Washington Books

The author, a lawyer and a dual citizen of Venezuela and the United States, has literally risked her life to publish this book. She has received numerous death threats and plenty of insults. A sequel to her previous bestseller, "The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela", it examines secret US documents that reveal how hard the Bush administration is trying to overthrow the democratically-elected Venezuelan government.

"Follow the money trail" is good advice for any investigative journalist, and Golinger does just that. By studying thousands of US government documents obtained through exhaustive requests of every relevant department through the Freedom of Information Act, she is revealing proof of manipulation and covert operations to overthrow Chávez.

Historians generally do this work decades after major upheavals in Latin America. Golinger is doing this research now, in "real-time", to break the secrecy of Bush's imperial designs and to prevent a coup in the making.

Is the United States funding Counter-revolutionary groups in Venezuela? Yes, says "Bush vs Chavez: Washington's War on Venezuela". Claiming that American taxpayer dollars are funding, albeit indirectly, organizations that fund the counter-revolutionary groups of Venezuela, in hopes for gaining favor with Latin America's most oil rich nation. More frightening, there is a build up of US troops in the Caribbean that are ready to threaten the Venezuelan people and their governments. "Bush vs Chavez: Washington's War on Venezuela" is highly recommended for community library social issues collections and for anyone who wants a look into the shadier actions of the Bush Administration.

I have two copies of this book.

It opened my eyes to things I had never seen wandering the Coastal Range and Cascade Mountains of Oregon and SW Washington.

This field guide is well organized with beautiful photos. Each butterfly listed has a key for recognition, variations, life history as well as habitat range and the time of year you are likely to see this butterfly on the wing. A particularly nice feature is is the list of names for each as butterflies often have akas (also known as.)Dr. Pyles broad knowledge of nature allows him to include additional information about the history of butterfly study. This book will supplant other field guides whose scope intends to include the entire continent. The beautiful durable cover will look good on your desk and will function well in your field pack.
The tremendous amount of data collected in these pages reflect a dedication to the study of butterflies that is inspiring to the amateur and professional naturalist.

I like reading the book. This book contain all basic information about the Hmong culture. I highly recommended all Hmong and nonHmong who are interesting about Hmong culture to read this book. The author Patricia Symonds have come to understand and experience the Hmong Culture well.

I came to this book after reading several recent ethnographies, and went on to more. This book stood out as a high peak between the others. Symonds actually tells, in wonderful detail, how the White Hmong of north Thailand are born, negotiate life, and finally die and receive burial. She presents the Hmong through their own words--both individual stories and sacred texts. One high point of the book is the material on childbirth--hard to study in the field, and rarely reported. Another high point is the text and translation of the entire White Hmong burial chant, which is the most sacred of texts and includes the Hmong cosmology. A sustained, striking poem, it must be darkly powerful and chillingly beautiful when shamans chant it over the deceased.
One virtue of this ethnography is that it complements existing (mostly male-written) Hmong ethnographies by presenting a female-centered view; White Hmong society is quite gender-separate, and a male ethnographer would not have had the insights into birth and its rituals.
Symonds tells us enough about herself to allow us to understand her situation, but is not obtrusively "reflexive." She contexts the Hmong in Thai politics, but never loses her focus on the Hmong. (This in contrast to some recent ethnographies I have read, in which anthropologists blow their own expertise--ethnography--and try with conspicuous lack of success to be political scientists instead.) She tells us what she thinks is happening, thus fulfilling anthropological responsibilities, but does not bury her material under floods of speculative "interpretation," again in contrast to some recent works I have had to read. Like Nicholas Tapp (oft cited herein), she actually lets the Hmong speak and act, and thus we have the enormous benefit of their words, views, and deeds. This is an extremely valuable corrective to the mere-victim or mere-backdrop status that the Hmong, like other minority peoples, have had in so much of the literature. The Hmong experience, like all human experience, is precious to us all, and this book presents an impressive amount of it. I hope young ethnographers will read and learn.

This book is fantastic! It covers Carnival celebrations from all over the world. The history is detailed but not dull, and the pictures are vibrant and lively. I recommend this book to anyone that has been to (or wants to attend) a Carnival celebration and anyone that is interested in the stories/histories of the celebrations.

