DC Washington Books

This is an interesting view into some of the many grand homes of Washington, D.C. See my review of another listing. All the hardcover 1969 editions are the same, except for the slipcover edition, as Whitehall Hadlyme & Smith, Bramhall House, and Clarkson N. Potter are all associated. Recommended for all who are interested in the notable houses of Washington, D.C.

Contiene suficiente información sobre las plantas que utilizaban nuestras abuelas para curar enfermedades y aliviar sus dolores.
Incluye un recetario que contiene remedios para las alergias, cáncer, digestión, insomnio, cuidado del cutis, cuidado del cabello, unguentos medicinales, paz espiritual y además incluye un glosario de palabras t1picas de los Puertorriqueños y un inventario de las plantas de Puerto Rico con su nombre típico, científico, en inglés y su familia botánica.
Si desea guardar el tesoro familiar de nuestros antepasados, este libro es un "must have".

The Washington Meeting of the ICOM Committee for Conservation comes in two substantial volumes, numbering 911 pages in all. Conservation Reports from most of the working groups are included, including: training, lighting, metals, glass, resins, easel paintings, and graphic documents. An excellent two-volume set.

has great info on nation parks

Great book about the history of the Marine Corps Marathon, "The People's Marathon."
I had a chance to meet George Banker at the 2007 Marine Corps Marathon.

Recommended for all who have run this great Marathon.

This book in the Boxcar Children series involves all of thesame characters in the Alden family. In the beginning of the book,the children learn their grandfather will be traveling to Washington, D.C. for business and the children will get to go too. But because the grandfather will be busy during the day he has arranged for the children to stay at a bed and breakfast. While staying at the bed and breakfast the children meet many fascinating characters who all become suspects in the disappearance of items from the bed and breakfast. The children also make friends with a girl named Almira who is being followed by men in dark suits and sunglasses. While you enjoy the mystery you also get some great information about Washington, D.C. The children visit monuments and museums and share with readers some of the wonderful sights they see. It is a great book to read while studying Washington, D.C. in school. I highly recommend it - my third grade class really enjoyed it.

I used the book as I was house-hunting and relocating to DC for school. I had only been to DC once before, but the book provided many helpful tips on transportation, neighborhoods, and finding a place to live

Washington DC itself and adjacent states have indefinite access to rich cultural heritage and diversified natural wonders, including numerous Civil War sites such as Gettysburg and Richmond, early British settlement at Williamsburg and Jamestown, Fall colors at Shenandoah Valley and Thomas Jefferson's residence, Coastal experience of Annapolis and Ocean City, Mountains and rafting at West Virginia New River Gorge, Amish communities in Pennsylvania.

I have lived at DC area for 4 years, and been to a number of sites provided in the book, but I still bought the book for the guide to where I have not been to and a reference to where I might have missed. The book plans mostly two or three-day trips from Washington DC, perfect for weekend getaways or short vacations.

The guide offers a good balance between size and content. The information included provides good insight into DC-area attractions.
However, the format of the included map is somewhat challenging. It looks like a winning entry in an origami contest. On the positive side, the map size is OK.

Not being an ethnographer, urbanist, or sociologist, I almost hesitate to comment on this book, since it is rooted in those fields. However, since it is written at a level appropriate to a general audience, and concerns my home town, it seems reasonable to do so. The brief book's six chapters seek to explore the ethnography of Washington, D.C.'s Mt. Pleasant neighborhood during a time of transition in the mid-1980s. Williams attempts to disguise her study's location (which was also her home) by calling it "Elm Valley" and using fake street names, but people from D.C. will recognize Mt. P pretty quickly. Williams is a good writer and each individual section reads well, however, the chapters feel quite separate and it is sometimes a bit of a struggle to connect them to any larger thesis.

