Michigan Books

Norman Silber's With All Deliberate Speed is a highly entertaining and informative presentation of Philip Elman's oral memoir. Silber's commentary, which he appends to the end of each chapter includes background material that is especially useful for readers who have only passing acquaintance with the dramatic doings of the Supreme Court during the 1940s, `50s and `60s, including brief summaries and citations of cases Elman refers to, as well as bibliographical material. The high-point of the book is Elman's recounting of his close relationship-perhaps improper ex parte relationship-with Felix Frankfurter and with his and their role in bringing about the inclusion of the phrase "with all deliberate speed" in Brown v. Board of Education. The beginning few chapters consist of Ellman's telling of his time at City College of New York and then at Harvard Law School, at which he first met Frankfurter. In the middle chapters, he recalls his two years as Frankfurter's clerk and his seventeen years in the Solicitor General's office, during which time he retained his intimate close relationship with Frankfurter. Elman's apparent comfort with Frankfurter's thinking of him as "his lifetime law clerk" is perhaps the most revealing mark of his character. The last few chapters recount Elman's work as an often dissident member of the Federal Trade Commission.
Much of the material concerning the Brown-case has already been published by Silber (and Elman) in the Harvard Law Review (100) 1987, 817-52. The current book, however, has the advantage of including Elman's discussion of the criticism of both Elman and Frankurter that arose as a result of that publication, especially concerning the propriety of Elman's substantive discussion of the case with Frankfurter, as well as of his belittling of the case presented by Thurgood Marhall.
It was through his frequent conversations with Frankfurter that Elman came to believe that the case could not be won without including in some fashion a proviso that would give the states time to prepare for integrated schools. Such a proviso, of course, is highly unusual. Those deprived of their constitutional rights are entitled to immediate relief. Moreover, as might well have been expected, the result of including such a proviso was lengthy delay and prolonged social turmoil. It is a humbling dilemma, and this reader deeply appreciates the opportunity to consider the thinking that led some of the key players to their decision.

While this fascinating book covers a number of interesting topics -- whether it be Harvard Law School in the 1930's; clerking for Felix Frankfurter; a long and distinguished tenure in the Solicitor General's office; or service as an activist FTC Commissioner -- probably the most significant issue is the relationship between Philip Elman and Justice Frankfurter during the Supreme Court's consideration of the Brown case. In 1987, when Harvard Law Review published excerpts from the oral history interviews upon which the book draws, quite a storm of controversy arose over ex parte contacts between Elman (then in the SG's office) and the Justice. Elman always defended himself as Frankfurter's "law clerk for life" and argued that the contacts occurred before the government knew it would enter the case. Others, such as Professors Randall Kennedy and Andrew Kaufman, were highly critical. Whether or not such contact was inappropriate, the book offers an invaluable insight into the hammering out of Brown. A helpful "Afterword" discusses the controversy. The editor's outstanding and extensive notes add a great deal to the significant contributions of this volume.

If you don't know who Philip Elman is, don't let that deter you. This is a fascinating book.

Elman, as it turns out--and as the cover photo suggests--was present for some of the greatest moments in mid-20th century American history. After clerking for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter--one of the greatest legal minds ever to sit on the court--Elman became a government attorney. He first worked on the denazification effort in Germany after WWII, then became a key player in many of the earliest civil rights cases of the 1940s and '50s. It was then that he helped determine history with his work on Brown vs. Board of Education, writing the government brief that first devised the notion of gradual desegregation. This was a very controversial position. Elman claims that proposing a gradualist solution was the only way to get the Court to decide in favor of desegregation. Others (including well-known scholars such as Randall Kennedy) have vigorously objected to this claim, insisting that gradualism sold out an entire generation of young black people, who were left with a handshake and a promise.

Elman went on from the solicitor general's office to become a commissioner of the FTC, where he pioneered the consumer protection movement (he helped devise the now-famous health warning on cigarette packs). But the Brown material is really the heart of his story, and the moment at which, for good or ill, Philip Elman helped to shape the future of American liberalism and civil rights.

This book is well-written, even funny at times, is well-documented without seeming academic, and makes for an enjoyable and fascinating read. I wish they had titled it in a way that made the subject's importance more clear, but this is really a minor quibble.

It's surprising to see how actual the architecture in Mexico is nowadays.

Excellent, Norten is really building a new trend in architecture: the creation of spaces full of pleasure: light, functionality, metal and glass combined to greatness.

It's surprising to see how actual the architecture in Mexico is nowadays.

