Pennsylvania Books

This book's photography supports the authors narrative message: 1. Glass sculpture is beautiful.
2. Glass sculpture has a surprisingly extensive record of having been presented in fine art museums.

Martha Drexler Lynn writes with the voice of a fiction writer and the mind of a scholar. She takes us through the issues common to all sculpture over time and then visits 26 museum collections and discusses how sculpture made of glass found its way into those collections. This book will be interesting not only to art historians and scholars but to those interested in how works of art find their way into American museums. Museums studied range from the Metropolitan and the MFA Boston to excellent regional museums.

A must read for contemporary art collectors interested in learning about sculpture made of glass.

I enjoyed this book so much that I nearly wrote to the author to congratulate him. The content is easy for modern readers to relate to: young adults exploring religion and sexuality and occasionally rioting against college authorities. Hessinger skillfully interweaves these themes with the political, economic, and cultural values of the early republic to discover the roots of this generation's apparent crisis. The book is not only a compelling piece of scholarship but also a model of clear, succinct, engaging historical writing. I recommend it highly, with the caveat that it will be best enjoyed by those who are already knowledgeable about the nineteenth-century United States.

So you think your teenager gives you trouble? Well, get in line with generations of previous Americans! This book shows that young adults produced much anxiety in the decades following American independence. Armed with new notions of equality and finding new opportunities unleashed by market capitalism, youth in the early national era disrupted traditional patterns of courship, churchgoing, and apprenticeship. Effortlessly blending entertaining anecdotes with sophisticated theoretical analysis, Hessinger has written a fascinating book that will appeal to both scholars and a general audience.

This is a well written, coherent book on the benefits of globalisation to developing countries and the reasons why it appears that globalizations fails these countries. It is a must read for all those anti-globalization supporters who argue that free trade hurts developing countries.

The author is in no way a champion of conservative economics and was indeed for many years (and probably still is), extremely leftwing in many of his thoughts and ideas. Additionally, he has also spent a lot of time studying developement in Africa and hence, he writes with some authority as to what will benefit developing countries economically, which gives credibility to his work, unlike a number of other pro-globalization writers.

Finally, this book comes across not as a rant against the right, demonising the evils of coroporations and their government lapdogs (in the vein of Naomi Klein and others), but rather as a well structured argument supporting the need for more globalization in the developing world. Nor is the book a Ra-Ra chant extoling the virtues of internet acess to Indian farmrs, in the frame of Thomas Friedman, but rather quietly chip away the rhetoric that oftern surrounds this topic and making a strong, pro-globalization, case.

This book is a must read for those who are looking for reasons why globalizations helps developing countries and for those on the left who doubt its benefits.

It's a shame that this book doesn't appear to be that popular (judging by the lack of other reviews). This book is a refreshingly clear and coherent study of the modern phenomenon of "globalization". After wading through swamps of economic illiteracy and knee-jerk corporation-bashing from incoherent academics like Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, it's a real treat to hear from a "leftist" who actually knows what he's talking about.

The author's background is in development economics, and unlike most pampered first world'activists, he has spent many years in the most desperately poor places of the world. His stated priority is to advocate policies that will allow the poorest people of the world to improve their standard of living, and to anyone who doesn't understand the benefits of trade, his conclusion is surprising: We need MORE 'globalization', not less.

For starters, we need completely free trade in agricultural products, a market in which the loudest defenders of "free trade" (ie the US) are notorious for their subsidies and tariffs.

Whether all of the policy prescriptions are realistic or not is another matter (his recommendations for increased UN power already seemly sadly anachronistic given the current mood in the US), but it's a great and rare pleasure to read a coherent analysis of the modern economic system and a fairly scathing indictment of the fashionable 'anti-globalization' movement from someone with impeccable left-wing credentials.

I strongly recommend this book to people who like poetry, and even to those who don't. Full of great phrases that stick in your head.

Setting The World In Order is an impressive compendium of poetry showcasing Rick Campbell's intensely personal style, grace, and storytelling approach to the genre. Legend: He came from a land that didn't need words./Fire singed the sky, soot and ash/settled on the tongue. Speech/was furred and superfluous,. He grew older and left, crisscrossed/America, sat silent and stranger/in the loud seats of cars. Salesman/and truck driver wove their special language,/piston-driven to talk and brood./He listened and thought his shadow/saved them from their lost dreams./Throughout his land he became legend./Buck's boy who never talked. No one/at the Legion or VFW; no one/ at the hundred Bohunk and Italian bars;/no one at J&L, Armco, Coppers,/Phoenix Glass, or American Bridge;/no cops; no railroad dicks;/no coaches named Maccalini/ever heard him speak. he saved it./It's for you and you haven't come yet.

