Washington University Books

On my scale of 10, I gave this book a rating as high as one (1) for the author's effort in searching for material and referencing it in extensive notes. As a history of the times, it rates a zero (0).
The author might have written the objectives of his book as:
"America did an abomination by building the atom bomb and killing brutally without compassion thousands of totally innocent Japanese. The instigator of this horror, American General Leslie Groves,had only one objective: to gain power over the most people he could, control them and maintain that control regardless of laws or ethics or safety. He recklessly endangered the entire planet and all of American culture solely for his own greed for power."
Then the author wrote the book in propagandese with distorting adjectives and selection of events to convince a reader that the author's view of "history" was The Truth .

The depiction of Groves as a monster begins early in the book.
"Groves's ascendance, his early success at forging a cooperative venture among government, military, and corporate entities, signaled a broader campaign of expansion and control, into labor relations, into social relations, even into language. This last area is perhaps the most surprising and significant example of the District's imperial tendencies. One of its earliest manifestations was the naming of the program."
A full page is then devoted to explaining that the choice of "Manhattan" for the organization was not simply to avoid hinting at its purpose. "For him [Groves], the single most important concern lay with "security" (Groves's term subsuming secrecy and control of information), and he envisioned language as a potent weapon for duplicity."
The portrayal of Groves as the supreme tyrant continues throughout the book. General Groves as a hard driving decision maker who forced the accomplishment of an almost impossible job does not appear. And the reasons such a drive was felt necessary by all of us, the dread of Germany's building a nuclear bomb before we could and then the horror of the continuing slaughters of both US and Japanese forces in the jungles of the South Pacific and the prospect of worse to come with invasion, was ignored totally.

Two examples of the writer's distortions represent his propagandizing technique:
"New workers entering these factories found them to be confusing and sometimes terrifying warrens of piping, walls of analog dials, valves, and knobs, marked with Bakelite labels in the arcane language of the engineer."
Big,yes; terrifying, no. New workers did not wander into a building without orientation and explanation of where he or she was to work, go to the bathroom, eat. What's confusing? Any new job for the first day or so. But of course walls of stuff with Bakelite labels must be dangerous, especially in arcane language with words like "open" and "closed" and "pressure" and "temperature".
The second example of such writing tries to use a picture of a control room, in which I worked at one time, to show manipulation by the tyrannical Manhattan Engineer District. Here is Hales' description of the picture as he tries to show distortions created by the Manhattan District use of language: [The first sentence refers to a different picture taken for record at a trailer park at Oak Ridge.]
"This particular photograph is, itself, a document that reinforces the District's grammar -- though the way this grammar is imbedded in visual form is clearer in another equally prosaic picture, also made by Du Pont's official site photographer, Ed Westcott, to illustrate the workings of the K-25 master control room (Fig. 36). [Du Pont was not one of the Oak Ridge contractors, but maybe Westcott was delegated to make pictures of Oak Ridge for the record. I won't argue the point.]
"Reading the photograph as a distinct document, one can recognize the District's extension of written grammar into visual grammar. Yet the brilliance of the method manifests itself in the way the picture seems not to tell but to show . Even though, to a careful eye, it's an obviously managed, set-up picture, still the impression persists that the result is natural. The obsessional orderliness of the workplace seems incontrovertible. It seems simply to show the control desk with its banks of switches and the supervisor's desk with its paperwork, with everything lined up parallel and neatly diagonal to the walls filled with their workstation graph-paper plotters and their own cruciform arrangements of gleaming lights. The people too, are nicely symmetrical -- two men, two women; two engrossed in tasks, two awaiting orders. The desks are orderly, reassuringly so. Underneath the details is a message. Everything's under control in the control room."
The following three paragraphs add more suppositions to the explanation of the evil and manipulative intent of this photograph. "... as a staff photographer following orders." "Westcott has manipulated the circumstances..." "... bland, even lighting." "Even Westcott's work isn't really his." and more and more.
Then the long paragraph with the ridiculous clincher at the end:
"Behind Westcott's professionalism lies the repertoire of conventions he learned as he mastered the job of staff photographer. So also with the conventions learned by the architect-engineers of the master control room and transmitted to their plans: that the control room should have even, revealing lighting, and that such lighting came best from multiple panels in the ceiling, that the plotters for each K-25 cubicle should properly be lined up in even rows where they could be easily seen ."
That's nice: clear statements of the requirements for an informative photograph and a good control room. Then Hales continues in the same paragraph:
"(This arrangement is orderly, but it isn't necessarily intelligent; looking at the control panel of the Hanford pile for the first time in the fall of 1991, I was struck with an immediate and palpable anxiety, for each of the control stations looked like each of the others -- in a crisis, how could the operators, assured by the law of comparmentalization that they would never know the logic that lay beneath the dials, distinguish between one dial and the next in a row of some too identical dials? Equally so with the dials and plotters in this master control room.)"
Hales ascribes ignorance of their job to the operators of the Hanford works and lack of intelligence to the designers of the control rooms because he never worked in a control room, didn't know anything about it, and doesn't know what he is talking about .
I worked the K-25 control room in this picture. To work there I had to know the meaning of each line on the graphs and each light; the "indistinguishable dials and plotters" were arranged in exactly the order in which material passed from one "cubicle" to the next so the process details were clear and easy to see.
All this and more to pretend that the Corps of Engineers had invented a "new grammar" to control the thinking of their employees!
I have a picture taken by my beloved father of my brother and me on our little wagon when we were five and three. Here is my guess at Hale's probable description of my memorial of fun on the little red wagon.
"These two small children, both apparently male, are obviously terrified of the photographer. This fear is easily apparent to the careful observer from the way their mouths are partly open and their eyes are wide and staring at the camera. The photograph must have been staged in an attempt to record the likenesses of the children in case of accident. Obviously the older boy was forced on top of the younger one in the tiny wagon which must have been so small as to make injury to at least one of them likely. Such an injury may have made him amenable to the enforced duties he performed years by later making material for the atomic bomb."

