Pacific University Books

I don't thinks it's too often that you'll come across a book that delivers just what it says it will. John Campbell has achieved this perfectly with his first class text and photos. As a work by a professional archaeologist this could have been the predictable dry words and dull photos that would nevertheless have been subject accurate but fortunately the wonderful images with their complete captions work so well.

Campbell makes the story of the seven million Homesteaders really come alive in the first four chapters. The following seventy photos (in 175 screen) reinforce many of the points with detailed captions and nicely these include a touch of humor here and there. The photos show dilapidated houses, barns and other buildings, household and agricultural implements, rusting farm machinery and vehicles. So many of the exterior shots show buildings just sitting on the empty Plains which to the Homesteaders must have seemed a daunting environment, not only to work but also to bring a family up in.

I think this is a wonderful book of an overlooked part of American history and the only thing that could have made it better for me would be a really classy art paper and finer screen to reproduce these remarkable photos.

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

This fine book of black and white photography and accompanying text portrays a period of Western development that flourished in the early 20th century and then died with the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. The author, an archaeologist by profession, has taken his camera to the states in the western Great Plains and the Great Basin of the Northwest and photographed the remains of homesteads that were once part of a thriving dry-land farming economy. There are photographs of abandoned farm houses, barns, schools, post offices, hotels, cemeteries, farm machinery and vehicles, and he has written a lengthy account of the period, based on research and personal interviews with descendants of homesteaders.

Today, where once stood prosperous farming communities joined by a network of roads and railways and served by a scattering of rural towns, fulfilling Thomas Jefferson's dream of a nation of small farmers, there is thinly populated ranchland, large hay fields, and expansive wheat growing operations. After decades of unusually high rainfall, these regions have returned to their normal arid conditions, which are unsuitable for dry-land farming. In some places, the prairie grass has reclaimed the land, obliterating evidence that the earth here was ever tilled. Only a few abandoned structures remain.

Campbell's photographs are fascinating and haunting. In many of them the vast sky looms overhead. Often in the distance there is a range of mountains, sometimes snow covered. The sunlight is bright and the shadows deep; the only signs of life are the grass and occasional trees. In all of them, the details are crisply focused, and where the landscape is flat and open, everything is sharply clear right to the horizon. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the West, images of the plains, and the history of homesteading.

In Robert Borofsky's, Making History, there is a fresh look into the lives of pacific islanders. Borofsky exquisitely shows us the pride the Pukapukans take in knowledge of their ways. Pukapukans have specific ways for attaining knowledge as well as for letting you know when your view of that knowledge is wrong. Robert Borofsky has opened a door to an aspect of pacific life that most anthropologists have a tendency of overlooking. While in the process of sharing the ways of Pukapukans, Borofsky raises the question as to, who has the right to speak for whom? Do Anthropologists have the right to go to another country and critique the lifestyle of the people? In this book, Robert Borofsky doesn't answer that question, but, what he does do is give us an unbiased, un-opinionated view of the culture on this island and leaves it up to you to decide the answer to the question. Pukapukans have their own way of doing things and Borofsky portrays their lifestyle clearly and effectively without swaying the reader's opinion to match his. It is an excellent piece of work and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to think.

In Robert Borofsky's, Making History, there is a fresh look into the lives of pacific islanders. Borofsky exquisitely shows us the pride the Pukapukans take in knowledge of their ways. Pukapukans have specific ways for attaining knowledge as well as for letting you know when your view of that knowledge is wrong. Robert Borofsky has opened a door to an aspect of pacific life that most anthropologists have a tendency of overlooking. While in the process of sharing the ways of Pukapukans, Borofsky raises the question as to, who has the right to speak for whom? Do Anthropologists have the right to go to another country and critique the lifestyle of the people? In this book, Robert Borofsky doesn't answer that question, but, what he does do is give us an unbiased, un-opinionated view of the culture on this island and leaves it up to you to decide the answer to the question. Pukapukans have their own way of doing things and Borofsky portrays their lifestyle clearly and effectively without swaying the reader's opinion to match his. It is an excellent piece of work and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to think.

