Clayton Books

This book gives an excellent historical background to the history of Britain. It does not present any theories, views, or concentrations, and thus makes a good read for those looking for a thurough basis of British History. I have tried to use this book as a refrence book but often have difficulties as many topics are not focused enough in sections and tend to drag out over the whole chapter. While this makes an excellent scholastic book, I would not recomend it to casual readers.

`Hollywood Goes to War" is the biography of a federal government agency, the Office of War Information (1942-45.) The OWI - not to be confused with the OSS, OGR, OCD or any other agency in that alphabet-soup happy era - was a creation of the Roosevelt Administration whose purpose was to control the message contained in American movies during the duration. In other words, it was a propaganda agency which, as authors Koppes and Black explain in the preface, issued instruction manuals to the studios, sat in on story conferences, reviewed screenplays, pressured studios to change scripts and even scrap pictures, and sometimes even wrote dialogue for key speeches. Politicians, even in a democracy that prides itself on its tolerance of free speech, aren't above trying to spin a message now and then. Spinning is usually done as covertly as possible. World War II was seen as a `total' war, though, and controlling the content of Hollywood movies (employing , as they put it, a `strategy of truth') was seen as a necessity. One of the chapter titles phrase the problem succinctly enough; Will this movie help us win the war? OWI was created to arbitrate and answer that question.

Of course, the demands of propaganda are different than those of mass entertainment, and HGtW offers a few surprising battles. None more so, perhaps, than OWI's strong reaction against Preston Sturges' frothy screwball masterpiece, 1942's Palm Beach Story, a movie HGtW quotes an OWI reviewer characterizing as "a fine example of what should not be made in the way of escape pictures." Palm Beach Story's transgression seems to have been that it didn't take the war quite seriously enough. The idle rich spent money with frivolous abandon, distressed lovers ignored the war and its issues. It seems reasonable enough that OWI would squash movies verging too close to such socially realistic topics as gangsterism, draft dodging, labor unrest, racial conflict, and any number of other ills. It's the inoffensive domestic movies that OWI objected to that make HGtW so fascinating. Still, there was a war to be won and movies were a great medium for getting The Message out. That the heavy, heavy hand of a governmental agency might kill whatever value the messenger had seemed to have been ignored now and then. Another area of burning interest to OWI was the depiction of our allies. Not surprisingly OWI loved the movie `Mission to Moscow' ("...the most notorious example of propaganda in the guise of entertainment ever produced by Hollywood ") and Keys to the Kingdom, a movie which, as Koppes and Black put it, "reflected the Roosevelt administration's propaganda needs, which in turns were based on a blend of ignorance, apathy, and optimism about the real situation." The critics hated them, too. Besides movies about our allies, the home front and combat war movies, OWI worried over the depiction of the enemy. In this case the Germans and the Japanese. With an eye to the post-war world OWI preferred that the typical German was seen as a separate entity from the German ruling elite. The Japanese, the beast in the jungle, were more or less a lost cause. OWI loved Darryl Zanuck's ambitious and expensive `Wilson,' which presented a glowing and humanizing portrait of Woodrow Wilson, the martyr to the dream of the League of Nations. The message in this case was the need for a league of nations in the post-war world. The result was an expensively mounted yawn fest that is practically unwatchable.

As someone who watches a lot of old movies, I enjoyed Hollywood Goes to War quite a bit. Any book about managed information in the form of government propaganda is bound to raise disturbing issues, and to their credit Koppes and Black present their story clearly without undue editorializing. Anyone who's a fan of American movies made during World War II will find this book educational and entertaining.

This is a collection of enjoyable humor by 11 cowboy-writers and folklorists, plus one cartoonist. Selections range from straightforward stories of comic mishaps and misadventures to tall tales in the tradition of Pecos Bill, told in cowboy vernacular. There are also cowboy poems by Baxter Black, short essays on cowboy nicknames and practical jokes, and selections from the fiction of western authors, including Elmer Kelton, whose historical novel "The Day the Cowboys Quit" is one of my favorites. The cartoons are by Ace Reid. Excellent addition to any bookshelf of western (Texas in particular) literature.

This literary magazine, IO Magazine : NO. 5 Doctrine of Signatures, was truly something else. Issue #5, printed Summer of 1968 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, mixes early English translations of French philosopher Michel Foucault (long before he was well-known in the US), avant garde poetry by the likes of Clayton Eshelman and Stan Brakhage, alchemical writings (some from many centuries ago), psychedelic art, and many reproductions of woodcuts and illustrations from scientific textbooks in its margins. And yet somehow it coheres into a (very bizarre) whole. On the whole this issue is a very unique literary artifact, where many disparate strands of '60s mysticism, academic and popular culture meet. It has a medieval feel that is rooted in historic knowledge of the period, not the mythos or the fantasy a la King Arthur as so many other bands and authors explored.