I found some sections of this book fascinating, and others quite slow and tedious, hence the three star rating.

Be prepared: this is not quick reading!

I like how this book glorifies no one. It also talks about many "forgotten" victims of the Manhattan PRoject; those who were evicted from their property, the "underclass" workers, those who lived near Alamogordo and sufferred from nuclear fallout. I learned information about Gen. Groves and how he oversaw the project. It spoke also about the scientists, but not just about the scientists. This isn't a book about the making of the bomb; it's a book about the culture. At times it was slow---I skimmed about 100 pages at the beginning, which I very rarely do--- but there should be something for you in this book if you're interested enough in the topic to read this review! I found especially interesting the medical testing (or lack thereof), the radiation safety protoocols (or lack thereof) and the fallout (literal and sociological) of the Alamogordo test. These areas were fascinating to me. Also, while I already knew about Feynman's battle with the censors, it's fun to read again!

We are constantly researching the Manhattan Project in an effort to locate surviving veterans. Mr. Hales' account of war-time life at Los Alamos, NM, Oak Ridge, TN, and Hanford, WA is first rate. I recommend it highly to anyone yearning for a full understanding of the circumstances surrounding the development of the atomic bomb. Michael Vickio, Exec. Dir. .............

Beautifully written and by turns restrained and emotionally charged, this moral history of the Manhattan Project takes on what the others never mention-- all the smaller worlds created, destroyed or utterly changed as we entered the atomic age. Engrossing, packed with information spirited out of classified archives or found in the bottom of boxes, this book deserves the prizes it has won. Even the pictures are striking and remain on my mind long after I have closed the book.

I have read literally a dozen or more books about the atomic projects both in the United States and Germany. Unlike most books on the subject, Atomic Spaces, glorifies no one. It tells the story like it really was. It goes into the social, economic, racial, and moral cost of the project. It puts into perspective the relationship between the military, the government, big buisness, and the American people for this last half of the twentieth century. In no uncertain terms it demonstrates the true cost of entering the atomic age.

Although the outcome was "successful," I wonder if the true price of the atomic age was worth it? It certainly came with a high price tag, much, much more than money.

This book is a must read in order to see the real Manhattan Project and not the glorified picture presented by so many other authors. This is a really great book, about a really great endeavour, done by the average man with his usual weakness.

In the nearly two decades since "Pacific Salmon Life Histories" was written by Groot and Margolis, much more research on salmon has been done, and that research is well summarized in this book, with appropriate references. Quinn writes for his fellow scientists, but technical jargon is kept to a minimum, so the product is accessible to any reasonably intelligent reader.

I disagree with an earlier reviewer who faulted Quinn for not inveighing more against dams. Quinn could as well be faulted for failing to note the threat to wild salmon through disease transfer from rampant salmon aquaculture in British Columbia [e.g., M. Krkosek et al., Science v318:p1772 (2007)], but such criticisms miss the point. The job of a scientist in writing a book for fellow scientists is to summarize what research has been done and what it implies. In any case, near the end of the book, Quinn notes

"Given the high fishing rates, habitat loss and degradation, careless transfers of fish among basins, overzealous hatchery propagation, and other stressors, the remarkable thing is not that salmon are in danger but that they still persist at all....their chances of recovery are good if we would only take our collective foot off their neck."

and

"Salmon are important to many of us, in so many ways. They are our food, our recreation, our symbol and inspiration, and a critical component in the ecosystems that we value and depend on. If we dedicate ourselves to ensuring that they continue to play these roles, I believe the salmon will do the rest. If we preserve habitat they will use it, and if we restore habitat and make it accessible, they will find it."

You can tell where his heart is.

I am currently an Undergrad at the University of Washington and had the opportunity to study under Professor Quinn in Alaska for a number of weeks this summer. While the book may not be best suited to sit down and read cover to cover, it is a very valuable reference for academics looking into topics pertaining to pacific salmonids. I can say with certainty that Tom sees writing as a process that is never finished (the art of rewriting), and science is as well. It is unrealistic to try to find a book containing every relevant detail on such a hot and emerging topic as salmon, but this book comes as close as any in recent times.

This is a great resource for people that want to learn about the ecology and behaviour of salmon.

I wish it went a little more into the effects of dams and hatcheries on salmon ecology and behavior.

On the face of it, this text is positioned to become the definitive reference on the state of our understanding of Pacific salmon, a rich and complex topic with huge implications for environmental policy. It is sponsored by the American Fisheries Society, the semi-official academic organization that pays attention to these things. The author is a respected academic with deep understanding of the topic. And the book itself is beautiful. As a coffee table book it deserves four stars. The writing style is accessible, and the text covers many hundreds of current research studies.

So, what's the problem? Like Oakland, there is no there there. Instead of a guided tour through the state of our understanding of salmon, we get what amounts to an unstructured core memory dump. Studies are cited, summarized, and dropped for the next pretty bauble. There is little in the way of integration of the huge knowledge base that is out there. Quinn awkwardly fluctuates between an academic and vernacluar style (in his defense, accessible writing on complex academic topics is hard to do).

But Quinn's most bizarre transitions come when he mentions a a few seminal works on Pacific Northwest salmon extinction, simultaneously genuflecting in their general direction and edging away from their implications. Quinn's conscious avoidance of the issues at the heart of the controversy over salmon extinction is the most troubling part of the text, and the main reason I think this book is unworthy of the subject. There is a reason for this. His research center at the University of Washington is largely funded by the government agencies and electric utilites responsible for salmon extinction in the Columbia river basin. Understandably, it does not behoove Quinn to take a definitive stand on these issues. But it belittles him that he does not openly acknowledge what the issues are, and clearly present the evidence we have.

