Columbia Books

This is an excellent book - deeply researched scholarship, but also accessible to general readers interested in this critical aspect of ancient Roman society, namely how the Romans conceived of and used wealth. In a society as money-obsessed as our own, how could this book fail to fascinate?

This book is highly recommended for those who seek a deeper, more nuanced understanding of Roman society. In laying out the scope and variety of economic life in the Late Republic, the author not only conveys a trove of information--he also shows that we can't truly understand the ancient world by our own standards. How the Romans conceived of and embodied wealth (pecunia) seems at the same time more primitive and more flexible than our own, highly monetized culture. Simply to learn how famous figures like Cato the Elder secured their investments through ingenious financial devices is fascinating. Though expensive, the book should also not be missed by serious coin collectors who may be seeking a broader understanding of what they are collecting. A message to the publisher: an affordable, paperback edition is badly needed!

This is an author that knows her stuff! Thanks for a well researched, fascinating read!

Mara Cherkasky's book on the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington D.C.(2007), so inspired me that I took time off on a late, cold afternoon earlier this week to walk the "Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail" through the community. The trail is a 17 stop walking tour that takes about two hours to complete. The tour comes with a guidebook prepared by the D.C. Office of Cultural Tourism. Cherkasky helped design this walking tour, and it tracks many of the people and places discussed in her book. The book and the tour taught me a great deal about the city in which I have lived for 35 years.

The Mount Pleasant area is located about two miles north of the White House on the 16th Street corridor. It is bounded on the south by Harvard Street on the north and west by Rock Creek, and on the east by 16th Street. Mount Pleasant features many narrow, winding and hilly streets, in contrast to the grids that prevail in the rest of Washington D.C. Even though it is close to the center of the city, Mount Pleasant has a certain isolation to it, tucked in as it is behind 16th Street and Rock Creek Park. The booklet for the walking tour I followed aptly describes Mount Pleasant as a "Village in the City."

For me, the Mount Pleasant area signifies a lively, diverse community in which people of many origins,backgrounds and religious faiths, including whites, African Americans, Latinos, and East European immigrants, share their culture and bring the best of their experiences to create a neighborhood with place and purpose. But Mount Pleasant has seen many changes over the years. Beginning as a private estate, Mount Pleasant then was sold to and settled by veterans following the Civil War. For much of its history, Mount Pleasant was a middle to upper class white enclave. Over the years, African Americans and refuges from Latin America moved to Mount Pleasant, attracted in part by the home prices which tended to be less expensive than elsewhere in Washington D.C. With the riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968, Mount Pleasant experienced difficult times, but the community restored itself through local effort. During the 1970 and 1980, Mount Pleasant shimmered with community activism. The area remains diverse and alive today with large old homes, many churches and landmarks, and a colorful retail district on Mount Pleasant Street. There is, however, a hint of returning gentrification. Mount Pleasant was also famous for its streetcars, which were replaced by buses in 1961. The community observed a period of mourning when its streetcars were abandoned, a feeling I understand well.

Cherkaskys' book picks up momentum as it moves along. In five chapters of photographs and commentary, she describes the early estate history of the community, the building phase of the late 1800s, businesses, organizations, and people in Mount Pleasant's days as a "streetcar suburb", everyday life in Mount Pleasant in the mid-20th Century, and the community's current status as an urban village, which Cherkasky describes aptly as a "Distinctive Place in the World."

The most impressive landmark to me was the old "House of Mercy" located deep in Mount Pleasant near Rock Creek Park. (p. 40) The House of Mercy functioned for many years as a home for wayward girls, including unwed mothers and young prostitutes. After several changes in its roles, the property today has the more pedestrian role of a day care center. The House of Mercy is about mid-point in the walking tour. It is also the landmark most difficult to find, and I almost passed it over in my walk as twilight turned to dark. Mount Pleasant was once a center of music of every kind from hillbilly to the blues. Bo Diddley and Jimmy Dean were among the many singers who called Mount Pleasant home (pp. 89-92). Mount Pleasant Street teemed with nightlife. The area features many small distinctive parks, including the Park Road Triangle Park (p 93) and Lamont Park, (p. 126), a former turning point for streetcars. Streetcars once were everywhere in Mount Pleasant and they receive great attention in this book. Mount Pleasant Street, with its bakeries, shops, restaurants, Latino bodegas, community celebrations and nightlife is at the heart of the community and of the book. I enjoyed reading about these and other places in Cherkasky's book and then seeing them for myself when I walked the community trail.

