Kansas Books

I was born and grew up in Wichita, and now live out in the sticks near Udall. I loved the stories in this book, and I thought the author did a really great job in telling them.
I always looked for stories close by hoping for a chance to investigate them myself. Definitely recommend this for people looking for a really creepy ghost story to get them through the night.

Please don't let this great book fade into the prairie sunset!

As a college student, and a future teacher, I'd like to pat the author, Lisa Heitz, on the back for a job well done. I own this book and have read the "good parts" over and over.

The story that really sticks out for me is "Hamburger Man." I grew up around the Sand Hills near Hutchinson, KS, the setting of that particular urban legend.

By the time I was ten, thanks to a few too many slumber parties, I was terrified of this homocidal, deformed, and cannibalistic maniac!

Despite my high school boyfriend's urgings, we never found our way to any "lover's lanes" near the Sand Hills. No doubt, my mom and dad would be pleased to know this...

But I didn't know even 1/10 of this eerie tale until I found an entire chapter devoted to the infamous Hamburger Man in this book.

Yes, I prefer to sleep with a night light on...

Because of Haunted Kansas, or in spite of it, I've visited many of the places mentioned in the book. And I intend to visit more of them, as time permits.

This is the one stop guide to Kansas ghosts.

This is a beautiful book for beginning quilters or as a primer for reminders. It is easy to follow and put together exceptionally.

You will not be disappointed with this book! She takes you from novice to expert through the pages of this real winner.

This is one of the best books on Holiness I have seen. It is written in a down to earth method that I can understand. I highly recommend it!

I had purchased this book at a Holiness convention-in going through the devotional, I had begun sharing what I had read with my daughters. Then it became the topic of discussions throughout the day. We have all been encouraged and uplifted through reading and studying what God is saying to us through these writings. I am going to purchase two more books for the girls! We will all be able to be on the 'same page', and it is interesting to see what differet things the LORD is saying to each of us through the same words and scripture! It is very, very easy reading, short Bible verses to read-a young child could enjoy and understand this devotional! Yet an experienced Christian can still learn much from it and be encouraged and taught, also.8-)

Dan Flores has lived most of his life in the Horizontal Yellow. Another, more historical term for this land would be the Spanish-Mexican Frontier. Florida was not settled from Mexico, of course, and the settlement of California was decades to more than a century later.

Flores explores this land from both the history and natural history points of view, with the historical part generally beginning with the first Spanish-U.S. contact as part of post-Louisiana Treaty boundary negotiations.

Not all Texas is the Southern spillover of Dallas and Houston; get acquainted with the rest of it, and adjacent areas, in this book.

Dan Flores' long-awaited new book once again proves he has few peers when it comes to a deep understanding of his native Near Southwest, a vision for its long term health, and the ability to weave a tale which is scholarly, literary, and deeply personal.

The book description sounds pretty good but I only got half way through it before my head hurt. Sounds like Gibson knows his stuff and has researched it thoroughly. He has a pretty good tennis serve but his overheads are weak. I am sure the founding fathers will forgive him for that.

