptions that accompany the photographs are very surperficial.

I found this book to be good, though it did not contain the extent of detail that I had wished in a book dealing with the topic. While it has a lot of useful details, I am likely to purchase a more comprehensive volume from another author.

...provided some very important information that wasn't detailed in the rulebook: info about Karoo, Averiguas, Far Nyumba and the other extrasolar colonies. All the infomation is in full color and in-character, much like the first 100 pages of the basic rulebook. Most of the info found here has been expanded in other books (particularly Stellar Frontier and the Alien Encounter adventure series), but it's still very cool as a player handout.

In this short book (174 pages of text; 139 if you skip the quantitative appendix), Bates argues that state failure stems from predation on the part of the central government. His model, to put it briefly (and inadequately), is that governments can either take revenues from the people (1) in the form of taxes while providing services (such as security) or (2) in the form of predation. As long as the benefits of the former outweigh the latter (for example, when a government is assured of staying in power for a long time), the government will maintain security. However, if the long run is less certain, the government may sacrifice steady long-term gains in favor of larger short-term gains from predation.

Bates starts with an extended, insightful exposition of this metaphor (Chapter Two). Then he characterizes the conditions that prevailed prior to collapse in many African countries in chapters three (political trends), four (bad economic policies), and five (tensions between groups in the countries). In Chapter Six he describes the state failures. The conclusion sums it up, and the appendix gives some statistical evidence (the rest of the evidence is anecdotal or - Bates's preferred term - narrative).

Overall I found the book slow reading (despite its brevity) and not as coherent as I'd have liked. The basic model is useful but I often found it unclear in the succeeding chapters how the many pieces of narrative evidence fit into the model. The clearest example of this was in Chapter Five, where three models of subnational tensions were presented followed by several examples that did not clearly fit the models.

Further, the form of narrative evidence (lots of different examples from various countries) felt less effective to me than either a detailed case study of one example or systematic statistical evidence. (If I had pre-existing intimate familiarity with the national histories, this would have been less of an issue) The statistical annex provides the latter but deserved more space: some integration of statistical findings with narrative evidence might have worked better. (As it was, the statistical annex left me with a number of clarifying questions.) Bates argues that he distinguishes himself from other work in the area by deriving his hypothesis from a theory rather than highlighting empirical "findings" (p8-9).* And yet Bates - in his empirical appendix - reports atheoretical findings such as the increasing likelihood of disorder over time (despite controlling for changes that should drive the changing likelihood) - p171-173. Finally, Bates doesn't devote any time to states that didn't experience state failure and why or how they differed, nor to rival theories and how they fare in light of the national narratives.

As a novice considering whether to read a book like this, the ideal would be to read at least two reviews: one from an expert (who can opine as to how this fits - or doesn't - with existing knowledge) and one from a novice (who can tell how this may read to another novice). I fall in the latter category. In the former, Chris Blattman (an economics professor in Yale's political science department) blogged, "It's short, it's readable, and it's intelligent. Normally if I get just two of the three, I'm thrilled" [1]. A political scientist I know called it an "excellent primer." And Nicholas Van De Walle (author of the highly esteemed African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979-1999) wrote a brief review for Foreign Affairs, summarizing and concluding that "Bates paints in broad brushes and ignores the states in the region, such as Botswana, Cape Verde, and Mauritius, that have not followed this script but actually enjoyed stability, economic growth, and reasonably democratic politics" [2].

Perhaps this volume is most readable to the already initiated. But it is short and imparts a significant amount of valuable information; I recommend Chapters 2 and 6.

[1] Chris Blattman's blog [easily searchable on-line], "When things fell apart," 19 July 2008.

[2] Nicholas Van De Walle, "Africa," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008.

* I assume by this he means an explicit, chapter-long theory. Other work I've read in this area, by Collier or by Miguel, clearly has a theoretical basis even if not as formally stated as Bates's.

If you have a burning desire to read some historical fiction, I'd recommend "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden as a shining example thereof.

What are the problems?

1. Lots of digression/ babbling/ fillers sections of prose. It seems like a lot of it was inserted to give the book length. If the point of this was to give us an idea of the life of Australian aboriginals, the author could have supplied details to that effect. Instead, we get the author's imagined internal dialogues of a central character that may well have been schizophrenic.

2. Why would Blackburn choose an inveterate liar to characterize the experience of a white living amongst the Aborigines? Were there no other whites that lived among them during that time? One thing that was clear was that there were many different types of whites to be found in contact with the Aborigines at this time. Could we not have seen these Native Australians from the perspective of government officials? Or railroad workers?

3. On the whole, the characters were very poorly developed and one dimensional-- and especially those of the Aborigines. This might have been another vehicle to show us the customs that a reader might be intersted to know, such as language/ customs/ family structure.

4. If this work was supposed to have been historical fiction dedicated to understanding Daisy Bates, the author could have taken artistic license to develop the character of Daisy Bates as it might have been seen through the eyes of an Aborigine. Or several of the government officials with whom she came into contact.