I have read several books in the "Images of America" series that describe various D.C. neighborhoods. This book is the best I have found in the series on Washington D.C. in terms of showing a neighborhood in its complexity and history, rather than as a collection of interesting old buildings. The book and my walking tour gave me a fresh and inspired look at a familiar city.

Robin Friedman

Roy Innes is a native of British Columbia, where he grew up and attended the University of British Columbia. He worked in Vancouver as a medical doctor and retired in Gabriola Island, where he "reads and writes to his heart's content." He also enjoys hunting and hiking.

RCMP Corporal Paul Blakemore spends most of his time catching speeders at the sharp right-hand bend in the Crowsnest Highway. He loves hunting, fishing, and the laid back life of a rural setting. His partner is Constable Ernie Downs, who is a gentle but capable gay police man. Their world shatters as the report of a dead corpse, as yet unidentified, comes blaring over their police radio. The corpse turns out to be a prickly environmental protester who came from a moneyed background. Dr. Zachary Benson performs the autopsy and when he lays eyes on Heather McTavish, star reporter for the Bear Greek Bulletin, sparks fly. The superiors in Vancouver decide to bring in Inspector Mark Coswell to oversee the case, and in the meantime Ethel Roberts, who is Heather's best friend, is found murdered and her home is torched. A third murder intensifies the manhunt, and Heather becomes the probable next victim on the murderer's list even as the motive becomes clearer:

"'It was really a tragedy,' he recounted. 'The boy was just trying to earn some money between university semesters. He was working with a crew that was clearing trails in what is now the Carmanha Provincial park. He was bucking a big windfall fir when his chainsaw hit a spike in the tree causing a tooth to break off the chain. Somehow the fragment flew under his face shield and lacerated his right carotid artery. He bled to death.'"

Written in a straightforward manner, Roy Innes obeys all the rules in turning out the perfect mystery. The murderer is there in the background; pertinent clues abound; and the police have their problems tracking their man. He includes a captivating love story, his characters are ordinary people just trying to get by, and the killer has a human face. There is no shortage of action, and the book reads easily and has a refreshing twist. Innes is a mystery talent who should keep cranking out his product. An excellent read!

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

Roy Innes is a native of British Columbia, where he grew up and attended the University of British Columbia. He worked in Vancouver as a medical doctor and retired in Gabriola Island, where he "reads and writes to his heart's content." He also enjoys hunting and hiking.

RCMP Corporal Paul Blakemore spends most of his time catching speeders at the sharp right-hand bend in the Crowsnest Highway. He loves hunting, fishing, and the laid back life of a rural setting. His partner is Constable Ernie Downs, who is a gentle but capable gay police man. Their world shatters as the report of a dead corpse, as yet unidentified, comes blaring over their police radio. The corpse turns out to be a prickly environmental protester who came from a moneyed background. Dr. Zachary Benson performs the autopsy and when he lays eyes on Heather McTavish, star reporter for the Bear Greek Bulletin, sparks fly. The superiors in Vancouver decide to bring in Inspector Mark Coswell to oversee the case, and in the meantime Ethel Roberts, who is Heather's best friend, is found murdered and her home is torched. A third murder intensifies the manhunt, and Heather becomes the probable next victim on the murderer's list even as the motive becomes clearer:

"'It was really a tragedy,' he recounted. 'The boy was just trying to earn some money between university semesters. He was working with a crew that was clearing trails in what is now the Carmanha Provincial park. He was bucking a big windfall fir when his chainsaw hit a spike in the tree causing a tooth to break off the chain. Somehow the fragment flew under his face shield and lacerated his right carotid artery. He bled to death.'"

Written in a straightforward manner, Roy Innes obeys all the rules in turning out the perfect mystery. The murderer is there in the background; pertinent clues abound; and the police have their problems tracking their man. He includes a captivating love story, his characters are ordinary people just trying to get by, and the killer has a human face. There is no shortage of action, and the book reads easily and has a refreshing twist. Innes is a mystery talent who should keep cranking out his product. An excellent read!

