Washington University Books

This is the sort of book that is fabulous if it's the kind of thing you're into, and probably very boring if not. The nature of the book is revealed by considering that it was published in 1939, published by the University of Washington, and is part of the "University of Washington Publications in Anthropology" series.

So, yes, it is a lot like a textbook. But it avoids the dryness one tends to find in academic tomes. Although clearly written for an audience with above-average intelligence, its prose style is almost riveting. There is tremendous detail that I have never seen anywhere else on clans and funerals and war parties and so on, yet one rarely feels like your getting bogged down in nit-picking details.

There ARE places where the level of detail goes beyond what is interesting for a general reader. For example, in one place the author gives sections of a family tree in order to be absolutely clear about the relationship of certain brothers who are sons of a chief, so that the reader can understand why certain of them wanted to use or not use a certain clan name, and so on.

However, for the most part, the detail adds to the interest, and a lot of what is covered here I have not seen in any of the other books on the Tsimshian tribe, nor about any Northwest Coast tribe. I expect that, if the author had done a similarly detailed study of other tribes, much of it would have been the same except for the details, like the names. That is, it would appear that much of the information in this book is readily generalizable to other Northwest Coast tribes (such as how a war party prepared itself).

So, if you are interested in immersing yourself in Tsimshian culture or gaining more detailed insights on Northwest Coast tribal culture in general, and if you are the type who is able or willing to read something that might be described as being written in an "academic" (yet interesting) writing style, then this book is a good one to add to your personal library. If you're looking for glossy pictures or lighter reading, then you should probably pass on this one.

The style of this poetry is unique to this author; the poems use few words to interpret vast feelings. While much poetry describes the writer's perception of things, this poet has an uncanny ability to actually illustrate, in verse, the intense feelings we all experience in life.

This book, first published in 1921 in Britain and New Zealand, and now reissued in the United States with a generous and enthusiastic introduction by William Cronon, is certainly one of the strangest and at first sight most unpromising works of environmental history ever written. The book is basically an extraordinarily detailed account of the environmental history of a single sheep "station" (sheepfarm) on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand written by the lessee of the property, Herbert Guthrie-Smith. He describes in great detail the environmental transformations that he himself brought about as he cleared the forest cover from the steep hills, grassed the slopes and stocked the property with sheep. In many ways Guthrie-Smith regretted what he had to do in order to make a living.The book describes everything: clearing the land, changes in birdlife, the local geology and archaeology, the spread of noxious weeds, accelerated erosion, the complexities of exporting wool, etc etc. Guthrie-Smith was from Scotland and the book is written in an old-fashioned heavily literary style, but it is well worth persisting with. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is Guthrie-Smith's descriptions of his Maori landlords, from whom he leased his farm but who were a lot poorer than he was. One can see from his pages how the present day sheepfarming landscape of the North Island was created, and at what cost: a true classic, but for serious environmental historians only.

Author Harold K. Steen is a former president of the Forest History Society teaching conservation history in New Mexico, and his The U.S. Forest Service provides reader with a centennial edition history celebrating the upcoming centennial of the Forest Service's creation, next year. A new preface by Steen compliments this new edition (originally published in 1976) just for this event, with its chapters discussing forest conservation issues, wilderness management, new research findings on ecology and habitats, and more.

I used this book for my research paper. I was writing about the Kayapo and their struggle to protect their habitat in the Amazon. This book gave me a very good summary of the history of them and many issues involved in their struggle. The author, Linda Rabben covers them precisely and logically. I recommend this book to all.

The varied content on this 20th-century Canadian painter "moves through a series of concentric circles, putting into place the multiple dimensions of the period...." Carr's life and career do not lend themselves to a straightforward, chronological account. While her interests in the regional Native American culture never changed and her artistic subjects and style are distinguishable, how she was regarded by others, especially Canadians, changed. At one time, Carr was seen as a "little old woman on the edge of nowhere" with an inscrutable, but useful and revealing attachment to the western Canadian Native American culture, and at other times seen as a leading and much-lauded artist gaining wide attention for Canada's art and indigenous peoples. Always feeling like an outsider herself, Carr gravitated toward the Native American culture at a time when most Canadians had little interest in it and assumed it would before long die out from neglect and obsolescence. But the 1927 Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art, Native and Modern, manifest the Canadian government's changed attention to the country's First Nations. Display of paintings of Carr's at this major Exhibition brought her notice throughout Canada and beyond. She became established as a leading modern Canadian artist not only for her subjects which are now seen as typically Canadian, but also for the modernism of her style. Her paintings of totem poles, totemic figures such as bears and eagles, and buildings and nature scenes have pronounced primitivist and cubist elements; and most are done in bold, simple strokes and patches in darker tones evoking expressionism. With her subjects and her style, Carr made a lasting place for herself in the fields of Native American and modernist art.

The Urge To Travel Long Distances is a brief collection of free-verse poems by award-winning author and poet Robert Bly, about observing the shifts of nature and the seasons. A moody and reverentially respectful soliloquy about the splendor of the wild, The Urge To Travel Long Distances is easy to read through quickly yet deserves to be slowly savored. Gnats: This cloud of gnats resembles / Ghost substance- / It changes / Shape, lifts or sinks // They are too excited- / They can't be feeding. / So few days to live / And they spend it this way!

This is one of the best written and researched books out there. The respect that Dr. LeWarne gives these communities helps bring out their achivements and their follies. A must-read for any local historian or person interested in Western History.

Even as the face of British Columbia is changing, artist Michael Kluckner is capturing a vanishing region in watercolors, as best he can. Vanishing British Columbia uses words and images to examine ethnic sites and diverse roadside towns and worlds. Historic towns, houses, railways, and more are given strong social and historical treatment in a moving tribute to a vanishing world.

Visual Ephemera: Theatrical Art In Nineteenth-Century Australia is a unique and impressive work surveying the history of Australian visual culture, theatrical performance legacy, and cultural peculiarities. A richly detailed, nicely illustrated, superbly well written, comprehensively researched and presented history is an engaging as it is informative and highly recommended to students of Australian popular culture, theatrical history, and non-traditional art forms.