Washington University Books

Horace Cayton's autobiography sheds much light on both subtle and blatant threads of racism all along his "long old road" of self discovery. His writing is clear and forthright, revealing much of his personal struggle and inner conflict as he deals with the white society that won't accept him, a black society whose identity he is still trying to understand. From Seattle to Alaska before the first world war, and on to Chicago, Alabama and Paris, his life and travels give him an ususual breadth of perspective. His is able to discuss and contrast issues as they arise in rural and urban environments, North and South, the US and Europe. Spanning most of the last century, it is a book well worth reading by anyone interested in race, class and cross cultural living in America.

the in-depth insite was captured by an author who could have only experienced the characters in a "first-hand 'I have been there, and I am still there' " atmosphere. Loved it..and all the realism

This nearly 400-page dictionary of Lushootseed/Whulshootseed Salish includes background information, pronunciation guide, an appendix of proper names, and detailed entries with grammatical information and sample sentences. Dialectical variations are marked.

I am enjoying this book very much. I was born in the Catskills and I am learning so much that my parents never told me. It is very well written.Making Mountains: New York City and the Catskills (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)

The Making of Black Revolutionaries is a fantastic read and an invaluable resource for all those who want to make history in America, whether struggling against racism or engaging in any other freedom fight. Jim Forman's gripping first-hand account of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) includes testimony from other participants and excerpts from documents of the time.

Following a relatively prosperous and stable eighteenth century, the Korean Choson dynasty sank into a period of political turmoil and social unrest. In the capital city of Seoul, a small number of royal in-law clans monopolized political power, while in the countryside, corrupt administrators exploited a Korean peasantry already overburdened by a series of poor harvests. Local unrest ensued, racking the nineteenth century with a succession of violent revolts. The first of these nineteenth-century uprisings, the Hong Kyngnae Rebellion of 1812, has often been characterized by Korean historians as a "peasant rebellion" stemming from long-term socio-economic changes in Korean society. Such historiography, of course, corresponded well with the nationalistic and progressive leanings of many past South Korean scholars.

However, in this book, Sun Joo Kim rebuts this older historiography by presenting the rebellion as a regional affair stemming from a combination of political marginalization, state intrusion in the local economy, local immiseration, and subversive ideology. Kim thus rescues the local from the nation, as she primarily sees the rebellion not as a representative of grander national or socio-economic trends, but as a regional event that encapsulates the uniqueness of northern Korean society during the Chosn era. In this way, Kim admirably grants significant historical agency to various local personalities who both supported and opposed the rebellion, as well as highlighting the importance of potentially subversive ideologies, such as geomancy, that have often been ignored by past historians.

Furthermore, this work is important not only for scholars of Korean history, but also those interested in comparative peasant rebellions and social history. In the book, Kim displays an excellent grasp of sociological theory, and she definitely augments the academic literature on peasant rebellion pioneered by Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol. Kim's emphasis on regional factors, rather than comprehensively tying rebellions to nation and structure, helps us understand not only the importance of local conditions, but also the limiting factors that prevent localized rebellions from expanding into dynasty-toppling revolutions. After all, all great revolutions, including the French, Russian, and American Revolutions, began as local uprisings; their greater significance came later, via military conquest, ideological dissemination, and the victorious revolutionaries' own pens.

This book is a treasure to read. While sometimes overbearingly academic, Jabour has a crisp analytical style that makes us understand immediately the social relationship between the Wirts and its applicability to our own intimate relationships. Personal/analytical history of this kind helps us comprehend the "real people" of the past, their environment, and how they operated within it & rebelled against it. Many parallels to today. Jabour helps convey the fact often hidden from all of us ethno-centric & generation-centric readers that people live ordinary lives in all times & places, even if their environment seems incomprehensible to us, in the suburban US, in the last decade of the 20th century. Having read this book, I plan to move on to the 3 other volumes in the series, namely: Angel Kwolek-Folland, "Engendering Business: Men & Women in the Corporate Office, 1870-1930;" Creighton & Norling, "Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender & Seafaring in the Atlantic World 1700-1920;" Stephen Frank, "Life with Father: Parenthood & Masculinity in the 19th Century American North."

A clear overview of many aspects of marsupial research carried out both around Australia and overseas. Useful for anyone interested in marsupial biology, each chapter reviews current knowledge and understanding of subjects from reproduction to nutrition to behaviour, as well as highlighting areas of proposed future research. This book reinforces the position of marsupial research as necessary in its own right.

Except for her one act of defiance in marrying Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, against her brother's will, Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII, has been overshadowed by the more flamboyant members of her family. In this first major biography, Mary emerges as a striking personality in her own right, exhibiting as much Tudor obstinacy and ruthlessness within her orbit as her brother did in his.

Mary's long betrothal to Prince Charles, of Castile was terminated by Henry VIII, who, betrayed by Spain and the Pope in a war to check France, retaliated by making a separate peace treaty with France in which Mary's marriage to the aged Louis XII was stipulated. When Louis died less than three months after the wedding, Mary, fearing that her brother or Francis I would force her into another political marriage, persuaded Charles Brandon, Henry's life long friend to marry her secretly. After finally obtaining Henry's forgiveness, the couple returned to England, where Mary lived until her death in 1533.

Mary's life is an engrossing story, and Professor Richardson places it dramatically against a background of momentous historical change. His account is based on numerous contemporary documents and reflects his broad and sympathetic knowledge of early Tudor England and Renaissance politics. Especially fascinating is the picture that emerges of Henry VIII and his advisor, Cardinal Wolsey, who with increasing finesse and cunning, planned marriage alliances to further English ambitionjs, pitting themselves against such masters of diplomatic intrigue as Louis XII and Francis I of France; Maximilian, the Holy Roman Emperor; and his daughter, Margaret of Austria.

I read this in a university library and found it so engrossing and useful that I needed a copy of my own. An almanac initally sounds very dull, but Varisco's extensive commentary provides so many details on so many subjects, its simply amazing. It's not simply about science or even agriculture, it also contains a great deal of anthropolgical data that you don't find in other similar works. All too frequently, books dealing with the past dwell on the history, rather than the reality of the time. This work really captures the feel of the time period with its lavish details and research. Much of it could really qualify as trivia, but that's really what makes it such a wonderful piece of work, as it isn't just concerned with the big issues of the time, but with what every man knew. If you're at all interested in what the period was like, beyond simple history, this is a great book. It's largely concerned with things related to agriculture as it's a very protracted translation and explanation of an almanac, so covers crops, the weather (a topic everyone's always discussed, past or present), health, astronomy, sex, the environmental, and many things in between. This presents a real portrait of the time period beyond what the title implies. This is a very thorough yet wide ranging work. It's very light on religion, but there's scores of books on medieval Islam, so this is not a great flaw. This is not quite like any other book you'll find on the period and thus why it is so great.