In the forward to the vibrant, sumptuous and well-researched ¡Carnival!, Joyce Ice, Director of the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA), notes that festivals "as cultural phenomena never fail to intrigue and captivate us as human beings, whether we are casual observers, researchers, or participants." Edited by Barbara Mauldin, curator of Latin American folk art at MOIFA, ¡Carnival! does indeed intrigue and captivate as we are plunged-through essays, photographs and illustrations-into the fascinating and diverse celebration of this important and lively Christian festival. ¡Carnival! focuses on communities in Spain, Mexico, Switzerland, Haiti, Bulgaria, Italy, the United States, Bolivia, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago. A varied and highly-qualified stable of historians, folklorists, anthropologists, linguists and curators offer well-researched and insightful essays that demonstrate how one festival could evolve into wonderfully diverse (yet similar) pre-Lenten celebrations. Colorful photographs and illustrations capture the sizzle and sass of the parades and costumes that take center stage in each of the cultures represented in this book. ¡Carnival! was almost a decade in the making and it shows. Meticulous yet soulful, scholarly yet enchanting, ¡Carnival! delights and amazes as much as it reminds us of the astonishing diversity of the world's cultures. [The full review first appeared in Southwest BookViews.]

Whether you are a climber, a hiker, a car traveler, or just an armchair explorer, the Beckey guides are the indispensible resources for your mountain experience. The three volumes are filled with information about the natural and human history of the Washington Cascades, as well as complete route and access data for every significant summit. The photos alone are reason enough to own these books. If you are interested in really "knowing" the Washington Cascades, you MUST have them in your library. Highest possible recommendation.

I have used this Guidebook so many times in the past 12 years that I've had to purchase it three times. The definitive section on the Picket Range alone is worth the price of the book.

For those who want to experience the North Cascades as they were in the 30's and 40's, reading the "Trails and Alpine Hiking Approaches" section will steer you in the right direction. This book is rife with golden kernels of information found nowhere else. Any serious climber should have all three of the Cascade Alpine Guide books.

Mike Quinn

This short, highly readable book outlines the steps that led to the passage of Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in America. Few cases have had the impact on society this one has had. Proponents hail its passage as a "victory for women's rights." Opponents say it has ushered in a Holocaust that dwarfs anything done Nazi death camps. Almost everyone has a strong opinion. No one is neutral.

Stevens begins by ridiculing the crusade led by Anthony Comstock of Connecticut and the Roman Catholic Church to rid America of vice in the late 18 and 1900's, which included information on birth control. He then praises early women's rights advocate Margaret Sanger's efforts in fighting them. He then reviews Texas Attorney Sarah Weddington's efforts in preparing her case for legalizing abortion to the Supreme Court. Particularly interesting is her search for a typical victim to use in her class action suit that led her to Norma McCorvey aka, Jane Roe. He then spends a great deal of time enumerating the, sometimes violent, efforts of pro-life supporters to end abortion and hails the punitive damages awarded "victims" of their protests. He ends by proposing a truce between reasonable people on both sides of the issue to work together to make abortion rare while protecting the legal sanctity of "a woman's right to choose."

Only 175 short pages in length, this book should be read by people on both sides of the issue. Stevens is a gifted writer who presents the issues well. Readers will be much better informed after spending two hours or so reading this work.

Few people are neutral on abortion. The author is not; neither is this reviewer. The fact remains; every time an abortion is performed a child dies. Dehumanizing terms such as, "fetus," "product of conception," "fetal tissue," etc. doesn't change that. As a pro-lifer, I totally reject the proposed compromise the author suggests designed to make abortion safe, legal and rare. Forty-three to forty-five million abortions have been performed since Roe v. Wade. Abortion is therefore, safe, and, thanks to Roe v. Wade, legal. But it is anything but rare. I pledge to use the information in this work in my efforts to eliminate this scourge on our nation's history and honor. Interestingly enough, Norma McCorvey, aka, Jane Roe, now supports our efforts as well.

This book disspelled many of the common misconceptions surrounding this case. I really enjoyed reading the book and liked the way the entire background, as it pertained to this landmark case, was thoroughly explained.

Proves that some kinds of advice are timeless. If you are reading a historical review of the man's life, you should read his own words too.

