University of Missouri Books

Experienced outdoorsman Charles Farmer presents The Best Of Fishing, Hunting, Camping, And Boating In Missouri: Tips From An Outdoor Enthusiast, a primer of basic techniques and strategies to get the most out of one's wilderness experience in the Show-Me State. From where to find the premier fishing lakes and trout parks, to advice for which fishing lures to use and how to fish with kids, optimal habitats for hunting, various Missouri hunting clubs, camping checklists and safety tips, boating basics, and much more, The Best of Fishing, Hunting, Camping, And Boating In Missouri is a superb primer. Black-and-white photographs embellish this plain-terms introduction to the joy of experiencing what Missouri has to offer.

This memoir is as compelling as a novel. It describes the author's stay in Moscow and St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) as an English teacher in 1982, and in particular her romance with Kolya, a Russian living in St. Petersburg. She describes a return trip the following summer to see if the relationship had a future, and I was completely engrossed by the story. This is a very candid memoir, and Alberts is very honest about her own insecurities. In addition, the memoir is an accurate portrayal of life in the Soviet Union (at least according to my wife, who spent her first forty years there, and who also read the book).

In Beyond the Missouri, Richard Etulain demonstrates how the American West is, and has long been, a complex region characterized by change. In his comprehensive and engaging study, Etulain examines the changing inhabitants, social patterns, and industries of the West. Creating more than a basic narrative, Etulain discusses how public perception of the West has evolved through the use of multiple mediums.

The earliest known inhabitants of the West included a variety of Native tribes. After centuries of establishing unique cultures and societies, the Native population began to decline with the first contact with Europeans in the 16th century. Spanish, Russian, British, and later Mexican and American interests attempted to exert control over all or parts of the West, in the process physically and socially displacing the previous inhabitants.

During the 19th century, predominantly Anglo Americans migrated to the West as trappers, prospectors, miners, and businessmen. In addition to changing the human aspect of the West, these settlers altered the West that surrounded them. Trappers reduced various animal populations, some to the brink of extinction. Prospectors and miners changed the landscape of the West by boring into the land and engaging in the destructive practice of hydraulic mining. Many businessmen prospered for brief periods in the many boomtowns that emerged throughout the region, while others enjoyed the growth of towns like Denver and San Francisco that would remain important regional centers.

The growing and urbanizing West remained a virtual colony dependent on the East until World War II. During the war, the federal government awarded a large number of defense and support contracts to multiple regions of the West. The resulting inflow of people and money transformed the West into an independent region with its own unique identity that continues to evolve today.

One of Etulain's strengths is his discussion of the perception of the West in popular culture, the individuals who created the images, and the various forms in which the images were transmitted. If there is a shortcoming of the study, it is that Etulain's discussion of the modern West is skewed so as to read as an urban and not a regional study.

Beyond the Missouri is a well-written book of the American West that builds upon previous studies to provide the reader with a broad overview of the region.

Deborah Cummins has named her book well. The serious precision of her poetry does reach beyond, look deeply into familiar landscapes, revisit people and situations from her past with renewed insights and with both irony and compassion. She can bring old Mrs. Alekna to life as a child saw her, with her holy cards and fascinating "brisly goiter/ Already the size of an orange." Cummins can be a social critic also, as in "Cody, Barnes & Wentworth" where she remembers being a professional woman among male colleagues and "summons my old voice from bedroom to office." First and foremost, Cummins is a fine poet of nature and landscape, particularly the Maine coast. These of her poems have a beautiful, elegaic quality, like shadows on a lawn, as when "just before nightfall" she loves "the brief flare of luminous light,/its almost saving grace." Always aware that it is "almost" saving, Deborah Cummins nonetheless brings her poems to us in this book with real grace.

Excellent source of information. The authors have obviously put an incredible amount of time and effort into research for this book. The writing style follows what I would call a "typical" scientific format: In other words the book is not one for casual reading. The amature as well as professional ornithologist can obtain very precise information about state records for every bird to ever enter (or think about entering) Missouri. This book is definiiely "solid" science with very little, if any, speculation about distrubution or abundance of each species of bird to grace the state with its presence. I feel this book would make a respectable addition to any collection of literature dedicated to ornithology.

Bitter Fruit surveys the experiences of Afro-American women in World War II, contrasting sharply with the largely white surveys of women of the times. Photos, essays, fiction and poetry by and about black women's roles provide quite a different image of experiences, and offers works from some eighty writers on the topic. An important observational collection about black experiences during the war.

An effective state legislator is one who is aware of and reflects a district's thinking and concerns and maintains good communications with organized groups represeting that district, according to this author. The author followed 12 state legislators in search of what made them effective legislators and has produced this book as a result of his research.

