University of Missouri Books

This book is based on a diary which the author began in 1927, when she was 15 and a farm girl in North Dakota, and covers the years from 1927 ro 1937. She worked very hard and lived in grinding poverty. She went to college and then taught school and fended off marriage proposals, and never in the book says a good word for the man she married--who was courting her thru the last years she was keeping her diary. This I found to be quite a book, unpretentious as it holds itself out to be. A most moving account of a time and place one seldom hears about. I recommend it unreservedly.

I absolutely adored this book. It was powerful for me because it gave me an honest, often humorous, but vivid account of a reality I craved knowing more about...the depression years in the Great Plains states. I think I know more about my mother, who grew up a poor tenant farmer's daughter, just a little better. I look forward passing it on to others, and even using it as a wonderful book to read to some of my older friends.

Wonderful narrative of a difficult time in America. Such perspective of events from close to home. I recommend this to anyone who appreciates history unrevised and truthful.
T. Addison

From desciptions of the Durfee and Peck traders to the health conditions at the fort, the construction of the fort itself...a work to be enjoyed. You can feel yourself sliding back in time, to the shores of the Missouri, when there was little west of you except open land and Indians. I relished this book, enjoyed each and every page.

Fort Union And The Upper Missouri Fur Trade by Barton H. Barbour (Assistant Professor of History, Boise State University), is a comprehensive history of the city of Fort Union, one of the most important and enduring fur-trading posts of the nineteenth century. Historian and author Barton Barbour transport the reader to a yesteryear teeming hub of communication and activity between pioneers, Native Americans, trappers, traders, and more. An involving discussion of the legal, political, and sociocultural influence this trading hub had upon American history, Fort Union And The Upper Missouri Fur Trade is an impressive work of deftly presented scholarship which has clearly earned its finalist ranking for the 2002 Western Writers of America Spur Award in the Best Western Nonfiction-Historical category.

When I found that I would be moving to Williston, ND, (25 years ago) I checked to see what all was in the area. I was pleased to notice that the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park was in the next county. I also noticed that there was a National Historic Site nearby as well. The National Park is nice but I have been to the Fort Union National Historic Site far more often. I discovered that a significant chapter in our nation's history took place at the nearby confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. Thanks to this scholarly work by Barton Barbour, I have been able to read the most focussed, well-written, engrossing book ever published on this local monument.

When I came to this area, the site was comprised of a trailer home Ranger office/Visitor's Center and a roped out layout of where the various parts of the fort used to be. The subsequent reconstruction of the site (which was financed, in part, by significant local contributions) has resulted in a site that looks as impressive as its' history. Much of the local focus seemed to be about the many "celebrities" who came here during the fort's heyday. While there are many well-researched work about the Fur Trade, Barbour's book elevates the level of discourse to an analysis of significant issues. He presents a compelling theory that the fur-trading communities of the Upper Missouri exemplified a society of diversity that was well ahead of its' time. While there were hierarchies involved, there was also a recognition that all parties were interdependant of each other. The resulting respect and cooperation was well beyond the societal norms of the rest of European-settled America. Ironically, this existed at the same time the rest of the USA was fighting the Civil War over, in part, issues of racial equality.

There are chapters that examine the nature of the fur-trading industry and its' relationship to other industries as well as to the US Government and its' various agencies. These 2-3 chapters in particular do tend to slow the reading down a bit but Barbour offers a good overview of the Fur Trade's position in the American Economy and legal structure of the times. The political change that arose from the Civil War are stikingly presented by the author.

Mr. Barbour also offers a look at the effect that the Fur Trade had on the Native American Culture as well as its' impact on the Arts and Science of an emerging nation. He shows how the needs of trader and Indian alike created a market place that was respectful of each. The overhead may have been high but the quality was very good. His conclusions challenge many of the more recent stereotypes of European-American interaction with Native societies.

Barton Barbour has succeeded in creating a much-needed overview of the Upper Missouri Fur Trade. His analysis of Fort Union as the most significant site of its' kind is well-presented. It is much appreciated by those of us in the Missouri/Yellowstone Confluence area who knew that Fort Union was always more than just another fort on another river.