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

"My only Son", is the story of Vinny Denucci, the son of Sonny Denucci, the head of a New York organized crime family and the " Boss of Bosses" of the five (5) Mafia families of New York. The story begins when Vinny is fourteen (14), a naive, intelligent, good-natured boy, who does not fully understand what his father does for a living. Vinny has dreams of becoming a lawyer when he reaches adulthood. Sonny is a ruthless crime lord, who wants his only son to be his successor as head of the crime family. Felicia, Vinny's mother, is a strong willed individual who has grown tired of living the life of a crime boss's wife, and wants her son, with whom she is extremely close, to follow his dreams to a life outside the family.

Sonny is so outraged and threatened by Felicia's interference with his plans for Vinny that he takes Felicia's life, and with the help of a crooked New York Detective, is able to cover up his horrible crime. With Felicia out of the way, Sonny drags Vinny into the life he and Felicia so vehemently wanted him to avoid. This story, through its many twists and turns, traces the life of Vinny as he is initiated into the family, becomes a " mobster", and eventually winds up in prison.

While Vinny is in prison his grandmother Gina, Felicia's mother, is approached by an FBI Agent Rick Carr, who tells her that Felicia's death was not natural, as had been reported, and that he suspects Sonny was involved with her death. Once Gina relates this information to Vinny upon his release from prison, he makes the life altering decision to work with the FBI to try to bring down his Father's empire, in order to avenge his beloved mother's death. The story culminates in a heart stopping confrontation between Vinny and Sonny that will have the readers on the edge of their seats.

"My only Son", is the story of Vinny Denucci, the son of Sonny Denucci, the head of a New York organized crime family and the " Boss of Bosses" of the five (5) Mafia families of New York. The story begins when Vinny is fourteen (14), a naive, intelligent, good-natured boy, who does not fully understand what his father does for a living. Vinny has dreams of becoming a lawyer when he reaches adulthood. Sonny is a ruthless crime lord, who wants his only son to be his successor as head of the crime family. Felicia, Vinny's mother, is a strong willed individual who has grown tired of living the life of a crime boss's wife, and wants her son, with whom she is extremely close, to follow his dreams to a life outside the family.

Sonny is so outraged and threatened by Felicia's interference with his plans for Vinny that he takes Felicia's life, and with the help of a crooked New York Detective, is able to cover up his horrible crime. With Felicia out of the way, Sonny drags Vinny into the life he and Felicia so vehemently wanted him to avoid. This story, through its many twists and turns, traces the life of Vinny as he is initiated into the family, becomes a " mobster", and eventually winds up in prison.

While Vinny is in prison his grandmother Gina, Felicia's mother, is approached by an FBI Agent Rick Carr, who tells her that Felicia's death was not natural, as had been reported, and that he suspects Sonny was involved with her death. Once Gina relates this information to Vinny upon his release from prison, he makes the life altering decision to work with the FBI to try to bring down his Father's empire, in order to avenge his beloved mother's death. The story culminates in a heart stopping confrontation between Vinny and Sonny that will have the readers on the edge of their seats.

Neighborhood Tokyo is one of only a handful of books in English that offers a realistic and insightful portrait of the lives of ordinary people in this vibrant global metropolis. It provides an intimate and well-grounded account of the daily life of a particular neighborhood located near the heart of the city. Yet, in addressing issues that apply to numerous other downtown neighborhoods, it gives us a sense of the organization and dynamics of daily life throughout much of central Tokyo.

The book is based on the dissertation research of Theodore Bestor, currently Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, who spent more than two years in the 1980s in gMiyamoto-chōh (a pseudonym). Although his fieldwork was conducted before Japanfs bubble economy burst in 1990, the main thrust of the book is still relevant to an understanding of life in Tokyo today. Bestorfs work challenges the common view that Tokyo, unlike Western cities, is at its core a jumble of gurban villagesh in which communities are patterned after the shitamachi (glow city,h or downtown) of Early Modern, pre-industrial Japan. Shitamachi and the townsman way of life, both now and then, is said to be more colorful, boisterous and down to earth, and to have stronger communal ties than newer and more bourgeois sections of the city. The continuity between the shitamachi of today and yesterday is a source of great pride for many Tokyoites.