The book analyzes previous research and theories regarding legislative representation. Michael A. Smith concludes there is no universal definition of how to define representation, noting that even legislators are dynamically redefining how they consider their own styles of representation as circumstances change.

This book provides great insight based on actual observations. Michael A. Smith discusses how legislators from lower or moderate income urban areas tended to be the strongest advocates for their districts and often take the lead in advancing causes that help their constituents. Legislators from wealthier districts who face tougher reelection campaigns tend to more passively wait for constituents to bring issues to them before advocating such issues. Legislators who wish to run for office tend to be outspoken advocates. Legislators with little or no ambition for higher office tend to try to come across as more level-headed.

While the author concludes there is no "grand theory" on describing how legislators behanve, these observations and categorizaitons are very useful. It is helpful to read disucssions of theory with actual observations.

Catfish, Fiddles, Mules, And More: Missouri's State Symbols by John C. Fisher is part of the "Missouri Heritage Readers" series and a truly fascinating introduction to Missouri's state symbols and the history behind each of them. Black-and-white photographs nicely illustrate this detailed and involving "tour through time". A highly accessible and recommended addition to Americana shelves in general and Missouri Regional History collections in particular, Catfish, Fiddles, Mules, And More also serves as an excellent template for the creation of other state symbol books.

In this well-written and comprehensive volume on Catholic writing in the United States, Ross Labrie focuses on works that meet three criteria: high intellectual and artistic achievement, authorship by a practicing Roman Catholic, and a focus on Catholic themes. Labrie begins with a discussion of the Catholic imagination and sensibility and considers the relationship between art and Catholic theology and philosophy.
Central to Catholic belief is the doctrine of the Incarnation, wherein human experience and the natural world are perceived as both flawed and redeemed. This doctrine can be seen as the axis on which Catholic American literature in general rests and from which variances by particular authors can be measured. The optimism implied in this doctrine, together with an inherited American political consciousness, allowed a number of Catholic authors, from a culture otherwise perceived as outside the American mainstream, to identify with a political idealism that granted dignity to the individual.
Counterpointing this emphasis on the individual, though, is the doctrine of the church as an intermediary between God and humanity and the belief in the community of saints. In concert with the doctrine of the Incarnation, these teachings gave Catholic writing a communal and prophetic dimension aimed at the whole of American society.
Separate chapters are included for each of the writers considered so that the distinctiveness of their works is elucidated, as well as the unity and the rich diversity of Catholic American writing in general. Some of the authors considered are Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Allen Tate, Robert Lowell, Thomas Merton, and Mary Gordon.
A concluding chapter examines the significance of the corpus of Catholic American writing in the years 1940 to 1980, considering it parallel in substance to the body of Jewish American literature of the same period. The Catholic Imagination in American Literature fills a distinctive place in the study of American literature.

The Catholic Tradition by Thomas Langan (University of Missouri Press)
"This is a remarkable work. There are few who possess Langan's historical knowledge and philosophical depth. His reading of the past is informative, insightful, and provocative, all at once. . . . Anyone who wishes to know what Catholicism is, friend, foe, or uninformed Catholic, will find this volume a veritable treasure."--Jude P. Dougherty
In his Tradition and Authenticity in the Search for Ecumenic Wisdom, Thomas Langan argued that the close interaction of traditions in today's society calls for methodical critical appropriation of the beliefs fostered by the principal traditions. He also promised to demonstrate by example how such appropriation could be accomplished. In The Catholic Tradition, Langan successfully fulfills that vow by showing how a tradition--the Catholic--has shaped his own outlook.
In this comprehensive study, Langan examines the history of the Catholic Church and the origins of its teachings since the Church's conception. Although committed to the Catholic religion, Langan does not obscure the Church's failings as he lays out the fundamentals of the Catholic faith.
He provides insight into the great Christological councils, discusses the differences in the spiritualities of East and West, and portrays the crucial roles that the pope and bishops played during the Middle Ages. He incorporates the thought of Augustine, Aquinas, and medieval Catholicism as he traces the rise and decline of Christian Europe, the great issues raised by the reform: priesthood, the Eucharist, spirituality, and Church structure.
Satan has no greater triumph, Langan asserts, than when Catholics, who are recipients of the Good News of God's universal love, allow selections from their tradition to be turned into sectarianism and ideology. This balanced history of the Church as human reality faces such perversions squarely. But despite betrayals by its own across the centuries, the Catholic tradition, with its origin at Sinai, remains the oldest and largest extant religious institution.
In a last section Langan offers a unique overview of the church's present situation, its strengths and weaknesses, the new movement and the challenge of the "new evangelization."