The question is: who was Io for? Who was its target audience?

I'm not sure but I recommended it for very strange people, scholars, and very strange scholar-people. It's wyrd as all get-out. Or perhaps it just has yet to find its audience.

Having a heroine with extraordinary powers brings this story in line with Jo Claytons previous books on the adventures of Aleytys. Sold into slavery to insectoid owners, Aleytys discovers she is to serve as proxy-mother to the old Queens successor. In short being both the bearer and food source for the embryo she carried.

With her own enhanced abilities, and the added mystical strength of the diadem, the story of Aleytys' gives us a rousing adventure with unusual twists and turns. A tough, believable, swords and sorcery story to engage the imagination and satisfy the most ardent reader searching for fantasy and satisfaction.

Despite the unashamedly academic origins of this quite massive book, Clayton delivers a compelling and surprisingly accessible account of the impact of the arrival of European explorers, traders and settlers on Canada's Vancouver Island. He examines the records left by all parties: British, Spanish and, refreshingly, Native American, and reinterprets the perspectives of each. This book is more than history, however, as Clayton demonstrates that geography, like history, is an entirely subjective discipline and equally prone to manipulation by individuals and nation-states with their own political, imperial and commercial ambitions. The effects of these competing interests and selective interpretations of the 'truth' have come to shape not only the history of British Columbia and Canada as a whole, but much of the world as it is today. This makes me think that this book has a far wider relevance than its immediate focus on North America's Pacific coast would suggest.

Particularly interesting is how the author analyzes European attitudes towards and treatment of the indigenous populations of the region, whose status as eager trading partners was quickly reduced to virtual invisibility as politicians, traders and historians set about shaping the region into a form which suited their own particular interests. The consequences can be found reaching into Canada's law courts two centuries later. Well written in an affable style not common in heavyweight academic books, "Islands of Truth" has transformed the way I look at history and geography; a thoroughly rewarding book which deserves to be read more widely than the subject material would suggest.

Gary C. Anderson is considered an expert on Dakota/Sioux history, largely due to this book, "Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650-1862." It is a reprint, I believe, of his doctoral dissertation, and includes a new introduction of the original 1984 printing ... For a neophyte such as myself, the book is a bit too detailed for an introduction to Dakota history, but Anderson does help the beginner by vigorously emphasizing general themes throughout the book.

Anderson's central theme in his book is one of kinship ties. In Dakota culture, Anderson argues, one could be "adopted" into a tribe, band, or Dakota family by going through either a ceremony or marrying a Dakota. Once this was done, that person (and there is no distinction among Indians or Whites in this matter) is considered a part of the tribe. White traders as early as the French in the 17th century used these ties to great effect because it allowed the traders to employ Dakota hunters as fur gatherers. But the ties also required the traders who used them to treat their new Dakota kin as family, something some traders failed to do on a regular basis. Some of these traders let the relationships lapse, or did not give gifts to their Dakota kin (an essential aspect of the give and take of the relationship). Throughout the book, Anderson sledgehammers this concept again and again, showing how kinship bonds so heavily relied upon in the earliest days of Dakota-White contact faded into obscurity as time went by and Whites gained the upper hand in the region in terms of military, political, and economic strength. By the time of the Dakota uprising of 1862, kinship ties were nearly nonexistent.

An effective way to read this book, and one that my professor is trying to drill into our heads, is to try and examine Anderson's findings from an Indian perspective. When this is done, numerous problems with the book emerge.

First, Anderson relies heavily on European sources for his information. While his list of these sources in the back of the book is truly impressive (he examines everything from diaries, travelogues, journals, letters, government documents, books, and treaties), his use of native oral tradition is scarce. Dakota oral stories do exist concerning contact with Europeans, but after reading this book, you would never know it. This may stem from the time in which Anderson wrote the book, as there is now a greater awareness of the need to utilize these sources in order to achieve a finer balance and larger historical picture.

