Michigan Books

This book was written for my grandchildren. I am the daughter of a lighthouse keeper and there are not many left who lived when the Lighthouse Service was active. This book tells of my life as a child. It is a story of the beauty and dangers of Lake Superior. At a time when lighthouses and foghorns were very important. when the faithfulness of Lighthouse Keepers saved lives and prevented tragedies. It is a story of freedom and adventure, sand dunes in summer and winter, lady slippers and arbutus, skipping rocks and finding agates, of hiking to places yet untouched by civilization. Memories of life lived as a Lighthouse Keeper's daughter.

Our son just moved to the Grand Rapids area. The map has become a necessity even with his GPS. We used it when while we visited. It was accurate and concise.

These essays -- by a roster of accomplished contemporary scholars of Russian Studies -- are wonderfully accesible and informative. Readers with interests in folk culture and history, Russian studies (history, literature, whatever) and/or culinary history will feel like they've struck gold. The thirteen scholarly pieces, some with a few illustrations, cover a wealth of topics (see table of contents above)-- consistently well. It's anything but dry; Pamela Chester's article on the relationship between (state-) tormented poets Marina Tsvetaeva and Osip Mandelstam (and their uses of food as symbol and, tragically, their deprivation of it, later) is heartbreaking. Peasantry, the gentry, and the Eastern Orthodox church; brilliant fussbudget Tolstoy's vegetarianism is in here; the uses of food in the writing of Dostoyevsky; fasting and food fashions; Catherine the Great (hardly any tastebuds; hearty interest in 'presentation'); the new Soviet state with its ambitious dreams for the citizenry, and the ultimate cynical mess that resulted. Food as power, class marker, moral symbol, and solace. The roots of asceticism (Orthodox church).Unfortunately, Jewish life and gulag life has been omitted, and a careful list of the prices of foodstuffs in St. Petersburg in Catherine's time is all rubles and kopeks... so I couldn't tell what I might have been able to afford.. What's here, though, is very good. I'll look for Volume 2.

This book is a wonderful book in many ways. It is the result of intensive anthropological fieldwork among the Seltaman, a remote hunter/horticulturalist people living in the highland rainforest of Papua New Guinea. Food sharing becomes a window into their entire culture. But I think it also becomes a window into a potential for a different type of society, one in which sharing, particularly of food, underlies a strong ethics of generosity. Many traditional societies have had this basis. Harriet Whitehead does not "hype" the implications of her careful and intellectually very honest study. But wide implications are there. We need to pursue the study of traditional "sharing societies" as a way of understanding the underpinnings of human societies in general. I think they are potentially key to a new comparative ethics and economics (as well as anthropology).

I like this textbook because it is quite different from other textbooks for ESL students. This textbook is full of cultural information. In each chapter there is a story that is written in first-person form, like "When I first came to the United States, ...". I find this style very good because students will be really involved in it. The author of this book really knows how ESL students will feel in various situations.

The story itself is interesting as well as instructive. After the story, there are some questions about its main idea and details. Also, there are multiple choice questions concerning the story. Next, some questions are presented for students to discuss. In the end, some vocabulary and grammar exercise.

If you are an ESL teacher, you will surely feel inclined to use it at your class. At all events you must buy this one. There is no alternative to this.

There are few books that offer so much information in such a readable a format. I picked it up thinking that it was mostly a reference book but as I read, I found I was wrong. It is a wonderfully readable blend of history, science and folklore, perfect for preparing to discuss or explain forest issues to others. The authors are not shy about exposing scams and consequences. It is a great book that adds depth for both the recreational reader and the forestry expert. Well researched and thoughtfully assembled.

"This book helps us see vividly our community and its rich heritage of recreation, social activity, and events."

"I could not own a more valuable set of books than this series of Saginaw History books. These books should be placed in the schools as part of their history studies."

"I thoroughly enjoyed reading such an excellent book and fine writing. I can particularly appreciate your extensive research. Thanks for preserving Saginaw's past."

This book brought tears to my eyes and its worth reading especially if you or your family are immigrants. It will shed some light to what some immigrants had to go through when they came to the United States looking for a better place to live and raise their children.

Too often most of the stuff people churn out about the era of the Russian Revolution is long on b.s. and short on facts. It is to often a re-hash of already over used scholarship based on hearsey---very seldom do you come across anything original. Heather Hogan's work is original.

Forging Revolution takes a look at the material basis of the Russian revolution. It looks at the the Russian industrial workers who made the revolution and at their workplaces.

I am hoping that Heather will carry on and do a part two covering 1914 to 1924. Possibly, adding some facts on Russian industrial technology in 1914; which may turn out to have been not as backwards as portrayed by other analysts.

Another thing that I found re-freshing about this book is that has no political axe to grind and one senses no slavophobic viewpoint all too common among authors; just an attempt to get at the facts!

Forging Revolution is serious political/economic/historical analysis!

A seminal work of superbly dedicated scholarship, The Forgotten Commissioner: Sir William Mildmay And The Anglo-french Commission Of 1750-1755 by the late British Diplomatic History expert Enid Robbie, is an informed and informative study of political intrigue between Britian and France during the era when America and Canada were still colonies. Double-dealings, diplomatic negotiations, and tensions that ultimately caused the Seven Years' War are all scrutinized in detail in this singularly absorbing and minutely detailed account.