In approving Columbia River development in 1937, the US Fisheries Comissioner ignored a half-millenium of evidence that dams make salmon go extinct, saying that it was a complicated issue requiring more scientific study. Seventy years later, hundreds of salmon stocks on the Columbia and Snake rivers are extinct, and all are in jeopardy. Yet Quinn apparently believes that the solution is...more scientific study. Basic questions - how big do salmon get? How many did there used to be? What is the evidence that modifying or removing dams will or will not help salmon survive? - is either buried in the detritus of multiple studies, or entirely absent.

The big problem with public policy is that you always have to make critical choices with imperfect knowledge. Inaction in dynamic systems like climate and species ecologies is a choice, and repurposing science as a passive excuse for inaction often guarantees a bad outcome. In his unwillingness to engage controversy, Quinn has, unfortunately, avoided relevance.

This book is the best modern reference to the ecology of west coast salmon. Quinn makes good use of the advances of the last decade and shows good judgement in selecting topics to discuss. I'm a fisheries biologist writting a salmon book so I know the subject and the difficulty of writing in an engaging and informative manner. I recommend the book highly.
A caution: this book is not for beginners.

A carefully researched and balanced account of this tragic time. Well written and detailed, Vickery provides the definitive document of the early years of the People's Republic of Kampuchea. Any serious student of Cambodia should read this book.

If there is ever a study of all the shameful efforts to belittle the crimes of communism, this book will occupy a prominent place. Vickery claims that there were only 740,000 deaths under the Khmer Rouge during 1975-9. How does he reach this number, which is half the size of other estimates and only a third of the true figure? He combines a low population count of 7.1 million in 1975 with a massively inflated sum of 6.7 million in 1979, producing a demographic decline of only 400,000. No credible source has given such a drastic underestimate.

In the 15 years since this book was first published, Vickery has made no effort to include the demographic studies which refute his conclusions. He has nothing to say about Marek Sliwinski's analysis, which calculates a death toll of 1.84-1.87 million ("Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique," p57). He has nothing to say about the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has shown that 1.5 million were massacred and 2-3 million killed overall (Craig Etcheson, "Quantifying Crimes Against Humanity in Cambodia," online). In short, this new edition contains nothing to inform the reader that Vickery's claims are indefensible.

Vickery derides what he calls the "Standard Total View" of Cambodia, namely the assumption that the Khmer Rouge carried out a systematic campaign of genocide in pursuance of their fanatical Marxist ideology. In place of the Standard Total View, he claims that the Khmer Rouge leadership "did not foresee, let alone plan," the bloodbath which they inflicted: "They were petty bourgeois radicals overcome by peasantist romanticism" (p287). His conclusion is based on oral testimony gathered from 92 Cambodian refugees in a Thai refugee camp during 1980. Only nine of these interviewees are women and just one is a peasant. Given that the book purports to explain the motives and conduct of the Cambodian peasants, this is a shocking lapse from accepted standards of scholarship.

Unfortunately for Vickery's position, the Standard Total View is clearly correct. Had Vickery devoted space to Lenin's misnamed policy of War Communism, he would have been able to cite the research of numerous economic historians who agree that it was a conscious effort to eliminate the market economy, resulting in a famine which killed 5 million people. Had Vickery explored other examples - such as Mao's Great Leap Forward, in which 30 million died - he could have explained why the Khmer Rouge described their plan as the "Super Great Leap Forward." He might have seen that the division of the population into class categories - some of which are targeted for destruction - is consistent with other Marxist revolutions and cannot be attributed to peasant populism. But research of this kind can hardly be expected in a work of political dogma.

Vickery is so determined to absolve communism that he even considers it "fortunate" that "those who predicted a predominance of agrarian nationalism over Marxism in China and Vietnam were mistaken" (p290). He does not mention that the good fortune of the Chinese people includes the slaughter of tens of millions through massacre, slavery and forced famine (Washington Post, July 17-18, 1994). Nor does he inform his readers that North Vietnam massacred 50,000-100,000 before reunification, with over 300,000 starved to death (Robert F. Turner, "Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development," pp142-4); or that its post-war crimes included the massacre of perhaps 200,000 South Vietnamese (Al Santoli, ed., "To Bear Any Burden," pp272, 292-3); and the mass expulsions that drowned at least 200,000 boat people (San Diego Union, July 20, 1986). The facts being inconvenient, Vickery simply deletes them from history.

Those who wish to read a discussion of the Khmer Rouge period by responsible experts should consult Craig Etcheson, "The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea;" Karl D Jackson, ed., "Cambodia, 1975-1978: Rendezvous With Death" or Jean-Louis Margolin, "Cambodia: The Country of Disconcerting Crimes" in Stephane Courtois, ed., "The Black Book of Communism" (pp577-636). The history of scholarly apologetics on this subject is discussed in Sophal Ear's online thesis, "The Khmer Rouge Canon: 1975-1979 - The Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia."

Vickery's book has been frequently characterised as a 'denial literature' by the right yet the book contains an extensive records of the barbarity of the Khmer Rouge - particularly the Eastern zone massacres of 1978 which left the now well-known mounds of human bones in their wake. Similarly, Vickery praises the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge and argues that the Vietnamese-backed regime which replaced it was a vast improvement for the Cambodian people. This is hardly consistant with the argument that he is a Cambodian 'holocaust denier', and in stark contrast to the US and other western governments (and China) which supported the Khmer Rouge after their overthrow, as chronicled by Vickery in the book's two last chapters.
However, the casualty count of 700'000 - based on CIA data - is too low. Neither does the thesis of a 'peasant revolution' explain the nature of the Khmer Rouge regime. The Pol Pot government was led by a new ruling class drawn from the party, and were fundamentally an urban regime exploiting the Cambodian workers and peasants. This is consistent with other Stalinist regimes but not with Marxism, which states that peasants would be allowed to retain their land until they choose to join co-operatives voluntarily (see Engels' writing on the peasant question). However, all these arguments are within the realm of honest debate without the need for hysterical accusations of holocaust denial.
Where Vickery is right is in characterising the eastern zone as relatively more benign area of Cambodian and as the centre of opposition to Pol Pot. Ben Kiernan in his 1994 history argues the same and praises Vickery's work on this subject (if not others). Also - and part of the book mainly ignored by those on the right - is the book's situation of the Khmer Rouge directly in the history of Cambodia with it's attendent social discontent ,oppression and revolts, in the first chapter, and the vicious US-backed war and bombing in the second (in which more bombs were dropped on Cambodia in six months of 1973 than Japan during all of WW2). This is in contrast to the conservative interpretation that locates the crimes of the Pol Pot solely in Marxism-Leninism.
Vickery's book is a useful antioote to Cold War propaganda but should be read with some caution and alongside more recent works.