Second, for an Indian scholar, Anderson at times shows a slight insensitivity to the Dakota. It is easy to get carried away with this point and indulge in the type of reckless statements made by the politically correct crowd, but a few statements Anderson makes could be considered crass. For instance, he calls Andrew Jackson's removal program, a program that forced Indians throughout the United States off of their land (often at gunpoint), "humane." During his exposition of the Dakota uprising in 1862, Anderson incessantly refers to Dakotas as either "friendlies" or "hostiles." Now this may be true from the standpoint of the settlers in the region dodging Indian bullets, but it probably had different connotations for those Dakotas who participated in the revolt.

Despite the few biased comments, Anderson doesn't disregard the shameful aspects of the treaty process between Dakotas and the United States government. Time and time again, treaties signed with the Dakotas promised much and delivered little. It was the traders who committed the most egregious sins; they used their position as suppliers for the Dakota to falsify debt records, presenting bills to the federal government for outlandish amounts of money "owed" to them by the Dakotas. When the treaty money finally came through, the traders skimmed this amount right off the top, often getting the amounts written directly into the treaty agreements. As if that isn't bad enough, some of the treaty commissioners indulged in a little corruption themselves, taking tens of thousands of dollars as "fees" for transporting the payments from Washington to the Dakota tribes in Minnesota. At least when this happened, it still meant the Dakotas got some of the money. Oftentimes, either the money didn't come through at all, or would be delivered months late, leading to starvation for the tribes who needed the funds for essential supplies. Eventually, the government realized they could purposefully withhold the money in order to force the Dakota to do things the government wanted done. This withholding of funds is what led to the destructive uprising in 1862, leading to the deaths of hundreds of Dakotas and Whites.

It would have been extremely helpful if Anderson included some decent maps in this book. We get two, one puny map of the upper Mississippi area and one of the Dakota reservations along the Minnesota River. Neither does effective service to the huge amount of place names Anderson drops during the course of his work. They also fail to help the reader place the various tribes within the Dakota Nation. This is important because Anderson often refers to the Mdewankantons, Sissetons, Wahpekutes, etc. These are the separate Dakota tribes, and they move about frequently, so frequently that locating them on the maps provided defies even the hardiest efforts.

For a detailed, scholarly history of the Eastern Dakota tribes, this book, despite its many flaws, does the trick. The research, for the sources it does utilize, is well done. Gary Anderson is to be commended for a fascinating look at a way of life long gone from the American scene.

Okay, so I read this out of order in the series! I got it from my Dad for Christmas last year with a bunch of other great Sci-fi/fantasy books.
I was unprepared for the depth and complexity of the story. Having no experience with Jo Clayton (major oversight in my reading history), I had no idea what I had. Great story. Stands alone well, but I want more Diadem info! Not sure where in the series this is, but I BELIEVE it may be as early as book two. Just a guess....

I liked it. Nuff said.

Best Regards All. ~~Jana

What did every town in the Old West have at least one of and more often several? Churches, shops? You knew all along - saloons. When a town was settled a saloon was usually the first building to go up. Now, it's not that all were hard drinkers (although many were), but a saloon served as much more than a bar. It was a gathering place, a makeshift meeting hall and, if you watch TV's "Deadwood," you learn it was also used as a courtroom.

True, they were also the scenes of brawls and gunfights. This territory was called the "Wild West" for good reason. Nonetheless, these saloons or watering holes, as they were sometimes called, are very much a part of our western history.

A past President of the Western Writers of America, Leon Claire Metz, has said, "Without saloons, the Wild West would have been dull, essentially unrecognizable. Yet the saloon story, until now, has never been told with such clarifying candor. If you understand saloons, you will understand the West: why it was Wild, why it was great, and why it will always be remembered."

Reading "Legendary Watering Holes" is a major step in understanding the West. The authors focus on four of the most famous (or infamous) saloons in Texas, shedding light on their owners, the entertainment, and even the liquor that was served. Accompanied by vintage photos, each saloon is described from the day it opened until its swinging doors were closed forever.

Historians and Western buffs will find much to relish in this well researched volume.

- Gail Cooke

Patricia Clayton's book quickly sets out its all too realistic and believable plot. Set in the world of corporate solicitors I was fearful that it would turn out to be another formulaic novel about the closed world of the capital's professional classes. But as the plot develops, and the central protaganist becomes ever more closely enmeshed in her convoluted and self centred plans to 'have it all', the focus on her character, and its defects, begins to sharpen. By the second half of the book I was hooked - Chrissie's aspirations become more and more out of step with her real life until the denoument, shocking in its ordinariness, reveals the real meaning of the novel's title. It's a good entertaining read and a book that left me thinking about some of its themes long after I'd put it down. I can thoroughly recommend it.