Michigan Books

I bought this as a present for my nephew, along with a field trip of downtown Detroit, where we spend an afternoon spotting Albert Kahn buildings. He loved it and continues to reread this book! It has the right amount of history, a good story and explains basic architectural terms.

A new and innovative approach to Albrecht Du"rer, with insightful observations on the role of religion in his work. Nicely illustrated. The author has an excellent knowledge and "feel" for Du"rer's art, and also knows the cultural history of the time and understands Du"rer's relationship to the reformation and to the humanist movement. Highly recommended.

Alexander the Great, was born on or around July 20, 356 B.C.E., and is my favorite personality to read about in history. To me he is the whole package general, statesman, conqueror, and philosopher. The smartest man who ever lived, Aristotle, tutored him. Alexander conquered more of the known world than any other figure in history, accomplishing all this before he dies at the ripe old age of 33. Some people called him conqueror and violent overlord. Some other called him civilizer and even God! All of them yet, called him "The Great". He was the first man in modern history that took this name, "The Great"! Even as a young boy, he shows great promise.

Curtius' work is the oldest extant work available and based on eyewitness accounts. He does a better job than most in explaining the battle scenes, and seems to be more balanced in his admiration and criticism of Alexander then any of the other early biographers. I love his Bucephalus Story, and I recount it here so you get a flavor of the promise this young Alexander shows.

The legend begins with Philoneicus, a Thessalian, bringing a wild horse to Philip for him to buy. None of the hands was able to handle it, and Philip grew upset at Philoneicus for bringing such an unstable horse to him. Alexander, however, publicly defied his father and claimed that he could handle the horse. The bet between Philip and Alexander was that if Alexander could ride the horse, Philip would buy it, if not, Alexander would have to pay the price of the horse, which was 13 talents, an enormous sum for a boy of Alexander's age to have.

Alexander apparently noticed that the horse had been shying away from its own shadow, and so he led it gently into the sun, so that its shadow was behind it, all the while stroking it gently and whispering into its ear, (Alexander seems to be the original horse whisperer). Eventually the horse let Alexander mount him, and Alexander was able to show his equestrian skill to his father and all who were watching. The incident so impressed Alexander's father, King Philip that he told the boy "Look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of you, for Macedonia is too little for thee". He named the horse Bucephalus, which means Ox head, and rode it across Asia, founding a city in its honor in India after its death. This story gives you an inkling about the man.

This book is a must read for students of Alexander, I also recommend Plutarch's and Arrian's work. Contemporary writers, J.F. C. Fuller and Tarn. Most of Alexander's greatest military traits are in the area of military logistics and to understand his genius in this area I highly recommend reading, "Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army," by Donald W. Engels.

As a retired U. S. Army Major, I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in ancient warfare, and history.

I picked up this book and cannot put it down. What a great text! The reader will have to know their (High School) Algebra and Geometry. Have a Reference available if you have been away for some time.

After this book, you may be ready for Geometry of Curves (Chapman Hall/Crc Mathematics Series), followed by Plane Algebraic Curves (Student Mathematical Library, V. 15) and/or Introduction to Plane Algebraic Curves.

The former is more Analysis/Topology based and the latter Algebra. They are German texts, you will certainly need a strong foundation in Analysis and Abstract Algebra. Prepare well!

There are a host of books on AG - Those above are inexpensive, except Geometry of Curves (Chapman Hall/Crc Mathematics Series), light and quite prepratory for advanced study.

PJO

I am a doctoral student in ed policy and use this book in my research...but, don't let THAT scare you! This book is an interesting read and well-written! If you think it's time for American educators to respond appropriately to religious minorities in our society, you will find this book helpful.

Libertarians today are often considered extreme conservatives. Their opposition to taxation and government regulation is widely regarded as a defense of "big business" and the popular press, to the extent they mention libertarians at all, tends to see them as a branch of the Republican Party. But liberarianism is actually a radical philosophy with deep roots in the history of American reform movements, most notably abolitionism and especially the labor movement. Detroit labor organizer Joseph Labadie was a radical printer and tradesman who helped found both the Knights of Labor and the later AFL, particularly its Michigan wing. But Labadie also came to realize that the state was no friend of organized labor. Unlike modern labor historians who try to wrestle America's labor movement into a Marxist paradigm (Philip Foner and his intellectual heirs come to mind here) Labadie came to believe that true socialism would find its best expression in free markets and anarchism. This fabulous biography by Carlotta Anderson covers Labadie's extensive career.

Joseph Labadie was a self educated printer who lived in Michigan and migrated to Detroit. The boom and bust cycle of the early 19th century caused tremendous economic hardship upon workers and Labadie quickly fell in with trade unionists and members of America's very diverse socialist party. He was a founding member of the Knights of Labor and remained throughout his life an advocate for the working poor. But Labadie also felt education was the key to any successful social reform and he practiced what he preached. A careful reader, he soon had mastered the works of Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, Thoreau, and especially the writings of Josiah Warren and Pierre Joseph Proudhon. Reading the latter, he came to realize that demanding workers receive their fair share of production was in fact a type of property right. (This was the basis of Proudhon's famous paradox, namely that property is both theft and liberty.) The way to insure that workers received their due was to destroy government privileges which allow businesses to skim value from their workers. Ever the idealist, Labadie was not content to simply end government established "monopolies." He also thought that government itself could be abolished once people realized their true interests.