To the author: I can't tell you how fantastic I think it is that all of your hard work on this book really paid off. To me, it wasn't merely a history book; it was an opportunity to stand beside the men you described and to watch them be who they are. I could see the wear and tear on their clothes and almost smell the baked-in odors of days and months without baths.

From Home Guards to Heroes is a thoroughly researched, creative, and engaging history of the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry and the primary location from which its members came, Adams and York Counties, Pennsylvania. (Reviewer's disclosure: my great-great-great uncle, Daniel P. Reigle, was a member of Company F of the 87th, leading to my personal interest in this unit.)

The foundation of this book is Brandt's extensive research: U.S. census records, nearly 2000 Compiled Military Service Records, and over 1000 pension files for 87th Pennsylvania members, in addition to those records for over 800 men from the Adams/York areas who enlisted in other units in 1861. This study yields descriptive data on the 87th and comparative data relative to men in other units on factors such as their professions, age, physical characteristics, age at death, life expectancy, American-born and foreign-born, and their personal worth in personal property and real estate at the time they enlisted. The data on 1861 enlistments (both 87th and other units) is presented with the 1860 Lincoln vote for each of the fifty-five townships and boroughs in the two counties.

The quantitative research is complemented by extensive use of newspapers, including not only major city newspapers, but the local newspapers in the Gettysburg, York, and Hanover, important for understanding the political landscape and personalities in the area. For example, in addition to the rich contemporary information yielded by those newspapers, this research also yielded the valuable recollections by Michael Heiman in the York Gazette in 1891-1892. Further, Brandt has made use of any available manuscript sources, such as the George Blotcher papers at the excellent library of the York County Historical Trust, the Thomas Crowl papers at the U.S. Army Military History Institute and Penn State University libraries, and other materials provided by 87th descendants. He uses this information to create "sketches" of each company in the 87th, and the primary officers who were instrumental in its formation and its four years of service. I have seen many of these names "on paper" in years of reading about the 87th, but I found Brandt's sketches to provide an entirely new level of perspective on the men themselves.

This is a "real people" approach to the regiment's people and history, and it does not hesitate to share information that is delicate or uncomplimentary. For example, in the unit's rush to organize, there was no attempt to make any pre-enlistment physical examination of the potential enlistees. Brandt presents data to show that this resulted in more than 11% of the 1861 enlistees leaving the service for illness or injury; by comparison, the 7th PA Reserves' Company H, recruited in the same area, conducted full physical exams and experienced less than half that level of attrition. At another level that paints a less-than-heroic picture of some of the 87th's men, the unit was chartered and recruited primarily to provide security on the important Northern Central Railroad between Harrisburg and Baltimore. Although this was critically important to the Union effort in the first year of the war, such duty was not expected to involve major combat, long marches, or significant hardships at great distances from home. As a result, there was significant consternation among some parts of the 87th when their mission changed to becoming a fighting unit in the Union Army. Brandt examines the subject of desertions in detail, both real and on paper only, especially those occurring in the aftermath of the 87th's loss of 293 men captured at 2nd Winchester during the prelude to Gettysburg in June 1863. Drawing on Ella Lonn's classic Desertion During the Civil War for perspective, he provides many details on the individual cases of some men who intended to desert and did so, but also includes cases that illustrate how men could be tagged as "deserters" unfairly due to cumbersome administrative processes,. Finally, the chapter on "South-Central Pennsylvania and Race" will undoubtedly leave readers with roots in the 87th's home territory with a better understanding of the complex views of the community on race, slavery, emancipation, and the meaning of citizenship, but also with some embarrassment in accepting in our 21st Century the opinions of our ancestors in the 19th Century. These are difficult subjects to tackle objectively and fairly, and I commend the author for doing so. It provides additional perspective for the 87th's solid performance as part of the VI Corps in 1864 and 1865.

