Pacific University Books

I recently had the honor of meeting the 80 year-old Hone at a poetry reading in Christchurch (New Zealand). To me, a New Zealander, Hone Tuwhare I regard as a living prophet. Open any New Zealand book of verse and Hone will fill a good twenty pages. It is impossible for me to say how important this man is to our country. His poetry is mystical, political, romantic - he captures the landscape and its people like no-one else ever has. You don't have to be a New Zealander to enjoy these either - they will be, I assure you, the most beautiful, energetic, natural, informed poems you will ever have the pleasure of reading. and in no way am I going to be able to put across the sheer wisdom that is "Deep river talk" with a list of adjectives. Its like cummings got lost in wilderness with Thomas Wolfe and built a monastery and they all came out drinking and laughing and singing Maori spirituals. Hell - just read it for yourself.

Very good. You can get if free of the Corps of Engineers web site.

This well- written book describes in detail the deterrence theory. Its application to the Middle East is thought-provoking.
Kudos to Mr. Lieberman.

This is a reprint of a 1956 English translation of the sparkling 1899 book by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the great revolutionary and founder of the Soviet State. The book is very easy to read for the Western reader who may be unfamiliar with all the names and events mentioned in the text. Progress Publishers, original publishers of the English translation copiously footnote and explain every name, event and foreign phrase which is used in the text. This makes for an easy and delightful read. This book is a must for the library of every student of Russian history.

This is a very very interesting piece of work. It integrates a standard archaeological account of an excavation at one of the earliest points of interaction between the Dutch soldiers of the Dutch East India Company with indigenous Khoikhoi herders on the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. It also discusses the ways in which indigenous peoples have been objectified and disempowered by the settler societies that displaced them, and by the anthropologists, historians and anatomists who sought, in their own fumbling ways, to understand them.

Part memoir, part historical reconstruction, part narrative re-imagining, Schrire raises important and unsettling issues regarding archaeology and its place in the contemporary world.

There are many reasons why Schrire's book appears on the reading lists of many of my colleagues who teach historical archaeology and/or about the politics of the past. For one thing, Schrire produces a relatively short and readable discussion of the nature of archaeological investigations and very nicely captures some of the flavor of the field and its minor victories and frustrations.

For another, Schrire's re-imaginings of the thoughts and motivations of the "silenced" of Dutch colonial history at the outpost: common Dutch soldier, Khoikhoi woman, Swedish deserter, frustrated native chief, officious Company functionary, all serve to highlight the laconic prose of the official accounts and together give a much harsher and more emotional rendering to the "facts" she gleans from the historical and archaeological record. We (archaeologists and non-archaoelogists alike) often choose to suppress the emotional when we deal with the past, but this, Schrire argues (and I agree) is something we do at our own peril.

Then too, Schrire also challenges us think very hard about the ways in which archaeologists may (or may not) choose to challenge the convenient founding mythologies of colonial countries. For my part, I'm tempted to interpret the "Darkness" of her title as the empty spaces or silences in colonial histories that enable or justify the casual racism and sense of entitlement that drives colonial regimes and the talented and intelligent people that choose (however unwittingly) to accept and defend that entitlement.

Schrire is also wise enough to place herself inside this matrix. By detailing her childhood and early career in the way she does, she exposes her own complicity in, or tacit agreement with, the same forces of privilege and power. Would that we were all so brave and unsparing of ourselves.

One reads Schrire's frustration and horror at her inheritance, and the land of her birth: the ending anecdote is both chilling and sad. At the same time, one also senses her own deep attachment to South Africa and to the people (Black, Jewish, Colored, English, Afrikaaner) who live there. This kind of emotional honesty and awareness of double-consciousness is what characterizes the best social analysis of our times. Despite (or perhaps even because of) its difficult emotional terrain, this book is a worthy addition to that body of work.

If there are ways beyond the mutual recriminations and hostilities which are the legacies of colonialism, Schrire has outlined one brave attempt to begin to map the path. In the words of my late friend and mentor Professor Rhys Jones (who was one of Schrire's friends and colleagues at Cambridge): Good on yer Carmel.

Travelers on the Northern Pacific Railway got much more than a ticket to travel when they chose to ride: they often received gourmet dining in the dining car, as William A. McKenzie illustrates in his Dining Car to the Pacific: The "Famously Good" Food of the Northern Pacific Railway. The Northern's service was widely regarded as the best in the industry - and source materials from railroad records of the 1860s blends with memoirs of meals to recreate the experience - complete with over 150 recipes used on the line, many developed for or by Northern Pacific. McKenzie's nearly thirty years as a PR manager and corporate historian for the railroad lends expertise to his review and organization of the company's archival records for this lovely survey, while his wife Violet tested and modified the dishes for use at home.

I have acquired the first edition of the book as a gift from my mom. As a Turkish-American, I was surprised by the title, which addresses the Ottoman Empire as Turkey. The reading of the book truly takes me back to the last two decades before the fall of the Ottoman Empire. I strongly recommend the book, since it has successfully painted a picture of Turkish society of 1880s. I am stunned to find so many commonalties between then and now in terms of culture and interaction among individuals. I also appreciate the beautiful and skillful language used in description of those times.
The book is particularly humorous and insightful to an individual such as myself, who is considering a career in foreign service.

Before I read this book I looked at women as sex objects, mothers, or ugly and therefore irrelevant. After reading it I see them as equals to men in every way- entities deserving my R-E-S-P-E-C-T. It is well written and fun to read.

This book has beautiful photos. It is an amazing river, considering its short run. I bought this for my Dad, but (secretly) I wanted it for myself.
I wish there was more info on the Truckee Meadows ditches;...

Like no other book, "Drawing Lines in the Forest" gets down to detail on how wilderness areas came to be protected, focusing on five case histories in Oregon and Washington. I saw some of these events myself, first as a student in Oregon in the 1950s, later as a federal land management official in Washington DC. Professor Marsh digs deep into archival sources to tell us how dedicated citizens managed to save wild forested valleys that had been slated for logging. They had to overcome bureaucratic opposition from the US Forest Service, reach compromises with the timber industry, and persuade the US Congress to act. You will read about their frustrations, their wit, and their perseverance. Right now, people all over the country are following in their footsteps with a new round of wilderness proposals. I highly recommend this book to the next generation of wilderness defenders and everyone who loves wild land.