I read a number of books, trying to understand what Pol Pot was all about. Most make him out to be satan incarnate, or otherwise incomprehensible. This is the one book that made the history of his regime reasonably comprehensible to me. Highest recommendation.

Michael Vickery, always ready and perhaps even ever-anxious to attack anyone else who has studied Cambodia, shares some unique insights and valuable experience gained in Cambodia in the 1960s. While most of the arguments about the goings on inside Cambodia during the DK and PRK eras are now dated, readers can still learn much from "Cambodia 1975-1982". Early into this book, Vickery very cleverly uses passages from Bun Chan Mol's excellent book "Chareut Khmer" to catch off guard those readers who assume crimes against humanity in Cambodia began in the DK era. That passage alone makes the book worthwhile.

This book is an excellent account of a man who learned from his mistakes in his early life and used those experiences to control himself and attain recognition as one of the most accomplished men in history.

George Washington is probably a pretty tough person to write a biography about. He wasn't really an intellectual and there are not voluminous writings by Washington with insights into his personality like historians have for a Thomas Jefferson, or a James Madison.

This biography is very even and insightful about the personality and life of George Washington from his upbringing, his early military career, the Revolution, and of course his Presidency. Washington emerges as a somewhat vain man but one who, over time, appears to have gained wisdom with age and experience.

The primary quibbles I have with this biography is the author at times may make too many leaps of judgement about Washington's motivations and personality without enough evidence to support it. Secondly, there is not a lot of in-depth analysis about Washington's generalship or his decision making process as an army commander and President.

For example, did the wily Alexander Hamilton manipulate an overmatched President to get his way on economic policy, or was Washington, if not fully understanding Hamilton's scheme, fully in charge and in agreement with it? While the author seems to think it's the later-he doesn't really offer evidence to prove it.

Also at times it appears Washington was a bumbling over achiever who things ended up working out well for in then end, especially his early military career and early in the Revolutionary War (sometimes by Washington deflecting blame on to others). The same could be said about his Presidency. At the same time Washington appears to have become more mature and a better decision maker as he grew older and gained more experience. More could have been said on these matters.

But overall, this is a well done one-volume biography.

In an apparent attempt to present a balanced view of Washington, Ferling attempts to psychoanalyze the first president and goes far afield of the materials he has. Often his conclusions are pure conjecture and he frequently criticizes "other historians" for thier conclusions and then draws his own unsubstantiated conclusions.

Ferling does provide a nice historical accounting of events and details during Washington's life. However, he frequently tries to determine the mindset of Washington and here he repeately fails. Often these attempts are little more than cheap shots. He even criticizes the President for not writing his feelings in his diary when he found that a relative was dying, saying that Washington was afraid to appear "unmanly." This is little more than the insertion of 20th century thoughts and values into an 18th century mind. It does little to shed light on Washington and much to shed light on Ferling's mindset.

Undoubtedly there are biographies which are equally detailed without the repeated and distracting psychoanalysis.

This book was an assigned text in one of my college classes, and that's how I came to read it. I originally wanted to read Flexner's or Randall's biography of Washington, but Ferling's version didn't disappoint me.

What struck me about this biography is its objectivity. Ferling neither romanticizes about Washington as a demi-god, nor does he try to debase him. In the first hundred pages or so, I felt that Ferling was rather harshly critical of Washington, but by the end of the book, I felt that Ferling had highlighted many of Washington's good qualities as well. Ferling doesn't sugar-coat Washington's faults, but he doesn't ignore Washington's remarkable achievements, either. I liked how Ferling contrasts the brash young Washington of Fort Necessity with the mature Washington of Valley Forge. The father of our country certainly wasn't born with the dignity that later was his trademark, and it was interesting to see how Washington developed his character over the years. This gave me a more realistic admiration of Washington than I previously had.

An excellent biography about a tremendous historical figure.

Ferling writes a comprehensive story of one of the greatest persons in history. Although it is long (500 pages) it is well-written and very readable. He avoids the tendency in recent years to drag Washington down to a common level, and yet the author is honest with his subject's faults. The book contains a helpful index and not a few illustrations. This reviewer holds a graduate degree in history and currently teaches college history.

Kudos to the marketing team at Amazon. Out of the blue they sent me an email notifying me of a sale on a text that I have needed for years. It was a great price so I bit. It turns out that the book is like new. I am a happy camper.

Contains excellent illustrations. The terminology and abbreviations may be confusing to some. Needs to be updated as some of the family nomenclature has been changed. I wouldn't recommend this for the average "what's this plant" person.

This key for PNW flora is the key used by Washington State University. Text is scientific in nature, and is not intended for pleasure reading. An excellent but complex key, it follows a standard dichotomous (two choices for each step) format. Although not intended for the layman, the text includes a good glossary and has helpful black and white illustrations. This book would not be a good introduction to dichotomous keying as it is designed for the serious botanist.