Bestor argues that this popular view is too simplistic. He asserts that social patterns in present day shitamachi are not so much romantic remnants from a pre-industrial and semi-fedualistic age as they are the products of an ongoing urbanization which began with Japanfs industrialization. Places like Miyamoto-chō were not even part of Tokyo in the Edo period, while many of the traditional areas of Edofs shitamachi, like Nihonbashi and Kyōbashi, are now sparsely populated sections of the Central Business District. The so-called traditional urban life thought to have been carried over from the past in isolation from the rest of modern Japan in fact derives from the interaction between neighborhood and city government, as well as from responses to gnationwide currents of political, economic, and social changeh (4). Chōkai (neighborhood associations), for example, which are instrumental to the closely knit shitamachi life, were formed to deal with rapid population turnover and gthe evils thought to be inherent in the new urban industrial ageh (69).

Why then do so many people believe that certain neighborhoods like Miyamoto-chō resemble the shitamachi of pre-industrial Edo in their customs, values, sense of community, and social structure? Bestor answers that over the years people have manipulated ideas about the past in order to push agendas of social control and distinction. By linking the present to a venerable past, i.e., by representing their neighborhoods as the inheritors of shitamachi traditions, the old middle class of chōnin (artisans and shopkeepers) can maintain a certain pride and autonomy vis-à-vis the city government and the new (and higher status) middle class of white collar salaried workers. Bestor calls this manipulation of ideas about the past, gtraditionalismh (10, 258).

Neighborhood Tokyo is a mainstay in courses about Tokyo and continues to be highly regarded by scholars of Japan. The relative absence of a female perspective has been viewed by some to be a short-coming. This is a fair critique as it raises the question of whose daily life this book portrays. This is not to say that Bestorfs analysis is invalid, however, for much of his analysis of traditionalism and the relationship of the neighborhood to broader political, economic, and social forces involves women as well as men. Nonetheless, a Tokyo neighborhood study that focuses on women is still an open topic for research!

One would also like to know more about the discursive construction of the old middle class as the gbearers of a great tradition,h and why it is not just the old middle class itself that romanticizes shitamachi life, but those in the new middle class who do so as well (witness the great popularity of the Tora san series). How did Edo chōnin culture gain so much value in the first place? Was it due mainly to novelists and other artists who channeled a romanticized shitamachi life to the general populace? Perhaps this is something that is already well-known to historians of Japan and scholars of Japanese literature, but it would have been helpful to the non-specialist to include an explanation. Finally, in emphasizing sharp breaks in historical development (e.g., 1920s urbanization, WW II, and the arrival of new people and new institutions) Bestor may leave the reader with the impression that there has been no continuity at all.

Neighborhood Tokyo is significant in the discourse on Japan not only because little had been written from an anthropological perspective about urban Japan at the time of its publication, but also because it illustrates class differences in Japanese society. It thus flies in the face of ubiquitous claims of a relatively classless Japan. It is also an excellent and early example of efforts within anthropology to bring more of a historical and political economic perspective to sociocultural analysis, as well as of efforts in research design to get beyond older notions of bounded field sites. More broadly, Bestorfs book contributes to our understanding of modernization and sociocultural change. Bestor shows how the cultural and social differences we encounter in other countries are not simply differences that extend back into the hazy past of the pre-modern era, but are to a significant degree the products of the modern era itself.

This book is a must for anybody interested in Tokyofs shitamachi or urban Japan in general. Though it is a scholarly text written mainly for an academic audience, thanks to Bestorfs lucid and lively prose style, it is also a very readable and entertaining account filled with many colorful and humorous vignettes.

Neighborhood Tokyo is now one of my favorite books. I've only taken one cultural anthropology class and the study of modern anthropology has always fascinated me, yet my knowledge of it is limited and I'm turned off by books written for fellow anthropologists. An author like Bestor is then exactly what I've been looking for. That's not to say he writes below his level of intelligence or simplifies his study. Bestor uses terminology not meant for the layman, and a basic knowledge of Japan itself is almost required to really understand the book.

But it's the way that Bestor writes that really makes Neighborhood Tokyo for everyone. I can guarantee you that not one page you will find dull or irrelevant to the topic. The best way to describe it is as a non-fiction book that follows the unspoken guidelines of successful fiction. He manages to develop Miyamoto-chan's residence like main characters in a novel, and even throws in foreshadowing and plot-twists where he can.

