Washington University Books

Widespread among mankind is the capacity to dream, to imagine, to visualize what might be and what could come to pass. And so it has been, manifestly, with dreams of flight. Since humans first took time to notice birds, bats and flying insects, man's mind has formed the wish to emulate them - to be able to fly - to rise above earth's surface, moving freely in air and space. Visual artists, painters, sculptors, and writers, have, over the centuries, depicted these dreams. From times many centuries before the mythology of Daedalus and Icarus have come historical depictions of imagined flights by man. A monumental collection of such depictions was assembled by the late Colonel Richard Gimbel. Scion of the founding family of Gimbel's Department Stores, Richard was a man of diverse interests, notable talents and tastes, and wealth sufficient to enable him to be a collector with uniquely wide sweep. Serving as a Colonel in the Eighth Air Force Service Command in England in 1943, Richard Gimbel became fascinated with those items which showed man's historic interest in personal flight. For the next thirty years of his life, he devoted increasing talents and capability to the collection of rare items related to man's flight. Retired Colonel Gimbel spent twenty years at Yale University as Professor of Air Science and Trustee of the Library. At the time of his death his personal collection of aeronautica, which he never catalogued, numbered over one hundred thousand items. Due in large part to the interest and influence of Charles Lindbergh, the Gimbel collection was willed to the Library of the United States Air Force Academy. There it resides today, an intellectual landmark, part of the professional education of Academy cadets, and, in the care of a permanent archivist, available to scholars and the public. This current book, The Genesis of Flight, is a fortunate collaboration of the Friends of the United States Air Force Academy Library, and The University of Washington Press. Seven highly-qualified contributors have given us the text of this superb volume on the Gimbel collection. Illustrations of some 300 of the collection's many items are shown in this edition. The writing, editing, printing, and binding of this book are all excellent. Cost of the book might be viewed as a bit pricey, particularly when compared to the prices of some of the content free drivel available in today's publishing world. But I view my new copy as one of the greatest bargains I have had the good sense to purchase lately. The purchase price of The Genesis of Flight covers not only the magnificent printed volume. Nested in the back interior cover is a compact disc, playable on your PC or MAC, This disc, with audio and video, provides a magnificent companion to the book. It gives the reader/viewer an unparalleled opportunity to immerse oneself in the Gimbel collection in all its fascination and informative value. I commend this book to anyone interested in aerospace, aeronautics, flight, art, or history. This is a great addition to the world's printed knowledge.

This is a superb book by prof. Kruckeberg. I have his earlier book on California plant life and geology, which was also excellent. It is the best book I have seen discussing the rock-plant interface and how that influences plant growth and distribution. The professor shows that mineral substrates, at least in California since so much of it is magnesium rich serpentine deficient in other minerals, which is difficult for plant growth, determine which plants grow where rather than climate in California. He does the same here, continuing his thesis in his previous book, but with even more scope and detail than before. Dr. Kruckeberg's books are also well written, and his enthusiasm for his subject matter is contagious. It helps to have some petrology and minerology background, but it's not necessary to be a "hard rocker" type geologist to benefit from his books. This is one book that every ecologist should have in his library.

And last but not least, one thing that makes prof. Kruckeberg the most appealing writer on this potentially difficult area that I've ever seen is that even when he discusses the more technical aspects of the subject, he manages to imbue his discussion with an air of excitement and discovery. In other words, its a bit of an unknown adventure, and one never knows what one will find, just as in the field, one never knows what will turn up; perhaps it will even be some new discovery?

By the way, a little advice on perhaps how to read a book like this that might be a little outside of one's usual expertise. I try to read 5 or 10 pages a day if it's difficult for me, but even at that rate, you can read a 300 page book in a couple of months part time, at 10 pages a day. My area of botany was general ecology and mycological taxonomy, so geology isn't my forte, but serendipitously, I minored in geology, but that was a long time ago and I'm a bit rusty on my minerology. Anyway, that's what I do and this approach has enabled me to have plough through many dozens of books that were probably a little too technical for me where many people would just have given up.

Cable was a Southern writer, born in New Orleans and a Confederate soldier, best known today (if known at all) for his local color stories about the Creoles of Louisiana and the novel THE GRANDISSIMES, about two feuding Creole families around the time of the Louisiana Purchase. Cable was also a reformer, especially for prison reforms and equal treatment of blacks in the South; this latter view, made public in books such as THE SILENT SOUTH (1885), caused much outrage in the South. He believed that the separation of the races and especially the desire in the South to keep blacks "beneath" whites in all things was damaging to both races. Cable was also a very religious man and was very active in the church. Despite his popularity as an author and lecturer (he toured successfully with Mark Twain), Cable was often in debt, living on advances for his writing. Turner relates Cable's trials and tribulations, and his successes, very well in this biography. He writes well, never allowing his research to get in the way of his commanding style. Later in his career Cable wished to write stories that "make you feel today that you are enterained, and find tomorrow that you are profited." Turner's biography does just that. Highly recommended.