Alan Gibson's new book is incredibly useful for anyone who reads a lot about the founding of the American republic. What Gibson wants to do and succeeds in doing is to provide an overview of the different post-WWII schools of interpretation about the founding that is both nuanced and balance. It is by any standard a remarkable work of synthetic scholarship. It should be read by all majors in American history- not necessarily to agree with but as an exemplar of how to organize an overview of a field.
Gibson examines in 101 very tightly written pages (plus fourty pages of meaty footnotes) the "fundamental assumptions" and the "deeper ideological and methodological differences between schools...of interpretation that on the surface differ only about the interpretation of the facts" (p.xi). I have read deeply in this area continuously for the last fourteen or so years and I am in awe of Gibson's achievement.
Any story of the post WWII historigraphy about the founding has to really start with what that historigraphy is reacting against- the work of Charles Beard and the Progressive school. Gibson sees their work as based on two basic precepts: 1. the motives of the Founders cannot be ascertained by their writings and 2. that economic determinism was the key to understanding American history (p.7). Basing his empirical research on these precepts, Beard argued that the Constitution was an anti-democratic document that was motivated by the property interests of incipient capitalists. Beard supported his arguments with empirical research about the property holdings of those people who wrote and ratified the Constitution.
The post war period saw the reemergence of a consensus history that can be broadly categorized as liberal. Instead of emphasizing the class structure of the Founding period, this schools emphasizes "the continuity throughout American history of the middle-class structure of American society and the hegemony of liberal values such as the sanctity of property, economic individualism and democracy" (p.15). The methodology of this school of thought understands the motives of historical actors based on their own self-understanding. Gibson sees three major variants of the contemporary liberal school- 1. a triumverate of "Neo-Lockeans" (Joyce Appleby, Isaac Kramnick and John Patrick Diggins), 2. students of Leo Strauss (such as Paul Rahe) and 3. those who see liberalism as the core of a multi-tradition approach (p. 16). Gibson goes on to explore the work of each variant in a series of perfect short book reviews of the major works of these schools. Really many of us who review books on Amazon would do well to read Gibson's book as an object lesson in writing book reviews. His review of Rahe's Republics: Ancient and Modern on pp.18-21 almost makes me want to disown the one I wrote on Amazon.
Gibson next delineates the basic precepts of the republican synthesis. This group of scholars draws heavily on the work of Clifford Geertz and rely on a theory of ideology in their understanding of the founders. This theory allow them to mediate critically against both the idealist of the Liberal school and the Progressives. Ideologies are socially conditioned means of organizing the otherwise buzzing confusion of experience. They place a structure on our thought that is both confining and conditioning(p.23). Gibson nicely quotes Lance Banning on this: "...Sometimes this intellectual universe is so well structured and has so strong a hold that it can virtually determine not only the ways in which a society will express its hopes and discontents but also the central problems with which it will be concerned." (p. 23 of Gibson quoting Banning)
As such, ideologies make possible the self-understanding of historical actors. So what the writings of the Founders may reveal is not their musings on transhistorical truths or their rationalizations of their economic interests but the structure of the ideologies that were available to the actors. This school has focused on the civic humanist tradition as being the dominant language of discourse for the Founders. This chapter includes superb readings of Pocock, Wood, Banning and Bailyn all within 14 pages. Do you begin to see why I am so impressed?
Next, Gibson tackles a group of writers (Wills, Adair, McDonald, Yarbrough) who want to emphasize the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment (SE)on the Founding. Gibson notes that the SE provided the Founders with many of the preachers and educators who formed their thought. Madison, Monroe, Jefferson, Hamilton, Wilson, Rush all studied with Scots either here or in Scotland (p.38) The SE provided the founders with the idea of the 'invisible hand', the 'division of labor', the stadial theory of social and economic development along with moral-sense and common-sense philosophy.
Gibson goes on to examine those who try to combine some or all of the above schools in a multiple-traditions approach. Again, there are some here who do so with liberalism as the core approach to which the others are seen as supports. Gibson sees Michael Zuckert as the most sophisticated of these scholars. Gibson's review of the work of Rogers Smith and his book Civic Ideals was the part of this chapter that I found the most provocative. Smith is willing to posit that there are parts of our intellectual traditions that are inherently irrational and based on ascription. I have to wait until I read Smith's book for myself but I think his approach could be usefully applied to the states rights tradition of constitutional interpretation.
Finally, Gibson examines recent works of social history especially those that focus on feminist contributions to our understanding of the Founding, on the contribution of native americans and on how recent understanding of the issues surrounding slavery have transformed our understanding of the Founders. The last section is particularly strong.
In his final chapter, Gibson tries to examine what he feels each approach has to offer a synthetic historigraphy. In general, I find his arguments convincing. He, of course, is for a hybrid approach that would allow individual historians to mix and match these different approaches to the body of historical facts. He definitely feels there needs to be a further mixing of the social historical approach with the others. I would offer Sean Wilentz' recent The Rise of American Democracy as an exemplar.
I would also comment that I think a lot of the controversy that Gibson so brilliantly delineates was caused by the fact that none of the historians took seriously enough the basic datum that the actors in this period were working politicians, lawyers, merchants, farmers, etc. Yes, people like Madison, Jefferson, and Wilson read a lot. Really a lot. But I doubt if more then a couple of them were systematic philosophers who took the time to study (say) Locke, Hume and Harrington enough to note all the incompatibilities and to decide which one they agreed with. They were absorbed by the everyday details of governance more than by philosophical distinctions. I may be wrong. In his final chapter, Gibson mentions a few historians, like Peter Onuf, who have made this point. I would also like to mention the fine recent book by Max Edling on The Federalist that drives home this point.
I hope I have given an impression of the scope and compression of this book. I have read about 90% of the works that Gibson refers to but I learned something about all of them that I missed. I have mentioned in my music reviews my respect for those artists who devote themselves to the music of another. This fine historical work is impressive in that same way. It has taken Alan Gibson years to understand the work of scores of other historians so well that he can explicate their achievements with such concision. I found myself frequently marveling at what I was reading as I was reading this book. Isn't that why we read history?
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

As one of the most charismatic and intriguing women in modern American history, Jacqueline Kennedy has been the subject of numerous books, articles, and even made-for-television movies. Those attempts, however, focused almost exclusively on Mrs. Kennedy's aura of celebrity---until now. Enter Dr. Barbara Perry, the Carter Glass Professor of Government at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. In "Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier," Perry does an outstanding job of telling a familiar story from a scholar's perspective. She provides a highly readable, yet serious examination of Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House.

In researching the glamorous and sometimes enigmatic First Lady, Dr. Perry states that her mission "was to write the first scholarly treatment of her [Kennedy's] work as first lady and filter out the extremes of previous books that range from hagiographic tributes to mean-spirited or sensationalized accounts." That mission was a particularly daunting one in that Jacqueline Kennedy's personal papers and oral history, located in the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, remain closed. Not to be dissuaded, Dr. Perry apparently did exhaustive research into virtually every available primary source. The result is a fascinating, insightful look at a first lady who emerges as a surprisingly assertive, independent, and even bold actor on the White House stage. Jackie, of course, is best known as the driving force in the restoration of the White House, but she was equally influential in the creation of the White House Historical Society, the preservation of Lafayette Square, and support of the arts. Her personl correspondence on these projects is quite revealing, suggesting that she had a clear vision of how the White House, the presidency, and the first family should be presented to the public---and how she attempted to preserve and present her own identity. Professor Perry is especially effective in exploring this area, having previously authored a compelling analysis of the symbolism and imagery of the U.S. Supreme Court and how the court presents itself to the public (see "The Priestly Tribe: The Supreme Court's Image in the American Mind").