Bestor's main purpose is to give outsiders, layman and anthropologists both, a better idea of the life of urban Tokyo's populace, and to dispose of stereotypes associated with them. Having lived in the neighborhood of his study for three years, he is able to give us a far more personal look at an extremely complex society that no other study could have. It's impossible to even touch upon a single subject that he covers, for it would inevitably give a small impression of something that is connected with every other subject in the book.

If you can't guess, I'm having trouble even describing the book properly in a general sense.

All I can really say to get my point across is that you must read this book. There isn't anyone that I would not recommend this book to, and plenty to whom I would highly recommend it. If you are interested in history, World War II, anthropology, Japan, modern society, food, small business, traffic problems, the environment, the 80's, religion, politics, anime, or have a few days of free time and nothing else to do, this book is a requirement for you.

In fact, I'm expecting a book report about it on my desk by next Tuesday.

Get started.

Sarah Pike's 2004 study is an accessible, enjoyable, very general overview of New Age and Contemporary Pagan religion in the United States. It is intended for students and interested non-students, rather than the religionist per se, and is written from a balanced, critical point of view. Her introduction provides a quick guide to most other major works of this kind, including Graham Harvey's study, and is a vast improvement over other, more polemical studies, such as Philip Davis's "The Goddess Unmasked." Pike's biggest challenge, and a controversial one, is to include yet separate New Age and Pagan religion from each other. Her efforts are probably more successful in this area than other attempts to either totally distinguish them or collapse them together.

What makes Pike's study different is that her goal is not to provide a comprehensive guide to traditions and practices. Rather, her work concentrates on situating the contours of these religions in an American historical context, and demonstrating their continuity, as well as divergence, from other aspects of American Religious History. As well her main areas of investigation are trends in in healing, gender/sexuality, apocalypticism/millenialism, and in the ethics or style of practice, rather than content or specific denominations. This is significant because New Age and Neopagan religions are radically decentralized movements. Lacking a single charasmatic leader, or even one authoritative organization, these movements are for the most part, difficult to study. Unlike early century or 19th century esotericisms, they lack founding texts, or single leaders.

Pike begins by spending a chapter compressing and extending, in parts, America's unchurched religious traditions, including Spiritualist trance, which she considers a significant antecedent to Pagan possession and New Age channeling. We know that Spiritualist demonstrations were attended by many, including Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and James Fenimore Cooper. One of the major ways spirits communicated in Spiritualism was by "rapping," or making noises then interpreted in a narrative fashion. As well, Spiritualist publications and proponents were widely known to engage in ethical advocacy of issues of the day, including the treatment of Amerindians, liberal causes such as death penalty reform, and wage reform, causes advocated by many (but not all) New Agers and Pagans. While discussing Neolithic and Jungian approaches in Pagan myth, Pike firmly locates these traditions as emerging from mid-20th century revivals and transformations of 19th century (and earlier modes of religious expression), even as many Pagans trace their deities directly to classical sources. Pike correctly traces the focus on personalization in this form of religion to the highly personal, ecstatic, and optimistic ways Americans have historically related to sacred power, such as reformist movements and the Great Awakenings. One debatable point is her location of the "birth" of NeoPaganism in the United States with the founding of Feraferia and the Church of All Worlds in 1967.

While many New Age practitioners and Pagans tend to pursue worship and transformation in an entirely private way, there are those who pursue a highly political and even oppositional form of public worship. In Ottawa in 2001 at the World Bank meeting protests, a Pagan group formed a "living river" as part of the protest. At the School of the Americas Protest in Columbus, Georgia, in the same month, several religious groups, including a group of Witches, conducted an "Earth-Based Blessing." Issac Bonewits has been regularly promoting the use of spellwork in encouraging people to participate in the Democratic process in the United States, calling for collective simultaneous action over the Internet, and teaching political ritual workshops at Pagan Festivals. Others take a wider view of activism beyond the nation-state. Some groups take political action in the form of ecological magic, or conducting rituals as threatened natural sites. As well, some of these sites may be contested with indigenous peoples, which adds a whole other dimension and layer of complexity to this issue. Gender activism is particularly important, given the connection to feminism which transformed the movements in the 1960's. Pike as well discusses the tensions between Goddess as mythic symbol, feminine life-force, structuring reality, and ontological literal truth, and clearly debunks much of the fantastic myths surrounding sexuality and its relationship to worship and practice.