Again: If you are looking for good historical fiction, don't look for it in this book.

Too much novelistic improvisation and repetition ruin this book. Julia Blackburn is clearly more interested in Julia Blackburn than in Daisy Bates. Julia Blackburn's ideas and dreams are constantly inserted just when you think you might get to read something about Daisy Bates! Julia Blackburn presents Julia Blackburn as a dreamy, visionary person, while describing Daisy Bates as a Liar over and over and over again, and then giving Daisy an "imaginary" life... It could have worked if Julia Blackburn weren't so in love with herself--- I bought this book because life among the Aborigines sounded interesting. But it's really too much about Julia Blackburn and she bores me. I read a lot of novels, biogs, poetry, and history, and this books tries to capture it all and while at times it is eloquent, it often feels false and flat.

Daisy Bates appears to be delusional at times in recounting her adventures with the Aboriginese but this is still one of the most fascinating reads I've had in a long time! If you were to separate her tales from the fact that she lived on her own among the indigenous peoples of Australia during a time when it was shocking for a woman to do so, there would still be an incredible story of courage and perserverance. This is an account worth reading!

Daisy Bates, a controversial woman who has attained almost mythical status in Australia, was an inveterate liar, constitutionally incapable of seeing herself in the world as it really was. Instead, she created a better world in her own mind and assumed that everyone else recognized her world as real. As Julia Blackburn reconstructs what she believes to have been Daisy's life in Australia's western desert, and her seemingly futile efforts to protect and preserve the aborigines and their culture, she presents a plausible personality with whom the reader can, to a great extent, identify.

Blackburn is successful in making Daisy's dream world seem like an understandable response to the privations and hardships she faced in her early life alone. In Part I, Blackburn describes what Daisy has said about her life, and follows it with what Blackburn has discovered to be the truth as a result of her documented research. In Part II, she allows Daisy, as she understands her, to speak to the reader herself, and we "live" with her in the desert for many years, watching as her original dedication becomes a mission and then a mania, and her insecurity grows into delusion and eventually paranoia. A woman who seems to have accomplished nothing of lasting significance, Daisy might have achieved some of her goals if she had only bent a little. Part III tells of Daisy's life after she leaves the desert.

Blackburn brings Daisy's Australian desert camp to life--the blinding sun, the heat of day and cold of night, the ghostly arrivals and departures of the shy aborigines, the birds and animals who were often Daisy's only company, and the changes wrought by the railroads, settlement, missionaries, and unfeeling governmental bureaucrats. Though she presents Daisy sympathetically, she is not Daisy's apologist, offering no defense, other than Daisy's own personality, for her extreme and solitary viewpoint. Unlike other readers, I found this a very poignant story of a woman who, at the end of a life of the utmost privation and dedication to saving a culture, realizes with sadness that it has all been for naught. Clearly, she never had a clue that most of her failure was her own fault. Mary Whipple

The author is highly imaginative and tells a lot about her own life in this mish mash. We never learn much about Daisy Bates. the author writes " her body shudders like a dying rabbit and her new husband wakes and stares at his new wife..." But the author is really describing her own childhood dream of an old man with his legs wrapped around her neck!!! Blackburn's "very personal interpretation" of the life of Daisy Bates seems to include Blackburn trying to overcome some of her own childhood traumas and problems with men. If little is known about Daisy Bates' feelings towards her husband, I'd rather have that than a lot of silly conjecture and fantasy. The prose is very good, very flowery and high flown, but it doesn't help tell the story of Daisy Bates. Like other reviewers, I will have to research Daisy, yes even after reading her "biog". It didn't feel balanced at all.

The person who gathered the Yosemite Miwok legends for this book was extremely biased towards his Northern Mewuk wife. We Indians believe Craig D. Bates used his position at Yosemite National Park to assist the Southern Sierra Miwuks become a tribe. They are a non-profit trying to become a tribe. They are also now planning to get a casino. There is NO SUCH THING as Yosemite Miwoks. There never has been and never was. To see the proof read Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell's book; The Discovery of the Yosemite. Even Craig D. Bates in this book wrote that all we know about the Indians of Yosemite came from Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell, yet Bunnell wrote the original Indians of Yoseite WERE MONO PAIUTES, not Miwok. Some of the tales were originally Yokut tales, not Miwok. Some tales were 'modified' and the Paiute referrence taken out to make it seem like it was Miwok. The So-called Miwok Les James in the book we heard is an enrolled member of the Chukchansi tribe and is not even Miwok, but a Yokut. This book is a complete a MYTH and LEGEND. Those now claiming to be Yosemite Miwok (which there were really none) are really Yokuts and Paiutes. Some are Walla Walla Indians who came down from Oregon to work for the whites during the gold rush. Google Walla Walla Indians now California and see the truth. Those who became the Miwoks from the Walla Walla or Awals and the others were really the SCOUTS for the military against the real Yosemite Native people and they were Paiutes and NOT Miwoks. Now they are claiming to be the original Yosemite Indians stealing Paiute history and basketry and our original homeland, Yosemite.