This book contains 1000 Grammar Tests that are easily reproduced for classroom use. These tests follow the sequence given in the authors series of Clear Grammar books but can easily be adapted to any lessons given on grammar. Each chapter has tests on a particular grammar point and at least two types of tests. (Multiple choice, fill in the blanks, sentence writing etc) This book and his series are designed for the beginner and intermediate ESL student but can easily be used in any school setting. Tests follow the same chapter sequence as the Clear Grammar Series but you can also look up tests by the grammar point you wish to test. This book does not teach any grammar points, it is simply a book of tests to help the teacher evaluate and re-inforce the information taught.

I teach adult male inmates in a maximum security prison, and besides ESL students, we have a number of very low level GED students, too. It is hard to find materials that are actually reproducible, so I jumped at this book when I found it listed on Amazon. I have used it about three weeks now. It has been an excellent addition to my class materials.

I was so pleased to get this book so quickly. I had looked other places for it to see if I could beat the price as it is a required text for one of my classes. The seller was great in communicating with me and delivered the product in the condition it was promised.

Back in 1970, wading through a mire of academic prose in graduate school, I was dazzled by my discovery of Nancy Milio's new book, "9226 Kercheval." Not only was the author a nurse (like me), she was working in the community (like me). Better still, she wasn't pontificating or theorizing. In her own voice, she told the story of how she worked with residents of a restless, inner-city neighborhood just coming to grips with the potential of black power, to start a health center for women and children. It was hard slogging, but worth it in the end. I never would have guessed that, ten years later, I'd be engaged in a similar undertaking, albeit in very different circumstances--and writing about it. A couple of years ago, I begged a friend for her precious copy of the original hardback edition and reread it. It still elicited a "Wow!" Now I've got my own copy. I hope all of you reading this will consider doing the same.

Detroit, Mo-town, city of automobile and industry, vibrant or dying? This book of wonderful poetry written by Detroit poets during the early and late 20th century is alive with feeling and emotion both specific to this working-class town and yet also universal in its appeal to the humanity and emotion in all of us. Detroiters and former Detroiters will recognize the people and places in these poems with specificity. They will have been there and lived these emotions. But so too will have anyone who has lived in any community that has felt the excitement and the hurt of change, both local and in society as a whole.
This book collects the poetry of over 100 poets with an enormity of diverse backgrounds and voices yet all with the common bond of having been a Detroiter. They reflect this yet also reflect a broader bond that we all have in our common humanity. The poems are generally short and easy to read. Pick up the book, flip it open to any page and begin reading. You will feel the honesty and clarity with which the poets write and likely these poems will stir up some very realistic feelings that have been buried deep within you. This poetry will help you to see within the soul of a city and its people whose microcosm may represent us all.

This poetry compilation achieves its goal by capturing whatever it means to be "Detroit". I sometimes close myself in a room and read loudly poems from this book to the wall just to remember what it feels like to live in an area not built on doubletalk (I live in Washington DC now).

I could never speak to whether this book would appeal to somebody who doesn't understand Detroit's turbulent life over the 20th century. I would certainly tell anybody who asked that they should at least flip through this book every so often because it tells the story of America, its pinnacles of glory and how they can get ripped right out from underneath without a moment's notice.

The poetry in 'Abandon Automobile' is beautifully visceral. There are no "thou"s or sappy sonnets about flowers in this book. It may seem simple and plain to people more accustomed to coffeeshop poetry, but it isn't once you let the words meld together. Much like Detroit is defined by what many people have done as a collective rather than what any particular individuals have done, these words together form Detroit. The language is practical, impassioned, riddled with strife and hope and somehow happiness. It has stories told through the grit of abandoned sidewalks that were once the busiest in the world, but now only support a couple averted-eye strangers passing one another.

Everyone I know who understands Detroit lives with an uneasy love / hate for it. It is the love of the automobile mixed with an utter disdain for what it has done to destroy its own city. This poetry captures that. The poems throw up an impassioned defense for all Detroit has quietly contributed to society and reveals a deep rooted frustration over its potential in a world that no longer cares about it.

Anyway - even if you've never found yourself saying 'Detroit' over and over until its images were wiped away and it settled deep in your throat as an entirely new and strange word, read this poetry. Some are better than most, but you'll find the really good ones and you'll find Detroit.

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3.5.00 >! The title of this book is flushed stimulating to my constructive arrays thought interpretationals. >! Within effective dissolve i.e., the profound addressing to to emplode an sequence fort in examining memories about sports history. >! This is my mark to celebrate the existence of our the (GrEaT), baseball Player Mr. Vida Blue. >!