Healing plays a central role for New Agers and Neopagans, according to Pike. The influence of wholism and health movements in the United States has a long history in religious communities as well. But its interpenetration with the New Age and Neopagan movements was key to the development of each during the 1970's. Religiously, the older inherited occult notions of correspondence and interconnectedness promote analogical healing of "macrocosm" and "microcosm." The increasing emphasis on a spiritual side to science, including Hindu and Chinese interpolations with quantum mechanics and relativity, gave weight to the increasing view that life and its environment interact at the levels of subtle threads, layers, and relationships of energy. Herbalism continues to be common, with its ties into folk medicine and vernacular lore, while auric healing and direct manipulation/transformation of subtle energies, at the other end of the spectrum, is easily as well known. Sometimes energy manipulation via earthen means combines these notions, such as in crystal healing. Deities may also be part of the healing process. Nuturing powers may be called upon, but ones of fierce defense, and regeneration, such as Kali, are commonplace as well. In any case, Pike continues to make the point that self-exploration and self-understanding are in many cases, foundational to New Age or Pagan forms of healing, both in the sense of deconstruction and regeneration.

Apocalyticism is treated by Pike in a single chapter. The scope of the spectrum she explores again ranges from a totalistic immediate shift in the physical environment to personal transformation. There is more than some elitism among New Age practictioners and Neopagans who see themselves as part of a vanguard that will help usher in the elite, and a corresponding underlying concern that those dragging their feet, so to speak, may not end up with a share in this future world, or paradigm. Pike locates much of her discussion of Pagan Sacred Geography, or dedicated sacred lands, to this topic.

Highly recommended for the student, general reader, or historian of American Religion. Advanced practitioners may find much of the non-historical material redundant. Pike includes a resource guide for those interested in continuing their study in this area, either in terms of scholarship or practice.

As a fellow academic in sociology and religion, I am familiar with Pike's work in general. She is an excellent scholar and one of the foremost authorities on alternative religion. However, I will spare you all the tedium of academic discourse and instead make one critique: the book is mostly about new age and neopagan religions as manifested on the west coast of the US. As a scholar of midwest alternative religion, I think her book would benefit greatly from a visit to Chicago and Detroit for example, where paganism and other forms of alternative religion are equally manifest--but with some significant differences. Other areas of the country likely exhibit unique characteristics as well. Still, I strongly recommend the book for academic readers as well as practitioners and other students of religion.

RECEIVED PROMPLY AND IN GOOD CONDITION

I have spent a great deal of time, over decades, studying the history of my home, New York City. Some of the great works are written by scholars familiar to students of Gotham's history: Wallace, Burroughs, Jackson, Bender, et al., and the list of biographers of New York's most famous and influential citizens would fill pages. But, without fanfare, in the background, Edward K. Spann has written some of the most remarkable and comprehensive histories about New York City.

I first read his "Gotham at War" some years back, and it was a real eye-opener to New York's complicated role during the Civil War. (See my review.) "The New Metropolis: 1840-1857" is no less a revelation. This era is hardly noted in many studies; New York during the Revolution, the Erie Canal's construction, and certainly the Civil War and thereafter, have been fodder for many great historians. But Professor Spann has tackled the two decades (more or less) that really turned New York City from a big city to a metropolis.

These pages are populated by the great financiers and great swindlers; brilliant civil leaders and corrupt politicians; people with the best intentions (who usually never got a chance to complete their dreams) and people with nothing but personal gain in their sights (who usually did fulfill their greedy wishes). The "characters" of whom I'd always wanted to know more about--like Fernando Wood and Charles Loring Brace--are given the spotlights they have so long deserved.

But behind it all is a nameless, faceless character: the furious dynamics of New York City. Professor Spann's conclusion that, in spite of the inept political system, turbulent financial markets, intolerance toward the poor, the Blacks, and the immigrants, and the self-centered hunger of most New Yorkers, somehow, Gotham managed to take care of most of its citizens, and draw tremendous political, economic and cultural resources into its borders.

Professor Spann's research is impeccable, and his conclusion hard to debate. This is a dazzling, encyclopedic--but not overwhelming--volume that belongs on the bookshelf of everybody who considers him/herself a student of New York City and America.

