Columbia Books

LINE SCREW BY J. MICHAEL YATES

J. Michael Yates was born in Missouri and educated around the world but in 1966 he moved to Canada and has, I think, lived here ever since. He has published approximately 30 books of poetry and also a memoir called LINE SCREW in which he writes of his experiences during 12 years as a jail guard in British Columbia on the West Coast of Canada. Lest you worry that a poet might not survive in a maximum security prison, as a prisoner let alone a jail guard, let me assure that J. Michael not only survived, he lived to write of it in ways that prisons have not been so accurately described before. This book is filled with accounts that ring with their truth. J. Michael is six foot one and prepared to defend his position with his fists as well as his words. He is also an expert marksman and psychologist. Since most of my best friends have been in jail at one time or another I think I qualify as an expert on these things and I tell you that if you really want to know what goes on behind prison walls you must read LINE SCREW. In it you will find the language, the life and the routines that make up doing time in Canada and if it does not convince you of the futility of our present methods of "correction" nothing will. J. Michael Yates is not soft on crime. He is not soft on anybody. That includes prisoners, prison brass and particularly the media. I don't have enough stars to give to this book! Ed Wildman Honeywood, Ontario August 16, 2001

I picked this book up a few months ago and found I couldnt put it down. Mr. Yates gives a in deepth, raw and humorous look into the canadian penal system and it's prisons. If you like real life prison storys then pick this book up. You wont be sorry!

_The Little Dinosaurs of Ghost Ranch_ by Edwin H. Colbert is a delightful, well-illustrated, and informative book written by the man most responsible for what we know about _Coelophysis bauri_, an important early dinosaur. Writing that one can view this book as a "paleontological case history," Colbert recounted not only the discovery and excavation of the famed mass burial of these little dinosaurs in New Mexico but also what is know of their anatomy, physiology, environment, and what the study of these animals has revealed about dinosaurs in general.

Originally on his way to prospect for fossils in Petrified Forest National Park in June of 1947, George Whitaker and the author (both working for the American Museum of Natural History in New York) and Tom Ierardi decided to investigate a promising fossil deposit on some privately owned land in New Mexico known as Ghost Ranch. The area was known to have produced phytosaur fossils and they only expected to spend a few days there. What instead happened was the beginning of decades of work as Colbert and others over the years came to work on a mass concentration of not "the huge bones of the giant dinosaurs of song and story" but instead the tiny bones of "ancestral dinosaurs."

Colbert described in detail the excavation of these 200 million year old fossils in the "colorful rounded badlands" that so entranced famous painter Georgia O'Keefe (who by the way lived nearby and befriended the scientists). The fossils were "exceedingly fragile," not only because the bones were very small and slender and the leg bones and vertebrae hollow, but because of the nature of their fossilization. They could disintegrate easily into tiny fragments if mishandled. The fossils had to be removed in huge sections instead of relatively thin slabs as the sandstone and siltstone that comprised the Chinle Formation at Ghost Ranch was very friable and liable to collapse. They had to be carefully, painstakingly, and sometimes dangerously removed in huge blocks, coated in thick plaster, burlap bandages, and a supporting framework of wood and then laboriously hauled out of the quarry. Eventually close to thirty blocks were removed from Ghost Ranch.

Of course removing the blocks from the quarry was just the start, as years were spent preparing the blocks. Though generally the lab preparation time and labor on a fossil takes more than ten times the work expended in the field, Colbert estimated that it took something "on the order of twenty to one" for _Coelophysis_. The fossils had to be removed from the rock by hand using jeweler's hammers and small chisels and treated with hardener; even the small, electric vibrating tools, commonly used in paleontology, would quickly reduce the fossils to powder.

Very early in the preparation stage the scientists made discoveries. Some fossils preserved the stomach contents of some of the dinosaurs, only the second time this was known from a carnivorous dinosaur and fascinatingly it revealed that _Coelophysis_ was a cannibal! Other interesting tidbits include the discovery of a "giant" _Coelophysis_ eleven feet long (most were usually six to eight feet; what was the ultimate size limit for this species?) and the fact that in almost all the specimens the lower jaw was tightly locked in place against the skull (evidence that the animals were buried so soon after death that muscles still held the lower jaws tightly in place rather than the skull and jaws becoming separated as is common with dinosaurs).

Colbert provided information about the history of the study of this dinosaur before the Ghost Ranch excavations, centering on David Baldwin of Abiquiu, New Mexico, who found the original _Coelophysis_ fragments in 1881 and Edward Drinker Cope of Philadelphia who first described them in 1887 (first it was placed in genus _Coelurus_ and later in genus _Tanystrophaeus_ before Cope named it _Coelophysis_ from Greek koilos meaning "hollow" and physis meaning "form, nature").