"Works of art give joy because they are so well made." This is a paraphrase of a quote from Bill Reid, the gifted Haida sculptor who led the way for today's carvers.

This book is incredible. Every carving, every piece of art is incredibly well made (as is the book itself). If you're interestd in either New Zealand (i.e. Maori) or Northwest Coast art (i.e. totem poles), you should buy this book. The pictures alone are worth it.

If it's a contemporary selection of works from native peoples of New Zealand and the Northwest coast which is needed, MANAWA: PACIFIC HEARTBEAT fits the bill perfectly: it presents modern Maori and Northwest Coast art, covering the history of major exposure of modern young artists to the world and including an excellent representative sampling of their achievements in striking color photos. 31 Maori and 15 Northwest Coast artists are presented to represent over three decades of works and events around the theme. The gorgeous color photos of over sixty selected pieces created especially for MANAWA make for an exceptional presentation.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

Most books on the subject cover specific divisions only; these are usually of interest only to former members. Other books on wars, campaigns, or battles only refer to divisions as participants (albeit essential). This work, on the other hand, takes Army divisions on a nuts-and-bolts approach. It analyzes the evolving structure of these organizations over time. Doctrine, equipment, and the battlefield environment imposed changes on divisions throughout the 20th century. These changes were intended to create the optimum mix of weapons and personnel (both specialties and numbers) that would ensure both survival and success in combat. The survey also documents how fiscal restraints always affected the "ideal" or "required" structure and produced compromises in organizational design and equipping of units with modern weapon systems. The tables and figures are complementary to the text and not just space fillers; taken together they document the ebb and flow of Army combat power throughout the 20th century. This book makes a great compliment to Mansoor's work on US infantry divisions in Europe during World War II. This is an essential reference for anyone interested in the US Army.

This book is worth its weight in gold for the military historian/enthusiast.It details how US Army Divisions and Brigades have evolved since the birth of the United States and is backed up by ample photographs and charts. You could spend months or even years trying to find out information on this topic and this book centralises all this in an invaluable reference. Well worth the money !

I was familiar with the book, after all it is a classic in its field. The book arrived in good condition and I am as happy as a clam (no pun intended).

Kozloff and Price's set of keys is an excellent tool for collectors and scientists who need to know what they are looking at, and to be sure that they have the right name with the animal in their hand/bucket.

This 8.5" x 11' format book covers marine invertebrate phyla down to the species level for animals found from southern Oregon to the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada. As such, it makes a great companion set of keys to "Light's Manual: Intertidal Invertebrates of the Central California Coast" by Smith and Carlton, and "Marine Algae of California" by Abbott and Hollenberg. That set of 3 books is a treasure for people who need good taxonomic information on nearshore marine life to support what they do along the pacific coast of North America.

Back to Kozloff's book...the book has the keys themselves, as well as supporting BW photographs and great line drawings to help the reader interpret particularly sticky parts of the keys. There are also brief occasional notes about known ranges of some animals covered, but this is not a reference book to the ecology of these animals, it is an excellent set of taxonomic keys.

The book is a reprint of a 1987 publication. As such some names of taxonomic groups have changed in the intervening 13 years. Nevertheless, this book remains the best set of keys for this region that we have.

In this exquisitely written book, you get the history of thirteen generations of a family who brought Western Europe out of the cultural darkness of their time, the city of Florence to the pinnacle of its glory, and the art of masters like Michelangelo and Botticelli to the world.
Young starts his Prologue with: "In the 5th century storm upon storm out of the dark North swept away in a great deluge of barbarism all the civilization of the western half of the Roman Empire", and lays the foundation for how the Medici came to power in the 15th century, a power that lasted nearly 350 years.