Barbara Perry's work is a much-appreciated scholarly addition to the body of literature on Jacqueline Kennedy. Until the Kennedy papers are opened to the public (in about 40 years), it will stand unchallenged as the definitive account for viewing and understanding an American icon inside the White House.

Unlike more gosspiy biographies, political scientist Barbara Perry approaches the life of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy as a scholar. She writes about the early influences in her life, her role as first lady and the passions and causes that she undertook in her official life. Perry touches on such issues as JFK's infidelity and deftlly handles the criticism leveled at Mrs. Kennedy for, among other things, her spending on her wardrobe and her "francophile" attachments. So while the book doesn't get bogged down in the tawdry details of their personal lives, neither does it ignore them. It's a well-written, well-documented account of a White House that was so different than any other in modern times -- much due, in part, to the youth and flair of Jacqueline Kennedy. For those who want an objective account, this is an excellent read.

Book contained many twists and turns that kept me reading page after page. I liked the main character Kansas and her story. But I loved the ENDING!! Can't wait for the next novel in the series.

Tyler Gant keeps you turning the pages up until the very end of this well thought out novel. This book makes an excellent companion on your next business trip or vacation. A must read for those who desire intrigue, mystery and scandal.

This is a great way to learn about the development of a great city that few non-residents give much attention to. If you are a resident or just interested in the area, this book offers a way to understand the reasons why things are the way they are. With chapters divided by years it can be read from cover to cover as a developing story or used as quick reference for specific periods.

Excellent book. I actually bought this book after glancing through someone else's copy that was a gift. I already had a dvd about Kansas City as told by some its oldest residents that I thought this book was a good read to go along with great video and personal accounts and I was right.

I purchased this book for a quite dedicated chiefs fan and he was overwhelmed with all the facts, details, and history that is contained within this book. It is easy to find the fact that you are looking for because the book is well organized. There are many photos (B&W) throughout the book with a special color section in the middle. A great addition to any KC Chiefs fan's library.

Mark Stallard does a superb job of covering the Chiefs' history, giving colorful descriptions of a scores of players (famous and not so well known) and of the highlights of the seasons for Kansas City. Some of my favorites whom I had met, Jerry Mays and Willie Lanier, are given excellent coverage as are the players of various years through 2004. Unfortunately, this edition came out before Larry Johnson established himself as one of the league's great rushers; but an excellent synopsis of Priest Holmes is there, along with Buck Buchanan,Lenny Dawson, Joe Montana, Ernie Ladd and others. I thoroughly recommend this volume to any Chiefs' or NFL fan. The $8.12 edition is spotless and attractively and sturdily bound.

Buchanan and other writers he draws upon in this book provide readers with an appreciation for the geologic history of what is often regarded as a flat and featureless place. In addition his skillful interweaving of the current Kansas landscape with how it came to be, gives a context for not only understanding this plains state but an increased appreciation for its many interesting details. These range from the great salt and gypsum deposits to the gravel beds of the Ogallah aquifer,and the the incredible fossil finds in the Kansas chalk beds. He deals with the Gyp Hills, The Smoky Hills,The Flint Hills, The Ozark Plateau and the once glaciated area in such a way that a trip through these regions and indeed the entire state becomes a natural history lesson. This book should please Kansas "explorers" whether they be day travelers, fossil and mineral collectors, rock hounds or naturalists.

A cursory reading of this book should lay to rest any lingering prejudice that Kansas is a flat, boring state.

The book is well organized, and and easy to read, with a minimum of scientific jargon, and where such jargon is needed, it is defined clearly.

The photographs are clear, and color is employed where appropriate.

Several authors contributed to this book, and it starts off with a general introduction to the geology and various land features of Kansas.

The next three chapters cover rocks, minerals, and fossils, respectively. Throughout these three chapters, history, natural history, and geology are interwoven in a particularly interesting narrative that left me with a greater understanding of why Kansas is the way it is, and how the geological history and modern times are related.

The final chapter consists of a mile by mile description of the geology of Interstate 70 as it passes through the state. The descriptions of the various sedimentary beds one sees in the road cuts were clear enough that we could see the formations as we cruised by at highway speeds. Driving back to Missouri from Colorado was an interesting trip back in time from the Quaternary through the Pennsylvanian periods.

My only criticism of this book is that there are other major routes through the state, and it would be nice to see a more southern route as well as north-south route descibed. But then, that would be more in the area of the "Roadside Geology of ______" series. This book is not really in the same category as the Roadside Geology series, but it is useful, nonetheless, and gives a far more complete view of the overall geology of the state.