This is a collection of BTW's Sunday sermons to his Tuskegee students. Originally published in 1902, the lessons on thrift, clean living, sharing what you learn with others, the need to read, and the value of education of the heart as well as the head are still valuable a century later. Does not date too badly and with so many young people growing up today without this kind of advice in the home, it's needed just as much today.

Many uninformed people dismiss BTW as an "Uncle Tom," but the publication of more of his writings like this will show that in spite of any faults, he was a very useful person in the upliftment of people. Read it and see.

This book is a must read for anyone working with Chicano/Chicana students in schools. Prof. Pizarro's insights come from real experience "in the field," and his analysis is one that you'll want to consider.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about Chicana/o youth in education.

It's an opportunity to read this book, it gave me the chance to review and understand the background of these students' encounters in lives, although their stories were not such a fantastic & successful one, but they became a group of rather outstanding and brilliant figures in China. Their stories should inspire the younger generations.

In this modern world, lots and lots of Chinese students who came over to foreign lands, not only U.S.A. but some other countries such as New Zealand, tended to complain about the treatment received from their host countries, but should they read through this book and they would accept that these were the facts of lives.

Being a foreinger in this foreign land myself, I would recommend the Chinese students to understand the hard fact of lives. How this group of Overseas Students from China encountered. And hopefully that would be an inspiration to their own encounter.

As it is popular to study science and technology in the west, it is not uncommon to hear that So and So is the first in China these days. While many are highly exaggerated claims. This is an authorative book on the detailed study of first 123 Chinese boys sent by the Chinese imperial court under Yung Wing to go to Hartford, Conn. learning about the language, cultural and
science. Most became well established as adults in foreign service, engineering, as well as outstanding military officers.

This is a facinating biography on these young teen boys. When they returned to China they actually faced prejedice and skeptism. As we look back they actually contributied much to the transformation of modern China. I was fortunate to have been brought up in a family with much foreign educated engineers and have a deep appreciation of
how modern education can change our society.

I bought this for my wife. She did not read it but I have. The portraits are of people with different experiences. It's a good read.

These are the first-person stories of some fifteen ordinary families - some composed by the subjects and some generated as oral histories - together with oodles of family photos - some in Old World regalia, some in tee-shirts and cut-offs; a cowboy, a NASCAR driver, a decorated Veteran, a Louisiana sheriff, a ballerina, an artist in his studio, a multi-millionaire real estate magnate with her bare feet up on her desk. They, like you and I, are all immigrants or the descendents of immigrants. In this album, the immigrants are Chinese.

In the current malodorous sump of American politics, where Screaming Heads on TV have more influence than face-to-face time with neighbors or books, certain demagogues have done their utmost to foment fear of immigration and loathing of immigrant groups who bring different religious cultures. The Chinese were subject to just such virulent racism during the last decades of the 19th Century. A national law was passed, by the Congress of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, to exclude the Chinese from immigration. They were branded as unassimilable, in large part because of their religion, or lack of a proper religion from a WASP perspective. They were called morally degenerate, phsyically unappealing, unsanitary, and over-sexed. It was a felony in many states for a "white" person to marry one. Certain writers, including Madison Grant, warned that they would outbreed the "great race" of Northern Europeans, that they had aspirations in fact to do so and to dominate the world.

One chapter in this book, concerning several generations of the Wong Family in Albert Lea, Minnesota, has powerful personal meaning to me. I was born on a farm near Albert Lea. My father was an immigrant and my mother's family were "old world" in all but clothing. There was one Chinese restaurant in the whole county, owned by the one Chinese family in Albert Lea, the Wongs. My mother went to high school with a Wong girl. I'd like to brag that they were friends, but the Wongs of her generation don't remember having friends until they moved away to Chicago and New York. One of the Wong girls married a Haitian in New York, becoming Eleanor Wong Telemaque, a writer. Shawn Wong also became a writer and a race-car driver. Eleanor's daughter Adrienne became a ballerina and married Philip Nash, of Irish and Japanese descent. I'm afraid my mother and her siblings lost a huge opportunity; the Wongs were probably the most interesting neighbors they had in Albert Lea, Minnesota in the 1930s.