There are chapters on the palaces, the art, and biographies of the most prominent members of the family, starting with Giovanni di Ricci (1360-1428), and ending with Anna Maria Ludovica (1667-1743). The longest of the histories is on Catherine de Medici, with all its fascinating intrigue, and my favorite is the chapter on Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), which also includes the short life of his brother Giuliano (1453-1478).

This has been a cherished book since childhood, when I loved it for its black and white illustrations; most of them are sublime portraits by artists like Bronzino and Raphael, and I fell in love with Botticelli's rendition of the above-mentioned Giuliano, mesmerized by the beauty of this painting (Plate VI). Michelangelo sculpted Giuliano for his tomb (Plate XXV), posed gracefully seated, wearing a breastplate, and also used his likeness for the famous statue of David. There is a difference in how Giuliano is represented by these two masters, but historians have noted that Michelangelo's interpretation is most like its subject.
It has copious notes, a wonderful fold-out Genealogical Tree, and a list of Authorities Consulted. For anyone interested in this era of history and the extraordinary Medici family, this book, though written many decades ago, tells its story in a fluid and riveting style, and is great reading.

What Young has written is two dozen interesting and relavent biographies that takes place in some of the more interesting times and places in history, remarkably tied together through a single family. He does not delve deeply into anything but art, and yet he has not writen one of those history books of everything at everytime that teach you nothing. Now note that this book is very long and has chapters that might be worth skipping (his descriptions of paintings that you can't see), but if you want to at least be introduced to the dissolution of the catholic church, the growth of objective thinking, the reformation, the rise of monarchies and standing armies, the birth of scientific thought, some really interesting characters, and, more importantly, how they all tie together, than I can not recommend this book highly enough.

I may be a bit biased as this book is written by my great-grandfather and edited by my great-uncle. However, the "Medicine Man" is a fun look at a time in U.S. History when the west was still to be explored. It was a time of story tellers and colorful characters. That is the story of the "Medicine Man". I would love to hear what you think of the book. Owen "Brad" Stratton

Several weeks ago, my wife and I visited the Little Bighorn (Custer) National Battlefield Monument in Montana. As we were leaving the grounds of the monument, we noticed the Big Indian Tepee Trading Post (or something to that effect) across the road ("Gifts, Souvenirs, T-Shirts, Cold Drinks, Food, Whatever"). I didn't feel like getting scalped in a tourist ambush, but my wife wanted to check it out. So, of course, we stopped. And, I'm glad we did, because I came across this absolutely marvelous book.

Owen Tully Stratton was a medicine show pitchman from 1898 to 1904, and a licensed, small town MD from 1906 to 1950. MEDICINE MAN is his memoir, as edited by his son. In the book's first 100 pages, Owen recounts his crisscrossing of Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California, Montana and Idaho as a medicine show huckster. While today one might view such an entrepreneur as not much better than a used car salesman at best, or scam artist at worst, I learned one very surprising fact. Owen's medicine show, and the others he talks about, regularly employed an MD licensed in the state they were traveling through. In any town the show happened to be working, the physician would set up a temporary office to see patients referred to him by the pitchman. The show's MD was not necessarily any more of a quack than the local medicos, so he was actually in a position to provide legitimate medical care - and often did. Of course the medicine show and its tame MD were bitterly resented by the local sawbones and pill pushers.

The remainder of the volume is Owen's recollection of his life as a degreed and licensed MD, practicing at various times in Washington, Idaho and Montana. It was a hard existence, both on himself and his family. But Dr. Stratton reminisces with a perceptive wit that calls to mind the writings of the great Mark Twain. At one point, the author, a self-confident general practitioner (GP) but reluctant surgeon, recounts the time he assisted on an appendectomy with a more experienced, but inebriated, cutter:

"My surgeon, in his drunken enthusiasm, discarded contaminated instruments by throwing them against the wall. The patient knew nothing of that, and her convalescence was uneventful. With that experience, my surgical feet warmed up a trifle."