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Written by an English teacher and lifelong friend of Canada's beloved, award-winning author Margaret Laurence, Alien Heart: The Life & Work Of Margaret Laurence is an inspirational evaluation of Laurence's works, drawing from insights into Laurence's life to foment a deeper understanding of her novels and short stories. Chapters follow Laurence from her girlhood to her passing in 1987, drawing deeply upon research as well as quotes and personal testimonies to weave the tapestry of her life. Enthusiastically recommended for fans and scholars of Laurence's books.

Written by an English teacher and lifelong friend of Canada's beloved, award-winning author Margaret Laurence, Alien Heart: The Life & Work Of Margaret Laurence is an inspirational evaluation of Laurence's works, drawing from insights into Laurence's life to foment a deeper understanding of her novels and short stories. Chapters follow Laurence from her girlhood to her passing in 1987, drawing deeply upon research as well as quotes and personal testimonies to weave the tapestry of her life. Enthusiastically recommended for fans and scholars of Laurence's books.

Mr. Harding is fairly well known in Michigan. When he does public speaking about his loved amphibians and reptiles, people respond well to him. This book shows the depth of his love for the natural world and his knowledge of these underappreciated creatures. Since there are relatively few amphibians and reptiles in the Great Lakes area you don't have to know 100s of different species. That alone makes identification easier. The high quality color photos and excellent descriptions in this book make identifications even easier.
Mr. Harding's text includes general biological information about the various creatures described in the book--frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, turtles, lizards and snakes. So, in addition to helping with identification, this book also helps the reader understand the biology and ecology of the animals. Though most people have little love for these animals, Mr. Harding's book will help us appreciate their places in the ecology and their biological functions.

Since there are so few books dealing with the amphibians and reptiles of the Great Lakes (is this the only one?), we are lucky that this one is truly excellent. Highly recommended to all people wanting to further their understanding of these creatures. Thanks to Mr. Harding for an exceptionally fine book.

Michigan is not a state that is well-known for its reptiles and amphibians, but if the whole drainage basin of the Great Lakes is taken into account, as it is in this book, we host a total of 33 amphibians (mostly salamanders!) and 42 reptiles (mostly snakes).

"Amphibians and Reptiles of the Great Lakes Region" starts with a preface on how to use this book, followed by a brief 34-page introduction to Herpetology. Most of 378 pages are taken up by descriptions of the 75 species of reptiles and amphibians that might be encountered by those of us who live near one of the Great Lakes. The color photographs and distribution maps are well-suited for species identification. I was able to recognize a pair of snakes that rove through a swampy area near our driveway as Northern Ribbon Snakes (Thamnophis sauritus septentrionalis), a handsome species of garter snake. The frogs that are currently hopping through the lawn are Wood Frogs (Rana sylvatica), not a brown variation of Leopard Frog (Rana pipiens), as I had originally thought.

Each of the species narratives is divided into the following sections: "Description;" "Confusing Species;" "Distribution and Status;" "Habitat and Ecology;" "Reproduction and Growth;" and "Conservation." The author stresses 'nonconsumptive' observation of these interesting creatures in their habitat, since many of the species are in decline. Newts seem to be especially vulnerable to degradation of their habitat and the author suggests conserving and protecting them by "creating ponds that are close to woodland habitats." I've lived in Michigan all of my live and have never seen any form of salamander, including newts, so I'll have to start looking more closely in and near the local woodland ponds. They are not for picking up, though. The author states that all members of the Salamandridae family have skins that "are well supplied with poison glands that help discourage predators."

"Amphibians and Reptiles of the Great Lakes Region" is a well-organized, well-written, and well-illustrated guide for all budding herpetologists or for those of us in the region who are curious about our natural surroundings.

Absolutely unique! Nothing else comes close to the coverage and expertise of the writer who was state hydrologist for the USGS.

This guide was originally published in 1985 and has been a valuable resource as I have wandered around Northern Michigan. It's details are as factual today as when first written. The details of every launch and entrance to each river is remarkable. I've fished many of the spots and have found the descriptives to be right on. I just wish I was a better fly fisherman. I keep this book with me and even make notes in it. I highly recommend this for any experience level.

The great thinker Whitehead made contributions in the fields of education, logic, mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, physics and theology. Whitehead's process philosophy was developed into process theology by Charles Hartshorne in works like The Divine Relativity.

This 1920 publication consists of the Tarner Lectures in the philosophy of science that feature Whitehead's assessment of the impact of Einstein's theories on nature. He argues for taking events and the process of becoming as the starting points for analyzing reality. This organic interpretation is not simple, but it does make more sense than the abstract concept of matter as assumed by the scientists of his time and many philosophers.

