Columbia Books

Bauer presents an excellent ethnographic and historical analysis of the changes the people of Dolpo have encountered since 1959, and he demonstrates to us that cultural survival and cultural change are not antithetical to one another. His examination of the resilience and adaptability of Dolpo-pa brings to life the practical importance of local environmental knowledge, human agency, and cultural innovation. As founder of the grass-roots organization DROKPA (meaning "nomad" in Tibetan), Bauer also directs his excellent analytic understanding of pastoralism toward working along with pastoralist populations to respond to the many political, economic, and environmental challenges they face in the 21st century. Very fine research and writing.

High Frontiers makes the landscape and the people of Dolpo come alive. Kenneth Bauer's descriptions are vivid, accurate and heartfelt. His observations in the chapter A Tsampa Western about the filming of Caravan/Himalaya and its impacts on the villagers is timely and thought provoking. One does not need to have an academic background to absorb and enjoy this timely book.

In December 1955 the stormy rescue of a disabled freighter by the Victoria, BC salvage tug Sudbury made headlines around the world: a feat which was to repeat year after year as the Sudbury and Sudbury II made dramatic rescues through typhoons and shipwrecks alike. High Seas, High Risk is the saga of the two salvage tugs which became famous for risky deep-sea rescues and long-distance towing; in the processing telling of an owner who began with nothing and turned two little tugs into a challenging, successful business. True life adventure at its best.

This book tells the story of the Island Tug & Barge Co's two big salvage tugs, both named "Sudbury". Island Tug & Barge is now history. Its greatest years were the fifties and sixties. The big tugs were initially acquired for the towage of ships to the scrapyards, which was a thriving business in those years. The entered also in deepsea salvage work where both tugs earned their fame. The book tells about the tugs and, of wrecks, of ferocious storms, of tugs riding out typhoon weather the tow still attached. And of the crewmembers of course. The book is a very good read, also to the non-initiated in the business of deep sea salvage. It also has a number of photographs accompanying the text. It is good that this piece of marine history has been published.

I have quite a few other historical atlases, and this one is one of my favorites. One attraction is that it's focused on the northwest US, where I live. Even without the local interest I still think I'd like the book though.

Unlike a typical historical atlas, this book collects historical maps, rather than using modern maps to illustrate historical events. In the accompanying text, it tells stories about the explorers who created the maps.

The book flap text is a good summary of the contents, not just empty marketing.

I have other historical atlases, but this one is my favorite. For one thing, it covers the area where I live, but even without the local interest it's great. Instead of drawing broad historical themes on modern maps, like most historical atlases do, this book collects historical maps, showing how people through history thought the world looked. In addition to the many interesting historical maps, there are lots of interesting stories about the people who created the maps.

The stuff in the book flap text and the excerpt isn't just hype -- the book really is as good as it sounds.

This review is necesary for understand the History Teory, it's more importand for thaformation of de Historian

This review is necesary for understand the History Teory, it's more importand for thaformation of de Historian

For those want to be theologians Sophia Cavaletti threads together the history of Israel to the present day Christian, in the process of doing this she brings out the simplicity of understanding the Bible in terms that the beginner theologian can grasp. It is a must for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Atrium!!! Thank you Sophia!

In tracing the history recounted in the Bible, Cavalletti makes use of a traditional method of interpretation - typology (prefiguring) - applied in a systematic way: Christological, sacramental, and ecclesial. This is tradition applied more clearly than I have seen before - and I read a great deal of material in the area. She applies this three-fold typology of creation, original sin, the flood, Abraham, Moses ... building a very solid foundation of Biblical and liturgical knowledge in an easy to understanding way. Along with way a variety of other Bible interpretation topics are explored - literary genre, document theory, form criticism - explored in sufficient detail to make the necessary points in language clear enough to be accessible to a very broad audience. This is truly a book to rave about.

