Pacific University Books

Mary Sojourner has the unique talent for taking us, with just a few strokes of the pen, into the stark, cold underbelly of human greed and arrogance, then flinging us into the heartbreaking beauty of the natural world. As a lone warrior and guardian of that natural world, she stops at nothing to protect it, facing arrest and the lawyers of multi-million dollar corporations with the same unyielding stance. Her essays are a testament to the best--and the worst--of the human spirit and this world we live in.

This is a collection of fifty-one personal essays about living (and dying) in the southwest that will leave you angry, sad, happy, disillusioned, and hopeful. But beware: if you are looking for a touchy-feely, I'm OK-Your OK collection, this is not for you. These essays are opinionated, sometimes in-your-face, always passionate critical critiques of living in the contemporary southwest that are a sheer delight to read. In pieces ranging from aging, gambling, land development and nature to the demise of local businesses and the joy of shopping in downtown Flagstaff, AZ., the reader is treated to one woman's opinions in a thoughtful, clear, and highly readable manner. Sojourner is destined to be a major player in the environmental, activists' genre. Highly recommended.

This is a two volume set originally published in 1901. Covers folklore, beliefs, customs, superstions of people at that time in rural Wales and the Isle of Mann. This is probably 80% or more dealing with the Welsh and covers things like beliefs in fairies, spirits living in wells, trees and lakes and the stories surrounding them, plus lots more. Rhys also goes into the racial aspects of folklore and myth. One thing that made this book great is Rhys actually went to the most isolated places where these beliefs were part of everyday life and interviewed and talked with people compiling first hand reports.

I'm a big believer that folklore and folk customs in the British Isles are a vital source for understanding the Pagan religions of the British Isles because I think much of this stuff is a direct surviving part of Heathenry. These two volumes are one of, if not the, best source for Welsh folk customs.

Celtic Folklore : Welsh and Manx is one of those beautifully written books that makes you grateful: grateful that an author of such brilliance devoted his energy to a topic of interest to you; grateful that an accomplished scholar was able, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century to interview old Welsh and Manx folk whose recollections reached back to the period prior to 1825, and who recalled the stories of their own grandparents, thus bringing us a view of folkways now over 200 years old;and finally, grateful that this wonderful book is still in print. Sir John was Professor of Celtic and Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, at the turn of the century. He lived at just the right time, and I think I can say the world he wrote of is very nearly gone now. At the period when he did his field work very evident remains of the pre-Christian past were discernable, and these he records in wonderful detail. Snap up a copy of Celtic Folklore : Welsh and Manx while you can.

Mr. Jackson did excellent research for this book. I have numerous ancestors mentioned in the book and even had a picture of one that I had never seen before. Anyone interested in the history of the Western Mt, Idaho and Eastern WA area, will need to read this book. I hope that the Author publishes more material from his research.

From the book, I found out that the Metis of the Pacific Northwest formed many communities in that area. My great-grandparents were born in Walla Walla, WA. and we were told that they were French- Canadian and "Black Irish". I read that in Walla Walla, is where they founded communities and that they hid there ancestry and called themselves French-Canadian. So, on reading this, I found out that the missing part to my full heritage was actually a mixture of French and Native American Indian. I owe a great gratitude to Mr. Jackson. Thank-you!!! Sean

I just finished this book...once I picked it up I couldnt put it down. I really dont think there is enough written out there about this subject and what these guys went thru there.

E. B. Sledge's "With the Old Breed" is by common consent one of the finest -- if not the finest -- account of the life of a combat infantryman in World War II. At Pelieu and Okinawa, Sledge was one of only 10 men in his Marine company of 240 to escape being wounded or killed. "China Marine" is the follow-up to "With the Old Breed," a lesser work but one that tells of what happened to Sledge after the war.

With Sledge's experience, one would have thought that he would have been among the first among the military to be demobilized after the end of the war with Japan -- but no, he and his colleagues were sent to China to disarm the Japanese soldiers there and to maintain order in several northern Chinese cities. This is Sledge's account of the six months he spent in China. His view is that of a Private First Class -- but an educated and sophisticated PFC, the son of a medical doctor from Mobile, Alabama, and an outstanding writer. He delighted in Peking, fresh food, a clean bunk, light duties, and friendship with the sophisticated Soong family -- but the danger from attack by communist armies was always there.

Sledge goes on to tell of the trauma of his discharge from the Marines and homecoming to Mobile and, very briefly, his long years of struggle with what we call today Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's a brief book, only 160 pages, and am interesting, beautifully written, account of the decompression of a combat soldier and his return home.

