University of Nebraska Books

This book is one of the many written by Delbruck. They are quite simply, required reading. Fortunately it is also that much rarer bird, a pleasure to read.

In his book, "Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy And American Culture, 1830-1900", author Andrew Denson explores Cherokee thought and writings during various periods of the 19th century, a time when Cherokee nationhood and autonomy were extensively challenged by the American Government. The book can primarily be read as a study of Cherokee resistance. Denson does a superb job of analyzing arguments that the representatives of the Cherokee tribe used in Washington, DC to preserve their culture and their very existence. The emphasis throughout the book is on what the Cherokee themselves intended for their people and their relationship to America. The perspective of the U.S. government or of European Americans is not addressed to a great extent. The book also explores relationships between the Cherokee themselves, with revealing looks at internecine fighting and contempt between such groups as "full bloods" and "mixed bloods." A further strength of Denson's book is that it reads smoothly and easily even for one not familiar with Cherokee History. Denson provides in-depth historical background to put events and "memorials" (petitions to Washington, DC) in context.

Each chapter of the book deals with a different challenge faced by the Cherokees during the 1800s. Denson looks at their thought and responses to Removal (the infamous "Trail of Tears"), the American Civil War, the post-Civil War period when war was made on the Indians in the plains, the incursion of the railroad into Cherokee land, and the devastating event of "allotment" in the late 1800s which dispersed and disorganized the tribe until years later in the 20th century. There is a chapter devoted to "The Okmulgee Council," perhaps the closest the Cherokees ever came to complete autonomy. Another chapter illuminates the International Fairs, unique events which allowed the various Native American tribes to display their culture to the rest of the country. Again, for those not overly familiar with Cherokee History, the epilogue provides a concise summary of events of the 20th century, with an optimistic view of the condition of the tribe in the present day.

For the more serious historian, Denson's work is replete with footnotes and an extensive bibliography, along with some of his recommendations for further reading. Though Denson's writing is not at all esoteric, nevertheless the book contains many ideas which show his extensive thought on the subjects and his effort to examine every side of the Cherokee arguments with the U.S. and among themselves. It is an important book in terms of understanding the aims, objectives, hopes and desires of the Cherokee people in the 19th Century.

Beautiful poetic prose and a compelling narrative and characters. Glancy weaves several narrative styles together from chapter to chapter, in a style appropriate to the tensions and struggles of the protagonist Ada as she struggles both to hold together a splintering family again and to make sense of (or reconcile) the competing claims of written narrative and oral narrative of the two cultures she straddles.

In Sorenson's retelling of the coming of Ragnarok, the author treats the Norse Gods in much the same manner as Homer treated the Greek Deities--less like divinities and more like a large, noisy, and oftentimes dysfunctional family.

Everyone in Asgard has a personality and a private agenda. Odin is very much the distant father who, at the same time, aches because his duties simply will not permit him to have a closer relationship with his family. Loki, while certainly a trickster character, does possess flashes of regret for things as they come to pass with Ragnarok. Balder is just trying to get others to be decent to one another. Thor, while portrayed as a bit of a "redneck", is one of the most interesting characters. You can't help but admire his tenacity, especially over the retelling of his fishing expedition against the Great Serpent.

Another plus with this book is the author's afterword about why he chose to end the book with Ragnarok, and not to write about the paradisical remaking of the world.

Definitely worth keeping!

exciting contemporary writer...inventive, intelligent, funny...a remarkable achievement in the experimental genre...for those following the lineage from richardson-->joyce, woolf-->burroughs-->acker, borinsky is a must

This is a large reference book written by a preeminent Nebraska-based ornithologist who has a mind-boggling knowledge of his topics. The major ducks, swans and geese covered are cited in the tags. The book is illustrated by the author's drawings and color plates (so delightful to see some of them with their brood and juveniles).

Each subject (goose, duck or swan) is written about within the following sections: Other vernacular names, Subspecies and ranges, Measurements and weights, Identification and field marks, Natural History (subtopics are Habitat and foods; Social behavior; Reproductive biology, Status, Relationships, and Suggested Readings). So the information related is quite thorough and extensive.

I recently completed reading a wonderful book by Bob Tarte called Enslaved by Ducks, and used this reference guide to research the many pet ducks and geese that Mr. Tarte and his wife, Linda, have adopted and care for in Western rural Michigan. It came in very handy and brought the species closer to home for me.

