Pitt Books

These evocative poems, so simply filled with light, sound and shared memory, touch the heart with honesty and a touch of magic.

Fishman's writing is clear, unfussy, and remarkably good. Moreover, he shows incredible command of the material and avoids the political arguments that often accompany Yiddish academia.

This book attempts to use the philosoher Paul Diesing's framework of five types of rationality (practical reason) in society, as developed in Diesing's seminal 1962 work Reason in Society. The exciting thing about the Diesing framework is that it is a framework of all of the social and natural sciences. The five types of rationality--technical, economic, social, legal, and political--encompass the whole world. Hartwig does a nice job of showing how to use this framework in thinking about public policy analysis (transportation, in this case) and public administration (the Colombian Ministry of Public Works and Pub. Ad. theory generally). The Epilogue shows how this framework can be used in social science generally. This is a book--like Diesing's--which will not become dated because of the theoretical framework. Highly recommended.

The author Garry suggest that the communication revolution of today, is as significant as the invention of printing and moveable type. I agree. This book raises the question if the press clause in the First Amendment needs to be defined, or redefined in the courts. Garry suggests in the book that historically the courts defined the press clause in the First Amendment as print and broadcasting. With the development of bulletin boards, etc on the Web, this may no longer be true and some further definition might be required. I really enjoyed the book. I am a printer by trade and spent 50 years in the news paper business.

I agree with Scott, the first reviewer, Margaret's book is a must read book, inside you will find the beauty of silence in her life, her hardships, and how she overcame them. Margaret is Deaf and I saw her transform from a confused street person into a very stable woman in the 12 years I have known her. If there are flaws in the plot, I was too busy reading to discover any. That is probably the sign of a terrific book! The reason I say this is because she writes in American Sign Language, a language apart from English; however it has been modified to accommodate the English readers. It is a very absorbing well written book projecting a lot of courage and to overcome all of the stumbling blocks in her path. It's a book about a woman who should be bitter but has a forgiving nature. It is also about mental illnesses, and communication barriers. An EXCELLENT READ! Very Inspiring and many can learn from this book!

Jacob has taken a complicaged subject composed of many players and presents it in an easy-to-understand format while never swaying from academic/research discipline. I think this is a must have for all who care about or have an interest in environmental policy.

Professor Scott makes exemplary scholarship look easy. Having just finished William Freehling's "Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854", a brilliant exposition of the sociopolitical history of the U.S. antebellum South, I wanted to see how another nineteenth-century New World society, also heavily invested in slavery, ended the institution. I was gratified to find one of the most carefully written modern histories I have ever read. Using clear, direct prose, Scott effortlessly renders nineteenth-century Cuba's variegated social geography, its tortuous legal gymnastics, and the complicated social and racial tensions that determined the course of emancipation. In the process, she disassembles previous explanations of why Cuban slavery devolved as it did: for instance, she demonstrates that slavery was not antithetical to technological advancement or intensified capitalist organization of sugar production. Her detailed treatment of the role and nature of Chinese indentured labor--its relationship to slavery; the economic, ethnic and social dimensions of the opportunities it offered plantation owners and managers--comprises a breathtaking glimpse into the grim polyethnic logic of plantation profits in the New World, even as it demolishes theories that the presence of Chinese laborers reveals the fatal weaknesses of slave labor in Cuba. Indeed, one of the enduring themes of the period is the bewilderingly hybrid nature of Cuban plantation labor during the transition away from slavery. At any given sugar mill, one might encounter slaves (both African and Afro-Cuban), Chinese indentured laborers, autonomous gangs of Chinese contractors, prisoners, free wage-earners, tenant farmers and Spanish soldiers all breaking their backs to harvest and process the cane. One is also left with a clear picture of the dramatic geographic differences--the huge and technically advanced mills of Matanzas in the west, Havana's distinctly urban dynamic, the east's rebellious and racially mixed smallholders. Add to this the turbulent military and colonial contests that shaped, and were shaped by, the process of emancipation, and Professor Scott's achievement becomes even more astonishing. Throughout all this, she smoothly incorporates illuminating quantitative analysis (in the form of dozens of tables), and poignant personal dramas as slaves persistently participated in the processes that would determine their freedom.

a book which displays a complex author and her complexity amplifies your own. a weaving together of old and new, past and present, country and urban, so intricate it seems seamless. beautiful spirituality, shows the power of ones memories, the truth of experience.

In the early Nineteen-Seventies, I went with my sister to see the Vincent van Gogh exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. I remember standing in front of the painting Starry, Starry Night awestruck. All the sights, sounds, and smells of the crowded museum faded away. The power and passion of the painting held me spellbound, for this is the power of true art, to ensnare, enthrall, and mesmerize. Jamaican born poet Shara McCallum does just that in her newest book of poems, "Song of Thieves."

With her lyrical voice, McCallum seduces you, and intoxicated by her words you fall into a world painted with language, stimulating to both your imagination and senses. McCallum's topics, presented in riveting verse, cover a wide range of subjects: love, loss of a parent, politics, racial identity, and the immigrant experience of becoming a stranger in your own land.

My forte is prose. That is my medium, the way in which I wield the power of language. Although, I enjoy many poems and admire some poets, poetry usually does not speak to me the way a beautifully written work of prose does, that is until now.

McCallum spoke to the child in me that still grieves over the loss of my mother. She spoke to the immigrant who has also experienced becoming a tourist in her own land, "a visitor from foreign," a person still in love with the land of her birth. "How long have I loved you Jamaica of my mind?" She spoke to the person still sometimes struggling for identity in an adopted country that at times seems so strange.

Logically as in any collection of works, some poems may be superior to others, but I could not tell you which among this group is the best. They are all outstanding to me.

This book has been an all time favorite. The old spanish dialect was some what cumbersome and a little less fluid than the transaltion into english. The Translation by Ms. De Leon is an absolutley phenominal accomplishment. This is the only english translation available from the original papers and I look forward to additional projects in the future by Ms De Leon and Ana Maria Lorandi. I am so glad that the time was taken to produce such a modern day masterpiece, for a more digestable work in literature.