Sledge died in 2001 but he was often quoted in Ken Burn's recent PBS series on World War II. Sledge is a true American hero.

Smallchief

Having approached this study as a complete stranger to the genre of Chinese reportage, I found Laughlin's research both highly engaging and fascinating at the same time. His thorough scholarship stands out among the fast-growing number of books in the field of Chinese literary studies in the past few years of very mediocre quality. I hope Laughlin will continue to do scholarship of this kind.

With this fascinating monograph, there finally exists in English a profound study of a Chinese literary genre that has been negelected in American scholarship on modern Chinese literature (another book on the genre by R. Wagner entitled "Inside the Service Trade" is a lot more focused on the PRC). Particularly praiseworthy is Laughlin's attempt to place the genre, which re-gained popularity during the late Republican period and later during the early years of the PRC, in its historical perspective by tracing its origins back to the Qing dynasty.

In his Common & Contested Ground Ted Binnema fully describes the ecological reservoir that sustained the northern buffalo and was the focus of tribal subsistance. Here is a history of a neglected region that grows from the grassroots and hoof prints, set on a solid foundation and perceptively described. Breaking away from the river bound data of fur trade journalists, Binnema sets the record of the bands and traders properly ahorse and free to range the great adventures of the buffalo world.

As a scholar and researcher of the Northern Plains I can say without hesitation this is one of the best books to come out in years. Binnema has brought some fresh viewpoints to the complexity of northern plains history. It's refreshing to see new, good, work at a time when most authors are restating ideas that have been published to death.

Peter Kropotkin was a Russian prince who lived during times of great flux in his country. He was born to nobility during the "last hurrah" of the tsarist regime. He witnessed the disintegration of that regime through the early decades of the 20th century, and before he died, he watched as the Bolsheviks consolidated their power, substituting one authoritarian system for another. It would have been easy for Kropotkin to maintain his aristocratic life, which would have brought him tremendous privileges even after the fall of tsarism, but he renounced his title and became one of anarchism's foremost theorists.

The Conquest of Bread is one of Kropotkin's contributions to anarchist theory. Kropotkin posits, like Marxists, that the concentration of wealth which is the basis of a capitalist economy is the root cause of poverty. Unlike the Marxists, however, Kropotkin does not suggest a centralized state as the solution to workers' exploitation. His solution is autonomous collectives in which produce what they can and barter for what they need and want. In essence, Kropotkin is suggesting an anarchist market economy.

This market is not profit driven, as it would be in a capitalist market, having no regard for the basic needs of the individual. Kropotkin believed, instead, that the productive system is efficient enough to produce not only the needs of the population, but also enough of the luxuries that make life pleasant. What prevents the general enjoyment of these goods is not lack of production or inability to distribute them, but the determination of production by profit motives rather than social consumption motives.

Kropotkin's divides his book thematically, looking at basic human needs and wants. He examines why despite the ability to produce enough for everyone, people live in want. He looks at the need for luxury and sees it as an understandable and necessary part of being human. And despite being written over 100 years ago, his analysis is still fresh and relevant. The same problems that limit the lives of the working class in 2008 limited them in 1905. The difference is in scale and scope.

Charles Weigl's Introduction is well-researched and gives important insight into Kropotkin's life and context for his work. For someone unfamiliar with Kropotkin, it will prove invaluable. Weigle takes the reader through the ideas and critiques of Kropotkin without the pedantic idealizing of many who write about the people they admire.

The Conquest of Bread is an important contribution to anarchist economics and anarchist theory in general. This edition by AK Press is well presented and of high quality. I highly recommend it.

Peter Kropotkin's 'Conquest of Bread' helps point the way toward a future ruled, not by greed and oppression, but by fairness, rational division of labour, and humanity. This book is an antidote for the bugbears of state socialism and 'liberal' capitalism.

This is one of those rare history books that should never go out of print. It tells you so many of the details of Roman life. Did you ever wonder what Romans wore under those togas? They wore a tunic, which is a thing like a night shirt. Upper classes were allowed (encouraged, actually) to wear a purple stripe down their tunic (wide ones for Senators, narrow ones for Equites), and that's how people knew if you were or were not upper class (I mean besides all those slaves running after you). It's a very complete picture, describing houses, tenements, public eating houses, the public baths, schools,what a Roman banquet was like, the pots and pans in the kitchen, and even sandals. Did you know the proper number present at a Roman banquet was 9? Why? The couches held three people and there were three couches, ergo 9 people. That was tradition. Just about everything you'd want to know about day-to-day Roman life is in this one small book. It's great. You'll love it. I've got to have "A Day in Old Athens," now. By same author.