A difficult choice for the author of any regimental history is how much detail to include on the battles in which the unit participated. Brandt made the choice to not attempt to relate in detail the battles at 2nd Winchester, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, 3rd Winchester, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, the Petersburg Campaign including the Breakthrough on 2nd April 1865, and the Appomattox Campaign. He does include a more extensive analysis of Monocacy because of the 87th's pivotal role there in slowing down Early's advance on Washington D.C. This is clearly the right choice, in my opinion, because it enables Brandt to use the space of his book to focus on the 87th, while the reader interested in more depth on the 87th at the major battles can readily turn to other excellent studies.

This book will be of value to anyone studying the genealogy or local history of the York/Adams County area. However, I also believe this book to be of significant value to anyone interested in an indepth understanding and history of a Union infantry regiment. Although the 87th was, of course, a set of specific individuals and events, the themes, dynamics, and patterns likely have a high degree of similarity in other units. I will not only be re-reading this book more than once, but will use it as a valuable reference in my own Civil War genealogy and history research.

If you are looking for a Civil War story that is new and different this is the book for you. I was held captive from start to finish. Dennis Brandt tells, after 10 years of research, the story only he can tell. The story of the 87th Pennsylvania. It is a story about the lives of the boys from York and Adams county. Yes, Gettysburg is in Adams County but this is not another tired tale of that great story. It is instead about how the boys started their Army life rather dull, guarding railroads ect. as many battles raged on in other parts of the U.S.A. But our boys get taken captive, they escape, they die and in the end we ponder over whether The Grand Old Flag would still fly over those states south of Mason-Dixon if not for these HEROS.

Dr. Scheer has written a thoughtful book about an important woman who achieved milestones in our country's history. Nellie Tayloe Ross was the first woman elected governor in the country in 1924, the vice chairman of the Democratic Party who campaigned for Al Smith in 1928, and was appointed to be Director of the U.S. Mint in 1933, serving in that capacity until 1953.

Living to 101, her life and times bridged the frontier west with the modern world. Driven by the necessity to support her family after the death of her husband, Nellie moved to the forefront of women entering the political scene on their own merit. She went from frontier wife and mother to governor lady of Wyoming, and then to a full career in Washington D.C. She was a regular speaker on the Chatauqua circuit and traveled the world well into her 90's.

Nellies' story is a personal inspiration, particularly because most of her achievements came after she turned 40. I have been dining out on Nellies' story since I read it, and would recommend it to anyone.

Govern Lady: The Life And Times Of Nellie Tayloe Ross by Teva J. Scheer (Adjunct Faculty, Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado at Denver) is an informative study of the inspirational life of the first female in the United States to be elected state governor in her own right. Governor Lady brings the reader into the time when women were just being granted the right to vote, and the intriguing story behind one of the most famous political figures of the first enfranchised generation of American women. Very strongly recommended reading for its interesting story of an intricate mind-set and value cast of such a powerful woman in American history, Governor Lady is of particular interest as an addition to Women's Studies, Political Science, American Biographical Studies, and Western History collections.

"How did such a milestone of women's political rights come to be overlooked? ... Not a single full biography of this remarkable woman has appeared before now. Happily, the long wait has been well rewarded. Teva J. Scheer's biography is thorough, scholarly, and fun to read...
Scheer's biography even-handedly examines the whole of Ross' long life, from her family's travails during the Civil War to her death in 1977. The author is especially to be commended for searching out archival collections, including not only Ross's papers, but her secretary's, Eleanor Roosevelt's, the DNC's, Sue Shelton White, and many others. Scheer considers the domestic image as a wife and mother that Ross cultivated, but did not always live up to. She evaluates Ross's accomplishments as a politician and as an administrator. She places the nation's true first woman governor in the context of her time. By doing so, Scheer demonstrates both how much societal expectations have changed for women and how little their political opportunities have expanded. Scheer has produced a wonderful biography of an unjustly neglected American political figure."
D. Claudia Thompson

Isabel Allende counsels authors to "write what should not be forgotten." As newspapers crumble and new models for journalism emerge on the Web, many voices seem to be forgetting that journalism has a bedrock foundation. In this book the late Bill Woo, one of his generation's great writers, editors and teachers of journalism, writes what should not be forgotten. Journalism's eternal verities -- simple declarative sentences, careful marshaling of detail, careful verification of fact, respect for the readers, ethical clarity, and so much more come alive in Bill's elegant storytelling.

