Washington University Books

With The First Waco Horror, Patricia Bernstein delivers a fascinating and mortifying slice of Texas - and American - history with a meticulously researched look at the 1916 lynching, in Waco, Texas, of Jesse Washington, a retarded seventeen-year-old black boy. While lynchings were not uncommon at the time, this one was particularly galling - as many as 15,000 people, including the mayor and chief of police - stood by and watched as Washington was beaten, burnt and hung in Waco's town square. Due to the efforts of the fledgling NAACP and, in particular, a brave woman by the name of Elisabeth Freeman, the details of the lynching made headlines around the world, tarnished the image of Waco as an enlightened, cosmopolitan city (which, as Bernstein shows, was somewhat illusory from the start), and helped generate increasing support for anti-lynching sentiment and legislation. The First Waco Horror is an engaging, well-written book filled with complex characters that run the gamut from inspirational to repellent, as well as personal recollections and anecdotes that inject an extra element of emotional resonance. Like a modern Elisabeth Freeman, Bernstein excavates the details of a truly horrifying incident in our recent past and demonstrates that a small group of principled, dedicated people can stand up to the ignorance and passivity of mob mentality to foster change and evolution.

In one essay--"California Indians as Capable Resource Managers"--taken from this book, McEvoy convincingly argues that the native peoples living here before Europeans came TRULY lived and used resources sustainably.

We ought to take to heart the ways the Indians dealt with the issues of resource depletion and over-population that we face today.

This collection demonstrates the diversity of talents, voices and languages within the Chicano/ Latino ethnic canon. There is something here for any reader: if you are new to the literature this is the perfect introduction; if you are a seasoned reader of Hispanic writers then you will be glad to have the best of the best gathered in one volume. I would point out some favorites, but I wouldn't want to lessen the importance of those writings I don't mention. Check it out for yourself. The final section--the new navigators (i.e. younger writers) is full of awesome and promising work. A great read.

Tomas O'Leary's poems are treats to be savored again and again. He takes a look at life with a fresh eye and reports back to us what he sees through his unique vision. At times poignant, at times irreverant, this gifted poet is truly a must-read.

I have been a football coach for over 25 years. A Football Band of Brothers is the best football book I have ever read and I have read a bunch of them

John Haines has often quoted the novelist Hermann Broch: "Political indifference is ethical indifference." Haines adds that soon it becomes esthetic indifference as well. "For the Century's End," Haines's latest book, contains poems that are exemplary of political, ethical and esthetic commitment. Poems such as "Blood," "Politics and the Dead," and "Kent State, 1970" show a meticulous attention to craft, a deep, melancholy sense of history, and an abiding sympathy and outrage on behalf of history's victims. In poems such as "In the House of Wax," he creates grim historic panoramas in the sparest of words: "Crowned heads and axes fall,/thugs and jailors rise/and displace each other/in this long, uneasy walk/we have littered/with claims and captions." Not many contemporary poems can claim to be "important"--i.e. to combine excellence of phrase and image with urgency of message. These are, and these do.

Compellingly authored by anthropologist and academician Kathy-Lee Galvin, Forbidden Red: Widowhood In Urban Nepal, is an extensively researched investigative study of the plight of widows and their struggle to survive in the historical and modern constrictions of Nepali society. Delving deeply into the lives and struggles of widows in a culture which has societal predilection towards rejecting, disowning, or ostracizing or otherwise discriminating against these women, Forbidden Red informs its readers of the painstaking process of living beyond the death of a husband as illustrated through interviews from women of varying castes, religions, ages, and residential choices. Forbidden Red is very highly recommended reading, especially for students of anthropology, Nepali culture, gender based sociological issues of third-world and South Asian cultures.

This Extension Bulletin explains forest ecology in plain simple English.

This is a desk reference manual for every professional who works for the contracts office of any government agency or anyone who contracts with any government agency. This is the definitive work on how the government does business from a technical professional standpoint. Whether you're interested in standards of conduct, competitive negotiations, responsiveness or other professional jargon used in government contracting this is the authoritative source. The only question one might have is that it's been around for more than a decade.

I find this a very enlighting read. A fine study in an interesting, well-known, but rarely written about subject in Chinese social cultural. The book is well-researched, too.