In his work of the previous year An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Natural Knowledge, Whitehead explains the method of extensive abstraction. This method of abstraction defines e.g. a formal element like a point in terms of a series of similar shapes encompassing and extending over one another. These and similar thoughts are further developed in The Concept of Nature.

Rejecting the dominant dualism, Whitehead defined nature as that which is disclosed in sense experience. This does not mean the simple awareness of particular sensations but instead a profound consciousness of a spatio-temporal passage occurring in nature. Within this passage or movement, he distinguished between events and objects.

Events are occurrences that, while they may overlap, are born and then pass away. Objects on the other hand are constant and may be considered as recurring patterns. Whitehead ascribed the uniformity of nature to pervasive patterns providing the quality of permanence.

He rejects the idea of nature as a mere aggregate of independent entities, each capable of isolation. According to this notion, entities form the system of nature by their accidental relations so space might exist without time and time without space. The relational theory of space is an admission that space without matter or matter without space cannot exist.

But the separation of both from time is still accepted. Whitehead's alternative is that nothing in nature could be what it is except as an ingredient in nature as it exists. There cannot be time apart from space, because every event forms part of a whole and is significant in the whole. Likewise there can be no space apart from time.

Our knowledge of nature is an experience of activity or passage. Events are active entities; their relations with one another differentiate into space-relations and time-relations. But this differentiation is comparatively superficial, since time and space are each partial expressions of one fundamental relation between events, which is neither spatial not temporal. Whitehead calls this relation Extension: it is the relation of including and does not require spatio-temporal differentiation.

The book was extremely challenging to read; I had to go back constantly to revisit and properly assimilate previous passages in order to proceed. And Whitehead uses mathematical formulae that I am not familiar with. But people with a solid grounding in the natural sciences will have no such problem. A determination to understand at least some of this great man's ideas was certainly rewarded in reading and studying this book.

The chapters are titled: Nature and Thought; Theories of the Bifurcation of Nature; Time; The Method of Extensive Abstraction; Congruence; Objects; Summary, and The Ultimate Physical Concepts. The book concludes with an index.

Whitehead's more accessible works include Religion in the Making with its beautiful definition of the Eternal Divine and Adventures of Ideas with his thoughts on inter alia history art, beauty, truth, freedom. He cautioned against complete certainty and rigidity of thought, warning that evil results when mankind transforms the partial truths that we are able to discern into whole truths. This came to mind as I was reading Chantal Delsol's The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century that echoes Whitehead's insight.

For me, Whitehead's metaphysics resonate in the same way as that of Michael Polanyi and Frithjof Schuon. His economic and political persuasions, derived from his observations on force, slavery, persuasion and commerce, reflect the views of the great economists of classical liberalism such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek.

This book from 1920 consists of the Tarner Lectures in the philosophy of science and features Whitehead's assessment of the impact of Einstein's theories on nature. He argues for taking events and the process of becoming as the starting points for analysing reality. This organic interpretation is not simple, but it does make more sense than the abstract concept of matter as assumed by scientists and philosophers for so long.

Whitehead criticizes the idea of nature as a mere aggregate of independent entities, each capable of isolation. According to this idea, by their accidental relations entities form the system of nature. In this theory space might exist without time, and time without space. The relational theory of space is an admission that space without matter or matter without space cannot exist.

But the seclusion of both from time is still accepted. Whitehead's alternative is that nothing in nature could be what it is except as an ingredient in nature as it exists. There cannot be time apart from space, because every event forms part of a whole and is significant in the whole. Likewise there can be no space apart from time.

Our knowledge of nature is an experience of activity or passage. Events are active entities; their relations with one another differentiate into space-relations and time-relations. But this differentiation is comparatively superficial, since time and space are each partial expressions of one fundamental relation between events, which is neither spatial not temporal. Whitehead calls this relation Extension: it is the relation of including and does not require spatio-temporal differentiation.

I found the book extremely challenging to read and had to go back constantly to re-read and properly assimilate previous passages in order to proceed. And Whitehead uses mathematical formulae that I am not familiar with. But people with a solid grounding in the natural sciences will have no such problem. A determination to understand at least some of this great man's ideas was certainly rewarded in reading and studying this book.

The chapters are titled: Nature and Thought; Theories of the Bifurcation of Nature; Time; The Method of Extensive Abstraction; Congruence; Objects; Summary, and The Ultimate Physical Concepts. The book concludes with an index.