Every journalist, young and old, print and digital, should read this book -- it will provide a solid foothold in a shaky world.

But more than that, everyone who cares about the First Amendment, and thus about journalism's crucial role in democracy, should read this as well -- it will strengthen your grip on your values and illuminate them in new ways. And you will enjoy every word you read.

This book truly lives up to it's subtitle "Lessons on Journalism and Life." So you need not be directly involved in public journalism to appreciate it.

However, Bill, my close friend of over 50 years, would call me to task on that. He would claim (as a chapter in his book does claim) that any American who cherishes the first amendment to the Constitution is in fact "directly involved in public journalism," and is moreover in part responsible for its health and future.

Professor Woo's prose rolls out seemingly without effort. Large sections of the book will pass your eyes and brain at a single sitting, and you're at its end before you know it. At that point, you, as I, will no doubt be happy with the experience, sorry it's over, and furious that Bill is no longer with us to discuss parts of it with.

We journalists who knew Bill Woo are fortunate indeed to have spent time in the company of one of the craft's greatest talents. We also knew Bill as a sensitive humanitarian. Both of these qualities are conspicuous in Letters from the Editor: Lessons on Journalism and Life. After an illustrious career as a reporter and editor, Bill spent his remaining years teaching aspiring journalists at Stanford. The letters in this book were lovingly compiled from the weekly essays he wrote for his Stanford students, instructing them on the finer points of journalism and of life itself. This book is well worth reading by anyone, but especially by the journalists of tomorrow.

Bought it for a gift for Mom. Whole family has enjoyed this. Fun to browse through.

It took me a couple of years to read the book because I spread out the reading to enjoy my armchair travels. My compliments on the work. I can't imagine how all the information was gathered and checked. The author had to travel to each town. I looked up a couple of facts I consider to be little-known facts. They were included in the book, and were correct. I enjoyed reading about places near my weekend cabin. I checked out several of the features. The one I found most amazing was the grave of Comfort Ruggles -- a member of the Boston Tea Party buried in a Missouri country cemetery.

The book is great for the native Missourian and for those travelers who dream of discovering the Show Me State.

Missouri Roadsides is a thorough compilation of almost every town in the state, from the small (Halltown, pop. 161) to the large (St. Louis, pop. 396,685). Based on courthouse records and eyeball observation, you'll find the history of each town, along with recreational areas, attractions, and fascinating tidbits. Armchair historians will like the emphasis on town origins. A special appendix on recreational areas is ideal for travellers, and includes wildlife areas, state parks, even navigable waterways. While the book would have been more complete with more maps and illustrations, Missouri Roadsides is a wealth of information -- and well worth the price!

Taylor might as well have written a historical novel. Missouri residents will recognize the places and sites in the story, intelligence officers will recognize the Phineas Priests as the bad guys they really are, and those who serve in personal protection will recognize the strategies, thought processes, and esprit de corps that bonds them in the small elite groups in which they tend to operate. Taylor, who has provided protection for some of the most high profile people in the world, expertly weaves a fast-paced and exciting story of state troopers attempting to keep a vainglorious governor and others from harm in a 911-type attack. The book definitely offers a Saturday afternoon of good reading.

A cult has goals. Some of them are harmless- some of them are self-destructive, but some of them still have far more sinister plots. "Mortal Shield" is the tale of one of these cults, planning on eliminating the governor - and the governor's protectors know of this. The governor and his family, however, just want a normal life without agents blocking them every step of the way . "Mortal Shield" is a grand conflict of three groups of people with very different goals and how all of their intentions clash in an incredibly interesting tale with no clear outcome - "Mortal Shield" is highly recommended for any thriller fan and any library collection collecting them.