Labadie continued his work for over 50 years. Beyond hs efforts to establish workers' equality he defended those who were victims of an unjust legal system, wrote prodigious amounts of poetry, protested US entry into World War II, and advocated alternative health care. But his greatest legacy was the collection of letters, newspapers, tracts and broadsides that he and his wife collected over the years. These became the basis for the justly famed Labadie collection at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Much of America's radical history would have been lost were it not for this gentleman anarchist who was widely respected by all of Detroit.

Labadie's influence, however, extended far beyond that of his collection. His son Laurence also became a prolific anarchist writer. Long after individualist anarchism had died out and trade unions had succumbed to begging the state for monopolistic privileges of their own, Laurence kept up the lonely fight for freedom from government and proper renumeration of workers. But the 20th century also saw a variety of different issues arise and the younger Labadie addressed these as they came up. Nuclear war, integration of schools, and agrarian reforms including the beginnings of the modern organic health movement all received his incisive commentary. In the process he created a body of work which went on to inspire modern libertarianism.

On the whole then, Anderson's volume is an excellent introduction to American labor history as seen from the perspective of one of its most prominent (but now largely forgotten) proponents. But it is much more than that. This book illustrates why American historians consistently fail to understand and appreciate America's labor movement. Instead of trying to explain how labor was co-opted by "capitalism," they should understand that for 19th century workers, true free market capitalism was their ideal. If anything, the movement was co-opted by an older economic system: merchatilism. Although not widely recognized, this is in fact the economic system that characterizes America today. Ms. Anderson has done an admirable job of presenting an historical alternative that was never tried. She is to be commended for this. All students of American history and especially labor history should read this book.

If you have allergies, you need to read this book. Random House needs to reprint this handy little personal guide again in the exact same size & font big enough for those with eyesight problems to read without struggling at it. This is the perfect size to carry around in your pocket or purse, even in the small purses. In the few short pages, Paula packs in a lot of information about allergies & what some of the causes are, such as culprit foods to avoid/eliminate from your diet, & there a lot of them. So,if you have itchy skin, or red blotches, have a runny nose constantly, have frequent drowsiness & are trying to figure it all out, read this book & The Wrinkle Cure. Thanks, Paula for a great job!!!

As a fan of historic architecture, this book not only gave me the visual pleasure of beautiful old Victorian-era houses through great photos, but also helped me to understand the important issues this community (and most likely others) face when fighting against industrial and commercial encroachment of historic neighborhoods. The story is a triumph for grass roots activism.

In Altruistically Inclined, Alex Field presents a superbly dense and provocative exploration of individual behavior and reasoning. From a background of economics, his deconstruction and reassembling of our understanding of what is rational is an ambitious challenge that Prof. Field manages to tackle and push forward without descending into the excess of intellectual obfuscation. Not that Prof. Field entirely avoids drilling so deep into subject matter that we find ourselves immersed in annotation and data such that we must occasionally come up for air before choking on the dust left by a speeding intellect. It's a delicate dance and Prof. Field is to be commended for offering his thesis not as a debunking but as a methodical enhancement to current and classical science. His map of what might be referred to as a behavioral genome is hugely detailed and while he doesn't seek to redraw the boundaries, he offers topography within those lines that suggest vastly different interpretations than prior snapshots of the surface revealed. The author succeeds in arguing his thesis from multiple perspectives and applying a command of interdisciplinary reasoning. The effect is an elegant and compelling essay that sketches a portrait of our brain that is both an x-ray into evolutionary development and a broader credible reflection that speaks to the puzzles of social and political intercourse . As Behavior sciences lean toward inexactness, Mr. Field has been able to apply formula and rigor in measuring and testing traits characterized by nuance. That Mr. Field is an economist is evidenced throughout this book - His presentation of the data leaves the reader with an audit trail and confidence that support his theory and anticipate challenges occurring to the engaged reader. Beware though, this book is not a summer breeze. Though not without humor this book is a serious tome, and not written for "the layman" . As prefaced remarks so often allude to an effort by the author to make content more accessible to the non-disciplined reader, it is refreshing that Prof. Field avoids this dumbing down pitfall and engages readers as fellow academicians. That being said, this "layman" found his way through the material and can recommend Altruistically Inclined to others inclined toward the informative.

Whereas the Spaniards and the Mexicans aimed to control the Native Americans of California by converting them to Catholicism, the Americans when they took over the territory in the 1840s after the Mexican War and the Gold Rush aimed to control them by cynical use of the law and related means of incrimination and enforcement. Gunther sees the lighter sentences Native Americans were frequently given in the numerous legal cases she reviewed (cited both in the notes and the bibliography) as an indication that the law was used primarily as a means of harassment of the Native Americans. The other side of this practice of using the law as an instrument of coercion of the Native American population and advancement of the desires of the newcoming Anglos with respect to acquisition of land and finding manual labor, for example, was that Anglos implicitly and explicitly got preferential treatment. It wasn't until 1875 that a Native American could give testimony against an Anglo; though the Indians could file complaints as is evident from the author's extensive documentary research. Yet before and even after this date, patent crimes committed by Anglos usually went unpunished. In such circumstances, laws enacted to remove Indians to reservations seem altruistic and enlightened; when in fact, they were devised to clear the Native Americans out of an area more quickly and easily than the relatively slow-acting discriminatory legal means. Gunther--with a Ph.D. in Native American history--shows how the law especially was a tool used intentionally and systematically by Anglos with the cooperation of the courts at different levels as a hegemonic tool against the Native Americans to further the Anglos' designs while at the same time, as surely as the violence, disease, and alcoholism, it worked to disintegrate the traditional indigenous cultures.