University of Nebraska Books

I thought I had exhausted finding fresh, literary works on the subject of plains Indian/military history, but this book is a gem. It is sprinkled with wonderful, relevant tidbits to events whose humanity is gone in other efforts. I've read about 400 books on the subject, and this is in the top 5

This book is extraordinary!! 51 major French female authors spanning from "The trobairitz" (c. 1170-1260) to Julia Kristeva (born 1941) are profiled with a highly informative biography, major themes (her subjects), and survey of criticism. Each ends with a bibliography including books that are translations of the author published in English and studies published on the author. These women are so fascinating you will probably agree with British legend George Eliot that "...in France alone if the writings of women were to be swept away, a serious gap would be made ni the national history." The women writers profiled here are Marie d'Agoult, SImone de Beauvoir, Isabelle de Charriere, Andree Chedid, Christine de Pizan, Colette, Sophie Cottin, Hellisenne de Crenne, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Marie de Vichy-Chamrond, Marquise du Deffand; Pernette du Guillet, Claire de Duras, Judith Gautier, Stephanie-Felicite, Contesse de Genlis; Delphine Gay de Girardin, Marie Le Jars de Gournay, Francoise d'lessembourg d' Happoncourt de Graffigny, Benoite Groult, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Juliane von Krudener, Louise Labe, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Comtesse de Lafayette; Violette Leduc, Julie de Lespinasse, Francoise Mallet-Joris, Marguerite de Navarre, Marie de France, Anan de Noailles, Rachilde, Marie Jeanne Riccoboni, Christiane Rochefort, Marie Jeanne Philipon (Manon) Roland de la Platiere, Francoise Sagan, George Sand, Nathalie Sarraute, ALbertine Sarrazin, Madeleine de Scudery, Sophie Rostopchine, Comtesse de Segur; Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sevigne; Germaine Necker, Baronne de Stael; Claudine-Alexandrine Guerin de Tencin, Flora Tristan, The Trobairitz, Marie-Catherine Desjardins de Villedieu, Simone Weil, Monique Wittig, and Marguerite Yourcenar. Each of these women enjoys an informative essay written by a scholar, most women themselves. It's sad so many of these icons of French literature have so few of their works now published in English, indeed many have yet to enjoy an English translation and several have not English editions published in two centuries! Even a legend like George Sand has not nearly enough of her work available on the American market. Even if you've never read a word published by many of these authors, you will no doubt be inspired by their gifts, their humanity (many were actively inviolved in charity work and progessive causes), and I strongly suspect you will seek out the works of at least a few of the authors which is the best compliment you can give a literary historian.

Kathleen Cairns does a formidable job of revealing these early women journalists in the context of their era -- and explores the womens' own ambivalence about their unique role in society. These women come alive on the page and easily earn a place in the forefront of ground-breaking, energetic and articulate women of the age.

Though almost 100 years have passed since it was first published, this book is still a classic, and still THE starting point for anyone interested in games of the North American Indians, whether you are a scholar or just interested in games. The encyclopedic treatment and many illustrations of museum artifacts only enhance its value.

