Berg Books

LOVED THE BOOK......
GREAT INSIGHT TO A MAN WHO HAS ACHIEVED HIS DREAM IN AVAITION AND IN LIFE. IF YOU ARE A SMOKER....READ THIS BOOK........!!!!!.....AND IF YOU ARE NOT.....READ IT ANYWAY!!!!!!

Here is a true account of a fight against the odds, of youth, zest, sheer grit and resourcefulness. Two brothers leave Ireland in the 1840s to settle in Australia. They sight their new land--and are shipwrecked. Their survival and eventual success are recorded in this rare combination of scholarly and popular writing by William and Margared De Burgh.
The story is cast against a background of the wavering fortunes of the struggling colony of Western Australia. it is a tale of rich endeavor by settlers in a vast country so different from all they had known in the old world.
Based on private letters and diaries, public records and contemporary newspapers, this is a carefully researched narrative of exploration, tough colonial farming and livestock grazing, commercial enterprise, education, transport and other communication hardships. Much thought has been given to the Aborigines: nor is the lighter side of life neglected; conviviality, music and cards, and romantic episodes are also there. In many cases letters and diaries are allowed to speak for themselves of the thoughts and moods of those who penned them.
The authors have drawn on childhood recollections and tales told by forebears who were closely associated with the events so vividly recorded.
In all, a warm and inspiring history of colonial and family fortunes between 1841 and 1869.

I thought that Bloom's The Brontes was a great book to use when researching the Brontes, especially Charlotte. For my AP English class I had to find critisms on Jane Eyre and background information on Charlotte Bronte. This book provided me with the materials to produce three pages of research on Charlotte Bronte.

This collection edited by Miller is a fine addition for anyone remotely interested in automobility and car culture. So far it is the only edited collection that deals with the specific problems of automobility in contemporary late modernity. What I found very refreshing was that it did not fall back on 'common sense' or institutional discourses about the car or automobility. By that I mean the dominant discourses of 'speed', 'road safety', etc get a back seat...

The book is made up of ten chapters with interests ranging ethnographies of 'private vehicles' on the Pitjanjatjara lands, South Australia, to an account of the struggles and stories of a Ghanaian long-distance taxi-driver (whose taxi was named 'God Never Fails'!!).

The standout chapter for me was definitely Tom O'Dell's work on the 'raggare' of Sweden, although I may be biased. O'Dell did not attempt to impose a pre-existing set of ideas upon the male-dominated group of American-car enthusiasts called the 'raggare'. Instead he examined the specific problems that emerged _because_ of the car. That is, particular attributes of the car and automobility require different thought than that of studying other social and cultural formations and institutions. What modes of sociality does the car enable? What particular cultural forms only exist because of the car? These are the sorts of questions that are normally dismissed and talk about the car as a 'dumb' object rather than constellation of embodied forces that act in the world.

Along the same lines then, Miller's opening/introduction chapter was problematic for me. He wanted to talk about the 'humanity' of the car and argued the rest of the chapters in the collection did the same. To a certain extent he is right, but what I wanted him to pick up on is that such 'humanity' is as simplistic a concpet as 'alienation'. Where is what Marx called the 'nonhuman sex'? (Which Deleuze and Guattari find in the human.) Or Bruno Latour's nonhumans and strange ontological entities called actor-networks?

Mike Michael's essay on road rage "The Invisible Car" does a fine job of signposting the critical problems I am alluding to. I would've included Michael's essay with O'Dell's had I not already read most of the substance of his chapter in his own book "Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature" (Chapter 4). Such academic double dipping is a way of life now days, but it is still annoying. (Suffice to say I thought his 'Road Rage' in his own book was the best chapter.)

Lastly, perhaps the best thing about this book, is that (along with John Urry's work on automobility) it opens the door for further research and makes the academy slightly less introverted with the boring and regular hard-core proto- neo- post- Marxist, or feminist, or postmodernist, etc approaches where only certain things can be studied in only certain ways because they are the only things that 'fit the program'. I abhor such meatheaded 'mini-despotic regimes' (as Massumi has called something similar). Although I sense, but only sense, a whiff of the 'exoticisation of the Other' in the selection of chapters, but that is something other readers will have decide for themselves, or, maybe, you can say it is a 'World Book'.

Figuring out the score? Well because this is pretty much the only book on the subject I gave it a five. However, if we step away from such 'distinctions' and look at the potential of the book, what it could have become, then it probably only deserves a four.

I enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it; how did the Soviet Union manage the concept of luxury, which would seem to be antithetical to communism? The book is well written and full of good historical detail; it also has intellgent theoretical analysis. I would use it in a class on consumer culture.

In a global environment where mobile technologies are making impressive and influential in-roads into many societis and cultures, this ethnographically based study of the impact of cell phones on low-income populations in Jamaica is a valuable piece of scholarship. Based on two-years of ethnographic study in a rural and urban area of Jamaica, Horst and Miller's effort to construct an 'anthropology of communication' is accessible, yet strongly grounded in theory. Through avoiding technological and socially deterministic approaches and carefully examining the contradictions inherent in the deployment of cell phones throughout poorer sections of Jamaican society, the advantages and difficulties of this new technology are presented clearly, wreathed in the complications of everyday Jamaican life. The use of extensive ethnographic data (impressive in its scope) presented as short case studies, provide a clear sense of realism for the contextualisation of their examination of communication as an anthropological experience, with impacts for economics and policy. In examining the Jamaican experience specifically, this work may be limited in its use in other contexts, but still provides an important model for researchers in similar areas. Grounded in the reality of everyday Jamaican life, "The Cell Phone" succeeds as "...a study of the changes that document and demonstrate what a cell phone can turn into in the hands of a Jamaican, and what a Jamaican can become when they have their hands on a cell phone."(181)

An important piece of scholarship for anyone interested in the impact of technologies on people, cultures and societies.

I haven't finished yet- In fact, I just started: I'm on page 45.

But the thing is, is that...this book is so full of creative, demanding insight that you can't help but go crazy with enjoying it.

His analysis of what makes "childhood" is remarkable. It helps me consider what kinds of practices are going on in the house, the classroom, the shopping mall that define the challenges of growing up and becoming 'mature'...

I'll revisit this review and update it once I finish this most refreshing treasure of a book.

This book really gets the adrenaline running for those of you interested in pursuing a career in Geropsych. Our senior citizens are sometimes the forgotten members of our mental health community. This book guides us through the issues at hand.

Bozeman's Bridger Bowl and Bear Canyon ski areas have had a rich and tumultuous history. In Cold Smoke that history is recorded in the words of the people who pioneered and developed what has become a world-class skiing destination.
This intriguing success story began with a small group of local skiing enthusiasts and a little ingenuity. With virtually no money, just a lot of hard work, resourcefulness, and tenacity, this dedicated bunch took Bridger Bowl from its first homemade rope tow to its current status as the pride of Bozeman, a skiing haven that has spawned world champion skiers and serves as a major site for snow and avalanche research at Montana State University and around the world.
Enlivened with the anecdotes and family photos of three generations, Cold Smoke is a personal story, told with pride, humor, and an abiding love of place.

Better than the literary crit stuff that has been published on Isherwood, and miles ahead of the various attempts at biography, these 'Conversations' give a portrait of the whole man. It really is the best there is on the life of Christopher Isherwood