Heather Shaw, ForeWord Magazine, May 2008

This is Taylor's first novel, but there's nothing amateur about it. It walks and talks just like SOF (special operation forces). . . . Mortal Shield is a kind of anecdotal manifesto of why some people choose a career where death is not a penalty for failure but the ultimate sacrifice for success. Taylor is at work on a sequel: this is definitely a series that will interest fans of Clancy and Flynn.

I started reading and I could not put it down.I felt like I could feel the caracters and I did not want the stories to end. Each story had me wanting another chapter. I hope the author has a sequel book soon. I know the book has had rave reviews and it deserves them all. We need more from this writer.

Bakken explores parenthood, marriage, divorce, and the love between sisters in this collection of seven short stories that won the 2006 winner of the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction.

In each of these stories, Bakken proves her keen observational skills as well as an intense attention to craft. In Vigil, one of Bakken's strongest stories, for instance, Bakken gets at the deeply-layered, complexity of love between sisters. "Silence became Kara's means to a new wardrobe, new CD's, later curfews, locked bedrooms. At night, though, I heard her crying, face stuffed into the pillow, and when I crept into bed with her, she sometimes said she was okay, and rubbed my back, and we fell asleep next to each other. Usually she told me to leave her alone and stay out of her life."

She can stop you with a sentence-My sister is dead, by her own hand-and make you wish you had this of love: love is horrifying, holds us hostage, requires us always to answer the phone, to make the drive, to wash the blood from the body, to look at each other clearly under light and not flinch, not look away.

I bought Kerry Bakken's book after reading a news release on the Allegheny College website about it. As an alum of Allegheny College, I was interested in reading a book by one of my former professors. I loved the individual stories in the book. My favorite was "A Renter's Guide to the Hamptons."

This book is a psychological look into modern religious based terrorism.

While it attempts to explain and understand todays Islamic terrorists, it does so with a long history of struggles that have been religious based. Of course the Palestinian/Israeli struggles are discussed, but so is the more general concepts of what happens to any religious based 'government.' The trouble with the 'Rule of God' is that it is administered by mere humans. God's word as handed down in documents from a thousand or two years ago don't reflect everything that can go wrong in today's world. Acid rain, for instance, caused by a power plant a thousand miles away in another country is not to be found in the Bible or the Koran. When men speak, then, with God on their side and no questioning allowed, the result isn't freedom but tyranny. Galileo and the catholics for instance show just one example.

His conclusions are not happy. The situations that created the terrorists in the past continue. The regions of the world from which they come are not improving, and do not seem to have an improving future. He says that heis not directly interested in the 'clash of civilizations' made famous by Sam Huntington, but to me the situations he describe seem to fit Huntington's work very well.

Barry Cooper has a new book this year entitled NEW
POLITICAL RELIGIONS, OR AN ANALYSIS OF MODERN TERRORISM,
(University of Missouri Press, Columbia, 2004). The title puts
the reader in mind of Eric Voegelin's POLITICAL RELIGIONS, which
originally appeared in 1938 and dealt with the murderous mass
political movements of that era. In this work, Dr. Cooper has
brought his understanding of political theory to bear on what he
calls "Islamism," that fraction of Muslim society which
believes it has a God-given task to bring the world under Islamic
control, using murder and suicide as routine instruments for
conquest.

One of the epigrams for the volume is from Graham Greene, "They
won't believe the world they haven't noticed is like that"- and
it was certainly true for this reader! I thought in the years
following 9/11 that I had acquired a good grasp of the problems
faced by the West and particularly the US, but it soon became
evident to me on reading this book that I knew too little.

The book is divided into five chapters. The first, "Context,"
brings in Hannah Arendt and Voegelin on totalitarianism, terror
and spiritual disease in light of 9/11. The second, "Concepts,"
explains "pneumopathology" and "second reality" and discusses
them in relation to the Japanese revolutionary movement Aum
Shinrikyo. This lends needed emotional distance for the analysis
because it is not about 9/11 directly. The third chapter,
"Genealogy of Salafism," explores the history of Islam and the
related topics of Ibn Taymiyya, Wahhabism, the Muslim
Brotherhood, etc. The fourth chapter, "Genesis of a New
Ideology," explores the source of the modern problem in the
writings of Qutb in Egypt, the enshrining of scriptural
ignorance, and the heating of the pot by Khomeini and other
Shiites. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the theological problem of
suicide complete the chapter.