Evident to the reader are the striking differences between the practice of medicine then and now, with some not necessarily for the better. Take, for example, "house calls". For those of you too young to be acquainted with the concept, a house call was a visit by a physician to a patient's home to render care. This was simply the way medicine was practiced in those days, and up until the time of the mid 20th century. (As a young boy in the early 50's, I remember accompanying my father, also a GP, on his house call rounds.)

I cannot recommend this book to highly. I was particularly impressed by the circumstances surrounding the good doctor's own death, as related by his son in an Editor's Epilog. His departure from life was pure class.

My own father is deceased these past 25 years, but I shall give this volume to my mother, also an MD. Her maternal grandfather was a physician in rural Missouri at the end of the 19th century, and I'm sure she'll find it as fascinating as I did.

Mountain in the Clouds: a search for the Wild Salmon
By Bruce Brown

This book touched me. I don't read much non-fiction, and what I do read is usually skills-based How-To stuff about carpentry or plumbing or growing mushrooms. This book though, being non-fiction affected me to a surprising degree, and I know exactly why: location, location, location.

A book like this can touch me precisely because it and I share a common experience. I've seen salmon jumping in the Dungeness; I've been to the campground on the Fork of that river. I've tasted wild Chinook and Chum and I can tell the difference. I've seen the stripes on a mating chum in its Redd, and smelled their dead bodies lining a stream channel in autumn. So, this is a book about my experience of Salmon as much as it was the author's - and because of that it was entirely poignant, touching upon the experiences of my life and things that were significant to me. That's what got me.

But if it weren't for that - I suspect that the compelling yet fact-filled tone of the author would have done it just as well. A pioneering novel in the genre of "ecological history," he strikes the delicate balance, so precarious that most of the time you're poised on the front of your seat expecting to find out that all the salmon are dead and you just haven't heard about it yet. Yet, woven in with these truthful accounts of the state of affairs of the plight of modern fish are settings if great beauty, people who are good folks, and experiences of such great meaning that reading through them you could swear afterward that that had happened to you too; rather than just having read it in a book. The author's gift here is very apparent, and his creation is artful, inspiring, education yet provocative and beautiful: if only because he is able to give an accurate portrait of something that I find to be one of the most gorgeous (and delicious) parts of nature in my neck of the woods.

If you haven't seen a salmon in Washington: this book will bring you here. If you have seen them, or have seen them your whole life: this book will bring you much, much more. There isn't anyone I know of who couldn't or shouldn't read this book - if only because it brings them a little closer to the Olympic peninsula and in doing so that much closer to me, and my heart, which was always here and probably always will be.

The book did make me want to go out and slap everyone involved in Washington Fisheries before 1985, slap the fisherman and the gill-netters, slap the moneyed lobbies and the trollers and the loggers and the dam-builders and the pulp mills. I'd slap the people too - just for not doing anything about it if they did know about it; and slap them twice if they didn't. I wouldn't slap the Indians - they got screwed over just as much as the salmon; and I wouldn't slap the salmon themselves - if the river dries up or they're eaten, how could you blame them for that?

The salmon don't depend on us; this book opened up the raw world of hatchery fish in a way I hadn't even been aware a controversy existed before. Being a scientist, I tested some of my own theories and found that they held up under scrutiny, so I can say: Yes, salmon hatcheries are bad for salmon. If you want to restore salmon, tear down every hatchery in existence right now. And its not even like they had nobody out there doing different things: the Canadians scrapped their hatcheries decades ago and have stronger runs because of it. Why do we have to keep doing the same wrong thing over and over again?

Part of me wants to think that its because our culture can't stand a freeloader: and if you're fishing the stream, and doing so keeps you from having to join the money-economy, that isn't tolerable. And anything that generates money is more important than everything that doesn't. Even though you can measure an industry based on the number of salmon it kills: to most people, that doesn't matter as much as the number of jobs it creates.