I think that this book is great because it is kind of a mystery about a mythical creature. It is about three kids who move because their father died.When one of the kids lets their dog loose, she runs into the forest. When they chase after her, they find a hoofprint and the older sister is certain it is a unicorn print. She is determined to capture it and the other two kids think she is crazy.

Loralee W. age 9

In The Shadowed Unicorn, twelve-year-old Brendan, his irrepressible "older" twin, Nick, and their sister Ami, all struggle to cope with the sudden death of their father and the family's recent move from New York City to an old farmhouse in Pennsylvania. When Ami begins to fantasize about finding a unicorn, then discovers mysterious hoofprints in the woods, she tacks the beast to a farm owned by "the Ogre", a recluse the locals believe is responsible for the death of a child. Despite this danger, Ami insists her brothers follow her up the mountain on an adventure that puts them all in serious danger. A highly recommended and entertaining novel for school and community library collections, The Shadowed Unicorn establishes Sheila Welch as a gifted storyteller.

A detailed and fascinating study of international trade and Safavid politics in the seventeenth century. I found it to be extremely well researched, drawing together evidence from Armenian and Persian documents, as well as European archival collections. The book chiefly focuses on the Armenian merchants who managed the export of silk from Iran to Europe, and the import of European silver back to Iran and India. It successfully demonstrates the crucial financial role these merchants played in the consolidation of the Safavid state in Iran, with comparisons to other outsiders financing the formation of absolutist states in Europe.

I found this book to be an excellent analysis of the a part of the Iranian economy during the Safavi period. Although it is slanted toward the Armenian minority and does not cover the whole economy, it provides a unique and preceptive view of a section of the economy that has been ignored. Aside from bringing to light the power of the Armenian minority in a hypothetically theocratic state, it will change the reader's preception of the economic, political and social sophistication of Iran and, in fact, the Middle East at the time of European expansion. The book is very well written and the analysis excellent. The absence of tables in the discussion of the volume of exports as given in different sources and and conversions of currency is sorely missed. Such tables would have made it considerably easier to compare the various references. However, this is minor in the general context of the book.

It is interesting but very intellectual and difficult to read. Amazon's review of it is not well done so I did not get what I thought I was getting - more of a review of of Reconciliation strategies. It wanders all over the place.

Phelps skillful conflation of an international history, philosophy, law, and literature persuasively argues that truth commissions contribute to personal and public healing and resist the cycle of retributive vengeance. Shattered Voices should be read by all who fear the consequences of existing hostilities in Bosnia, Iraq, and Sudan as well as those who consider language and storytelling as markers of civilization and essential to justice.

An excellent book. Phelps restores the desire for revenge to a natural place within the human psyche. But then she explores alternatives to violence as ways of accommodating this basic human need. She is remarkably adept at exploring storytelling as a means of satisfying the need for revenge, particularly in relationship to social justice. Her range of reference in these arguments is amazing. Relying on history, psychology, philosophy, and literature, she creates a very rich read, full of ideas and insights. You keep stopping to rethink things you thought you already knew.
If you think there's no reason for hope because of all the violence in the world, give this book a chance.

Carringer's exhaustive tome on the making of Orson Welles' signature film covers all the bases: from its rocky road to inception (covering Welles' fascinating attempt to adapt Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS into a movie) to every conceivable aspect of the production and post-production. This is required reading for any Welles fan and an invaluable tool for anybody who has to write an essay on CITIZEN KANE.

Carringer's writing style is engaging and eloquent without being too academic. He doesn't bombard the reader with a million esoteric film terms but instead instills his prose with an infectious passion for his subject. Reading this book will make you want to re-discover KANE all over again -- which is what a good film book should do!

This is a great companion book with the awesome two-DVD set of KANE that was release a little while ago.

Who could resist the behind the scenes making of the greatest movie of all time. This book is excellent it covers every thing you need or would want to know about the film. It is very well told and crafted. If you loved the movie you'll be fascinated by this book.