A chapter is spent on a quarry survey, describing the nature of the deposit, the climate at the time, and how the animals might have died and then been quickly buried. Though they apparently died in such numbers due to some catastrophe, there is much disagreement on its nature. Colbert discussed theories relating to volcanic activity (there are no volcanic sediments anywhere near the fossil deposit), poisoning perhaps from drinking water from a highly alkaline pond (unlikely as their bones indicated being deposited and buried by stream currents, not in the still waters of a lake), predator trap (unlikely also, as few individuals are maimed and there is very little disarticulation), and asteroid impact (Ghost Ranch "hardly qualifies for a "Wagnerian twilight"" as it was a local event). Most likely it was due to hunger or thirst from a drought or from drowning while crossing a flooding river.

Another chapter is spent on the anatomy of _Coelophysis_, notably on the key features of its skull and jaws, its vertebra, its tail and the role it played in balance and movement, and its bird-like feet with five toes, only three of which were functional.

A chapter on its lifestyle showed us what tracks attributed to the animal revealed about its physiology and speed (it seems to have been able to reach maximum speeds of fifteen to twenty miles an hour), what analysis of Haversian canals in the bones revealed about its growth rate and physiology, the complicated issue of just what it means to be "warm-blooded," and discussed issues relating to diet, cannibalism, possible congregation in age groups, the size and shape of their eggs, and what their senses might have been like.

Colbert also discussed the ancestors and descendents of _Coelophysis_, how it was one of a very few late Triassic dinosaurs, residents of a largely non-dinosaurian world, and how it established the pattern followed by later small coelurosaurs, ostrich-like struthiomimosaurs, dromaeosaurs, and the tyrannosaurs.

Colbert does not neglect the animals that shared the world with _Coelophysis_ and discussed contemporary amphibians, reptiles, other dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and early mammals.

This is a well-written book that covers the discovery, excavation, and reconstruction of a dinosaur (coelophysis). Discussion centered on this small therapod incorporates broader material, so that the reader gets an understanding of the life and times of other prehistoric creatures in addition to a detailed account of coelophysis

Little Science Big Science was published first in 1963. It was probably the first monograph focusing on a quantitative understanding of the growth of science and was one of the most influential works triggering a new field which can be called the science of science or scientometrics. Price's quantitative analysis and interpretation of data, in an age before computers and large databases, are simply amazing. Main themes are the exponential growth of science, the existence of invisible colleges where scientists in a discipline share information, and how meta-analysis of scientific knowledge can lead to more efficient scientific production.

This book includes Little Science Big Science, and the selected articles of Price published until 1983. Here, a concrete example for an invisible college is given, citation measures of science are discussed and a model is constructed for the productivity of authors in science (and more).

It is a pity for the scientific community at large that this book is not better known. I am sure that all scientists out there will be surprised how the scientific activity in the world, which seems to be a chaotic event steered by the loudest voices and brightest minds, actually obeys very well-defined laws. I recommend to all scientists, if they can get their hands on this book, to at least skim the figures and graphs, and you will have a better understanding of how science works.

Knowledge itself is power. Only scientific knowledge be respectable rather than common-sense knowldge. In this age of knowledge economy, this high-cited classic book should be put to top list of for general public as well as all students. Indeed, big is not good. Little means there is big room to grow. De Solla Price always makes his clear arguements, basing on historical evidence (quatitative) first, then qualitative reasoning.

For people whom are tired of pure qualitative reasoning, this is best book to read. I would like to give this book in the top list higher than others (i.e. Kuhn-T(1962) Scientific Revolution or Polanyi-M(1966) Tacit Dimension.)

Even the high school students are suggested to read to get intial understanding of the history of science. Clear arguement with clear data and tables would appeal all kinds of readers. It is good from quantitative to qualitative. I like the same way in my research.

This is the official NASA history of the Skylab orbital workshop program. Long the dream of spaceflight enthusiasts, space stations became the core mission of both the American and Soviet space programs during the 1970s. From virtually the beginning of the twentieth century, those interested in the human exploration of space have viewed as central to that endeavor the building of a massive Earth-orbital space station that would serve as the jumping off point to the Moon and the planets. Always, space exploration enthusiasts believed, a permanently-occupied space station was a necessary outpost in the new frontier of space. In 1903 Russian schoolteacher Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskiy studied this possibility and argued for the creation of a dramatic wheeled space station that rotated slowly to approximate gravity with centrifugal force. During the 1920s Romanian-German space flight theorist Hermann Oberth and Austrian engineer Hermann Noordung both elaborated on the concept of the orbital space station as a base for voyages into space. In the 1950s, Wernher von Braun also emphasized the role of an orbital space station as a laboratory, observatory, industrial plant, launching platform, dry-dock, and military facility.