We're selling our souls to buy lipstick and blush - starving our hearts for the sake of fingernail polish. And in a week, all that pretty will be gone and we'll have to deal with the stark reality that our culture has just whored itself out for nothing, and nothing is exactly what we'll have left. Maybe this is how we're going to go, maybe this is our society's way of committing suicide. But why do we have to take the whole world with us?

"We're going to ride this bike until the wheels fall off."

... and they will; and the salmon will be a legend like the wolf or the grizzly bear or the mammoth, and eventually we'll forget them entirely, and never know that once there was a different way of being which wasn't toxic to the world or to ourselves.

... And yes, that emptiness in your heart day in and day out IS because something really is missing; and you won't find it in stuff, or other distractions, or even religion (which is to real meaning as fool's gold is to true wealth). But then again, who care's right? `till the wheels fall off indeed.

Dominic Ebacher
ebacherdom.blogspot.com
071101.1234

Experience wild salmon leaping up the wild rivers of the Northwest. In western Washington, salmon still return from the ocean to spawn deep within the Olympic Mountains. This book is a classic on conservation and wildlife. Pre-dating the current concern for salmonids as an endangered species, Brown engages the reader in the unique environment of the temperate rainforest of the Olympic Pennisula. He describes the people and the fish that are the central players in this life and death drama.

I read this book in one go as I travelled across the country on an airliner. What a contrast! If you love airships, the world of aviation or are, as I am, a basement inventor, you will enjoy this book.

Although the achievements of Santos-Dumont (1873-1932) are not widely appreciated today, a ring of familiarity still clings to his name from the days when he was one of the most famous men in the world. Probably more flamboyant than any other figure in the history of aviation, he was the first man to succeed, not once but time after time, in leaving the ground, flying through the air to a place of his own choosing, and landing safely. Around the turn of the century he was the most prominent of all the early aviators, and his balloons, dirigibles and (later in his career) heavier-than-air craft were frequently to be seen in the air around his beloved city of Paris.

At the height of his first fame and triumphs, when he was 30 years old, Santos-Dumont dashed off an intriguing and delightful book about himself and his work, Dans l'Air (immediately translated as My Airships), published in 1904. In it he tells of his childhood in Brazil, his early fascination with machinery and passion for the novels of Jules Verne, his early success in France as an enthusiastic automobilist, his first balloon ascent in 1893, his famous balloon Brazil, and the joys and trials of his first ten dirigibles (1898-1904). Referring to himself as "inventor, patron, manufacturer, amateur, mechanician and airship captain all united," his egocentric but nonetheless admirable personality imbues the whole account with grace, whether he is praising the joys of lunching in a spherical balloon or describing one of his numerous hair-raising scrapes with death while navigating the air.

Today, this book appeals to us as a delightful evocation of the age he lived in, with all the romance of early aeronautics. Prize competitions, brief touch-downs at a café for refreshments, and the near-slapstick crash landings that somehow can't be taken seriously are only a few of the exciting elements of Santos-Dumont's account. Information on early aviation, excitement, evocation of the turn of the century, and lively, passionate writing on a fascinating subject; and all of these will captivate and enthrall any reader in the pages of this extraordinary book.

The 5 Star rating is due to the fact I live in the geographical area that this book is focused toward. (Pacific NW) It gives very clear descriptions and key indicators that help in determining which mushrooms are edible, as well as information regarding those that are not. It explains toxicity, advises about being careful with certain fungi, and informs greatly!
I do wish Margaret was still with us, but am pleased that the book was updated by her colleague.

The photography in this book is excellent. The book is keyed to the Pacific Northwest, so those who live in or visit the area will find it very easy to use. The descriptors are clear especially concerning edibility. The book fits nicely into a day pack for all you hikers out there. I would highly recomend this book, it is probably one of the best books out there!