This was a very good book as far as artistry and technique. However, it was not what I was looking for. I was looking for instructions on how to do all these techniques myself. Had I known there were no instructions, I would not have purchased it.

The practice of firing clay and ceramic pots are as old as human civilization itself. A truly ancient technique which is still carried out today, the use of fire to turn raw clay into durable ceramic and decorating it with smoke designs has been adapted and adopted by present day artists to create truly memorable works of enduring art. "Smoke Firing: Contemporary Artists And Approaches" by internationally recognized ceramicist and smoke firing expert Jane Perryman provides an informative and illustrated survey of smoke firing techniques using bonfires, diverse containers, earth pits, saggars, and kilns. Of special note is the unique chapter on how smoke firing can be employed as an educational tool in group settings such as workshops. Illustratively featuring works by twenty-nine artists drawn from seventeen countries, "Smoke Firing" is a seminal, articulate, scholarly, deftly organized and superbly presented descriptive history and commentary which is especially recommended for personal, professional, academic, art school, and community library reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

In this book, Mr. Aurand has achieved the surprising: The Spectator and the Topographical City far exceeds the high quality of his book on quirky Pittsburgh architect, Frederick Scheibler (The Progressive Architecture Of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr). Aurand leads the reader/spectator on an engrossing tour of Greater Pittsburgh that is insightful, instructive and unexpectedly affectionate from a non-native Pittsburgher. The topography he reveals is physical, metaphysical and metaphoric.

One is immediately impressed with the depth and breadth of the research this work entails. Aurand quotes sources on geology, history, architecture, art, religion, economics and more. This might seem frenetic, except for the skill with which they are used to tell an integrated story.

The book establishes and elucidates the spectator/topography relationships in three principal locations: Downtown Pittsburgh, the Turtle Creek Valley and Oakland. Aurand traces how the natural and man-made topographies continuously shaped one another. He takes the reader through these iterations in the (now) downtown triangle as it morphed through centers of the spiritual, military, residential, industrial, religious, governmental and corporate. Appropriate attention is paid to the city's most important architectural landmark, Henry Hobson Richardson's Allegheny County Buildings.

The story of the Turtle Creek Valley is typical of many industrial centers in the region. Aurand makes it plain, though, that the tale of this production center for iron, steel, railroad and electrical equipment must be told on a heroic scale. Here he deftly weaves history in terms of men (Carnegie and Westinghouse) and movement (industrialization). This is the setting for some of his most picturesque language, especially in evoking the power the great steel mills.

By contrast, Oakland (a section of the city to the east of Downtown) and its surroundings became the locus of cultural and academic institutions, skipping the industrial phase of the other two locations. This account is presented with a concentration on the work of Henry Hornbostel, one of Pittsburgh's most skilled and beloved architects. Here, at two great universities, we learn the topography of large scale architectural design. One can argue that the city's eastern reaches succeeded Downtown as a religious center. In addition to Hornbostel synagogues, it boasts three churches by Ralph Adams Cram, one by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and one by the immediate successors of Richardson.

The author makes excellent use of art and photographs. The convenience of illustrations visible from their reference in the text is most welcome. The size of illustrations, especially in the case of topographical diagrams, is somewhat small for ideal clarity. Perhaps that is just the engineer in the reviewer talking.

This book will be especially appreciated by those who know something of the history and architecture of Pittsburgh. However, it would be an ideal introduction and basis for a general study of the city's architecture. (Ironically, Aurand's work on Scheibler - a particular architect in a particular era and a particular section of Pittsburgh - was this reviewer's first serious book on architecture.) The value of the book extends far beyond Pittsburgh, though. The author teaches a new way to see topography, in all the forms he reveals, which is invaluable in the study of any architectural context.

Mr. Aurand is an architecture librarian (at Carnegie Mellon University) and brings to this analysis of the city of Pittsburgh an understanding of how the growth and development of the city has been influenced by topography of its location. This book is a collection of illustrations (paintings, drawings, photographs) of parts of the city, concentrating on three areas: Downtown's Golden Triangle, the industrial Turtle Creek Valley, and the cultural and university district of Oakland.

Pittsburgh has a long and varied history. It began as a transportation center as it is in the upper reaches of the Ohio river which begins at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela. Subsequently Pittsburgh became the quintessential industrial city, and after that a pioneer in the development of a sustainable, green city.

Mr. Aurand presents a rather different view of the city as he discusses the development of the city through its topology.