The author states in the chapter "Introduction to the Family Anatidae" that "the primary purpose of this book is to provide information on each of the species of the waterfowl family in a standardized format and easily accessible manner."

He certainly succeeds, and I highly recommend this work.

Photographer Bill Ganzel grew up on the Great Plains and after seeing an exhibition of Farm Security Administration photos in 1970 had the unique idea of searching out the places and people of the original photos and photographing them again. This stunning book is the result of his quest. All the photos have detailed captions and also the thoughts of those Ganzel interviewed.

Of the hundred and eighty-nine photos in the book just over half are from the FSA files, the rest are the result of Ganzel's searching out the original locations over a five year period. Amazingly he found several people who had become famous (though still anonymous) because their photos were widely reproduced in newspapers and magazines in the thirties.

One of these was Florence Thompson who was the Migrant Mother in the world famous 1936 photo by Dorothea Lange. I think it is the greatest photo ever taken and Roy Stryker head of the FSA photo section said it was THE image of the collection. This is what he said in 1972 ...''After all these years, I still get that picture out and look at it. The quietness and the stillness of it...Was that woman calm or not? I've never known. I cannot account for that woman. So many times I've asked myself what is she thinking? She has all the suffering of mankind in her but all the perseverance too. A restraint and a strange courage. You can see anything you want to in her. She is immortal. Look at that hand. Look at the child. Look at those fingers--those two heads of hair.'' So it was a wonderful surprise for me to see the photo Ganzel took in 1979 of Florence and her three healthy grown-up daughters on page thirty-one facing the original Migrant Mother photo of her on page thirty.

He also found Darrel Coble who was the young boy running after his father in the well known 1936 Athur Rothstein photo 'Fleeing a dust storm', taken in Cimarron County, Oklahoma. Another unknown yet famous person who survived the Depression and prospered.

Other photos show railroad crossings, houses, tractors in 1936 fields with combines in 1977 fields, cowhands at dinner, churchs, gas stations, county fairs, court houses. Everyday life and people on the Plains separated by forty years.

This is a wonderful book capturing the feel of the thirties on the Plains and again in the Seventies. If you collect books of documentary photos this one must be in your collection. A gem.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

"The Robinson Crusoe of Texas." said J. Frank Dobie. "The most literate of all nineteenth-century Texas memoirs...authentic history." wrote John H. Jenkins in his "Basic Texas Books". In 1835, Texas offered young men like John C. Duval a chance for action and glory. That year he and his brother, Burr, the sons of a former governor of Florida, organized a volunteer company called the "Mustangs." Like Davy Crockett, they were fired up "to give the Texans a helping hand on the road to freedom" from Mexican rule. The first chapters of this book lead up to the Goliad Massacre, in which Burr was killed. John was luckier. After a hair-raising escape from Goliad, he wandered across the country-side, dodging the Mexicans and living by his wits. The diary that Duval kept during these exciting months was the basis for this book, which was published more than fifty years later, in 1892. In the intervening years he was a Texas Ranger known as "Texas John" and later was recognized as one of Texas's first men of letters as the author of "The Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace". A must for any Texas collector.

This book is exclent! I'd recomend this book to anyon

Bayard Taylor, with the eye of the photographer for detail and composition and the writing talent of the professional journalist Horace Greely so willingly paid, provides the reader with a fantastic look at California of the mid-1800's. His vivid descriptions of the people, the events, and perhaps most importantly, the pre-development beauty of California's wild mountains, seacoasts, and valleys, made this reviewer (a native Californian) long for a time machine to allow visits to the wondrous collection of experiences described by Taylor. From his many travels across the land, to his viewing of the first California constitutional convention, his words allow the reader to feel the wind in one's hair as the California-bred horses fly at top speed across the valleys and through the washes, or to become a fly on the wall as the convention delegates reach compromises which shaped and prepared the State for its Golden future. The pictures he paints of the natural environment of early California are so dramatic that they must could certainly be used to support any attempts to preserve the tragically few remaining expanses of California wilderness. This is a book for Californians (and those who love the state) who wish to return, if only for a few brief moments, to the sounds and the sights of it's birth: raw, chaotic, beautiful, yet with a rich Spanish/Mexican heritage and social codes that provided a useable framework to maintain law and order. Taylor describes it all, allowing us to understand not only what was happening, but also why. It's a great book.