University of Nebraska Books

This book is actually a series of letters written by a Frenchman (Louis Simonin) to a friend in Paris in 1867. The first-hand accounts of Denver, the first days of Cheyenne, a Sioux Village, and the general practices/customs/thoughts of the day are invaluable. First-hand accounts of the old Amercian culture, supply chains, the UPRR as it was built through Wyoming, character traits of miners, Indians, and the calvary; military forts, etc. are all addressed by this astute writer. An absolte MUST for any fan or historian of the old west.

Enos A. Mills was known as "the father of Rocky Mountain National Park." After spending years as a guide in the Estes Park area, making hundreds of ascents of Longs Peak, and then purchasing and operating the famous Longs Peak Inn, he became an advocate for various conservation and nature appreciation causes, most notably with the National Forest Service. Mills criss-crossed the country giving speeches (actually basically the same speech countless times), outlining the history of the Forest Service and relating his own personal experiences in the wild. A controversial figure (he seemed to have an uncanny ability to make enemies wherever he went), he eventually broke with Gifford Pinchot's Forest Service and began campaigning to make the Estes Park region a national park. Tireless in all things he put his mind to, Mills wrote hundreds of articles and a half-dozen books about (especially) the natural wonders of the Rocky Mountain region. In 1915 Rocky Mountain National Park became a reality.

This book collects a number of nature articles Mills wrote and had published in various magazines (The Saturday Evening Post was a favorite publication). Subjects include wild sheep, mountain lakes, the grizzly bear, beavers, reforestation, the Chinook wind, and some personal adventures (one involving a trip over the San Juans between Ouray and Silverton on a "mountain pony"). Mills makes his presence felt in all the articles, and he has the ability to make the reader feel privileged to be in his company. Unconcerned with bookish information, he would much rather relate what he's seen and learned with his own eyes. Some of the articles are a bit self-serving in their unwavering praise for the Rocky Mountain NP region, but he can be excused pushing his pet project so diligently. Mills's mountain adventures in all seasons and conditions are legendary, and anyone with a hankering for first-hand mountain experiences from a master naturalist will find this book a pleasure to read.

While many works have been published addressing the history of the American Indian nations and their liquidation, it is rare to find this addressed in a rigorous anthropological way. In particular, anthropological analysis of Native American dispossession seems to treat the Indians as a subject and the European Americans as a control group--somehow above anthropological scrutiny. White, therefore, renders a rare service in treating both the Indians and their European American interlocutors as vulnerable actors, subject to misunderstandings, panic, and folly.

Another, more important virtue of this book is to explode persistent notions about the economic organization of pre-industrial peoples. White explodes--as did Polanyi, et al--the Hayekian notion of primitive economic man. We learn that "trade" among the profiled Indian nations was not driven by prices and scarcity, but by honor and reciprocal obligation. This misconception has continued to plague Western relations either with pre-modern societies (e.g., in West Africa & the Pacific) but also marginalized communities within industrialized societies (e.g., South Central Los Angeles, or North African diaspora communities in urban France).

The familiar, morally satisfying analyses of Western/pre-modern contacts, and their abysmal aftermaths, tend to rely on obvious criminality on the part of the Western actors. This is insidious because it minimizes the implications of an historical narrative for modern social relations (by making it seem like a bizarre anomaly) and because it makes it so much harder to witness and protest modern destructive behavior.

I found this book helpful, informative and inspiring. I applaud the courage, spirit and conviction of those who contributed to this volume who spoke up and exercised their international human right of freedom of expression on behalf of Rushdie's own legal right to the same right under international human rights law. May the author Salman Rushdie continue to write award-winning fiction celebrated around the world by discriminating readers and writers and may there always be courageous and conviction-filled individuals who refuse to be intimidated by terrorists and other thugs who commit criminal acts around the world in violation of recognized international legal norms

The book is divided according to the taxonomy Rossman has developed to group the varieties of ultra-nationalist thought: "neo-Eurasianism" (conceptualized by Rossman as geopolitical antisemitism); Gumilev's theory; "National Bolshevism;" "neo-Slavophilism;" "National Orthodoxy;" and biological racism referring to the "Aryan" myth. Though terminologically somewhat confusing, for the purpose of Rossman's investigation, this conceptualization of the ideological spectrum seems to lead him to a rather useful classificatory scheme. It allows Rossman to systematically describe, analyze and criticize each major school in Russian post-Soviet ultra-nationalist thought neither ignoring any relevant approach, nor drowning in the hundreds of articles, brochures, periodicals, and books that constitute potential objects of his study. The ideas, theories and concepts introduced and criticized by Rossman are far too sophisticated and numerous to do them justice here. I shall mention thus only the few minor quarrels I have with the study.
Rossman's extensive discussion of the philo- and antisemitic tendencies in pre-revolutionary Russian religious philosophy and Sergei Nilus is interesting, but, in this context, ultimately unnecessary. A short summary would have been sufficient.
Some of the relevant secondary literature is missing in Rossman's bibliography (Matthias Messmer, Semyon Reznik, Michael Hagemeister, John B. Dunlop, Yitzhak Brudny, Wayne Allensworth, Hildegard Kochanek, Viacheslav Likhachëv, etc.). Also, in the last part of his study, Rossman makes a statement that I found debatable. Rossman writes:
"Russia is a very heterogeneous country in terms of its racial composition, and thus, the use of racist rhetoric can compromise even the most well-established political parties. In addition, the historical memory of the Second World War makes citizens of the former Soviet Union hostile to any fascist ideology [...]." (p. 256)
Though this is, perhaps at a first glance, a correct assessment, it might be misleading in two ways. First, it could be possible to classify Lev Gumilev's theory of ethnogenesis conceptualizing ethnic or supra-ethnic groups as biological entities, and Russia-Eurasia as such a super-ethnos as a novel variety of racism. If so, racism - though certainly not its Nazi version - constitutes, as Rossman shows in his second chapter, a major intellectual movement in post-Soviet Russia.
Second, it seems too optimistic to assume a Russian hostility to "any kind" of fascist ideology. Certainly, Nazi ideas and symbols are rejected by most Russians; Italian Fascist ideology seems also discredited. However, new post-war ultra-nationalist ideologies avoiding Nazi rhetoric, and posing under such headings as "ethnic pluralism," "Third Way," or "traditionalism" may still qualify to be categorized as varieties of fascism (understood as a generic concept). All of the above critique is, however, ultimately inconsequential, and in no way questions the significance of Rossman's contribution.
The one serious remark to be made concerns the publishers editorial work: There are dozens of misprints (especially in the endnotes), and an embarrassing succession of two versions of the same paragraph in the conclusions (p. 283).
Otherwise, however, this is an informative summary and critique of the most relevant anti-Semitic ideologies in Russia today, and excellent introduction to the subject. One hopes that it finds a wide readership not only among students of antisemitism and the history of ideas, but also among experts on international right-wing extremism and contemporary Russian politics and society.