Small numbers of Jews were among the early settlers in all parts of the American colonies. Some of these were escaping the Spanish Inquisition. Jews mostly came to America to escape religious persecution and be able to practice their religion freely, as the early English settlers did. Although the small minority groups of Jews faced prejudices from some quarters, in the colonies they found defenders. And in some cases they found high-placed individuals who integrated some of them into prominent positions with important public responsibilities. Though he had mixed feelings toward the Jews, the founder and leader of Georgia, General Oglethorpe, gave them land equally with the Presbyterians, Lutherans, Moravians, and other Protestant sects in the colony. In the War of Jenkins Ear against the Spanish in Florida, Oglethorpe appointed the Jew Benjamin Sheftall an officer in the Georgia militia. The varying fortunes of Jews as a group and individual Jews are recounted as a part of the larger story of the example of democratic principles George Washington set. The last chapter ties Washington's wish that his slaves be freed after his death with his vision of religious tolerance for all. Some of his clearest, most-cited statements on religious tolerance, freedom, and equality were made in synagogues or with unmistakable references to Jews in certain locales, in Newport, RI, for example. Down to today, Jews look to Washington as the particular Founding Father making America a place where they could practice their religion freely and be accepted in the society.

If you want to know more about the Washington family, these letters are wonderful. Recommend highly

This book is excellent first and foremost because it brings together almost all of the pictorial representations of George Washington ever produced. The book includes the artwork of Gilbert Stuart, John Wollaston, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, Charles Willson Peale, and many others in addition to engravings. This book also contains a vast text which is lengthy by necessity enabling the book to cover the entirety of Washington's life and includes the development of historical thought in the years since Washington's death. The book also includes an enormous amount of interesting information on Martha Custis and her children and other family relations. Whether a person is a devoted researcher of George Washington himself or the colonial period or the American Revolution years or all of the above, this book makes an excellent addition.

The effects of the Civil War on Civilian life in Texas are powerfully conveyed in the correspondence of Dr. Gideon Lincecum (1793-1874), a natural scientist and philosopher who moved to Texas in 1848 with his family of ten children and settled in Washington County. This body of correspondence, ably edited by the collaborative efforts of Jerry Bryan Lincecum, Edward hake Phillips, and Peggy A. Redshaw, is gathered together in Gideon Lincecum's Sword: Civil War Letters From The Texas Home Front and forms a strongly recommended, powerfully vivid, and informatively welcome addition to Civil War studies reference collections and reading lists.

Glacier Ice is a comprehensive survey which is both well-written and extensively illustrated. It is easy to read, but mastery of its contents would take considerable time and effort. So it is suited to a broad range of audience. Even a beginner with an interest in the subject would be able to get a good deal out of this book. Because the writing is straightforward and assumes nothing about the reader's expertise. And because Glacier Ice contains many photographs which are specifically presented to illustrate topics being discussed in the text.

For those who have spent time walking glacial surfaces in a state of awe and wonder, this book will answer all the questions that kept arising as you moved about in that supernal world. And it will clarify in detail the terms that you have heard tossed about but which needed further definition in your mind. Like moraine, for example. Which is a deceptively simple concept, but turns out to have tremendous explanatory power when it comes to the geophysics of landscape formation. In this regard, I had once been told that Long Island was a terminal moraine. Reading Glacier Ice rendered that nugget of information viable. I now have a picture in my mind's eye of just how the one-hundred mile-long land mass came into being.

One of the most visually dramatic surface features of glaciers is the multiple median moraines that form like layer cake when several ice flow tributaries converge into an ice field of gigantic proportion. Glacier Ice includes a number of photographs of this phenomena and an explanation for its occurrence. As with other aspects of glacier morphology taken up in this monograph, after a few moments time you can begin to picture vividly the way in which the forces at work between ice and rock would produce the effect you are studying.

One thing I particularly liked about Glacier Ice is that it was written with the mountain climber in mind. Thus descriptions of various glacier features are often accompanied by comments on the type of challenge the feature in question poses to the adventurer attempting to traverse it. This brought a topic of vastness down to human dimensions and I thought it a nice touch in what is essentially a textbook about the intersection of the force of gravity as it meets up with frozen water and rock.

I think this is a very good book on the subject. Providing quality education is one of the prime objectives for HK. Yet, not all attempts can be termed as successes. This book looks into this area with quite some depth, and provides a history as well as a critical analysis on the situation. Very useful for educators.

I found this book to be an excellent thesis on cross-cultural studies. It is well written and contains a lot of interesting and perceptive observations and conclusions. Definitely worth dipping into.