Illinois Books

This book is a combination of carefully researched historical analysis, biographical vignettes, and personal memoir written by medical anthropologist Gretchen Schafft. It documents work done by German anthropologists employed by foundations, academic institutions and the German government from the 1930s until the end of World War II. These anthropologists apparently embraced Nazi ideology so thoroughly that they left behind their scientific methods and ethics to become co-opted into the processes undertaken by the Nazi party, the SS and other government officials to eliminate political opponents, people of color, homosexuals, Roma, Polish, and Jews from German and German-occupied territory. Their ability to deceive themselves into believing that their work in categorizing people destined for death camps was scientifically valuable is astonishing. The fact that they were never punished for their complicity in the Final Solution is extremely sad.

Dr. Schafft has done an extremely thorough job of reviewing holocaust literature and newly available archival materials from both the Smithsonian Institution and sources in Europe to bring the reader extensive understanding of this co-option. She places the activities of the Third Reich's anthropologists in the context of other well known events from the rise of Nazism and the war. This convincing saga has, as Schafft says "no smoking gun" pointing to the crimes (including euthanasia, trafficking in body parts, and unethical torture filled medical experimentation) that these anthropologists very probably were complicit in.

I bought this book because I am interested in the moral lessons of the holocaust. As an applied anthropologist myself, this disturbing and detailed story awakened in me a desire to deeply evaluate my own work as an applied anthropologist. The book is well written, although some of the translated German memos have a stuffy bureaucratic sound--attesting to their authenticity, no doubt. I recommend this book to general readers as well as professional specialists in history, anthropology, and the history of science. It will change how you think about the German public's awareness of the evils perpetrated by Hitler's regime.

by Charlotte Miller, Ph.D.

Elizabeth Aldrich is an expert on the dance and social structure of the 19th century where cotillions, debutante balls, assemblies, etc. were when women set an impression upon possible suitors. Aldrich does an excellent job in explaining everything from manners to dance styles and music performed for the dances. Young women were expected to know the dances, wear white gloves, and act properly among the company of society. This book is great for people interested in dance, social structure, and life in the 19th century. It was not an easy life for women then or now. They were expected to wear oversized dresses, act properly, and get married to right the man. They didn't have the option of being independent. Women became nurses and teachers simply because they have too. Women's dependence on men is clearly important in understanding why women went to such great lengths of preparation and studies to help in securing a life with an eligible bachelor who could provide her future.

We made good use of this walking guide to Chicago, and found the information acurate, informative and fun. There are ten tours: Architecture Tour of the Loop, Sculpture Tour of the Loop, South Michigan Avenue and Grant Park, Magnificent Mile, Gold Coast, Old Town, Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Oak Park and Hyde Park. each tour starts with information about the starting and end points, public transportation, time of the walk, best time to walk and worst time. The walks feature building and places of interest, with stories and eateries along the way. Lots of fun and very useful!

My Dad and Grandpap were coming up for a visit this summer, and my wife used this book to find things to do during their visit. We found lots of things, including the Illinois Railway Museum which goes along with their love for trains and everyone had a wonderful time.

Then, the next week, we found ourselves in western Illinois with nothing to do one day, so we pulled out this book and found the John Deere Pavilion in Moline. My 2 1/2 year old son loved climbing in the tractors!

We would never have found these places without this book! What a great idea!

William Tucker, a careful academic, uncovered quite a story when he wrote this book. The New York Times should hire him and pay him well ... Wickliffe Draper was the man behind the money when Mississippi's Sovereignty Commission and others attempted to block passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Draper also helped fund private, racist schools throughout the state. And what is so tragic, even though he is long gone, the "foundation" lives on. This is a fascinating and not a difficult read. Anyone interested in U.S. history will enjoy Tucker's contribution.

This book is full of extraordinary poems. I haven't put it down since I purchased it last week. Oliver De La Paz is destined to be one of the great poets of our time.

There's no author listed, since writing was paid for by the WPA Writers Project. As I read the book - less than 100 small-sized pages - I find myself surprised by how little I had known about Galena's history, and by how much I had missed.

I spent much of my childhood in Jo Daviess County (of which Galena is the seat) and had heard little snippets of history; I assumed every town had a similar past. Not so - Galena's lead deposits were first worked in 1721 - eighty years before Lewis and Clark. The town's boom ended before the Civil War, and it slid into genteel decay long before its rivals were even settled.

The book is a gem.

This study of gambling and everyday life in Chania, Crete, is an outstanding example of how anthropological ethnography can contribute to larger debates in the social sciences while remaining accessible and engaging to the casual reader. The author's intellectual objective is to shed light on reigning theories of risk and indeterminacy by exploring in finely grained detail how risk is operative and is experienced, interpreted and strategized against/upon by social actors in real life. The setting of the study is ideal for this purpose, as social life in this town is organized for many around the playing, practice and performance of gambling. A range of useful and non-jargony conceptual tools for capturing the experience of uncertainty are introduced (performative indeterminacy, instrumental nonchalance, e.g.), which heighten the feeling that true insight is occurring here. In fact, it is one of the impressive achievements of this book, that it manages to engage the serious scholar in ongoing disciplinary debates (about risk theory, social poetics, modernity and the state) while remaining a perfectly charming read for the nonspecialist.

I got this for my Dad on Christmas and all my brothers kept passing it around all day reading different entries. All the player's stories are only a few pages long so this makes for a great short story book that can be read for 10 or 15 minutes then put down, and revisited. All the Bears fans in my life loved it! I guess some of the people in it are pretty rare interviews and my Dad and brothers were so interested to see which games the different players would choose to discuss in this book. They all would guess which game they were going to talk about before they checked that section.

Felix Padilla's masterpiece of a Chicago Street gang who he refers to as the "Diamonds" is an interesting and educational read. What makes this book a cut above the average "gang information" book is the absence of preachy anti-gang material. Professor Padilla presents gang members as real people who are trying to obtain the "American Dream". His conclusion is that the gang oppresses the individual as much as conventional society does. Padilla's writing style is unpretentious, and enlightening.