In `Sacajawea's People' Mann writes with the accuracy and flavor of Ambrose, and a touch of western narrative resembling Stegner. A must read for anybody remotely interested in the tale of the Corps of Discovery, and the fallout that ensued from that momentous journey. Perfectly timed with the bicentennial of the expedition.

As a dedicated Sacred Harp Singer,I have just one thing to say
about Ms.Eastburn's book,this is a very well written book that can be read on many levels.It is a travelogue about Sacred Harp Singings,it is a
cookbook filled with a sampling of some of the dishes that you may find on
a table at a dinner on the grounds,it is also the evolution of a Singer from just a journalist.This book would make an excellent companion to the
excellent Documentary; "Awake My Soul".

This is the final book in the Holme trilogy, a saga about a Viking thrall and his family. The book starts out with the aftermath of the destruction of the Christian church by Holme. He leads other thralls in an uprising for freedom, which ends in disaster. Once again, Holme is in trouble and must flee again. Holme goes to see the sympathetic king, and becomes his personal blacksmith. Holme's wife Ausi and daughter Tora move onto the king's settlement as well.

The family who originally owned Holme and Ausi is down to its last two surviving members - the old chieftains wife and their son. The old woman still wants vengence, meaning she wants to own Tora and Ausi once more. She's too afraid to want to own Holme again...he's far too dangerous. However, the son Svien has other ideas. He loves Tora and wants her to be his bride of her own free will. Svien works things out with Holme and things go well with Svien and Tora.

The clash between Christians and the worshippers of the old wooden gods comes to a head, and the battle between thralls and freemen continues. This is a very untraditional tale for the genre, written throughout with virtually no dialogue. Fridegard is a first-class storyteller, and infuses beautiful descriptions of wildlife and settings like a true master. The trilogy is a truly brilliant work of artistic literature.

This is one of the better books I have ever read (mostly text and very few photos/illustrations) about saloons, and saloons in the Rockie Mountains in particular. Lots of great stories, saloon lexicon, who ran saloons and what the saloons were like. The book even covers what it cost to start up a saloon in the 1800s, from the tent saloon with a 2x12 for a bar to the most elegant saloons with paneling, crystal glassware, marble bars, elegant paintings, etc. Also covered are the various types of beverages, how difficult it was to transport them to remote mining camps, the profits one could make in the saloon business..ethnicity of saloon owners and so forth. After reading this book, you will know so much about these old saloons that your daydreams with be very authentic...great source for writers, researchers, students.

These are Owen Wister's first western stories, written for Harpers Monthly in 1894-95, and published together under the title "Red Men and White" in 1896. Lovers of his novel "The Virginian" will recognize some of his themes in this collection and an early version of The Virginian himself in the character of Specimen Jones, who appears in three of the stories, first as a drifter and prospector, then as a soldier in the U.S. Army.

The Easterner who narrates much of "The Virginian" appears here, too, in a long story that takes him on a journey across Arizona in the rough, disreputable days before statehood. Wister's concern for the American character, which he finds much eroded among civilians in the West, crops up in this story, "A Pilgrim on the Gila." By contrast, we see his sympathy for young men on the wrong side of the law, only after it has been first lampooned in the satiric "The Serenade at Siskiyou," where the genteel ladies of the town attempt to lighten the hearts of two prisoners held for murder.

That story also explores the tensions between men and women in a frontier world where gender roles are rigidly different. This and one other story concern themselves with the occurrence of lynching alleged lawbreakers. Both of these themes emerge again dramatically in "The Virginian."

Many stories reflect Wister's respect for the disciplined men of the American Army on the frontier. Meanwhile, Indians figure in two stories: "Little Big Horn Medicine" and "The General's Bluff." The title story, "Salvation Gap," is a mining camp melodrama, involving the murder of a woman and the hanging of her lover. "La Tinaja Bonita" is a long story in a similar vein, involving a man's long journey across an arid Arizona desert, driven by jealous love and ending in death. Finally, "The Second Missouri Compromise" tells a humorous story of unreconstructed Southern politicians at odds with the Territorial Governor and his Treasurer, both northerners, in Boise, Idaho.

Wister was already a good storyteller in these early pieces, capturing in vivid detail the western terrain and the mostly squalid life of frontier towns and mining camps. While fascinated by the West, he does not romanticize it. He observes the excesses of unbridled independence there, while lamenting the absence of good sense and ethics among Easterners, especially politicians in Washington. He sees glimpses of character in a few men, mostly in uniform, and they will come together finally in the shining example of The Virginian some half dozen years later.