The last chapter, entitled "Counternetwar," explores the need to
modify traditional military methods in order to deal with the
elusive networking of the enemy, made possible in large part by
modern cyber technology. There is an astonishing appendix on
history and the Koran in which the historiogenesis of Islam is
explored as is the problem arising for fundamentalists that there
are now several varying manuscripts of the Koran which have not
been acknowledged, because while the bible has various texts
which cause problems, this is seen to be impossible for the Koran
since it was handed down directly by God. Both Voegelin and Leo
Strauss are used to set the argument.

Here are a few choice quotations from the book:

". . . societies that are not organized as states do not have
armies; rather, they are armies. In principle, therefore, where
armed force is directed by organizations that are not states,
against organizations that are not armies, by people who are not
soldiers, modern Clausewitzian categories are, if not eclipsed,
then cast into doubt as the only way that conflict can be
understood." p. 28.

"There is, therefore, an inherent friction between commonsense
reality, the common reality of worldly existence, within which
the terrorist like everybody else must live, and the occult
reality within which the terrorist lives imaginatively, an
imaginary reality where killing the innocent to impress others is
understood to be heroic, altruistic self-sacrifice." P.40

Quoting Heimito von Doderer in THE DEMONS: "A revolutionary,
said Doderer, is 'someone who wants to change the general
situation because of the impossibility or untenability of his own
position,' or rather, 'of the fundamentals of life in general.'
In fact, however, 'a person who has been unable to endure himself
becomes a revolutionary; then it is others who have to endure
him'." Here Dr. Cooper expands on Voegelin's Famous essay, "The
Eclipse of Reality."p.44

"The chief practical consequence of taking part in a cosmic
struggle with a satanic enemy is that the enemy must be
extinguished. The sentiments expressed by Hussein Mussawi, the
found of Hezbollah, are typical: 'We are not fighting so that
the enemy recognizes us and offers us something. We are fighting
to wipe out the enemy.'" P.57

Following a lengthy exposition of Voegelin's ISRAEL AND
REVELATION, Dr. Cooper brings the same type of analysis to Muslim
history. He carries the political and spiritual developments
forward to modern times, and along the way, tells us that after
the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258 and killing of the
last Abbasid Caliph, that "the appropriate response to God's
scourge, both then and now according to the Muslim vulgate, has
been to recover the purity of the early companions [Salafs] of
the Prophet [return to origins being a common theme in Judaism
and Christianity as well]. . .Central as well was the importance
of jihad....It was an important constituent element in the
spiritual complex of the terrorist attack of [9/11]." pp 95-96.
Dr. Cooper terms this belief "Salafism" after the term for the
"venerable forefathers," the "early companions."

There is a related discussion of Wahhabism, a kind of militant
Islamic purity unifying politics and religion-Augustine's two
cities becoming one. On its growth and dominance in Saudi
Arabia: "[The British were] powerless to prevent the spread of
sentiments of great approbation for Wahhabi achievements. Chief
among them was the undeniable fact that Saudi Arabia was formally
independent of foreign, and thus infidel rule. Because Saudi
Arabia had experienced neither Western colonization nor rule by a
Westernized elite, the Saudi rulers could easily and genuinely
believe that [Wahhabi] Islam was socially, morally, and
religiously superior." p. 101

After Kemal created a secular state in Turkey and Nasser created
one in Egypt, the Salafists emerged with a doctrinal complex
which included the notion that the Koran is a complete guide to
individual and communal action, abandonment of the pure ways of
the ancestors brought about Western dominance, science can be
used so long as Westernization is not imported and lastly "jihad
is central to the revival of Islam and the conquest of the world
for God and against Satan." P.109.