This botany key is used by University of Idaho's botany classes. It is still "the" book reached for by the professional in the work force. Afterall, what else is there that is so comprehensive? However, it is in need of revision due to changes in genus and specie names since its fifth printing of 1981.

EXCELLENT first-book to reach for when needing proper scientific terminology. Does include some common names in the descriptions. Extremely detailed and uses extensive abbreviations. I used this book in Univ. of Idaho botany classes in the 1980's and still use it in my daily job now (year 2000). However, it does indeed need to be updated for current terminology and names, including lower-case spellings.

Joseph Taylor's award-winning history of the Northwest salmon crisis is the best book to date on this important topic. No other study is as well researched or beautifully written as MAKING SALMON. Taylor, who teaches environmental and Western United States history at Iowa State University, traces the historical decline of salmon runs throughout the Pacific Northwest, focusing primarily on Oregon. His argument--that while many have claimed to speak for salmon, most have actually articulated their own needs instead--takes the current debate beyond the politics of blame. Understanding the complex social and environmental history of the "salmon crisis," he argues, is essential to thinking more clearly about the future of our region's fisheries. Most impressive is his critique of the role hatcheries have played in diminishing Northwest salmon runs. Science and technology, he concludes, have not always saved nature from human abuses. Abundant illustrations, detailed maps, and a rich bibliography round out the book. There are many titles that explore the decline of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. None address the issue as artfully and intelligently as MAKING SALMON. It is required reading for anyone who cares about the future of Northwest salmon or the people who depend upon them.

There's your text books on salmon, and there's required reading.
Of the 300-odd salmon titles, Making Salmon is one of those you
must read. Like First Fish, First People, Making Salmon is about
the human side of the fishery, its evolution and confabulation
as a fought-over resource. Absolutely fascinating history, you
realize right away that nobody has an absolute moral high ground
in the salmon debate. Everything is allied against its survival,
and yet magically, miraculously, the salmon continue to return.
Like Mountain in the Clouds, put Making Salmon on your booklist.

As long as man has lived in the Pacific Northwest he has exploited the salmon. In this thorough history of the travails of the pacific salmon, Joseph Taylor does not hesitate to mince words or point the finger of blame, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Native Americans, commercial fishermen, loggers, farmers, sport fishermen, politicians, the states, the feds, the hatcheries, and others, all share the responsibility for the decline of these great fish.

Although focusing on Oregon, MAKING SALMON is easily transferable anywhere Pacific salmon exist, from California to Alaska. Extremely well documented, (fully a third of the book is taken up with notes and other addenda) MAKING SALMON takes the reader step by step through the last two centuries of development in the Northwest and what that has meant to the salmon fishery there. Taylor paints an excellent history of failure and simplistic answers to a complex problem. What comes through, as most intriguing, is the resiliency of the salmon. They somehow manage to survive despite our best efforts to save them. Resiliency should not be confused with immortality however.

Not always an easy read, MAKING SALMON nonetheless remains essential to anyone wishing to better understand the plight of the Pacific salmon or who is interested in the fine detail of what happens when man and nature collide.

Making Salmon is the definitive work on the problems facing the salmon fishery of the Pacific Northwest. For as long as man has lived he has exploited the salmon. Joseph Taylor takes the reader on a journey through time as he leads us step by step through the decline of these once great fish. There is plenty of culpability to go around. Foresters, developers, commercial fisherman, native Americans, even sport fishermen all come in for their share of blame. Although focusing on Oregon, Taylor's work is easily transferable anywhere salmon swim, from Alaska to California.

Extremely well documented (fully a third of the book is taken up with notes and other addenda) Making Salmon is occasionally dry but never dull. What is most dramatic about this story is the resiliency of the salmon. Time and time again they manage to survive despite our best efforts to save them!

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of dams, hatcheries, consumption or conservation, you will find merit in this work. Making Salmon is a must read for anyone interested in the rivers and fisheries of the Northwest.

Mr. Taylor accurately identifies most of the causes of the salmon population crisis facing Washington state, Oregon, Alaska, and British Columbia. And he is dead on in his assessment of the impact of farm fisheries on salmon ecology.
The book grossly understates, however, the impact of logging on salmon habitat. Without canopy to cool streams, temperature-sensitive salmon simply cannot spawn successfully. And let's not overlook the role that clear-cutting plays in causing erosion, sedimentation, and flooding. It's true that salmon ecology can still suffer from genetic contamination by farm fish, point-source and non-point-source pollution, illegal overfishing on the high seas, legal overfishing in fresh water, damming, and overuse of water by irrigators and developers. But let's not downplay the egregious impact of logging.

The man and his "competitors" were not above your common grave diggers. They simply dug and hauled treasures and historic artifacts out of their resting places and rubbed a people and the land of their heritage.

Shame on those who consider them true archeologists.

Aurel Stein was not without his faults. From all indications, he believed in the white man's burden, and probably would have tolerated fascism for its efficiency except for the realization that Hitler's brand of it included anti-Semitism, and Stein was Jewish. Even the subtitle of the book, Pioneer of the Silk Road, is Eurocentric: there were already people living in the areas Stein explored, members of tribes Stein seems to have had no interest in or ability to differentiate among. Stein was the first white archaeologist in the area, and he did open up new methods of what can only be called archaeological plunder. Stein felt that if he hadn't taken those antiquities, there was a good chance they would have been destroyed where they were. He didn't know they'd sit unviewed in the British Museum for almost a hundred years after he took them. The real crime is that they are not now given back to China to help right past injustices. Stein's racial and cultural attitudes were a product of his time. He was too stuck in the framework of his own culture to be able to judge any other culture except by the standards of his own. Annabel Walker acknowledges Stein's shortcomings and yet brings him to life as an interesting, sympathetic individual. He loved his family and friends and dogs dearly, but beyond that, he loved the great Asian wildernesses that he roamed in, often at extreme peril. Walker evokes those places, makes us see them as he did. Walker shows us the "pluck", as Stein liked to call it, of the man, as well as his determination to shape his life as he wanted it, to pursue what interested him. He died the way he lived, in action, pursuing his dream even in his old age. Annabel Walker writes with insight and equanimity. Her research is painstaking, her writing style enjoyable and thought-provoking.