I first encountered this book while researching a term paper on the public games of the Roman Empire, and I liked it enough that eventually I acquired my own copy through Amazon. Davis herein did not formally cite his references or include a bibliography, so the book's value is more that of supplying a mental roadmap of and feel for the setting rather than as a formal scholarly work. (Davis covers himself on that score in his preface, however, by outlining generally the sources drawn upon, emphasizing the major Roman writers of the period.) Davis wrote at least 2 other books in this vein: A DAY IN OLD ATHENS and LIFE IN ELIZABETHAN DAYS. I can say definitely that while the latter has a similar structure, A DAY IN OLD ROME scores over its Elizabethan sibling in that herein Davis has confined himself to a real city and real historical characters rather than creating a composite setting to better illustrate his points.

As the author says in the preface, the book describes Imperial Rome on a spring day in 134 A.D./C.E., as seen if the reader were magically transported there and provided with a competent tour guide. That date was picked because the Empire was architecturally near completion, the Empire was prosperous but not yet decadent. Davis deliberately avoids unusual events; he's tried to construct a run-of-the-mill day; the emperor Hadrian isn't in the city until he formally arrives in the last (13th) chapter.

Chapter 1, "The General Aspect of the City", gradually shifts from speaking *about* the city and the surrounding countryside to a viewpoint from a height near the Campus Martius, to obtain an overview before descending into the city. (Nice touch: English translations of place names are provided parenthetically when the names are introduced, providing a flavor of how a contemporary would have heard them, e.g. Ostia, "River Mouth".) Davis' details are interesting; readers may not have realized how advanced Roman architecture really was, wherein impressive buildings were mostly concrete with marble facades, and cheaper buildings were of brick or building stone - not wood, with its increased risk of fire.

As our tour guide, Davis doesn't jump straight to the famous "sights" that would crown a tourist's visit, but works his way inward and upward to the heart and heights of the city, beginning with chapter 2, "Streets and Street Life", a good example of the kind of detail provided. Davis not only mentions that most streets were too narrow for two vehicles at once, and that traffic laws banned most wheeled vehicles between dawn and 'the tenth hour'. (Note the time given in Roman style, only parenthetically translated to 4 pm.) From a pedestrian's point of view, most streets were worn slick, only main roads being kept clean, with special stepping-stones inset against the rainy season. We even get samples of Roman flyers posted on walls (actual text, noted as found in Pompeii, from 'to rent' notices to announcements of upcoming gladiatorial combats) and graffiti, as well as descriptions of typical street processions and crowds' behaviour in public.

Chapters 3 through 6 come in off the street, dealing with "Roman homes", "Roman women and marriages", "Costume and personal adornment", and "Food and drink". Housing covers the gamut from insulae (tenements that ought to be "islands" with space around them to prevent the spread of fire) to great houses of the wealthy, including on the low end the expected rental price in sesterces (with a parenthetic conversion into U.S. dollars where each money amount is mentioned, a convention followed throughout the text). Example of nice touches of detail: the Calends (July first) was the regular moving day, when deadbeat tenants were evicted. Furnishings being skimpy in the slums of Rome, details about higher-class housing treat Roman furniture in more depth, although expected furnishings are covered for the low-end insulae as well.

"Roman women and marriages" focuses on betrothal customs, marriage ceremonies (when there were any), and divorce, which was easier in Empire days than it would be for many centuries after the Empire's fall. A couple of stereotypes are drawn: that of a frivolous woman who might collect gladiators and suchlike, contrasted with the tomb enscription of an archetypal 'good woman' by her mourning husband.

A bit of trivia about costume: the word 'candidate' comes from 'candidati', "extra-white" - office-seekers used to specially bleach their togas so as to stand out in a crowd. Basic things in life never really change.

Chapters 7 and 8 cover the social orders (slaves receiving an entire chapter). Davis then moves on to professions, education, and commerce before finally arriving at the fora, the Palatine and the centers of government, and the imperial war machine. The courts, baths, and public games are covered before Roman religion is addressed. A separate chapter on "pagan cults" ends with the most disreputable cult of all, from a Roman point of view: Christianity, including Roman popular beliefs about how debased Christian practices were. (For a more detailed view, set a couple of decades earlier, see Barbara Hambly's well-researched mystery novel SEARCH THE SEVEN HILLS.) After digressing to "the Roman villa" and the grand finale of the Emperor's return to Rome, a final note on where people are in the Roman night ends in the catacombs, with a brief flash of the Christians through their own eyes, holding services while keeping a lookout for watchmen.