"For Islamists, the issue is simple: in Muslim terms, the five
pillars of Islam (profession of faith, prayer, the fast of
Ramadan, pilgrimage, and charity) amount to a spiritual
preparation for war against the enemies of God. . . . the
limitations on what can be achieved by worldly action or on what
that worldly action may mean, which is established by the world-
transcendent dimension of Muslim spirituality, tends to be
eclipsed."p 119

The transformation of the prohibitions against suicide in the
hadiths to the granting of the six privileges of martyrdom to
suicides is characterized as a perversion. P138 and, "As with the
question of the black-eyed houris, the simplifiers and
vulgarizers clearly dominated the current popular debate. It is
now dogmatically established and lies beyond question self-
martyrdom, istishad, is not suicide, intihar, but indeed the
highest form of martyrdom." P 141

This book represents a synthesis of enormous historical,
religious, and philosophical scholarship by Dr. Cooper who is a
professor of political science; it is the kind of work Voegelin
did so well. I know of no other political scientist who brings
such a level of philosophical penetration to Islamism as does the
author. Of course Dr. Cooper read voraciously to prepare himself
to write this work and he generously gives tribute in the text
and footnotes to his sources. He particularly thanks Peter von Sivers,
a well known Voegelinian scholar who specializes in Islamic problems,
for guidance through the intricacies of Islamic culture.

A book-length argument can scarcely be reduced to a review and I
didn't attempt it. And an appreciation written by a non-
specialist must be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless one
can hope that enough has been shown here to lead the reader to
the original. It must be said too that it is a lively read. My
attention never wandered. Dr. Cooper is also the author of ERIC
VOEGELIN AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN
POLITICAL SCIENCE, (U. of Missouri Press, Columbis, 1999)
and ACTION INTO NATURE, An Essay on the Meaning of
Technology, (U. of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame 1991).

Cooper's book draws on Voegelin's analysis of the ideologically driven movements of the 20th century (Marxism, Nat'l Socialism). He applies this to Islamic terrorism and does a good job of tracing the roots of the movement. He ultimately points to the pneumopathology of the terrorists as the main "cause" of their tactics. This disease of the spirit allows for a second reality to be created, which suppresses common sense reality. This is what allows the terrorists to justify the slaughter of innocents and to ultimately try to "perfect the world." Cooper gets beyond the superficial motivations often attributed to terrorism and shows us why it is impossible to reason with them. I found the book to be very enlightening and easily the best on modern terrorism that I have come across.

No Ordinary Joe: A Life Of Joseph Pulitzer III provides a very fine scholarly biographical survey of the man who created the widely known Pulitzer Prize. Joseph was trained for succession to the Pulitzer media empire and worked hard to maintain his family's paper's liberal philosophy even as competitors began mixing news with entertainment. His many achievements in the newspaper world are detailed alongside interviews with over seventy who knew or worked with him: the result is a study spiced with personal insight and celebrating Pulitzer's impact on the publishing world as a whole.

No Ordinary Joe: A Life Of Joseph Pulitzer III provides a very fine scholarly biographical survey of the man who created the widely known Pulitzer Prize. Joseph was trained for succession to the Pulitzer media empire and worked hard to maintain his family's paper's liberal philosophy even as competitors began mixing news with entertainment. His many achievements in the newspaper world are detailed alongside interviews with over seventy who knew or worked with him: the result is a study spiced with personal insight and celebrating Pulitzer's impact on the publishing world as a whole.

As you watch the national news it is easy to see how the national organizations have blurred news and entertainment. Any attempt on their part to present all sides of a complex story disappears if they can find a blown up vehicle or an injured person. Politicans have learned that the few second sound byte has to convey the message they want or the message isn't getting on the air at all.

Further, there are only a handfull of newspapers that attempt to provide a full story. During the reign of Joseph Pulitzer III, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was one of that handfull. Politically liberal, the paper prospered during the years that other newspapers were failing, merging or converting to tabloid style.

This biography of Joseph Pulitzer III covers his life, but his life was never far removed from the newspaper. This book presents the story of a man not seen so often. Trained by his father from birth to run the paper he had the problems of employees not liking his style, of friction within the rest of the family, and more. It is a fascinating story, well researched, and well told.