Although it did not pursue a space station during the Apollo era, as the program was reaching completion in the 1960s NASA began to forge ahead with a plan to use Apollo technology to realize at least partially the longstanding dream of a space station. What NASA built was a relatively small orbital space platform, called Skylab, in 1973-1974. After initial problems with the workshop, NASA sent three crews to Skylab. During the three missions, a total of nine astronauts occupied the Skylab workshop for a total of 171 days and 13 hours. In Skylab, both the total hours in space and the total hours spent in performance of EVA under microgravity conditions exceeded the combined totals of all of the world's previous space flights up to that time.

Following the final occupied phase of the Skylab mission, ground controllers performed some engineering tests of certain Skylab systems (tests that ground personnel were reluctant to do while astronauts were aboard), positioned the orbital workshop into a stable attitude, and shut down its systems. Unfortunately, on 11 July 1979, Skylab reentered the Earth's atmosphere. The debris scattered from the southeastern Indian Ocean across a sparsely populated section of western Australia. It was an inauspicious ending to the first American space station.

This story is well told in this very fine historical study. The book was published through the Government Printing Office by NASA in 1983. It is now out of print, but available on the second-hand market. For those who do not need a physical copy of it on their shelves, it is also available for downloading free of charge by NASA at http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4208/sp4208.htm courtesy of the NASA History Division.

I really like this book and I found it to be an easy read. The author made everything facinating, even the "waste management system" (toilet). I did have a problem though some pages were missing in the middle of my book (I don't know if it was my copy or if it was a publishing error)overall an excellant read that I would recommend to people @ NASA today so they could see what we could do as todays culture seems to have forgotten.

-Wilfred A. Roberge

This is an excellent book if you are interested in learning the history of the Long Beach Peninsula. The author of the book did a great job researching the area history. Book provides a very nice section of historical pictures relating to the Long Beach Peninsula.

I have lived in the area my entire life and learned quite a bit from the book. A highly recommended pleasure read! Enjoy!

Brian Loos

The Long Beach Peninsula has been a favorite vacation destination of mine for long time and I have been interested in the history of this unique place for years. This book is a must for anyone traveling to the peninsula or for anyone who has lived there for years.

An outstanding achievement. It's hard to believe the number of industries that have come and gone in the towns and hamlets of Columbia County. And it's great to be able to use Stott's information to locate and see the old industrial and railroad sites!

In "Looking For Work: Industrial Archeology In Columbia County, New York", industrial historian Peter H. Stott draws upon twenty years of research to trace the economic storyline of Columbia County, a New York State region that is comprised of eighteen towns and the city of Hudson. Now admired principally for its scenic beauty and agricultural character, Stott's focus is with an examination of 134 still-visible industrial buildings and sites. Utilizing historical and geological research in published literature and periodicals, archival deeds, mortgages, business records, insurance documents, and census data, Stott traces the rise and decline of this county's industrialization and mid-twentieth century decline. From early sawmills and knitting mills, to turnpike tollhouses, railroad stations, utility plants, furnaces and kilns, processing plants, and more, "Looking For Work" is comprehensive in its scope and enhanced with filed photographs and 140 other illustrations. An original work of seminal scholarship, "Looking For Work details the emergence and growth of local industry as revealed in surviving sites and structures throughout Columbia County making it highly recommended both as a contribution to Urban Studies, American History, and Industrial Archaeology collections and a template for similar studies of other American communities.

"History can provide us with painful, though necessary, lessons that will help us come to better understand why the dominant religious cultures of North America have often failed tragically to listen with a nonpatronizing and open heart and mind to the story of Native Americans. Well-written history can bring us to our senses. Fr. Vincent J. McNallly, professor of church history at Sacred Heart School of Theology, near Milwaukee, offers such history. It is a strongly critical but generally objective account of a missionary order's long-term relationship with the Native people of British Columbia....His account, however, is prototypical of the missionary story in many other places. Its lessons are timely and serve to illuminate a wide ecumenical audience....Many remain in denial, even today, of the truth and the serious damage that actually resulted. It is clear that McNally has an honorable and constructive purpose. He strongly affirms Christian faith and evangelization. Yet, he believes Christians must come to terms with their missionary history. The church needs to own its mistakes, learn from them and undertake reconcilation, renewal and healing with those who were so often misunderstood and hurt. McNally's book provides...an important and serious wake-up call...To read this book is to be confronted with a reality, shorn of propaganda and pious sentiment, that is both a bitter pill and a harbinger of hope....Pope John Paul recently reminded all Catholics that "grave forms of injustice" have been done in the church's past in the name of the gospel of Jesus Christ....Bigotry and hate, narrowness and intolerance, have more often been reflected in the missions than a gospel message of radical inclusiveness. The gospel, not the institutional church, is central to the Christian message. It is time to make amends and to begin anew." Reviewed by The Rev. Wayne A. Holst, lecturer in religion and culture at the University of Calgary in the "National Catholic Reporter" Sping Books section, February 2, 2001, p. 38.