This book clearly explains the intricacies of movie censorship. Even without knowing too much, any reader may jump in and discover why Hollywood movies were as dull as ditch water from 1934-1968. The whole book centers around Joseph Breen, his censorship office and his furious efforts to thwart movies. It would be fascinating just to focus on him, but the book deftly links him to the rest of efforts by politicians and a stodgy Catholic clergy to impose morality on the nation. Throughout the text readers are treated to a man who wanted any taint of subversion or sensuality bleached out. Yet the efforts failed.
We see that the writers trumped censorship by doubling the dialog and oblique innuendos. Hence in "The Maltese Falcon", Spade faces off against a homosexual gang of thieves (Peter Lorre & Sydney Greenstreet), and Mary Astor reveals that she was the murdered Thursby's lover--through obscure observations. For example Ninotchka is an oblique commentary on Communism disguised as a love story. It didn't matter what the movie or cartoon, writers had either to go over their audiences' head or dumb down a storyline to get any profound or salacious detail in.
All this continued throughout Breen's woozy tenure as censor. But in the post WWII environment, the censorship of movies combined with the popularity of television, worked against it. Directors rebelled, starting with Otto Preminger's "The Moon is Blue" and ending with Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". Those films included more and more blatantly offensive materials to try the waters. Ultimately, the Censorship Board became a ratings board in 1968, conceding the battle to Hollywood.
The author reaches an unexpected conclusion. The 1930's to the 1950's aren't really Hollywood's Golden Age. In fact they were a period of Film Infantilization and finger-wagging moralism. Many films that were outright raunchy (Convention City), politically daring (Duck Soup), or bawdy (Belle of the Nineties), were airbrushed, suppressed or destroyed. He argues that the films were decent but could have been much better. All this because reactionaries got together and repeated conservatism's mantra:Decadence. This book serves as a starting point for alternative studies of the Studio System. Next, one should proceed onto "Dangerous Men" and "Complicated Women".

According to _Liberty_ magazine in 1936, Joseph Ignatius Breen probably had "more influence in standardizing world thinking than Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin." Joseph who? Breen's name is lost to history. People who know something about Hollywood's history might know about the Hays Code, the now ridiculed moral standards Hollywood imposed on itself to keep the screen free of actors uttering words like "hell" or married couples using one bed. Will Hays had become president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, but Breen became his second-in-command, the one to tighten the code and make the studios do things according to his strictly upright, strongly Catholic, moral view. In the surprisingly lively and entertaining _Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen & the Production Code Administration_ (Columbia University Press), Thomas Doherty, a professor of American Studies who has written extensively on movies and television, presents not just a biography of Breen, but a history of American movie censorship. Anyone who loves old films will be amused and exasperated by how much Breen succeeded in imposing his personal version of morality on the movies.

Breen, born in Philadelphia in 1888 and raised in parochial schools by the Jesuits, had been a journalist and diplomat. He gave the Hays Code teeth, and his Production Code was in force from 1930 to 1968, and at least in its early decades it was in force with few violations. It is fun to read how directors got around the Code, both by bargaining and by winking at the censorship in a way audiences could enjoy. The films of Ernst Lubitsch were good examples, like _Angel_ (1937), a comedy set in Paris which squeaked by since the women in it offered "an amusing time" in a "delightful salon" rather than sex for hire in a brothel. It did follow the letter of the Code, but viewers with any intelligence could catch a plot that _Variety_ called "tartly flavored with the risqué". Those intelligent viewers were the ones that eventually spelt an end to the Code, and Doherty's description of its long decline and fall is fascinating. There was Rhett Butler's "I don't give a damn" speech that the studio managed to get approved with much publicity, but the millions who had already read _Gone with the Wind_ snickered about all the movie fuss. People also giggled about the Breen office's fixation about sweaters, garments which the Code insisted must not outline an actress's breasts. There was Howard Hughes's famous campaign to get uncensored shots of the zaftig Jane Russell in _The Outlaw_ (1941). It caused a battle with Breen that lasted for years, and resulted in the movie being shown to appreciative audiences without a Code seal but in independent movie houses. Protestants grumbled about the Catholic power over movies: "The minority control of the most vital amusement source of the nation is one of the most astounding things in the history of the United States," stormed the _Protestant Digest_. Film noir helped do in the code, as did World War II, as Breen fought to keep battle realism from the screen. Foreign films were a real menace to Hollywood's business-as-usual in many ways, but since Breen had no control in other countries, they kept sending films their own citizens found laudable and Breen thought execrable. The attempted censoring of the classic Italian film _The Bicycle Thief_ (1948) was because in one scene the kid in it stood at a wall and urinated, although no genitalia or urine was seen. People resented Breen's effort to keep this and other serious films from American eyes.

Breen does not come off as a prig, but simply as a pugnacious fighter for his own brand of morality and a conscientious Catholic with what he saw as a God-given duty, a duty he took so seriously that overwork probably shortened his life. There was never a hint of scandal in his public or private life, and he loved movies and was able to get along with most studios via amicable discussions rather than any strong-arm tactics. He was unable to tolerate any change in the Code, attempting to hold to it up to his retirement in 1954. He did have astonishing power; while it is possible to appreciate the way films subtly and cleverly got around his restrictions, they could have blossomed in other ways if there were no restrictions to begin with. Also, he had the power to snuff ideas; the film version of Sinclair Lewis's dystopian novel _It Can't Happen Here_ was never made because Breen thought the script submitted for his approval was "filled with dangerous material." There are many serious pages here to make a reader worry about how power got wielded in such a way, but there is also a good deal of fun because censorship, while inherently a nasty concept, seems extremely silly when viewed in retrospect. Doherty's witty prose is up to it; this is an academic work that shows resourceful digging through many archives, but it is a pleasure to read his humorous descriptions of serious censorial changes. For instance, he writes about an imported British film: "_Fanny by Gaslight_ (1944), a costume drama featuring a scene in a brothel and whose title was changed to _Man of Evil_ to preclude dorsal connotation stateside."