This book fast-paced, well-written, and peopled with interesting characters. A thoroughly enjoyable read for folks who love mysteries, and this one is all the more satisfying because it takes on an important social issue: animal abuse. In addition to having crafted her story skilfully, the author handles language beautifully -- the book is full of delightful turns of phrase and striking imagery-- not what you'd expect in a quick reading mystery novel. I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.

In this Lambda Award winning first of the Caitlin Reece series, the wisecracking Victoria, British Columbia PI is called on to investigate the death of an operative placed in an illegal research lab by an animal advocacy group named Ninth Life. Feminist Bookstore News said of this book when it appeared in 1988: "A very accomplished first novel, distinguished by an elegant flair for description and an ovbious love of the language. This is a stunning first effort." I have to agree. This novel is head and shoulders above so many of the "women's mysteries" on the market -- it has a terrific heroine, great writing, and an important issue -- animal rights. Her secondary characters are terrific, too: her cats Repo and Jeoffrey, her Vietnamese friend Gray Ng, her mysterious computer hacker friend Francis the Ferrett, and her protege Lester. The Victoria locales are true-to-life: read all the books in her series

As exemplified in song by Woodie Guthrie when he extolled the virtues of the great dams on the Columbia River and the subsequent development of irrigated agriculture, man's focus on the Columbia Plateau has been on how it can serve him. Now a new book has emerged that explores the geology, soils, flora and fauna of the region and its shrub-steppe ecosystems. This book serves as primer for all who would seek to understand these natural systems...a starting point for further exploration, both on the ground and in the regional libraries. The book is a gentle reminder of the natural richness of this region and the need to preserve the remaining habitat for future generations so that the land can continue to serve man, but in a different way, enriching our lives through the knowledge that soils derived from the harsh reality of volcanic eruption in conjunction with simple associations of grasses and shrubs can form the basis for a complex and enduring living system.

As exemplified in song by Woodie Guthrie when he extolled the virtues of the great dams on the Columbia River and the subsequent development of irrigated agriculture, man's focus on the Columbia Plateau has been on how it can serve him. Now a new book has emerged that explores the geology, soils, flora and fauna of the region and its shrub-steppe ecosystems. This book serves as primer for all who would seek to understand these natural systems...a starting point for further exploration, both on the ground and in the regional libraries. The book is a gentle reminder of the natural richness of this region and the need to preserve the remaining habitat for future generations so that the land can continue to serve man, but in a different way, enriching our lives through the knowledge that soils derived from the harsh reality of volcanic eruption in conjunction with simple associations of grasses and shrubs can form the basis for a complex and enduring living system.

First, it is a mystery to me why this title doesn't appear from search words "Tlingit, Haida or Salish" since its content goes far beyond Indian Painting/art. While Indian painting, specifically house fronts and interior screens (dying arts enjoying a resurgence) are extremely well covered and illustrated in this book Malin adeptly intertwines culture, geography and history which makes these art forms come alive and take on meaning beyond 'art for art's sake.' This book could have been complete with just the 120 pages of fantastic color and black and white picture and illustrations -- that combined with 160 pages detailing and clearly explaining geography, culture and cultural influences and historical information relating to the Northwest Coast tribes of Alaska and Canada (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Tsimshian, Bella Coola, Kwakiutl, Salish and Nuu chaa nulth) make this a "must" for anyone interested in these tribes -- either in their art or culture and history! Art was integral to the daily life of these natives...tools made and used for daily subsistence and living were artistically fashioned using the crests "owned" by each clan. Social rank and wealth were at the heart of exterior house painting and interior screens. The author's 55 year fascination with the tribes of the northwest coast is clearly evident in this book.

This is one of my top-5 books about Northwest Coast artwork. It is really two books in one.

The first half of the book goes into all sorts of information about the Northwest Coast tribes, including where and how they lived, and on and on. The tone occasionally is a bit more academic than I'd prefer, but for the most part is well-written, easy to read, and very interesting.

The second half of the book is page after page after page of Northwest Coast artwork examples. To be honest, I'd have thought the book was worth the price even without the first half. The artwork section is wonderful, with a really nice variety of examples, And the layout of the book (semi-landscape) allows the author to show us much larger versions than we normally see of this type of art.

This is especially true for the things this books features (house fronts and interior screens), which naturally are much wider than they are high. I definitely recommend this book for someone building a collection of books about Northwest Coast INdians and Art.