I have to say my interest in Janet Flanner's life came only by accident. Her lesbian lover Natalia Danesi Murray's son and author, William Murray, died just recently. I first got this book entitled "Janet, My Mother, and Me" about his life with his mother, her lover, and his own life in New York City and Fire Island and Italy. Then I got "Darlinghissima: Letters to a Friend" edited by his mother, Natalia Danesi Murray in 1986. Still I wanted to know more about Janet Flanner. First, nobody owned Janet not her lovers like Natalia Danesi Murray, Noel Murphy, or Solita Solano. Janet or Genet belonged to the world. She was one of God's greatest creations even though she didn't believe in Him. He certainly believed in her. Janet's Quaker upbringing, her father's suicide, and a failed marriage brought her to Solita Solano, they were lovers and friends for life. Solita gave Janet the freedom to be with other women like Noel Murphy in Orgeval, France. Janet still loved her freedom and until Natalia entered her life, it became complicated. She loved all three of these women in a certain way. I felt until I read Brenda Wineapple's biography on Janet, that I didn't get the whole picture because it was from Natalia and William's points of view. I learned that Janet's lovers Solita and Noel did not take kindly to Natalia's possessiveness of Janet. They are all gone now including William Murray, her stepson who she nurtured to be a writer. This book does justice in showing and depicting Janet's flaws as well as her brilliance. She was one of the greatest minds of the last century in journalism. I am sure that the New Yorker still misses her columns even though they came late. For 50 years, she wrote her letters from Paris, detailed, thorough, and truly observed the French and European culture during it's toughest centuries. Despite her sexual orientation, she despised the open affection of both hetero and homosexuality as vulgar. Still, she has been gone for almost 30 years and I never knew her but I miss her. I think she was irreplaceable. I just love the photo of her and Ernest Hemingway together in France. While I read the other books with tremendous interests, I didn't get the whole picture until now and I am glad that I did. I am shocked that i am the first person to review a book about such a enormous literary figure of the twentieth century.

Well written account of the ways in which fortune hunters traveled to the golden state. Full accounts of the social and political make-up of early American California.

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"Fine-Dare presents a sensitive review of the American Indian repatriation movement and its legal basis in the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). . . . Strange as it may seem, some archaeologists still maintain that NAGPRA is a political move that threatens science. Therefore, Fine-Dare's book is required reading for students of anthropology at all levels."-Choice.

Grave Injustice is the powerful story of the ongoing struggle of Native Americans to repatriate the objects and remains of their ancestors that were appropriated, collected, manipulated, sold, and displayed by Europeans and Americans. Anthropologist Kathleen S. Fine-Dare focuses on the history and culture of both the impetus to collect and the movement to repatriate Native American remains.

Using a straightforward historical framework and illuminating case studies, Fine-Dare first examines the changing cultural reasons for the appropriation of Native American remains. She then traces the succession of incidents, laws, and changing public and Native attitudes that have shaped the repatriation movement since the late nineteenth century. Her discussion and examples make clear that the issue is a complex one, that few clear-cut heroes or villains make up the history of the repatriation movement, and that little consensus about policy or solutions exists within or beyond academic and Native communities.

The concluding chapters of this history take up the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which Fine-Dare considers as a legal and cultural document. This highly controversial federal law was the result of lobbying by American Indian and Native Hawaiian peoples to obtain federal support for the right to bring back to their communities the human remains and associated objects that are housed in federally funded institutions all over the United States.

Grave Injustice is a balanced introduction to a longstanding and complicated problem that continues to mobilize and threatens to divide Native Americans and the scholars who work with and write about them.

Kathleen S. Fine-Dare is a professor of anthropology and women's studies at Fort Lewis College. She is the author of Cotocollao: Ideologia, historia, y acci-n en un barrio de Quito.

Read this in College. Found it to be the best complete review of American Indian policy from colonial times to present.

Citing from over 700 journals, diaries and letters, Merrill Mattes' "The Great Platte River Road" is a must read for history enthusiasts of the Oregon Trail. From the five main jumping off points along the Missouri River: Independence, Ft. Leavenworth, St. Joe, Nebraska City and Council Bluffs, we see how all emigrant roads lead to Ft. Kearny. From here the lengthy and laborious journey to the west followed the Platte River. Mattes incorporates the overlander's journals with his own effective style of writing to give vivid, down-to-earth, hard-nosed descriptions of past events in such places as Ft. Kearny, Ash Hollow, Court House Rock, Chimney Rock, Scottsbluff and culminating with Ft. Laramie. He not only communicates the difficulties endured by the emigrants themselves such as river crossings, cholera and survival, but also chronicles accounts of the Pony Express, military, Indians, stage lines, etc. and how they all played a part in Manifest Destiny. Not only was this book a pleasure to read, it was extremely insightful and deep-rooted of our Westward expansion.

A formal review of this book appears in the July, 1996, issue of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register