So there are NO Yosemite Miwok Legends, that there were Yosemite Miwoks is the biggest myth and legend around.

This Review by another poster said it all. I believe it.

Concerning this book about "Miwok" Tales. This quote below was taken from Handbook of the Yokut Indians by Frank Latta concerning the "Miwok" tales:

"One very definte evidence that the Yokuts occupied the entire Delta Area is the series of folklore stores recorded by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, published in book form in 1910 and titled "THE DAWN OF THE WORLD". A number of these stories were obtained from self-styled Mewalk informants. But, with the exception of Mewalk names for the mythological characters, the accounts ARE AS IDENTICAL with the Yokuts accounts as variant Yokuts statements are among themselves. I recorded an identical myth (see Dawn of the World, page 45) from George Rivercomb, half blooded Chuckhansi Yokuts, who credited it to Chowchilla Yokuts of the Lower Chowchilla and Fresno Rivers.

In the 1930s, when I interviewed Dr. Merriam at his summer home near Lagunitas, this state, we discussed this at length. He had studied the area more and had CHANGED HIS OPINION AS TO THE RANGE OF THE YOKUTS and was more of the opinion of Drs. A. L. Kroeber and J. P. Harrington, who attributed THE ENTIRE Delta area to the Yokuts.

Also, Merriam, 1910, 67 in his "BIRTH OF WEK-WEK AND THE CREATION OF MAN", gives more definate evidence. This last was credited to a "Hool-poom-ne Mewuk" tribe. DEFINITELY, THIS WAS A YOKUTS TRIBE.

Merriam placed the creation center of the Hool-poom-ne (Hulpumne) and the home of the Creator, Mol-luk (Condor), ON MOUNT DIABLO (Oo-yum Be-le). Exept for the fact that Merriam's "MEWUK" informants used Mewalk names for the principal characters, THIS IS A STOCK YOKUTS STORY.

Other Merriam accounts of folklore along the Sierra foothills WERE INVOLVED IN THE SAME TRIBAL MIXUP...."


This was page on 89 and 90 of Mr. Latta's book, which means that "Miwok" stories and myths are really Yokut stories and NOT Miwok.

It seems that C. Hart Merriam who wrote those "Miwok" tales conceded to Frank Latta that he had been mistaken and that the "Miwok" he wrote about were really Yokut tales.

Merriam is the same guy who wrote the Miwok place names of Yosemite. It seems he was getting the wrong information and conceded this to Frank Latta the author of the Handbook of the Yokuts.

These Yokut tales actually came from over 200 miles aways from western San Joaquin Valley when Yokuts were rounded up and forced to the eastern foothills.

So interestingly the "Miwok" Legends are NOT Miwok, but they are really YOKUT TALES.

If you've ever visited Yosemite National Park, or even seen pictures, you know that there are many interesting formations that make this valley unique in the world. The resident Ahwahneechi, of course, had many legends about how the valley came to be, and these are collected and retold here by respected Wintu elder Frank LaPena, longtime Yosemite museum curator Craig Bates, and illustrated by native artist Harry Fonseca.

Although the stories differ slightly from the way I heard them as a girl in the hangi in Yosemite valley, the familiar characters and stories are brought to life here. They're presented in a way that makes them perfect for reading aloud, which is the way they're meant to be heard and learned. If my son had his way, I would tell him the story of Tu-tok-a-nu-la every single night before bedtime!

Where the stories were obtained is an interesting addition, as is the annotated bibliography. The color pencil drawings and tactile heavy linen paper complete this warm, wonderful experience. Highly recommended, especially if you're going to be reading them to others in Yosemite valley, perhaps around the campfire.

This book was compiled by NPS Ethnologist Craig Bates and contains authentic Southern Sierra Miwok legends. Frank La Pena provided the illustrations. It's a well-written book for children or adults interested in Miwok legends.

So many books on Native American legends, including Miwok, contain "fabricated" legends that romanticize Native Americans or otherwize bend legends to the writer's agenda (whether it's environmental, cultural, or historic). Legends of the Yosemite Miwok is authentic and a good first book on Miwok legends.

The other reviewer apparently has an ax to grind about surviving present-day Miwok. The original Ahwahnees died in the early 1800s from some European disease. Chief Tenaya's band in the mid-1800s was composed of Miwok, Paiute, and other Native peoples. Tenaya was half Miwok through his mother. From the 1900s the remaining Miwok married outside their tribe, but that's a red herring. The legends in this book told are authentic.

The legends that the previous reviewer stated as false were the actual legends told by the original Yosemite Indians and they weren't Miwoks.

If anyone has any investigative skills they can determine that Tenaya was not Miwok and neither were the Awahnees.

This book was just written so that the Southern Sierra Miwoks can get federal recognition when they have questionable documentation.

Most of the "Southern Sierra Yosemite Miwoks" descendents are really San Joaquin Valley Yokuts, Mono Lake Paiutes and Monos from neighoring tribes.

I have seen the earliest census rolls and there are some BIG problems with the "Yosemite Miwoks".