NOTE: The paperback edition before me reproduced the colour plates in black-and-white, unfortunately, but otherwise the book is unchanged. The old hardcover edition illustrations consisted of 1) black-and-white line drawings, 2) occasional photographs, and 3) colour plates of illustrations painted by Von Folke, reconstructing various landmarks in their heyday and showing (for example) a scene from a chariot race. (Incidentally, Davis in a footnote commends Lew Wallace's novel BEN-HUR on its accuracy, adding the caveat that Messala, being of high rank, would have considered driving his own team beneath his dignity.)

Interesting, informative, .............a delight. Yes, "Discovering the Geology of Baja California" is a pleasure and the guided tours that Markes takes one through, will in the end leave the reader with a renewed sense of wonder and appreciation for our planet. In my own case, even before I had gotten to making the actual pilgrimage to Punta Chivato, my eyes had been newly sensitized enough through the reading alone, that I was able to offer up a discovery of my own, which I more or less stumbled upon well south of Professor Johnson's "Living Museum"of Punta Chivato. I can't tell you what a thrill it has been for a novice like myself to help shed even a tiny bit more light on the solution of the geological puzzle of this fascinating penninsula! Since then, between pondering "my site" and actually walking through time at the awesomely beautiful Chivato, I realize that my life has, through exposure to this book, been fundamentally changed for the better. I wasn't looking for a new hobby but it will indeed be hard to shake this one. I therefore highly recommend this book to anyone who might be interested in the geology of Baja California and the associated birth of the Gulf of California. May it broaden your horizons as well.

This book is like a nice walk with a good friend who has a talent for telling great stories. You go along for the pleasantness of the walk, and find yourself transported right into the middle of the story. Here you are, some forty feet above the current level of the sea, standing on a shelf of land that contains the perfectly preserved remains of a coral reef. In another area, some 260 feet above sea level you come across a fossilized seabed jammed with the shells of thousands of oysters. Ancient shark teeth litter the ground on top of a 130-foot high mesa. Your friend walks on a few yards and, with infectious enthusiasm, reads the next chapter of the story to you.

Six hikes around the Punta Chivato area on Baja's Gulf coast introduce you to the fascinating story of Baja's geologic history. If you love Baja, love geology, or just love a nice hike, you'll LOVE this book!

If you are interested in both history and the environment, and a new, rigorous and thoughtful way of examining the interplay between the two, then The Emerald City will undoubtedly interest you. Mr. Klingle tackles the history of Seattle - literally from the ground (or is that the Sound?) up - with an eye on showing how the building of a major metropolitan city can lead to both inevitable and surprising consequences, even when said city-building is done with a cognizance of the need to take into account surrounding pristine environs, and, indeed, even when trying to develop the city with the best interests of the environment in mind. Which, I think, is the point; one cannot separate development and the environment, and as such they must be approached with a new paradigm.

Klingle comes at this tale from multiple angles - the greed and power of the early railway companies, the socio-economic impact not only on the native Sound tribes but on the early western settlers as well, the planning of Seattle's verdant parks by Olmstead, an extremely eye-opening take of the interplay between ecology and urban poverty - and brings them together in a way that, in the end, to my mind echoed perfectly the multiple waterways that all feed into, and sustain, Seattle.

That Mr. Klingle is a top-notch writer, with the ability to turn a beautiful phrase or metaphor with seeming ease, is just icing on the cake. I am neither an academic nor a scholar, but The Emerald City is a book of surpassing intelligence and thoughtfulness, and, like the "emerald" associated with Seattle, a gem worth looking into. Highly recommended.

Matthew Klingle has written a brilliant study of how the city--in this case Seattle but it could be any city--creates both beauty and ugliness in the same instance. Tracing stories about the physical, social, and cultural reorganization of Seattle and its hinterlands, Klingle shows exactly why the effort to build a more livable city also made Seattle increasingly unlivable for some of it residents. Readers will be left with a deeper appreciation for both the strength and weakness of urban environmental reform over the last century, how issues related to urban ecology have been intrinsically related social inequity, and why historical perspective of these dynamics is absolutely crucial when cities tackle environmental problems. The epilogue is simply brilliant, providing readers with a brave and smart discussion of why acknowledging the shortcomings of past policies is essential for developing what Klingle calls a historically-informed "ethic of place" as residents move forward into the future. This is an exceptional work of history.