This review addresses two questions: 1) why read a lengthy biography(s) of Sir Aurel Stein who, though famous in his lifetime and a continuing giant in scholarly circles, is today little known to the general public; and 2) which of the two biographies written about Stein should one read: Jeanette Mirsky's "Sir Aurel Stein--Archaeological Explorer" or Annabel Walker's "Aurel Stein--Pioneer of the Silk Road." (Both are available through Amazon.com.)

As to the first question, Stein was the pioneering and dominant archaeologist in the re-discovery during the early 20th century of the ancient civilizations of the eastern Silk Road. The desert and mountain areas he worked in western China and its borderlands with India and Tibet were among the most physically challenging on the planet. And his various projects in life extended well beyond that into India, Pakistan, Persia, and Syria. So a biography of Stein is both an immersion in ancient history and its resurrection, and a tale of adventure and exploration--though, let it be said, it is adventure without theater, because Stein (and thus perforce his biographers) in his writings focused not on the many perils he encountered but on the scientific results he achieved. The adventurous life and amazing fortitude of the man nonetheless come through between the lines.

The other, perhaps greater, reason to read a biography of Aurel Stein is not what he discovered, but who he was: his was the life fully lived. He remained active, healthy, and fully engaged until his death in Kabul in 1943 at age 81 on the verge of yet another archaeological expedition, and he lived his entire life vigorously and focused on a set of themes and projects for investigation which made that life amazingly productive, unified, and successful. It's what we all wish for ourselves--and from which many or most of us fall short. So this is a "feel good" story of human striving and great accomplishment. Until the modern era, we often read biographies of "great men" less for the particulars of the events they molded than for the models of character these people offered of how to live a good and significant life. An account of Stein's life is highly impressive and vicariously comforting in that regard, irrespective of your interest in the archaeology of the Silk Road.

As to the second question, there are two biographies from which to choose (itself a tribute to Stein, since few archaeologists are deemed fit subjects by even one biographer.) Jeanette Mirsky deserves great credit as his pioneer biographer. But Annabel Walker's is the book to read first. If it hooks you on Stein, then you will also find Mirsky's worthwhile, since it in some ways complements Walker's.

The two authors take different approaches. Walker's is a classic biography of external analysis which sorts the evidence. It is deep in insight, and moves quickly as a page-turner because Stein was always looking to the next project, which evolved logically out of his last endeavor or from new opportunities he encountered and exploited. His life thus follows a logical and linear but fascinating trajectory with a real sense of momentum. It's a sophisticated adventure story with a great spirit of unity and drive, and Walker captures that and with much insight smoothly analyzes the transition points (i.e., what lead to the next phase or episode) in a fast-paced but thorough account.

Mirsky's book is half devoted to excerpts from Stein's letters--which were voluminous, highly literate, and have been remarkably well preserved. The other half of her book is Mirksy's narrative framework of analysis (which in some cases exceeds even Walker's perceptiveness of Stein.) So with Mirsky you have part analysis, and part Stein in his own words. This has advantages and disadvantages. It gives you a more direct feel for Stein's character in his own words, and through his letters covers some topics more deeply than Walker does, such as Stein's tactics in dealing with Chinese officials, the British bureaucracy's view of their headstrong employee (he was nominally a school inspector in India but continually sought special dispensation to focus on archaeological projects), and his generosity towards his subordinates.

But Mirsky's attempt to mix analytical narrative with letter excerpts on a number of occasions lapses into more trivial detail from Stein's letters than necessary (Mirsky's book at 547 pre-index pages is no more complete in essence than Walker's at 355 pages), and at some points (particularly accounts of Stein's early life), it misses the forest for the trees and produces some confusion, in part due to failure to provide adequate editorial notes to explicate some of the names/incidents recounted in Stein's letters. Neither book, unfortunately, comes anywhere close to providing adequate maps with which to follow Stein's many journeys. But Walker's book is slightly better than Mirsky's in that regard.

Bottom line: read Walker's book first. It is enough. But if you like this man as much as I did and get "hooked," you will much enjoy Mirsky's book and a more direct exposure to Sir Aurel Stein in his own words and to some of Mirsky's very insightful observations as a follow-on.

It is only through the work and people like Aurel Stein that we can retain knowledge of the past which otherwise would be forgotten and lost in the hands of specialized predators and thieves. Well written book.

An interesting twist about how to represent Nixon's persona while being tapes on TV programs speaking to the 'people', the masses.
Not bad. Not great. But different.

My interest in this particular book began with the press on the anniversary of the death of Robert F. Kennedy. Although I heard about this book, I never read it. Until now. It was a good read on the genesis of political campaigning in the modern day. It's manifestation, however, took place in 1980 with the election of President Ronald Reagan. McGinnis takes us into the back room of the political campaign to illustrate how Richard Nixon, politcal pariah of 1960, evolves into the Republican nominee a short 8 years later. The names of individuals involved in the process in 1968 have relevancy to this date (i.e. Roger Ailes, Patrick Buchanan) and infamy in the past (i.e. Dwight Chapin, John Mitchell). McGinnis also illustrates the movement away from the importance of the print media to the new media of television in political campaigning. When viewed today, we may shrug our shoulders. However, back in 1968, it was revolutionary. The Selling of the President 1968 is a good beginning to understanding political marketing of candidates for office.