Comprehensive, candid and critical-McNally's coverage of Catholic Missions and churches in British Columbia is both insightful and wide-ranging. His treatment of the motives, methods, and impact of the missionaries' residential schools on First Nations children and communities is especially good.

Review by (back cover of book) by J.R. Miller, History, University of Saskatchewan

Even people with no interest in poetry will be touched by the letters of Amy Clampitt, who lived in New York for forty years before she became an instant celebrity at 63 when Knopf published her first book of poems. Late bloomers: take heart. Clampitt was there before you. She worked as a literary editor and a librarian, and led a quiet, humble, thoughtful life. Her letters are marvels of energy and observation. As a Quaker, she participated in political activism in the 60s, and had a strong sense of social obligation. In addition, she wrote (both prose and poetry) like an angel.

Aside from the pleasure this excellent collection of her letters will bring to fans of Amy Clampitt's poetry, real delight is in store for any reader who loves books and taking life seriously but not grimly. Amy Clampitt came late to being recognized as a poet but she always had the integrity of an artist. Unusually modest, unusually interested in the world outside her self, her correspondence tells the classic American story of a bright young woman from the Midwest who moves to New York City. But instead of finding misery and disillusionment, Amy Clampitt found a rich life of the mind, new discoveries to make about the city and its inhabitants, and, at last, the genre she wrote best in and loved--poetry. She was given to finding happiness in her relationships and her work, and when acclaim and the acquaintance of the literary world came to her at the age of 63, she was both too old and too sensible to be anything but observant, grateful, and thrilled. She had lived in New York for years with the strategy that "underdressing" kept one comfortable. As a poet, as a woman, she was anything but underdressed--she was glorious--but in a world of peacocks, her lack of narcissism shines. At the end of the book, you feel as if you've lost a friend. The introduction by editor Willard Spiegelman is informative and graceful, and the selection of letters just right.

I don't care to duplicate the academic praise seen in the above reviews. But I can tell you simply that Dennis Dalton was my professor in a class on Non-Violence at Columbia Univ. and it changed my life. At a period of time when I was an atheist, believing that all religion was just a set of rules to control people, D. Dalton demonstrated through the example of Ghandi that the Love and Truth force can be a powerful vehicle for change. This completely changed my view point from victim to activist. One could actually have spirituality from within, instead of imposed upon him or her from without. A tool, not a punishment. The 'truth' one has seems to be irrelevant; it is one's passion and belief and willingness to stand behind that Truth that triumphs. If it is True in the archetypal sense, others will join (not follow) you. And by direct action at the heart level, you can touch and change nations. This is not about passive resistance; this is about direct non-violent confrontation. It is about appealing to the best, the highest nature, of that which you confront. He showed me that one can change the world with one's heart; that truth can win. And now I just wait for Dennis to write the definative book on Emma Goldman... Truly a great teacher and initiator of the inner spark of one's own truth force. And with Ghandi as his guiding archetype, this book should be on the reading list of every activist.

What a brilliant analysis of Gandhi's philosophy! This is an insightful collection of essays that illuminates the essential relationship between Gandhi's theory of non-violence and his practice of the same. Dennis Dalton uses two powerful examples: the Salt March of 1930 and the fast to end Partition-related violence in 1947. There is a fascinating conclusion between Gandhi's ideas and those of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, illustrating the relevance of Gandhi's thought to present day issues.

This book is great. It gave me a new way of understanding political life, including my own vascilations between activity, withdrawal, apathy. It also helped me to understand the dramatic changes in American political and cultural life during the past several decades. If you have an interest in understanding The Sixties and its aftermath, then you will benefit from reading this excellent book.

This book got overlooked by most of the media, but it's a keeper--a terrifically useful look at the boundaries between social committment and ordinary life. If we want to get more people involved, we need to understand what's holding them back, and how our efforts can overcome this. Making History is a wonderful contribution to this task.