Chapter 1 briefly discusses the common "myths" of Washington as a city and traces the migration of one extended family from the Carolinas to D.C. Chapter 2 focuses on a particular block and its inhabitants, in an attempt to demonstrate how the prevalence of migrants from the south (such as the family from Chapter 1) has led to a local microculture which mimics those origins, especially in relation to food and gardening, which are treated in some detail. Chapter 3 shifts to another block, where an old apartment building faces a series of row houses. Williams spent a great deal of time talking to inhabitants of both, and is able to paint a fine picture of the dichotomy between them. Renters vs. home-owners, gentrifiers, asians, etc. However this gets a little bogged down in the finer semantic distinctions between "home" and "house", and veers off-course a little into a critique of how the idea of "home" has been culturally sold in post-war America.

Chapter 4 discusses the ethnography of "Main Street" (ie. Mt. Pleasant Street), and is striking in that the issues of twenty years ago remain largely unresolved, and if anything, are only heightened. For example, There are still economic tensions between shopping at local markets and an excursion to suburban supermarkets (although this is changing rapidly as chain stores take root several blocks away) and the issue if people hanging out on the street at all hours remains. However, the "stalled" gentrification has clearly been "unstalled" as every year sees more upscale-oriented businesses dotting the streetscape (such as a coffeehouse called "Dos Gringos", a bar called "Marx Cafe", and a boutique pizzeria).

Chapter 5 focuses on television viewing habits, contrasting the aspirational viewing habits of the poorer renters (who favor "Dallas", "Dynasty" and other such "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" viewing) with that of the more affluent homeowners (who favor "Hill Street Blues", "St. Elsewhere", and other such "gritty" representations of big city life). Williams has some nice analysis here, pointing out the obvious problems of the wealthy watching shows which more or less reinforce stereotypes of "city life", and how children of all classes watch the same shows. But this veers off-course again in a mini-rant against how children's programming has become commodified and exists primarily as a marketing vehicle. None of this is untrue, it's just not particularly germane.

The final chapter begins by outlining two grassroots efforts at creating community: a street festival highlighting the cultural traditions of Mt. Pleasant's diverse inhabitants, and a homeowner-led attempt to gain "historic" designation for the neighborhood. Then, in a hasty ten final pages, Williams attempts to pull everything together into a meaningful conclusion. Somewhat unhelpfully, she concludes that "the problems of Elm Valley are inseparable from the problems of militaristic consumer capitalism." To be more precise: "The problem in Elm Valley was that newer residents lent time and resources too rarely and that they too often undertook efforts in their own interest without considering others' sentiments and needs. Middle-class people...did not really know how to root their connections and resources in local life. Despite their rhetoric, they did not really know how to live in an integrated neighborhood." This is rather an interesting conclusion, since throughout the book Williams has treated all perspectives and demographics with respect and clarity (despite somewhat romanticing the 1950s-70s). So it's somewhat surprising to learn at the end that basically it's all the fault of those damn yuppies. Williams does offer some salves, such as the idea that the people of the neighborhood must "democratically invent community" through the "construction of a ritual life" (such as that of festivals or the faux-Carolina of the back alleys), and need to build a "world of routine interactions" in such shared spaces as day-care centers, the thrift store, and the farmer's market. Presumably the idea is that by these kind of regular interactions will foster cross-cultural understanding.This all sounds nice, but is contradictory to Williams' own findings that spaces currently shared by different ethnic and class groups (such as apartment hallways or alleys behind houses), can serve as catalysts for the mistrust and dislike of "the other."

Overall, the book provides strong examples of urban ethnographic fieldwork and writing, while being somewhat weak on context and focus. For example, the analysis in Chapter 2 of how neighbors interact via their backyards and shared alleys is striking. Another example of her keen ear appears in Chapter 3, where she explores the differing perceptions of public space, such as hallways and laundry rooms, between longtime black residents of the apartment building, and newer Latino residents. However, the racial and class issues she delves into lack solid contextual grounding. It would have been nice if she'd been able to mine some census or city data to empirically demonstrate how the neighborhood's demographics have changed over time. And despite the centrality of the housing and rental market to her study, she kind of dances around it, failing to provide any real data on how housing prices have escalated disproportionately to wages in the period she examines. Still, this is a good quick read for anyone with a strong interest in Washington, D.C.'s ethnography, or simply as an example of how to translate painstaking fieldwork into a narrative.

Note: Gabriella Modan's "Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place" picks up the ethnographic and economic story of Mt. Pleasant almost twenty years later.