It's amazing that Joe McGinnis was allowed access so close to Richard Nixon's inner circle. One of the drawbacks to this kind of journalism is that people learn from it and shut off these opportunities later.
For an audience in 2005 this book will shed light on some of the same media handling that goes on now. Nixon's campaign guys treated him as a product, not a politician, and staged a number of televised "meet the public" type get togethers with regular people before the election. But they hyper controled his message even to the point where they get pretty scared if one of the members of the public go off topic and Nixon starts to look like he can't handle a question on civil rights or some hot topic of the 1960s.
Same thing is going on today with Social Security forums. President George W. Bush goes up on a platform and meets with people to talk about his plan to save Social Security. It's pretty staged.
Many of the names today are the same also, and the key ad guy that worked for Nixon -- Harry Treleaven -- helped get the first President George HW Bush elected to Congress in 1964.
It's a slim book, only about 170 pages of text and another 30 or so of Nixon campaign memos. I read it in about two afternoons.
Anybody interested in politics today or the Nixon era would love this book, but it's a fascinating look at how modern advertising and political campaigns merged. You can see how politics came to be what it is today through this book.

Joe McGinniss joined the Nixon campaign as an observer, and wrote this book of connected stories. Nixon's team had a number of advertising and TV professionals. The book lacks and index and a table of contents. The cover shows Nixon's face on a pack of cigarettes - an apt metaphor. They are heavily advertised, and bad for you in the short and long run. People know this, but they buy them anyway!

Chapter 1 shows Nixon taping commercials for varied markets. "I pledge an all-out war against organized crime in this country." But investigations into organized crime was later halted. Chapter 2 tells us that politics, like advertising, is a con game! Both promise more than they deliver. McGinniss says Nixon lost in 1960 because the camera portrayed him clearly (p.32). I think the TV audience judge he was lying, the radio audience took him at his word. By 1968 Nixon learned how to act sincere. He would appear mellow, not intense; respected, if not loved (p.34). Page 36 explains how this works: saturated TV advertising showing the candidate and giving the desired impression, followed by public appearances where he doesn't say anything. TV would be controlled to transmit the best images (p.38). Chapter 3 tells about Harry Treleaven, who worked on the 1966 campaign for George Bush; he was elected because he was likeable, and none knew his stand on the issues. More people vote for emotional than logical reasons (p.45). Chapter 4 explains the power of TV. "The press doesn't matter anymore: (p.59). Painting Nixon as mellow was their way to overcome the old Nixon. Chapter 5 tells how the TV shows were staged for each region. Page 64 explains the politics for a panel of questioners. The selected audience applauded every answer. Chapter 6 says that if Nixon could not act warmer they would produce commercials that made him so!

Chapter 7 tells how a commercial would "create a Nixon image that was entirely independent of the words" (p.85). "The secret is in the juxtaposition" (p.88). (Was this parodied in that scene in "The Parallax View"?) Once complaint was of a picture of a soldier who had scrawled "LOVE" on his helmet; a new picture was found with a plain helmet. Later they received a letter from that soldier's mother - Mrs William Love (p.92)! Page 99 tells why you never saw a farmer on this show. Or a psychiatrist (p.100)! Chapter 9 gives an insider's view to the commercial images and what they meant. Chapter 10 tells of seeking Wallace voters with a ballad. Another trick was to be seen as a friend of Billy Graham. Chapter 11 tells of Nixon's shrinking lead. How could a slick production lose to a rough-edged show? Chapter 12 rates a Humphrey commercial as "contrived and tasteless" (p.138), but also "most effective" since it showed HHH as a real person in open air, not being kept in a TV studio. Chapter 13 explains how a TV show worked. People would call in with questions; these would be passed to the staff. They would be scrapped, and prepared questions and their answers used (p.149).

The Appendix contains various memos from the campaign; relevant extracts from "Understanding Media" and its analysis. Page 187 notes the good appeal of "reagan". Reagan's personal charisma is noted on plage 189. Pages 218-220 explain the benefits of print advertising over TV. Page 233 mentions the strategy of a challenger: the candidate stands for change (you assume what that means). These memos concern Nixon's run, but are applicable to other candidates today. How much has changed since 1968?

This was an excellent text, rivaling the great "Founding Brothers - The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis. It addresses the fundamental question I have always had; how could slavery continue (thrive) in a "free" nation? I have been reading a lot about the Founding Fathers with the central purpose of answering this very question. This book "George Washington & Slavery" includes many quotes and letters from the general that specifically addresses the slavery issue. It uses Washington and his contemporaries own letters to paint a story of our most famous founding father and his viewpoint on Blacks and slavery.

It begins by discussing how Washington obtained his large slave population through his marriage with Martha. It tells us that Washington was your typical (although meticulous) plantation owner. The Mount Vernon Estate was the most envied in the land. This was due to not only Washington's management but also slave labor. You get a strong since of how important slavery was to the every day needs of our most esteemed founding father.

However, Washington changed his views about Blacks during the Revolutionary War when he initiated enlisting Blacks into the Army (in the North not the South). Unfortunately, this was only done as a last resort after British Lord Cornwallis had announced that Black slaves could seek freedom if they took up arms with the British. It was then that Washington, faced with a mounting slave force with weapons, decided it was a smart strategy to allow Blacks to serve for the colonies.

What was most disappointing about Washington is that he was well aware of several Blacks with courage, intelligence and character. This book tells us about the Black poetess Phyllis Wheatley who was highly regarded for her literature (Washington once wrote her and he did addressed her with respect). There were several slaves that fought valiantly in the Revolutionary War and won recognition from Washington and other generals. He was always known to be fair on the battlefield with both his White and Black soldiers. There are several notably slaves such as his own Billy Lee that stood side by side with Washington through even his military battles. Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette often wrote Washington about the abolition of slavery? In fact, Lafayette wrote Washington about the large-scale emancipation of slaves in the French colony of Cayenne, the capital city of what is now known as Guiana. Therefore, Washington not only had first hand knowledge that Blacks were capable individuals, but also that slavery could and had been abolished in another part of the world. Washington still was willing to sit idle while hundreds of thousands were destined to a life of bondage.