Houser is part biography and part intellectual history of the early days of idealsm and activism in the housing movement. Oberlander and Newbrun are effective in using a sensitive telling of the life of Catherine Bauer to evoke a sense in which housing policy today has lost its way despite the foundations laid by Ms.Bauer and her colleagues. This book is a must read for those interested in reviving American housing policies.

This book is not only required reading for anyone interested in public housing, but also very enjoyable as a lively account of a most attractive and courageous woman. It is fun to read about her amatory exploits on her first trip to Europe, exciting to read about her successes in public life, and sad to find out about her tragic death. I would recommend this book to anybody interested in a remarkable woman's career.

I have had the good fortune to take Richard Bulliet's class at Columbia University on the past, present and future of human-animal relations. Suffice it to say that Bulliet is the truest of academic renaissance individuals - I have taken classes of his on medieval Iranian history and "America and the Muslim World," and found each more entertaining than the next.

Bulliet has broken new ground here and provided us with a text that is accessible far and wide, a book that on its surface may appear to appeal only to a niche of Peter Singer-ites and, perhaps, that professor's intellectual sparring partners, but in fact offers lessons and eye-opening narratives on topics many of us have never stopped to consider.

"Hunters, Herders and Hamburgers" is the perfect book for anyone who is intellectually curious, and I heartily recommend it, especially to those who rarely stop to consider our relations with the "lesser species."

Four reasons occur to me for suggesting Professor Bulliet's book for the seniors on your gift list:

1) You will find a rich vocabulary for crossword puzzle solvers.

2) Witty writing with twists and poetic prose.

3) History, real and inferred, as told by a guy who has studied history for over fifty years and recalls what he reads. He also integrates what he has studied, one event with another across time and space. Hence: Remote Associations and clever speculation.

4) References to other literature abound which will enhance your own reading list as well as that of your favorite senior citizen. Example: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel by Haruki Murakama.

So buy this book now, Gentle Reader, and you'll have time to read it yourself before you gift wrap it.

Hunyadi: The Legend and Reality is a fantastic publication for anyone who wants to know about the life and times a truly astounding hero. Held takes you by the hand and leads into 15th century europe's economic, religeous and political system. You really get a well rounded perspective of what it was like to live in that day. Janos Hunyadi was so prominent a figure of that time that you simply cannot learn about this period without learning about the man himself. The book, while chalk-full of historical fact, is very exciting and entertaining. The story of Janos Hunyadi is an epoch tale that Hollywood has somehow missed. Get this book and read it.

I found this book while doing research for a historical novel on 15th C Eastern Europe. It is clear that the author carefully researched the subject of Janos Hunyadi. He provides numerous references to document his work, so much so that it is difficult not to accept his interpretation of events when they conflict with other historical sources. He is very clear in laying out the complicated history of the region, particularly Hungary in its wars against the Osmanli Turks. He demonstrates very clearly why Janos Hunyadi was known as the "White Knight" to Roman Catholicism. He gives the biography perspective by explaining life at the various levels of society and providing vital statistics like mortality rates. More, he gives feeling to the pictures he paints, e.g., in describing the life of the average peasant or the siege of Belgrade. He uses quotes from contemporary sources to strongly support his own conclusions. I enjoyed this probably more for entertainment than for the richness historical facts; there is certainly nothing lacking in either in this work by Prof. Held. I thank him for introducing me to Hunyadi, the Turkish sultans, King Matthias, and the other key figures of the time and place. I also thank him for making me wonder if I could have survived an average life in those times, let alone face the challenges and threats faced by Janos Hunyadi.

Ok, for those not up on their biology or the Gaia hypothesis, it might be difficult to get through, but Hypersea is well written and fascinating for those interested in knowing how life has and will continue to evolve in more complex ways. An extremely important addition to the Gaia hypothesis. You will never see the world in the same way again.

The Hypersea and Gaia hypotheses are the only two clearly defined scientific theories that have been put forth to give us some answers to questions not asked by most of biology.

This book shows how complex lifeforms came onto the land from the sea. Hypersea does not include bacteria already living on the land, but is defined by the authors as the sum total of plant, animal, protoctistan and fungal terrestrial-based life. The challenges of living on land are discussed in detail - the need to retain water within, the difficulty extracting crucial nutrients, locomotion out of the water, etc. The importance of the fungi in extracting and delivering nutrients to plants, in return for carbohydrates produced by the plants, is considered, and a picture of the interconnectedness of terrestrial lifeforms emerges.