At one time the Washington estate housed over 400 slaves (including children). They catered to the every needs of the Washingtons. Martha Washington had personally eleven slaves to perform her cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc. This book was full of letters by the Washington's regarding their slaves. It indicated that the Washingtons were fair and reasonable with their slave labor. In fact, the only time George revolted punitively was in regard to runaways.

The last will and testament of George Washington was to free his slaves. This is good, but in my opinion is not enough to remove the stain of slavery in his life. Even though he was fair to his slaves, he could have set in motion (or at least continued the existing momentum) emancipation in this country. The original impression I had before was that Whites during our revolutionary time lived in an environment where slavery was an unchallenged institution. This book and others indicate that there was a growing abolition movement in this country that began at the nations' founding.

I get the impression from Washington and the other Founding Fathers that they realized slavery was wrong. Of course it would have been hard to move towards abolition. It is always difficult to give up status and an economic advantage. Power and privilege are always difficult to give up. And even if Washington could give up the Presidency of the United States he could not find himself to give up the comforts of slavery while he was living. This was a question about power and the need to feel superior to others. Emancipation would have been challenged by his fellow southern plantation owners. Of course it would have been challenged and certainly unpopular, but many ideas are challenged. The Founders including Washington could have provided freedom for slaves after they reach an appropriate age. This was a strategy employed by the northern states. He could have been more outspoken and introduced a plan to gradually rid the country of this egregious sin. The question is whether this is worth fighting for. There are many examples where Washington put his life on the line for ideas he felt were worth the fight. Was the fight was worth it? Fighting a war against the world's largest Army was hard and many thought suicidal. But you fight for things that you believe in and ideas that are worth it. That was one of the themes of the revolution. In Washington's opinion (and most other key leaders of our nation at that time), the plight, hopes, dreams, viewpoints, feelings and freedom of Blacks were not worth the fight.

This was a very well research historical view of George Washington that is not presented in normal history classes. While it is known that he owned slaves, this book provides a gateway to allow the reader to step back through time to get a true sense of what it was like to be "owned" by General Washington.

The photocopies of actual hand written letters about recapturing his runaway slaves shows him to be a vindictive person who had no conflict over being a staunch freedom fighter while owning slaves at the same time. Duh!

While some apologists for him say that he was a benevolent owner, the fact remains that his "employees" worked over 12 hours each day, seven days a week with neither a salary nor a 401k.

The book also points out a very clever concealment of the "fugutive slave law" in the constitution. (Section 2 article 4) that George spearheaded.

After reading this work one can see that his slave plantation was every bit as horrific as anything to be found in Treblenka, Bergen-Belsen or Dauchau.

Mr. Hirschfeld has put a lot of time and research into this work and has turned out a good look at Washington the slave owner. He like the writers of recent attacks on T. Jefferson however forget to tell the whole story. Early in the 21st century it is easy to look back and see what an evil slavery was. The fact that we weren't raised being told that slavery was not only acceptable but a positive good makes our viewpoint much eaiser. Washington like Jefferson was raised by people who told him slavery was indeed a good thing. The society he grew up in and probably even his ministers told him the same thing. Hirschfeld's work is lacking in that he doesn't point out that by ever beginning to see the wrongs of the slave system Washington had shown a great deal of moral growth. Otherwise this is a fine book that examines an area of Washington's life that does deserve attention.

The author's work is certainly exhaustively researched, and thus has much to offer to any student of Washington, and of slavery itself. However, I take umbrage to the notion of conducting a limited analysis on the character of Washington, as inferred solely from his reluctant acceptance of the institution of slavery. Had the author been born into a southern plantation family in the late eighteenth century, I wonder if his intractable views on slavery would have been quite as pronounced.

Shawn Wong. Great asian author that should never beoverlooked. This book encompasses love, sex, relationships and asianstereotypes.

I think that this book is an extremely introspective piece about a young Chinese American boy who is discovering the balance between the Chinese heritage he has denied his entire life, as well as the American that he could never be. Wong's poetic nature surfaces in this prose through his lilting descriptions that disclose the connection Rainsford seeks to find between his heritage and this country who was so unaccepting of Chinese immigrants, and how possibly the nature of society has never really changed no matter how hard he tries just as his ancestors did.

I was assigned to read HOMEBASE by Rainsford Chan in a American Ethnic Studies comparative literature course and I was so glad that I did! The author, Professor Wong, who was the head of the English department at the University of Washington, gives the Chinese Exclusion Act and the generations who followed it a face, a name and a story. Rainsford Chan, the main character, bridges three generations as he takes a look back at his identity as a Chinese-American in an adverse culture that will not accept him as truly "American" because of his Eastern features, the color of his skin and his last name. Though, his great-grandfather literally helped to build America, while constructing the Trans-Pacific railroad, Chan still feels he has no real place amongst the Whites who continue to question his authenticity.

Wong's style is intense, poetic and frank. This novel also brings up very important and timely points about cultural and social identity, and the connection between men, their fathers and the legacy they carry on even three generations down the line. Rainsford excels in American sports, earns a letterman jacket and must become the "man" in the family after his father dies, and also helps his mother in her flower shop. The duties of manhood and caring for his family are part of his identity that he must live up to, as well as the pressure of justifying his "American-ness" to everyone who insists he must be from Hong Kong. Even though he comes from the "home where the buffalos roam." Such an important book for anyone interested in cultural identity in the United States, and for those who are still struggling for fair treatment in a White world.

Shawn Wong's homebase deals with a topic not widely discussed in literature. The author's early work (before American Knees) delves into his relationship between his father and heritage. the lesson I walked away was that by looking back at your heritage, you always can find a place you can call home. Whether it is in your family or friends, there is a special place you can go when you are seeking solace from the outside world. The language is magnificent and he has a strong writting style which draws you into his stories.